What do fiscal stimulus packages mean for household debt?

We study the links between fiscal stimulus packages during times of crisis and households' liabilities. We do so by using household-level data on income and liabilities from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and estimating an empirical model along those in the literature on the consumption effects of these packages. We find that receiving a check from the government tends to translate into a reduction in outstanding liabilities for American households. This effect is robust to controlling for income levels and household size. The effects are driven by households whose income is below the median and by those who remain employed during the crisis.     

Finance,investment and innovation: A theoretical and empirical comparative analysis

The paper compares the relative efficiency of country models in the relationship between finance and investments. Results, confirmed under three different panel data estimates (Arellano-Bond GMM method, random and fixed effect estimates) suggest that: i) the UK thick market reduces informational asymmetries for large firms and for those firms providing good signals to shareholders; ii) the Japanese vertical (between firms and banks) integration and horizontal (among firms) integration almost eliminates financial constraints (the horizontal integration effect) and equates agency costs across firms (the vertical integration effect). These results are consistent with the short-termist hypothesis which assumes that the Japanese economic system can process information more efficiently reducing managerial myopic behaviour and thereby determining positive effects on long term growth.     

Is debt conservatism the solution to financial constraints? An empirical analysis of Japanese firms

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates why firms choose the conservative financing strategy known as non-positive net debt policy, which is a more recent prevalent trend among Japanese firms. The analysis reveals that Japanese firms are more likely to be financially conservative if they are smaller, older and more profitable and have fewer growth opportunities and tangibility. The survival analysis further investigates the duration of conservative debt policy and ordinary debt policy. The evidence shows that firms adopt/abandon the conservative policy with different motivations and preferences over debt conservatism. In particular, we argue that the more financially constrained firms abandon the conservative debt policy sooner than their counterparts, while less financially constrained firms abandon the ordinary (less conservative) debt policy sooner than their counterparts. The results suggest that a firm uses a conservative debt policy in terms of net leverage as a temporary buffer to mitigate financial constraints.     

战略承诺、融资约束与债务选择*——债券市场支持了谁的战略发展

本文旨在从战略承诺视角考察债券市场的资源配置功能。研究显示,自2007年《公司债券发行试点办法》实施以来,债券市场在支持企业的战略发展方面具有重要性。但进一步研究表明,该支持作用只存在于所受融资约束较低的企业中。即：市场化进程较高、终极控制人为国有性质、内部资本市场活跃的上市公司,其战略承诺越高时,越可能采用债券融资方式;而承受较高融资约束的企业的债券融资方式对战略承诺的敏感性则不稳健,或者敏感系数低于前者。这说明债券市场的资源配置功能受到了融资约束的限制,而非缓解了融资约束。进一步来说,“强者恒强、弱者恒弱”是金融资源配置的内在规律,而无论其形式在中介与市场之间如何变化。该结论深化了对金融资源配置功能的理解。依据本文的研究,未来改革既要完善金融体系,更要提升企业负债能力,否则,市场将很难依靠它的内在机制达到均衡配置。     

Incentive Contracts for Infrastructure,Litigation and Weak Institutions

In this paper we revisit incentive contract design in a simple setting, after developing a model that captures the fact that in weak institutional settings the procurement of large scale public works through contracts with strong incentives for private firms, may result in excessive litigation over contract terms. This result is possible because we assume that parties in litigation can influence (by purchasing better or more legal services) the observable merits of their case. In weak institutional settings, governments have an inherent disadvantage in these litigation contests. We show that a commitment to a prespecified level of litigation effort by the government, together with weaker incentive contracts, is a more efficient procurement mechanism.Jel Classification: D8, H57, H54, K41, K23, L51     

Joint implementation under asymmetric information and strategic behavior

Joint Implementation (JI) under the Framework Convention on Climate Change means that countries could partly offset their national abatement commitments by investing in CO₂ abatement projects abroad. JI is introduced as a mechanism for achieving a certain global abatement target less costly by separating the commitments from the implementation of measures. This paper studies the design of a JI contract when the investor has incomplete information about the foreign firm which carries out the JI project (the host). Asymmetric information leads to a decrease in the potential cost savings from JI. Furthermore, private information held by the potential host firm could give the firm a significant positive utility of participating in JI projects. The possibility of being a host for a JI project in the future can prevent potential host firms from investing in profitable abatement projects today. The paper analyzes the impact on emissions of CO₂ of strategic behavior among potential hosts for JI projects.     

