International Evidence on the Determinants of Private Saving

A broad set of possible determinants of private saving behavioris examined using data for a large sample of industrial anddeveloping countries. Both time-series and crosssectional estimatesare obtained. Results suggest that there is a partial offseton private saving of changes in public saving and (for developingcountries) in foreign saving, that demographics and growth areimportant determinants of private saving rates, and that interestrates and terms of trade have positive, but less robust, effects.Increases in per capita gross domestic product seem to increasesaving at low income levels (relative to the United States)but decrease it at higher ones.     

Will Private Health Insurance Make the Distribution of Public Health Subsidies More Equal? The Case of India

This paper assesses the impact of the entry of private players in the health insurance market on the size of the insurance market and the distribution of public health subsidies on health care provision in India. Simulation results presented in the paper suggest that the redistributive effect is small when richer groups have privileged access to public facilities.     

Saving Transitions

This article takes a systematic cross-national approach to identifyingsaving transitions— defined as sustained increases inthe saving rate of 5 percentage points or more—to studytheir determinants and to reexamine the question of causalitybetween growth and saving. Countries that undergo saving transitionsdo not necessarily experience sustained increases in their growthrates. In fact, growth rates typically return to their levelsbefore the transition within a decade. By contrast, countriesthat undergo growth transitions—arising from improvedterms of trade, increased domestic investment, or other sources—doend up with permanently higher saving rates. Hence saving transitionsdo not appear to be causal with respect to superior economicperformance.     

Saving the internet

The Internet goose has laid countless golden eggs, along with a growing number of rotten ones. But it's the rotten ones that now tempt commercial, governmental, and consumer interests to threaten the Internet's uniquely creative power. The expediently selected, almost accidentally generative properties of the Internet - its technical openness, ease of access and mastery, and adaptability - have combined, especially when coupled with those of the PC, to produce an unsurpassed environment for innovative experiment. Those same properties, however, also make the Internet hospitable to various forms of wickedness: hacking, porn, spam, fraud, theft, predation, and attacks on the network itself. As these undesirable phenomena proliferate, business, government, and many users find common cause for locking down Internet and PC architecture in the interests of security and order. PC and Internet security vulnerabilities are a legitimate menace. However, the most likely reactions - if they are not forestalled - will be at least as unfortunate as the security problems themselves. Consider the growing profusion of "tethered appliances" - devices whose functions cannot readily be altered by their owners (think TiVo). Such appliances take Internet innovations and wrap them up in a neat, easy-to-use package, which is good - but only if the Internet and PC can remain sufficiently in the center of the digital ecosystem to produce the next round of innovations and to generate competition. People buy these devices for their convenience or functionality and may appreciate the fact that they are safer to use (they limit the damage users can do through ignorance or carelessness). But the risk is that users, by migrating to such appliances, will unwittingly trade away the future benefits of generativity - a loss that will go unappreciated even as innovation tapers off.     

“权贵”的私家别墅

相比褐石系、名仕系、天境系的客户定位,世家系产品的目标客户群主要是钟情于欧陆建筑风格,对家族荣誉感强烈,同时享受高层级休闲方式的社会高层人群。作为金地集团旗下高端产品系列,世家系具有浓重的欧陆风情,其项目名称大多含有＂湾＂、＂府＂的字样,如金地大悦湾、金地紫乐府等。这些别墅产品具有精装修、智能化、注重服务等特点。在不少人眼中,世家系的产品拥有欧陆贵族庄园风格,依山傍水、恢弘庄重的低密度家族别墅,在浓密的高大树木丛中,时不时地透露别墅独立花园中的小水池或者类似雪花石的欧式雕塑。     

Private matters

Why do private firms stay private? Empirical evidence on this issue is sparse, as most private firms in the U.S. do not report their financial results. We investigate why private status matters by taking advantage of a unique dataset of large, leveraged private firms with SEC filings. Unlike a number of other studies, we find that neither the existence of growth opportunities, nor the desire of firm founders to diversify, is a principal determinant of the decision whether or not to retain private status. Rather, the existence of private benefits of control appears to serve as the most significant incentive to stay private. Family-controlled firms have significantly lower probabilities of filing for an IPO, while a board structure that grants management relatively more autonomy lowers the probability of an IPO filing as well. Cross-sectional analysis of profitability and ex post performance suggests that while private benefits of control may encourage firms to stay private, they do not have detrimental effects on firm efficiency. In contrast, firms controlled by private equity specialists appear to place a low value on control benefits and are likely to go public as a means of cashing out.     

SOS! 拯救年报

发布年报本是上市公司和资本市场之间进行沟通的良好方法,但是年报内容的频频出错却令这一沟通渠道陷入尴尬的境况,拯救年报势在必行。     

Style Drift in Private Equity

Abstract:  We introduce the concept of style drift to private equity investment. We present theory and evidence pertaining to style drifts in terms of a fund manager's stated focus on particular stages of entrepreneurial development. We develop a model that derives conditions under which style drifts are less likely among younger fund managers. We also show ways in which changes in market conditions can affect style drifts, and differences for funds committed to early-stage investments compared to funds committed to late-stage investments. We find some evidence of a positive relation between style drifting and investment performance.     

