2004年东亚地区预计实现7%健康增长石油价格暴涨及其他全球不确定因素对2005年构成威胁

世界银行最新《东亚与太平洋地区经济半年报》指出,东亚各经济体目前经济增长达到自金融危机前以来的最高速度,绝对贫困人口降至历史最低。东亚与太平洋地区的经济增长率预计将达7%(不包括日本),该地区的发展中经济体增速预计将达8%以上。中等收入经济体和贫困经济体都在经历高     

IMF Bank-Restructuring Efficiency Outcomes: Evidence from East Asia

We report new findings on bank efficiency in East Asian countries for the pre- and post-IMF restructuring periods. We find that bank efficiency has improved, but only to the pre-IMF intervention level, and that restructured banks are not more efficient than their unrestructured counterparts. Different restructuring measures have different effects. Bank closures are economically justified, but mergers show short-term efficiency losses. Recapitalization and reprivatization of badly performing banks lead to efficiency improvement, but also increase government ownership. Ease of entry that has allowed for more foreign bank participation results in slightly improved performance of badly performing banks.

日本、东南亚房地产泡沫的教训及对我国的启示

近年来,我国房地产市场迅猛发展,已经成为人们关注的焦点。如何遏制房地产的过热发展,促其正常发展,已成为迫切需要解决的问题。本文拟对日本、东南亚房地产泡沫的教训进行深入地分析,并有针对性地提出防止中国房地产市场泡沫的应对策略。     

2002,东亚机会有多少

东亚国家在全球经济放缓的情况下感到不安,这是可以了解的,2001年对他们的出口产品需求大幅下滑,有些产品下滑幅度高达25%以上,而且随着美国、欧洲和日本经济同时趋缓会有更多的损失随之而来.尤其令东亚国家不安的是出口一直是其经济进步的推动力.现在,在东亚地区探求经济复苏之路时,对于其发展模式提出了质疑.对于东亚地区来说是否应该继续坚信出口和贸易自由化?     

东亚国家金融结构与经济增长的实证研究

文章首先通过构造衡量金融结构的不同指标,运用金融结构与经济增长的动态面板数据模型,并用广义矩估计法进行估计,得出了在人均GDP高的国家,股票市场比重也高的结论;为验证其显著性,文章把东亚国家分成银行主导型和市场主导型两组分别回归,结论是股票市场比重的提高与人均GDP有显著的关系, 因此, 东亚国家应积极发展股票市场,提高银行体系和股票市场的效率。     

东亚经济结束萎靡

亚行2003年12月11日发表《亚洲经济监测》称,由于外部环境改善和国内需求强劲,东亚各经济体2003年的经济增长率将达到6.1％,而2004年预计为6.6％。 对2003年增长率的最新预测比亚行7月发布的《亚洲经济监测》所预测的5.6％要高出0.5个百分点。对2004年的预测也比7月的数字高出了0.3个百分点。     

经济增长、汇率上升与资产泡沫——日元升值之路的启示

随着经济的持续高速增长,我国必然在相当长时期内继续面临人民币升值的压力.如何正确处理这种升值压力,在保持国内物价稳定和经济健康发展的前提下实现汇率制度的平稳改革成为目前广泛关注的焦点.本文将以日元升值过程中的经验和教训为主要着眼点,对此问题进行探讨.本文认为,升值并非造成日本经济衰退的根本原因,升值过程中产生的资产泡沫才是真正原因.随着中国经济的增长和劳动生产率的相对提高,人民币将逐渐升值,而保持货币政策的独立性、掌握人民币升值的主动权、防止资产泡沫将是今后我国汇率工作的重点.     

Capital Structure and Financial Risk: Evidence from Foreign Debt Use in East Asia

Using a data set of East Asian nonfinancial companies, we examine a firm's choice between local, foreign, and synthetic local currency (hedged foreign currency) debt. We find evidence of unique as well as common factors that determine each debt type's use, indicating the importance of examining debt at a disaggregated level. We exploit the Asian financial crisis as a natural experiment to investigate the role of debt type in firm performance. Surprisingly, we find that the use of synthetic local currency debt is associated with the biggest drop in market value, possibly due to currency derivative market illiquidity during the crisis.     

Alternative Retirement Income Arrangements and Lifetime Income Inequality: Lessons From Australia

This paper examines the implications for lifetime income equality of alternative retirement income arrangements, using the Australian scheme as a benchmark. In Australia, the pay-as-you go financed age pension is means-tested and thereby provides a contrast with those countries where part or all of a basic pension is paid to all aged persons. Many governments are considering an increase in the level of means-testing. The results show that the introduction of a universal pension coupled with significant changes and simplifications to the structure of taxation and superannuation have little effect on the redistributive impact of the tax structure in a life cycle framework. The presence of means-testing appears to have no significant effect on life-time inequality. The results suggest that it is possible to eliminate complexities from the system providing retirement benefits without having any deleterious effect on equity. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

日本、东南亚房地产泡沫的教训及对我国的启示

近年来,我国房地产市场的迅猛发展,已经成为人们广泛关注的焦点。如何遏制房地产的过热发展,已成为迫切需要解决的问题。拟对日本、东南亚房地产泡沫的教训进行深入地分析,并有针对性地提出防止中国房地产市场泡沫的应对策略。     

Regional vulnerability: The case of East Asia

In a case study of six East Asian economies, we use dynamic factor analysis to estimate a regional component of the exchange market pressure index (EMPI) as a measure of regional financial stress. The extent to which this indicator is explained by regional economic and financial factors is interpreted as regional vulnerability to crisis. We find that regional external liabilities and exuberance in domestic stock and credit markets, as well as the US high-yield spread, were positively correlated with regional vulnerability. Individual country EMPIs are also explained by regional factors, with country-specific factors and trade linkages playing little role.     

