The usefulness of earnings versus book value for predicting stock returns and cross corporate ownership in Japan

Using a sample of Japanese firms, this paper evaluates the usefulness of the two fundamental products of an accrual accounting system, namely accrual earnings and book value of equity for predicting stock returns. Our analysis shows that both earnings and book value for Japanese firms have the ability to provide for profitable trading strategies or improved portfolio decisions, and that relative to the trading strategy based on earnings or book value alone, the trading strategy based on a combination of both earnings and book value generates substantially higher returns for all cases. This suggests that book value (or earnings) captures certain aspects of equity values that are not captured by earnings (book value). Our multivariate regression results further indicate that the predictive ability of earnings is dominated by that of book value. Finally, it is found that the predictive ability of book value is sensitive to the degree of cross corporate ownership, while it is insensitive to the degree of real estate holding.     

Size and liquidity effects in Japanese regional stock markets

This paper assesses the effectiveness of traded turnover, Amihud (2002) and Liu (2006) metrics in measuring illiquidity, as used in a multifactor CAPM. The performance of this model is contrasted using a unique sample from Japan’s regional stock exchanges, namely Sapporo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka and Tokyo. The evidence suggests that size effects are important in Tokyo, liquidity plays a more important role in the conditional modelling of returns particularly in the smaller markets of Sapporo, Fukuoka and Nagoya where costs of equity are highest.     

Old stocks,new owners: Two cases of ownership change in China's stock market

During the 1990s, ownership of China's listed firms remained stable: state entities remained in control of restructured state-owned enterprises since only a minority of shares were allowed to trade publicly and to be owned privately. However, since 1999, the ownership of China's listed firms has become more fluid due to the development of an off-exchange market in ‘legal person’ shares. This paper examines two such cases of ownership change. The case of Taitai's take-over of Lizhu shows that transfer of control is now occurring on a commercial basis. However, the Baiwen case shows that buy-outs are still being organized by government entities to support failing state firms. The deals suggest that while the government is using all means to restructure listed firms, rather than de-list them, it is also moving to create a competitive market in control.     

Pollution havens,endogenous environmental policy,and foreign direct investment

In an increasingly integrated world economy, countries may have greater incentives to weaken environmental policy as disguised protection intended to give a competitive edge to local firms. This may generate pollution havens as firms relocate in response to different environmental policies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) weakens profit‐shifting policy considerations while increasing environmental damages but, at the same time, may provide external benefits. We derive conditions under which the FDI‐recipient country has an incentive to manipulate its environmental standard to prevent or attract FDI, potentially eliminating or creating pollution havens, in addition to examining the impact of FDI on the equilibrium state of the environment.     

The effect of bank account ownership on credit and consumption: Evidence from the UK

This article examines the causal effects of bank account ownership on credit access and consumption by isolating an exogenous change in account ownership produced by an electronic transfer mandate in the universal UK Child Benefit program. Comparing households with and without children finds that the mandate substantially affected banking behavior, with an 8.6% relative increase in transaction account ownership. When households transition into account ownership, results indicate large increases in credit card ownership (89%), and household durable goods (55%). Similar changes are not seen in loan use, weekly expenditures, or vehicle ownership. Additional evidence from a panel data set indicate declines in the use of fringe bank credit, informal loans, and debt after households transition into bank account ownership. In total, evidence suggests that an important effect of owning a bank account is improved access to credit cards which enables durable good consumption.     

The trading behavior and price impact of foreign, institutional, individual investors and government: Evidence from Korean equity market

We examine the dynamic relation between stock returns and four types of investment flows using Korean daily data for the period 1998–2010, focusing on the investment/trading behavior of four types of investors – individual, institutional, government, and foreign – and the effect of cross-border investment flows on the Korean equity market. We find that, first, foreigners and institutional investors tend to drive the Korean equity market, and their trades seem to be information-driven, whereas individual investors do not drive the Korean equity market and their trades do not seem to be information-driven. Second, as a result, both foreigners and institutional investors performed well in the sample period, whereas individual investors performed poorly. Third, the four types of investors differ in their trading behavior. In response to U.S. market returns, foreigners and institutional investors tend to take a momentum strategy whereas individual investors and government tend to take a contrarian strategy.     

