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.     

如何保护中小投资者的利益

我国证券市场繁荣发展的基石是有效保护投资者的利益,而其中最主要的是保护中小投资者的利益,股票市场的中小投资者地位处于劣势,加之我国股票市场的不规范,企业筹资理念的错位,使其利益经常遭受侵犯,文章结合一些案例,对侵犯中小投资者利益的手法进行了剖析,并提出了相应的保护中小投资者利益的若干措施。     

我国大型百货商场的市场定位与发展策略

文章在分析我国零售企业市场状况和竞争态势的基础上,提出我国大型百货商场的目标市场应为中高档顾客群,并以此目标市场为基础,将突出产品特色、优化服务、心理定价、产品保证、购物环境和树立形象等作为我国大型百货商场的市场定位与发展策略。     

我国银行业的市场结构分析及改革对策

经过二十多年的改革,我国银行业市场结构有了很大变化。运用市场份额、市场集中度、进入、退出壁垒和产品差异化等指标,分析了我国银行业的市场结构,得出我国银行业有寡头垄断特征,并呈现出向垄断竞争市场结构过渡的趋势。在分析我国银行业市场绩效低下原因的基础上,初步提出了银行业优化市场结构,提高竞争力的对策。     

Domestic financial market frictions,unrestricted international capital flows,and crises in small open economies

Summary. We present an example of a small open economy where small increases in the world interest rate may induce a sharp decline in output and a precipitous depreciation of the exchange rate. Due to a costly state verification problem in domestic credit markets, combined with unrestricted international capital flows, our economy generates two long-run equilibria, one with low GDP and a relatively depreciated real exchange rate (RER), and one with high GDP and a relatively appreciated RER. The first is always a saddle, while the second may be a sink or a source, depending on the level of the world interest rate. A crisis is identified with the economy switching from an equilibrium path approaching the high-output steady state to the saddlepath approaching the low-output steady state. In Mexicos recent history, periods of growth associated with appreciation of the RER have alternated with periods of sharp contraction and depreciation of the RER. Our economy displays such behavior in response to changes in the world interest rate.Received: 9 April 2002, Revised: 20 March 2003JEL Classification Numbers: E5, F4.G. Antinolfi, E. Huybens: We thank Steve Fazzari, Tim Kehoe, Todd Keister, Manuel Santos, Karl Shell and especially Bruce Smith for very helpful discussions. Jaime Calleja Alderete, Eduardo Camero Godínez, and Juan Vargas Hernández provided excellent research assistance. All remaining errors are ours. Huybens was an assistant professor in the Centro de Investigación Económica, ITAM, at the time this article was written, and part of this work was completed while Antinolfi was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not reflect those of the World Bank or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Correspondence to: G. Antinolfi     

Was there a Portfolio Effect of the Micro-economic Leverage ？ Some Empirical Evidence from the Chinese Stock Market

The study is on a linear model of the relationship between the systematic risk and the micro-economic leverage and analyzed the data from the steel, energy source and chemical fibre industry listed companies in the Chinese stock market in 2002 and 2001. Using the linear regression method, empirical equations were found. The portfolio effect was shown so that some empirical evidence had been found to support the micro-economic leverage portfolio effect theory, which was that the listed companies balanced the operating and financial leverage to minimize the systematic risk.     

上市公司控制权转移与市场反应

国外有研究表明,控制权转移能给目标公司股东带来20%左右的超额收益率.本文通过考察我国1997-2003发生控制权转移的282个样本,发现控制权转移能给目标公司带来9%以上的累积超额收益率.而且,转移后变更行业、变更董事长或总经理、民营转给国有的样本转移时可获得的累积超额收益率甚至更高.最后,我们用多元回归模型进一步分析了累积超额收益率的影响因素,进一步证明行业变更、董事长或总经理变更、转移类型对控制权转移的市场反应有显著影响.     

中国劳动力市场户籍分割与企业人力资本投资的作用

我们运用2004年中国9省(市)企业员工培训和继续学习调查数据,验证中国劳动力市场存在户籍分割,并分析企业人力资本投资,即在职培训对处于不同层次劳动力市场的员工收入增长、职业发展的影响。得出以下结论：(1)中国存在由户籍制度造成的劳动力市场分割特征,农民工主要处于次要劳动力市场。(2)户籍对于员工参与企业在职培训以及培训的收益率都有显著影响；在其他条件相同情况下,城镇户籍员工比农民工的在职培训参与率和收益率都显著更高。(3)在职培训对于提高农民工收入具有显著的正的影响。(4)此前培训(进入本单位前接受的培训)对于农民工进入主要劳动力市场具有显著作用。     

中国证券市场价格波动与宏观经济协同性的实证研究

理论上，证券市场常被称为国民经济的“晴雨表”。本文选取工业增加值、广义货币供应量（M2）、消费者景气指数和国房景气指数等宏观经济指标，深入考察了宏观经济与沪深两市股价走势之间的关系。结果表明，在样本期内股价指数波动与宏观经济变量之间不存在协整性特征，中国证券市场与国民经济之间尚未呈现出稳定的长期均衡关系，证券市场并未发挥“国民经济晴雨表”的功能。这也表明，中国证券市场的宏观协调效率还有待于进一步提高。     

Has Austria’s Accession to the EU Triggered an Increase in Competition? A Sectoral Markup Study

We estimate the pro-competitive effects of Austrias participation in the Single Market after its European Union (EU) accession in 1995 in terms of firms market power as measured by the Lerner index, using a sample of 46 industries and 7 industry groups, covering the period 1978–2001. In the framework of the markup estimation method suggested by Roeger (1995), we test for both an instantaneous structural break between 1993 and 1998 and also estimate logistic smooth transition models to take up the proposition that the regime shift is likely to have occurred gradually rather than as a big bang. In sum, the results provide no reason for being euphoric: Pronounced markup reductions were only found in three industry groups (mining and quarrying, wholesale and retail trade; financial services and real estate). At the more disaggregate level, the picture is mixed: Both increases and reductions in market power have been found.