Resolving the Presidential Puzzle

Many financial economists are puzzled by the fact that stock returns are higher under Democratic than Republican presidencies. In this paper, we test whether this return differential is explained by risk using a conditional version of the Fama and French (1993) model that allows risk to vary across political cycles. We find that the presidential puzzle can be explained when risk is properly taken into account. Much of the return differential can be attributed to the fact that Democratic presidencies are associated with higher market and default risk premiums than their Republican counterparts.     

“股市困境”与中国股票市场发展

自2001年6月至今的“股市困境”无疑是目前市场发展中最引人注目的事件。“股市困境”实质上是股票价格向其内在价值的回归，是对2001年之前股市非理性繁荣的一种调节。这不仅没有背离股市“晴雨表”的功能，而且对于股市的长远发展是有利的，是中国股票市场真正走向成熟的契机，具体表现在对上市公司内部治理结构完善、投资者理性培育、投资者信心恢复以及股市制度创新的促进上。当前最重要的不是“救市”，或者是制造一个牛市，而是真正抓住“股市困境”的良好契机，推动市场的发展。     

The Chinese Stock Dividend Puzzle

In this paper, we examine the announcement effects of dividends with an emphasis on stock dividends in China's capital market. We find that dividend-paying stocks exhibit significantly positive abnormal returns while non-dividend-paying stocks show a negative announcement effect. Further, we document that the cumulative abnormal returns for pure stock dividends and combined dividends are the main drivers of this announcement effect. In contrast, pure cash dividend stocks experience no significant price run-up before announcement. The significant announcement effect of stock dividends is robust to controlling the earnings surprise effect. We offer some discussion of the possible explanations.     

The Political Economy of Volatility Dynamics in the Hong Kong Stock Market

Despite its obvious importance, little empirical research has examined the impact of political risk on stock market volatility. This paper uses data on the Hong Kong stock market over a long sample period to investigate whether political risk has induced regime shifts in stock market volatility. Regime shifts are modelled via a Markov switching EGARCH model that allows for regime-dependent volatility asymmetry. We find strong evidence of regime shifts in conditional volatility as well as significant volatility asymmetry in high volatility periods. Major political uncertainties were reflected in a switch to the high-volatility regime. However, contrary to popular perceptions, we find no evidence that the Hong Kong stock market has become persistently more volatile since the start of Sino-British political negotiations in 1982.     

The Puzzle in Post-Listing Common Stock Returns

Prior studies indicate that common stocks tend to earn negative returns immediately following listing on the NYSE. The authors document the phenomenon in detail and investigate a number of possible explanations. No full explanation is discovered, although several are ruled out.     

Political Risk and Foreigners' Trading: Evidence from an Emerging Stock Market

This paper analyzes the impact of political risk on foreign investors' trading in emerging stock markets, market-wide and for industry portfolios, using quantified political risk ratings reported in the International Country Risk Guide and foreign flows data compiled by the Istanbul Stock Exchange. We also track the differential effect of political risk upgrades and downgrades. Political risk is shown to affect stock returns, net foreign flows, and macroeconomic variables. Foreigners' reaction to upgrades (downgrades) is slow (immediate) and smaller in magnitude. Foreigners' reaction to political risk varies with industry's sensitivity to market risk, except for the tourism sector, where their response is particularly salient. Local investors appear to provide liquidity to foreigners, who respond to information.     

News Shocks,Business Cycles,and the Disinflation Puzzle

We argue that key findings of the empirical literature on the effects of news about future technology—including their tendency to generate negative comovement of macro-economic aggregates, and their puzzling disinflationary nature—are due to measurement errors in total factor productivity (TFP). In this paper, we estimate the macro-economic effects of news shocks in the United States using an agnostic identification approach that is robust to measurement errors. We find no evidence of negative comovement conditional on a news shock, and the disinflation puzzle essentially vanishes under our identification strategy. Our results also indicate that news shocks have become an important driver of business-cycle fluctuations in recent years.     

Emerging Market Business Cycles: The Role of Labor Market Frictions

Emerging economies are characterized by higher variability of consumption and real wages relative to output and a strongly countercyclical current account. A small open economy model with search‐matching frictions and countercyclical interest rate shocks can account for these regularities. Search‐matching frictions affect permanent income, and increase future employment uncertainty, heightening workers' incentives to save and generating a greater response of consumption and the current account. The greater consumption response feeds into larger fluctuations in workers' willingness to work, while interest rate shocks lead to variations in firms' willingness to hire; both of these outcomes contribute to highly variable wages.     

