On Consumer Credit Outcomes in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region

The ease in mobility of people across the U.S.-Mexico border region provides a natural setting for analyzing the role of economic interdependency on consumer credit outcomes. Since the U.S. and Mexican economies are not entirely synchronized and have different growth rates, the growing Mexican border economy is likely to increase the consumption of U.S. goods and services in the region, and provide additional job opportunities to the U.S. border residents. Thus, the effect of being located at the border (‘border effect’) might reduce default and bankruptcy in the U.S. However, if both economies are nearly perfectly correlated, then the ‘border effect’ is likely to be insignificant. Our results are consistent with the border effect lowering the rate of bankruptcies and mortgage defaults in the U.S. counties that share a border with Mexico. An increase in the level of economic interdependency, as measured by the differential economic growth between Mexican municipalities and their sister U.S. county, decreases the bankruptcy rates in the U.S. border region. Overall, this research helps understand credit risk issues in the U.S.-Mexico border region.     

Performance Reporting under Fair Value Accounting

Abstract

This paper compares performance measurement under fair value accounting vs. U.S. GAAP accounting. As illustrated in the paper, the main difference between fair value accounting and U.S. GAAP accounting lies in the treatment of gains and losses on both assets and liabilities. Fair value accounting would report all gains and losses on both assets and liabilities in the period in which they arise. U.S. GAAP on the other hand, recognizes gains and losses over the life of the block of business (or at the time of a transaction). When net gains and losses on assets and liabilities are immaterial, the pattern of earnings under both systems can be quite similar. However, If a company is generating significant gains or losses on its net book of business (such as in the case of an asset/liability mismatch), fair value accounting will reveal this much sooner than U.S. GAAP. When the full impact of its actions (including gains and losses) is reported in the current period, management is in a better position to understand how the value of the company is changing and adjust its decisions accordingly. This is one of the main reasons for moving to a fair value system and is expected to be a major benefit if fair value accounting is ultimately adopted.     

Market Efficiency and the Returns to Simple Technical Trading Rules: New Evidence from U.S. Equity Market and Chinese Equity Markets

Numerous studies in the finance literature have investigated technical analysis to determine its validity as an investment tool. This study is an attempt to explore whether some forms of technical analysis can predict stock price movement and make excess profits based on certain trading rules in markets with different efficiency level. To avoid using arbitrarily selected 26 trading rules as did by Brock, Lakonishok and LeBaron (1992) and later by Bessembinder and Chan (1998), this paper examines predictive power and profitability of simple trading rules by expanding their universe of 26 rules to 412 rules. In order to find out the relationship between market efficiency and excess return by applying trading rules, we examine excess return over periods in U.S. markets and also compare the excess returns between U.S. market and Chinese markets. Our results found that there is no evidence at all supporting technical forecast power by these trading rules in U.S. equity index after 1975. During the 1990s break-even costs turned to be negative, –0.06%, even failing to beat a buy-holding strategyin U.S. equity market. In comparison, our results provide support for the technical strategies even in the presence of trading cost in Chinese stock markets.     

中美双边汇率对美国消费价格传递效应的实证研究

人民币升值的价格传递效果是近年来的一个研究热点。已有学者利用人民币汇率变动与关国对我国进口价格指数等数据进行研究,得出了人民币汇率变动的价格传递极低的结论。本文选择美国与我国贸易品相关性较高的消费品价格指数,利用2005年7月至2008年10月之间的月度数据,采用Johsen＆Juselius协整检验、误差修正模型分析汇改以来人民币汇率升值期间中关双边名义汇率变动的价格传递效应。研究发现中关双边名义汇率波动对美国消费物价的影响是显著的,长短期传递系数分别为O．1871、0．1917,并在此研究中得到几点政策启示。     

Competitive and Information Effects of Cross-Border Stock Listings

We examine the effect of 269 cross‐border listings on rivals in the listing and domestic markets and find that U.S. rivals experience significant gains whereas domestic rivals do not. Both competitive and information effects are important in explaining the reaction of U.S. rivals. Regarding the competitive effects, the reaction of rivals is less favorable when listings originate in developed countries and more favorable when listing firms do not have prior operating presence in the United States. Regarding the information effects, the reaction is less favorable when listings are combined with equity offerings and more favorable when the listing is the first to occur within an industry.     

The Ex-Dividend Day Behavior of Canadian Stock Prices: Tax Changes and Clientele Effects

With some simple assumptions the ex-dividend day price drop and the associated dividend can be used to measure the market's marginal tax rate. Previous research has estimated the implied tax rate for the U.S. This paper extends the analysis to Canada, where the tax treatment of dividends and capital gains is completely different from that in the U.S. The paper also presents estimates from 1970–80 to include four distinct periods when the tax treatment was different. Hence, we include an implied test of market efficiency as well as those for the “relevance” of taxes and the existence of tax based dividend clienteles.     

