我国信用评级业结构、竞争及绩效探析

信用评级具有辅助资产定价、揭示市场风险、提高金融监管效率等作用,是成熟金融体制的重要组成部分。本文从产业组织理论出发,考察我国信用评级行业的结构、竞争、绩效等方面,对行业发展现状有更深入的认识,并借鉴发达国家信用评级业发展经验,为行业今后持续、健康发展提出政策建议。     

House prices, money, credit, and the macroeconomy

This paper assesses the links between money, credit, house prices,and economic activity in industrialized countries over the lastthree decades. The analysis is based on a fixed-effects panelvector autoregression, estimated using quarterly data for 17industrialized countries spanning the period 1970–2006.The main results of the analysis are the following. (i) Thereis evidence of a significant multidirectional link between houseprices, monetary variables, and the macroeconomy. (ii) The linkbetween house prices and monetary variables is found to be strongerover a more recent sub-sample from 1985 to 2006. (iii) The effectsof shocks to money and credit are found to be stronger whenhouse prices are booming.     

Innovation, competition and the structure of local production networks: Initial findings from the Hertfordshire project

This paper reports the initial findings of an ESRC-funded study in Hertfordshire into how award-winning innovative firms organise their production arrangements. The study is a pilot project which was based on three initial operational assumptions: first, that innovation is not entirely an aspatial phenomenon; second, that modern production structures are taking new forms — variously described as post-Fordist, or flexible specialisation (flex-spec) — particularly in areas which are rich in commercial research and development (R&D) activities; and, finally, that as a consequence innovative firms in these areas commonly form production linkages with each other to create local production networks (LPNs).

The research was carried out in the county of Hertfordshire just to the north of Greater London. Hertfordshire was selected because, according to a number of measures, it is one of the key areas for R&D in the UK. On the basis of our initial, limited empirical sample of firms in Hertfordshire, a key finding of the research was that a significant majority of the innovative firms sampled — both large and small — were not actually organised in LPNs in any recognisable way and that local post-Fordist production was either extremely limited in its operation or, more commonly for most firms, was non-existent — instead, these firms normally acted as local, relatively free-standing entities which were much more likely to be in competition with other local firms, than form production linkages with them.     

Consensus,Dispersion and Security prices*

Abstract. This study establishes and tests, within the framework of a noisy rational expectations equilibrium model, the existence of a formal linear relationship between security prices, the average (consensus) and the dispersion of agents' expectations. Variations in the average and in the dispersion of agents' expectations, measured by the earnings forecasts produced by financial analysts, which are gathered and made available by The Institutional Brokers Estimate System (I/B/E/S), have respectively a positive and negative effect on security prices. The difficulties raised by this estimation, as well as the institutional dimensions of the financial analysis industry are examined. The main results are the following: (1) the most important changes in consensus (in absolute value) correspond to the most important changes in dispersion in the analysts' forecasts, (2) the changes in the consensus and the dispersion of forecasts are respectively positively and negatively linked to Canadian security returns, but given the delay between the production and the public availability of the forecasts, an important part of the price adjustment occurs before the disclosure of forecast changes, (3) the effect on security returns of variations in the consensus dominates the effect of variations in the forecasts' dispersion. Thus, it seems that the impact of information arrival on security prices does not only depend on the direction and the magnitude of the expectations' average revision, but also depends on the direction and the magnitude of the change in the expectations' dispersion.     

Investments,wages, prices and demand for labour

Summary Since 1971 the employment in the Netherlands has continuously decreased. Apart from the decrease caused by the recent depression, particularly in the year 1975, the decrease is a more pronounced continuation of a tendency which is manifest already in a number of years before. In this paper an attempt is made to explain the structural development of employment by means of a clay-clay vintage model. It appears that the unfavourable development of employment is connected with the accelerated growth of real labour costs in the past decade.This article is a translation of a revised and somewhat extended version of a paper published earlier in Dutch: H. den Hartog and H. S. Tjan,Investeringen, lonen, prijzen en arbeidsplaatsen, Central Planning Bureau, Occasional Paper, 1974/2, The Hague, 1974. This revised version of the clay-clay vintage model was introduced into a much more complete model of the economy of the Netherlands in: H. den Hartog, Th. C. M. J. van de Klundert and H. S. Tjan, De structurele ontwikkeling van de werkgelegenheid in macro-economisch perspectief, inWerkloosheid, Preadviezen van de Vereniging voor de Staathuishoudkunde, The Hague, 1975.     

