The actual evaluation of school PFI bids for value for money in the UK public sector

Much of the literature on value for money (VFM) evaluation of private finance initiative (PFI) contracts has concentrated on the financial methodology of constructing the public sector comparator (PSC) and its limitations. In contrast, this paper focuses on examining how ‘PFI bids’ are actually evaluated for VFM in the case of three secondary school PFI contracts. It is a unique study which presents the Northern Ireland school PFI decision-making processes, within the broader UK context. It is based on the full business cases of three PFI schools and interviews with key actors involved in the PFI processes. This study shows that the methodology used to evaluate and benchmark the design, facilities management, financial and contractual aspects of PFI bids for VFM is subjective and problematic-changes in the assumptions used may easily shift the balance in favour of conventional procurement and/or competing private sector service providers. It further highlights the importance of risk transfer; how non-financial factors are taken into consideration; and the public sector's reliance on consulting firms and ‘accounting measures’ in the PFI decision-making processes.     

江苏省民间资本进入金融领域的现状及风险研究

国务院出台了＂新老36条＂,鼓励和规范民间资本进入金融业等投资领域,这不仅有利于民间资本投资渠道多元化,有利于缓解弱势群体融资难题也有利于金融改革与创新,促进金融业的繁荣发展。然而,随着民间资本进入金融领域,金融业竞争将异常激烈,如何应对民间资本进入金融领域后出现的风险以及采取相应的防范措施,对于规范民间资本投资,提高民间资本的投资效率乃至促进整个国民经济的健康发展都具有重要意义。论文着重对江苏民间资本进行分析,拟从江苏省民间资本进入金融领域现状分析,分析江苏民间资本进入金融服务领域的风险因素,并提出江苏民间资本进入金融领域的风险对策。     

私人银行业务的国际趋势与我国的现状和发展对策

近几年,国际私人银行在发展过程中出现了新的趋势,这些新的趋势对于国内刚刚起步的私人银行业务来说是一个很好的借鉴和启示。国内私人银行的发展要尽快与国际接轨,同时也要保持本土化的优势,缩小国内私人银行与国外私人银行的差距。     

The sources of shareholder wealth gains from going private transactions: The role of controlling shareholders

The present study investigates the sources of shareholder wealth gains – as measured by cumulative abnormal returns and premiums – from going private transactions (GPTs). Using data for 314 GPTs from 18 Western European countries, we find that the announcements of GPTs generate a cumulative average abnormal return of about 22% and that pre-transaction shareholders on average receive a raw premium of about 36%. We further find that these shareholder wealth gains increase with the degree of separation of cash-flow and control rights of the pre-transaction ultimate owner and decrease with its ownership interests and with the presence of a second large shareholder. Taken together, these findings support the view that GPTs are expected to mitigate the inefficiencies induced by pre-transaction agency problems between controlling and minority shareholders. Thus, shareholder wealth gains from GPTs reflect the potential additional value that will be created under private ownership.     

开放式基金的风险及其风险控制研究

开放式基金是中国基金业发展的主流方向，作为一个金融创新品种，开放式基金必将对中国证券市场的健康发展起到越来越重要的作用。当前，开放式基金发行的“火爆”与其二级市场上的“波澜不惊”形成鲜明的反差，同时也为理论研究提供了一个很好的切入点。与封闭式基金相比，开放式基金有其优点，但也有其风险。本认为、外两方面着重分析了开放式基金的风险，并给出相应的对策建议。     

中国民间借贷风险研究——风险表现、成因剖析与对策建议

2011年,浙江、内蒙古、山东、河南、江苏、广东、福建、宁夏等省发生的几十起民间借贷风险事件带来的巨大社会震荡引起中央政府和金融管理部门的高度关注。本文详细阐述了我国民间借贷的风险表现,深入剖析了造成我国民间借贷风险的原因,并在此基础上提出应对民间借贷风险的对策建议。     

The Private Finance Initiative: risk, uncertainty and the state

This paper analyses the UK's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) at a conceptual level by focusing on the management of risk, which is central to the justification for the policy and its application across the public services, and uncertainty, which underlies the role of the state. The paper argues that the rhetorical support for PFI rests on a conflation of risk and uncertainty and that PFI leads to contractual arrangements that are inappropriate for the provision of public services over the medium term.     

