Shareholders: An unexplored opportunity for Australian financial institutions

While Australian financial institutions have recognised for many years the need to segment their customer base and develop niche marketing strategies, those that are listed on the Australian Stock Exchange appear to have ignored a substantial and powerful pool of potential customers — their shareholders. This paper reviews the shareholder marketing strategies adopted by 12 listed Australian banks and building societies. It looks at the cost of customers, the value of converting shareholders to customers and reviews the shareholder loyalty programmes being offered. This paper argues that banks in Australia are ignoring this important pool of potential customers. The author develops the view that the banks and building societies have failed to maximise shareholder value as they have few processes in place to target this important sector.     

SHELTER STRATEGIES FOR THE URBAN POOR IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Rapid growth in many developing-country cities is strainingthe capacity of their shelter delivery systems. Governmentshave chosen a variety of implicit and explicit policies to amelioratethese strains. However, these policies are not always consistentwith their objectives, often because of a lack of knowledgeof how housing markets actually work and how policies affectand are constrained by market behavior. This paper reviews recentresearch on housing market behavior in developing countries,including the demand for housing and the pattern of housinginvestment across countries, the financing of housing by low-incomehouseholds, and the willingness to pay for secure tenure. Commonhousing policies are then examined, including public housing,sites and services projects, and slum clearance versus upgrading.Rent controls, measures to improve the supply of finance andinfrastructure, and building codes and standards are also discussed.      

Housing and Mortgage Market Policies in Chile

This study provides a survey of the housing and mortgage market policies applied between 1976 and 1994 in Chile. These policies are implemented within the framework of a free-market economy in which the state plays a subsidiary role in the economic affairs of the nation. Of particular importance to the housing sector have been the elimination of interest rate and rent controls, the elimination of a specialized housing finance system, and the consistent application of an indexation scheme that preserves the real value of monetary contracts and that allows investors the recovery of their funds with a competitive real return.     

住房金融模式的国际经验与中国选择

住宅产业的发展离不开金融业的支持与配合,我国目前还没有一个发达而且在一定程度上相当专业的住房金融模式和体系。本文首先比较和评价国际典型的住房金融模式,然后基于当前的国情现状,指出中国应该多元化发展合同储蓄型、强制储蓄型和资本市场型三种住房金融模式。     

论地方政府“土地财政”对居民消费的影响——基于全国地级市面板数据的估计

基于跨期消费与投资组合模型研究了"土地财政"对于居民消费的影响机理,并利用我国2004～2010年267个地级市面板数据进行实证检验。研究发现:首先,"土地财政"通过影响居民实际收入以及推高房价共同抑制了居民消费,并且随着"土地财政"依赖程度的增加,居民将相应地增大房产部分在家庭财富配置的比重;其次我国的"房地产财富效应"不显著,但是居民住房面积的增加有助于促进居民消费;最后,提高信贷利率和改善公共服务水平都将有助于提振居民消费。因此,减少地方政府对于"土地财政"依赖、建立居民合理分享土地增值收益机制以及弥补政府保障性住房的职能缺位是提振居民消费的关键。     

我国城镇住房保障制度金融政策的现状评析与改革建议

住房供给保障制度与住房金融政策,作为向居民提供住房保障与融资支持的重要条件,对于中低收入阶层居民住房条件的改善,具有决定性的影响。与对中高收入阶层居民的影响相比,我国的住房金融体制在为中低收入居民提供金融支持方面存在一定的缺陷：低收入居民从现行住房金融体系中获得的支持与其贡献不相匹配,存在着＂劫贫济富＂的现象。针对这些问题,本文提出从住房金融机构的设立和完善、住房抵押贷款证券化、适当的制约和监督措施三方面入手,对我国住房保障制度金融政策进行改革。     

关系型借贷视角下购房融资方式与家庭创业行为——基于2017年中国家庭金融调查的实证研究

本文利用2017年中国家庭金融调查数据深入考察购房融资方式对家庭创业行为的影响。研究结果显示,相较于民间借贷购房的家庭,按揭贷款购房的家庭参与创业活动的可能性更高,且更倾向于主动创业。进一步机制分析发现,相较于民间借贷购房,按揭贷款购房能够降低家庭的流动性约束,缓解家庭的资金压力,从而促进创业。同时,按揭贷款购房能使家庭获得充足的贷款额度与较长的贷款期限,进而有助于家庭创业。而且在偿还按揭贷款的过程中,家庭能与银行建立长期良好的信贷关系,从而有助于提高家庭获得正规信贷的可能性,促进家庭创业。为了积极推进创业创新的战略部署,应进一步健全银行信贷体系,发展和完善住房金融制度,从而有利于缓解小微企业融资难、融资贵的问题,释放和激发家庭创业活力。     

