The Choice of Structural Model in Trade–Wages Decompositions

This paper uses a calibrated general equilibrium model to decompose observed wage changes from trade and technology shocks into portions attributable to each source. It highlights some difficulties with the numerical performance of widely used theoretical trade structures. For small economies, the Heckscher–Ohlin model reveals specialization problems unless the price changes accompanying trade shocks are small. It can also yield strikingly different decompositions of the same wage change. A differentiated-goods model removes specialization problems and accommodates large price changes, but introduces demand-side responses greatly reducing the effect of trade on wages, and performs implausibly with sector-biased technical change.     

Effect of Secondary School Fees on Educational Attainment*

In this study, the heterogeneity of the fee abolition process in West German secondary schools is used to identify the effect of school fees on educational attainment and to obtain an estimate of the price elasticity of upper secondary education. The analysis is based on representative individual‐level data from three annual surveys of the German Mikrozensus. While coefficients cannot be estimated precisely, the results suggest that, on average, upper secondary school attainment increased by at least 8 percent in response to the fee abolition. The educational attainment of females appears to be more price sensitive than that of males.     

The January effect in the foreign exchange market: Evidence for seasonal equity carry trades

In this study, we investigate monthly seasonality in the foreign exchange market. Given the well-known recurrent higher returns in some month than in others in stock markets around the world, we consider it likely that a seasonal outperformance of a country’s stock market over another is associated with similar seasonal patterns in capital flows and exchange rates. A seasonal profit (carry trade) opportunity can be created by the simultaneous appreciation of a country’s currency and the outperformance of its stock market. By focusing on the world’s key currency pairs, the US dollar-Deutsche mark and the US dollar-euro, and by using a Markov-switching framework, we document persistent January and December effects in the foreign exchange market from 1971 to 2017. Analysis of the German-US stock returns differential and their bilateral capital flows reveal similar month effects in 65% of the whole sample.     

Institutional investors and opportunistic seasoned equity offerings in the Korean stock market

This study examines the impact of institutional monitoring on opportunistic seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) in the Korean stock market. With a firm’s accrual quality as a measurement for the degree of information asymmetry between managers and investors, we hypothesize that the managers of firms with poor accrual quality are likely to engage in opportunistic SEOs, but such opportunistic activity is weak in firms strongly monitored by institutional investors. The empirical findings indicate that opportunistic SEOs tend to be deterred by institutional monitoring.     

Forecasting volatility in the Indian equity market using return and range-based models

In this article, we assess the time-varying volatility of the National Stock Exchange in the Indian equity market using unconditional estimators and asymmetric conditional econometric models. The volatility estimate and forecast is computed from the interday return and intraday range-based data of the exchange’s flagship index, CNX NIFTY, for the time period spanning 1 January 2009 through 31 December 2013. These are our findings: First, we determine that the time-varying volatility of the index is asymmetric with qualities of stationarity and leptokurtic distribution. Second, the one-step-ahead volatility forecast derived from the univariate time series parameters through the GJR-GARCH ?????process indicates that the model evaluation criteria of the autoregressive process tends towards range-based models vis-à-vis a return-based model. The validity of this methodology is further analysed with the superior predictive ability test, the outcome of which supports the use of range-based conditional models. Finally, among the evaluated range-based model variants, the model confidence set procedure favours the Yang–Zhang estimator as being better suited to forecast the exchange’s volatility than the ones by Parkinson, Garman–Klass and Rogers–Satchell.     

CAPM anomalies and the pricing of equity: evidence from the Hong Kong market

Using a sample of equity stocks traded on the Hong Kong stock market, this study examines empirically the independent and joint roles of the more commonly hypothesized variables in explaining cross-sectional variation in average returns over the period from January 1980 to December 1994. Evidence indicates that beta, book leverage, earnings-price ratio and dividend yield are not priced, whereas significant book-to-market equity, market leverage (absorbed by book-to-market equity), size, and share price effects are observed. The findings should prove valuable in portfolio management and corporate financial decisions.     

农村中学生态校园建设刍见

本文在对皖北部分农村中学调查分析的基础上，提出建设农村中学生态校园的必要性。并就其指导思想、主要内容等进行了论述。笔者认为，农村中学生态校园建设是改革农村教育、培养技能人才、促进科技兴衣和农业现代化建设的重要途径。     

国债筹资对民间投资和消费的经济效应实证分析

近几年,我国政府增发大量的国债,这为政府投资筹措了大量的建设资金,那么发行国债是否会降低民间部门的投资需求和消费需求?本文根据已研究的李嘉图等价定理在我国现阶段不成立的结论,从国债作为民间部门可支配收入角度出发,分析改革开放以来国债对民间部门总需求的影响,得出国债存量和流量会在较小程度上有利于增加民间部门消费,但是国债流量对民间部门投资存在抑制效应的结论。     

关于以薪养廉有效性的探讨:基于中国的经验

腐败的原因和治理对策是学界和实践部门共同关注的议题。许多人认为,公务员报酬过低是腐败产生的重要原因之一。在新加坡和香港地区高薪养廉的启发下,许多国家包括中国在不同程度上尝试通过以薪养廉来提升政府治理的质量。公务员收入过低无法保证正常的家庭生活开支。过低的薪酬有可能损害公务员保持个人诚信的努力,引致腐败行为。公务员薪酬的提高,甚至高于社会的平均工资水平,在此背景下"以薪"是否可以"养廉"?这是重要的理论和实践问题。基于实证数据,文章认为,公务员薪酬和廉政建设有着复杂的关系,对它们的相关性存在着一些认识上的误区。过去十余年间,我国公务员薪酬水平上升较快,腐败的程度也有所加深。     

