Currency crises and the real economy: The role of banks

This paper attempts to explain the divergent output effects of currency crises through a very simple and intuitive model that relates the effects of a devaluation not only to the financial fragility of banks, but also to the degree of financial market imperfection. The model shows that countries with higher degrees of financial market imperfection and/or a banking sector whose balance sheets are weak, in terms of having low net worth and high foreign currency exposure, are much more likely to suffer a contraction in the wake of a currency crisis.     

金融结构与经济增长关系的实证研究

对中国金融结构的现状作定性分析发现,货币金融资产比重过大和金融市场结构不完善是目前存在的主要问题,通过增加非货币金融资产比重,深化资本市场,增加融资渠道可以降低金融风险,提高金融安全性,促进经济增长。     

退市金融机构员工安置问题探讨

员工遣散安置是金融机构市场退出过程中的重要内容之一.员工安置工作关系到社会稳定,涉及面广,政策性强,其成功与否直接影响金融机构市场退出进程的顺利推进.由于相关法律法规不健全,员工安置常常缺乏明确的政策依据和规范的操作程序,处在边实践边摸索的阶段.近年来退市金融机构员工安置的实践表明,退市金融机构员工安置的法律法规政策适用、具体实践操作、存在问题以及发展方向等均值得探讨.     

金融体系的顺周期性问题解读

在信息不对称性和金融市场不完善条件下,金融体系自身具有顺周期变化的特点。金融加速器机制、《巴塞尔协议》的资本约束监管机制以及金融机构自身的行为都会导致信贷供给更为严重的顺周期性,并放大经济冲击、影响宏观政策的效果。而以美国为核心的金融资本主义模式进一步加重了金融体系的顺周期性。因此,对金融体系的顺周期性问题的相关研究成果值得梳理和借鉴。     

货币契约、金融功能与经济发展

本文从交换的角度出发,认为货币是一种为了节约交易费用而设计的载有对社会资源支配权的契约。契约的目的是保障货币作为一种有效率的交换媒介,从而降低交易成本。从契约这一视角理解货币可以发现金融系统有三项重要功能:组织社会资源进行生产、调节消费与投资的比例和风险管理。笔者基于金融系统对消费投资比例的调节功能,通过构建模型说明,发展中国家可以通过完善市场机制和金融系统功能,借助市场的力量实现投资与消费的最优比例,从而使经济得到最优的发展。     

Born like China,growing like China

This paper studies the effects of China's one‐child policy on saving and foreign reserve accumulation. Fertility control increases the saving rate both by altering saving decisions at the household level, and by altering the demographic composition of the population at the aggregate level. I show that demographically induced changes in saving explain the build‐up of a large foreign surplus in China. As in Song, Storesletten, and Zilibtti (2011), the model features contractual and financial market imperfections. Government‐owned firms are less productive but have full access to the credit market. Entrepreneurial firms are more productive but face credit constraints. As labour switches from less productive to more productive firms, demand for domestic bank borrowing decreases. As saving increases while demand for loans decreases, domestic savings are invested abroad, generating a foreign surplus. The model predicts that China's foreign reserve accumulation will soon begin to slow down in response to recent relaxation of the one‐child policy.     

CREDIT RATIONING,RISK AVERSION,AND INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Relative to their counterparts in high‐income regions, entrepreneurs in developing countries face less efficient financial markets, more volatile macroeconomic conditions, and higher entry costs. This article develops a dynamic empirical model that links these features of the business environment to cross‐firm productivity distributions, entrepreneurs’ welfare, and patterns of industrial evolution. Fit to panel data on Colombian apparel producers, the model yields estimates of a credit market imperfection index, the sunk costs of creating a new business, and various technology parameters. Model‐based counterfactual experiments suggest that improved intermediation could dramatically increase the return on assets for entrepreneurial households with modest wealth.     

