Investment dynamics with common and private values

We study a dynamic investment game with two-dimensional signals, where each firm observes its continuously distributed idiosyncratic cost of investment and a discrete signal correlated with common investment returns. We demonstrate that the one-step property holds and provide an equilibrium existence/characterization result. “Reversals” are possible, where a large number of firms investing in a given round becomes bad news about investment returns. Welfare is compared to static and rigid-timing benchmarks, and computed for large economies.     

Bargaining with Rent Seekers

Consider a rent‐seeking game, which has government bargain with firms over dividing the rents. In period 1, each firm can invest to increase the probability that the rent will appear. In period 2, the parties bargain. In equilibrium, though firms will invest more than the socially optimal level, rent‐seeking expenditures may be low. Firms that collude to restrict investment maximize joint profits by investing at a positive, non‐infinitesimal level, and restrict investment even if the cost of rent‐seeking effort is zero.     

Exchange Rates and Long‐Term Bonds*

There is tentative evidence to suggest that the well‐documented empirical failure of uncovered interest parity (UIP) is confined to short‐term interest rates. However, tests of UIP for long‐term bonds are thwarted by various data problems. These data problems can be avoided by focusing on short investments in long‐term bonds. This paper concerns the relationship between changes in the US dollar–Deutsche Mark exchange rate and returns to short investments in US and German long‐term government bonds. The hypothesis that expected returns to investments in bonds denominated in the two currencies are equal is not rejected, and the estimated slope coefficients are positive. For corresponding short‐term interest rates, the typical finding of negative and large Fama coefficients is confirmed. We conclude that it is the maturity of the asset, rather than the investment horizon, that matters for the results.     

Growth Optimal Investment Strategy: The Impact of Reallocation Frequency and Heavy Tails

The strategy to maximize the long‐term growth rate of final wealth (maximum expected log strategy, maximum geometric mean strategy, Kelly criterion) is based on probability theoretic underpinnings and has asymptotic optimality properties. This article reviews the allocation of wealth in a two‐asset economy with one risky asset and a risk‐free asset. It is also shown that the optimal fraction to be invested in the risky asset (i) depends on the length of the basic return period and (ii) is lower for heavy‐tailed log returns than for light‐tailed log returns.     

Ownership,Access, and Sequential Investment

We extend the property‐rights framework to allow for a separation of the ownership rights of access and veto and for sequential investment. Parties investing first do so before contracting is feasible. It is possible, however, that parties investing second can share (at least some of) their investment costs. Along with this cost‐sharing effect, the incentive to invest is affected by a strategic effect generated by sequential investment. Together these effects can overturn some of the predictions of the property‐rights literature. For example, the most inclusive ownership structure might not be optimal, even if all investments are complementary.     

Investment decisions and transferable discharge permits: An empirical study of water quality management under policy uncertainty

The problem of investiment decisions for sources participating in transferable discharge permit (TDP) markets has not received much attention. One way TDPs offer potential savings is with their ability to influence development in a region. Static models have assessed the potential savings of TDPs but do not explicitly consider investment decisions; thus they do not capture this long run role nor that of policy uncertainty and tend to understate both the cost saving potential and the difficulty in achieving it. This paper addresses both problems by emphasizing the temporal dimension of TDPs. A two-period investment model investigates the magnitude of these potential savings and the effects of two types of policy uncertainty upon expected gains from permit trading.     

Coordinated Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation

In this paper, we analyze a team trust game with coordinated punishment of the allocator by investors and where there is also a final stage of peer punishment. We study the effect of punishment on the reward and the investment decisions, when the effectiveness and cost of coordinated punishment depend on the number of investors adhering to this activity. The interaction takes place in an overlapping‐generations model with heterogeneous preferences and incomplete information. The only long‐run outcomes of the dynamics are either a fully cooperative culture (FCC) with high levels of trust and cooperation and fair returns or a non‐cooperative culture with no cooperation at all. The basin of attraction of the FCC is larger; the higher the institutional capacity of coordinated punishment, the higher the level of peer pressure and the smaller the individual cost of coordinated punishment.     

