Art as an investment: Short and long-term comovements in major painting markets

This paper examines the short and long-term price linkages among major art and equity markets over the period 1976–2001. The art markets examined are Contemporary Masters, French Impressionists, Modern European, 19^th Century European, Old Masters, Surrealists, 20^th Century English and Modern US paintings. A global equity index (with dividends and capitalisation changes) is also included. Multivariate cointegration procedures, Granger non-causality tests, level VAR and generalised variance decomposition analyses based on error-correction and vector autoregressive models are conducted to analyse short and long-run relationships among these markets. The results indicate that there is a stationary long-run relationship and significant short and long run causal linkages between the various painting markets and between the equity market and painting markets. However, in terms of the percentage of variance explained most painting markets are relatively isolated, and other painting markets are generally more important than the equity market in explaining the variance that is not caused by innovations in the market itself. This suggests that opportunities for portfolio diversification in art works alone and in conjunction with equity markets exist, though in common with the literature in this area the study finds that the returns on paintings are much lower and the risks much higher than in conventional financial markets.The authors would like to thank delegates to the 14th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, University of New South Wales, seminar participants at the Queensland University of Technology and Massey University, Masaki Katsuura, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The financial assistance of a Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Business Research Initiative Grant is also gratefully acknowledged.     

庆祝《经济社会体制比较》杂志创刊20周年座谈会纪要

2005年10月25日上午，《经济社会体制比较》（简称《比较》）杂志社在中央编译局举行活动庆祝《比较》杂志创刊20周年。出席座谈会的有中国经济体制改革研究会会长、前国家体改委副主任高尚全教授；中央编译局副局长俞可平教授、魏海生教授、张卫峰同志；中央编译局秘书长张海滨同志；《比较》杂志主编荣敬本教授、赵人伟教授；从杂志创刊以来一直给予大力支持的刘秉炎同志、詹汝琮同志、李洙泗同志；《比较》杂志编委、财政部财政科学研究所所长贾康研究员；《比较》杂志理事会副理事长兼秘书长、国资委监事会正局级监事张楠同志；《比较》杂志理事会副秘书长、广东省商业联合会会长助理成欣欣博士；理事单位代表：上海埃力生（集团）有限公司董事局主席吴国迪先生、中国智宝集团董事长杨志凌先生、中国集装箱控股集团公司董事长张炳华先生、中国水利水电第14工程局局长李跃平先生；中央编译局当代马克思主义研究所、世界社会主义研究所以及其他相关处室共计50余人参加了庆祝活动。本次活动共分两个阶段：第一阶段是座谈会发言；第二阶段是高尚全教授的主题演讲。高尚全教授的主题演讲我刊单独刊出。此文按发言先后顺序整理，刊载于此以飨读者。[编者按]     

2002年世界经济形势与中国的对策

2001年世界经济陷入了30年来最严重的衰退。这次衰退是继多年经济繁荣后的“硬着陆”,衰退导致世界经济增长曲线呈现“U”字型。从全球主要经济机构的预测结果看,2002年世界经济前景依然黯淡。世界经济的复苏,取决于美国经济的复苏,而美国经济复苏主要依靠扩张性政策的拉动,是政策导向型的复苏。面对严峻的外部经济环境,2002年中国经济要实现7%以上的增长,在立足于内需的同时,应对对外经济政策做适当的调整。     

福建省工业结构特征及其调整思路

福建省作为改革开放的先行区域,其工业结构的特征有别于全国,文章在分析福建省工业结构特征和工业结构形成条件的基础上,提出福建省工业结构调整的思路。     

Modeling Cyclical Asymmetries in European Imports

This paper applies smooth transition models to capture the nonlinear behavior in the imports data of six major European economies and to assess whether such nonlinearities are related to business cycle asymmetries. Two classes of switch between regimes are considered: endogenously determined transition that assumes nonlinearities are generated by idiosyncratic components specific to foreign trade, and exogenous transition based on GDP growth as a more direct indicator of the cyclical state of the economy. The results support the proposition that the dynamics of imports are nonlinear. In Belgium, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, regimes change over the business cycle, while in Germany and Italy the switch between regimes is endogenous. National characteristics play a role in defining the position of extreme regimes, the smoothness of the transition, and local dynamics within each state.Previous versions of this article have been presented at the 57th International Atlantic Economic Conference (Lisbon, Portugal, March 10–14, 2004) and at the VII Encuentro de Economía Aplicada (Vigo, Spain, June 3–5, 2004). The authors thank the conference participants and an anonymous referee for their comments.     

Why Punish? Social reciprocity and the enforcement of prosocial norms

Recently economists have become interested in why people who face social dilemmas in the experimental lab use the seemingly incredible threat of punishment to deter free riding. Three theories with evolutionary microfoundations have been developed to explain punishment. We survey these theories and use behavioral data from surveys and experiments to show that the theory called social reciprocity in which people punish norm violators indiscriminately explains punishment best.JEL Classification: C91, C92, D64, H41 Correspondence to: Jeffrey P. CarpenterWe thank Carolyn Craven, Corinna Noelke and two referees for comments, and Middlebury College for financial assistance. In addition, Carpenter acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (SES-CAREER 0092953).     

对西方思想史中人的素质思想的考察

西方思想史实际上就是一部以人为中心的历史,它以人为出发点和考察对象,从古至今的思想家们自觉不自觉地涉及到了人的素质这一问题,本文纵向考察了从古希腊开始一直到近现代的西方思想家们对人的素质问题的论述,勾勒出西方人学思想发展的基本脉络,这对于我们今天在社会主义建设中如何认识和促进人的素质的发展具有非常重要的启示和意义。     

Strategic Environmental Standards, Wage Incomes and the Location of Polluting Firms

The purpose of this paper is tostudy how the choice of environmental standardsby governments is affected by the existence ofwage incomes when firms locations areendogenous. In developed countries labor isunionized, which allows positive wage incomesto arise. Thus, each government has incentivesto persuade firms to locate in its countrysince social welfare depends on suchincomes. But, as pollution damages theenvironment, each government will only try toattract polluting firms to thecountry, to obtain the wage incomes, whenthe valuation of environmental damage showsthat it is low.     

防城港市旅游资源优势及旅游开发策略

防城港市地处中越边境,是我国大西南地区通往越南和东南亚的交通要道,区位优势明显。这里有辽阔的海滩,茂密的热带季雨林,成群的白鹭,生长在大海中的红树林以及迷人的京族民族风情等自然与人文旅游资源。要充分利用西部大开发这一难得机遇,大力发展旅游业,把本市建设成为环境优美、有一定影响力的旅游城市。