A fire sale without fire: An explanation of labor-intensive FDI in China

China's labor-intensive industries are characterized by low technology and high competition. The massive inflow of FDI in China's labor intensive industries is inconsistent with the conventional wisdom that FDI should be more prevalent in technology-intensive and low competition industries. To explain this puzzle, we offer a “fire sale” hypothesis: facing severe financial constraints, Chinese private firms give up their equity to form joint ventures with foreign firms in order to obtain financing. Using the garment industry as an example, we find that among domestic firms, the financial constraint index is highest for private firms and lowest for state-owned firms. We further estimate a probit model of joint-venture decisions by private firms. Our results suggest that those private firms with greater financial constraints are more likely to seek foreign joint ownership. The effect of financial constraints on joint venture decision is both statistically and economically significant.     

政策调整、盈余管理与公司价值——来自房地产上市公司的经验证据

2004年以来,我国房地产市场呈现上升趋势,为了抑制房价,保障普通居民的住房需求,政府出台了一系列控制房价的政策。研究了政府在2005年公布的《关于切实稳定住房价格的通知》以及其后两年间的政策调整对房地产企业公司价值和会计行为的影响。运用2001～2006年的混合数据研究发现:房地产企业的公司价值在政策出台期间受到显著的负面影响;同时,房地产企业出于自身利益的考虑,通过降低应计项目的手法,进行盈余管理,降低报告利润,从而达到降低政治成本的目的。     

城镇化和制造业结构升级互动关系研究*——基于挤入挤出效应的考察

城镇化与制造业结构升级存在产业关联和资源配置竞争。协调推进城镇化和制造业结构升级,迫切需要识别两者的互动关系。不同于以往的研究思路,本文在对房地产投资、高技术产业投资进行挤入挤出理论分析的基础上,提出了城镇化与制造业产业结构的互动概念框架。基于此,本文采用联立方程实证策略,利用我国2002—2012年面板数据,运用3SLS方法展开分析。研究发现：土地偏向的城镇化进程中,房地产投资对高技术产业投资产生明显挤出效应,对传统产业产生了微弱挤入效应,城镇化对制造业升级有抑制作用;东部地区与全国整体情况一致,而中西部地区的房地产投资对传统产业投资也产生了挤出效应;以高技术投资表征的制造业结构升级微弱地促进了城镇化进程。     

When do better schools raise housing prices? Evidence from Paris public and private schools

In this paper, we investigate how housing prices react to the quality of education offered by neighboring public and private schools. The organization of secondary schooling in the city of Paris, which combines residence-based assignment to public schools with a well-developed and almost entirely publicly funded private school system, offers a valuable empirical context for analyzing how private schools affect the capitalization of public school performance in housing prices. Using comprehensive data on both schools and real estate transactions over the period 1997–2004, we develop a matching framework to carefully compare sales across school attendance boundaries. We find that a standard deviation increase in public school performance raises housing prices by 1.4 to 2.4%. Moreover, we show that the capitalization of public school performance in the price of real estate shrinks as the availability of private schools increases in the neighborhood. Our results confirm the predictions of general equilibrium models of school choice that private schools, by providing an advantageous outside option to parents, tend to mitigate the impact of public school performance on housing prices.     

Oil crisis,energy-saving technological change and the stock market crash of 1973–74

The market value of U.S. corporations was nearly halved during the oil crisis of 1973–74. In this paper, we investigate the hypothesis that the sharp rise in energy costs during this period resulted in the obsolescence of firms' existing capital and reduced their market value. To quantify this obsolescence channel of the energy crisis, we simulate a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium model, where firms adopt energy-saving technologies along with the rise in energy prices, and the value of their installed capital falls due to investment irreversibility. We find that this channel can account for a third of the decline in Tobin's q observed in the data. Separately, we consider the role of investment subsidies extended by the government during this period to expedite the adoption of energy-saving technologies. This extension of the model can account for more than half of the decline in q. We also find empirical support for the capital obsolescence channel in cross-sectional regressions, where we show that the sectoral variation in the decline of energy use following the crisis is significant in explaining the sectoral variation in the drop of market values.     

