Predatory Short Sales and Bailouts

This paper extends the literature on predatory short selling and bailouts through a joint analysis of the two. We consider a model with informed short sales, as well as uninformed predatory short sales, which can trigger the inefficient liquidation of a firm. We obtain several novel results: A government commitment to bail out insolvent firms with positive probability can increase welfare because it selectively deters predatory short selling without hampering desirable informed short sales. Contrasting a common view, bailouts can be optimal ex ante but undesirable ex post. Furthermore, bailouts in our model are a better policy tool than short selling restrictions. Welfare gains from the bailout policy are unevenly distributed: shareholders gain while taxpayers lose. Bailout taxes allow ex ante Pareto improvements.     

卖空机制、诉讼风险与审计收费

基于我国推出融资融券业务这一“自然实验”,文章考察了卖空机制如何通过改变诉讼风险而影响公司审计收费。研究发现,卖空机制的引入增加了公司股价下跌的压力,并增强了投资者挖掘公司负面消息的动机,从而导致公司审计的诉讼风险提高,会计师事务所要求更高的审计收费。进一步的分析显示,由于国有企业的信息披露环境较差,卖空机制对国有企业审计收费的提升作用更加明显;由于“四大”具有更高的赔偿能力,卖空机制更加显著地增加了“四大”审计公司的审计收费;对于法制环境较差地区的企业,由于管理层更有动机隐藏坏消息,公司审计收费因卖空机制的存在而显著提高。     

融券制度与内部人寻租——来自准自然实验的经验证据

内部人寻租一直以来是理论与实务界关心的重点,如何有效抑制内部人寻租行为是资本市场的重大课题。本文以内部人交易度量内部人寻租,分析了融券制度对内部人寻租的影响。研究发现:(1)融券制度对内部人寻租有显著抑制作用,并且融券规模越大,内部人寻租越少。(2)相比于国有企业,非国有企业当中融券制度对内部人寻租的抑制作用更加明显。本文还将内部人交易分方向进行回归,结果显示融券制度对内部人寻租的抑制作用主要体现在卖出方向上。本文进一步分析了融券制度影响内部人寻租的路径,发现“竞争效应”和“信息效应”是融券制度影响内部人寻租的两条重要路径。本文考虑了竞争性解释——分析师关注的作用,发现分析师关注并不能影响本文结论的正确性;本文还利用反面事实推断、倾向得分匹配、反向因果检验等方法,确保实证结论的稳健性。本文的研究结果,丰富了内部人寻租的特征及影响因素研究,有利于市场监管部门加强对内部人寻租行为的控制;扩充了有关融券制度的文献,为卖空制度的推行及完善提供理论依据。     

Business Cycle Asymmetries: International Evidence

This paper uses the Triples test of Randles et al. (1980, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 75, 168–172) to detect asymmetries in U.S. as well as international GDP fluctuations. The test does not detect any asymmetry in the distribution of the U.S. GDP, which is consistent with previous empirical findings. However, significant asymmetries are found in international data. Detection of asymmetries is a first step toward model-selection process such that stylized facts can be replicated. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E3, E32, C14.     

The Effect of Capital Gains Taxation on Home Sales: Evidence from the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997

The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA97) significantly changed the tax treatment of housing capital gains in the United States. Before 1997, homeowners were subject to capital gains taxation when they sold their houses unless they purchased replacement homes of equal or greater value. Since 1997, homeowners can exclude capital gains of $500,000 (or $250,000 for single filers) when they sell their houses. Such dramatic changes provide a good opportunity to study the lock-in effect of capital gains taxation on home sales. Using 1982-2008 transaction data on single-family houses in 16 affluent towns within the Boston metropolitan area, I find that TRA97 reversed the lock-in effect of capital gains taxes on houses with low and moderate capital gains. Specifically, the semiannual sales rate of houses with positive gains up to $500,000 increased by 0.40-0.62 percentage points after TRA97, representing a 19-24 percent increase from the pre-TRA97 baseline sales rate. In contrast, I do not find TRA97 to have a significant effect on houses with gains above $500,000. Moreover, the short-term effect of TRA97 is much larger than the long-term effect, suggesting that many previously locked-in homeowners took advantage of the exclusions immediately after TRA97. In addition, I exploit the 2001 and 2003 legislative changes in the capital gains tax rate to estimate the tax elasticity of home sales during the post-TRA97 period. The estimation results suggest that a $10,000 increase in capital gains taxes reduces the semiannual home sales rate by about 0.1-0.2 percentage points, or 6-13 percent from the post-TRA97 average sales rate.     