西南地区农村投资水平和农地利用效率对农民农业收入影响分析——以重庆市为例

农民农业增收是一项系统工程,运用多种计量经济分析模型,探讨农村投资水平、农地利用效率对农民农业收入的影响。结果表明:长期来看,农村投资水平、农地综合效率、农地纯技术效率、农地规模效率与农民农业收入存在稳定的正向均衡关系,其中,农地综合效率的贡献度远高于农村投资水平,农地规模效率的贡献度高于农地纯技术效率;短期内,农村投资水平对收入的调整为正向,农地纯技术效率对收入的调整先负后正,农地规模效率对收入的调整先正后负。长期来看,加大农村投资力度,提高农地综合效率、技术效率及规模效率均有利于促进农业收入增长,但关键是要提高农地规模效率。短期内,加大农村投资力度同样有利于农业收入增长,而提高农地纯技术效率则使农业收入增长先降后升,在规模报酬递减范围内的农地规模效率的提高,也有利于农民农业收入增长。     

THE EFFECTS OF ABANDONMENT OPTIONS ON INVESTMENT TIMING AND INTENSITY

This paper examines how the presence of an abandonment option affects the timing and intensity of a firm’s investment. We develop a continuous‐time model wherein a firm is endowed with a perpetual option to invest in a project at any time by incurring an investment cost at that instant. The amount of the investment cost is directly related to the intensity of investment that is endogenously chosen by the firm at the investment instant. The project generates a stream of stochastic revenue flows with a concomitant stream of constant cost flows, both of which increase with the investment intensity. We show that allowing the firm to make an irreversible decision to abandon the project does not affect the firm’s optimal investment intensity if the investment cost is totally reversible. Otherwise, the option to abandon the project induces the firm to choose a lower level of investment intensity. Furthermore, we show that the presence of the abandonment option pushes down the firm’s optimal investment trigger, thereby hastening the undertaking of the project.     

Market Efficiency Reloaded: Why Insider Trades do not Reveal Exploitable Information

Abstract. Several studies have emphasized a slow price adjustment to reported insider trades for Germany. The results presented in this paper, though, show that this is mainly caused by a subset of high arbitrage risk stocks. In fact, the abnormal return difference between the quintiles of stocks with highest and lowest idiosyncratic risk is in the range of 2.99–4.90% over a 20‐day interval. These results are robust even in the context of a joint generalized least squares approach. By developing a simple zero‐investment arbitrage trading strategy mimicking insider trades, it turns out that such a trading strategy, in most cases, generates significant positive returns as long as transaction costs are neglected. However, the outperformance disappears in all risk quintiles, if bid/ask spreads are taken into account. We conclude that the market's under‐reaction to reported insider trades can mainly be explained by the cost of risky arbitrage and is therefore not exploitable.     

环保投资与经济增长实证研究——基于我国东中西部区域比较视角

本文在比较分析我国东、中、西部地区环保投资现状的基础上,运用面板单位根检验、协整检验及误差修正模型,就三大地区环保投资对经济增长的影响状况进行了实证研究.结果表明,三大地区的环保投资与GDP之间均存在着长期的协整关系,但不管是城市环境基础设施建设投资还是工业污染源治理投资,投资效益都很低.为使三大区域环保投资对经济增长的拉动作用最大化,实现环保与经济增长的共赢发展,应不断完善环保投资制度,加大资金投入,提高环保投资效率并优化环保投资结构.     

Improved Mutual Fund Investment Choice Architecture

Two choice architecture interventions were explored to debias investors' irrational preference for mutual funds with high past returns rather than funds with low fees. A simple choice task was used involving a direct trade-off between maximizing past returns and minimizing fees. In the first intervention, warning investors that “Some people invest based on past performance, but funds with low fees have the highest future results” was more effective than 3 other disclosure statements, including the U.S. financial regulator's, “Past performance does not guarantee future results.” The second intervention involved converting mutual fund annual percentage fees into a 10-year dollar cost equivalent. This intervention also improved investors' fee sensitivity, and remained effective even as past returns increased. Financially literate participants were surprisingly more likely to irrationally maximize past returns in their investment choices.     

Are Public Firms Always Less Innovative than Private Firms?

The effect of information spillovers is analysed in a mixed duopoly where a profit‐maximizing private firm and a market‐share‐maximizing public firm decide whether to invest in a process innovation. It is shown that, when the spillover effect is rather strong, the public firm innovates in order to acquire a larger market share, while the private firm prefers that its rival invests in the new technology and reaps the benefits of technological leakages if investment costs are moderate. Thus, when information spillovers are taken into account, the public firm sometimes behaves more innovatively than the private firm, which is contrary to the well‐known results. Furthermore, in a mixed duopoly where only the public firm invests, its average cost exceeds that of its competitor, but investment remains an efficient strategy compared with non‐investment.     

Informational externalities,strategic delay,and optimal investment subsidies

Abstract This paper examines optimal government policy when private investment generates information, but investors cannot internalize the informational value their actions have to others. Equilibrium exhibits inefficient delay, as investors adopt a wait‐and‐see approach. The government can alter incentives via an investment subsidy, but complications arise, since future subsidies may induce investors to disregard current policy initiatives. The paper shows that the government achieves its desired outcome only when the the investment subsidy is financed by a non‐distortionary, lump‐sum tax. When taxation is distortionary, the government faces a time inconsistency problem that may prevent effective policy.     