Chinese Saving Rates from 1953 to 2012: Trends,Compositions and Prospects

This study conducts a long‐run analysis on the trends and components of Chinese saving rates from 1953 to 2012. We identify two structural changes in aggregate saving rates around 1978 and 2001, and examine them through a decomposition analysis of the income distribution and sector‐specific saving rates. The following key findings are obtained. First, the major trends and compositions of Chinese saving rates changed markedly over the period considered, which explains the changes of aggregate saving rates with the dramatic economic transition from a planned economy to a market‐oriented economy. Second, we investigate the surge in aggregate saving rates from 2001 to 2012 based on a series of institutional factors, such as the evolving labour market, domestic economic policy adjustments and changes in external economic conditions caused by China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 and the 2008 global financial crisis. Finally, we present the future prospects for the high aggregate saving rates in China based on several evolving economic, demographic and policy trends. We argue that Chinese saving rates have peaked in recent years and that a declining trend is expected, which will contribute to the economic rebalancing of the country.     

Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis: Reassessing the Role of International Finance

Global current account imbalances have recently been singled out by many as a key factor contributing to the global financial crisis. Current account surpluses in several emerging market economies are said to have put significant downward pressure on world interest rates, thereby fueling a credit boom and risk taking in major advanced economies with current account deficits (the “excess saving” view). We argue that this perspective on global imbalances bears reconsideration. We highlight two conceptual problems: (i) explaining market interest rates through the saving-investment framework; and (ii) drawing inferences about a country's cross-border financing activity based on observations of net capital flows. We trace the shortcomings of this perspective to a failure to consider the distinguishing characteristics of a monetary (credit) economy. We conjecture that the main macroeconomic cause of the financial crisis was not “excess saving” but the “excess elasticity” of the international monetary and financial system.     

Intersectoral Adjustment and Policy Intervention: the Importance of General‐Equilibrium Effects*

We model adjustment costs in a general‐equilibrium setting using a “transport sector.” This sector provides services needed to reallocate a factor of production across two other sectors. A market imperfection in the transport sector causes adjustment to occur too slowly in the absence of government intervention. The government has a restricted menu of second‐best policies to remedy this imperfection. Given this restricted menu, the optimal policy choice depends on the government's ability to make commitments. The key to these results is our replacement of the black box of adjustment costs with an explicit model of these costs.     

美、日住房金融体系的功能比较及启示

本文从金融功能的角度比较分析认为,美国的住房金融体系以动员储蓄为核心功能,服务于美国经济增长的总体目标,其顺利运行的条件是资产证券化、发达的资本市场和美元强势地位,具有不可复制性;日本的住房金融体系以风险管理为核心功能,其政策性金融通过引导家庭自动分化,对整个住房金融体系风险控制和稳健运行作用重大。我国经济经过30多年的快速发展后,微观主体和住房属性都发生了显著变化,要优化住房金融的功能结构,防范"住专事件"和"次贷危机",促进住房市场持续健康发展。     

The relationship between income inequality and aggregate saving: an empirical analysis using cross-country panel data

If the rich save more than the poor, an increase in income inequality raises aggregate saving. We investigate whether income inequality is positively related to aggregate saving ratio by estimating a fixed-effect model based on a panel data of 48 countries for the period 1991–2010. We find evidence that aggregate saving ratio increases with income inequality using various inequality measures. In particular, the effect of income distribution on saving is greater and statistically more significant with in financially developed, rich and OECD countries. It suggests that the rich save much more than the poor under advanced financial system and in a rich country. We also find that the relationship between income inequality and saving ratio is closer in the 2000s than the 1990s. This finding may result from financial development and the high income level in the 2000s.     

Labor-Market Search, Financial Market Integration, and the Fiscal Multiplier

We used a two-country optimizing "new-open-economy macroeconomics" model to analyze the implications of financial market integration for the fiscal multiplier. The fiscal multiplier measures the accumulated effect of fiscal policy on output. Our model features a labor-market friction in the form of labor-market search. The conventional wisdom derived from the basic textbook version of the classic Mundell–Fleming model has been that financial market integration diminishes the fiscal multiplier. We show that labor-market search implies that financial market integration should increase rather than decrease the fiscal multiplier.     

