Foreign official purchases of U.S. treasuries and mortgage rates

This paper investigates the effects of foreign official purchases of U.S. treasuries on mortgage rates from January 1985 to June 2007 using a proxy structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, where shocks to foreign official inflows to treasuries are identified by their correlation with foreign exchange interventions. Although mortgage rates significantly decrease in response to positive shocks to foreign official purchases of U.S. treasuries, these shocks only explain a small fraction of the variation in the U.S. mortgage rate.     

Determinants of land value volatility in the U.S. Corn Belt

ABSTRACT

Understanding land value volatility and its reaction to exogenous shocks helps land owners, investors, and lenders assess risk. Land value volatility, the variance of the unpredictable component of land value growth rates, is modelled for each of the Corn Belt states in the U.S. using EGARCH. A pooled VAR system is then estimated to capture the interactions between land value determinants and land value volatility. The variables of the pooled VAR are split into negative and positive vectors to allow for asymmetric impacts. Impulse response functions are mapped. All states exhibit land value volatility clustering. Inflation, cash rent and population growth rates granger cause land value volatility. Land value volatility responses to negative shocks are greater than those to positive shocks. Lenders and investors should expect greater swings in land values after negative shocks to land value growth rates, but not an overreaction of land values from shocks to cash rent growth rates. Positive shocks to changes in interest rates increases land value volatility, but unexpected shocks to population growth rates do not have statistically significant impact on land value volatility.     

Asymmetric interest rate pass-through in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia: New evidence from selected individual banks

This paper provides new evidence on asymmetric interest rate pass-through in the U.S., the U.K. and the Australian economies by using the Nonlinear Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag model, central bank interest rates, lending and deposit interest rates from selected banks, spanning the period 2000–2013. The results provide evidence that corroborates the asymmetric pass-through market predictions. Robustness tests are also performed by splitting the sample period into that prior to and after the recent financial crisis. The new findings document that the asymmetric character of pass-through remains active only in the case of Australia.     

美国湿地保护和恢复政策综述

美国联邦政府湿地管理政策的演变大致可分为三个时期,即湿地开发期、政策转型期和“零净损失”期。这三个时期贯穿整个美国历史,在殖民和国家扩张时期,湿地转换成其他用途的激励导致了湿地的损失。直接鼓励湿地转换的激励机制于20世纪后期结束,随后直接和间接的激励逐渐被取消,保护湿地的政策才渐渐地被公众所接受。随着“零净损失”目标的采纳,保护和恢复湿地的努力也加快了速度。本文主要介绍美国湿地保护和恢复政策,如湿地其本情况、政府对湿地的管理和几点启示,仅供参考。     

It's all the miners' fault: On the nonlinearity in U.S. unemployment rates

The U.S. unemployment rate is generally regarded as nonlinear. In this study, we show that if there had been no miners' general strike in October of 1949, and if the aggregate unemployment rate had been 0.3% lower during that month, the 1948–2002 U.S. unemployment rate would have been linear. Hence, just a single alteration of past events would have resulted in significantly different findings regarding the linearity in the U.S. unemployment rate. This finding illustrates a need for linearity tests to be developed that are robust against the effects of outliers.     

美国政府科技计划及经费管理

科技计划是支持研发的重要手段。美国政府科技计划分布在不同的联邦部门和单位,其经费来源于研发预算,主要以资助、合作协议的形式支持不同领域、不同类别的研发活动,少部分科技计划向国外机构开放。同时,美国还通过合同采购以及税收优惠政策等方式支持企业的研发。项目申请单位一旦获得科技计划立项通知,将由美国财政部直接将经费划拨至项目承担单位,该单位需要按照要求就科研经费使用及项目进展等情况向科技计划管理部门进行汇报。     

Evaluating the risk premium in the U.S.A. natural gas market: evidence from low-price regime

In recent years, the U.S.A. natural gas market has seen enormous changes. The expectations of abundant supply of shale gas and the slow U.S.A. economic recovery have pushed gas prices below US$ 4 MMBtu. Although shale gas is a new promising source of unconventional energy, investors face uncertain investment plans. In this study, we investigate the risk premium by comparing behaviour before and after the change point in agents risk perception. Unlike traditional empirical research on risk premium, we use the parametric, two-factor model of Schwartz and Smith (2000) to evaluate the implied risk premium term structure from futures prices traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). We compare our findings with other empirical results and find that the change point lies at the beginning of the low-price regime. When we compare periods before and after the change point, we observe that the risk premium changed, not only in sign, but also in magnitude.     

