THE SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO FINANCIAL MARKETS

Abstract.  As a part of the renaissance and growth of economic sociology during the past two decades, and in response to processes such as economic globalization, financial markets have been increasingly scrutinized by sociologists. Their investigation is seen as relevant with respect to understanding the structure and dynamics of advanced societies, the dynamics of social development, as well as fundamental aspects of human behaviour. This paper charts recent developments in the sociology of financial markets; its starting point is the treatment of the concept of information within three sociological orientations: the social-structural approach, sociological neo-institutionalism and the newer social studies of finance. By highlighting their different assumptions about information and market behaviour, I discuss how these approaches conceptualize financial markets, the methodological implications and the ways in which they contribute to the study of financial exchanges.     

资本账户开放、系统性金融风险与经济高质量发展

扩大资本账户开放是中国完善社会主义市场经济体制的重要举措。资本账户开放不仅对经济高质量发展存在直接传导渠道,亦可通过“撬动”金融稳定导致系统性金融风险,进而对经济高质量发展产生影响。那么,资本账户开放影响经济高质量发展的传导效应究竟如何？本文运用具备随机波动率特征的时变参数结构向量自回归模型动态识别资本账户开放、系统性金融风险及经济高质量发展的时变特征,并通过资本账户开放关键时点的选择,详细刻画资本账户开放的传导渠道。实证结果表明：一方面,“资本账户开放—经济高质量发展”直接传导渠道显示资本账户开放短期对经济高质量发展有显著的、波动性的影响,但中长期传导效应并不明确;另一方面,“资本账户开放—系统性金融风险—经济高质量发展”间接传导渠道表明,资本账户开放短期稳健抑制了系统性金融风险增长,但中长期易受国内外经济形势波动影响出现抑制弱化,增强系统性金融风险对经济高质量发展的负向影响,推进资本账户开放的积极作用不能通过金融渠道长期有效地传导至社会经济发展中。因此,中国应遵循自身发展实际,渐进、审慎地推进资本账户开放,在防范系统性金融风险的前提下,疏通金融支持经济高质量发展的渠道。     

基于自回归模型的金砖国家金融发展对实体经济的影响研究

为了研究金融市场发展对实体经济增长的影响,运用广义矩阵方法和扩展的内生增长模型对金融市场指标的有效性进行评估研究。研究发现,金砖国家私营信贷部门的信贷水平和资本深度有助于提高实体经济的增长水平。实体经济的增长对金融发展的依赖性较大,两者之间具有正相关性。     

江苏供给侧结构性改革的金融支持政策研究

推进供给侧结构性改革,是适应和引领经济发展新常态的重大创新,是经济发展方式转变和经济结构战略性调整的关键。江苏省实施供给侧结构性改革还需要让市场在资源配置中发挥决定性作用,尤其是要发挥金融市场的力量,借助金融工具盘活金融资源,让资金从产能过剩领域流向供给不足领域。稳健运行的资本市场能够提供最直接的投资机会,及时分享供给侧结构性改革的成果,实现企业和家庭的财富创造。因此,拥有强大的资本市场、创造活跃的金融市场有助于江苏省经济转型的成功和创新能力的提升。     

Financial development and economic growth in Vietnam

By making use of a panel dataset that covers 61 provinces of Vietnam over the period 1997 to 2006, this paper examines the link between financial development and economic growth. Our analysis, which is based on endogenous growth theory, reveals that financial development has contributed to economic growth in Vietnam. We find that high ratio of credit to Gross Provincial Product (GPP) has accelerated economic growth in Vietnam. We also found a strong positive link between financial development and economic growth when alternative measures of financial development were used. The impact of foreign direct investment on economic growth will be stronger if more resources are invested in financial market development.     

Financial contracts as coordination device

We study the use of financial contracts as bid‐coordinating device in multi‐unit uniform price auctions. Coordination is required whenever firms face a volunteer's dilemma in pricing strategies: one firm (the “volunteer") is needed to increase the market clearing price. Volunteering, however, is costly, as inframarginal suppliers sell their entire capacity whereas the volunteer only sells residual demand. We identify conditions under which signing financial contracts solves this dilemma. We test our framework exploiting data on contract positions by large producers in the New York power market. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, we show that the contracting strategy is payoff dominant and provide estimates of the benefits of such strategy.     