Identifying the causal effect of alcohol abuse on the perpetration of intimate partner violence by men using a natural experiment

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is widespread and has substantial negative consequences. Researchers have documented a strong positive correlation between alcohol abuse and IPV. However, alcohol abuse is potentially endogenous to IPV. We deal with this problem by exploring a unique instrumental variable—the September 11 terrorist attack—in Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Ordinary least squares results confirm a strong positive correlation between alcohol abuse and IPV. However, our two‐stage least squares results are statistically insignificant. These results indicate that alcohol abuse might not have a causal effect on IPV and, therefore, have important policy implications.     

Threshold effect in international linkage of stock prices

This paper examines whether the international linkage of the stock price indexes found in previous studies is confirmed for the case where the stock index changes only slightly, utilizing the daily stock price index data from 1975 to 1995 for the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. Using dummy variables in the regressions, it is shown that small changes in the stock price index of any country do not affect the other country's index. In contrast, large changes have a significant effect in most cases. Thus, there is a threshold effect in international linkage of stock prices. It is also shown that negative large changes have a clearer effect than positive ones.     

The effect of oil price on China's exports

The increase in oil prices in recent years has occurred concurrently with a rapid expansion of Chinese exports in the world markets, despite China being an oil importing country. In this paper we develop a theoretical model that explains the positive correlation between Chinese exports and the oil price. The model shows that Chinese growth can lead to an increase in oil prices that has a stronger impact on its export competitors. This is due to the large labor force surplus of China. We then examine this hypothesis by estimating a reduced form equation for Chinese exports using Rodrik [Rodrik, Dani, 2006. What's so special about China's exports? China and World Economy 14, 1–19.]'s measure of export competitiveness, together with the oil price, productivity, real exchange rate, and foreign industrial production over the monthly 1992–2005 period. The results suggest a stable relationship and yields slightly positive values for the price of oil and elastic coefficients for export competitiveness, along with the expected negative elasticity for the real exchange rate.     

套利定价模型在上海股票市场的无效性检验

1952年，Markowitz在《投资组合选择》一文中指出分散投资可降低风险，并在投资者理性预期的基础上提出了投资组合选择理论，即在有效边界的风险和标准差给定水平上，投资者选择期望收益率最高的资产组合。1959年，Roberts和Osbeme在对股票价格行为研究中发现股票价格遵循随机游走规律，提出了“有效市场假说”(EMH)：如果有用的信息能够立即地、无偏地反映证券价格，那么市场就是有效的。在市场有效条件下，     

The Impact of Housing Prices on Health in the United States Before,During, and After the Great Recession

We estimate the effects of U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Area housing prices on a variety of health outcomes and health-related behaviors separately for homeowners and tenants. The constructed data set consists of information on individuals from the 2002–2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System combined with homeownership data from the March Current Population Survey and housing prices from Freddie Mac. We estimate positive effects on homeowners' mental health when housing prices increase. We also find negative effects on tenants' health and health-related behaviors with increases in housing prices. These estimated contemporaneous effects are concentrated among low-income homeowners and tenants, and the effects for tenants are not persistent in the long run. However, the cumulative effects of an increase in housing prices on obesity become more pronounced for homeowners in the long run, resulting in worse self-reported health.     

