Return and Risk Premium Seasonalities in three Emerging Asian Markets: Hong Kong,Korea and Taiwan*

In this study, we find that seasonal return patterns differ from that implied by risk premiums in three emerging Asian markets; namely, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. Positive January seasonal returns are found in the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets, while positive February seasonal returns are also found in Taiwan. These findings suggest that investors should place their money in these markets during January but not for the months of June and December in Korea, and for the months of May and November in Taiwan. Corporate managers should also be aware of the need to adjust for such seasonal variations when they use market data to evaluate the risk premium or required rate of return for projects in these markets. The results also show that the size effect may also be priced in some of these markets.     

Inflation Accounting Disclosures and Stock Price Adjustments: Some Canadian Results

This article tests for an association between security returns and anticipated and unanticipated inflation. Inflation accounting disclosures are used to group securities on the basis of their sensitivity to inflation. Nominal security returns and residual returns are independently regressed on the levels of anticipated and unanticipated inflation using a dummy variable model. Results support previous U.S. findings that investors do not seem to use these accounting disclosures in the selection of securities. The evidence indicates, however, that for firms “less affected” by inflation, there exists an association between residual returns and anticipated inflation.     

Sectoral trends and cycles in Germany

We examine the comovements between the output indexes of three German sectors (manufacturing, mining, and agriculture) and the three corresponding sectoral stock market indexes. It is found that data with and without seasonal adjustment give mixed results on the long-run interaction between the sectoral indexes. Compared with data that are non-seasonally adjusted, the adjusted data offer weaker evidence on the cointegration relationship between a) the sectoral output indexes, b) sectoral stock indexes, and c) individual pairs of real and financial indexes. On short-run comovement, seasonally adjusted data offer stronger evidence on the presence of common synchronized and non-synchronized cyclical components. First version received: March 2000/Final version received: September 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  We would like to thank Michael Dooley, Juergen von Hagen, Kenneth Kletzer, Peter Kugler, Jacky So and two anonymous referees, as well as the participants of the Fifth Global Finance Conference in Mexico City, the seminars at the University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Munich, and University of Basel for their helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by CGES at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz faculty research funds.     

Corporate social responsibility and dividend policy

This study outlines and tests two corporate social responsibility (CSR) views of dividends. The first view argues that firms are likely to pay fewer dividends because CSR activities lower the cost of equity, encouraging firms to invest or hoard cash rather than to pay dividends. The second view suggests that CSR activities are positive NPV projects that increases earnings and hence dividend payouts. The first (second) view predicts that firms with a stronger involvement in CSR activities should be associated with a lower (higher) dividend payouts. The finding supports the second view and is robust.     

全球金融危机前后的国际储备比较研究

本文通过评估全球金融危机（GFC）和结构变化对于国际储备（IR）积累模式的影响,认为发展中国家和发达国家对于国际储备的需求模式呈现不同态势,一国国际储备的合适水平并不是一成不变的,其决定因素会随着全球经济发展产生变化。同时,在对国际储备的历史模式分析的基础上,本文对国际储备预测结果与汇率变动之间可能存在的联系进行了研究。     

Renminbi Going Global

The present paper evaluates the international status of the Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), by examining its use in the global market. Specifically, the discussion focuses on the recent developments of RMB trading in the global foreign exchange market, cross‐border trade settlement in RMB, the Hong Kong offshore market and China's policies relating to the RMB. The evidence suggests that the use of the RMB overseas, especially in trade financing and in the off‐shore market, has increased rapidly in recent years. However, compared with the size of the Chinese economy, the current scale of the use of the RMB is quite small. Although the RMB has great potential to become an international currency, its acceptance in the global economy is affected by both economic and political factors. Attaining a fully fledged international RMB is still a distant goal.