金融发展、预算软约束与企业投资

本文利用上市公司的数据,实证检验了在我国转型经济的特殊制度背景下,金融发展促进经济增长的微观传导机制是否存在并发挥作用以及影响这种作用发挥的制度性因素。研究结果发现金融发展水平的提高能够减轻企业的融资约束,降低企业投资对内部现金流的依赖性。但是,预算软约束的存在扭曲了国有企业面临的真实的融资约束,使得其投资对内部现金流的依赖程度要明显低于民营企业,并且这种软约束的存在还减弱了金融发展对国有企业所带来的积极作用,产生了“漏出”效应。本文的启示为:在我国转型经济的特殊制度背景下,如果要真正地减轻企业的融资约束,降低市场交易的成本,促进经济的发展,必须从提高金融发展水平和硬化预算约束同时入手。     

Overlapping tax revenue,soft budget,and rent seeking

This paper investigates how the soft-budget constraint with grants from the central government to local governments tends to internalize the vertical externality of local public investment by stimulating local expenditure when both the central and local governments impose taxes on the same economic activities financed by public investment. The model incorporates the local governments’ rent-seeking activities in a multi-government setting. The soft-budget constraint is welfare deteriorating because it stimulates rent-seeking activities, although a soft-budget game may attain the first-best level of public investment.     

Credit constraints and spillovers from foreign firms in China

This paper examines whether credit constraints affect Chinese firms’ absorption of productivity spillovers originating from the activity of foreign-owned firms. Using firm-level data for 2001–2005, we find evidence of positive spillovers originating from foreign-owned firms from countries other than Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for non-state owned Chinese firms operating in the same industry and province. Using an index of external finance dependence to measure credit constraints, we find that only non-state-owned firms operating in industries with external finance dependence below the index median exhibit significantly positive spillovers from the activity of foreign firms.     

Stockholding: Participation, location, and spillovers

This paper provides the first joint analysis of household stockholding participation, location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers. Our model matches observed participation, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. We find that financial sophistication correlates strongly only with direct stockholding and mutual fund participation, while social interactions mainly influence stockholding through retirement accounts. Whether retirement account owners include stocks in their accounts strongly depends on owner characteristics, which is not the case with mutual fund owners and investment in stock funds. Stockholding is more common among retirement account owners, but mainly because of owner characteristics rather than of any participation spillovers from retirement account ownership.     

Fiscal rules, budget deficits and budget projections

Fiscal rules are mentioned as instruments to commit political actors on long-term fiscal sustainability. However, fiscal rules may have stronger effects on projected than on realized fiscal outcomes because of window-dressing measures or because they alter the bargaining situation in the budget process. In our analysis for Swiss cantons, fiscal rules significantly lower the probability of projected and realized deficits with the former effect being twice as large. Projections are generally over-pessimistic but fiscal rules increase the probability of accurate projections. Thus, fiscal rules seem to substitute for finance ministers’ over-pessimistic projections intended to reign in fellow ministers and legislatures (100 words).     

Interregional redistribution as a cure to the soft budget syndrome in federations

The soft budget syndrome is ubiquitous in federations. It emerges whenever a high tier in a fiscal system provides extra resources to a lower tier to prevent the latter from failing to reach a mutually agreeable predetermined target. Interregional income redistribution is also an endemic feature of most federations. We show that the center’s ability of making interregional transfers ex-ante and ex-post cures the soft budget syndrome whenever the center is perfectly informed ex post. Under these circumstances, the interregional transfer scheme makes it a dominant strategy for each regional government to truthfully reveal its privately held information ex-ante.      

Technology centrality,bilateral knowledge spillovers and mergers and acquisitions

We construct a search and matching model, which features heterogeneous firms with different management skills and industry-specific knowledge capital, to study individual firms’ behavior in the M&A market. Two firms form a merger if the bilateral knowledge spillovers between them result in a productivity gain, generating a merger surplus larger than the transaction cost. Three key predictions are produced from the model: (i) acquirers with higher technology centrality and management skill exert higher search intensities; (ii) targets with higher technology centrality and lower management skill exert higher search intensities; and (iii) acquirer–target firm pairs with larger bilateral knowledge spillovers generate larger surplus and are more likely to consummate a merger deal. We find strong empirical support for these predictions from merger deals in the U.S. between 1984 and 2020.     