Fragmentation,welfare, and imperfect competition

In this paper, we explore the effect of fragmentation of production processes on social welfare in the imperfectly competitive market. We consider a situation in which firms located in a country strategically decide whether they produce at home or move their production overseas. We show that, in such a situation, there exists a Nash equilibrium in which all of the firms move production overseas although domestic production is socially desirable. This implies that “reverse imports” do not necessarily benefit the country. We also discuss the effectiveness of a subsidy for domestic production in improving the social welfare of the country. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (3) (2007) 365–378.     

运输成本、土地价格与生产集聚区迁移

论文将差异化固定成本引入新经济地理学的中心一外围模型,建立了一个两地区、两部门模型,讨论了生产集聚区在不同固定成本地区之间的迁移,以此来解释和分析在城市的发展和建设中普遍存在的制造业生产向郊区迁移的过程。主要结论为：企业不会自发地向郊区迁移,即使因为郊区地价低廉发生了企业迁移,也仅是个别企业的逐利行为,而整个集聚区的迁移是不能发生的。政府干预是必要的,一是压低迁移目的地的土地价格,另外就是适时加强迁移目的地的基础设施建设,两种措施要循序渐进才能有效推动生产集聚区迁移。     

Capitalism,competition, cooperation

Summary As the pace of globalization quickens, firms are up against a proliferation of actual and potential competitors. Meanwhile, competition between nations and regional groupings is heating up, and there is a whole strand of thought that looks at the struggle between different types of capitalism and socio-economic systems. Such a rivalry may lead to beneficial effects, but in many cases interdependence does not automatically produce order. In the search for the public iinterest, there is a need for cooperation to generate a degree of trust and consensus that is superior to what can be expected from the various forms of capitalism.Inaugural Francqui Lecture, 8/2/1994. Université Libre de Bruxelles     

Wages,prices, and technology in early Catalan industrialization

Catalonia was the only Mediterranean region among the early followers of the British industrial revolution. The roots of this process can be traced back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Catalan economy became integrated into international trade, and a successful printed calico industry concentrated in the city of Barcelona. Although the factory system was largely adopted by the cotton industry in the 1840s, the diffusion of the spinning jenny in Catalonia had occurred earlier, in the 1790s. In line with Allen, this article explores whether relative factor prices played a role in the widespread adoption of the spinning jenny in Catalonia. First, series of real wages in Barcelona are supplied for the period 1500–1808. Second, the prices of labour and capital are compared and the potential profitability of the adoption of the spinning jenny is analysed. Findings show that although Catalonia was not a high wage economy in the way that Britain was in the second half of the eighteenth century, evidence from the cotton spinning sector confirms the relevance of relative factor prices in the adoption of new technology. Within the booming cotton sector after the 1780s, high wages created strong incentives for the adoption of the labour‐saving spinning jenny.     

Local authorities, tourism and competition

Tourism development has become a popular pursuit for local authorities seeking to generate new economic horizons. This requires the existence of some special attraction or package, something to distinguish an area from the basic diet of potentials that everywhere else can offer, or a strong competitive edge in what might be labelled as conventional markets. Unfortunately, new ways of nurturing tourism activity are increasingly hard to find and the tourism development scene is an increasingly competitive arena. Yet, competition is an unspoken word within the realms of tourism professionals, and a matter that is rarely confronted in any overt way by researchers.     

外资银行进入对我国银行业竞争格局的影响

本文以波特的"五力"模型为分析工具,力图分析外资银行进入对我国银行业竞争格局的影响,认为国内银行业在中国加入WTO之后面临着外资银行进入的竞争挑战。因此,国内银行业要实施创新,提高创新能力,从而提高竞争力。     

Discussion of 'House prices, money, credit, and the macroeconomy' by Charles Goodhart and Boris Hofmann

Goodhart and Hoffman aim to examine causal and other links betweenhouse prices, liquidity, and activity, and this note commentson their results. One part of the mechanism is via wealth—butarguably house-price changes have little net impact on wealth,although there are collateral effects. The authors clearly establishstrong empirical links between the variables examined. The mainpractical issues are to do with identification of the sourceof shocks and therefore on the interpretation of the results.