指望政府救市，中国股民面临多重风险

【美国《华尔街日报》3月24日】全世界股票投资者正在向中国同行致意：感谢你们，让我们感觉好些了。而此前不久，中国大陆股民还是全世界股票买家深感嫉妒的对象。但目前他们却沦为警示故事的主角，提醒人们现金以及无经验的贪婪可能引发灾难。     

Organization Capital and the Cost of Equity Financing in Medium‐Sized Manufacturing Firms

We examine the effects of organization capital—evident in management quality practices—on firms’ implied cost of equity. We show that superior management practices decrease firms’ cost of equity capital. This novel finding, robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses and to endogeneity bias, highlights the importance of superior management practices in improving firms’ financing conditions. In sum, this study demonstrates that the quality of management practices maps onto firms’ financing conditions, stressing the value relevance of intangible assets.     

The Distorting Impact of Capital Controls

Abstract. This paper uses panel data to show that capital controls have a significant impact on international interest rate differentials. Various types of controls can be distinguished within the data. The analysis shows that the aforementioned effects of capital controls on interest rates are especially strong in the case of capital import controls on portfolio capital; the implementation of these controls has been suggested in the wake of the Asian Crisis to prevent further crises. The results presented herein contradict the hypothesis that capital controls can achieve a restructuring of the maturity of capital inflows without a distortion in international capital allocation.     

Post-privatization corporate governance and firm performance: The role of private ownership concentration,identity and board composition

We examine and analyze the post-privatization corporate governance of a sample of 52 newly privatized Egyptian firms over a period of 10 years, from 1995 to 2005. We look at the ownership structure that results from privatization and its evolution; the determinants of private ownership concentration; and the impact of private ownership concentration, identity and board composition on firm performance. We find that the state gives up control over time to the private sector, but still controls, on average, more than 35% of these firms. We also document a trend in private ownership concentration over time, mostly to the benefit of foreign investors. Firm size, sales growth, industry affiliation, and timing and method of privatization seem to play a key role in determining private ownership concentration. Ownership concentration and ownership identity, in particular foreign investors, prove to have a positive impact on firm performance, while employee ownership concentration has a negative one. The higher proportion of outside directors and the change in the board composition following privatization have a positive effect on firm performance. These results could have some important policy implications where private ownership by foreign investors seems to add more value to firms, while selling state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to employees is not recommended. Also, the state is highly advised to relinquish control and allow for changes in the board of directors following privatization as changing ownership, per se, might not have a positive impact on firm performance unless it is coupled with a new management style.     

An Examination of the Naïve‐Investor Hypothesis in Accruals Mispricing in Tunisian Firms

This study extends previous studies on accrual anomaly to investigate the emerging market's mispricing of accruals. Using Mishkin (1983) test, hedge portfolio test and Fama and MacBeth (1973) regression, we test whether the Tunisian Stock Exchange price rationally reflects the 1‐year ahead earnings implications of its earnings components. We find that earnings and their cash flow and accrual components are not rationally priced by the market. Additionally, this paper examines the role of sophistication investors in the pricing of earnings and their components. Our results show that accruals for firms with higher level of institutional ownership are not mispriced, while accruals for firms with lower institutional ownership are overpriced significantly by the market.     

Optimal investment decisions when time-horizon is uncertain

Many investors do not know with certainty when their portfolio will be liquidated. Should their portfolio selection be influenced by the uncertainty of exit time? In order to answer this question, we consider a suitable extension of the familiar optimal investment problem of Merton [Merton, R.C., 1971. Optimal consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model. Journal of Economic Theory 3, 373–413], where we allow the conditional distribution function of an agent’s time-horizon to be stochastic and correlated to returns on risky securities. In contrast to existing literature, which has focused on an independent time-horizon, we show that the portfolio decision is affected.     

Territorial Integrity: Rethinking the Territorial Sovereign Right of the Existence of the States

Legal contemporary doctrine has a reified approach to the state. This has led to the perception that territorial integrity is the completeness/unity of the state territory. Amazingly international relations and political geography scholars have not enquired about the link between territoriality and territorial integrity. In essence the principle of territorial integrity is the elaborated and sophisticated legal expression of territoriality. It is intimately linked to the state as a legal entity the main objective of which is to ensure its perennial existence within a specific territory whose borders have been established in accordance with international law.

I think that the life of an institution implies that we are able to criticize, to transform, to open the institution to its own future. So the law as such can be deconstructed and has to be deconstructed. That is the condition of historicity, revolution, morals, ethics, and progress. (J. Derrida)     

The Malaysian Real Trade Balance and the Real Exchange Rate

The cointegration technique is used to examine the long‐run and short‐run relationships between the real Malaysian trade balance with the real exchange rate, domestic and world incomes. The results suggest that a real ringgit exchange rate depreciation improves the trade balance in the long run. World and domestic incomes are also found to be important determinants of trade balance. The significance of world income on trade balance indicates that Malaysia is prone to external shocks. An error‐correction model is then estimated to study the short‐run dynamics of the effects of exchange rate. The impulse response analysis shows that the effect of exchange rate on the trade balance lasts for about three years. A devaluation of ringgit will initially improve the trade balance, albeit small, after which the trade balance starts to deteriorate, and then improves again suggesting that there exists a delayed J‐curve.     

THE COST OF THE U.S. SUGAR PROGRAM REVISITED

The article analyzes the welfare cost of the U.S. sugar program using a multimarket model of U.S. sweetener markets. The latter includes raw crops, sugar extraction and refining, and sweetener users (food-processing industries and final consumers). The authors address the industrial organization of food industries using sweeteners and treat the United States as a large importer. With the removal of the program, this article estimates (all figures in 1999 dollars) that in 1998 cane growers, sugar beet growers, and processors would have lost $307, $650, and $89 million, respectively; sweetener users would have gained $1.9 billion. World prices would have increased by 13.2%. The deadweight loss of the program is estimated at $532 million.     

Strategic Interaction between Governments and Investors under Privatization Programs

This article analyses the strategic moves of governments and investors under privatization programs in a game‐theoretic context. In sequential‐move games of both perfect information and incomplete information, the best response of the strategic investors to observing a slow pace of privatization is to have a low participation in economic activity because of concerns over public policy credibility. This is true even if the government chooses to randomize its action to send mixed signals to the investors while adopting a slow pace of privatization for budgetary reasons. However, the outcome is Pareto inferior to a situation of phased but fast implementation of privatization programs and high private‐sector participation under plausible assumptions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.