The Empirical Average Cost of Capital: A New Approach to Estimating the Cost of Corporate Funds

The authors develop a new way to measure the cost of capital, called the empirical average cost of capital (or “EACC”), which is consistent with existing methods of calculating the weighted average cost of capital, but uses information from the firm's financial statements and requires fewer and less subjective inputs. The authors’ model relies on the concept of economic profit while using data from the period 1990‐2012 on net operating profits and total capital to estimate the EACC at both the individual company and industry‐wide levels. Estimates of the EACC and rolling quarterly forecasts of future net operating profits for a single company, McDonald's, for its related industry, and for 57 other U.S. industries are compared to five conventional “textbook” estimates of the weighted average cost of capital published by Ibbotson Associates. The authors find that the EACC yields forecasts of future net operating profit after taxes that compare favorably to those of the five published measures of the weighted average cost of capital, as well as the average and median of these measures.     

开放式基金的投资成本分析

美国开放式基金业的发展历史表明，要想有效、较快地降低投资成本，没有有效的竞争是不行的。一万家基金并存和只有两家基金存在对成本降低的压力明显不同，所以，开放式基金必须适当放开市场准入限制。     

Econometric models of the Eleventh District Cost of Funds Index

The Eleventh District Cost of Funds Index (COFI) is a popular index for pricing adjustable-rate mortgages. COFI is calculated from the interest expenses incurred by thrifts when raising funds. It is a mixture of current and past interest rates on many different financial instruments. COFI can be modelled well with simple econometric models. Commonly used, simple COFI models are compared using a method developed by Hendry (1989). Some of these models, which appear to fit the data well, have nonrobust parameters, significant serial correlation, and heteroscedastic errors. These poorly specified models may lead to systematic mispricing of COFI mortgages. Once a robust econometric model is chose, the lagged adjustment of COFI to movements in interest rates can be incorporated into mortgage pricing models.     

Subsidization of S&Ls under the flat-rate deposit insurance system: Some empirical estimates

This study provides some estimates of the magnitude of the subsidies extracted by S&L holding companies under the present flat-rate deposit insurance system. The results suggest that the flat-rate deposit insurance system induces substantially uneven and inequitable distribution of subsidies among thrift institutions. The analysis of the thrift institutions' asset volatilities over the 1966–1988 period does not support the claim that deregulation of the industry has led to a systematic increase in risk-taking in the industry. On the other hand, we find that a large fraction of the asset volatilities are attributable to firm-specific investment policies and that the risk of the institutions' assets change considerably over time. Taken as a whole, the results suggest that switching to a risk-based deposit insurance system would be economically more efficient than the present scheme. We provide some recommendations for policy changes that can increase the efficacy of risk-based insurance by increasing the level of monitoring by depositors and the financial markets.     

资金互助社——农村金融的一条有效途径

我国目前农村金融已基本建立起商业银行、合作银行、政策金融并存的格局,在县域经济中并不缺乏各种类型的金融机构,但是缺乏真正为一般农户和农业生产服务的金融机构。在现阶段,大力发展农村资金互助合作组织可能是解决一般农户资金需求的有效途径,符合以农户、中小企业为中心,结合农村组织化、产业化、城镇化所产生的金融需求,创造性地设计金融供给制度。我们应着力营造资金互助合作组织发展空间,提升其在农村金融中的地位。     

The relative efficiency of stock versus mutual S&Ls: A stochastic cost frontier approach

From an agency theory perspective, recent conversion activity of savings and loan associations (S&Ls) from mutual to stock organizations should improve the overall performance of the thrift industry. We employ a two-step approach to examine this issue using a sample of 559 S&Ls in the Atlanta Federal Home Loan Bank District in 1988. In the first step, we estimate inefficiency scores for individual S&Ls using a stochastic cost frontier methodology. In a second step Tobit model we use these inefficiency scores to examine the relationship between firm inefficiency and organizational form. We find three important results: (1) that the mutual and stock S&Ls in our sample have similar cost structures, allowing the pooling of S&L data; (2) that S&Ls have a wide range of inefficiency scores, with a mean score of 16 percent indicating that the average S&L could produce its output with only 84 percent of the inputs actually used; and (3) that operating inefficiency was not significantly related to form of ownership.     

嵌入性视角下中小企业贷款可获得性与融资成本

本文利用已有理论和探索式案例分析,建立了网络嵌入性如何影响中小企业贷款可获得性及融资成本的理论框架。利用浙江省中小企业贷款调查问卷数据,研究了关系嵌入性和结构嵌入性对中小企业贷款可获得性及资金成本的影响。研究结论表明,从关系维度看,一个企业与银行的商业交易嵌入于社会关系的程度越深,获得贷款的成本越低,银企关系持续时间对贷款可获得性没有显著影响。从结构维度看,企业拥有的银行网络在既有市场关系和又有嵌入性关系时,获得贷款的成本越低。本文深入银行内部分析了贷款控制变量并从结构嵌入性维度分析融资问题,具有一定的探索性和创新性。     

The Cost Channel Reconsidered: A Comment Using an Identification‐Robust Approach

We reexamine the empirical relevance of the cost channel of monetary policy (e.g., Ravenna and Walsh 2006 ), employing recently developed moment‐conditions inference methods, including identification‐robust procedures. Using U.S. data, our results suggest that the cost channel effect is poorly identified and we are thus unable to corroborate the previous results in the literature.     

Closed-End Funds: A Survey

This survey reviews the evolving literature on closed-end fund discounts. Many studies have attempted to explain the existence and the behavior of the discount to net asset value, emphasizing biases in the calculation of NAV, agency costs, tax-timing options and market segmentation. None has been able to provide a full explanation. As a result, some researchers have found it necessary to resort to models of limited rationality. This gives rise to potential opportunities for exploiting the discount. We summarize the findings from over 70 studies of closed-end funds, and present directions for future research.     

Funds Statements and the Two-Entity Test: A Reply

Partington et al. (1986) reject the criticism of the two-entity test (Robb, 1985) on the general grounds that the article constained quotations out of contest, misquotations, incorrect assertions and incorrect referencing. It is accepted that there was one case of incorrect referencing but the other objections are rejcted. The conclusion is still drawn that the two-entity test is impractical and depends for its operationality on clear definition of basic accounting terms.     

Funds Statements and the Two-Entity Test: A Reponse

Robb (1985) criticizes the two-entity test proposed by McKinnon et al. (1983) as confusing and contradictory. This reply demonstrates that his criticisms also are confusing and contradictory.     

An Investigation into Alternative Representations of the Marginal Cost of Public Funds

The literature on the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) and the marginal excess burden is presently a very rich one. A problem with this literature, is that several different measures are interpreted as MCF. This paper derives and compares some commonly used measures, and introduces an alternative. Performing a cross-comparison of the various measures seems to be a useful exercise in order to be able to distinguish between which measure is telling us what. Such a taxonomy might clarify the sense in which the different concepts should be used in future writings on this field.     

On the Consequences of the Discontinuation of the Eleventh District Cost of Funds Index

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco announced its intention to discontinue the three Eleventh District Weighted Average Cost of Funds...