美国经济的未来走势及其影响

20世纪的最后10年,世界经济形势纷繁复杂,南北差距继续加大;东南亚诸国在遭受了金融危机的打击后,其政治经济制度受到极大震动,经济倒退10几年;在发达国家中,经济发展的不平衡也在逐渐加剧,日本自80年代末泡沫经济破灭后遂一蹶不振,欧盟则长期受到高失业率的困扰,似乎只有美国一枝独秀,始于1991年3月的经济增长已持续了90多个月.美国经济的异常繁荣不断引起人们的广泛关注,那么美国经济是否已经超越了传统意义上经济周期的束缚,实现了经济在理想状态的完美发展呢?本文拟对美国经济发展的不确定性因素进行分析,并结合美元汇率走势,阐述其对国际经济及我国经济的影响.     

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND CORPORATE PERFORMANCE: A COMPARISON OF GERMANY, JAPAN, AND THE U.S.

Contrary to assertions that there are fundamental differences in the efficiency of "market-based" and "relationship-oriented" corporate governance systems, this article presents evidence that the German, Japanese, and American systems appear about equally effective in disciplining poor managerial performance. For example, both the job security and total compensation of German and Japanese managers appear to be tied to stock performance and current cash flows- measures that some would refer to as "short-term"-to roughly the same extent as those of U.S. managers. Furthermore, the punishments and rewards for German and Japanese managers are not more sensitive to sales growth-a measure some would refer to as "long-term"-than those of their U.S. counterparts.
But, if there is no clear difference between the three governance systems in responding to poor stock and earnings performance, there is one important difference: the U.S. system is more effective than the German and Japanese systems in discouraging successful companies from overinvest-ing. One reason for this is the fact that U.S. managers hold much larger equity positions than managers in Japan and Germany. Another important factor, however, is the difficulty faced by Japanese companies in returning capital to their shareholders. Dividends are minimal; and, until 1995, it was illegal for a Japanese company to repurchase its stock.     

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS ROUNDTABLE ON ENERGY DERIVATIVES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE U.S. CORPORATE ENERGY SECTOR

In this roundtable, a successful oil entrepreneur and a group of ex‐bankers whose careers have taken them into the energy business discuss the deregulation of energy markets and the emergence of energy derivatives, and how these two developments have affected both the way companies do business with each other, and how the companies themselves are organized internally. The first part of this two‐part discussion explores how derivatives and corporate risk management have produced a strikingly new business model for a number of once traditional energy companies, including Enron Corp. and Mirant Corporation (until recently, Southern Energy). In addition to its ability to change corporate strategy, the panelists also consider how the hedging of price risks can affect a company's financing strategy and cost of capital. A notable feature of the new business model is a corporate structure that differs greatly from that of conventional large energy companies. And in the second half of the discussion, the focus shifts from risk management and strategy to issues of corporate structure, such as: How do companies divide themselves into business centers for reporting and accountability; how much decision‐making authority is entrusted to the managers of those divisions; and how many layers of corporate management are necessary to coordinate and control the activities of the business units? Also discussed at great length are questions of performance evaluation and incentive compensation: How do companies evaluate their own performance on a year‐to‐year basis? And what basis do they use for rewarding their managers?     

践行服务经济发展使命——访全国人大代表、工行云南省分行行长许海

“温总理在政府工作报告中强调今年经济工作要突出把握好‘稳中求进’的总基调,阐明了做好新时期金融工作必须坚持金融服务实体经济的本质要求。我们要紧紧围绕中央加快转变经济发展方式这一主线,从金融服务实体经济发展工作大局出发,认真贯彻落实好稳健的货币政策,在服务经济发展的同时实现自身的可持续发展。”聆听了政府工作报告后,全国人大代表、工行云南省分行行长许海道出这样一番话语。     

THE STATE OF U.S. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: WHAT'S RIGHT AND WHAT'S WRONG?