PRODUCTIVITY AND BUSINESS CYCLES IN JAPAN: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE INDUSTRY DATA*

Constructing a database of 37 industries, we examine whether the measured productivity in Japan is pro‐cyclical and investigate the sources of this pro‐cyclicality by using the production function approach employed by Hall (1990) and Basu and Fernald (1995). The aggregate Solow residual displays pro‐cyclicality. A large number of industries show constant returns to scale. No significant evidence for the presence of thick‐market externalities is found. Our results also hold when we consider labour hoarding, part‐time employment, and the adjustment cost of investment. The results indicate that policies to revitalize the Japanese economy should concentrate on promoting productivity growth.     

Owning capital or being shareholders: An equivalence result with incomplete markets

Many recent papers in macroeconomics have studied the implications of models with household heterogeneity and incomplete financial markets under the assumption that households own the stock of physical capital and undertake the intertemporal investment decisions. In these models, production exhibits constant returns to scale, households maximize expected discounted utility, and firms rent capital and labor from households to maximize period by period profits. This paper considers the case in which infinitely lived firms, rather than households, make the intertemporal investment decisions. Under this assumption, it shows that there exists an objective function for firms that results in the same equilibrium allocation as in the standard setting with one period lived firms. The objective requires that firms maximize their asset value, which is defined as the discounted value of future cash flows using present value processes that do not allow for arbitrage opportunities.     

中国股市价值反转投资策略有效性实证研究

本文以中国深沪A股股票市场为考察对象 ,分析了价值反转投资策略的有效性。作者通过实证分析发现 :在中国深沪A股股票市场上 ,以帐面价值与市场价值比 (B M)、B M GS等指标构造的价值反转投资策略可以产生显著的超额收益率 ,并且其显著程度因持有期不同而不同。接着 ,作者利用CAPM模型、Fama French三因素模型并引入了协偏度 (coskewness)和协峰度 (cokurtosis) ,构造出多风险因子模型来解释价值反转投资策略超额收益率。我们发现 :在经过传统风险因素调整后 ,价值反转投资策略效果依然明显 ;CAPM模型无法解释价值反转投资策略超额收益率 ;Fama French三因素模型对价值反转投资策略超额收益率的解释能力最为显著 ,但对于有些价值投资策略 ,在Fama French三因素基础上加上协偏度和协峰度因子后 ,模型的解释能力有所提高     

Sudden Stop and Sudden Flood of Foreign Direct Investment: Inverse Bank Run,Output, and Welfare Distribution

In this paper, I focus on a phenomenon that has not received much attention in the literature, namely that the mere expectation of foreign direct investment (FDI) incentivizes long‐maturity investment projects by domestic residents, and a Sudden Stop when expectations are frustrated. Long‐maturity investment projects enhance productivity but increase the economy's vulnerability to Sudden Stop. The discussion is framed in a context in which a Sudden Stop follows a surge of capital inflows (Sudden Flood), and FDI is concentrated on ongoing projects. A Sudden Stop episode can trigger a fire sale of long‐term assets, output collapse, and welfare redistribution, which is another ignored phenomenon.     

No better time than now: Future uncertainty and private investment under dictatorship

Despite received wisdom that long time horizons and formal institutions can induce private investment under dictatorship, there is substantial investment even in relatively unconstrained regimes. This paper provides a novel explanation for the puzzle of investment in these regimes: economic elites’ uncertainty over expected investment returns under plausible alternative authoritarian successors. We construct a noisy signaling model that captures how uncertainty over which type of authoritarian successor will rule next and uncertainty in the truthfulness of policy promises made by potential autocratic successors might provide incentives for elite investment.     

Optimal Controls for a Large Insurance Under a CEV Model: Based on the Legendre Transform-Dual Method

The purpose of this paper is to consider the optimal proportional reinsurance and investment strategies for an insurance company. The insurer’s surplus process is approximated by a Brownian motion with drift. The insurance company can purchase proportional reinsurance and invest the surplus in a financial market which includes one risk-free asset and one risky asset whose price is modeled by a CEV model. The primary problem is changed to the dual problem by implying Legendre transform. When the objective of the insurance company is to maximize the expected logarithmic utility from terminal wealth, the closed-form expressions for the optimal reinsurance-investment policy which is different to the Merton case to the primal optimal problem are obtained and numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate our results. Moreover, we find an interesting result that risk exposure is non-monotonic in the cost of reinsurance.