民营银行并购国有银行的动机、成本与风险探析

当前,在世界范围内特别是在发展中国家,掀起了一股民营银行并购国有银行的浪潮。这种并购容易产生现金流风险、信息不对称风险、政策诱导性风险、管理效率风险、并购失败风险。民营银行应通过以下措施和方法将风险消除,从而实现并购成功：结合银行实际,选用适合自身发展的并购方式;努力消除信息不对称;优化决策程序;妥善处理好与政府的关系。     

民营企业信贷风险及防范措施

目前,民营经济在我国经济增长中是不可或缺的因素,民营经济已成为国民经济的重要组成部分,占有重要的地位。据统计,民营企业贷款已占商业银行全部贷款的32%。对于商业银行来说,继续加强对民营企业的信贷营销,促进民营经济发展,是重要的业务之一;同时,由于民营经济本身存在的一些问题,也为商业银行防范和化解民营企业信贷风险带来严峻挑战。本文针对民营经济的信贷风险问题进行研究,并提供一些建设性意见。     

中国金融开放的外源性风险评估与预警研究

本文在构建金融开放的外源性风险指标体系的基础上,提出了评估金融开放外源性风险的＂3δ＂原理和方法,并建立了风险的BP神经网络预警模型。将该原理和预警模型应用到中国和其它25个世界主要发展中国家,结果表明,该原理和预警模型对金融开放的外源性风险的评估与预警具有很强的实用性和可操作性。     

银行跨境风险监管改革的国际趋向及对策建议

近年来,国际上针对银行跨境风险兴起了重构跨境监管框架的热潮,成为后危机时代银行监管体系改革的重要组成部分。本文分析了跨境监管的模式与困难,以及近期国际上跨境监管的趋势及局限,在此基础上,探讨实现有效跨境风险监管合作的具体途径,并结合我国实际,提出了若干改进和完善我国跨境银行监管的对策建议。     

Accounting and non-accounting based information in the market for debt: Evidence from Australian private debt contracts

This paper examines accounting and non-accounting based restrictive covenants in Australian private debt agreements. With respect to the former, our findings differ from previous research on public debt. We find more varied definitions of constraints and their specified tightness in private debt contracts than in public debt contracts. Further, limits on interest cover are found to be continuing constraints and not 'once-off' limits. The paper reports frequent use of more specific or 'tailored' accounting based constraints and the frequent inclusion of off-balance sheet numbers in the measurement rules specified.
The paper also provides the first Australian evidence on the use of non-accounting based constraints. These are pervasive and cover a wide range of corporate activity. While largely consistent with previous research the paper also reports evidence of restrictions previously argued to be sub-optimal and hence, unlikely to be observed. Specifically, there are frequent restrictions on firms' production and investment policies.     

Performance differentiation: cutting losses and maximizing profits of private equity and venture capital investments

Recent research has pointed out the need to differentiate between good versus poor performance of venture capital and private equity investments and to analyze the factors that determine the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of a fund. This study examines the different contractual and behavioral characteristics and their influence on the positive and negative performances of private equity investments. Specifically, we analyze how fund managers apply tools and investment behavior to mitigate risks and maximize returns. The empirical investigation of these questions is based on a merged dataset, which combines the Venture Economics and CEPRES databases. It includes a total of 1,011 investments made by 137 different funds that belong to 54 private equity and venture capital firms worldwide over the period from 1979 to 2003. Our results confirm that the reduction of losses and the maximization of investment profits have different antecedents. Although losses are minimized by the use of convertibles and by increasing the venture capital firms’ accumulated experience, profits are increased by the potential of the fund’s management to allocate resources to portfolio companies. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the determinants of venture capital and private equity returns by differentiating between the mitigation of risks and the maximization of profits.      

