An empirical study of the Mexican banking system’s network and its implications for systemic risk

With the aim to measure and monitor systemic risk, we present some topological metrics for the interbank exposures and the payments system networks. The evolution of such networks is analyzed, we draw important conclusions from the systemic risk's perspective and propose a measure of interconnectedness. Additionally, we suggest non-topological measures to describe individual behavior of banks in both networks. The main findings of this paper are: the structures of the payments and exposures networks are different (in terms of connectivity); the topology of the exposures network changed after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, whereas the structure of the payments network does not; the proposed measure of interconnectedness can be used to determine the importance of a bank in terms of connectivity. Finally, we found that interconnectedness of a bank is not necessarily related with its assets size but it is linked to the contagion it might cause.     

The role of financial intermediaries in monetary policy transmission

The recent financial crisis has stimulated theoretical and empirical research on the propagation mechanisms underlying business cycles, in particular on the role of financial frictions. Many issues concerning the interactions between banking and monetary policy forced policy makers to redefine economic policies, and motivated macroeconomists to focus on the implications of financial intermediation constraints for asset price fluctuations, the behavior of non-financial firms, households, governments and in turn for real macroeconomic performance. This paper surveys research on the role of financial intermediaries and financial frictions in the transmission of monetary policy and discusses how to design both the new banking regulatory and supervisory structures and monetary policy in order to stabilize the economy. It also serves as an introduction to this special issue.     

基于银行卡个人支付手段与支付模式的研究

本文通过分析基于银行卡个人支付手段的交易流程,指出基于POS、ATM传统机具的支付模式存在较大的金融信用风险,并存在资源稀缺性的缺陷;而基于移动终端或电话终端的支付模式比基于POS、ATM的支付更具有可普及性,且金融风险得到了降低;随着生物识别技术的发展,基于生物识别的支付模式可能是未来的一个发展方向。生物识别具有唯一性,在这种模式下,金融风险会得到最大限度的降低。     

REPETITION AND FINANCIAL INCENTIVES IN ECONOMICS EXPERIMENTS

Abstract While experimental methods have been an effective tool for economic research, there have been controversies on the methodological aspects. The reason why we need to care about it is clear: if the method in an experiment is not valid, the results from that experiment cannot be valid too. Among other things, the methodological issues of financial incentives and repetition, which are norms in experimental economics, have been at the centre of many debates. While there are previous reviews that investigate financial incentives and repetition separately, our view is that the effects of these two factors are interdependent rather than independent. Thus, our review here is more specific and more conditional, that is, we are interested in the answer to the question, ‘Do we need to use financial incentives conditional on the use of repetition?’ After we discuss the relationship between financial incentives and repetition, we argue, from a review of 44 experimental studies, that using financial incentives would be more necessary to improve the validity of experimental results if an experimenter needs to use repetition.     

THE CAUSAL LINK BETWEEN FINANCIAL INCENTIVES AND WEIGHT LOSS: AN EVIDENCE‐BASED SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE

Obesity and overweight are linked to diseases that cost society a significant amount of resources. While behavior modification can reduce the problem, instigating such lifestyle changes is an uneasy task. One potential way to reduce the problem is through the use of financial incentives. In this survey, we review the available evidence, properly emphasizing studies that credibly yield meaningful estimates of the effect of financial incentives on weight loss. We find that the scientific literature on the subject has not yet satisfactorily settled whether such a mechanism is effective at eliciting the desired behavioral and health outcomes. We therefore advocate a rigorous large‐scale randomized experiment to provide reliable estimates of the effect.     

The decision to ‘bid for business’: Municipal behavior in granting property tax abatements

We investigate the timing of local economic development incentive offers by estimating duration models of the time to adoption of the first manufacturing property tax abatement offered by a municipal government. The effects of municipal characteristics, incentive prevalence measures, and fiscal stress indicators on the duration of non-abatement regimes are investigated using data for 112 municipalities in metropolitan Detroit during 1974–1992. Median household income and the local property tax price of local public services are found to affect the hazard rates. Most importantly, there is evidence of positive duration dependence, or an emulation effect, with first-time abatement offers.     

美国高校财务困境预警研究述评

本文对20世纪70年代以来美国关于高校财务困境预警研究方面的文章进行分类统计,系统评述了美国高校财务预警研究的轨迹,在此基础上得出若干启示。     

BAYESIAN INFERENCE METHODS FOR UNIVARIATE AND MULTIVARIATE GARCH MODELS: A SURVEY

This survey reviews the existing literature on the most relevant Bayesian inference methods for univariate and multivariate GARCH models. The advantages and drawbacks of each procedure are outlined as well as the advantages of the Bayesian approach versus classical procedures. The paper makes emphasis on recent Bayesian non‐parametric approaches for GARCH models that avoid imposing arbitrary parametric distributional assumptions. These novel approaches implicitly assume infinite mixture of Gaussian distributions on the standardized returns which have been shown to be more flexible and describe better the uncertainty about future volatilities. Finally, the survey presents an illustration using real data to show the flexibility and usefulness of the non‐parametric approach.     

Forecasting temperature to price CME temperature derivatives

This paper seeks to forecast temperatures in US cities in order to price temperature derivatives on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The CME defines the average daily temperature underlying its contracts as the average of the maximum and minimum daily temperatures, yet all published work on temperature forecasting for pricing purposes has ignored this peculiar definition of the average and sought to model the average temperature directly. This paper is the first to look at the average temperature forecasting problem as an analysis of extreme values. The theory of extreme values guides model selection for temperature maxima and minima, and a forecast distribution for the CME’s daily average temperature is found through convolution. While univariate time series AR-GARCH and regression models generally yield superior point forecasts of temperatures, our extreme-value-based model consistently outperforms these models in density forecasting, the most important risk management tool.     

论中小物流企业以非物质手段激励员工

人力资源是中小物流企业获取竞争优势的重要因素。但目前中小物流企业人才流失的现象仍然较为严重,通过建立有效的人力资源激励机制是留住人才的有效途径。中小物流企业可以采取尊重、参与、工作本身、培训和发展机会、荣誉和提升等非物质手段来吸引、留住人才,激发员工的工作热情。     

Multivariate semi-nonparametric distributions with dynamic conditional correlations

This paper generalizes the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model of Engle (2002), incorporating a flexible non-Gaussian distribution based on Gram-Charlier expansions. The resulting semi-nonparametric-DCC (SNP-DCC) model allows estimation in two stages and deals with the negativity problem which is inherent in truncated SNP densities. We test the performance of a SNP-DCC model with respect to the (Gaussian)-DCC through an empirical application of density forecasting for portfolio returns. Our results show that the proposed multivariate model provides a better in-sample fit and forecast of the portfolio returns distribution, and thus is useful for financial risk forecasting and evaluation.