Cost-impact of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging with Fast-SENC compared to SPECT in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease in the U.S

Aims: The purpose of this study is to assess the economic cost differences and the associated treatment resource changes between the developing coronary artery disease (CAD) diagnostic tool fast strain-encoded cardiac imaging (Fast-SENC) and the current commonly used stress test single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

Materials and methods: A “payer perspective” model was created first, consisting of long-term and short-term components that used a hypothetical cohort of patients of average age (60.8?years) presenting with chest pain and suspected CAD to assess cost-impact. A cost impact model was then built that assessed likely savings from a “hospital perspective” from substituting Fast-SENC for a portion of SPECTs assuming an average number of annual SPECT tests performed in US hospitals.

Results: In the payer model, using Fast-SENC followed by coronary angiography (CA) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) treatment when necessary is less costly than the SPECT method when considering both direct and indirect costs of testing. Expected costs of the Fast-SENC were between $2,510 and $2,632 per correct diagnosis, while expected costs for the SPECT were between $3,157 and $4,078. Fast-SENC reduced false positives by 50% and false negatives by 86%, generating additional cost savings. The hospital model showed total costs per CAD patient visit of $825 for SPECT and $376 for Fast-SENC.

Limitations: Limitations of this study are that clinical data are sourced from other published clinical trials on how CAD diagnostic strategies impact clinical outcome, and that necessary assumptions were made which impact health outcomes.

Conclusion: The lower cost, higher sensitivity and specificity rates, and faster, less burdensome process for detecting CAD patients make Fast-SENC a more capable and economically beneficial stress test than SPECT. The payer model and hospital model demonstrate an alignment between payer and provider economics as Fast-SENC provides monetary savings for patients and resource benefits for hospitals.     

美国部分国家实验室大型科研基础设施运行管理模式及启示

美国大型科研基础设施在运行管理模式上具有国家所有,依托大学和专业机构管理;针对不同设施、用户和项目分类管理;围绕设施共享深入开辰科研合作;通过国际合作凝聚全球顶尖人才、先进技术项目等特点。本文研究分析了美国具有代表性的部分国家实验室大型科研基础设施的运行管理模式及特点,并就我国国家实验室和大型科研基础设施的建设和管理提出建议。     

Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the U.S. Economy: A Structural Decomposition Analysis

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of various influences on carbon dioxide emissions. It incorporates methodological refinements of input-output structural decomposition analysis, which is the examination of economic change by means of a set of comparative static variations in key parameters of I-O tables. The analysis is performed using a two-tiered KLEM model, which allows for estimation of substitution and technological change effects within and between input aggregates. The model is used to decompose the sources of change in CO₂ emissions in the U.S. over the 1972–82 timeframe using hybrid energy/value tables for the initial and terminal years. Results show the significant effect of substitution within the energy sector and between energy and other inputs as the leading causes of the decline in carbon dioxide emissions.     

美国重大气象灾害与服务经济技术分析

美国是当今世界自然灾害多发的国家之一,在灾害监测、预警、应急救助及防灾减灾决策支持系统建设等方面均处于世界领先地位。为使国内对美国应对重大气象灾害的先进经验有所借鉴,本文结合美国国家海洋和大气管理局（NOAA）公布的有关资料,对美国重大气象灾害发生的种类、时空分布规律、经济社会影响及其气象科技基础设施与服务业的地位和作用进行了系统的经济技术实证分析,并提出了相关建议,供参考。     

Logistic model-based forecast of sales and generation of obsolete computers in the U.S.