金融危机背景下商业银行开展物流金融业务的风险及防范

由次贷危机导致的金融风暴已向实体经济渗透,也给中国实体经济造成一定影响,并直接影响到物流金融业务,使物流金融业务的主角-商业银行面临新的风险.因此,商业银行要进一步创新物流金融业务的经营模式,分析商业银行所面临的新形势,并构建相应的风险规避和防范措施.     

我国民间借贷法律风险及防范路径研究

民间借贷在补充正规金融、推动经济发展方面起到了积极作用,但也存在一些负面影响。由于相关法律之间缺乏协调性和统一性,部分制度缺位,民间借贷面临着公法和私法两个层面的法律风险。规范发展民间借贷,应当建立完善我国民间借贷法律体系,加强引导管理,防范和化解法律风险,坚持引导监测和自律建设并重。     

商业银行公司贷款中的隐含V形期权与潜在的中国信贷风险

本文提出一种V形期权模型,并以此来刻画中国商业银行公司贷款业务中隐含的借款人套利风险.借助于该模型,本文分析了宏观环境变化威胁商业银行公司贷款质量的一种路径,探讨了商业银行现有风险量化手段的不足.结合当前的世界经济状况和中国信贷环境中的问题,本文认为中国存在由此引发金融风险的可能,并提出了规避或减轻此类风险的建议.     

Searching for evidence of long-run PPP from a post-Bretton Woods panel: separating the wheat from the chaff

This paper reexamines the issue of long-run PPP using multiple panel tests in the framework of confirmatory analysis. Application of six panel tests under competing null hypotheses to the real exchange rates of 21 industrial countries yields seemingly contradictory evidence on the parity during the post-Bretton Woods period. Regardless of numeraire currency, four I(1) panel tests unanimously reject the null hypothesis in favor of long-run PPP, whereas two I(0) panel tests lend little support to the parity at conventional significance levels. Confirmatory analysis suggests that this puzzling result can be explained either by nonlinear dynamics of the real exchange rates or by a mixture of I(0) and I(1) series in the panel. Monte Carlo experiments indicate that potential mix of I(0) and I(1) series is more relevant to the empirical finding. The use of a sequential classification method sorts out six real exchange rates which exhibit most persistent deviations from long-run equilibrium. Systematic behavior of these series can be characterized better by country specific factors than by observable macroeconomic variables.     

Heterogeneity of agents and exchange rate dynamics: Evidence from the EMS

We develop and estimate a dynamic heterogeneous agent model for the EMS period. Our empirical results suggest that the existence of heterogeneous interacting agents is indeed a possible explanation for the dynamics of exchange rates during the EMS. We find strong evidence of heterogeneous boundedly rational beliefs, and the fact that agents switch between these beliefs. Moreover, we show that the dynamic heterogeneous agent model outperforms the random walk and the static heterogeneous agents’ model in out-of-sample forecasting in the large majority of country-horizon combinations.     

Investment appraisal practices: A comparative study of conventional and Islamic financial institutions

This paper compares the use of capital budgeting techniques of conventional and Islamic financial institutions, using data obtained from a survey of 105 conventional and Islamic financial institutions. Our main aim is to analyze the use of capital budgeting and risk techniques by the two types of financial institutions from a comparative perspective to see whether prohibition of riba makes a difference. Standard difference-of-means tests of the mean scores methods were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The results reveal a number of important conclusions. First, discounted cash flow techniques are found to be more widely used by financial institutions, and among those techniques internal rate of return is the most common. Second, Islamic financial institutions are found to adopt traditional methods that do not comply with the principles of Islamic Sharia'a. Third, a huge gap is found between the theory base of Islamic institutions and some of the practices of those institutions. Fourth, firms' characteristics, such as size, listing status, sources of revenue and government ownership, have some impact on their decisions to adopt capital budgeting criteria, methods of estimating costs of capital and risk. Finally, the decisions to select particular capital budgeting techniques, cost of capital estimation methods, and risk assessments are partly related to the characteristics of the chief financial officers.