The Credit Channel at Work: Lessons from the Financial Crisis in Korea

We demonstrate that the credit channel of transmission of monetary/financial shocks appears to have aggravated Korea's economic crisis. We use micro-data gathered at the individual bank level to identify this channel of transmission. Our major findings are as follows: i) consistent with banks' autonomous retrenchment in loan supply, monetary tightening broadens the spread between marginal bank lending rates and corporate commercial paper rates; ii) credit limits on overdrafts – arguably a proxy identifying shifts in loan supply – react negatively to the monetary squeeze; iii) large negative capital shocks induce banks to disproportionately slow-down both lending and deposit taking and to disproportionately raise their lending rates. Our findings lend unequivocal support to the hypothesis that banks' autonomous contraction restricted the availability of credit and magnified the increase in its cost. In turn, this compounded the Korean crisis by aggravating liquidity constraints for the vast majority of agents who rely only on bank credit as an external source of funds.     

Restructuring of financial institutions and the corporate sector in Korea

This paper explores causes of the Korean currency crisis which started in November 1997. This paper also presents restructuring proposals and introduces the progress made so far. The urgency for quick restructuring and the necessity of the injection of money from both the government and foreign investors are emphasized. Restructuring of financial and corporate sectors should be pursued simultaneously. In the financial sector, the restructuring of banks should take precedence over other financial institutions. The key task in terms of bank restructuring involves the resolution of bad loans, recapitalization and the expedited reorganization of nonviable banks. Corporate reform is also important. Banks should play a central role in corporate workouts, especially in lowering excessive corporate debt and triggering corporate restructuring based on core competence. Transparency of corporate management, internationally accepted accounting practices, fuller disclosure requirements and stronger monitoring by minority shareholders are prerequisites for effective market discipline. Reform of ownership and governance structure are also important in enhancing managerial accountability of corporates as well as financial institutions.     

新疆企业国际化经营中品牌运营现状及对策研究

本文从新疆企业品牌国际化的定位、保护、推广、拓展四个方面对新疆企业国际化经营中品牌运营的现状进行了分析,指出新疆出口品牌程度低、影响小、数量少、结构不合理等方面存在的问题,最后提出了新疆企业国际化中要加强品牌运营的对策建议。     

Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction in Korea: When Gender Matters

Using detailed longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) from 1998 to 2008, this paper finds significant gender differences in impacts as well as adaptation patterns to major life and labor market events in Korea. Men remain on a higher happiness level throughout marriage, while women return to their baseline happiness within only two years. Consequently, men suffer more from divorce and the death of a spouse. This marital gender happiness gap is equivalent to a (husband only) increase of annual per capita household income of approximately US$17,800. The study further finds that men suffer more from unemployment. Results are robust to the inclusion of multiple simultaneous events and the use of different estimators.     

Hyperbolic Discounting,Borrowing Aversion and Debt Holding

Analysis of an original Internet‐based survey reveals that debt holding is related to time discounting through: (i) present bias, measured by the degree of declining impatience in the generalized hyperbolic discount function; (ii) borrowing aversion, captured by a sign effect in that future losses are discounted at lower rates than future gains; and (iii) impatience, measured by the overall discount rate. Hyperbolic respondents are classified naïve if their answers reveal them to be time‐inconsistent procrastinators, and otherwise sophisticated. Naïve respondents with more steeply declining impatience are more likely to be debtors. The sign effect relates negatively to borrowing. Survey responses indicative of high or declining impatience are associated with credit card borrowing and other overborrowing indicators.     

城市核心区旧城改造的典型困境与突破思路

在城市的发展史中,城市更新是永恒的命题。城市核心区旧城改造对土地集约利用、重塑城市增长极、提升城市形象、重塑城市特色意义重大。但旧城改造面临利益格局复杂、协调成本高、居民普遍贫困、优势区位推高开发成本、原迁还模式未能显著改善居民生存状态等一系列问题。因此,今后城市核心区旧城改造应遵循以下思路：保障居民生存条件优化,保障性住房政策可以加入到旧城改造项目;政企民多方合作、互利共赢;审慎选择注重长远利益的开发主体;保障区域文脉的延续与空间的协调等。     

关于中国跨国油气管道安全问题的思考

近年来,我国能源对外依存度不断提高,我国通过多条跨国管道保障国家的能源供应安全。本文简要介绍了我国陆上油气通道的情况,分析了这些跨国油气管道所面临的政治、社会、宗教、战争等风险,提出了应对这些风险的措施,供相关企业及部门参考。     

Oil shocks,policy uncertainty and stock returns in China

This paper examines the interdependence of China's policy uncertainty, the global oil market and stock market returns in China. A structural VAR model is estimated that shows that a positive shock to economic policy uncertainty in China has a delayed negative effect on global oil production, real oil prices and real stock market returns. Shocks to oil market‐specific demand significantly raise China's economic policy uncertainty and reduce the real stock market returns. As measured by a spillover index, the interdependence between these variables has been rising since 2003 as China's influence in the oil market has increased. An equivalent spillover index calculated for the US is smaller and has been largely flat over time.