The Market's Assessment of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999

We examine the impact of the events leading up to and including the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) of 1999 on the stock returns of banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies. We find that the impact is positive for all institutions. Bank gains are positively related to size and capitalization. Brokerage firms gain regardless of size, but the gains are inversely related to capitalization and insurance companies gain regardless of size or capital position. The strong positive reaction suggests that the market expects the institutions to benefit from the new opportunities created by the FSMA's passage.     

Do homeowners achieve more household wealth in the long run?

Despite the public’s faith in homeownership as a vehicle for wealth creation, there are surprisingly few empirical studies of the independent impact of homeownership and its duration on household wealth accumulation. This paper provides the first empirical evidence that homeownership, after controlling for other drivers of wealth accumulation, is positively and significantly associated with wealth accumulation over time. Using the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics, it examines the influence of housing tenure choices between 1989 and 2001 on household net wealth levels in 2001 after controlling for initial wealth in 1989, location, income, education, and other family and personal characteristics that might influence the rate of wealth accumulation. Importantly, the models used also control for the tendency of households to accumulate wealth between 1984 and 1989 (five years prior to the studied period). This approach is used to address the possibility that an unobserved variable—the propensity to save or accumulate wealth—may be associated with both the probability and duration of homeownership and the rate of wealth accumulation. All else equal, those who owned homes and owned for longer periods of time had significantly higher household net wealth by 2001. These results are compelling because house price appreciation over the period was near its long-run average while stock gains were above and real rent increases below their long-run averages. Hence, the findings are suggestive of a positive influence of ownership over long periods on net wealth, even during a period when alternative investments produced higher than normal returns and rents grew slowly. This is especially important because the overwhelmingly majority of households do not sell their homes shortly after buying them. In our sample, those who became owners typically owned for 7 years. Furthermore, most households that bought during a period of declining real home values in the early 1990s continued to own their homes for at least eight years and came out well ahead of those who did not own.     

价值、财富与分配"新四说"

目前，学术界在商品价值、社会财富和分配关系的基本理论研究方面仍没有取得共识。为了清晰地使有关价值、财富与分配的各种现象和本质联系都可得到圆满的科学说明，笔者提出“新四说”：各种生产性活劳动创造商品价值——活劳动价值说；全生产要素或经济要素创造社会财富或商品使用价值——全要素财富说；多种产权关系决定按资和按劳等多种分配方式——多产权分配说；按生产要素贡献分配的形式是要素所有者创造价值和财富并据此参与分配，而实质是按生产要素产权分配——按要素贡献的分配形式与实质说(按贡分配形质说)。     

Poverty Traps, Indeterminacy, and the Wealth Distribution

We consider a one-sector growth model in continuous time with a production externality and endogenous labor supply. There is a continuum of households who have identical preferences but differ with respect to their initial wealth. We show that there exist economies such that an indeterminate steady state exists for some wealth distribution but not for others. A second result is that a redistribution of wealth may drive the economy from a steady state with strictly positive output to a poverty trap in which output converges asymptotically to zero. These results indicate that differences in the wealth distribution may be responsible for drastic differences in the long-run standard of living. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D31, D50, O41.     

大股东对上市公司掏空与支持的经济学分析

在公司的所有权安排中,大股东拥有公司的控制权,有能力为获取控制权的私人利益而侵占上市公司的资源。但是,当上市公司陷入经营困境时,大股东可能通过减少自己的侵占行为而使公司具有偿债能力,甚至会用自己的资源进行支持以防止公司破产。如果上市公司的投资回报率低于大股东的预期水平,或者预期上市公司无法继续生存下去时,大股东会以公司外部股东和债权人的利益为代价而对上市公司进行掠夺。     

对股权分置改革对价问题的理论分析

解决股权分置问题，让非流通股变为可以流通的股份，必然存在非流通股股东为换得流通权而向流通股股东支付对价的问题。为协调流通股股东和非流通股股东两者的利益，非流通股股东必须支付一定的对价，作为取得流通权的成本。对价的高低不仅直接影响授资者的利益，而且是股权分置改革成败的关键。对价方式多样化为授资者提供了更多的市场机会。     

大股东资金占用与审计师的监督

本文研究审计师对大股东占用上市公司资金行为的监督作用。通过对1997年到2002年间的上市公司进行分析,我们发现随着大股东资金占用程度的加大,审计师更加倾向于出示非标准意见。在大股东占用资金最多的10%的公司年度中,审计师出示非标准意见的概率高达近50%。在控制了其他影响审计师意见的变量以后,大股东资金占用程度仍然是决定审计意见的一个非常显著的因素。这说明我国的审计师对中国资本市场出现的大股东资金占用问题有一定的认识,并且将其反映到审计师意见中去。我们进一步的分析发现: (1)被审计师出具了非标准意见的公司,其大股东占用资金反而更加持续。这说明审计师意见对公司的监督意义不大,公司并没有因为审计师的意见而减轻占用程度。(2)被审计师出具了非标准意见的公司,其大股东占用对未来的股票收益的负影响与其他公司并没有区别。这说明投资者对审计师的意见并没有给予足够的重视。本文的研究结果说明,审计师对大股东盘剥中小股东的现象进行了监督、对大股东资金占用严重的公司出示了更多的非标准意见,然而这些非标准意见并没有引起各方面的重视,一方面公司的治理并没有改善,另一方面投资者也没有因审计师的意见而避免更多的损失。     

从"兼顾公平"到"更加注重公平"的若干思考

自党的十四大以来,关于效率和公平的提法,经历了“兼顾效率与公平”———“效率优先、兼顾公平”———“更加注重公平”的三大变化。每一个提法都有客观背景,其中“效率优先、兼顾公平”的提法占统治地位12年之久。目前,这一提法已经不符合当前形势的要求,应由“更加注重社会公平”来取代,这是促进社会和谐的要求。     

The REIT Modernization Act of 1999

This article examines two effects of the passage of the REIT Modernization Act (RMA) of 1999: its impacts on REIT shareholder wealth and changes in REIT systematic risk in the period following its passage. The results indicate a modest positive wealth effect associated with the legislative events leading to its enactment. Our estimates of the wealth gain probably underestimate the true wealth gain because of the partially anticipated nature of the legislative process. We also document a significant decline in the systematic risk of REITs subsequent to the passage of the RMA. The evidence suggests that this decline is not attributable to a provision of the RMA that allows REITs to establish taxable subsidiaries.     

Announcement effects of bank mergers in Europe and the US

We investigate the announcement effect of large bank mergers in the European and US stock market. Cumulative abnormal returns are calculated on the basis of the performance vis-à-vis the market and a sector index. Mergers result in small positive abnormal returns. Target banks realize significantly higher returns than bidders. In many respects, there is a difference between the announcement effects of European bank mergers compared to those in the US.