Housing Tenure and Mortgage Choice

This paper examines the relationship between housing tenure and mortgage contract. We present a model showing that, given expected mobility, borrowers will have incentive to self-select into the appropriate mortgage product such that their fixed-rate period is directly related to their probability of moving. We empirically test this hypothesis using housing tenure data derived from a large national database of repeat mortgage transactions. After controlling for borrower characteristics, the mobility hazards of 3/1, 5/1 and 7/1 ARMs, compared to a 30-year fixed rate, are estimated to be 28%, 14% and 11% higher, respectively     

股权结构、动态内生性与公司代理成本

本文以716家上市公司为样本,在动态内生性的框架下,运用动态面板的系统GMM估计方法,同时考虑了三种内生性,以动态性的视角,不仅研究了当期股权结构对当期代理成本的影响,还研究了股权结构与代理成本间的跨时期相互作用。通过研究,我们发现：（1）不仅当期股权结构对当期代理成本有影响,而且前期股权结构也对当期代理成本有影响,股权结构对代理成本的影响有持续期;（2）前期代理成本对当期股权结构有反馈效应;（3）股权结构与代理成本间存在动态内生性。     

基于动态内生性的董事会结构与公司绩效间的跨时期相互作用

在董事会结构与公司绩效间关系的研究中,动态内生性问题通常被忽略。本文以2002-2011年410家上市公司为样本,在动态内生性的框架下,运用动态面板的System GMM估计方法,研究了董事会结构与公司综合绩效间的关系。结果表明：董事会结构与公司绩效间存在动态内生性问题,当期董事会结构与公司绩效没有显著的相关性,前期的董事会结构与公司绩效间存在显著的正相关关系,且前期公司绩效对当期董事会规模产生了显著的正向的反馈效应,但前期公司绩效并未对当期董事会的独立性产生显著影响。     

Japanese Housing Tenure Choice and Welfare Implications after the Revision of the Tenant Protection Law

A new mode of housing tenure in Japan, rental housing with fixed rental terms, was introduced in March 2000 with the revision of the Japanese Tenant Protection Law. This paper examines the implications of this new system by analyzing the determinants of the choices by households among the three types of housing tenure in Japan: owned housing, general rental housing, and rental housing with fixed rental terms, and calculates the estimated compensating variation. Our micro-data is based on the three waves of Japanese household longitudinal data (Keio Household Panel Survey, KHPS) covering all of Japan. The difference between general rental housing and rental housing with fixed rental terms is reflected in the length of the contract term and the level of rent. We carefully eliminate potential sample selection bias introduced to the conditional logit housing tenure choice model through the estimation of the hedonic price regression of each housing tenure alternative. We find that households with a smaller number of family members, those who moved from outside the local housing market, those headed by an unmarried household head, and those with plans to own a house in the near future tend to select rental housing with fixed rental terms. The estimated mean compensating variation by introducing rental housing with fixed rental terms for all households selecting that tenure is 1,205 JPY per month or 1.96% of their monthly rent. Moreover, younger and/or lower income households derived the greatest benefit from the revised law in the form of lower rents.

Owner-Occupied Housing and the Composition of the Household Portfolio: The Case of France

This paper investigates the impact of housing demand on the composition of the optimal portfolios of homeowners in France, following the methodology developed by Flavin and Yamashita (NBER Working Paper 6389, 2002). We use historical data on housing prices and financial assets returns to estimate the mean return and covariance matrix of a set of assets including housing. We then calculate mean-variance efficient frontiers associated to various levels of the housing-to-net wealth ratio, corresponding to the average ratios observed for different age groups in the 1998 French Wealth Survey sample. Our numerical results fit the average portfolios in different age brackets quite well. Also, returns of housing and its covariance with the other assets indicate there is room in France for housing price derivatives.     

Land Tenure, Investment Incentives, and the Choice of Techniques: Evidence from Nicaragua

The choice of cultivation techniques is a key determinant ofagricultural productivity and has important consequences forincome growth and poverty reduction in developing countries.Household data from Nicaragua are used to show that the choiceof cultivation technique depends on farmers' tenure status evenwhen techniques are observable and contractible. In particular,tree crops are less likely to be grown on rented than on owner-cultivatedplots. Further evidence indicates that the result follows fromlandlords' inability or unwillingness to commit to long-termtenancy contracts rather than from agency costs due to riskaversion or limited liability.     

