The determinants of product lines

We study product line choice allowing for cost asymmetries but ruling out strategic motivations such as a desire to soften competition. We identify two forces that interact with asymmetric competition to shape equilibrium product lines. Possible outcomes range from head‐to‐head competition to complete separation of product lines and include the intermediate case of partial separation. In an international trade context, we predict which qualities a disadvantaged foreign producer will specialize in. If cost factors drive quality‐based discrimination then foreign firms sell only lower qualities. However, if demand factors are the main drivers then foreign firms sell only high qualities.     

Product boundary,vertical competition,and the double mark‐upproblem

We develop a model in which a main product (called product A) provides a performance quality z by itself, whereas a complementary product (called product B) is useless by itself but enhances the main product's performance quality to q > z. This asymmetric complementarity gives rise to the following results. First, if z is relatively small, then firms A and B behave as if the products are symmetrically complementary with the usual double marginalization problem. Second, if z is sufficiently large, then firms A and B price their products as if they are independent. Third, over a certain range of intermediate z, no pure‐strategy Nash equilibrium exists.     

汇率变动与出口产品加成率：影响机制和资源配置效应

利用2000—2013年中国工业企业数据和海关进出口数据,基于样本期间人民币汇率持续升值的事实,考察人民币汇率变动对中国出口产品加成率的影响。研究结果显示：人民币实际有效汇率的上升显著提高了企业出口产品加成率,并且该影响效应在异质性产品、竞争型行业、外资企业以及存在进口行为的企业中更大。机制分析表明,人民币升值通过产品质量效应、边际成本效应、价格竞争效应和市场选择效应影响出口产品加成率,其中产品质量升级和进口成本降低造成的影响占据主导,这是人民币升值显著提高出口产品加成率的重要原因。进一步研究显示,人民币升值的市场选择效应降低了产品内企业间的加成率离散度,提升了企业间的资源配置效率,但在市场选择效应和企业内加成率调整的共同影响下,其对企业内的资源配置效率没有显著影响。     

Do Sovereign Re‐Ratings Destabilize Equity Markets during Financial Crises? New Evidence from Higher Return Moments

This study investigates the effects of S&P's sovereign re‐ratings on the higher moments of equity market returns over recent financial crises. Using a set of intraday stock market index prices and sovereign credit ratings for a sample of 36 countries that experienced sovereign rating changes over the period from 1996 to 2013, we find that the higher moments of stock market returns are significantly more responsive to sovereign re‐ratings during financial crises, but the effects on stock markets are not the same across different financial crises. The effects during crises are, however, magnified for large downgrades and those that are associated with a loss of investment grade status. We find that there are asymmetric effects during financial crises in that downgrades are consistently more significant than upgrades in increasing realized volatility and realized kurtosis. Both upgrades and downgrades affect realized skewness in times of crises in the expected direction.     

Imperfect competition and quality signalling

We examine the interplay of imperfect competition and incomplete information in the context of price competition among firms producing horizontally and vertically differentiated substitute products. Incomplete information about vertical quality (consumer satisfaction) signalled via price softens price competition. Low‐quality firms always prefer the incomplete information game to the full‐information analog. Moreover, for “high‐value” markets with a sufficiently high proportion of high‐quality firms, these firms also prefer incomplete information to full information. We find that an increase in the loss to consumers associated with the low‐quality product may perversely benefit low‐quality firms; we consider applications to tort reform and professional licensing.     

Bankruptcy probability changes and the differential informativeness of bond upgrades and downgrades

Prior studies have found that stock returns around announcements of bond upgrades are insignificant, but that stock prices respond negatively to announcements of bond downgrades. This asymmetric stock market reaction suggests either that bond downgrades are timelier than upgrades, or that voluntary disclosures by managers preempt upgrades but not downgrades. This study investigates these conjectures by examining changes in firms’ probabilities of bankruptcy (assessed using bankruptcy prediction models) and voluntary disclosure activity around rating change announcements. The results indicate that the assessed probability of bankruptcy decreases before bond upgrades, but not after. By contrast, the assessed probability of bankruptcy increases both before and after bond downgrades. We also find that controlling for potential wealth-transfer related rating actions, which can impact stock returns differently, does not alter our results. Tests of press releases and earnings forecasts issued by firms suggest that the differential informativeness of upgrades and downgrades is not caused by differences in pre-rating change voluntary disclosures by upgraded and downgraded firms. The results support the hypothesis that downgrades are timelier than upgrades.     

