经济政策不确定性与企业杠杆率

本文从政策不确定性的视角探讨中国经济转型过程中企业杠杆率变动背后的逻辑。在基于2002—2016年A股上市公司的季度数据描述企业杠杆率结构性变化的经验事实以及理论分析的基础上,运用Baker et al. (2016) 构建的经济政策不确定性指数实证分析政策不确定性与企业杠杆率之间的关系。结果表明,经济政策不确定性对企业杠杆率具有显著的负向影响;这一负向效应在短期负债率、民营、小规模和制造业企业更为明显。进一步考虑经济转型的扩展分析发现,政策不确定性对企业杠杆率的负向影响会随着地区市场化水平的提高、民营化改革的推进和对外开放度的扩大而显著降低。本文的研究对深入理解企业杠杆率变化背后的逻辑以及科学地制定供给侧结构性改革相关政策具有现实意义。     

The effect of economic policy uncertainty on investor information asymmetry and management disclosures

Investor uncertainty about firm value drives investors’ information collection and trading activities, as well as managers’ disclosure choices. This study examines an important source of uncertainty that likely cannot be influenced by most managers and investors: uncertainty about government economic policy. We find that this uncertainty is associated with increased bid-ask spreads and decreased stock price reactions to earnings surprises. Managers respond to this uncertainty by increasing their voluntary disclosures, but these disclosures only partly mitigate the bid-ask spread increase. We conclude that government economic policy uncertainty is an important component of firms’ information environments and managers’ voluntary disclosure decisions.     

Noise

The effects of noise on the world, and on our views of the world, are profound. Noise in the sense of a large number of small events is often a causal factor much more powerful than a small number of large events can be. Noise makes trading in financial markets possible, and thus allows us to observe prices for financial assets. Noise causes markets to be somewhat inefficient, but often prevents us from taking advantage of inefficiencies. Noise in the form of uncertainty about future tastes and technology by sector causes business cycles, and makes them highly resistant to improvement through government intervention. Noise in the form of expectations that need not follow rational rules causes inflation to be what it is, at least in the absence of a gold standard or fixed exchange rates. Noise in the form of uncertainty about what relative prices would be with other exchange rates makes us think incorrectly that changes in exchange rates or inflation rates cause changes in trade or investment flows or economic activity. Most generally, noise makes it very difficult to test either practical or academic theories about the way that financial or economic markets work. We are forced to act largely in the dark.     

Political uncertainty and risk premia

We develop a general equilibrium model of government policy choice in which stock prices respond to political news. The model implies that political uncertainty commands a risk premium whose magnitude is larger in weaker economic conditions. Political uncertainty reduces the value of the implicit put protection that the government provides to the market. It also makes stocks more volatile and more correlated, especially when the economy is weak. We find empirical evidence consistent with these predictions.     

Uncertainty,Time‐Varying Fear,and Asset Prices

I construct an equilibrium model that captures salient properties of index option prices, equity returns, variance, and the risk‐free rate. A representative investor makes consumption and portfolio choice decisions that are robust to his uncertainty about the true economic model. He pays a large premium for index options because they hedge important model misspecification concerns, particularly concerning jump shocks to cash flow growth and volatility. A calibration shows that empirically consistent fundamentals and reasonable model uncertainty explain option prices and the variance premium. Time variation in uncertainty generates variance premium fluctuations, helping explain their power to predict stock returns.     

2011年宏观经济展望及其对保险业的影响

2010年,我国经济运行已基本摆脱国际金融危机的负面冲击,开始进入良性发展格局,但通货膨胀高企给经济增长带来一定不确定性。我国政府及时调整货币政策,遏制房价、物价水平的过快上涨,稳定了经济增速,降低了经济金融风险。2011年,国家将实施积极稳健、审慎灵活的宏观经济政策,着力改善民生,完善公共服务,提升居民消费,积极应对通胀,保持经济平稳较快发展。在此背景下,保险业应科学判断行业发展形势,加快推进行业发展方式转变,逐步完善风险防范机制,不断提高经营管理效益,推进行业健康、可持续发展。     

经济政策不确定性、地区文化与保险需求

本文在拓展背景风险理论研究的基础上,揭示了经济政策不确定性对保险需求的影响及其受地区文化制约的理论机制。并利用2007-2017年中国30个地区的月度面板数据,检验了经济政策不确定性、地区文化与保险需求间的内在联系。结果发现:第一,经济政策不确定性会对保险需求产生显著正影响,且这种效应在地区人身险需求上表现更明显;第二,将地区文化指标集纳入经济政策不确定性与保险需求关系的研究框架,发现地区文化差异会对经济政策不确定性影响保险需求产生调节效应。因此政府需在充分重视经济政策波动和文化对经济活动的双重影响基础上,加强国内社会保障体系建设,建立更透明的信息传递渠道,培育人们主动抵抗风险的意识和文化习惯,调整保险供给结构,以减少不确定性对社会经济行为的负面冲击。     

The effects of uncertainty measures on the price of gold

This paper analyzes the determinants of the price of gold with a special focus on four uncertainty measures (namely, the volatility (VIX), skewness (SKEW), global economic policy uncertainty (EPU), and partisan conflict (PC) indexes). The nonlinear Autoregressive-distributed Lag (ARDL) model is used to investigate the asymmetric effect of uncertainty measures on gold prices. The results show that rising economic policy uncertainty contributes to increases in the price of gold. By contrast, gold prices are less likely to fall when economic policy conditions are improved.     