现实信贷市场中抵质押品的功能探析——基于信息经济学商业银行的研究视角

文章从信息经济学、信贷配给理论、风险管理理论和巴塞尔新资本协议等视角出发,论述了有关押品的性质、功能和角色,分析了押品发挥作用的基本原理和传导机制,形成了有关现实信贷市场中抵质押品功能的9条结论。最后,结合我国信贷市场发展实际,对商业银行加强押品管理提出了初步建议。     

Adverse selection and bilateral asymmetric information

A simple principal-agent model with bilateral asymmetric information and common values is developed. The agent(s) has private information about his characteristics but does not knowhow these affect outcomes. The principal knows how the characteristics translate into outcomes, but does not observe the characteristics. It is shown that equilibrium contracts aresimple in being designednot to reveal the agent's characteristics. When the agent knows howsome of his characteristics affect the outcome, contracts will be differentiated with respect to precisely those characteristics. An application to the use of genetic information is considered.     

Risk aversion and incentive compatibility with ex post information asymmetry

Summary. The paper extends Diamond's (1984) analysis of financial contracting with information asymmetry ex post and endogenous “bankruptcy penalties” to allow for risk aversion of the borrower. The optimality of debt contracts, which Diamond obtained for the case of risk neutrality, is shown to be nonrobust to the introduction of risk aversion. This contrasts with the costly state verification literature, in which debt contracts are optimal for risk averse as well as risk neutral borrowers. Received: December 7, 1998; revised version: June 9, 1999     

Italian households’ debt: the participation to the debt market and the size of the loan

This paper analyses Italian households’ participation to the debt market, separating the probability of demanding a loan from the probability of being rationed by lenders; on the supply side of the market specific attention is paid to enforcement costs of the loan contract when customers default. A new result is that the age of the household head acts essentially as a demand factor, rather than a variable influencing the lender’s choice. Both current and future households’ income increase the demand for loans and reduce credit rationing. Self-employed workers are more rationed by lenders. Credit constraints are also linked to the area where the household lives, partly because of different enforcement costs. The final part of the paper analyses the equilibrium quantity of the loan, for households who have a loan and are not constrained. The loan size is positively linked to household net wealth and income profile. An important contribution of this paper is the finding that, not only the participation to the debt market, but also the loan size is negatively affected by enforcement costs.      

Does the value-added tax Reform increase a firm’s collateral bank loans? Evidence from China

By leveraging the value-added tax (VAT) Reform as an exogenous event in China, we examine the impact of the tax cut on bank collateral loan on firms. Our findings suggest that (1) The Reform allows firms to deduct the tax of purchasing fixed assets that leads to a significant increase in the firm's collateral loan amounts. (2) The transmission mechanism is due to the increased level of corporate transparency and a lowered financial risk after the Reform. (3) The impact of the Reform on collateral bank loans is more pronounced for state-owned firms, large firms, firms far away from lenders and firms located in low financial development regions.     

信息流和不对称信息是金融与服务中心发展的决定因素:中国案例

本文从“不对称信息”和“信息腹地”理论出发,以中国为例,讨论了影响现代金融中心发展的决定因素。本文还以国内外企业总部在国内四城市的分布调查企业总部选址成因,从而分析“不对称信息”在总部选址决定中的区域效应。     

The relationship between Turkey’s foreign debt and economic growth: an asymmetric causality analysis

Tackling foreign debt that arises as a result of limited and ineffective use of resources is an item that remains on the agenda particularly for developing countries. In this study, we examine the foreign debt debates to date in terms of economic growth and using the time series for the period 2003Q1 to 2017Q1. We used unit root tests to determine the maximum integration degree of series, and we conducted causality analysis. We found a causality relationship between net foreign debt stock and economic growth in causality analyses performed for Turkey. The empirical results of this study indicate that there is a causality relationship, including both positive and negative aspects, between net foreign debt stock and economic growth. The results of our testing showed a significant causal relationship between the variables.     

中国企业投资与内部融资敏感性影响因素分析——来自中国制造行业上市公司的证据

以中国制造行业的上市公司为样本，研究投资一现金流敏感性的影响因素结果表明：投资支出对现金流很敏感，以企业规模作为度量融资约束的变量，未能支持融资约束影响投资与现金流敏感性的观点，以股利支付率作为度量融资约束的变量，检验结果为融资约束越强，投资与现金流敏感性程度越高的观点提供了证据。投资一现金流敏感性主要是信息不对称引起的融资约束所致。     

美国金融危机成因分析及对中国的警示

美国金融危机引发全球金融市场动荡。这场金融危机从美国的房地产市场开始,以惊人的速度蔓延,波及至信贷市场、资本市场,封全球尤其是西方金融机构和金融市场造成重大冲击,短期内升级为全球金融风暴。中国目前正处于资产价格上涨、信贷投放过度的经济环境之中,美国的金融危机给中国敲响了警钟。本文通过描述此次危机的发展脉络,在分析美国金融危机背景的基础上,从强化房地产按揭贷款业务风险管理,审慎推进资产证券化等六个方面得出了对中国的警示。