2011-2012年中国宏观经济分析与预测——复苏放缓、风险上扬与结构刚性冲击下的中国宏观经济

本文通过全面总结2011年中国宏观经济的3大表现,利用中国人民大学宏观经济预测模型,指出2012年中国将面临外部经济放缓、内部房地产市场深度调整、泡沫经济逆转以及金融风险加剧的冲击,但在结构刚性的约束下,政府将全面转变政策定位,从而保证中国经济在加速回落中实现反弹,全年经济增长呈现“前低后缓”的模式.     

International asset markets and real exchange rate volatility

The real exchange rate is very volatile relative to major macroeconomic aggregates and its correlation with the ratio of domestic over foreign consumption is negative (Backus–Smith puzzle). These two observations constitute a puzzle to standard international macroeconomic theory. This paper develops a two country model with complete asset markets and limited enforcement for international financial contracts that provides a possible explanation of these two puzzles. The model performs better than a standard incomplete markets model with a single non-contingent bond unless very tight borrowing constraints are imposed in the latter. With limited enforcement for both domestic and international financial contracts, the model's asset pricing implications are brought into line with the empirical evidence, albeit at the expense of raising real exchange rate volatility.     

A nowcasting model for Ecuador: Implementing a time-varying mean output growth

We propose a model to nowcast the annual growth rate of real GDP for Ecuador, whose economy lacks timely macroeconomic information for some key variables and has gone through unstable periods due to its dependence on oil exports. Our specification combines monthly information for 30 macroeconomic and financial variables with quarterly information for real GDP in a mixed-frequency approach. Our setup includes a time-varying coefficient on the mean annual growth rate of output to allow the model to incorporate prolonged periods of low or high growth. The model produces more accurate nowcasts of real output growth in pseudo out-of-sample exercises than a nowcasting model that assumes a constant mean real GDP growth rate. We also conduct sensitivity analyses on our nowcasting model within the time-varying mean setup and find that including financial variables can be detrimental to the performance of the proposed model.     

Financial integration and the term structure of interest rates

This paper presents a model of the term structure for an open economy. A flexible VAR approach is used to model macroeconomic growth, inflation, short rate and the yield spread. Then the term structure is built given restrictions implied by the no-arbitrage condition. Contrary to previously proposed macrofinance models of the term structure, the model suggested here explicitly accounts for financial and real spillovers between economies. As documented in the paper, foreign macroeconomic factors contain a lot of information about the domestic term structure of yields. Put to data, the model explains the dynamics of yields very well. It provides better out-of-sample forecasting results than the closed economy models. Openness induces more variability in the estimated term premia of yields with shorter maturities.     

Financialization and Manufacturing Firm Profitability under Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Volatility: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Using semi-annual data from 1993 to 2003 for all publicly traded manufacturing firms in Turkey, this paper explores the impacts of macroeconomic uncertainty and external shocks on profitability of real sector firms in the presence of multiple investment options in both real and financial sectors. The paper argues that increasing availability and accessibility of investment opportunities in the financial markets help real sector firms sustain profit margins despite market rigidities, increasing goods market competition, or higher levels of risks. The empirical results based on dynamic panel estimations show that increasing macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility have a significantly negative effect on firm profitability. In contrast, increasing the share of financial investments in total assets is found to be reducing such negative effects at a statistically and economically significant level.     

美国财务预测信息披露与监管的经验及借鉴

美国已基本形成了较为完备的财务预测信息披露与监管体系,其主要内容和值得借鉴的经验包括:对财务预测信息内容的完整界定;前瞻性信息和预测性信息区分标准的确立;安全港规则的确立;建立了由财务分析师为主体的独立专家预测体系.目前我国上市公司财务预测信息的披露和监管尚存在不少问题,需要在以下几方面改进和完善:建立完善的财务预测信息披露、监管规范体系,提高财务预测信息供给的有效性;明确企业管理当局对财务预测信息的编制责任;建立适合中国证券市场现实的安全港规则;加强对财务预测信息披露的审核.     