房地产属性、收入差距与房价变动趋势

以往关于收入差距与房价之间关系的研究,较少兼顾房地产的消费与投资双重属性。文章基于双重属性的角度,首先从理论上阐述了收入差距与房价之间的动态关系。在经济发展水平较低的情况下,房地产的消费属性凸显,收入差距扩大会抑制房价上涨;随着经济的进一步发展,房地产单一属性不明显,收入差距变化对房价不存在显著影响;当经济发展水平较高时,房地产投资属性占优,收入差距扩大会促进房价上涨。进一步对理论结果进行实证研究发现,整体上我国收入差距与房价之间无显著相关关系,单一属性不明显;但就省际差异而言,在经济发展水平较高的省份,收入差距促进了房价上涨,而在经济发展水平较低的省份,收入差距则抑制了房价上涨。随着时间的变化,收入差距由抑制房价上涨转变为促进房价上涨。     

The effect of inflation uncertainty on ‘crowding out’

It is widely recognized that expansionary fiscal policy can crowd out private investment. The degree of crowding out depends in part on the degree of substitutability between public and private securities. In this paper, we look at how inflation uncertainty affects this substitutability and the degree of crowding out. Depending on the covariance of the return of private securities with the rate of inflation, the degree of substitutability, and thus the level of crowding out, will diminish as inflation uncertainty increases. Indeed, an increase in government debt may actually decrease the real return required on private securities, leading to “negative” crowding out.     

Asymmetric dynamics in REIT prices: Further evidence based on quantile regression analysis

This study examines whether mean reversion in REIT prices presents an asymmetric behavior across various quantiles. Distinguished from previous literature that applied the traditional linear unit-root test, a state-of-the-art quantile unit-root test is employed to identify financial asset predictability in five real estate investment trust (REIT) classifications. Our empirical results reveal a distinct pattern that mean reversion is found for those relatively high REIT prices, while random walk properties only exist for those relatively low REIT prices. More specifically, the higher the price is, the faster the speed of mean reversion of REIT toward its long-run equilibrium will be.     

国有参股股东能够促进企业创新吗

在中国鼓励发展非公有资本控股的混合所有制企业背景下,以2008-2017年民营上市公司为样本,手工搜集前十大股东性质和持股比例数据,研究国有参股股东对企业创新的影响。实证发现,国有参股股东能够促进民营企业创新,并且国有参股股东与民企高管政治关联对企业创新的影响具有一定的替代效应。机制检验证实,缓解企业融资约束、提升企业创新意愿是两条主要的渠道机制。研究结果表明,民资、国资混合参股的股权结构能够取长补短、相互促进、共同发展,有助于澄清“国进民退”的争议,对进一步深化混合所有制改革具有重要政策意义。     

IMPLEMENTATION CYCLES,INVESTMENT, AND GROWTH*

We develop a model of “intrinsic” cycles, driven by the decentralized behavior of entrepreneurs and firms making continuous, divisible improvements in their productivity. We show that when the introduction of productivity improvements is endogenous, implementation cycles arise even in the presence of reversible investment and consumption smoothing. The implied cyclical equilibrium is unique within its class and shares several features in common with actual business cycles. In particular, its predictions are qualitatively consistent with the joint behavior of the investment rate and Tobin's Q during U.S. recessions.     

INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR,CORPORATE CONTROL,AND PRIVATE BENEFITS OF CONTROL: EVIDENCE FROM A SURVEY OF UKRAINIAN FIRMS

We analyse the impact of ownership and corporate control on firms’ investment using the 2001 survey of Yacoub et al. on Ukrainian firms. The model explains investment by output, financial and soft budget constraints, and corporate control (and ownership) categories potentially enjoying private benefits of control. We find that the corporate control model fits better than the ownership model, a negative relationship between state and employee control and firms’ investment, and evidence for the presence of soft budget constraints. A negative relationship between firms’ investment and the relative size of non‐monetary transactions strengthens the conclusion of private benefits of control impacting investment.     

Does “hot money” drive China's real estate and stock markets?

The paper investigates the extent of the impact from “hot money” or speculative capital inflow on the fluctuations of China's real estate market and stock market. The results indicate that hot money has driven up property prices as well as contributed to the accelerating volatilities in both markets due to its enormous size and its short-term characteristic of investing. In particular, we find that hot money ranks as the second largest contributor in the fluctuations of China's real estate prices. In the “risky” regime, which corresponds to more inflows and higher volatility of hot money, the effects are even more prominent.     

房地产价格与房地产投资来源结构

近几年来,大量外资以及民间资本纷纷进入我国房地产业,而与此同时我国部分地区房地产价格出现了不合理上涨,为了探讨房地产投资来源结构与房地产价格之间的关系,本文运用1999年房地产投资以及销售的数据建立了二者之间的模型,回归结果表明:外资以及民间资本对我国这轮房地产价格的上涨起着重要的推进作用;国内贷款对房地产价格的上涨影响不大;债券投资对房地产的价格会产生抑制作用.     

中国非金融企业金融化对企业创新的影响

分析非金融企业金融化影响企业创新的作用机制，利用2009-2017年我国上市公司数据对各种机制作用效果进行实证检验。结果发现：金融负债渠道对于企业创新具有显著正向作用，且正向作用主要体现在企业创新规模而非比重上；金融资产渠道对于企业创新的影响并不显著，但企业房地产投资显著负向影响企业创新规模；股东价值导向渠道对企业创新未表现出显著作用。进一步区分企业产权性质的研究表明，金融负债渠道对创新的影响主要体现在民营企业，地方国有企业次之，中央国有企业不显著；金融资产和股东价值导向渠道没有表现出产权异质性。因此，可从深化金融供给侧改革、严控实体企业房地产投资行为、推进股票市场改革、探索更为多元和有针对性的创新支持措施4个方面不断提升非金融企业金融化对于企业创新的正面作用。     

Do Chinese executives reward for luck?