Algorithms for handling soft constraints and their applications to staff scheduling problems

This paper presents a new model for dynamically deciding when, how, and to what extent soft constraints should be relaxed. The first part of the model is a depth-first search algorithm and a best-first repair algorithm which can generate partial schedules quickly. The second part is an iterative relaxation algorithm which can augment the generated partial schedules by slightly relaxing potentially relaxable constraints (i.e. soft constraints). The model guarantees that (1) a soft constraint will be relaxed only when no backtrack (repair) can be made within a time limit, (2) the relaxation of soft constraints can always deepen the search tree, and (3) the relaxation will only be made at dead nodes, and when the search algorithm can be continued the relaxed soft constraints will return to their initial states. The model has been successfully applied to two staff scheduling problems, dispatcher scheduling problem and crew scheduling problem. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technology spillovers,asset redeployability and corporate financial policies

Prior research shows that technology spillovers across firms increase innovation, productivity and value. We study how firms finance their own growth stimulated by technology spillovers from their technological peer firms. We find that greater technology spillovers lead to higher leverage. This is the result of technology spillovers increasing asset redeployability, as evidenced by more collateralized borrowing and asset transactions. Borrowing costs also decrease. Exogenous variation in the research and development tax credits of other firms allows us to identify the causal effect of technology spillovers on a given firm.     

R&D, knowledge spillovers and stock volatility

Firms improve their know‐how not only by innovations (producing new knowledge), but also by knowledge spillovers (learning from others). The objective of this study is to test for two major hypotheses developed from a theoretical model explaining the relationship between R&D, knowledge spillovers and stock volatility. Analytically, the model suggests that asymmetric information caused by R&D activities with uncertain future output increases stock volatility, even though dividends and consumptions remain unchanged. However, interfirm knowledge spillovers have a negative impact on stock volatility by reducing the degree of asymmetric information. Both hypotheses are supported by empirical evidence from this study.     

Financial crisis,US unconventional monetary policy and international spillovers

We study the impact of US quantitative easing (QE) on both the emerging and advanced economies, estimating a global vector error-correction model (GVECM). We focus on the effects of reductions in the US term and corporate spreads. The estimated effects of QE are sizeable and vary across economies. First, we find the QE impact from reducing the US corporate spread to be more important than that from lowering the US term spread, consistent with Blinder's (2012) argument. Second, counterfactual exercises suggest that successive US QE measures might have prevented episodes of prolonged recession and deflation in the advanced economies. Third, the estimated effects on the emerging economies are diverse but generally larger than those found for the United States and other advanced economies. The estimates suggest that US monetary policy spillovers contributed to the overheating in Brazil, China and some other emerging economies in 2010 and 2011, but supported their respective recoveries in 2009 and 2012. These heterogeneous effects point to unevenly distributed benefits and costs of cross-border monetary policy spillovers.     

Absorptive capacity,technology spillovers,and the cross-section of stock returns

In the presence of potential technology spillovers, I demonstrate that a firm's absorptive capacity (AC), as proxied by R&D investments, is crucial to benefit from spillovers. I find that higher AC firms, when exposed to large potential spillovers, exhibit stronger future real outcomes (cite-weighted patents and operating performance) and market value. Importantly, however, this value-relevant information does not appear to be immediately incorporated into stock prices, leading to high future abnormal stock returns for firms with high AC and spillover exposure. Furthermore, the undervaluation is most pronounced among low investor attention stocks, suggesting that limited attention contributes to the undervaluation.     

Financial contagion,spillovers and causality in the Markov switching framework

In this paper, we introduce the concept of causality in the Markov switching framework into the analysis of financial inter-market dependencies. We extend the methodology of testing for financial spillovers between capital markets by explicitly defining contagion, spillovers and independence, and providing statistics to test for the existence of causality. We apply the methodology to stock index returns on the Japanese (Nikkei 225) and the Hong Kong (HSI) markets during the Asian crisis and find no evidence of contagion between the markets, but strong evidence of feedback spillovers between them.     

Common labor market,attachment and spillovers in a large metropolis

In this paper, we extend the home-attachment model to a setting with multiple (more than two) jurisdictions and consider non-cooperative policy making for provision of different types of metropolitan public goods in the presence of a common labor market. Migration and working place choices are independent. We show that the optimal redistributive policy implemented by a central authority always yields equalization of private consumption levels across jurisdictions. This result holds whether or not policy makers are able to anticipate migration responses to their policy choices. In the decentralized leadership games, jurisdictions make choices that fully internalize externalities.     