高新技术产业园区创新活动内生性与效率 ——基于非平衡面板内生随机前沿模型的分析

基于非平衡面板内生随机前沿模型,通过2009-2019年54个高新技术产业园区的非平衡面板数据,分析了高新技术产业园区创新活动的内生性与效率的关系.研究发现:科技经费和从业人员存在内生性,市场结构、科技经费和从业人员对创新效率有显著的正面影响;面板内生随机前沿模型可以显著地区别于外生随机前沿模型的创新效率估计.     

户籍属性、住房拥有与家庭金融资产选择

本文采用2011年中国家庭金融调查数据(CHFS),分析了户籍属性与住房拥有对家庭金融资产选择的影响。研究表明:拥有本地户籍显著提高了家庭拥有住房率,并且对家庭参与风险资产市场的可能性和风险资产比重产生显著正向影响。这一结果在控制了家庭经济条件、人口学特征和投资风险态度等因素后仍然稳健。住房拥有对家庭风险资产市场参与、参与程度产生正效应,但是统计上不显著。进一步探讨户籍地位的城乡差异效应后发现,农业户籍地位会显著降低家庭风险资产的投资倾向。     

The Endogeneity of Trading Volume in Stock and Bond Returns: An Instrumental Variable Approach

This paper investigates the joint determination of trading volume and returns. Our approach follows from the argument that trading activity depends on security returns, thus resulting in a reverse causality from returns to trading activity. Using exogenous instruments for security trading activity, we estimate a system of two‐stage simultaneous equations to better model the return‐volume relationship. Our results confirm that returns and trading volume are determined simultaneously in both stock and corporate bond markets and that conclusions about the direction and significance of causality between volume and returns can be reversed once one corrects for the endogeneity of volume.     

Diversification,corporate governance and firm value in small markets: evidence from New Zealand

We find that diversified firms in New Zealand are associated with a value discount of 19–42 per cent relative to single‐segment (undiversified) firms. Although several competing explanations have been offered in the literature, we find that the strength of corporate governance explains between 15–21 per cent of this discount. Specifically, board size, busyness of directors, CEO ownership and whether or not compensation of directors includes equity‐based components collectively explain a large part of the reported discount. Our results from companies trading in New Zealand complement recent findings in the US by not only confirming the existence of a diversification discount but also emphasizing the role of poor governance in destroying shareholder wealth by pursuing a value‐destroying corporate strategy. All our results hold after controlling for potential endogeneity in the decision to diversify and the choice of corporate governance structure by employing two‐way fixed‐effects and dynamic‐panel generalized method of moments regression techniques.     

Ex-dividend Day Pricing in New Zealand

Controversy continues over the question of tax clientele effects in the pricing of shares that pay dividends. The empirical results remain inconclusive, with variations in testing methods and sample formation the probable causes of much of the variation in outcomes. This study focuses on testing for the presence of a tax clientele effect consistent with prior tests for the same effect using a sample from a particular tax regime period in New Zealand in which companies could pay either or both taxable and non-taxable dividends. The results are generally consistent with the presence of a tax clientele effect in the New Zealand market for the time period, while providing essentially no support for the short term trading hypothesis.
JEL classification: G10; G15     

Consumption-smoothing in a small, cyclically volatile open economy: Evidence from New Zealand

New Zealand's current account of the balance of payments has been persistently in deficit since the early 1970s and increased markedly during the late 1990s. Should this cause significant concern, for such a small, cyclically volatile open economy? Our results show that VAR1 and VAR2 forms of the traditional intertemporal consumption-smoothing model reflect very satisfactorily the volatile directions and turning points observed, that the data are not consistent with consumption-tilting to the present, and that New Zealand has had considerable success to date in consumption-smoothing around its average 5% current account deficit. Perhaps more unexpectedly, a Bergin–Sheffrin-type model of a small open economy with variable interest rates and exchange rates has not performed noticeably better.     

Ownership Duration in the Residential Housing Market: The Influence of Structure,Tenure, Household and Neighborhood Factors

Turnover rates are important as determinants of the level of activity in housing related industries, in effecting housing market adjustments, and in revealing prices in illiquid, highly segmented, informationally inefficient housing markets. This study examines the relative influence of structure features, tenure, household characteristics and neighborhood factors on ownership turnover rates. The study exploits a Chicago database of just under 50,000 paired sales of attached housing units, with at least one of the sales occurring between 1992 and June of 2002. Within the framework of a Cox proportional hazard model, we focus on a number of factors affecting turnover rates, including whether the housing unit is owner-occupied or rented at the time of sale, price at the time of sale, unit size, age, location in a tax increment financing district, housing density, structure size, year of sale, and neighborhood within Chicago (by Community Area). Finding strong spatial segmentation in turnover (hazard) rates, we further examine the capacity of four sets of Census-derived variables to explain the spatial variation. The household characteristics offer decidedly the strongest power in explaining the segmentation. Results from the hazard model, combined with results from the analysis of spatial variation suggest a household life cycle model of variation in turnover rates.     

