TAX SCHEDULE CHANGES AND DISCOUNT BOND PRICES

Research on the impact of marginal tax changes on bondholder wealth focuses on changes along a given tax schedule. In this paper the valuation consequences of changing the tax schedule are analyzed. Although previous researchers show that the price of all discount bonds falls if the marginal ordinary income tax rate increases along a tax schedule, it is found that this result holds only under specific conditions when the tax schedule changes. Various comparative statics are discussed.     

个人住房按揭中物保与人保并存时的法律适用分析

在个人住房按揭贷款业务中,既存在借款人以期房为抵押物而提供的物的担保,也有开发商提供的保证担保。当物保与人保同时并存时,保证人如何承担保证责任、如何适用法律在诉讼中争议很大。本文认为,个人住房按揭抵押虽与大陆法上的物权抵押有所区别,但从法律性质、功能、特征等方面来看,差异不大,个人住房按揭抵押应适用《担保法》;个人住房按揭中既存在物保也存在人保,在保证责任划分上,应适用《担保法》司法解释第28条的规定,而不应适用该司法解释第38条的规定;由于个人住房按揭贷款合同中的“回购条款”在法律上仍存在争议,在实务中又很难操作,作者建议采用“抵押物处分条款”代替“回购条款”。     

我国实行住房抵押贷款证券化的思考

资产证券化是近30年来国际金融领域最重要的金融创新之一,已广泛应用于银行信贷领域,其不仅有利于银行提高资产的流动性,而且在防范金融风险、化解不良资产方面有突出功效.住房抵押贷款是银行资产证券化的一个切入点,目前国内金融理论界及实务工作者对开展住房抵押贷款证券化已有一些论述,但现在要讨论的已经不是"要不要或可不可以证券化"的问题,而是"如何证券化、采取何种方式、如何操作、分几步走"的问题.笔者认为,当务之急是为住房抵押贷款证券化创造各种市场条件和制度条件,然后在局部地区进行试点,待条件成熟后再逐步推行,本文对此问题进行了深入的探讨.     

个人住房"假按揭"贷款若干法律问题探讨

本文首先根据“假按揭”中有关合同签字的真伪以及银行是否知情对“假按揭”进行了分类 ,分析了各类型“假按揭”借款合同的法律效力和当事各方的民事和刑事责任。作者认为 :对于有借款人真实签名的“假按揭”借款合同而言 ,根据银行对“假按揭”情形是否明知 ,借款合同应分别属于有效合同和效力未定的合同。在法律责任方面 ,开发商和借款人应对银行贷款承担连带清偿责任。但由于目前我国的《刑法》对贷款诈骗打击不力 ,只能在特定的情形之下才能追究开发商和借款人的刑事责任。最后 ,作者就商业银行可以采取的预防和救济措施以及《刑法》关于“贷款诈骗罪”的完善等提出了相应的建议。     

VALUATION AND RISK-ADJUSTED DISCOUNT RATES

There is a continuing controversy as to whether the use of a constant risk adjusted discount rate in capital budgeting decisions implies that the risk of the cash flows increases over time. This paper shows that valuation using these discount rates implies an increasing premium for risk over time but that the increasing premium is due to the net impact of the uncertainty in the cash flow; uncertainty in future market expectations of the cash flow; and changes in the market price of risk. The risk of the cash flow itself need not be increasing over time.     

TAXES AND THE REFUNDING OF DISCOUNT BONDS

This paper examines the effect of the Bankruptcy Tax Act of 1980 on the decision to refund corporate bonds selling at a discount. Historically, the refunding of discount debt has appeared to be profitable on a discounted cash flow basis. This study demonstrates, however, that the tax effects of the Bankruptcy Tax Act of 1980 have eliminated effectively any potential gains from refunding discounted debt.     

STOCK PRICES AND INFLATION

Numerous empirical studies establish that inflation has a negative short‐run effect on stock returns but few studies report a positive, long‐run Fisher effect for stock returns. Using stock price and goods price data from six industrial countries, we show that long‐run Fisher elasticities of stock prices with respect to goods prices exceed unity and range from 1.04 to 1.65, which tends to support the Fisher effect. We also find that the time path of the response of stock prices to a shock in goods prices exhibits an initial negative response, which turns positive over longer horizons. These results help reconcile previous short‐run and long‐run empirical evidence on stock returns and inflation. Also, they reveal that stock prices have a long memory with respect to inflation shocks, such that investors should expect stocks to be a good inflation hedge over a long holding period. JEL Classification: G12     

FINANCING AND HOUSE PRICES

Recent empirical evidence on the effect of below-market financing on house prices has suffered from estimation and interpretation problems. In this paper, a methodology is developed to solve these problems. Using data for mortgage revenue bonds, the methodology is tested with results indicating that all financing subsidy is capitalized into house prices.     

MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICIES AND STOCK PRICES

Investigations into business cycles have found money supply to be a lead variable to stock prices. However, some would argue that the stock market, being efficient, anticipates money supply changes and therefore, stock prices are lead variables to money supply changes. Recent developments in time series methods have facilitated the testing of these relationships through identifying bivariate and multivariate autoregressive models. However, in many cases, the results using different procedures contradict themselves and are in conflict with theoretical reasonings. In this paper the causal relationship is tested between fiscal and monetary policies and stock prices using Canadian data and bivariate andmultivariate autoregressive models.