SAVING BEHAVIOR AND SOVIET REFORM

This paper argues against using the forced savings concept to explain saving behavior of Soviet consumers. It discusses reasons for consumers in a traditional Soviet economy to save less than their counterparts in market economies at similar economic development stages. These reasons include low variability of life cycle income, large state subsidies to major consumption items, ability of retirees to compensate for low money income by acquiring goods at state-controlled prices through standing in queues, and limited choice of financial instruments. When transition to a market economy occurs or is expected to occur, consumers tend to increase their savings. The way to deal with the Soviet system's inefficiencies is to liberalize currently controlled prices and to implement other market reforms, which would result in lifting official restrictions on already existing market forces. Market reforms, in turn, will help achieve financial stability. The Soviet economy's problem is not excessive saving but rather the excessive role of the state.     

Income Distribution and Aggregate Saving: A Non‐Monotonic Relationship

Drawing on a panel of advanced economies, this paper documents a concave and non‐monotonic link between inequality and the aggregate household saving rate. We find that, at a low level of inequality, more inequality is associated with higher saving; but we also show that a negative relationship between inequality and saving prevails where inequality is high. Using different empirical approaches, we locate the turning point, where the marginal effect of inequality turns from positive to negative, at a net income Gini coefficient of around 30. Moreover, we show that the relationship between inequality and saving also depends on financial market conditions. While inequality increases saving, when credit is scarce it tends to reduce saving at high levels of credit. This paper primarily focuses on household saving, yet we also find some evidence for a non‐monotonic effect of inequality on private saving, national saving, and the current account balance.     

Refinancing and decentralization: Evidence from China

Decentralization can complement market liberalization by strengthening incentives of agents to respond to market signals. However, in China banks centralized lending authority following financial reforms in the mid-1990s. We present a new theory of financial decentralization in which centralization provides a credible commitment not to refinance bad projects by reducing available information. Using data from Chinese rural financial institutions, we empirically assess the determinants of decentralization and the likelihood of collateral seizure, strongly confirming the predictions of the refinancing model. We conclude that weak institutional environments may limit the efficiency of financial intermediation despite financial market liberalization.     

Delegation and the regulation of U.S. financial markets

We analyze the institutional determinants of U.S. financial market regulation with a general model of the policy-making process in which legislators delegate authority to regulate financial risk at both the firm and systemic levels. The model explains changes in U.S. financial regulation leading up to the financial crisis. We test the predictions of the general model with a novel, comprehensive data set of financial regulatory laws enacted specifically between 1950 and 2009. The theoretical and empirical analysis finds that economic and political factors impact Congress’ decision to delegate regulatory authority to executive agencies, which in turn impacts the stringency of financial market regulation, and our estimation results indicate that political factors may have been stronger and resulted in inefficiencies.     

城市商业银行制度安排缺陷及改进

作为中国金融体制改革产物的城市商业银行,在服务地方经济建设,形成有效竞争市场方面起到了不可或缺的作用.但就可持续发展而言,其制度安排仍有不足之处,突出表现在股权结构不合理、公司治理不完善、市场定位不科学、高管人员选聘无市场等方面.克服这些缺陷需要大胆借鉴和应用包括交易成本理论、代理理论和产权理论在内的现代企业理论,以有效解决城市商业银行的激励机制和经营者选择机制问题,实现良性发展.     

金融发展与技术创新的良性互动:理论与实证

金融发展通过风险管理、信息收集处理和传递、激励监督和约束、动员储蓄和信用创造、便利交易和推动专业化等五项功能的完善促进技术创新;技术创新通过扩大市场需求、增加盈利空间、降低交易成本、优化信息传递、改善制度环境等方式推动金融发展,两者呈现出良性互动关系。根据金融发展和技术创新的关系原理和指标体系构建联立方程模型,运用我国1992～2010年的年度数据进行实证检验,发现金融深化与技术创新的两项指标、金融效率与专利授权数、金融结构和研发投入之间具有显著良性互动关系。     

Financial market frictions in a model of the Euro area

We build a model of the euro area incorporating financial market frictions at the level of firms and households. Entrepreneurs borrow from financial intermediaries in order to purchase business capital, in the spirit of the “financial accelerator” literature. We also introduce two types of households that differ in their degree of time preference. All households have preferences for housing services. The impatient households are faced with a collateral constraint that is a function of the value of their housing stock. Our aim is to provide a unified framework for policy analysis that emphasises financial market frictions alongside the more traditional model channels. The model is estimated by Bayesian methods using euro area aggregate data and model properties are illustrated with simulation and conditional variance and historical shock decomposition.