金融发展与经济增长文献综述

对金融发展与经济增长的国内外研究进行了梳理。国外学者在理论和实证研究上都处于领先地位,并且他们的研究视野比较开阔,使用跨国数据比较多。中国学者在结合我国国情,对中国省域金融发展和经济增长的研究方面做了很多工作。但中国学者的理论研究比较薄弱,研究成果大部分停留在金融发展是否促进了经济增长层次,实证分析所用到的金融发展数据也基本局限于银行贷款,对证券市场稍有涉足,下一步的研究方向应该结合中国资本市场的发展提出有中国特色的金融发展理论。     

中国金融服务贸易发展现状及其竞争力探析

金融服务贸易作为现代服务业的一部分,在经济发展中越来越重要。然而,与发达资本主义国家相比,中国金融服务贸易的国际竞争力还很薄弱。通过SWOT分析表明,中国金融服务贸易的发展受到了资本条件、人力条件、技术条件、政府政策、市场机制及国际环境等内外部因素的影响。为此,本文针对中国金融服务贸易发展中面临的优势、劣势、机遇与威胁,提出了相应对策,以期对提升我国金融服务贸易的国际竞争力,推动中国经济的稳步增长有所借鉴。     

Economic and capital market antecedents of venture capital commitments (1960–2010)

Using vector autoregression technique, we examine the interrelation between venture capital flows, economic development, capital market fund-raising activities, and capital market valuation, based on annual data of the United States over the past half-century. We find that venture capital commitments appear to be correlated with GDP and capital market valuation. While capital market fund-raising activities (Initial Public Offerings and Seasoned Equity Offerings) are also correlated with venture capital flows, these effects are subsumed by GDP, indicating that the overall economy drives both venture capital flows and capital market financing activities. Analyses from impulse response functions suggest that shocks to GDP have a permanent effect on venture capital flows, while the impact of capital market valuation (Standard & Poor 500 returns) on venture capital flows is rather short lived. Overall, both economy-wide development and financial market fluctuations seem to impact venture capital flows.     

我国多层次资本市场建设的思考——关于新三板市场的发展探讨

历经严重的金融危机冲击之后,转变经济增长方式成为我国经济发展的重要方向。作为经济推动的主要力量,资本市场的发展成为关键问题。本文对我国资本市场的现状、资本市场的结构性、场外交易市场的构建等问题进行了深入分析,指出多层次资本市场构建的重要性所在,对新三板市场的建设发展提出了相应对策。     

公司治理对宏观经济影响分析

目前公司治理的研究大多局限于微观层面,研究公司治理对宏观经济影响的文献比较少见。良好的公司治理能促进金融系统的发展,有利于经济增长;企业公司治理状况、资产负债状况的改变能够通过金融加速器效应引起经济波动;公司治理水平会影响资产价格波动,从而影响货币政策传导的有效性;投资者保护水平影响着金融市场的发展。     

Inflation,financial development,and growth: A trilateral analysis

A large body of evidence links financial development to economic growth, yet the channels through which inflation affects this relationship and its stability have been less thoroughly explored. We take an econometric and graphical approach to examining these channels, and find that higher levels of financial development, combined with low-inflation, are related to higher rates of economic growth, especially in lower income countries, but that financial development loses much of its explanatory power in the presence of high-inflation. In particular, small increases in the price level seem able to wipe out relatively large growth effects of financial deepening when the annual rate of inflation lies between 4% and 19%, whereas the operation of the finance–growth link is less affected by inflation rates above this range. Growth is generally much lower, however, in such high-inflation settings where financial development is typically repressed.     

Sharing risk within and across countries: the role of labor market institutions

This paper studies the effect of labor market institutions on within- and cross-country risk sharing, using a model of international trade in risky assets modified to include a subset of agents, labor-owners who do not access financial markets, and employment security provisions. Labor market, institutions, by promoting within-country risk-shifting arrangements between agents with or without, access to financial markets, reduce the fluctuations of non-tradable labor incomes and amplify the, fluctuations of capital incomes. Capital flows become more volatile across countries, and if the, configuration of labor markets differs across countries, capital-owners bear the burden of systematic, undiversifiable world aggregate uncertainty.     