International trade and unionization: Evidence from India

We exploit exogenous variation in tariffs to examine the impact of import competition on unionization and union wages in a developing country. Using a combination of nationally representative household data (National Sample Survey Organization) and nationally representative industry‐level data (Annual Survey of Industries) from India, we find that net‐import industries that experienced larger cuts in tariffs also experienced larger declines in unionization. In addition, we find that these industries also experienced larger increases in union wages. These results are consistent with the predictions of an efficient bargaining framework that we extend to endogenize the union formation decision by allowing for a fixed cost of union formation. We also conduct a back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation to show that the total wage gains to unionized workers marginally exceed the total wage losses to deunionized workers.     

新兴市场引入卖空机制对股市的冲击效应--来自香港证券市场的经验证据

卖空交易机制作为证券市场中的重要交易制度,对完善市场功能起着不可或缺的作用,那么在新兴市场国家中引入卖空交易机制是否会加剧整个市场的波动?文章利用我国香港股票市场上的数据进行实证检验,发现卖空交易机制对整个市场的影响是一个相当复杂的过程,最终的影响方向(加剧市场波动还是平抑市场波动)取决于市场中卖空交易者类型、操作策略及交易信息的公开程度.如果仅考虑投机性卖空者的操作对整个市场的影响,则卖空交易机制的存在会对整个市场的波动起到"缓冲"作用,在一定程度上会对市场上的暴涨暴跌现象起到平抑作用,而不会加剧整个市场的波动.     

Endogenous Market Structures and International Trade: Theory and Evidence

Under constant elasticity of substitution (CES) preferences and Cournot (or Bertrand) competition, a larger market induces exits of domestic firms, lower prices, and larger production of surviving firms because of competition from more foreign firms, even without resorting to the selection effects of Melitz. The elasticity of the number of firms to population decreases with substitutability between goods, and it reaches 0.5 under Cournot competition with homogeneous goods: empirical evidence supports this structural relation against the unitary elasticity of monopolistic competition. The results hold also in a Heckscher–Ohlin model with imperfect competition generating inter‐ and intra‐industry trade due to comparative advantage or comparative preferences.     

International Knowledge Flows: Evidence From Patent Citations

This paper explores the patterns of citations among patents taken out by inventors in the U.S., the U.K., Francc. Germany and Japan. We find (I) patents assigned to the same firm are more likely to cite each other, and come sooncr than other citations; (2) patents in the same patent class are approxinlatcly 100 titlles as likely to cite each other as ydtents froin different patent classes, but there is not a strong time pattern to this effect; (3) patents whose inventors reside in the same country are typically 30 to 80% more likely to cite each other than inventors from othcr countrics, and these citations come sooner; and (4) there are clear country-specific citation tendencies, e.g., Japanese citations typically come sooner than those of othcr countries.     

Cyclical Asymmetries in Unemployment Rates: International Evidence

This paper investigates to what extent the observed nonlinearities in the unemployment rates of six major developed economies are the response to cyclical asymmetries. Two classes of models are compared: strict smooth transition autoregressions and models where the transition variable is GDP growth, which is considered a more direct indicator of the business cycle. The empirical evidence points out that nonlinearities in unemployment rates are induced by cyclical asymmetries. It is also found that in most countries the unemployment rate looks stationary and reverts to a long-run equilibrium rate in periods of normal growth, while in extreme cyclical situations it tends to become nonstationary as if each extreme cyclical episode had its own path of equilibrium.      

Antidumping under International Fragmentation: Evidence from China

Applying a negative binomial regression model, this paper investigates how Chinese exports have reshaped the global value chain and the use of antidumping. We use trade in value‐added statistics to distinguish between Chinese exports of intermediate and final products to its main trading partners, including the USA, Mexico, South Korea, the UK, Germany, France and Italy, among others, and find that other countries welcome China as an intermediate producer, although not necessarily as a final good producer. We also find that a higher level of fragmentation reduces the likelihood of antidumping initiation and measures.     