中东欧国家银行体制改革的经验与启示

中东欧国家是指包括波兰、匈牙利、捷克等从计划经济向市场经济转轨的国家.这些国家不仅地域相近,而且银行体制改革的时间和路径也基本一致,他们还均于2004年加入了欧盟.这些国家的银行体制改革大体上都经历了两大步骤,第一步就是实行商业银行机构和业务与中央银行分离,建立二级银行体系,第二步就是将国有银行私有化.应该说,在市场经济体制下,建立二级银行体系是必然,也是必要.但对国有商业银行的私有化问题,则需要认真探讨.本文旨在通过对中东欧国家国有银行私有化的路径的介绍,总结其私有化中的经验,分析其中存在的问题,以对我国的国有银行改革提供借鉴意义.     

世行大幅增加对东亚与太平洋地区的支持

世界银行集团针对全球金融危机给东亚与太平洋地区国家带来的影响作出迅速反应,2009财年提供发展资金援助逾90亿美元,比上年融资额度显著增加。同时世界银行集团也增加了技术援助,帮助东亚地区各国政府缓解危机造成的经济社会影响。     

Effect of the Sovereign Credit Ratings in East Asia Countries: Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregression

We study the effect of the sovereign credit ratings on the economies of seven East Asian countries, applying panel vector autoregression (VAR). We find that rating has less effect than outlook of rating on the credit default swap (CDS) spreads, the stock indexes, and the GDP growth rates. Rating upgrade and positive outlook have stronger effects than rating downgrade and negative outlook, and the effects of positive outlook and rating are greater after the financial crisis. There is evidence of contagion in that the economic variables of a country seem to have been affected by the outlooks of the other countries.     

Economic Growth and Inequality: Why It Matters and What's Coming Next

This article makes the case that the recent rise in income inequality in OECD countries reflects profound changes in the economic model that previously resulted in growth, prosperity, and social progress during the second half of the last century. The author begins by citing French economist Thomas Piketty's identification of the key driver of rising income inequality as the recent sharp increase in the share of national income going to capital (defined as interest, dividends and other investment returns) and the accompanying decline in the share going to labor (in the form of wages, salaries, pension, and other work‐related benefits). For most of the last 100 years, a successful balance was struck in a majority of OECD countries between the returns to capital and labor. Within the framework of nationally defined economies, labor could effectively advocate for its share of the productivity gains by capital, and governments had the ability to constrain the free movement of capital, set labor compensation standards, and redistribute income through progressive taxation. The author explores how two developments—globalization and the rise of machine intelligence—are disrupting this social contract and reshaping our economy and society. The combination of these two developments, by accelerating the flow of income to capital and away from labor, is eroding the historical relationship between capital, labor, and governments that has long prevailed in most OECD countries. As this happens, we are seeing rising income inequality and the erosion of the middle class, which had been the driver of economic growth for most of the past century. Indeed, the thesis of Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty‐First Century, is that such an effect may well be taking us back to the pre‐20th century norm of high income inequality and low economic growth. In his closing arguments, the author suggests that avoiding this scenario will be more complicated than simply raising taxes on capital, as proposed by Piketty. It may well require a fundamental rethinking of the role of employment as the primary mechanism for income distribution in society and how we prepare our workforce for an economy and society in which the concept of work will be radically redefined.     

On measuring synchronization of bulls and bears: The case of East Asia

This paper implements estimation and testing procedures for comovements of stock market “cycles” or “phases” in Asia. We extend the Harding and Pagan [Harding, D., Pagan, A.P., 2006. Synchronization of cycles. Journal of Econometrics 132 (1), 59–79] test for strong multivariate nonsynchronization (SMNS) between business cycles to a test that allows for an imperfect degree of multivariate synchronization between stock market cycles. Moreover, we propose a test for endogenously determining structural change in the bivariate and multivariate synchronization indices. Upon applying the technique to five Asian stock markets we find a significant increase in the cross country comovements of Asian bullish and bearish periods in 1997. A power study of the stability test suggests that the detected increase in comovement is more of a sudden nature (i.e. contagion or “Asian Flu”) instead of gradual (i.e. financial integration). It is furthermore argued that stock market cycles and their propensity toward (increased) synchronization contain useful information for both investors, policy makers and financial regulators.     

Monetary and exchange rate stability in South and East Asia

Regaining exchange rate stability has been a major monetary policy goal of East Asian countries in the aftermath of the 1997/98 currency crisis. While most countries have abstained from re-establishing a formal US Dollar peg, they have typically managed the US Dollar exchange rate de facto. We show that most of these countries were able to regain their monetary credibility within a relatively short time period. The Argentine crisis in 2001 caused a minor setback in this process for some countries. We measure the credibility of monetary policy by separating the fundamental and excess volatility of the exchange rate on the basis of a chartist-fundamentalist model. The degree of excess volatility is interpreted as the ability of the central bank to manage the exchange rate via the coordination channel.     

Capital structure theory: Reconsidered

In the mainstream of the academic field of finance, the Modigliani and Miller's (1958) proof of capital structure irrelevance theory, has been praised as the cornerstone of modern scientific finance. However, the capital structure irrelevance theory is based on a set of assumptions, which are both unrealistic and contradictory to the main assumption of the mainstream academic finance. This paper shows that by making more appropriate assumptions, capital structure becomes relevant. The paper, on a foundational ground, argues that since the results of sophisticated mathematical models change as soon as their underlying assumptions are changed, the claim about the scientific nature of the mainstream academic finance becomes questionable.