State‐Led Financial Regulation and Representations of Spatial Fixity: The Example of the Spanish Real Estate Sector

This article offers a bottom‐up contribution to the fixity–motion literature. It aims to unravel the apparent contradiction of real estate spatial fixity in Spain, which is portrayed both as a barrier to accumulation and as a unique source of investment by different capitalist actors. Empirically, it describes the shifts in real estate ownership and changes in profit‐making strategies that have taken place across the real estate sector during the crisis years, and the role of the state in these shifts. The article asserts that the idea of spatial fixity representing a spatial barrier for accumulation does not necessarily apply in the Spanish case. It further claims that the tensions in capital circulation through real estate are not only to be found in the action of time, but in different state strategies pursued by various actors. The opposing representations of fixity are the result of state regulation of interest rates, taxation and risk weighting. The state also increasingly promotes land rents as a source of liquidity creation.     

区域耕地生态价值补偿量化研究——以新疆为例

[目的]在耕地保护形势日趋严峻的情形下,开展耕地生态价值补偿量化研究对了解耕地外部性价值的大小及深化耕地生态价值的量化方法和思路具有重要意义。[方法]文章以新疆为例,从14个地州市的耕地生态服务价值出发,将生态超载指数作为耕地生态服务价值与生态足迹在各地州市转移的测度,同时综合考虑各地州市的经济发展状况,通过构建市域生态价值补偿量化模型分别测算各地州市耕地生态价值补偿量。[结果](1)2015年新疆耕地生态服务价值整体上有盈余输出,全疆共可获得生态补偿费103.31亿元;(2)2015年新疆南北疆耕地生态服务价值比为1:1.7,生态足迹总量比为1:2.2,生态超载指数北亏南盈,表明南北疆耕地生态足迹和耕地生态服务价值间呈"空间异位"格局;(3)新疆北疆乌鲁木齐市、克拉玛依市、吐鲁番市及哈密市共需支付耕地生态补偿费55.67亿元,北疆(乌鲁木齐市、克拉玛依市、吐鲁番市及哈密市外)和南疆地区分别可获得生态补偿费为96.59亿元和62.39亿元。[结论]该文可为新疆各地州市构建耕地生态价值补偿路径提供新思路,也可为以耕地生态价值量确定耕地保护指标和构建耕地生态补偿机制提供参考。     

Industry risk transmission channels and the spillover effects of specific determinants in China’s stock market: A spatial econometrics approach

This paper uses a spatial econometrics approach to study the industry risks in China’s stock market. We comprehensively consider the real linkage and information risk transmission channels and analyze the risk spillovers of specific determinants. Our empirical results show the following: 1) The real linkage channel and information channel are both effective transmission channels for driving spillover effects, and the information channel is of the utmost importance. 2) The spillover effects of specific determinants exist and are persistent. The superposition of spillover effects may lead to extreme risk. 3) The transmission channels and spillover effects are asymmetric in different regimes.     

Past price ‘memory’ in the housing market: testing the performance of different spatio-temporal specifications

Recent methodological developments provide a way to incorporate the temporal dimension when accounting for spatial effects in hedonic pricing. Weight matrices should decompose the spatial effects into two distinct components: bidirectional contemporaneous spatial connections; and unidirectional spatio-temporal effects from past transactions. Our iterative estimation approach explicitly analyses the role of time in price determination. The results show that both spatio-temporal components should be included in model specification; past transaction information stops contributing to price determination after eight months; and limited temporal friction is exhibited within this period. These findings highlight the decidedly non-linear temporal patterns of such information effects.     

Developing a financial conditions index for a post-transition country: the case of Croatia

The interconnection between financial and business cycles and the importance of surveillance over financial markets emphasise the need for the development of indicators that could trace financial conditions in a country. In this paper, we focus on developing a financial conditions index for a post-transition country – Croatia. Since financial conditions indices for post-transition markets differ from those for developed markets due to differences in the development of their financial systems and the availability of data, we show that financial conditions indices constructed for post-transition markets need to be tailored to the specifics of such markets.     

Is Abe's Fiscal Policy Ricardian? What Does the Fiscal Theory of Prices Mean for Japan?

The second arrow of Abenomics is flexible fiscal policy. However, it does not mean just fiscal stimulus as the Abe administration decided on the fiscal consolidation target of achieving a primary surplus by fiscal year 2020. Improving the primary balance implies making government debt more sustainable. Although the consumption tax rate was raised from 5% to 8% in April 2014, the Abe administration has decided twice to postpone increasing the consumption tax from 8% to 10%. In addition, a fiscal stimulus package was implemented. We use a Fiscal Stance Index to examine fiscal policy from the viewpoint of fiscal sustainability and a Markov switching model to examine fiscal policy from the viewpoint of the fiscal theory of the price level, and find that the Abe's fiscal stance is not Ricardian.     

普惠金融与县域资金外流：减贫还是致贫*——基于中国592个国家级贫困县的研究

本文利用全国592个国家级贫困县的数据，采用空间计量模型实证分析了普惠金融对县域资金外流的影响，并验证了贫困县资金外流是否会产生致贫效应。本文研究发现：如果普惠金融只注重解决贫困地区对金融机构的接触性排斥，会进一步加剧资金外流，对减贫产生负向影响，即存在显著的致贫效应。这种致贫效应具有明显的空间外溢性，邻近县域的贫困状况在很大程度上会彼此“传染”，并具有空间衰减特征的地理边界。因而需要客观认识普惠金融的本质，有针对性地选择恰当有效的实施载体，解决好对信贷产品等关键金融服务的使用性排斥问题。     

我国公民水素养评价指标体系的构建

为准确描述我国公民水素养水平,有针对性地加强水资源宣传教育,提高公民水素养,在科学素养、环境素养的研究基础上,设计包含有水知识、水态度、水行为3个一级指标、10个二级指标、29个三级指标的公民水素养多层级评价指标体系,运用层次分析法和李克特量表分别确立各级指标权重和设计调查问卷,并以北京市为例对公民水素养评价指标体系进行通用性分析。结果表明,水知识、水态度、水行为在水素养评价中各自的权重为9.14%、21.76%和69.10%;水知识、水态度得分相对较高,而水行为得分则相对较低,表明以水行为核心的水素养提升任务任重而道远。     

Pricing used books on Amazon.com: a spatial approach to price dispersion

This paper estimates a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model of price dispersion using publicly available internet bookselling data. It uses a semiparametric adaptive estimator that does not require the usual Gaussian assumption of maximum likelihood (ML) estimators. The results suggest that both price competition and seller heterogeneity are key drivers of the observed price dispersion. The paper finds that sellers with large sales volume, newly established sellers and US mainland states-based sellers tend to price lower. The identified significant spatial interaction is evidence of spatial price competition. Controlling for everything else, a seller asks a lower price when large sellers charge relatively high prices, which is also evidence of price-based selling and undercutting.     

Optimal privatization policy with asymmetry among private firms

We revisit the relationship between the optimal privatization policy and market competition indexes such as the Hirschman–Herfindahl index. It is affected by the number of the firms and asymmetry among the sizes of the firms; the smaller the number of firms and the more asymmetry among firms, the higher the market concentration index. The literature on mixed oligopolies suggested that the optimal degree of privatization increases with the number of private firms, and thus, decreases with the market competition index, assuming that all private firms are homogeneous. We investigate how asymmetry among private firms affects the optimal degree of privatization. We propose the simplest and natural model formulation to discuss asymmetry among private firms. We find that the optimal degree of privatization is either nonmonotone or monotonically increasing, and thus never monotonically decreasing, in asymmetry among private firms.