Monetary Policy and Financial Markets

Monetary policy and financial markets are intrinsically linked. Central banks conduct monetary policy by influencing financial market prices. Financial market prices reflect the expectations of market participants about future economic and monetary developments. Monetary policy works primarily through expectations. Transparency and credibility render monetary policy more effective. However, they are no substitutes for action. If a credible central bank uses words with the explicit aim of substituting them for action, it will risk losing credibility. To avoid what has been described as “the dog chasing its tail” problem, central banks must exercise caution in basing their monetary policy decisions on financial market information. The information about expected future developments reflected in market prices must be continuously cross-checked against economic and monetary indicators in what amounts to a “checks and balances” approach to monetary policy.     

Financial acumen, women speculators, and the Royal African company during the South Sea bubble

Price bubbles provide a unique opportunity to study the financial acumen of shareholders. We focus on the 1720 South Sea episode as experienced by the Royal African Company whose stock was more speculative than other joint stocks. During 1720 the company had a new large stock issue. This paper examines the financial acumen of those women who traded senior and engrafted stock across 1720. We find that depending on the pricing regime, these women at worst broke even on their activities or had positive speculative gains. Our findings are consistent with a growing literature on the positive link between gender, capital gains and financial markets.     

Sources of gains from international portfolio diversification

This paper looks at the determinants of country and industry specific factors in international portfolio returns using a sample of forty eight countries and thirty nine industries over the last three decades. Country factors have remained relatively stable over the sample period while industry factors have significantly increased during the last decade and dropped again since 2000. The importance of industry and country factors is correlated with measures of economic and financial international integration and development. We find that financial market globalization is the main driving force behind the changes in relative magnitude of the different shocks. Country factors are smaller for countries integrated in world financial markets and have declined as the degree of financial integration and the number of countries pursuing financial liberalization has increased. Higher international financial integration within an industry increases the importance of industry factors in explaining returns. Economic integration of production also helps in explaining returns. Countries with a more specialized production activity have higher country shocks.     

A study of earnings-management motives in the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models: The Canadian and French cases

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that potentially influence earnings-management policy with reference to the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models. Canada and France, respectively, belong to those different socio-economic environments. Earnings-management practices detected in those countries are expected to be affected by specific socio-economic features of the Anglo-American and the Euro-Continental environments. We explain earnings-management practices by incentives suggested in the literature to reveal which motives are prominent within each environment.We tested our earnings-management motives (EMM) model using appropriate panel-estimation techniques over 1674 Canadian and 1470 French firm-year observations. Our results provide evidence that incentives for earnings management for French firms are specifically linked to contractual debt costs and effective tax rate. However, Canadian firms show specific incentives matched with a dynamic capital market. Issuing equity is a strong motive for earnings management in Canadian firms.     

基于融资视角的中国金融结构与金融稳定研究

通过对中国金融运行的实证检验和分析发现,以银行中介和金融市场划分的两种金融结构各有优势,只要能够满足金融资源高效配置的金融结构都符合经济发展的需要,不必对金融结构进行人为的割裂。中国的金融体系存在着转化投资的高效率和资源配置的低效率这样一对突出矛盾,其主要原因是金融资源的配置失当,这是当前中国金融稳定的潜在威胁,解决问题的关键是要对金融体系进行市场化改革并完善基础设施建设。     

基于金融安全的资本流动：理论解读与中国实证

基于IS-LM-BP模型阐述了资本流动—经济非均衡的生成机制,揭示了资本流入规模、资本流入结构、外汇储备及经常项目是影响一国资本流动金融安全的主要因素。通过建立资本流动影响金融安全的测算体系,对1996～2005年我国资本流动进行了实证分析,结果表明：(1)中国资本流动状况总体较好,状态界定为安全；(2)资本流入规模正常,但期限结构不够合理；(3)现阶段我国资本流动的安全运行有保障。     

Alternatives to blanket guarantees for containing a systemic crisis

This paper seeks to explain how policy actions undertaken at the outset of recent crises—particularly the issuance of extensive liquidity support and government guarantees—absorb off-budget fiscal resources and inappropriately constrain officials’ subsequent options for restructuring their country’s troubled financial and corporate sectors. Empirical evidence supports the commonsense view that the damage a crisis works on a country’s financial sector and on its real economy is lessened by taking market-mimicking actions that promptly estimate and allocate losses during the early stages of a crisis. The most important steps are to plan to call a timeout to separate hopelessly insolvent institutions from potentially viable ones and to provide haircuts, guarantees, and liquidity support in ways that protect taxpayers and avoid subsidizing insolvent institutions’ longshot gambles for resurrection.     

A multilateral approach to examining the comovements among major world equity markets

This study investigates the comovement in stock indices among major developed markets, where Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices are employed for the purposes of the study. We employ a model that accommodates multilateral international impacts on equity index movements. The empirical results reveal the existence of significant international transmission effects among these major world markets, both in terms of returns and volatility, and mostly in a positive direction. The U.S. market, as expected, is the leading market in the sense that it has the most pervasive and significant impact on all markets across continents. However, the U.S. market exhibits a different relationship with European markets from that with Asia-Pacific markets. The evidence also suggests that strong regional transmission effects exist. A further investigation using the extended model reveals that the linkages between U.S. and European markets are driven by positive global common forces and by negative international competitive effects. On the other hand, the U.S. and Asian markets are linked through positive global common forces and positive international contagion effects. The United States, Canada, and the U.K. are the three markets that still demonstrate contagion influence over countries outside its own region. The Asia-Pacific markets are more susceptible to contagion effects. Finally, it is interesting to find that Japanese market performance became more contagious toward other markets during the Asian financial crisis period.     

WTO financial services commitments: Determinants and impact on financial stability

The paper investigates the factors that have influenced WTO members to take on their chosen level of liberalization commitments in the framework of liberalization of trade in financial services and the impact of such commitments on financial sector stability. The most important factors are economic growth, current account, trends in banking sector development, policy restrictiveness, and peer-group effects. The econometric evidence suggests that more liberal commitments may be associated with greater vulnerability to currency and banking crises—most likely a short-term effect, which should be mitigated with time through increased market efficiency and better resource allocation.     

开放条件下中国货币与经济关联度变动原因实证研究

本文运用动态条件相关(DCC)方法估计中国各层次货币与实体经济的关联度。研究发现,1994年前,关联度始终在低位波动,之后大幅提高,总体呈上升趋势。通过在模型中引入金融深化度和经济开放度,本文从不同的侧面解释了货币与经济关联度变动的原因。虽然金融深化度和经济开放度对关联度的影响程度随货币层次的提高而增强,但作用方向却不完全相同;金融深化度越高,经济开放度越低,关联度越强,这表明金融深化理论与中国国情相适应。这对于改革开放具有较强的现实意义。政府通过优先发展金融,深化金融体制改革,能够提高货币对经济增长的效能,促进经济结构的转型和经济持续增长。