The Satellite Insurance Market and Underwriting Cycles

This research analyses whether underwriting cycles are present in an important but often overlooked line of insurance, satellite insurance. Unlike previous underwriting cycle studies, this study uses rates-on-line and capacity devoted to satellite insurance as well as loss ratios to determine the applicability of cycles. The sample period encompasses virtually the entire history of the satellite insurance industry, 1968–2010. The results indicate that cycles are present in the minimum and average rates-on-line and in capacity, but not the loss ratio. Regression analysis is carried out on the rate-on-line and capacity variables, and the regression results support the rational expectations/institutional intervention hypothesis and the capacity constraint (capital shock) hypothesis.     

Real‐Time Forecasting and Political Stock Market Anomalies: Evidence for the United States

Using monthly data from 1953 to 2003, we apply a real‐time modeling approach to investigate the implications of U.S. political stock market anomalies for forecasting excess stock returns in real‐time. Our empirical findings show that political variables, chosen on the basis of widely used model‐selection criteria, are often included in real‐time forecasting models. However, political variables do not contribute systematically to improving the performance of simple trading rules. For this reason, political stock market anomalies are not necessarily an indication of market inefficiency.     

The Effect of Market Transparency: Volatility and Liquidity in the Korean Stock Market

Faced with unprecedented competition, stock markets should have fairness and transparency. The effects of market transparency for the stock market volatility and liquidity will be investigated using the case of the Korean stock market. The evidence from this study indicates that increasing the market transparency makes the price discovery process more efficient than before from the viewpoint of stock market volatility, and increases the stock market liquidity compared with before.     

优化股市政策化解股市失灵

目前我国股市缺乏吸引力源于股市失灵,其特征为市场机制失灵和政府政策失灵共存.股市失灵的真正原因总是归根为政策失灵.化解股市失灵关键是采取积极的态度,不断改革、创新,从根本上消除股市理论失灵,以优化政策资源配置,促进我国股市健康、稳定发展.     

Presidential Address: Sophisticated Investors and Market Efficiency

Stock‐market trading is increasingly dominated by sophisticated professionals, as opposed to individual investors. Will this trend ultimately lead to greater market efficiency? I consider two complicating factors. The first is crowding—the fact that, for a wide range of “unanchored” strategies, an arbitrageur cannot know how many of his peers are simultaneously entering the same trade. The second is leverage—when an arbitrageur chooses a privately optimal leverage ratio, he may create a fire‐sale externality that raises the likelihood of a severe crash. In some cases, capital regulation may be helpful in dealing with the latter problem.     

四小金刚"闹"股市

2003年上半年的中国股市始终游走于"牛"与"熊"之间,4月,初显"牛"形的股市为SARS所累,晚节不保.随后,证监会宣布延长"五一"假期,两大交易所休市至5月11号.临近开市的那几天,关于"红五月"能否到来的讨论在各种报章上随处可见.在这个过程中,银行股一直是被重点推荐持有的对象.     

货币政策是否影响股票市场:基于中国股市的实证分析

货币政策是否影响股票市场，对该问题的回答涉及到中央银行是否有能力以及如何干预股票市场。本文运用协整检验、Granger因果关系检验、向量自回归模型等计量方法分析得出如下结论：1．货币供应量M1、M2与股市流通市值存在双向因果关系，名义利率Nr、实际利率Rr是股市流通市值Nc的Granger原因；2．中央银行可以通过货币供应量和利率两种方式影响股票市场，其中利率更有效。这些结论对于货币当局调控股票市场具有重要的借鉴意义。     

股指期货与现货市场的关系研究

本文从市场结构、交易执行效率和市场信息传播三个方面，由浅入深地展开了期现货市场关系的梳理和分析。股指期货市场的出现，一是使得原本现货市场单轨运行的市场结构变为了期现货市场双轨运行的新结构，增加了市场稳定性；二是依托期货交易方式的独特机制，大大提高了交易执行效率；三是期货价格也因此包含了更多内容，促进了市场信息的传播与扩散。同时，股指期货的独特设计使得其非常适合在危机条件下充分发挥功能，是一个重要的风险管理工具，已经成为现代资本市场的重要组成部分和基础性的内在稳定机制。     

美国股市中盈利最大的股票是谁

美国的<华尔街日报>最近对1000家上市科技公司的获利表现进行了评比,评出了过去10年、5年、3年及去年表现最出色的个股.     

The Structure of the Japanese Stock Market

The Japanese stock market is characterized by two prominent features. First, stock prices have been extremely volatile over the past ten years. Second, the market is dominated by cross-shareholdings and stagnant individual stock ownership. So, there are two purposes on this paper. The first is to assess the effects of stock cross-holdings on the stock market. The second is to look at recent stock price fluctuations, in the bubble period before 1990 and during the subsequent collapse. It will be recognized that these two features are interrelated.