The world price of home bias

Theoretical arguments suggest that as the degree of a country's home bias increases, the global risk sharing between domestic and foreign investors will reduce and thereby increase the country's cost of capital. Consistent with this prediction, we find international differences in the cost of capital to be strongly and positively related to varying degrees of home bias for 38 markets. This finding is robust to different cost of capital proxies, different control variables, alternative home-bias measures, international tradability of stocks, and alternative specifications. Therefore, the overall evidence implies that countries may enjoy a significantly lower cost of capital by reducing the extent of their home bias and hence, increasing global risk sharing.     

中国农村剩余劳力由农民工到新城市人的历史演变

目前,我国的城市化水平已达43.9%,据有关方面预计,今后我国每年将有1200万人成为城市居民.与发达国家80%左右的城市化率相比,我国城市化还有更广阔的前景.从西方发达国家的历史来看,所谓城市化,其实就是随着工业的发展,城市的范围向农村扩展,大量农民进入城市转变为工人,农村人口向城市集中的过程.城市化过程的重要内容之一,就是农民转化为城市居民,只有这样,才能给城市带来充足的劳动力,以及稳定的消费者.