银行业综合化经营研究

首先通过回顾国内外银行综合化经营的主要文献,然后构建了银行综合化经营的理论研究框架,并进一步对美国银行业综合化经营与总收益的关系做了OLS回归、协整、脉冲响应以及方差分解分析。研究发现:综合化指标、传统业务收益增幅、银行规模、资本结构均与总收益之间存在正相关关系,且存在长期均衡的关系;脉冲响应分析结果表明:在第1-9期、第18-24期,美国银行业综合化指标对银行业总收益的冲击为正,第10-17期,对银行业总收益的冲击为负;综合化指标对美国银行业总收益的贡献率最大,其次是银行规模,然后是传统业务收益增幅,资本结构的贡献率最小。     

对我国服务业FDI影响因素的实证分析

在经济服务化的背景下,服务业已逐步取代制造业,成为世界外国直接投资结构中的主流.创造吸引国际服务业FDI的有利环境,从而实现对服务业国际产业转移的顺利承接对于促进我国服务业的进一步增长、结构优化升级具有着重要作用.针对我国服务业FDI主要的影响因素进行了实证分析,并给出了相应的政策性启示.     

Global predictive power of the upside and downside variances of the U.S. equity market

Given the pace of increasing globalization and the pioneering role of the U.S. economy, we anlayze the global impact of the U.S. equity market’s uncertainty. The asymmetric impact of upside (downside) uncertainty, related with the upward (downward) movements of the underlying assets, has raised substantial concerns recently. We comprehensively analyze the global predictability of the upside and downside variances of the U.S. equity market, implied by S&P-500 calls and puts, respectively. We contribute to the literature on the asymmetric impacts of the upside and downside variances of the U.S. equity market in an international setting. Our study also complements the study on predicting international stock returns. Moreover, substantial economic value can be generated from the perspective of asset allocation. The main channel for the positive (negative) predictability of upside (downside) variance stems from its positive (negative) impacts on international investment, highlighting the leading role of the U.S. economy.     

The power of market mood — Evidence from an emerging market

This article focuses on investor behavior and, consequently, the mood in the market. By using a self-organizing network we develop a model which tries to capture the market mood and serves as an indicator of the reasonableness of selling or purchasing securities. In this sense, the final result of this model is the same as in the model-type prediction of future stock prices, with the only exception being that one is not required to know the concrete future values of the selected security. This will indirectly support the hypothesis that psychological factors are an important (if not key) market driving force.     

The Impact of Economic Education Courses on the Knowledge and Retention of Knowledge of Secondary and Primary School Teachers

Controlling for other variables, the authors of this study isolate the effect of in-service teacher-training programs on economic knowledge. The effect of lapsed time on retention is also estimated.     

The Impact of Sector-Specific and Economy-Wide Policy Reforms on the Agricultural Sector in Brazil: 1980–98

This article analyzes the impact of policy reforms and changing macroeconomic conditions on the Brazilian agricultural sector. It stresses four issues: events outside of agriculture were central to the performance of the sector and to the timing and sequence of policy reform; reform involved far more than trade liberalization; the impact of reform on input markets and productivity was key for understanding the period; and policy reform had a highly differentiated impact on the sector. As a result of the reforms, agriculture became the most dynamic sector of the Brazilian economy in the 1990s. Policies still in need of reform are identified. (JEL O13 , Q18 )     

The Evolution of Technical Efficiency in the Northern Ireland Manufacturing Sector, 1973–1985

This paper uses a stochastic frontier production function approach to measure technical efficiency in firms in Northern Ireland. Firm level census of production panel data were used to examine how efficiency in firms changed over the period 1973–1985. Once estimates of efficiency were made, the causes of inefficiency based on characteristics of firms were examined. The results indicate that efficiency in Northern Ireland has improved significantly over-time. The largest increases in efficiency were in indigenously owned firms. The results suggest that many Northern Ireland owned firms were 'catching-up' in terms of efficiency with foreign owned firms over the period.     

Effect of Macro Factor Volatility on the Returns of Financial Sector in Southeast Asian Stock Markets

The emphasis of this study is on the practice of the Pooled Mean Group （PMG） estimators to investigate the magnitude of macroeconomic performances： Real Gross Domestic Product （RGDP）, Foreign Exchange Rate （EX）, and Deposit Interest Rate （DINT） affecting on the rate of financial sector returns in Southeast Asian Stock Markets including Stock Exchange Of Thailand （SET） index （Thailand）, the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index （KLSE） index （Malaysia）, Financial Times Share Index （FTSI） （Singapore）, Philippine Stock Exchange （PSE）, and the Jakarta Composite Index （JKSE） （Indonesia）. The Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag （Panel ARDL） is applied to model the relations. The study applies the Levin, Lin, and Chu （LLC） test （2002） and Im, Pesaran, and Shin （IPS） test （2003） to investigates a set of time series data to examine whether the determinants and the rate of financial sector returns contain a unit root, the next step is investigated the cointegration and causality relationship of the determinants of financial sector influencing on long-run rate of returns of financial sector in Southeast Asian Stock Markets.