Debt Issue Costs and Issue Characteristics in the Market for U.S. Dollar Denominated International Bonds

This paper analyzes the issue costs and initial pricing of bonds in the international market. In particular, we investigate the determinants of three components of issue costs: underwriter fee, underwriter spread (the difference between the offering price and the guaranteed price to the issuer), and underpricing (the difference between the market price and the offering price). Total underwriter compensation increases with the bonds' credit risk and maturity, but it is insignificantly related to issue size. Interestingly, underwriters appear to price some issue characteristics directly (by adjusting the fee) and other characteristics indirectly (by setting the guaranteed price). The two compensation components (fee and spread) are negatively related to each other. We provide evidence that this trade-off is consistent with income tax considerations, as well as with two-tier pricing by underwriters. We find no evidence of underpricing.     

农民养老问题亟待解决

农村现行的家庭养老、土地养老、集体养老正在弱化,巩固家庭养老的基础地位,强化土地保障功能,辅之以社区扶持,推行多层次养老保险,符合中国国情和农村生产力发展水平,是解决农村养老问题的必然选择.     

Intraday Lead-Lag Relationships Between the Futures-, Options and Stock Market

In rational, efficiently functioning and complete markets, returns on derivative and underlying securities should be perfectly contemporaneously correlated. Due to market imperfections, one of these markets may reflect information faster. The use of high-frequency data and the choice for a small unit time interval to measure these lead-lag relations comes at the cost of some or many missing observations, causing traditional estimators to either under- or overestimate covariances and correlations. We use a new estimator to estimate lead-lag relationships between the cash AEX index, options and futures. We find that futures returns lead both options and cash index returns by approximately 10 minutes. The relationship between options and the cash market is not completely unidirectional.     

Programme Evaluation with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Selective Implementation: The Mexican PROGRESA Impact on Child Nutrition

This paper considers the impact of Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación ( PROGRESA ), a large Mexican rural anti-poverty programme that had an evaluation sample in which overall treatment was randomly assigned to some communities but not others, on child nutrition. When we examine the impact of PROGRESA based on the presumption of randomized allocations, we find that PROGRESA had no or even a negative impact on child nutrition. However, not all children designated to receive nutritional supplements actually did so. Our preferred estimates – child fixed-effects estimates that control for unobserved heterogeneity that is correlated with access to the supplement – indicate a significantly positive and fairly substantial programme effect of the nutritional supplements on children 12–36 months. They imply an increase of about a sixth in mean growth per year for these children and a lower probability of stunting. Effects are somewhat larger for children from poorer communities but whose mothers are functionally literate. The long-term consequences of these improvements are non-trivial; its impact working through adult height alone could result in a 2.9% increase in lifetime earnings.     

新世纪高职英语教学面临的问题和对策

高等职业教育作为我国高等教育的重要组成部分，高职英语教学必须突出对学生语言实际交际能力的培养。但目前的高职英语教学存在学生英语基础薄弱，教师授课任务繁重。教材建设缓慢等问题。搞好高职英语教学，需要我们从师资、教材、教学手段等过多方面下功夫。     

我国中等收入阶层发展浅论

在任何社会中，中等收入阶层都是维系社会稳定的重要的社会力量。十六大报告提出了在我国要“扩大中等收入者比重”的观点，而现阶段，我国中等收入阶层比重较低，必须选择一些可能路径来扩大。     

普通高等学校图书馆评估指标的思考

普通高等学校图书馆评估指标分为办馆条件，文献资源建设，自动化、网络化、数字化建设，读者服务和科学管理等内容。认真学习评估指标有利于认清当前高校图书馆建设与管理的内容、标准和目标，提高图书馆建设和管理的自觉性和规范性，使图书馆建设和管理提高到一个新的水平。     

追随客户与外资银行进入：中国的证据与政策含义

借鉴国外同行的分析方法,对追随客户假说在中国的适用性的检验表明：出口、进出口总量和外商直接投资对外资银行的进入存在正向影响,而进口的影响则为负.从政策层面上看,外资银行进入原因的复杂性蕴含着诸多机遇与挑战,而核心则是协调对外贸易政策、外商直接投资政策和金融管制等多种政策工具与手段.     

民间传说比史实更动人——试论范蠡与西施的爱国壮举及偕泛太湖的佳话

文章比较了有关范蠡与西施的史实和民间传说,分析了民间传说比史实更动人的原因。     

构建和谐农村--农村城市化问题研究

加速在现有小城镇、县城集中发展工业,实现城市化,有利于发挥小城市的聚集功能与规模效应,实现农村剩余劳动力向小城市的转移,帮助农民走出贫困,走向富裕。走农村城市化道路是实现资源优化组合、保持我国经济持续发展、全面构建社会主义和谐社会的必然选择。