Capital buffer and credit‐risk adjustments in Islamic and conventional banks

The main purpose of this article is to empirically investigate the interactions between changes in capital buffer and changes in credit risk, using panel data of Islamic and conventional banks located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region over the period 1999–2016. A negative two‐way relationship between the changes in capital buffer and the changes in credit risk is found for the two types of banks, that is, banks tend to decrease their capital buffers in response to an increase in risk exposure and limit their risky activities in response to an increase in their capital buffers. Dividing our period of study into three subperiods to assess the effect of the last financial crisis 2007–08 on the adjustment process, we point out the negative bidirectional relationship between the changes in capital buffer and the changes in credit risk of the two types of banks is present for the three subperiods except the case of conventional banks during the precrisis period. Moreover, we provide evidence that Islamic banks adjust their capital buffer in response to the changes in credit risk regardless of the existence or not of a deposit insurance scheme. In contrast, the negative two‐way relationship between the changes in capital buffer and the changes in credit risk in conventional banks is found only in countries without deposit insurance schemes.     

空间分析在住宅价值评估中应用研究综述

住宅是一种异质性商品，它的构成使用价值的各个特征之间有明显的差异，因此特征价格定价模型广泛用于住宅的价值评估。但是由于住宅数据中常常表现出空间问题，使得传统的特征价格模型不再适用，空间效应在不动产领域的存在引起了学者们的广泛关注。对空间分析在住宅价值评估中的应用研究进行了回顾和阐述，首先分析空间效应的来源和影响，讨论了在传统模型中纳入空间效应的重要性，接着阐述如何对这些空间效应进行有效建模和检验，并分析了进一步研究的方向。     

贸易摩擦对中国钢铁产品出口影响的实证研究

随着中国钢铁产业快速的发展和世界经济环境的变化,涉华钢铁产品贸易摩擦日趋激烈。文章分析了中国钢铁产品出口贸易摩擦的概况,运用理论分析与实证分析相结合的方法,详细分析贸易摩擦对中国钢铁产品出口规模、出口市场结构以及国际竞争力的影响,对贸易摩擦的影响进行了总结:负面影响主要是出口规模的萎缩、限制相关企业的发展和提高出口贸易的成本,正面影响主要是促进贸易地理方向的多元化、产生优胜劣汰效应和促进技术创新。     

Simultaneous Estimation of Legal and Illegal Supply and Demand: The Case of Motion Pictures

Prior research into illegal goods has typically looked at one-way effects, such as illegal demand on legal demand. This research investigates a previously unexamined component of the market, illegal supply. The authors examine the supply and demand of legal goods and their illegal counterparts as a market system of four interdependent components. This research makes theoretical and empirical contributions by evaluating illegal supply in this system. Simultaneous equations estimate each market component on the others using data from the motion picture industry. The results find illegal supply has no effect on legal supply (movie screens), positive effects on illegal demand (piracy downloads), and some effect on legal demand (box office revenues). Timing effects highlight this: illegal supply has a positive effect on legal demand during a film’s opening week, but no effect post-launch. The other market components have positive effects on illegal supply (except legal supply, which is negative in the opening week). Additionally, illegal demand has a negative effect on legal demand during the opening week of release, but not in the subsequent weeks. This finding alleviates prior research tension as to whether piracy helps or hurts legal sales, as omitting illegal supply could result in biased estimates.     

Board size,corporate regulations and firm valuation in an emerging market: a simultaneous equation approach

We investigate the association between board size and firm valuation for a sample of 169 firms from 2002 to 2011 in South Africa (SA). The SA corporate context is interestingly and uniquely characterised by an urgency to meet affirmative action regulations, such as black empowerment in board appointments, limited qualified and experienced directors, especially black directors, concentrated ownership, weak enforcement of corporate regulations and greater government ownership. These features make SA corporate boards perform a weaker agency (advisory, monitoring and disciplining) role than Western European and US boards, but a stronger resource dependence role, by providing access to resources, such as business contacts and contracts. This suggests that any positive impact of board size on firm valuation is likely to depend on the effective execution of the resource dependence role more than the agency role. Our results suggest that board size has a positive association with firm valuation, consistent with larger boards providing better access to resources. Overall, our results support the resource dependence role of boards more than their agency role. The results are robust across a raft of econometric models that control for different types of endogeneity, as well as different types of accounting and market-based firm valuation measures.     

中国CO_2排放与经济增长联动性实证分析

笔者在测算我国1953年～2007年间CO2排放量的基础上,通过对数据的经济计量检验,建立联立方程组模型,研究CO2排放量与人均GDP间双向因果关系,并分析各种因素对CO2排放量的影响。实证结果显示,我国CO2排放量与人均GDP间变动关系并不是简单EKC模型中的倒U型,有着更为复杂的相互作用关联。人均GDP提高导致CO2排放量上升的同时,能源利用效率的提高、能源消费结构的改善,以及资本设备更新速度的加快,都将减少CO2排放。     

烟气脱硫脱硝一体化技术的现状与展望

介绍了烟气脱硫脱硝的机理和技术现状,在对炭基材料法、臭氧氧化法、电子束法等烟气脱硫脱硝技术分析的基础上,指出烟气脱硫脱硝一体化技术具有较好的经济、环境和社会效益,是一种适合我国的烟气净化技术,但仍需要进一步的研究和开发。     

谈同声传译中的"有稿同传"

有稿同传作为同声传译中最常见的工作方式有其独特的表现形式和特点。通过培养译员注意力转移和分散能力、注重翻译技巧和心理素质的训练,可以提高翻译质量。     

Farmers’ crop insurance perception and participation decisions: empirical evidence from Hunan,China

The measurement of risk perception and risk attitudes, and their link to actual risk behaviors have been extensively discussed. However, the potential impact of perception of risk management instruments on the decision to use those instruments has rarely been addressed. This article hypothesizes that the degree of perception of insurance contracts and participation decisions could have substantial mutual influence depending on the development of the market. An empirical work is carried out based on a survey of data for paddy rice farmers in Hunan Province, China. It shows that the sampled farmers’ crop insurance perception was surprisingly low despite years of pilot programs and tens of billions of expenditure in government subsidies. The result of simultaneous equations model indicates that crop insurance perception and participation are simultaneously determined and mutually improving. Moreover, empirical evidence indicates that the impact of crop insurance participation on perception is slightly stronger than that of perception on participation, and thus provides weak evidence of a ‘learning-by-doing’ stage in China at present. Together with evidence of substantial local disparities in perception, implications for the Chinese government in further cultivating the crop and rural insurance market are discussed.     

Repeated Dichotomous Choice Formats for Elicitation of Willingness to Pay: Simultaneous Estimation and Anchoring Effect

Repeated dichotomous choice contingent valuation data are generated from responses to a succession of binary questions regarding alternative prices for an environmental good. In this paper we propose a simultaneous equation model that allows for endogeneity and error correlation across the responses at each stage of the bidding process. The model allows us to study the evolution of anchoring effects after the second dichotomous choice question. Estimation involves the Bayesian techniques of Gibbs sampling and data augmentation, and the application focuses on the preservation value of a natural area. The results for a data set involving up to four successive dichotomous choice questions show that restricted multiple-bounded models are rejected by the data with the general model. In addition, willingness to pay tends to stabilize after the second stage in the elicitation process for the general unrestricted model. When taking anchoring effects into consideration, it is revealed that individuals’ responses in the latter stages are influenced by the sequence of bid prices offered in earlier questions. Nevertheless, they do not have a significant effect on welfare estimates.