THE CONSEQUENCES OF GROWTH MAXIMISATION AND EXPENSE PREFERENCE POLICIES OF MANAGERS: EVIDENCE FROM UK BUILDING SOCIETIES. A STUDY OF THE CAUSES OF PROFIT INSUFFICIENCY DURING A PERIOD OF INCREASED COMPETITION USING DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS

It has often been argued that the monopolistic position of building societies and the lack of constraints on policies of their managers has brought inefficiencies and managerial utility maximising results. This may be seen in society growth policies and their expense preference behaviour. When there is increased competition affecting margins some building societies may earn insufficient profits so as to threaten their financial stability. The present study uses multiple discriminant analysis to study the period 1978–1980 and verifies the hypothesis that both growth and expense preferences caused profit insufficiency which could lead to financial distress.     

Public‐Private Partnerships: Form Over Substance?

Public-private partnerships have been devised to avoid treating financing arrangements as government "debt". Governments face incentives to avoid treating these arrangements as giving rise to liabilities. Both the Australian and UK standards boards have avoided a "substance over form" approach in order to accept that PPPs may be kept off-balance-sheet. The analysis supporting their conclusions was based on consideration of whether PPPs led to the acquisition of an asset, using the analogy of accounting for finance leases, rather than addressing whether the substance of commercial arrangements means that contractual commitments may evolve into liabilities.     

Building a Bridge between Marketing and Finance

Corporate finance executives are often frustrated by spending proposals from their marketing colleagues but cannot seem to be able to quantify the putative benefits. Similarly, the marketing staff is frustrated by the finance team's inability to convert soft marketing metrics, such as “awareness” and “customer satisfaction” into financial forecasts. The challenge is that neither marketers nor finance executives have been able to articulate a single analytical framework which both explains how and why brands come to flourish or flounder and how brand growth contributes to the business's short and long term bottom line. Lacking an effective way to do this now, most managers default to using the hard data they do have, namely how marketing investment is likely to impact sales this quarter and next. This reinforces the widespread focus on quarterly EPS and reduces the perceived value of the marketing department to their ability to hit three month sales targets. This degraded view of marketing's contribution and the inability to link “soft” marketing metrics to longer term financial returns impedes building long‐term brand value. This article focuses on how advances in behavioral science and financial analytics offer an effective way to bridge this gap between marketing and finance. Building that bridge requires better measures of brand health and financial performance to allocate capital and marketing resources. Undoubtedly, brand building is both an art and a science. But, the finance people can develop an evidence‐based framework explaining how some of the “softer” investments such as brand building, contribute to the value of the firm.     

Public-Private Partnerships: Form Over Substance?

Public-private partnerships have been devised to avoid treating financing arrangements as government "debt". Governments face incentives to avoid treating these arrangements as giving rise to liabilities. Both the Australian and UK standards boards have avoided a "substance over form" approach in order to accept that PPPs may be kept off-balance-sheet. The analysis supporting their conclusions was based on consideration of whether PPPs led to the acquisition of an asset, using the analogy of accounting for finance leases, rather than addressing whether the substance of commercial arrangements means that contractual commitments may evolve into liabilities.     

Visual performance management in housing associations: a crisis of legitimation or the shape of things to come?

Housing associations in the UK are undergoing significant reform, potentially facing a crisis of legitimation with respect to their values. The latest reforms have included further deregulation and limiting the availability of bank finance at fixed low interest rates. These are challenging times for housing associations; forcing leaders to effectively manage organizational business performance, becoming less reliant on regulatory bodies for guidance and legitimation.     

The comparative performance of mutual building societies and stock retail banks

We investigate the comparative performance of mutual building societies and stock retail banks in the UK. Our results indicate that mutual building societies appear to have outperformed stock retail banks, suggesting that the benefits of mutual organisations may outweigh those of stock organisations. These benefits stem from the merger of the owner and the depositor functions, and from their homogeneous clientele: costs related to conflicts between different classes of claimholders and conflicts within the single class of claimholders are thus avoided.     

