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.     

Household Saving in China

China, in recent years the world's largest and fastest growingeconomy, also has national saving rates that are among the highestin the world. This article considers a variety of statisticalissues that cloud the measurement of aggregate and householdsaving in China. It also provides new empirical evidence onthe importance of intertemporal considerations in explainingthe variation in household saving across China's provinces.     

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.     

The Saving Gateway: Implications for Optimal Saving*

The Saving Gateway is a government saving initiative aiming to ‘kick‐start a saving habit among people on lower incomes’. Funds saved in a Saving Gateway account up to a monthly limit are matched by the government after two years at a rate of £0.50 per £1 saved. In this paper, a Saving Gateway account is embedded alongside an ordinary interest‐bearing account in a simple life‐cycle model of saving to assess the implications of the scheme for optimal saving. Among the findings are that, for agents with access to credit, the Saving Gateway is associated with a fall in saving during the life of the account and a rise in consumption. However, the scheme increases saving by the credit‐constrained. On their own, empirically plausible levels of habit formation in consumption preferences have too small an effect on saving to justify the scheme.     

Irrevocable Commitments,Going Private and Private Equity

This paper adds to growing interest in public to private buy‐outs and mechanisms to ensure bid success. Using a unique, hand‐collected dataset of 155 public to private buy‐outs we provide one of the first examinations of the determinants of irrevocable commitments. Irrevocable commitments involve undertakings given by existing shareholders to agree to sell their shares to the bidder before the bid to take the company private is announced. We find that, for management buy‐outs, the level of irrevocable commitments is increased by the bid premium, the reputation of the private equity backer and board shareholdings. The level of irrevocable commitments is reduced by rumours of a takeover bid and bid value. We therefore find evidence that management and private equity firms' activity prior to the bid's announcement can have an important impact on the process of going private.     

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.     

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。     

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。     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

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.     

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     

近代民营银行家陈光甫

陈光甫先生一生的功绩与是是非非,在这里我们不作全面的评论,现仅就陈先生创办和管理上海商业储蓄银行略作简介与评论,以达到"古"为今用的目的.     

Fee Variation in Private Equity

We study how investment fees vary within private equity funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management- and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds and those in high demand are less likely to use multiple fee schedules. Some investors consistently pay lower fees relative to others within their funds. Investor size, experience, and past performance explain some but not all of this effect, suggesting that unobserved traits like negotiation skill or bargaining power materially impact the fees that investors pay to access private markets.     

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 equity alliances in mergers

This paper examines reasons for alliance formation between private equity bidders when compared to sole-sponsored private equity deals. Testing a comprehensive set of hypotheses, we find strong evidence for the relative-risk hypothesis of Robinson (2008), as private bidders are more likely to form an alliance in a diversifying acquisition. We also find that private equity alliances involved more profitable target firms when compared to sole-sponsored private equity deals. Finally, we find that the significantly lower abnormal returns for target firms in private equity alliance deals are eliminated once we control for differences in the types of target firms acquired by private equity alliances and single private equity bidders. The last result suggests that private equity alliances do not generate significantly lower target returns because of collusion.