Surplus Seeking and Rent Seeking Through Back-Door Deals in Mainland China Price Control and Central Planning Fix Prices Below Market Clearance, Creating a Contrived Surplus

Abstract . When the selling price is set below the market-clearing level through government price control, the price gap represents a contrived surplus transferred from the producer to the buyer. But, due to incomplete assignment of property rights to this contrived surplus and/or high enforcement costs, contrived surplus is often a non exclusive income subject to competitive capture. Exchange of favors between buyers and sellers to gain preferential access to rationed goods has become a dominant method of surplus seeking (cf. rent seeking) in the People's Republic of China. But since only well-placed individuals in the distribution channels for such goods and officials who control access to positional goods have favors to exchange, these exchanges sabotage government efforts to achieve fairer access to scarce goods. And since favors involve illegally diverted resources, such back-door deals threaten the integrity of government. Furthermore, exchange of favors fosters particularistic values which hinder modern economic development.     

Women's Magazines: Construction of Identities and Cultural Consumption in Hong Kong

Consumption is an integral part of contemporary capitalistic society. By means of a textual analysis of letters to the editor of a women's magazine in Hong Kong, as well as in-depth interviews with readers and editors, this paper examines how women's cultural consumption creates, constructs and circulates women's identities. Results reveal that the processes of identification can be constructed on three equivalent consumption levels. Firstly, women readers identify certain "imaginary communities" through reading the magazine, and by modeling the behaviors and styles of the communities they feel they are sustaining their relationship with them. Secondly, women identify with an idealized community-constructed beauty and seek to consume products which collectively suggests this idealized beauty for them. Thirdly, women regard the "communities" as providing shelter for rapport and comfort from the emotional and relational problems of real life. In sum, structured identification-consumption has shaped working class women into an identity, which conforms to society's dominant capitalist logic. Despite these findings, however, there are always a few women who attempt to seek alternative lifestyles.     

Restrictions on Short-Selling and Spot-Futures Dynamics

Recent lifting of short-sales constraints in Hong Kong provides an important opportunity to examine whether such restrictions affect the dynamic relationship between index futures and its underlying spot. The results show that the two prices have become more closely integrated without the restrictions. Adjustments to long-run equilibrium are accomplished more through index futures; however, the spot index has played an increasingly more important role in the lead-lag relationship after the deregulation. Market conditions, spot trading volumes, relative futures trading volumes and institutional participation also affect the dynamic relationship.     

汇丰司库兼亚太区环球资本市场主管 冯婉眉（Anita Fung）

汇丰与交行的合作不只局限于分享技术，两行还有很多共同合作发展的新业务项目，以充分利用各自的优势，一个好的例子就是财富管理。目前，汇丰已经通过交行的QDⅡ平台推出两款产品。展望将来，我们希望利用这些行动，发展新业务项目，寻找合作机会。     

The Dynamic Impact of Macro Shocks on Insurance Premiums

We develop a model that investigates the relation between insurance premiums and macroeconomic variables, including oil price, interest rate, aggregate supply, and aggregate demand. We then use a multivariate structural vector error correction model to distinguish the effects arising from permanent and transitory components of insurance premiums. Changes in the transitory component indicate that our model captures key historical events. Although real shocks originating from oil price and aggregate supply explain the behavior of insurance premiums well, we show that financial market shocks are the main driving force behind the recent increasing volatility in insurance premiums in the U.S. market.

Pedigree or Placement? An Analysis of Research Productivity in Finance

We examine pedigree and placement effects of research productivity in finance and find a notable placement effect: authors who are currently affiliated with \"elite\" institutions tend to be more productive, especially among the top three finance journals. The placement effect, however, weakens in more recent years. We also observe a pedigree effect in the top three journals, where there is a higher concentration of publications by authors with degrees from \"elite\" institutions. We provide rankings of the institutions that are best at developing and training scholars.