Pricing structures for long-term international contracts

Devising a satisfactory commodity pricing mechanism for incorporation into a 20–25 year supplier-customer contract poses many challenges. The authors compare some advantages and drawbacks of possible mechanisms, drawing partly on a relevance tree approach.     

Behavioral currency hedging for international portfolios

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate behavioral issues as it relates to the active currency hedging of international portfolios in the context of traditional expected utility maximization approach. The uniqueness of the approach is that separate risk aversion parameters are introduced for asset and currency markets. The paper is similar in spirit to Black (Black, F. 1989, Universal hedging, Financial Analysts Journal (July-August), 16-22.), who argued that a portion of foreign equity investments should be permanently unhedged, which is basically postulating that one should take a buy-and-hold position in currency with a fraction of the capital. The behavioral twist included in the traditional expected utility maximization approach results in lower hedge ratios, ceteris paribus, partly due to the asymmetric nature of the compensation structure of currency managers.Since the asymmetric nature of incentive schemes of asset and currency managers dictates how one optimizes the investment portfolio of a pension or endowment fund, the unusual behavior of a given institutional fund manager should not be called “irrational,” only because the optimal currency hedging level deviates from the one derived under rational expectations. This only justifies the use of different hedging strategies by various institutional investors. We describe in detail how the level of hedging should be revised downwards because of behavioral factors. Conclusions are in the context of what people would predict to see in the market, if certain investors behave in an “irrational” way.     

中国国际商业融资战略研究

利用外资是发展中国家加速完成其工业化进程,实现赶超战略的重要手段.改革开放以来,中国在经济发展方面取得了世界公认的成绩,这是与充分有效地利用外资密不可分的.从现在起到2020年,中国将进入经济发展的一个重要历史机遇期.     

Towards Some Principles for Intangible Asset Accounting

This paper examines the conceptual issues of intangible asset accounting in the context of recent controversies over the treatment of brand names and goodwill in company accounts. Issues of definition and recognition and the rationale for balance sheet disclosure are considered for goodwill and other intangibles. The implications of capitalising intangibles under accounting models based on present value, net realisable value, current cost and historical cost are examined, and certain principles are proposed. The problem of testing the validity of asset valuation is explored, and a test is developed on the basis of the ‘recoverable amount’ rule of historical cost. This test is demonstrated for two major UK companies.     

Simulation of strategies for long-term international development

Until the technology needed to surmount global physical limits is discovered and widely used, raising standards of living in much of the third world is a luxury. Three ways of creating the wealth required to support such a massive technological and investment programme are reviewed: letting present trends continue, going for increased regional autonomy, or greatly increasing prices of third world primary exports. A simple model with five sectors and three regions is used; it confirms aspects of The Limits to Growth models, and raises further qualms concerning social and political constraints.     

Effective controls for research in international accounting

Numerous studies have examined the value relevance and other characteristics of international and country-specific accounting standards. This paper evaluates the experimental designs of selected studies with respect to the controls essential for effective research. Both cross-country and within-country research designs share a common need for controls. Perhaps the most distinctive element of effective design in these studies is the control for institutional, cultural, and structural differences between countries. Previous research shows that the key outputs of various country-specific accounting standards are functions of a variety of factors including accounting-related issues, legal origin, shareholder protection, the information environment, financial markets, and enforcement of these standards. In addition, effective studies of country-specific or international accounting principles require control for firm and industry-specific effects and for self-selection bias, as in conventional within-country examinations. When controls are not sufficient, observed differences in the outputs of alternative accounting standards may result from differences between countries or firms rather than from different accounting principles. We review a sample of recent research with attention to these control considerations.     