This paper examines the sensitivity of executive compensation to luck based on Chinese listed companies. To identify the causal effect, we rely on companies’ market performances driven by exogenous oil prices. We document a positive relationship between executive compensation and market performance driven by oil prices, which support the story of pay for luck. Moreover, by introducing a natural experiment China in 2015, i.e., the policy of “CEO compensation limit” in state-owned firms, we show that the shock of CEO compensation limit significantly weakens the effect of pay-for-luck. We further show that there is asymmetry in pay for luck. Specifically, when oil prices rise, executive compensation is more sensitive to good luck. In addition, the sensitivity of executives to pay-for-luck is more pronounced in firms with state-owned, higher equity concentration, and related party transaction.     

How do housing cycles influence listed firms’ R&D investment: evidence from the collateral channel

ABSTRACT

Firm innovation is essential to long-run economic growth. Financially constrained R&D firms may use firm-owned properties as collateral to finance their R&D projects. Therefore, the housing price cycle can affect firms’ R&D investment through influencing their real estate value. By examining listed R&D firms during the housing boom period 2002–2006 in the U.S., we find that a $1 increase in real estate value leads a firm to increase its R&D investment by $0.38. We also find that this collateral effect is more pronounced among financially constrained R&D firms than that among unconstrained ones. Additionally, we examine the housing bust period 2008–2012, and find that real estate depreciation retarded R&D investment, especially among constrained R&D firms.     

我国银行信贷与房地产价格关系研究

文章对银行信贷与房地产价格之间的互动关系进行了完整的作用机制分析,并使用更细致和精确的数据建立VAR模型进行了实证研究。研究发现,银行信贷扩张与房地产价格上涨具有明显的相互推动和加强的作用。具体而言,房地产开发商贷款和个人购房贷款对房价都具有显著的正向影响,同时对来自房价冲击的响应也都是正向的。并且,在房价持续高速上升时期,房地产贷款规模对房价的影响力明显超过贷款利率。     

An intertemporal general equilibrium analysis of financial crowding out: A policy model and an application to Australia

This paper constructs a two-period, perfect foresight general equilibrium model that analyzes crowding out. Private investment is debt financed, while government deficits are financed by money and debt. The existence of equilibrium is demonstrated and the model is applied to Australia for 1981–1982, the last years for which Australia had a fixed exchange rate. A benchmark solution is derived and two counterfactual simulations are carried out. Small increases in real government spending are found not to lead to crowding out, while an increase in the debt financed portion of the government's budget deficit does lead to crowding out.     

异质性预期、投资者行为与房价波动：上海和广州的双城记?

房地产市场中存在大量的投资者,其市场行为会使房价出现大幅的波动,从而引起市场不稳定。文章在引入投资者异质性预期假设的基础上,构建了包含房地产消费者、投资者、供给者在内的房地产市场均衡模型,分析了房地产市场中基本面型投资者和趋势型投资者的异质性行为对房价变动的影响,并利用上海和广州两个一线城市的实际数据进行了对比分析。研究结果表明：在房地产市场中,两类投资者对于未来房价不同的预期以及投资行为会引起房价的变动;上海投资者的行为整体上会使上海的房价始终处于不断上涨的趋势中,而广州投资者的行为会随着投资策略的转变而使静态下的“整体上推动房价趋势型变化”转变为“整体上将房价‘拉回’基本面价格”;房地产市场中的投资者占比会显著影响房价的变动趋势,当基本面型投资者占比上升时,房价偏离度和房价变动率降低,而当这类投资者占比达到峰值时,房价会出现拐点;投资者之间的策略转换速度也会通过引起基本面型投资者占比的变化,引起房价的频繁波动,而且策略转换速度越快,房价波动越频繁。     

The transmission of financial shocks in an estimated DSGE model with housing and banking

We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with housing and banking to study the transmission of financial shocks between the financial and real sectors. A deterioration in the bank's balance sheet induced by financial shocks could have amplified and persistent impacts on real activities. The amplification of the shocks are originated from financial frictions tied to households and banks. We find that a disruption in bank net worth initiated by capital quality shocks generates a decline in household loans, house prices and output. Bank liquidity shocks also have negative effects on these variables. Housing preference shocks could generate a positive comovement between house prices and output. All these findings are qualitatively consistent with empirical evidence, suggesting that these financial shocks are critical to the dynamics of house prices and other macroeconomic variables.