信任半径内的民间借贷——河南濮阳漫渡村金融服务小组调研

正费孝通在《乡土中国》中指出:乡土社会中农户"以‘己'为中心,像石子一般投入水中,和别人建立的社会关系…像水的波纹一般,一圈圈推出去,愈推愈远,也愈推愈薄…""从生育和婚姻结成的网络,可以一直推出去包括无穷的人…"。福山在《信任:社会美德与经济繁荣》一书中将这种信任结构定义为"信任半径"。农村社区对信任半径内的"自己人"与"外人"有着截然不同的态度。农户对信任半径内的"自己人"有着极为高昂的背德成本,而对于信任半径外的"外人",其背德成本则相对较低。正规金融机构难以适应农村金融市场的这种信任环     

外资私募股权投资在中国

外资私募无论在金融企业的股份制改造、行业龙头的重组改革,还是瞄准创业板而蓬勃发展的中小企业群体,都表现得积极而活跃,外资私募在中国的发展就是中国企业创新与转型的一个缩影     

Private credit in 129 countries

We investigate cross-country determinants of private credit, using new data on legal creditor rights and private and public credit registries in 129 countries. Both creditor protection through the legal system and information-sharing institutions are associated with higher ratios of private credit to gross domestic product, but the former is relatively more important in the richer countries. An analysis of legal reforms shows that credit rises after improvements in creditor rights and in information sharing. Creditor rights are remarkably stable over time, contrary to the hypothesis that legal rules are converging. Finally, legal origins are an important determinant of both creditor rights and information-sharing institutions. The analysis suggests that public credit registries, which are primarily a feature of French civil law countries, benefit private credit markets in developing countries.     

拯救“钱荒”

又见钱荒。继2008年金融危机后,中国企业钱荒再现。央视的调查显示,在温州,大概有三成左右的企业出现资金困难,而且他们表示现在的情况比2008年还要更加严峻。如果2008年是霜降,那么现在已经到大寒,钱荒变成了     

Past Abuses and Future Uses of Private Finance and Public Private Partnerships in Transport

The article explains the origins of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and the way the policy has evolved under the present Labour administration into Public Private Partnership (PPP). The author gives an assessment of the future prospects for the PFI/PPP in the transport sector. He believes that PPPs can make a considerable contribution towards efficient transport service delivery and this will be maximized if there is a better understanding of what the policies are seeking to achieve. Much of the action in the immediate future in transport PPPs will be with the local authorities, including the new Greater London Authority.     

Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa

Low domestic saving rates in South Africa may perpetuate a low-growthtrap. The decline in government satfing, a major reason forthe overall decline in saving, is now being reversed. However,personal saving rates have fallen since 1993, and corporaterates since 1995, and both may decline further with lower realinterest rates. It is important to understand both personaland corporate saving behavior in order to formulate policiesto raise the domestic saving rate in line with the needs ofeconomic growth. This article summarizes previous work on thehousehold sector, emphasizing the role of financial liberalization,assets, and income expectations, and explains sectoral linksand policy implications. Further, it analyzes South Africa'scorporate saving rate in detail. Models are developed both forthe share of profits in national income, including the rolesof the terms of trade, tax effects, and the price to unit laborcost ratio, and for the share of corporate saving in profits,which is found to depend on inflation, the real interest rate,dividend taxation, and financial liberalization. Corporate savingis remarkably underresearched, given its importance in manyeconomies. This research thus puts the saving and growth concernsof Kaldor into a modern empirical context.     

我国私营企业融资倾向与民间借贷的形成

改革开放以来,由于市场经济的产品市场化改革与金融市场化改革的时间不同步,使得体制内的私营企业融资与体制外的民间融资体系并存,并成为互为搭档、相互促进的两个体系.这种二元金融体系的存在具有某种合理成分,对于私营企业的发展起到了某种促进作用,但是随着利率市场化改革的进展和市场经济体制改革的深入,私营企业的融资渠道必将转向正规的金融机构,民间借贷作为某种合理性的存在也必将被纳入正规的金融体系.     

Saving in Developing Countries: An Overview

This article reviews the current state of knowledge on the determinantsof saving rates, presenting the main findings and contributionsof the recently completed World Bank research project, ‘SavingAcross the World.’ The article discusses the basic designof the research project and its core database, the World SavingDatabase. It then summarizes the main project results and placesthem in the context of the literature on saving, identifyingthe key policy and nonpolicy determinants of private savingrates. Special attention is paid to the relationship betweengrowth and saving and the impact of specific policies on savingrates. The article concludes by introducing the studies includedin this special issue.     

银行保管箱艰难空降

8月中旬以来,中国银行总行营业部颇有声势地向社会推介出了全新的"指纹电控保管箱"业务.由此,一个目前国内最大规模、最高科技规格的保管箱库从中银大厦地下二层"浮现水面".