经济政策不确定性如何影响企业出口决策？——基于出口频率的视角

出口频率作为出口决策的重要一环,是企业出口扩张的新边际,也是出口变化的“晴雨表”。本文在随机存货模型的基础上,考察了经济政策不确定性对企业出口频率的影响及其传导渠道,并采用2000-2006年工业企业数据库与海关数据库的匹配数据进行实证检验,结果发现:目的国经济政策不确定性增加会显著降低企业出口频率,且这一影响存在部分惯性效应;经济政策不确定性通过贸易成本、存货成本和市场需求波动共同影响企业出口频率的中介效应十分显著,其中贸易成本是最重要的传导渠道,占比达到19%以上;如果进一步考虑目的国、产品和企业异质性,会发现出口目的国经济发展水平较高、出口产品为中间品和消费品的企业,其出口频率受经济政策不确定性的影响较小。因此,政府和企业应高度关注出口频率的变化趋势,合理应对经济政策不确定性对出口决策的外部冲击。     

Examining the relationship between policy uncertainty and market uncertainty across the G7

Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) relates to ambiguity surrounding possible changes in government policy and their associate impact on firm performance. This uncertainty places additional stress on economic agents and has implications for the global economy via delays in firm investment and hiring, and postponement of household consumption. We utilise the EPU measure of Baker et al. (2016) to investigate whether financial market uncertainty is related to policy uncertainty across the G7 economies. Our empirical results show that financial market uncertainty (implied volatility) increases as economic policy uncertainty increases (and the economy weakens). This relationship holds even after controlling for macroeconomic state variables and country/time fixed effects, and is consistent for monthly and daily data frequency. The correlation of political uncertainty among countries varies over time, increasing in tranquil times with low EPU, and sharply decreasing during times of crisis. We also show that US and Japanese policy uncertainty has an economic and statistically significant relationship with global financial market uncertainty, a spill-over effect that is consistent with the size of their economies, and the important role that US policy decisions play in the global economy.     

Empirical investigation of changes in policy uncertainty on stock returns—Evidence from China’s market

This study finds evidence that a rise in economic policy uncertainty (EPU) leads to a decline in stock returns in Chinese market; however, a positive coefficient was observed in the lagged EPU as stock prices rebound. This phenomenon also holds true for a rise in uncertainty innovations in fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy and global policy. The evidence leads to conclude that policy uncertainty premiums should be priced into China’s stock prices. An escalation of U.S. policy uncertainty has a significantly harmful effect on Chinese stocks regardless of whether firms are stated own or listed on U.S. market.     

Prices are sticky after all

Economists have interpreted the evidence that prices change every four months as implying that sticky prices cannot be important for monetary transmission. Theory implies that this interpretation is correct if most price changes are regular, but not if a large fraction are temporary, as in the data. Since regular prices are much stickier than temporary ones, our models predict that the stickiness of the aggregate price level matches that in a standard Calvo model or a standard menu cost model in which micro-level prices change about once a year. In this sense, prices are sticky after all.     

Oil prices and economic policy uncertainty: Evidence from global,oil importers,and exporters’ perspective

Containing various information, economic policy uncertainty reflects significant rises and declines when facing shocks like financial crisis, oil-price change, and other specific economic or policy events. This paper empirically studies the interaction between oil prices and the newly formulated economic policy uncertainty indices using a time-varying parameter vector autoregression framework. Generally, the results of this study suggest that economic policy uncertainty reveals fluctuating responses to oil price shocks, while the oil price has a negative response to the uncertainty. The findings also reveal that the economic policy uncertainty indices for oil-importers and oil-exporters respond to oil price shocks differently. The oil price shock has a larger fluctuation to the economic policy uncertainty of oil-exporters than that of importers. Moreover, for the oil-exporters, the negative response to the oil price shock is greater than that of the oil-importing countries. This paper also discusses the impact of asymmetric shocks of oil price on economic policy uncertainty. In particular, after two financial crises, positive shocks decrease the uncertainty and vice versa. These findings are robustly verified.     

Economic Parameters of Deforestation

In theory, economic instruments should overcome the market failuresthat lead to excessive deforestation. Secure property rightscould be established and enforced to eliminate the open accessproblem. In practice, the size of the welfare loss that arisesfrom market failures in the forest sector in the absence ofsuch first-best policies is determined by the incentives, prices,and policies faced by those who make decisions about land use.In many cases, the effects of policies on deforestation arenot straightforward. For example, there are conflicting viewson whether an increase in the price of logs leads to an increaseor a decrease in deforestation. The effect of a change in theprice of logs has particular relevance for the controversialdebate about the effect on deforestation of a ban on log exportsor other trade restrictions that lower the domestic price oflogs. This article provides an analytical framework for determiningthe effects of changes in economic policies and parameters ondeforestation. It models dynamic, profitmaximizing land-usechoices and obtains unambiguous comparative static results bydistinguishing between unmanaged and managed forests. The resultssuggest that measures to reduce the producer price of logs couldbe a second-best policy to reduce the pressures on the frontiersof unmanaged forests and to protect biodiversity.     

