Comments on Articles by Eli Ginzberg and Manley Irwin and Kenneth B. Stanley

Financial institutions engage in financial innovation to increase profits. The resulting increases in consumer debt, however, make low income groups vulnerable to declines in income; households headed by women are particularly vulnerable. Consumers are disadvantaged given the asymmetry between business and consumer choices. Consumers use credit for many reasons including pecuniary emulation and supporting others, support that often falls to women. The paper examines the ratio of debt to financial assets, the ratio of debt to income, the ratio of dept payments to income, and the rate of bankruptcy as indicators of the fragility of household balance sheets.     

Funding self-employment – the role of consumer credit

This article investigates whether self-employed households use consumer loans – in particular, instalment loans and overdrafts – to finance business activities. Controlling for financial and nonfinancial household variables, we show that self-employed households particularly use personal overdrafts significantly more often than employee households. When analysing the correlation between consumer loan take-ups and consumption of self-employed in comparison to employee households, we find first evidence that overdrafts are used by self-employed to finance their business as well. This indicates that intermingling constitutes a financing strategy when regular business loans might not be accessible.     

Institutional Analysis of Banks and Personal Loan Companies: Lesson from Poland

Abstract:

The purpose of the article is to explain changes in the behavior of individuals, their actions, choices and ways of thinking that took place under the influence of banking and personal loan companies in Poland. The hypothesis adopted here is that mistakes made in the lawmaking process in Poland caused a number of adverse social changes, which affected the poorest part of society. The article is devoted to legal norms which banks started to apply as prudential regulations after the financial crisis from 2008 to 2015. In 2016, new important legal regulations were introduced which slightly changed the image of the market described in the article. The article describes the results of the author’s research concerning far-reaching social consequences of the regulations introduced at that time. Such consequences include people already in the lowest-income levels of society falling further into poverty, as well as loss of trust in the state as an institution failing to protect all of its citizens.     

金融生态中的法律制度探讨--一个新制度经济学的角度

在金融生态建设中,完善法律制度是改进金融生态的重中之重.本文运用新制度经济学的相关理论,阐释了中国金融生态环境法制缺陷的深层次原因是没有真正实现从"人治"、"权治"到"法治"的根本转变,以及非正式约束与市场经济还存在诸多的矛盾,金融生态环境建设的核心是法律制度建设.当前我国金融生态建设的首要问题应以完善金融产权为核心,以强化信用秩序为重点,改善金融主体法律制度.     

金融危机背景下中国消费信贷政策探讨

2007年美国爆发的次贷危机最终导致了全球性的金融危机,其根源在于美国社会的过度负债消费。受金融危机的影响,中国出口受阻、产能过剩凸显,为防止经济下滑,政府出台了扩大内需的政策,而追加投资在一定程度上又加剧了产能过剩,不利于经济结构的调整和长远发展,因此应大力促进居民消费,其有效方式是发展消费信贷。消费信贷促成了美国社会的高消费,曾极大地拉动美国经济增长,但过度负债最终拖累了美国经济。因此,中国应该吸取美国的经验和教训,结合中国的国情,合理发展消费信贷,鼓励和提倡适度负债。     

Development Economics from a Chicago Perspective

The interlocking board directorships among corporations. as well as between corporations and social organizations, is important for defining the modern political economy. This article finds the networks of those interlocks for Koch Industries Inc. and TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation. Moreover, the article extends the networks to describe and analyze the accompanying political network of contributions to Nebraska political campaigns. For corporate and social networks, we utilize conventional theoretical structures to find the new database of those networks for Koch Industries and TD Ameritrade. The new theoretical structure and database concern the campaign contributions of the board of directors in the corporate and social networks, as we trace them to campaigns for federal offices. The new political campaign finance structure we uncover here includes thousands of interconnected campaign finance conduits, through which money flows to political campaigns.     

The Effects of Competition on Banks’ Risk Taking

We consider the joint effect of competition and deposit insurance on risk taking by banks when bank risk is unobservable to depositors. It turns out that the magnitude of risk taking depends on the structure and side of the market in which competition takes place. If the bank is a monopoly or banks are competing only in the loan market, deposit insurance has no effect on risk taking. Banks in this situation tend to take risk, although extreme risk taking is avoided. In contrast, introducing deposit insurance increases risk taking if banks are competing for deposits. Then, deposit rates become excessively high, thereby forcing banks to take extreme risks.     

Humanistic economics: The new Challenge: A review essay

This paper discusses the role of social, institutional, and psychological factors in the consumption and borrowing behavior of low-income households, and makes arguments in favor of policy interventions to alleviate some of the challenges of these households. Focus group evidence and findings on the current behaviors and borrowing patterns of low-income families are provided to support and motivate this perspective on consumption and policy. While the data are drawn from a specific region, the observations and findings could be generalized to other communities after accounting for different cultural and social characteristics. This research provides an in-depth understanding of the challenges confronted by low-income individuals at achieving their economic desires for lives of basic dignity, explores both economic and non-economic motivations, and provides insights useful for policy deliberation and model development.     