A Proposal to Improve U.S. Housing Market Incentives: A Response to the Federal Reserve White Paper of January 2012

The U.S. housing finance market has not yet recovered from the housing price bubble that peaked in late 2006. Even though prices have fallen significantly, there are still problems in clearing the market. For the last few years, a group of financial economists and practitioners who are part of the Financial Management Association's Practitioner Demand Driven Academic Research Initiative (PDDARI) have been studying the collapse of the housing market and have concluded that many market participants still have insufficient (and in some cases the wrong) incentives to take actions that would help restore the market's health. In January 2012, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, released a white paper that reviewed current housing market conditions and created a framework for policy analysis designed to help reestablish the health of the U.S. housing market as part of the broader effort to foster economic recovery. Using this framework as its starting point, the PDDARI group has come up with a set of proposals whose centerpiece is an “incentive‐compatible” mortgage that encourages homeowners to rebuild their home equity as an essential step to a housing recovery. By incorporating “price appreciation rights” that would provide stronger inducements for lenders or mortgage owners to make loan modifications (particularly, forgiveness of principal), the PDDARI mortgage structure could allow more homeowners to remain in their homes and avoid foreclosures and the large associated deadweight costs (as much as 40% of a home's assessed value). Additionally, the government‐sponsored enterprises, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are also in need of radical reform, and a transition toward greater private market participation would promote the long‐term health of the mortgage market.     

Public Pensions and Public Rental Housing

It is possible for the Chinese public pension and public rental housing to finance each other in the long term. Employing an overlapping generations (OLG) model, I examine the effects of the individual contribution rate, firm contribution rate, rent rate of public rental housing, and population growth rate on the capital-labor ratio, per capita consumption, per capita acreage of public rental housing, and per capita public rental housing property. According to economic goals, their effects, and their intensities, it does more good than harm to raise the individual contribution rate, reduce the firm contribution rate and rent rate of public rental housing, and restrict population growth rate.     

问策保障房投资

身具调控工具属性,并成民生符号性产品的保障房,注定在聚光灯下成长。自2010年5月19日,住房和城乡建设部(下称住建部)与各地政府签订《2010年住房保障工作目标责任书》以来,新建580万套保障房就被置于公众视线的焦点,而2011年建设计划中,这一数字更被调整为1000万套。     

The accuracy of management dividend forecasts in Australia

Dividends have direct cash flow consequences for investors and are important for signalling reasons. Consequently, investors, analysts and managers typically forecast future dividends and report them in various ways. Yet the accuracy of dividend forecasts has been largely neglected in empirical finance. We examine the accuracy of managers' dividend forecasts in Australian IPO prospectuses (a companion paper examines the analysts' dividend forecasts). Managers' dividend forecasts are optimistically biased. Nevertheless, they are substantially more accurate and less biased than their earnings counterparts. Differences in retained ownership and the predictability of earnings help explain why some dividend forecasts are more accurate than others.     

保障性住房融资创新的路径选择

保障性住房发展面临着资金瓶颈障碍。本文分析了保障性住房融资面临的主要问题,即财政性住房资金来源不稳定、投融资体制僵化,政策性住房金融发展滞后,资本市场融资渠道不畅等。本文提出了创新保障性住房融资渠道的路径选择：一是要将财政资金投入纳入公共财政体系,发挥财政资金杠杆效应;二是要大力发展政策性住房金融机构,弥补商业信贷的不足;三是要推动资本市场金融工具创新,吸引民间社会资本进入保障性住房领域。     

Fifty years of finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin

In this paper, we review the history of scholarly finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin. We do this by analysing the four leading regional finance journals – Accounting and Finance, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal – along five dimensions. The five dimensions are the most cited papers, noted authors, impact in terms of practice, research areas and a breakdown in terms of the development of the field according to Kuhnian concepts of normal science, anomalies and extraordinary science. We show that the Asia Pacific journals make a crucial contribution to research and practice both in the region and internationally.     

Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms

Developments in U.S. house prices over the past decade mirror those of the 1996–2006 boom. Construction activity has, however, been weak. Using data for 254 U.S. metropolitan areas, we show that housing supply elasticities have fallen markedly in recent years. We find that housing supply elasticities have declined more in areas in which land-use regulation has tightened the most, and in areas that experienced the sharpest housing busts. Consistent with the declining housing supply elasticities, we find that monetary policy shocks have had a stronger effect on house prices during the past decade than during the previous boom. At the same time, building permits respond less.