Petroleum spreads and the term structure of futures prices

We employ the term structure of gasoline and heating oil prices, proxied by convenience yields, to explain the variation in the spread between the prices of gasoline and crude oil and the prices of heating oil and crude oil. We demonstrate that the marginal convenience yields in the gasoline and heating oil markets explained much of the variation in the spreads between 1986 and 1999. The evidence indicates the importance of a disaggregated treatment of the term structure of prices: the convenience yield is found to explain a substantially higher amount of the variation in the spread when it is decomposed by maturity, even after controls for seasonality and inventory levels are implemented. These findings support the notion that the futures term structure contains information beyond what can be garnered via obvious or easily available proxies of current supply and demand. The findings are also supported in an alternate specification that tests for the origins of information spillover (leadership) between the commodities: it is demonstrated that decomposed convenience yields explain a substantial portion of the volatility spillover from the gasoline and heating oil markets to the crude market.     

股利政策 投资者保护与企业价值——基于股权分置改革背景

股利政策是现代公司治理的重要内容。通过研究我国上市公司股改前后股利政策与公司价值之间的关系,可以得出股利政策的变动有利于提高企业价值。同时也指出,投资者保护水平能够加强股改之后股利政策与企业价值之间的关系。     

Can information and counseling help students from poor rural areas go to high school? Evidence from China

Recent studies have shown that only about two-thirds of the students from poor, rural areas in China finish junior high school and enter high school. One factor that may be behind the low rates of high school attendance is that students may be misinformed about the returns to schooling or lack career planning skills. We therefore conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) using a sample of 131 junior high schools and more than 12,000 students to test the effects of providing information on returns or career planning skills on student dropout, academic achievement and plans to go to high school. Contrary to previous studies, we find that information does not have significant effects on student outcomes. Unlike information, counseling does have an effect. However, the effect is somewhat surprising. Our findings suggest that counseling increases dropouts and seems to lower academic achievement. In our analysis of the causal chain, we conclude that financial constraints and the poor quality of education in junior high schools in poor, rural areas (the venue of the study) may be contributing to the absence of positive impacts on student outcomes from information and counseling. The negative effects of counseling on dropout may also be due to the high and growing wages for unskilled labor (high opportunity costs) in China’s transitioning economy. It is possible that when our counseling curriculum informed the students about the reality of how difficult were the requirements for entering academic high school, it may have induced them to revise their benefit-cost calculations and come to the realization that they are better off dropping out and/or working less hard in school.     

Equality of interest rates revisited: the multi‐country evidence

One influential aspect of international integration of financial markets is the possibility of reducing divergences between domestic interest rates and foreign interest rates or increasing the degree to which yields in different financial markets move together over time. In this study, we investigate the convergence of the real interest rates using the Kalman filter. Applying the modified Hall et al. () approach, we model the risk premium and convergence of real interest rates using the time‐varying parameter estimation techniques. We present evidence of risk premium and convergence for two blocks of countries—The Asian‐Pacific countries including the US, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea and the US‐European group including France, the UK, Germany and the US.     

Car ownership and use in Britain: a comparison of the empirical results of alternative cointegration estimation methods and forecasts

This paper addresses two problems faced by many forecasters in the transport sector, namely how to use a relatively small sample to forecast car ownership over a long period of time and avoid the difficulties caused by spurious or nonsense regressions. Five alternative estimation methods are used to test for cointegrating relationships between per capita car ownership (and use) and real per capita personable disposable income, real motoring costs and real bus fares. These are the Engle-Granger two-stage, the Phillips-Hansen fully modified, the Wickens-Breusch one-stage, the autoregressive distributed lag, and the Johansen maximum likelihood methods. The corresponding error correction models are estimated, and a comparison made between the derived short- and long-run demand elasticities for car ownership and use. The ex-post forecasting performance of the error correction models, together with an ARIMA model specification, is evaluated using a number of performance criteria. The long-range time series forecasts obtained from the cointegrating regressions are compared with those from the cross-sectional approach used by the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the policy implications discussed.     

An empirical study of outbound tourism demand in the UK

A general to specific methodology is used to construct UK demand for outbound tourism models to twelve destinations. A tourism destination preference index is introduced to take into account social, cultural and psychological influences on tourists' decisions concerning their overseas holiday destinations. The tests support the existence of a cointegration relationship for each of 11 UK overseas holiday destinations. The corresponding error correction models are estimated. The empirical results show that the long-run income elasticities for all destinations range from 1.70 to 3.90 with an average of 2.367. The lowest and highest short-run income elasticities are 1.05 and 3.78 respectively, with an average of 2.216. The estimates of the income elasticities imply that overseas holidays are highly income elastic while the own-price elasticities suggest that the demand for UK outbound tourism is relatively own-price inelastic. In terms of the significance of substitution prices in the regression equations, Ireland is the favourite substitute destination for UK outbound tourists. Ex post forecasts over a period of six years are generated from the ECM models and the results compared with those of a naive model, an AR(1) model, an ARMA(p,q) model, and a VAR model. The forecasting performance criteria show that the ECM model has the best overall forecasting performance for UK outbound tourism.     

应用型影像工程实习实践基地特色建设研究

影像工程专业生产实习目的是培养学生创新思维模式,锻炼学生的实践动手能力,更好的适应社会需要。结合我校的实际情况及用人单位的人才要求,不断加强影像工程实习实践基地的特色建设,灵活调整教学方案,完善特色培养教学模式,培养出更多实用型人才。     

优势关系赋权的皖江示范区技术创新能力差异性实证分析

结合安徽省经济和社会发展的需求,皖江示范区更加注重技术创新能力建设,而评价体系内各个指标在对技术创新能力进行综合评价的过程中所起的作用是不同的,这为利用不确定理论方法建立技术创新能力评价模型奠定了基础。利用优势关系对指标数值分类去除繁冗指标,精简指标体系,融合优势关系下属性重要性赋权和粒度赋权确定各指标的优化组合权重,使皖江城市带各地区的综合评价值更趋合理化,为各地区因地制宜加快技术创新能力建设提供了依据。     

物流实践型人才素质可持续提升模式研究

通过分析物流行业员工进修培训需求现状,构架物流实践型人才素质可持续提升模型,创新了"定期定向回招进修培训"子模型,将政府、高校、行业企业、协会等多方主体扩充到从业者进修培训平台中,克服单独依靠企业自身开展培训进修的瓶颈约束,多协同方共同完成物流从业员工进修培训,提升物流行业整体作业水平和行业素质。     

学科竞赛反哺化工原理教学改革之探索与实践

针对?化工原理?传统课堂和实践教学模式存在的局限和问题,以开展化工设计竞赛为手段,以培养学生实践能力、创新能力和团队精神,提高教师专业素质为目的,从化工原理课堂教学、实验教学和课程设计教学三个方面入手,进行化工设计竞赛反哺化工原理教学改革的探索与实践。结果表明,这种学科竞赛反哺教学的改革初步取得了良好的教学效果。但同时也发现了不足之处,并提出了相应的改进方案。