The effects of foreign ownership on competition in the banking industry: The key role of financial reforms

This study examines the impact of foreign ownership on bank competition and discusses whether the relation changes with various proxies of financial reform. We contribute to the extant literature by using the bank-level ratio of foreign ownership and applying five individual sub-indices of financial reforms from 50 countries. Within the emerging Asia and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, our findings show that a higher ratio of foreign ownership in a bank can enhance competition, whereas a liberalization policy on banking supervision instead mitigates this positive relation between foreign ownership and competition. Conversely, the liberalization on bank privatization in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries significantly increases competition. Thus, financial reforms do matter to the foreign ownership-bank competition nexus.     

外汇储备增长对我国物价影响的实证分析

2007年以来,我国物价水平出现持续攀升的势头。2008年1～4月份,居民消费价格水平同比上涨8.2%。与物价上涨相对应的是我国外汇储备水平创出了历史新高,截至2008年6月末,我国外汇储备余额达1.8万亿美元。那么,外汇储备增长与物价上涨之间有没有直接的联系?本文从短期和长期两个视角,理论和实证相结合探讨了我国外汇储备增长对物价上涨的影响及其作用机制。     

铜期货价格与现货价格的关系及启示

随着经济的快速发展,我国对大宗商品的消费需求不断增加,然而综观我国目前的对外贸易,作为大买家却没有定价权,这与需求大国和对外贸易大国的身份极不相称。本文对铜期货价格与现货价格的关系进行了实证研究,进而对现货市场价格的局限性及期货市场价格的功能进行了理性分析,提出利用期货市场争夺国际定价权。     

An Assessment of the Forward-Looking Hypothesis of the Demand for Cigarettes

In this article, we develop a model of the demand for cigarettes that incorporates forward-looking behavior related to the adverse health consequences of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes. The model results in several testable hypotheses that we use to examine the extent to which smokers exhibit forward-looking behavior. Results of our study are generally supportive of the notion that smokers behave in a forward-looking manner.     

The impact of mandated employment verification systems on state‐level employment by foreign affiliates

Faced with diminishing prospects for a comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level, states have started to take immigration matters into their own hands. For example, many states have been mandating the use of employment verification (E‐Verify) systems to confirm work eligibility. Some of the consequences of these E‐Verify mandates remain unclear. In this article, we focus on the effect of anti‐illegal immigrant laws on foreign investment. Specifically, we exploit the state‐level and time variation in the enactment and implementation of E‐Verify mandates to explore if punitive measures against the firm impact states' ability to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). We quantify FDI through the employment by U.S. affiliates owned by foreign firms. Our results suggest that E‐Verify mandates adversely affect employment among these majority‐owned U.S. affiliates and, therefore, work against states trying to attract FDI.     

Salience and the Disposition Effect: Evidence from the Introduction of “Cash‐Outs” in Betting Markets

The disposition effect describes the tendency of investors to sell assets that have increased in value since purchase, and hold those that have not. We analyze the introduction of betting market “Cash‐Outs,” which provide a continual update—and therefore increase the salience—of bettors' paper profits/losses on each bet. We find that the introduction of Cash‐Out increased the disposition effect in this market, as punters sold their profitable bets with greater frequency than before. We do not, however, find that the disposition effect has any impact on asset prices, either before or after this intervention.     

The contribution of multinationals to wage inequality: foreign ownership and the gender pay gap

Review of World Economics - While an abundance of studies exists documenting the significant wage premium of multinationals (MNE) and the effects of foreign direct investments on wage inequality,...     

上市公司财务状况与其股票二级市场价格演变的关系

公司的财务状况是影响股价走势的重要内因之一 ,它由盈利能力、偿债能力和资金营运能力三个基本部分组成。本文根据实际情况 ,选择反映盈利能力和偿债能力的部分财务指标 ,分析研究其与股票二级市场价格演变的关系 ,以此为投资者的投资决策提供一些建议和帮助。     

新股短期价格表现研究评述

新股抑价是证券发行市场普遍存在的一个谜题,许多学者提出各种理论进行解释。本文从信息不对称、信息完全和市场无效率三方面对这些理论进行梳理,借此对研究我国股票市场异常行为提供一些思考。