The real impact of ratings-based capital rules on the finance-growth nexus

We investigate whether ratings-based capital regulation has affected the finance-growth nexus via a foreign credit channel. Using quarterly data on short to medium term real GDP growth and cross-border bank lending flows from G-10 countries to 67 recipient countries, we find that since the implementation of Basel 2 capital rules, risk weight reductions mapped to sovereign credit rating upgrades have stimulated short-term economic growth in investment grade recipients but hampered growth in non-investment grade recipients. The impact of these rating upgrades is strongest in the first year and then reverses from the third year and onwards. On the other hand, there is a consistent and lasting negative impact of risk weight increases due to rating downgrades across all recipient countries. The adverse effects of ratings-based capital regulation on foreign bank credit supply and economic growth are compounded in countries with more corruption and less competitive banking sectors and are attenuated with greater political stability.     

城乡统筹发展中的农村公共产品供给体制改革

农村公共产品供给不足是我国农村发展的薄弱环节,提高农村公共产品的供给水平是建设社会主义新农村的关键.城乡二元发展战略和农村需求表达机制不健全导致农村公共产品供给数量不足、质量不高、结构失衡、效率低下等问题,进而使城乡差距不断拉大.十八大报告强调城乡发展一体化是解决“三农”问题的根本途径,要实现城乡发展一体化,关键在于从根本上改变公共产品非均衡供给的二元供给模式.     

Intertemporal price discrimination with two products

We study the two‐product monopoly profit maximization problem for a seller who can commit to a dynamic pricing strategy. We show that if consumers' valuations are not strongly ordered, then optimality for the seller can require intertemporal price discrimination: the seller offers a choice between supplying a complete bundle now, or delaying the supply of a component of that bundle until a later date. For general valuations, we establish a sufficient condition for such dynamic pricing to be more profitable than mixed bundling. So we show that the established no‐discrimination‐across‐time result does not extend to two‐product sellers under standard taste distributions.     

Are Analysts’ Recommendations Informative? Intraday Evidence on the Impact of Time Stamp Delays

We demonstrate that time stamps reported in I/B/E/S for analysts’ recommendations released during trading hours are systematically delayed. Using newswire‐reported time stamps, we find 30‐minute returns of 1.83% (?2.10%) for upgrades (downgrades), but for this subset of recommendations we find corresponding returns of ?0.07% (?0.09%) using I/B/E/S‐reported time stamps. We also examine the information content of recommendations relative to management guidance and earnings announcements. Our evidence suggests that analysts’ recommendations are the most important information disclosure channel examined.     

Signaling in the Internet craze of initial public offerings

We explain the clustering of underpricing in initial public offerings (IPOs). The model features an industry with aggregate demand uncertainty and asymmetric information about firms' quality. In the IPO market, firms can signal quality by underpricing or under-issuing new shares. Expected aggregate demand for the industry's products increases with the publicity that the industry creates through IPO underpricing. We show that asymmetric information and expectations on aggregate product demand interact with each other to generate multiple equilibria. Underpriced IPOs cluster in one equilibrium but not in the other. We use these results to explain why the clustering often occurs in particular industries, is short-lived, and is sensitive to economic conditions.     

Isolating the Information Content of Equity Analysts' Recommendation Changes,Post Reg FD

We investigate the information content of equity analysts' recommendation changes subsequent to the passage of Regulation Fair Disclosure. We find that analyst upgrades (downgrades) are associated with positive (negative) abnormal returns. Overall, stock prices tend to react significantly more strongly to recommendation changes accompanied by news events than to those that are not. Even so, returns around recommendation changes not accompanied by news are significantly different from zero. This result holds after controlling for firm‐specific variables and the incidence of multiple simultaneous recommendation changes. We conclude that analyst recommendation changes, in and of themselves, are informative.     

Formation of monopolies in a bipartite market

We study the formation of monopolies in a simplified economic model where two brands compete in the market, using an agent based model. Each agent represents a company that uses one of the two available brands and interacts with other companies. The brands continually improve their product in order to compete for market share. In the innovation process companies can decide to change to the other brand if the move is beneficial. There is a cost for the company if it decides to switch to the other brand, and another cost if it stays with its current brand but only upgrades to a new enhanced version of the product. Our simulations show that the system always reaches a state when all companies end using a single brand, which is equivalent to a monopoly. We study the time span needed to reach the single brand final state for different parameters of the model.     