流动性风险的稳健管理与监管准则

为了反映全球金融市场的最新发展,总结2007年金融市场动荡的经验教训,巴塞尔银行监管委员会对其2000年发布的《银行机构流动性管理的稳健操作》进行了重大调整。调整后的报告认为有效的流动性风险管理至关重要,有助于银行始终拥有满足现金流需要的能力,减少对金融系统所产生的负面影响;而金融市场在过去十年间的发展加剧了流动性风险及其管理的复杂性,国际清算银行在此基础上从流动性风险的治理、计量和管理,银行信息的公开披露、监管者的职责等几个方面提出了十七条流动性风险管理和监管的准则。     

国企治理的五条国际经验

应国务院发展研究中心企业研究所的要求,世界银行最近就国有企业治理问题进行了研究。从国际经验来看,中国的国企改革应特别关注以下五个方面。请看     

Designing targeting rules for international monetary policy cooperation

This study analyzes a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities, monopolistic competition and producer currency pricing. A quadratic approximation to the utility of the consumers is derived and assumed as the policy objective function of the policymakers.It is shown that only under special conditions there are no gains from cooperation and moreover that the paths of the exchange rate and prices in the constrained-efficient solution depend on the kind of disturbance that affects the economy. Despite this result, simple targeting rules that involve only targets for the growth of output and for both domestic GDP and CPI inflation rates can replicate the cooperative allocation.     

The stability of the demand for international reserves

Empirical studies based on data from the 1960s and 1970s yielded estimated demands for international reserves that have been regarded as stable functions of a limited set of variables, exept during the period surrounding the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. This paper examines the stability of these estimated demands by extending the samles to include data from the 1980s. The new estimation results indicate that the emergenceof external payments difficulties and reduced access to international financial markets of many countries have been accompanied by changes in the changes in the estimated demands for reserves that were as large as those that occurred during the collapse ofthe Bretton Woods system.     

A model for credit rationing by international banks

The theory of credit rationing asserts that commercial banks tend to underprice the nominal interest rate and, in addition, adjust other factors of the loan contract. These various risk adjusters constitute a `price vector'. A model is provided which demonstrates discrete tradeoffs between the interest rate and non-price adjusters such as loan size, maturity, compensating balances, and up-front loan fees. The model utilizes a modification of the asset pricing model to adjust for loan size. In addition, it observes the term structure of interest rates to develop a method of converting interest rates to years of maturity. Derivations are provided for adjustments in compensating balances and loan fees. A simulation is shown to demonstrate the operationalization of the model for international commercial banks lending to foreign government-guaranteed corporations.     

国际保理商的法律风险及其防范

国际保理是国际贸易中的一种新的支付手段,是以国际贸易赊销方式提供的一种集销售账务管理、应收账款收取、信用风险担保与贸易资金融通为一体的综合性金融服务。本文主要探讨了保理商的风险及其防范措施,并提出了完善我国有关立法的建议。     

The benefits from international diversification for Nordic investors

In this paper, we investigate the magnitude of the benefits from international diversification from the Nordic point of view. Special attention is paid to whether potentially increased co-movement of stock markets together with more volatile Nordic currencies have resulted in decreased benefits from international diversification towards the end of the 1980s. Moreover, the paper presents evidence on the benefits from international diversification for a currency which has recently started its free float, the Finnish markka (FIM). We find significant increases in stock market co-movement. Both unhedged ex ante strategies as well as strategies hedged for exchange rate risk are investigated, revealing substantial benefits from international diversification for the Nordic countries. However, we obtain mixed results concerning the question of the optimality of hedging.     

论MBO与资本市场的"三公"原则

本文论述我国管理层收购(Management Buy-outs，MBO)中价格的公正性、中小股东权利实现的公平性和信息披露的公开性，提出规范MBO的对策与建议。     

福田财道——中国公司理财系列报道·福田汽车

英雄不问出身,即使再平凡的"丑小鸭"也有变成天鹅的可能。北汽福田汽车股份有限公司(简称"福田汽车")的发展再次验证了这个朴素的哲理。从一个名不见经传的汽车生产企业,发展到如今全球商用车销量冠军,福田汽车仅用了10多年的时间。如果说,中国历史和现实的交错在不经意间造就了中国商用车产业。但作为中国商用车