Organization size, budget cycle, and budget related influence in city governments: An empirical study

This paper explores the relationship between budgeting and perceived power in city government organizations. Data are reported from a survey of perceived budget influence in six city governments in Texas. The findings suggest that perceived influence varies by stage of budget cycle, city size, level of hierarchy, department function, and vertical vs horizontal direction of influence. For example, during budget formulation city managers were perceived as having the most vertical power. During budget implemetation, there was a perceived increase in department head vertical power and a decrease in city council power. Perceptions of horizontal power suggested that budget departments generally had greater perceived influence than operating departments for budget formulation, but not for budget implementation. The findings are used to develop a strategic contingencies model of budget-related power, and to suggest some research steps for testing the proposed model.     

R&D tax credits,technology spillovers,and firms' product convergence

Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) setting that leverages the staggered adoption of R&D tax credits across the U.S. states, we show that after a firm receives the tax credits, products of its peers become significantly more similar to the recipient firm. Such product convergence is particularly strong when peer firms face greater pressure from market participants to uphold short-term performances. We further show that the effect of R&D tax credits likely works through the increased technology spillovers, which motivate peers to imitate instead of differentiating. Accordingly, we show that peer firms shift their patent composition from breakthrough to incremental innovations following the R&D tax subsidy.     

Credit risk spillovers and cash holdings

This paper examines how credit risk spillovers affect corporate financial flexibility. We construct separate empirical proxies to disentangle the two channels of credit risk spillovers—credit risk contagion (CRC), where one firm's default increases the distress likelihood of another; and product market rivalry (PMR), where the same default strengthens the position of a competitor. We show that firms facing greater CRC have weaker subsequent operating performance and must contend with less favorable bank loan terms. Meanwhile, they accumulate more cash by issuing equity, selling assets, and reducing investment and payout. In contrast, PMR generally has opposite, albeit weaker, effects. Our findings suggest that credit risk spillovers, especially CRC, play an important role in corporate liquidity management.     

House prices, non-fundamental components and interstate spillovers: The Australian experience

Using Australian capital city data from 1984Q3--2008Q2, this paper utilizes a dynamic present value model within a VAR framework to construct time series of house prices depicting what aggregate house prices should be given expectations of future real disposable income - the “fundamental price” - and continues by comparing capital city fundamental prices with actual prices. The extent to which revealed capital city “non-fundamental” components spillover from state to state, as well as their long-term impact is also investigated. Results provide evidence of periods of sustained deviations of house prices from values warranted by income for all state capitals with the greatest deviations arising in the NSW market and starting around 2000. In general NSW is relatively more susceptible to spillovers transmitted from other states while ACT and WA are most isolated from the rest of the country.     

Preemption,leverage, and financing constraints

This paper investigates the interactions between preemptive competition and leverage in a duopoly market. We investigate both a case in which the firms have optimal financial structures, and a case in which financing constraints require firms to finance their investments by debt. Our findings are that the second mover always leaves the duopoly market before the leader, although the leader may exit before the follower's entry. The leverage effects of debt financing can increase the value of a firm and accelerate investment, even in the presence of preemptive competition. Notably, financing constraints can delay preemptive investment and improve firm values in preemptive equilibrium. Indeed, the leader's high leverage due to financing constraints can lower the first-mover advantage and weaken preemptive competition. Especially with strong first-mover advantage, the financing constraint effects can dominate the leverage effects. These findings are almost consistent with the empirical evidence, which shows that high leverage leads to competitive disadvantage and mitigates product market competition.     

International spillovers of monetary policy: Lessons from Chile,Korea, and Poland

In this paper, we assess evidence on international monetary policy spillovers to domestic bank lending in Chile, Korea, and Poland, using confidential bank-level data and different measures of monetary policy shocks in relevant currency areas. These three emerging market economies are small and open, their banking systems do not have significant presence overseas, and they can be considered as price takers in the world economy. Such features allow for better identification of binding financial constraints and foreign monetary policy shocks. We find that the monetary policy shocks spill over into domestic bank lending, modifying the degree to which financial frictions tighten or relax, and this evidence is consistent with international bank lending and portfolio channels.