Our goal is to characterize future trends in the generation of obsolete computers in the U.S. Starting from historical sales data on new computers and assuming a plausible first lifespan distribution, we extrapolate the historical sales trend to the future using a logistic model. The major challenge is that the personal computer is still in an early stage of its technology adoption life cycle and thus early for statistical fits to yield a reasonable estimation of carrying capacity (or saturation adoption level). Our approach is to use a bounding analysis which characterizes a range based on plausible upper and lower bounds on the future carrying capacity (1.3 and 1.0 computers per capita respectively). These lower and upper bounds yield a generation of 92 and 107 million obsolete computers in 2020 respectively. The growth rates of adoption over the next decade are very different for lower versus upper bound, however by 2020 the adoption will be at most 8% away from the long-term carrying capacity in both cases. Assuming computer adoption follows logistic behavior we assert that the saturation level of generation of obsolete computers is not much more than a decade away. The current recycling level of computers is 65 million units, thus if the U.S. expects to recycle computers domestically significant growth of recycling facilities will be required. Note however that this analysis does not address how long obsolete computers are stored nor the distribution of obsolete computers to reuse, recycling, landfill options. This is an important issue to resolve in future work.     

The rise of 3D printing and the role of user firms in the U.S.: evidence from patent data

3D printing has been heralded as one of the key technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution but empirical analysis is still sparse. This paper provides empirical evidence by proposing a robust approach to identifying 3D printing inventions. Findings indicate the inventive activity has been rapidly growing since 2011 and is mainly led by user firms. The development of 3D printing has taken place in a variety of industrial sectors, not merely a specific sector. This implies 3D printing can be considered as a general purpose technology. Interestingly, the diffusion patterns of 3D printing vary across technological categories. User firms are divided into incumbent and new firms to examine how patent activities vary by the type of firm and time. Incumbent firms exploit 3D printing earlier than new firms do but new firms tend to enter into 3D printing space more than incumbent firms after the technology becomes prevalent.     

Accounting for the recent surge in U.S. patenting: changes in R&D expenditures,patent yields,and the high tech sector

We decompose the recent patent increase into components representing (1) an increase in resources made available to research and development, (2) an across-the-board rise in the patent yield of an R&D dollar, and (3) changes in the patent yield in individual industries. Two high tech fields, computer hardware and pharmaceuticals, account for 22 percent of the patent increase. While these two industries had the fastest R&D growth among the industries we study, the pharmaceutical industry experienced a decline in its patent yield, limiting its patent growth. We show that increased R&D spending accounts for 70 percent of the patent increase. We discuss our results in the context of alternative hypotheses of the patent surge. We also compare our results to the anecdotal evidence of firm R&D performance at the industry level.     

中美白糖期货市场价格发现功能的比较研究——基于2006—2008年的时间序列数据

本文运用协整分析、Granger因果检验、误差修正模型、信息共享模型、方差分解模型和脉冲响应函数,对2006—2008年中美两国白糖期现货市场价格之间的长短期变动关系进行了计量分析与横向对比。研究发现,我国白糖期货市场价格发现功能已初步显现,但我国白糖期货市场中期货价格对现货价格的引导作用与美国的成熟市场还存在较大差距,我国白糖期货市场价格发现功能的发挥水平还有待提高。     

The Japanese information economy: Its quantification and analysis in a macroeconomic framework (with comparisons to the U.S.)

Japan is one of the leading information societies and there is official policy promotion of its information economy image. In this study the information sector of Japan is measured and analysed within a macroeconomic framework, using input-output techniques. Important benchmark statistics on both the primary and secondary information sectors are derived and compared to those obtained in an earlier study of the U.S. The analysis reveals the high growth potential of both information sectors in the two economies. However, important inter-country differences also emerge, in particular in regard to the amount of resources devoted to the information task at the disaggregated sector level. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between investment in the information sector, organisational design, informational efficiency and productivity growth, which is seen to be of crucial importance for the future success or failure of the two economies. Limitations of the approach adopted in this study and areas for further research are indicated.