Private borrowing during the financial revolution: Hoare's Bank and its customers, 1702–241

The financial revolution improved the British government's ability to borrow, and thus its ability to wage war. North and Weingast argued that it also permitted private parties to borrow more cheaply and widely. We test these inferences with evidence from a London bank. We confirm that private bank credit was cheap in the early eighteenth century, but we argue that it was not available widely. Importantly, the government reduced the usury rate in 1714, sharply reducing the circle of private clients that could be served profitably.     

Hedging,Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations Framework

We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage.     

农村老人的幸福生活

"没想到俺这老头子也涨'工资'了,这日子真是越过越好".东营市辛店街道茶坡村84岁的农民王道兴高兴地领取了60元的"养老月薪".如今,在辛店街道像王道兴这样享受养老补贴的老人达4821人.     

Through Trial and Error to Collusion*

In this article we study a very simple trial and error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of any coordination or punishing device this process converges to the joint‐profit‐maximizing outcome.     

小半径弯道内斜交涵的涵长计算

传统涵长计算公式在小半径弯道内斜交涵的应用上有缺陷,按照传统涵长计算公式计算出来的涵长与实际上要求的涵长之间的差值会很大;文章对涵洞长度计算理论公式进行推导,并证明出公式在设计生产中的实际运用价值.     

契约角度的资本结构优化

企业作为一系列契约的耦合体,在组织形式上表现为通过对企业契约的控制权与剩余索取权的对应配置而形成的治理结构,在广义会计上则表现为企业的资本结构。从资本结构的主要构成内容来看,债券或债务与股票都是规制资本交易的两种契约手段,故从契约角度研究资本结构便日益受到重视。本文在前人研究的基础上,从会计等式的契约属性出发,从而实现契约与资本结构的对接,并在分析股权契约与债务契约的特点和功能的基础上,提出了通过股权契约与债务契约的适度耦合来优化资本结构的新思路。     

A theoretical framework to evaluate different margin‐setting methodologies

The margin system is the first line of defense against the default risk of a clearinghouse. From the perspectives of a clearinghouse, the utmost concern is to have a prudential system to control the default exposure. Once the level of prudentiality is set, the next concern will be the opportunity cost of the investors, because high opportunity cost discourages people from hedging futures, and thus defeats the function of a futures market. In this article, we first develop different measures of prudentiality and opportunity cost. We then formulate a statistical framework to evaluate different margin‐setting methodologies, all of which strike a balance between prudentiality and opportunity cost. Three margin‐setting methodologies, namely, (1) using simple moving averages; (2) using exponentially weighted moving averages; (3) using a GARCH approach, are applied to the Hang Seng Index futures. Keeping the same prudentiality level, it is shown that the one using a GARCH approach by and large gives the lowest average overcharge. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:117–145, 2004     

The index futures markets: Is screen trading more efficient?

This article uses a nonparametric test based on the arc‐sine law (see, e.g., Feller, 1965 ), which involves comparing the theoretical distribution implied by an intraday random walk with the empirical frequency distribution of the daily high/low times, in order to address the question of whether the abandonment of pit trading has been associated with greater market efficiency. If market inefficiencies result from flaws in the market microstructure of pit trading, they ought to have been eliminated by the introduction of screen trading. If, on the other hand, the inefficiencies are a reflection of investor psychology, they are likely to have survived, unaffected by the changeover. We focus here on four cases. Both the FTSE‐100 and CAC‐40 index futures contracts were originally traded by open outcry and have moved over to electronic trading in recent years, so that we are able to compare pricing behavior before and after the changeover. The equivalent contracts in Germany and Korea, on the other hand, have been traded electronically ever since their inception. Our results overwhelmingly reject the random‐walk hypothesis both for open‐outcry and electronic‐trading data sets, suggesting there has been no increase in efficiency as a result of the introduction of screen trading. One possible explanation consistent with our results would be that the index futures market is characterized by intraday overreaction. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:337–357, 2004