Residential Construction Costs and the Supply of New Housing: Endogeneity and Bias in Construction Cost Indexes

Change in the level of residential construction affects macroeconomic conditions and is an important determinant of movements in house prices. Theory teaches us that increases in the cost of construction should reduce the supply of new housing. Yet empirical research has failed to find a consistent relationship between these costs and housing starts. This article introduces an entirely new set of micro-data on housing construction costs to study this issue. We develop quality-controlled, hedonic construction cost series from these data. Using this series, we estimate housing supply and construction cost functions for new single-family residences. This research demonstrates that bias in the commercial cost indexes used in existing housing supply studies is a likely cause of their poor performance in existing estimates of the supply of new single-family housing. The bias appears to be caused by an incorrect measure of labor costs and a failure to address the endogeneity of construction costs and construction activity. In contrast, starts regressions using the hedonic cost series generate much more sensible results. We find that housing starts are quite cost elastic; construction costs are endogenous in the new housing supply function, and the cost shares of material and labor in the structure of new residences are approximately 65 and 35%, respectively.     

Oral and written communication apprehension in accounting students: Curriculum impacts and impacts on academic performance

In the context of an accounting curriculum that has been significantly modified over the past decade in response to calls for skills development, this study investigates the impacts of curriculum on students' levels of communication apprehension. An emerging concern in accounting is that attempts made to improve students' communication skills may fail or be less effective for some students because such attempts do not improve, or may even exacerbate, students' anxiety about communicating, which in turn leads to poorer performance. The results from this New Zealand study show that students in their final year of study in which they are exposed to greater communication demands do not, on average, have higher levels of communication apprehension in earlier studies than their peers do. The levels of communication apprehension for final year students decline most markedly for those students starting with higher average levels of apprehension. The results fail to find any strong associations between levels of communication apprehension and students' abilities to advance in their studies or average levels of academic performance. One finding that opens up the possibility for further research, however, is that students' anxiety about communicating in interviews is not reduced.     

Fish consumption advisories: knowledge,compliance and why people fish in an urban estuary

The risk to human consumers from contaminants in fish is often dealt with by issuing consumption advisories. The hypothesis that consumption rates vary as a function of knowledge about advisories was tested for 254 people fishing in the Newark Bay Complex, in the New York/New Jersey harbour estuary. Interviews were conducted in the complex throughout the fishing season. There were no ethnic differences in the percentage of people who fished, crabbed, or did both, Most people either fished or crabbed, but not both, which has implications for risk assessment and communication. Only 45% of the people interviewed had heard about advisories; American Indians had heard little about fish advisories, and Hispanics had heard little about crab advisories. There were ethnic differences in education, consumption patterns, and knowledge about advisories. Knowledge about consumption advisories and the amount of fish and crabs consumed are negatively correlated. Despite laws forbidding catching (and consuming) crabs from Newark Bay Complex, people continue to do so. A higher percentage of people who consume the most fish and crabs are aware of consumption advisories, compared to those at the low end of consumption, but people who consume no fish or crabs from the Newark Bay Complex have the highest level of knowledge. There are few differences in the ratings of the reasons for fishing between those who are, and are not, aware of advisories. Since people mainly fish and crab to be outdoors and with friends and family, relax, and commune with nature, risk assessors and communicators should acknowledge the social and aesthetic nature of the activity, and address consumption by separating the activity (fishing, crabbing) from the risk (pregnant women and children should limit consumption).     

The Housing Market in the United Kingdom: Effects of House Price Volatility on Households

This paper describes the economics of the housing market and explains why house prices are likely to be more volatile than prices in other markets. It illustrates the volatility of house prices relative to some other key economic variables in the UK. The paper then considers the implications of variability in house prices for household behaviour, surveying a number of studies for the UK and elsewhere on the effects of house price volatility on consumption spending, indebtedness, labour supply, and entry to and exit from the homeownership market.     

住房金融模式的国际经验与中国选择

住宅产业的发展离不开金融业的支持与配合,我国目前还没有一个发达而且在一定程度上相当专业的住房金融模式和体系。本文首先比较和评价国际典型的住房金融模式,然后基于当前的国情现状,指出中国应该多元化发展合同储蓄型、强制储蓄型和资本市场型三种住房金融模式。     

Geographic Heterogeneity in Housing Market Risk and Portfolio Choice

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - The U.S. housing market is heterogeneous in that house price dynamics vary greatly across regions. Depending on the location of the main...