Inflation Risk, Payment Tilt, and the Design of Partially Indexed Affordable Mortgages

This paper integrates two fundamentally important parameters into a theory of optimal mortgage design: the proportion of inflation risk borne by the lender / investor and the borrower and the amortization-graduation schedule for loan repayments. Equations are derived for a family of innovative mortgages, termed hybrid PLAMs, which offer advantages to borrowers and lenders over either the standard fixed rate mortgage (FRM) or the price level adjusted mortgage (PLAM). The superiority of the hybrid PLAMs lies in their ability to simultaneously and independently accommodate differing degrees of inflation-risk sharing and payment affordability. Inflation-risk sharing is represented by an indexation parameter set over a continuum of values such that the FRM has zero index variability and the PLAM has unit index variability. Similarly, payment tilt is represented by a tilt parameter such that the FRM has zero tilt and the PLAM has unit tilt. We demonstrate that these two parameters are independent and can each be continuously varied in a two-dimensional family of self-amortizing mortgages. A specific hybrid PLAM can be designed to partition inflation risk in any proportion between the borrower and the lender and to simultaneously prescribe any level of payment tilt between the extremes of the FRM and PLAM. The behavior of representative hybrid PLAMs is simulated and compared to FRMs and PLAMs for three different inflation scenarios, one of which uses actual market data from the period of 1960–1990.     

Vietnam's Economy, After the Asian Economic Crisis

The year 1989 marked an important turning point in Vietnam: the market mechanism began to take the place of centrally-planned resource allocation. To secure sustainable economic growth at a high level, Vietnam needs further comprehensive reform towards a market economy. The paper argues that the Asian crisis should not be blamed for the recent slowing of the economy. It also raises some other questions, in particular whether the government is still trying to fit the market mechanism into a socialist model.     

Female leadership,internet use,and performance of agricultural cooperatives in Vietnam

Supporting agricultural cooperatives might contribute to the livelihood improvement of many small-scale farmers in developing countries. This research examines the factors affecting the internet use of agricultural cooperatives with a focus on female leadership, its effects on cooperatives’ economic, social, and innovative performance, and the distributional effects of internet use on economic performance. Our analysis relied on the data of 3,512 agricultural cooperatives collected in 2021 from Vietnam. We addressed the endogeneity issue of internet use in impact assessment by employing an instrumental variable approach. Our results show that female leadership was positively and significantly associated with internet use and that internet use had a positive and significant effect on returns on assets, returns on equity, labor productivity, payment per laborer, contribution to labor union and insurance per laborer, and innovation in products of agricultural cooperatives. In addition, unconditional quantile regressions show that internet use in agricultural cooperatives exacerbated income inequality. Enhancing female leadership and promoting rural education were recommended to improve agricultural cooperatives’ performance.     

Performance persistence in hedge funds: Australian evidence

Using the most comprehensive database on Australian hedge funds, we test the performance persistence for the period July 2000 to June 2005. We employ both parametric and nonparametric approaches to identify persistence. We report evidence of short-term persistence and no evidence of long-term winning persistence. Tests of multiperiod performance reveal weak evidence of losing persistence. We also do not find any evidence of persistence in both stock picking and market timing. We report evidence of mean reversion for both stock picking and market timing at the medium horizon.     

The effects of reputation and relationships on lead banks’ certification roles

We investigate the certification roles of lead bank retention in US syndicated loans with respect to interest rates, then explore how lead banks’ reputation and previous relationships with the borrower alter such certification effects. Our findings support the certification hypothesis. Loan spreads are found to decrease with a higher retention ratio, after controlling for the endogeneity of loan price and retention. The magnitude of certification effect is reduced when the lead bank is a more reputable lender and when there are prior bank–borrower relationships. Lead bank reputation and prior lending relationships can therefore substitute for the need to certify.     

The spillover effects of target interest rate news from the U.S. Fed and the European Central Bank on the Asia-Pacific stock markets

This paper provides comprehensive evidence on the spillover effects of the U.S. Fed's and the European Central Bank (ECB)’s target interest rate news on the market returns and return volatilities of 12 stock markets in the Asia-Pacific over the period 1999–2006. The news spillover effects on the returns are generally consistent with the literature where a majority of stock markets shows significant negative returns in response to unexpected rate rises. While the results of the speed of adjustment for the Fed's news are mixed across the markets, the ECB news was absorbed slowly, in general. The return volatilities were higher in response to the interest rate news from both sources. In addition, both the Fed and the ECB news elicited tardy or persisting volatility responses. These findings have important implications for all levels of market participants in the Asia-Pacific stock markets.     

"御"意象与《淮南子》

先秦两汉典籍多以“御”来说理言事，在《淮南子》的说理中，“御”作为一个包括车、马、术、人各方面在内的整体意象而被作者有意识地反复运用，从而使之成为一个具有艺术高度和自觉意义的文学意象。     

Leadership,Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship

Leaders in today’s world face the challenge of earning the trust and commitment of organizational members if they expect to guide their companies to success in a highly competitive global context. In this article, we present empirical results indicating that when leadership behaviors are perceived as trustworthy through the observer’s mediating lens, trust increases and leaders are more likely to be viewed as ethical stewards who honor a higher level of duties. This article contributes to the growing body of literature about the importance of ethical stewardship in the trust relationship.     

A Neural Network Analysis of Mortgage Choice

There exists today an unanswered question as to whether, and the degree to which, borrower characteristics impact the choice between fixed and adjustable rate mortgages. In this paper, we apply a neural network analysis to supply evidence that answers this question. We find evidence that the characteristics of a borrower's net worth, marital status and education level and whether a co-borrower is involved contribute in a significant way to the neural network's ability to determine mortgage choice. Further, we show how, because of the facility of neural networks in modeling intrasample differences, they achieve material and statistically significant accuracy gains over qualitative choice models in predicting whether a borrower will choose a fixed or adjustable rate mortgage.