Cointegration for market forecast in the Spanish stock market

This study is interested in empirically testing the existence of a long-run relationship between the Spanish stock market and its fundamentals, and in checking to which extent this relationship helps in forecasting. This study is concerned with the behaviour of the aggregate Madrid Stock Exchange in a macroeconomic context. It also identifies as macroeconomic fundamentals: industrial production as a proxy for real activity, inflation and interest rates. This study tests the existence of cointegration by Johansen's procedure. The long-run relationships among the variables implied by the existence of cointegration do not allow inference to the interrelations among the variables. To get some insight into the short-run interactions among the variables, an impulse response analysis was performed. This study compares the forecasting ability of its model with respect to alternative multivariate specifications in terms of RMSE. Also measured is the value of the forecast for the financial agents assessing the extent to which it helps improve asset allocation.     

Forecasting US recessions with macro factors

Dynamic factors estimated from panels of macroeconomic indicators are used to predict future recessions using probit models. Three factors are considered: a bond and exchange rates factor, a stock market factor and a real activity factor. Three results emerge. First, models that use only financial indicators exhibit a large deterioration in fit after 2005. Second, models that use factors yield better fit than models that use indicators directly. Out-of-sample forecasting exercises confirm these results for 3-, 6- and 12-month horizons using both ex-post revised data and real-time data. Third, results show evidence that data revisions affect factors less than individual indicators.     

中国房地产业前景分析

由于国家开始对房地产市场进行宏观调控,2005年整个房地产开发景气指数不断下降,出现了与以往不同的发展态势。应对中国房地产业未来市场需求、投资等状况进行分析,做好房地产业税收制度,及金融体系等方面的规范和改善,以促进中国房地产市场。     

Macroeconomic and credit forecasts during the Greek crisis using Bayesian VARs

We investigate the ability of small- and medium-scale Bayesian VARs (BVARs) to produce accurate macroeconomic (output and inflation) and credit (loans and lending rate) out-of-sample forecasts during the latest Greek crisis. We implement recently proposed Bayesian shrinkage techniques based on Bayesian hierarchical modeling, and we evaluate the information content of forty-two (42) monthly macroeconomic and financial variables in terms of point and density forecasting. Alternative competing models employed in the study include Bayesian autoregressions (BARs) and time-varying parameter VARs with stochastic volatility, among others. The empirical results reveal that, overall, medium-scale BVARs enriched with economy-wide variables can considerably and consistently improve short-term inflation forecasts. The information content of financial variables, on the other hand, proves to be beneficial for the lending rate density forecasts across forecasting horizons. Both of the above-mentioned results are robust to alternative specification choices, while for the rest of the variables smaller-scale BVARs, or even univariate BARs, produce superior forecasts. Finally, we find that the popular, data-driven, shrinkage methods produce, on average, inferior forecasts compared to the theoretically grounded method considered here.     

Dynamic behavior of product and stock markets with a varying degree of interaction

We develop a macroeconomic behavioral model in order to analyze the interactions between product and financial markets. The real subsystem is represented by a simple Keynesian income–expenditure model, while the financial subsystem is represented by an equilibrium stock market with heterogeneous speculators, i.e., chartists and fundamentalists. The interactions between the two markets are modeled in the following way: the aggregate demand depends, among other variables, also on the stock market price, while the fundamental value used by speculators in their decisional process depends on the real sector economic conditions. In our model we introduce a parameter that represents the degree of interaction. With the aid of analytical and numerical tools we show that an increasing degree of interaction between markets tends to locally stabilize the system. This stabilization occurs via a sequence of period-halving bifurcations. Globally, we find that the stabilization process implies multistability, i.e., the coexistence of different kinds of attractors.     

The role of uncertainty in forecasting employment by skill and industry

We show that the macroeconomic uncertainty series from Jurado, Ludvigson, and Ng (2015) contains information to forecast employment. The results indicate that the uncertainty measure is weak at forecasting the skilled labour but significantly carries forecasting information on the unskilled labour. The forecasting information increases if the sample is restricted to construction and manufacturing industries. Using rolling regressions to conduct a simulated out-of-sample forecasting exercise, we find that the uncertainty measure contains forecasting information for the unskilled labour in those industries for two quarters ahead. By providing detailed information about the forecasting power of uncertainty by skill and industry, this study will be helpful in designing more efficient labour market policies.     

Global measure of causal intensity between real and financial spheres

The lack of theoretical consensus on the causality direction between real and financial spheres as well as on the macroeconomic importance of transmission channels drive to an empirical approach of the links between the two areas. The aim of this paper is to offer a method for the analysis of the causal structure between the two spheres according to the transmission channels. It becomes possible globally on short and long runs for a given country to better surround mechanisms intervening inside the feedback between real and financial areas.     