The Dynamics of Gasoline Prices: Evidence from Daily French Micro Data

Using millions of individual gasoline prices collected at a daily frequency, we examine the speed at which market prices of refined oil are transmitted to retail gasoline prices in France. For that, we estimate a reduced‐form model of state‐dependent pricing where thresholds triggering price changes are allowed to vary over time and depend on the duration since the last price change. We find that the degree of pass‐through of wholesale prices to retail gasoline prices is on average 0.77 for diesel and 0.67 for petrol and depend on local market characteristics. The duration for a shock to be fully transmitted into prices is about 10 days. There is no significant asymmetry in the transmission of wholesale price to retail prices. Finally, the duration since the last price change has a significant effect on thresholds triggering price changes but a large variance of idiosyncratic shocks on thresholds is also crucial to replicate the size distribution of price changes.     

经济政策不确定性、声誉机制与信用评级

本文以2007-2019年我国企业债券为样本,采用有序Probit回归模型探讨经济政策不确定性对信用评级的影响,研究结果表明:(1)经济政策不确定性的增加会促使评级机构显著降低信用评级,这种影响因产权性质存在显著差异,而且在债券市场刚性兑付被打破后更为显著;(2)声誉机制对上述影响产生积极的调节效应,声誉受损或声誉水平较高的评级机构会更加谨慎地评估经济政策不确定性的影响效应。基于此,政府应合理管控政策的出台和调整以增强社会预期,监管机构要不断强化对评级机构的监管,促使评级机构提高信用评级的质量。     

经济政策不确定性与企业贷款成本

基于大样本微观银行信贷数据,本文研究经济政策不确定性对企业的银行贷款成本的影响。研究发现,经济政策不确定性升高导致企业的银行贷款成本增加,且使得在中小型银行贷款的企业成本增加更多。异质性分析表明,经济政策不确定性升高对受政策因素影响较大的企业如小微企业、私营企业等的银行贷款成本的影响更为明显。进一步,对企业的银行贷款违约风险的研究发现,随着经济政策不确定性升高,企业的银行贷款违约风险反而降低。这表明,经济政策不确定性升高使得银行选择风险评级更低的贷款,符合谨慎性动机。本文研究结论表明,经济政策不确定性升高时,银行“自我保险”动机的增强使得企业的银行贷款成本增加,这在中小型银行中表现得更加明显,同时也更多地转嫁给中小企业。本文为经济政策不确定性对企业投资、宏观经济波动等的研究提供了微观解释机制,并揭示了政府经济政策的一致性、稳定性对维护金融稳定的重要作用。     

Monetary Policy and Financial Markets

Monetary policy and financial markets are intrinsically linked. Central banks conduct monetary policy by influencing financial market prices. Financial market prices reflect the expectations of market participants about future economic and monetary developments. Monetary policy works primarily through expectations. Transparency and credibility render monetary policy more effective. However, they are no substitutes for action. If a credible central bank uses words with the explicit aim of substituting them for action, it will risk losing credibility. To avoid what has been described as “the dog chasing its tail” problem, central banks must exercise caution in basing their monetary policy decisions on financial market information. The information about expected future developments reflected in market prices must be continuously cross-checked against economic and monetary indicators in what amounts to a “checks and balances” approach to monetary policy.     

经济不确定性对我国上市公司研发投入同群效应的影响

我国A股上市公司研发投入会受到同群企业研发投资行为的正向影响,经济的不确定性会对上市公司的研发投入产生显著的抑制作用,这是由于企业对政策导向把握不准确,从而实施相对稳健的投资策略导致的.经济的不确定性会加剧上市公司研发投入的同群效应,同行业的企业更倾向于模仿行业中的领导企业,非国有企业更倾向于模仿行业中的国有企业.因此...     

Nonlinear effects of climate policy uncertainty and financial speculation on the global prices of oil and gas

With the acceleration of global energy transition and financialization, intense climate policy uncertainty and financial speculation have significant impacts on the global energy market. This paper uses TVP-VAR-SV models to analyze the nonlinear effects of climate policy uncertainty (CPU), financial speculation, economic activity, and US dollar exchange rate on global prices of crude oil and natural gas respectively, and then compare the time-varying response of oil prices and gas prices to six representative CPU peaks. The results show that responses of energy prices to various shocks have significant nonlinear effects: the time-varying effect of CPU on energy prices from positive to negative over time is significant, and financial speculation has the opposite effects on oil and gas prices. The effect from economic activity is mainly positive, while the effects of US dollar exchange are negative and stable. These results provide important implications for policymakers and investors dealing with high levels of climate policy uncertainty, financial speculation, and global economic activity.