The Cost of Nominal Rigidity in NNS Models

We present a model with Calvo wage and price setting, capital formation, and estimated rules for government spending and monetary policy. Our model captures many aspects of U.S. data, including the volatility that has been observed in various efficiency gaps. We estimate the cost of nominal rigidity—welfare under flexible wages and prices minus welfare with nominal rigidities—to be as much as 3% of consumption each period. Since there are interest rate rules that virtually eliminate this cost, our model suggests that—contrary to Lucas's (2003) assertion—there is considerable room for improvement in demand management policy.     

Why OECD Countries Should Reform Rules of Origin

With preferential trade agreements on the rise worldwide rulesof origin—which are necessary to prevent trade deflection—areattracting increasing attention. At the same time, preferenceerosion for Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) recipientsis increasing resistance to further multilateral negotiations.Drawing on different approaches, this article shows that thecurrent system of rules of origin that is used by the EuropeanUnion and the United States in preferential trade agreements(including the GSP) and that is similar to systems used by otherOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countriesshould be drastically simplified if developed economies reallywant to help developing economies integrate into the world tradingsystem. In addition to diverting resources for administrativetasks, current rules of origin carry significant compliancecosts. More fundamentally, it is becoming increasingly clearthat they are often been designed to force developing economiesto buy inefficient intermediate products from developed economiesto "pay for" preferential access for the final product. Theevidence also suggests that a significant share of the rentsassociated with market access (net of rules of origin compliancecosts) is captured by developed economies. Finally, the restrictivenessof rules of origin is found to be beyond the levels that wouldbe justified to prevent trade deflection, suggesting a captureby special interest groups. The article outlines some alternativepaths to reforms. JEL codes: F13, F15     

Portfolio diversification effects of trading blocs: The case of NAFTA

This study investigates the evolving nature of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) stock market interdependencies and their association with diversification gains from the perspective of US investors. The issues are addressed for both short- and long-run interdependencies through correlation of stock market returns and cointegration of stock market prices. The basic findings include: (1) the existence of a long-term relationship (a cointegration relation) which is time-varying and statistically unstable and (2) diversification gains with cointegration not consistently lower than without cointegration. Thus, per-unit-of-risk diversification gains to US investors from NAFTA stock markets are determined by return volatilities, return correlations and domestic market performance. Based on increased return volatilities and return correlations and the very small per-unit-of-risk diversification gains even when the US stock market performs poorly, US investors’ diversification gains have diminished since the implementation of NAFTA.     

Co-jumps in the U.S. interest rates and precious metals markets and their implications for investors

Using one-minute intraday data and wavelet decomposition of stochastic processes we obtain realised VCOV matrices with and without price discontinuities in the U.S. Treasuries and precious metals futures. Our work provides determinants of co-jumps in gold, silver and U.S. Treasuries across the yield curve and empirically demonstrates impact of price discontinues on hypothetical investor through realised correlations, hedging effectiveness ratios and several portfolio settings. We find that co-jumps in gold and silver have similar monetary characteristics to co-jumps in gold or silver with U.S. Treasuries futures. We further unpack investor choices between precious metals and U.S. bonds under the presence of high-frequency risks. We show that behaviour puzzle of simultaneous demand for safety and quality during market turmoils disappears if investors are seeking maximum diversification. We also find that runs to safety do not offer statistically significant improvements in diversification benefits unlike runs to short-term quality. Other results uncover higher investments to gold due to the shifts in the U.S. yield curve and potential gains in realised hedging effectiveness for the end of the yield curve investors through asymmetry in co-jumps of gold and U.S. Treasuries during periods of extreme market volatility such as beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Equity market integration in the NAFTA region: Evidence from unit root and cointegration tests

This study examines integration of the three participating equity markets before and after the 1993 passage of NAFTA based on daily, weekly, and monthly data. As expected, unit root tests for the overall period 1988-2001 and the two subperiods, 1988-1993 (pre-NAFTA) and 1994-2001 (post-NAFTA), indicate that stock prices are non-stationary but stock returns are generally stationary for all three markets for all three periods. However, daily, weekly, and monthly equity prices in the three NAFTA countries are cointegrated only for the post-NAFTA period. Similarly, US stock prices are more integrated with both Canadian and Mexican stock prices after the passage of NAFTA. This evidence of increased financial integration and co-movement in NAFTA equity markets after the passage of NAFTA has important implications for policymakers and managers.     

