China in transition: institutional change at work in inland waterway transport on the Yangtze River

Chinese national fiscal reforms and the transfer of power from the central government to local governments impact the governance of inland waterway transport (IWT). In this paper we argue that the development of IWT on the Yangtze River is strongly influenced by institutional changes at different levels of government in line with the path dependent transformation of the Chinese centrally planned economy. This paper deduces how institutional change of IWT on the Yangtze fails to fulfil its purposes because of institutional legacies and conflicts of interests among the various levels of government and the persistent interwovenness of the state with private enterprises (via SOEs). In order to further stimulate IWT on the Yangtze more institutional changes are on the cards, in particular a need for more (foreign) private involvement and more independent SOEs, but these changes will not necessarily break out of the development path.     

Analysis of ruin measures for the classical compound Poisson risk model with dependence

In this paper, we consider an extension to the classical compound Poisson risk model. Historically, it has been assumed that the claim amounts and claim inter-arrival times are independent. In this contribution, a dependence structure between the claim amount and the interclaim time is introduced through a Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern copula. In this framework, we derive the integro-differential equation and the Laplace transform (LT) of the Gerber–Shiu discounted penalty function. An explicit expression for the LT of the discounted value of a general function of the deficit at ruin is obtained for claim amounts having an exponential distribution.     

Co-evolution of trust and dependence in customer–supplier relationships

The relational and dynamic aspects of interfirm trust and dependence produce a crucial, but insufficiently addressed, challenge for successful relationship coordination. In this paper we concentrate on this issue by examining how trust and dependence co-evolve in customer–supplier relationships. Building on a case study, we develop propositions and a model that illustrates how interorganizational trust and dependence co-evolve through the different phases of customer–supplier relationships and how we may distinguish cooperative and trustworthy actors from those who will behave opportunistically. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.     

Forest incomes and rural livelihoods in Chiradzulu District, Malawi

This paper examines forest income among rural dwellers in one of Malawi's most densely populated districts, Chiradzulu. 160 households were interviewed in two sites, only 20 km apart, purposely selected on the basis of access to a forest reserve. People are extremely poor, with 97% having incomes of less than 1 USD/day. Forest income constitutes around 15% of total income; only non-farm income (47%) and agriculture (28%) rank higher. The poorest segment depends more on forest income than the least poor group, but the medium income group exhibits the highest dependence. Fuelwood constitutes the major source of such income followed by fodder. The incomes mainly support current consumption. People with better access to the forest reserve have higher total income, forest income, and relative forest income. As revealed through a Gini-coefficient analysis, forest resources have an important income equalizing effect across rural households. A particular group of resource poor farmers (8.1% of sample), with little access to agricultural land and a high representation of female heads, derives an average of 65% of their income from the forest. An important policy lesson is that restricting people's access to forest resources can have substantial effects on household livelihoods and welfare, and would serve to increase income inequalities in the area. Livelihood researchers should now recognize the substantial income from forest resources.     

Duration of IPOs between offering and listing: Cox proportional hazard models—Evidence for Chinese A-share IPOs

This paper estimates the duration from offering to listing of Chinese A-share IPOs issued from 1994 to 2005. We firstly compare the effects of the two issuing systems on the length of this duration and find that the waiting time to listing has been shortened greatly after the Approval System is adopted. Secondly, this study emphasizes on exploring endogenous factors related to an issuer itself, including the issuer's quality, market sentiment, allocation mechanism, and underwriter, etc. Then a Cox proportional hazard model is employed to examine these factors' influences on this issuer's final listing. Further, this paper extends the analysis to explore the role of the issuing system and issuing year respectively. Most endogenous factors are found to still be functioning when we take into account the effect of the issuing system, but the effects of underwriter, allocation mechanism, offering price and floatation size diminish in favour of the effect of issuing year.     

异质性对新建商品住房市场交易速度的影响——来自北京市的微观证据

基于异方差修正的久期似然模型,利用北京市新建商品住房市场大样本数据,实证检验了城市住房异质性特征对住房市场交易风险率的影响效果及其稳健性。实证结果表明,地铁及通勤设施、教育资源、医疗资源和休闲购物等因素对新建商品住房交易速度的影响逐次减弱,且上述影响在大户型住房、预售住房以及小规模项目住房中更加显著。结论可以为市场参与者调整住房交易决策提供依据,也可以为政府制定住房市场和保障性住房相关政策提供参考。     

Multivariate models for operational risk

Böcker and Klüppelberg [Risk Mag., 2005, December, 90–93] presented a simple approximation of OpVaR of a single operational risk cell. The present paper derives approximations of similar quality and simplicity for the multivariate problem. Our approach is based on the modelling of the dependence structure of different cells via the new concept of a Lévy copula.     

Trading patterns in the European carbon market: The role of trading intensity and OTC transactions

This paper examines the effect of trading intensity and OTC transactions on expected market conditions in the early development period of the European Carbon futures market. Past duration and trading intensity are used as information related order flow variables in modelling time between transactions in two new specifications of Autocorrelation Conditional Duration (ACD) models. This allows for specific investigation of non-linear asymmetric effects on expected duration and the impact of OTC transactions. Evidence is presented of two main types of trading episodes of increased and decreased trading intensity. Both have a significant impact on price volatility, which increases further if an OTC transaction intrudes. OTC transactions also play a dual role. They slow down trading activity in the short term (over the next five transactions) but increase it substantially in the long term (over ten transactions). Both the liquidity and information price impact components increase following an OTC trade, but the information impact is greater. Price volatility calms down faster than liquidity effects following an OTC trade, and this is more pronounced in ECX and in Phase II. The combined evidence points towards increased market depth, efficiency and maturity of the trading environment.     

Predicting stock price movements: an ordered probit analysis on the Australian Securities Exchange

Using stocks from a wide range of industry sectors on the Australian Securities Exchange, this paper examines the conditional distribution of intra-day stock prices and predicts the direction of the next price change in an ordered-probit-GARCH framework that accounts for the discreteness of prices. The analysis also incorporates the endogeneity of the time between trades in an ACD framework. Other elements considered include depth, trade imbalance, and volume. The results show that trade imbalance has a positive effect on the probability of price change. Durations have a negative effect. In-sample and out-of-sample forecasting analyses reveal that, in 71% of cases, the system successfully predicts the direction of the subsequent price change.