美国信用消费法律制度及其对中国的启示

美国作为世界上信用消费制度最发达的国家之一,其信用消费立法一直备受关注。2009年的《金融改革方案》虽然确立了消费者保护的目标,但也给经济发展带来了更大的不确定性。在信用消费立法联邦化的趋势下,州立法实施更为严格的消费者保护标准受到联邦优先权的重压,也从实质上削弱了对金融消费者的保护力度。中国应当借鉴美国信用消费制度,确立政府的监管目标和价值取向,以国家立法和地方立法相结合作为主要立法模式,完善信息披露制度并建立完备的信用评估体系,设立专门的信用消费者保护机构,以更好地维护消费者权益。     

行为金融学视角下信用风险管理研究

随着金融市场上各种异常现象的累积,模型和实际的背离使得传统金融理论的理性分析范式陷入了尴尬境地,行为金融理论悄然兴起。阐述了行为金融学的产生,研究了行为金融对信用风险管理的影响,最后探讨了行为金融学视角下对金融租赁公司信用风险研究的启示。     

房产持有视角下家庭风险金融资产投资影响因素分析--基于CHFS数据的实证研究

相比发达国家,我国资本市场一直受“有限参与”的困扰。与此同时,我国房地产市场却发展迅速,居民对房产的投资是否制约了资本市场的发展？采用2011年中国居民家庭金融调查与研究中心（ CHFS）的数据,侧重于从房产持有角度对家庭风险金融资产投资的影响因素进行实证分析。实证结果表明：房产持有对家庭风险金融资产投资的影响存在一个5%的临界值,即房产持有对5%以下的风险金融资产投资有促进作用,而对5%以上的风险金融资产投资的影响呈显著的负效应,这个结论即使在控制了许多传统解释变量之后依然成立。     

中国家庭债务和资产积累关系的实证分析:1997-2008

笔者运用1997年～2008年中国家庭债务和家庭资产积累的时间序列数据,定量分析了家庭负债和家庭资产积累的关系。研究发现,家庭债务和家庭资产积累存在同向的长期均衡关系,家庭债务的变动会影响家庭资产的积累。笔者提出促进家庭资产合理配置和防范中国家庭债务快速增长带来的消极后果的相关建议,旨在为决策部门制定合理的经济政策提供参考。     

性别视角下的社会资本研究述论

与男性相比,女性在社会资本特征及价值创造方面存在诸多差异,因此,在对社会资本问题进行研究过程中必须充分考虑到性别差异问题。在此基础上,还应该进一步深入考察这些差异给女性自身职业发展带来的实质性影响,只有如此,才有可能构建出更加有效的策略以提高女性的社会资本回报率。     

破解中小企业金融业务障碍的策略研究——基于中国工商银行信贷机制改革视角

面对高成长性和高风险性并存的中小企业金融市场,中国工商银行如何继续保持国内领先和国际先进的中小企业金融业务地位,并以此促进自身发展,是当前迫切需要解决的问题.从中国工商银行信贷机制改革视角出发,必须做好以下六点: (1)完善对职能部门和客户经理的激励与风险考核机制; (2)修正中小企业信贷客户评级授信体系; (3)建立体现效率的信贷授权审批机制; (4)培育专职的小企业客户经理队伍; (5)完善中小企业金融产品体系; (6)摸索建立新型风险防控体系.     

Kenneth Boulding's Theories of Evolutionary Economics and Organizational Change: A Reconstruction

I identify a discrepancy between Kenneth Boulding's wide-ranging contributions to evolutionary economics and his professed ecological approach to it. I argue that Boulding has undersold his true contributions to evolutionary economics by trying to embed them into the ecological approach. I endeavor to overcome this discrepancy by differentiating between two types of evolutionary change analyzed in Boulding's writings: ecological change and civilizational change. In contrast to ecological change, civilizational change entails the possibility for the evolving system to overstrain the carrying capacity of the environment, thus suggesting the precarious relationship between civilizational complexity and sustainability. This argument sheds new light on Boulding's theory of “social organizers,” such as exchange, threat, and the integrative system. Boulding's understanding of civilizational change envisages the key role of threat and exchange in enabling civilizational complexity, while the integrative system is called upon to make this complexity sustainable.     

Financial deregulation,credit allocation across sectors,and economic growth: evidence from China

This paper investigates whether financial deregulation causes economic growth through financial development. Financial development is measured by two channels: (1) changes in the allocation of credit across sectors, and (2) changes in savings and investment rates. We measure financial deregulation in China at the provincial level from 1981 to 1998. Our results suggest that financial reform causes economic growth in China. Further, its effect largely comes through the reallocation of credit across sectors, rather than changes in savings and investment rates.     

非政府组织的经济效应:基于公共经济学视角的分析框架

目前非政府组织(NGO)研究主要集中在政治学、社会学、管理学等角度.事实上,NGO不仅具有明显的政治和社会功能,而且具有重要的经济影响.NGO实质上代表了自愿供给公共产品的资源配置方式,它与家庭(个人)、企业、政府、国外等具有密切的经济联系.总体上看,NGO的经济影响可以归结为对资源配置、收入分配、经济增长与稳定的影响.加强对NGO经济效应的研究,对于科学合理地制定有关公共政策,充分发挥NGO的经济社会功能,促进NGO的健康发展具有重要的理论与实践意义.     

财务预警的非财务观

主流的财务预警研究方法基本上没有突破使用财务指标进行预警的框架,其研究思路依然停留在财务预警的财务观。通过对财务危机背后的本质原因及其发生机理和财务行为的社会嵌入性的分析,认为财务指标是财务危机发生的征兆而不是原因。在此基础上,提出了以非财务指标为主要预测变量的财务预警研究思路,即财务预警的非财务观。