Predicting long-run risk factors of stock returns: Evidence from Australia

This study utilises the stock market data provided by the Australian Equity Database to analyse the long-run relationship between Australian stock returns and key macroeconomic variables over the period 1926–2017. To measure the diverse risk factors in the stock market, we examine the possible determinants in four main categories: real, financial, domestic and international. Our results reveal that historical stock returns are strongly connected to financial and international factors as compared to real and domestic factors. Both the 1973–1974 OPEC Oil Price Crisis and 2007–2008 Global Financial Crisis had dampening effects on stock returns. There is a positive association between the US and Australian stock markets in the long-run. These findings on stock market dynamics and their linkages with domestic and international macroeconomic policy changes in the long-run have important implications for traders and practitioners.     

Exploring the finance-real economy link in U.S.: empirical evidence from panel unit root and cointegration analysis

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationships between common shocks affecting the real economy and those underlying co-fluctuations in U.S. financial markets. In order to do this, we test for links between these common factors and also use the econometric theory of non-stationary panel data to estimate the relationships. The estimates prove the existence of significant relationships between financial and macroeconomic factors. It is also shown that there are forces pulling U.S. financial markets to move with the real economy, as seen through nearly instantaneous adjustment to a new equilibrium.     

Can oil prices help predict US stock market returns? Evidence using a dynamic model averaging (DMA) approach

Crude oil price behaviour has fluctuated wildly since 1973 which has a major impact on key macroeconomic variables. Although the relationship between stock market returns and oil price changes has been scrutinized excessively in the literature, the possibility of predicting future stock market returns using oil prices has attracted less attention. This paper investigates the ability of oil prices to predict S&P 500 price index returns with the use of other macroeconomic and financial variables. Including all the potential variables in a forecasting model may result in an over-fitted model. So instead, dynamic model averaging (DMA) and dynamic model selection (DMS) are applied to utilize their ability of allowing the best forecasting model to change over time while parameters are also allowed to change. The empirical evidence shows that applying the DMA/DMS approach leads to significant improvements in forecasting performance in comparison to other forecasting methodologies and the performance of these models are better when oil prices are included within predictors.     

美、日住房金融体系的功能比较及启示

本文从金融功能的角度比较分析认为,美国的住房金融体系以动员储蓄为核心功能,服务于美国经济增长的总体目标,其顺利运行的条件是资产证券化、发达的资本市场和美元强势地位,具有不可复制性;日本的住房金融体系以风险管理为核心功能,其政策性金融通过引导家庭自动分化,对整个住房金融体系风险控制和稳健运行作用重大。我国经济经过30多年的快速发展后,微观主体和住房属性都发生了显著变化,要优化住房金融的功能结构,防范"住专事件"和"次贷危机",促进住房市场持续健康发展。     

Measuring the effectiveness of US monetary policy during the COVID-19 recession

The COVID-19 recession that started in March 2020 led to an unprecedented decline in economic activity across the globe. To fight this recession, policy makers in central banks engaged in expansionary monetary policy. This paper asks whether the measures adopted by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) have been effective in boosting real activity and calming financial markets. To measure these effects at high frequencies, we propose a novel mixed frequency vector autoregressive (MF-VAR) model. This model allows us to combine weekly and monthly information within a unified framework. Our model combines a set of macroeconomic aggregates such as industrial production, unemployment rates, and inflation with high-frequency information from financial markets such as stock prices, interest rate spreads, and weekly information on the Fed's balance sheet size. The latter set of high-frequency time series is used to dynamically interpolate the monthly time series to obtain weekly macroeconomic measures. We use this setup to simulate counterfactuals in absence of monetary stimulus. The results show that the monetary expansion caused higher output growth and stock market returns, more favorable long-term financing conditions and a depreciation of the US dollar compared with a no-policy benchmark scenario.     

金融体系的顺周期性问题解读

在信息不对称性和金融市场不完善条件下,金融体系自身具有顺周期变化的特点。金融加速器机制、《巴塞尔协议》的资本约束监管机制以及金融机构自身的行为都会导致信贷供给更为严重的顺周期性,并放大经济冲击、影响宏观政策的效果。而以美国为核心的金融资本主义模式进一步加重了金融体系的顺周期性。因此,对金融体系的顺周期性问题的相关研究成果值得梳理和借鉴。