Do interventions in foreign exchange markets modify investors' expectations? The experience of Japan between 1992 and 2004

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bank of Japan's official interventions on the JPY/USD parity during the period 1992–2004. The novelty of our approach is to combine two recent advances of the empirical literature on foreign exchange interventions: (i) drawing on over-the-counter option prices to characterize more precisely the distribution of market expectations; (ii) redefining interventions in terms of events as they tend to come in clusters. Moreover, in order to deal with the features of the data (small sample size, non-standard distribution), we use bootstrap tests.We show that interventions have a significant impact on the mean expectation (the forward rate). The results are more ambiguous for variance. Additionally, we find that the effect of interventions on skewness is significant, robust to different definitions of skewness, and consistent with the direction of interventions. On the contrary, our results clearly show that kurtosis is not affected by interventions. We finally show that: (i) coordination increases effectiveness of interventions; (ii) results are not altered when controlling for other economic and political news.     

Problematische Umsetzung der Gesundheitsreform

Zusammenfassung   Als ein wesentliches Element der Gesundheitsreform wird am 1. Januar 2009 ein Gesundheitsfonds zur Finanzierung der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung eingeführt. Derzeit werden wichtige Weichen für die Gesundheitsreform gestellt. Wie ist es zu der Entscheidung für einen Gesundheitsfonds gekommen? Welche Probleme k?nnen durch die Gesundheitsreform gel?st werden und welche werden neu geschaffen? Wird der Wettbewerb im Krankenversicherungssystem gest?rkt? Welche Anreiz- und Budget- Wirkungen hat die Honorarreform? In welche Richtung zeigen die Strukturwandlungen im Sozialversicherungssystem? Die Autoren unseres Zeitgespr?chs: Prof. Dr. Wolfram F. Richter*, 59, lehrt ?ffentliche Finanzen an der Technischen Universit?t Dortmund und ist Mitglied des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats beim Bundesministerium der Finanzen. Dr. Klaus Jacobs, 51, ist Gesch?ftsführer des Wissenschaftlichen Instituts der AOK (WIdO) in Berlin. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wasem, 49, ist Leiter des Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftungs lehrstuhls für Medizinmanagement der Universit?t Duisburg-Essen; Anke Walendzik, 52, Dipl.-Volkswirtin, ist dort wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin. Prof. Dr. Frank Schulz-Nieswandt, 50, ist Direktor des Seminars für Sozialpolitik und Dekan an der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakult?t der Universit?t zu K?ln. * Der Autor dankt Klaus-Dirk Henke für verschiedene hilfreiche Hinweise.     

Family and sex-specific U.S. immigration from Europe, 1870–1910: A panel data study of rates and composition

This paper develops and estimates models of family and sex-specific emigration, as well as the sex composition of this emigration, from 12 European source countries to the U.S. for the period 1870–1910. The models are based on the distinction between economic migrants (males, single females, and some married females) and tied or trailing migrants (females) and are estimated with panel data, including data that relate to the occupational/industrial structure of male and female economic activity in source countries. Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable estimates suggest that although both males and females responded to labor-market signals, males were more responsive than females to per capita GDP differences. Moreover, compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland, and Scandinavia were the sources of many young, single male, and female migrants, who responded strongly to gaps in economic opportunities. In fact, much of the European response to such gaps appears to be due to migrants from Ireland and Scandinavia. Females tended to originate in English-speaking countries and countries that were agriculturally oriented. Service and manufacturing jobs in source countries discouraged the migration of females relative to males. Males tended to follow recent migrants more than females, but females responded more to long-term influences as measured by stocks of migrants from their source countries who had previously settled in the U.S. Countries with high birth rates had relatively fewer female emigrants, whereas those with high rates of natural increase 20 years earlier experienced relatively more male emigration. Intact families, other family members (including family-strategy male migrants and trailing female migrants), and single males and females responded strongly to economic incentives, but the singles were most responsive followed by family-strategy males.     

Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers

This article studies the role of risk arbitrageurs in takeoversand the source of their advantage. We show how the presenceof arbitrageurs affects the value of the target shares, sincearbitrageurs are more likely to tender. Therefore an arbitrageurhas the informational advantage of knowing he bought shares.In equilibrium, the number of arbitrageurs buying shares andthe price they pay are determined endogenously. We also presentseveral empirical implications, including the relationship amongtrading volume, takeover premium, liquidity of the shares, andthe number of risk arbitrageurs investing in one particulardeal.     

Managerial Ownership, Information Content of Earnings, and Discretionary Accruals in a Non–US Setting

This study employs Danish data to examine the empirical relationship between the proportion of managerial ownership and two characteristics of accounting earnings: the information content of earnings and the magnitude of discretionary accruals. In previous research concerning American firms, Warfield et al. (1995) document a positive relationship between managerial ownership and the information content of earnings, and a negative relationship between managerial ownership and discretionary accruals. We question the generality of the Warfield et al. result, as the ownership structure found in most other countries, including Denmark, deviates from the US ownership configuration. In fact, Danish data indicate that the information content of earnings is inversely related to managerial ownership.     

The economic performance of the Russian economy in 2006 and a forecast for 2008–2010

This article examines the economic outcome of 2006 and builds a forecast for 2007–2010. The medium-term development risks of the Russian economy are analyzed.     

2008:全球经济预测和中期展望

一、全球经济展望 实际上要想做得精确非常容易,但是要想做正确是很难的,经济学家在社会当中只会"正确"两字,所以我想给大家介绍各种各样的想法,并进行讨论,你们可以自己判断经济的前景到底如何,以及我们面临怎样的风险.     

EFFECT OF FED POLICY ACTIONS ON THE DEFAULT LIKELIHOOD OF COMMERCIAL BANKS

Using a measure of default likelihood based on an option pricing method, we provide evidence that Fed policy actions affect the financial distress of commercial banks. When the Fed increases (decreases) interest rates, the measure of default likelihood increases (decreases). We show that when the Fed uses a tight money policy, the increase in default likelihood is more pronounced for banks that have less capital, have greater financial leverage, are smaller, have fewer growth opportunities, and have lower asset quality. Additionally, the effects on bank default likelihood are more pronounced when the Fed's policy signals less concern about economic growth, as indicated by its bias toward further tightening, and when there is a market expectation of higher short‐term market rates in the future.     

Competition and Information Production in Market Maker Models

Abstract:   The microstructure literature models the mechanisms through which fundamental information is incorporated into market prices. This paper extends previous models by endogenising information production and analysing incentives for costly information production. In contrast to the existing literature, increasing the number of informed traders can result in reduced price informativeness. When prices have an allocative role this has welfare consequences: the regulatory implications of a dichotomy between private and public incentives for information gathering are discussed.