新会计准则下高质量会计信息的实现策略

本文认为,完善的资本市场要求高质量的会计信息,虚假的信息是在破坏市场的质量和形象。在资本市场上通过粉饰财务报表,欺骗广大投资者和债权人,会增加公司股票的融资成本而降低股价。财政部新颁布的会计准则对会计信息的诚实度和透明度做出严格规范,高质量的会计信息能够促进资本市场的完善和发展,对企业和资本市场都有较强的规范作用。     

彩票文化能够影响企业财务违规行为吗？——来自地区彩票消费的证据

文化作为非正式制度的核心组成,是影响企业行为的重要因素。基于彩票文化视角,考察了地区文化对企业财务违规的影响,发现地区彩票文化越盛行,个体的冒险倾向和风险容忍度越强,企业财务违规的可能性越大。异质性分析结果表明:当企业面临的业绩压力较大时,彩票文化对企业违规的正向影响更加明显,而良好的治理水平有利于缓解两者之间的关系;彩票文化浓厚的地区,企业财务决策偏于激进,财务信息质量较低。研究成果为规范企业行为、促进资本市场健康发展提供了一定的理论借鉴和实践启示。     

Financial development,portfolio investments and the real economy in Africa

According to the conservative view, capital flows enhance economic growth. Focussing on Africa’s real economy, this study investigates the linkage between portfolio investments and real sector growth, and whether financial sector development strengthens this association. The study covers 30 countries over the period 1990–2017. We adopt the Lewbel instrumental variable general method of moments (IV-GMM) two-step robust estimator, which relies on heteroscedasticity for identification, while dealing with instrument insufficiency, unavailability, endogeneity and omitted variable bias. We found that portfolio equity has no growth impact on Africa’s real sector. Debt flows deter the growth of the overall real sector as well as the manufacturing and industrial sectors, but have no impact on agriculture and service growth. We found that financial development does strengthen the positive association between capital flows and economic growth, but this is dependent on the type of sector and portfolio investment, as well as on the degree of financial development. We control for known determinants of economic growth.     

Keeping a weather eye on prediction markets: The influence of environmental conditions on forecasting accuracy

Increasingly, prediction markets are being embraced as a mechanism for eliciting and aggregating dispersed information and providing a means of deriving probabilistic forecasts of future uncertain events. The efficient market hypothesis postulates that prediction market prices should incorporate all information that is relevant to the performances of the contracts traded. This paper shows that such may not be the case in relation to information regarding environmental factors such as the weather and atmospheric conditions. In the context of horserace betting markets, we demonstrate that even after the effects of these factors on the contestants (horses and jockeys) have been discounted, the accuracy of the probabilities derived from market prices is affected systematically by the prevailing weather and atmospheric conditions. We show that significantly better forecasts can be derived from prediction markets if we correct for this phenomenon, and that these improvements have substantial economic value.     

How financial intermediation challenges national sovereignty in emerging markets

This study explores the impact of changes occurring in financial markets on national sovereignty. Sovereignty involves both the authority to rule and the capacity to exercise this rule. Changes now occurring in financial markets and their most important institution, banks, present challenges to sovereignty. Domestic challenges include consolidation, conglomeration, automation, reduction of government banking, disintermediation, and the development of risk transfer markets and mechanisms. International challenges include freeing capital inflows and outflows, foreign control of financial service institutions, regional and supranational economic integration, and the abandonment of national currencies. These often create a web of obligations that may compromise national sovereignty. While sovereignty may not be viewed as absolute in terms of national priorities, and may be in a constant state of negotiation, it is a measure of national strength. Its infringement may produce resentments and dissatisfactions among international agents and within national political structure and render a toll on national growth and development.     

城乡交错区农村住房租赁市场:资源与收入配置效应

本文对杭州市城乡交错区农村住房租赁市场的资源配置与收入配置效应进行了详细分析。研究发现,村庄外来劳动力比重对住房租赁市场的发育影响较大;家庭人均住房建筑面积与农户出租面积关系密切。住房租赁市场的发育提高了宅基地利用效率,并一定程度上促进了住房投资。住房出租的租金收入在农户家庭收入总额中已经占到了不小的份额,这意味着住房租赁市场的发育有利于农户家庭收入的提高。     

论网络条件下企业资金流程的控制模式

现代社会是信息的社会。信息是重要的经济资源、无形的经济财富。没有信息资源的开发、利用,管理的现代化、科学化就无从谈起。而信息化作为企业参与国际竞争与合作的重要条件,对于提高企业资金管理水平,增强市场竞争力起着重要作用。互联网的虚拟性、快捷性、动态性、开放性和无国界限,使网络会计的实施和发展成为可能。在网络条件下,会计工作对企业资金流程的控制模式发生了根本性的改变,借助互联网可以对企业资金流程实施有效的控制。