Largely as a result of failures at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and other prominent American companies, U.S. corporate governance practices have come under attack. These much publicized failures and the resulting popular outcry have served as catalysts for legislative and regulatory changes that include the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 and new governance guidelines from the NYSE and NASDAQ. But is the U.S. corporate governance system really as bad as critics suggest? And will the recent legislative and regulatory changes lead to a more effective system? The authors begin by noting that the broad evidence is not consistent with a failed U.S. governance system. During the past two decades, the U.S. economy and stock market have performed well both on an absolute basis and relative to other countries, even in the wake of the corporate scandals in 2001. Moreover, the most notable changes in U.S. corporate governance in the 1980s and 1990s‐including the institutionalization of U.S. share‐holders and the dramatic increase in equity‐based pay‐have served mainly (though not always) to strengthen the accountability of U.S. managers to their shareholders. The authors' message, then, is that while parts of the U.S. corporate governance system gave way under the exceptional strain created by the bull market of the 1990s, the overall system‐which includes corrective market forces as well as oversight by the public and government‐has reacted quickly and decisively to address its weaknesses. The net effect of the recent legislative and regulatory changes has been to make a good governance system an even better one. But, as the authors caution, perhaps the greatest risk now facing the U.S. financial market system (of which corporate governance is a critical part) is that of overregulation.     

FACTORS AFFECTING THE MAGNITUDE OF PREMIUMS PAID TO TARGET-FIRM SHAREHOLDERS IN CORPORATE ACQUISITIONS

The wide range of reported abnormal returns to target-firm shareholders has recently encouraged several researchers to investigate the determinants of the magnitude of these returns. This paper extends the work of these authors by presenting and testing a model of the premium paid to target-firm shareholders in completed corporate acquisitions. The model examines the premium as opposed to the more traditional abnormal return to focus on those factors that might be considered by a bidding-firm's management in the formulation of its offering price. The study also contributes to the corporate control literature by examining a larger data set than previous studies (748 acquisitions that occurred between 1964 and 1983), by examining variables that have not been examined in previous studies, and by examining interactions between variables.     

胡锦涛接受美国《华尔街日报》和《华盛顿邮报》联合书面采访时表示 推进国际金融体系改革 促进世界经济可持续发展

在对美国进行国事访问前夕,国家主席胡锦涛2011年1月17日接受美国《华尔街日报》和《华盛顿邮报》联合书面采访,就如何认识国际金融危机教训、中国应对国际金融危机政策举措、关于美元作用和人民币国际化等问题回答了提问。     

THE PERFORMANCE OF CORPORATE MERGERS IN JAPAN

This paper presents an objective and systematic analysis of the performance of corporate mergers in Japan. Two types of tests are provided. One is to compare fmancial ratios of merging firms before and after the merger. Negative effects of mergers are verified. The other is to compare the financial performances of merging and nonmerging firms before and after the merger in the same industry. No clear distinction is obtained between them. General comparisons between merging and nonmerging fms indicate negative effects of mergers.     

A SURVEY OF U.S. CORPORATE FINANCING INNOVATIONS: 1970–1997

In the past 30 years, major changes have occurred not only in the kinds of securities issued, but also in the way securities are issued and in the national markets where they are issued. Traditional registered offerings have been partly displaced by shelf registered offerings and Rule 144A private offerings. And once exclusively domestic U.S offerings are increasingly being supplemented by foreign market offerings by U.S. companies, and by simultaneously domestic and foreign offerings. In 1997, for example, 11% of all proceeds raised by U.S. corporations were issued in one or more foreign markets. Of the $105 billion raised in these offerings, $31 billion was denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.
While traditional securities still dominate the market, the authors' research indicates that the pace of innovation in the design of securities also increased markedly during the 1980s and has continued strong throughout the 1990s. In 1997, for example, innovative securities accounted for almost 30% of total domestic offerings. Three of the most common objectives of such securities have been (1) to manage the interest rate (and other financial price) risk faced by investors and issuers; (2) to reduce information costs faced by investors when buying securities from issuers with better information about their own prospects (a condition known as information asymmetry); and (3) to increase the tradability of financial assets.