Exchange Rate Pass‐Through,Domestic Competition,and Inflation: Evidence from the 2005–08 Revaluation of the Renminbi

Import competition from China is pervasive in the sense that for many good categories, the competitive environment that U.S. firms face in these markets is strongly driven by the prices of Chinese imports, and so is their pricing decision. This paper quantifies the effect of the government‐controlled appreciation of the Chinese renminbi vis‐à‐vis the USD from 2005 to 2008 on the prices charged by U.S. domestic producers. In a panel spanning the period from 1994 to 2010 and including up to 519 manufacturing sectors, import price changes of Chinese goods pass into U.S. producer prices at an average rate of 0.7, while import price changes that can be traced back to exchange rate movements of other trade partners only have mild effects on U.S. prices. Further analysis points to the importance of trade integration, variable markups, and demand complementarities on the one side, and to the importance of imported intermediate goods on the other side as drivers of these patterns. Simulations incorporating these microeconomic findings reveal that a substantial revaluation of the renminbi would result in a pronounced increase in aggregate U.S. producer price inflation.     

Capital Gains, Dividend Yields, and Expected Inflation

One explanation for the negative relationship between short-horizon stock returns and inflation is that inflation proxies (inversely) for expected future real output. In this paper, I examine the possibility that inflation also proxies for variation in real price/dividend ratios (excess returns). I show that when the covariance between real price/dividend ratios and inflation is nonzero, the relationship between returns and expected inflation differs for the two components of returns: dividend yields and capital gains returns. My empirical evidence demonstrates that dividend yields and capital gains are related differently to expected inflation in U.S. and foreign markets.     

Global Integration in Primary Equity Markets: The Role of U.S. Banks and U.S. Investors

We examine the costs and benefits of the global integrationof initial public offering (IPO) markets associated with thediffusion of U.S. underwriting methods in the 1990s. Bookbuildingis becoming increasingly popular outside the United States andtypically costs twice as much as a fixed-price offer. However,on its own, bookbuilding only leads to lower underpricing whenconducted by U.S. banks and/or targeted at U.S. investors. Formost issuers, the gains associated with lower underpricing outweighedthe additional costs associated with hiring U.S. banks or marketingin the United States. This suggests a quality/price trade-offcontrasting with the findings of Chen and Ritter, particularlysince non-U.S. issuers raising US$20 million–US$80 millionalso typically pay a 7% spread when U.S. banks and investorsare involved.     

The Estimation of Realizable Holding Gains

The present paper outlines rules for estimating realizable holding gains within a current cost framework. The foundation for the procedures lies with a theorem properly named for Edwards and Bell (1961). The theorem is stated and proved and then employed to derive the relevant quadrature rules. Estimates of the holding gains applicable to U.K. manufacturing industry are then made. The estimates are found to be highly sensitive to the quadrature rule used.     

美国金融危机对中国贸易影响的价格溢出效应分析

金融危机的贸易溢出效应主要是通过价格效应和收入效应实现的。中美两国存在密切的互补型贸易关系,本文就美国金融危机通过价格效应对我国贸易状况的影响进行了实证研究,并与收入效应的影响进行对比分析。研究发现,美国金融危机对我国贸易溢出的价格效应显著,而收入效应较小;美国金融危机对中国贸易的溢出效应主要是显著影响了出口,而对进口的影响较为短暂。     

Can event study methods solve the currency exposure puzzle?

Prior empirical evidence on the stock price response of exposed firms to contemporaneous changes in exchange rates is weak. This paper avoids many problems encountered in previous work by using event-study methods to examine the daily stock price reactions of exposed U.S. multinationals to large, bilateral declines in the Mexican peso and Thai baht. We find a contemporaneous price response but interpret the magnitude of the response to say that the currency puzzle is not primarily due to methodological weaknesses in prior studies. Several findings suggest that effective financial and operational hedging may be the chief reason exchange rate changes do not affect stock prices more dramatically.     

Foreign cultures, Sarbanes–Oxley Act and cross-delisting

Using a sample of foreign firms listed in U.S. and delisting shares over the period 2000 and 2010, this paper studies the impact of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) on the cross-delisting behavior of foreign firms based on the firm characteristics, legal tradition, overall culture and degree of individualism of the country of domicile. Pre-SOX, the propensity to delist is lower for firms from countries with cultural similarities to the U.S. and higher for firms from individualistic societies. Post-SOX these trends are reversed. Consistent with the existing research we find that the delisting decision of foreign firms cross-listed in the U.S. is based on the potential gains from listing based on the growth opportunities, length of presence in the U.S. and legal regulations of the country of domicile. Out findings provide evidence of the cultural factors that impact the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets.     

Optimal Simple Monetary and Fiscal Rules under Limited Asset Market Participation

The combination of limited asset market participation and consumption habits generates indeterminacy for empirically plausible calibrations of a business cycle model characterized by price and nominal wage rigidities. Equilibrium determinacy is restored by demand management policies based on simple fiscal rules. In this regard, fiscal control of nominal income growth is particularly effective. In addition the complementarity between the Taylor rule and the fiscal feedback on nominal income growth produces relatively large welfare gains, limiting both aggregate and intragroup volatilities.