International Outsourcing and the Sector Bias: New Empirical Evidence

Considering labor market effects of international outsourcing on more disaggregated industry levels, a sector bias appears showing that low skilled labor receives a wage premium when international outsourcing takes place in low skill‐intensive industries. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting this pattern. Applying a panel data analysis for Germany, this paper provides new empirical evidence for the existence of the sector bias of international outsourcing: significant results confirm the decreasing wage gap if international outsourcing takes place in low skill‐intensive industries. If international outsourcing takes place in high skill‐intensive industries, the wage gap increases.     

Money and Inflation: International Evidence Based on Cointegration Theory

This study investigates the relationship between money and inflation using cointegration tests. For a broad sample of countries, the paper finds that most time series data underlying a typical monetarist model are nonstationary, indicating that it is necessary to appropriately transform the data in order to render the confidence tests reliable. Our principal finding is that money and inflation are related only in countries with high inflation [E 31]     

International Specialization and Labor Unions: Evidence from OECD Countries

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the institutional determinants of international comparative advantage. Starting from a theoretically well-founded general-equilibrium framework, where specialization depends on relative factor endowments and technological differences, we study the possible additional effect of labor unions. Using country–year panel data, we obtain that they are an important determinant of relative economic performance for a sample of manufacturing sectors. In particular low wages–labor-intensive industries turn out to be relatively disadvantaged, while high wages–capital-intensive sectors are relatively advantaged by stronger labor unions. We also allow for different institutional scenarios, letting unionization patterns interact with different regimes of bargaining coordination and social security systems. Our main conclusions are not substantially altered.     

卖空压力与公司现金持有——基于中国卖空管制放松的准自然实验证据

使用中国股票市场的卖空管制放松政策作为准自然实验,本文考察由此产生的卖空压力对公司现金持有的治理效应。使用双重差分方法的研究结果表明,卖空管制放松使公司现金持有程度降低了11.23%;横截面差异检验结果表明,公司面临的产品市场竞争程度越低、破产风险越高或者公司自身的融资约束程度越低,卖空管制放松对公司现金持有的治理效应越强;卖空管制放松显著提升了公司现金持有的市场价值。     

金融发展中的制度因素:理论框架与国际经验

本文在现有文献的基础上,提出了"制度与金融发展"这一新的理论命题,并利用跨国截面数据系统地检验了该理论.从国际经验来看,产权结构、法律制度和金融利益集团力量都对金融发展有显著的影响.本文的结论是:只有进一步完善产权、法律以及信用等制度才能推动中国金融进一步发展.     

International Evidence on Import Demand

The paper examines import demand behavior in five industrial countries, namely France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. It uses econometric techniques organized around maximum likelihood cointegration analysis, dynamic OLS and fully modified estimation to estimate long-run import demand functions. In addition, we examine the short-run dynamics of import demand by using impulse response functions based on VAR analysis. The empirical results indicate the importance of relative prices and domestic demand for most countries examined.     

Patterns of International Capital Flows and Productivity Growth: New Evidence

Recent evidence from developing and emerging economies shows a negative correlation between growth and net capital inflows, a contradiction to neoclassical growth theory. I provide updated and disaggregated evidence on the origins of this puzzle. An analysis of the components of capital flows and of gross portfolio positions shows that foreign direct investment is directed towards countries with the highest growth rates, but that portfolio investment outflows exceed these inflows. Liberalized capital accounts further exacerbate this pattern. My results suggest a desire for international portfolio diversification in liquid assets by fast‐growing countries lies at the heart of the puzzle.     

International Trade and Gender Wage Discrimination: Evidence from East Asia

The paper explores how competition from international trade affects gender wage discrimination in two open economies. According to neoclassical theory, if discrimination is costly, then increased industry competitiveness from international trade lessens the incentive for employers to discriminate against women. This effect should be stronger in concentrated sectors, where employers can use excess profits to cover the costs of discrimination. Alternatively, increased international trade may reduce women's bargaining power to achieve wage gains. Results for Taiwan and Korea indicate that, in contrast to neoclassical theory, competition from foreign trade in concentrated industries is positively associated with wage discrimination against women.