关系型契约、组织演进与农产品质量安全

表面上看,政府规制对于农产品质量安全管理具有重要的意义,但实际上组织本身通过自我实施具有保障农产品安全供给的功能。本文通过把目前＂公司＋农户＂组织及其演变看作是一个关系型契约实施的过程,研究发现,在这样的过程中不仅组织的治理结构获得了优化,而且伴随着这种优化,农产品质量安全水平得到了提高。本文实际上提出了这样的一个问题,就是农产品质量安全应该采用何种模式来进行治理,在农业生产的市场化和组织化程度较低的情况下,关系型治理可能是对政府农产品质量安全管理的一个有效弥补。     

THE INFORMATIONAL ROLE OF BANK LOAN RATINGS

We analyze the relatively new phenomenon of credit ratings on syndicated loans, asking first whether they convey information to the capital markets. Our event studies show that initial loan ratings and upgrades are not informative, but downgrades are. The market anticipates downgrades to some extent, however. We also examine whether public information reflecting borrower default characteristics explains cross‐sectional variation in loan ratings and find that ratings are only partially predictable. Our evidence suggests that loan and bond ratings are not determined by the same model. Finally, we estimate a credit spread model incorporating bank loan ratings and other factors reflecting default risk, information asymmetry, and agency problems. We find that ratings are related to loan rates, given the effect of other influences on yields, suggesting that ratings provide information not reflected in financial information. Ratings may capture idiosyncratic information about recovery rates, as each of the agencies claims, or information about default prospects not available to the market.     

The impact of credit rating announcements on credit default swap spreads

We document the ability of the credit default swap (CDS) market to anticipate favorable as well as unfavorable credit rating change (RC) announcements based on more extensive samples of credit rating events and CDS spreads than previous studies. We obtain four new results. In contrast to prior published studies, we find that corporate RC upgrades do have a significant impact on CDS spreads even though they are still not as well anticipated as downgrades. Second, CreditWatch (CW) and Outlook (OL) announcements, after controlling for prior credit rating events, lead to significant CARs at the time positive CW and OL credit rating events are announced. Third, we extend prior results by showing that changes in CDS spreads for non-investment-grade credits contain information useful for estimating the probability of negative credit rating events. Fourth, we find that the CDS spread impact of upgrades but not downgrades is magnified during recessions and that upgrades and downgrades also differ as to the impact of simultaneous CW/OL announcements, investment-grade/speculative-grade crossovers, current credit rating, market volatility, and industry effects.     

福建省发展地方优势特色农产品保险的实践和思考

发展现代农业,就必须解决农业生产面临的自然灾害和市场价格波动风险,就需要大力发展农业保险分散风险.当前,一些地方优势特色农产品保险发展还不够充分,不能有效分散地方优势特色农产品自然灾害和市场价格波动风险,成为制约地方优势农产品持续发展的一个因素.在供给侧,农业保险经营主体能力有待提高,保障的总体水平仍然偏低,保险产品种类少,产品设计重物不重人.在需求侧也存在一些地方政府重视不够,投入不足,农民投保意愿不强等短板.为此,建议供需两侧同步发力,共同推动地方优势特色农产品保险高质量发展,更好分散地方优势特色农业生产经营风险.供给侧注重保险产品创新、保险机构服务能力提升,需求侧增加财政投入、调动农民参保缴费积极性.     

How limiting deceptive practices harms consumers

There are two competing sellers of an experience good, one offers high quality, one low. The low‐quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising, potentially fooling a buyer into thinking the product is better than it is. Although deceptive advertising might seem to harm the buyer, we show that he could be better off when the low‐quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising than not. We characterize the optimal deterrence rule that a regulatory agency seeking to punish deceptive practices should adopt. We show that greater protection against deceptive practices does not necessarily improve the buyer welfare.     

Unsolicited Versus Solicited: Credit Ratings and Bond Yields

This paper is the first attempt to analyze Standard & Poor’s unsolicited and solicited ratings by using bond-yield data in Japan. Our findings show that there are differences in firm characteristics between firms seeking solicited ratings and those that receive unsolicited ratings. Firms with solicited ratings have less information asymmetry and are more likely to be owned by foreign investors, generate more revenue from exports, be cross-listed in the US, and have higher firm quality. But, firms with unsolicited ratings pay higher costs for debt, and their bond prices react more strongly to credit-rating changes. Yield spreads for new bonds with unsolicited ratings are higher than those with solicited ratings, because unsolicited ratings have higher information asymmetry, and investors therefore demand higher yields. We find that bond-price reactions to the announcements of unsolicited rating downgrades (upgrades) are negative (positive) and significant, while bond prices do not react significantly to solicited rating downgrades or upgrades.     

Unraveling a puzzle: the case of value line timeliness rank upgrades

We examine a sample of Value Line’s timeliness rank upgrades that occur immediately following earnings announcements and find that pre-event price momentum has significant incremental explanatory power for post-event drift, after controlling for the level of earnings surprise. Therefore, the stock price drift following Value Line’s timeliness upgrades cannot be viewed as driven only by the post-earnings announcement drift phenomenon. Instead, these findings indicate that, among other factors, Value Line has been exploiting the price momentum effect for decades. Black (Financ. Anal. J. 29:10–14, 1973) clearly stated that it does indeed do this, but his assertion has not yet been verified as an explanation of the puzzling drift that follows Value Line rank upgrades.