Behavior of municipal bond default-risk premiums by maturity

Default-risk premiums have traditionally been considered to be an increasing function of time. More recently, a model has been developed which indicates that, under certain conditions, default-risk premiums are invariant to maturity. One study found significant differences in default-risk premiums for long-term corporate bonds and commercial paper. The hypothesis that default-risk premiums are invariant to maturity was tested using municipal bond data. Results indicate that risk premiums are not invariant to maturity.     

A-H股的套利格局势在必行

随着国内大型企业从H股市场不断回归,证券市场之间的联动性日益增强,投资者数量迅速增加,而A股和H股的同股不同价现象揭示了巨大套利空间,对两地市场套利机制的需求越来越强烈。     

改革开放三十年成都理工大学教学质量监控工作回顾与展望

改革开放三十年来，成都理工大学教学质量监控工作经历了恢复、规范、发展和构建四个发展阶段，并形成了如下的工作经验：狠抓教学质量不松懈．始终重视教学质量监控工作，质量监控措施得力，善于总结经验等。展望未来，监控工作还应继续强化质量意识，加强理论研究，并进一步创新体系。     

Group Contests with Internal Conflict and Power Asymmetry

We investigate simultaneous inter‐ and intra‐group conflict in the shadow of within‐group power asymmetry and complementarity in members' group‐conflict efforts. A more symmetric group faces a higher degree of internal conflict, and might expend more effort in external conflict when the group‐conflict effort technology is highly complementary. Depending on the degree of complementarity, the stronger player's relative contribution to external conflict might be higher in a more asymmetric group and, as a result, it is possible for the weaker player to earn a higher payoff. In the absence of any complementarity, the rent‐dissipation is non‐monotonic with the within‐group power asymmetry.     

Investment and Growth: The Impact of Britain's Post‐War Trunk Roads Programme

In Great Britain, a basic inter‐urban network of motorways was completed in a very short period between the end of 1959 and 1972. We calculate that this substantial investment had the potential to reduce most inter‐urban journey times by about one third. In spite of this, a recent OECD study suggested that the investment had no discernible positive impact on the trend rate of economic growth. We attribute this outcome to a serious misalignment of the early investments with the then predominant flows of industrial and commercial traffics and a significant, and probably endogenous, increase in real wages in a road transport industry in which labour productivity was slow to improve. We conclude with a number of policy recommendations.     

OLIVE: A SIMPLE METHOD FOR ESTIMATING BETAS WHEN FACTORS ARE MEASURED WITH ERROR

We propose a simple and intuitive method for estimating betas when factors are measured with error: ordinary least squares instrumental variable estimator (OLIVE). OLIVE performs well when the number of instruments becomes large, whereas the performance of conventional instrumental variable methods becomes poor or even infeasible. In an empirical application, OLIVE beta estimates improve R² significantly. More important, our results help resolve two puzzling findings in the prior literature: first, the sign of average risk premium on the beta for market return changes from negative to positive; second, the estimated value of average zero‐beta rate is no longer too high.     

An extension of the home-attachment criteria under dynamic tax competition

In this short note we extend the home attachment setting of Mansoorian and Myers (1993) and Ogura (2006) to allow the study of tax competition in a dynamic framework when international business relocation occurs over successive periods. The dynamic framework we propose also helps to understand why tax rates may change over time. Our modified home-attachment rule is illustrated by a simple model of dynamic tax competition in discrete time.     

Mixed duopoly,privatization, and subsidization with excess burden of taxation

We investigate optimal tax‐subsidy policies in mixed and private oligopolies with excess burden of taxation. We compare the optimal subsidies and the resulting welfare levels among four regimes: mixed and private Cournot duopolies and Stackelberg competition with public and private leaderships. We show that, in contrast to the existing works on the privatization neutrality theorem, privatization affects resulting welfare.     

The impact of political cycle: Evidence from coalmine accidents in China

This paper examines the impact of political cycle on coalmine accidents in China. The political cycle is formed by the major local meetings of legislative bodies held every year in all provinces of China. This is because the government has a strong incentive to maintain social stability during the meetings and to focus on economic growth in other times. We test how such cycles affect coalmine fatality using monthly data at the provincial level between 2000 and 2010. We find that the number of accidents and casualties were significantly lowered during the local events of “two sessions” after controlling for other time fixed effects. The temporary reduction of accidents seemed to have been achieved by controlling production rather than by improving safety measures. The magnitude of the cycle for accidents is enlarged in provinces where media exposure is stronger and where the vice governor in charge of safety is faced with a possible extension to another term in the current post.     

Does quality influence choice of general practitioner? An analysis of matched doctor–patient panel data

The impact of quality on the demand facing health care providers has important implications for the industrial organization of health care markets. In this paper we study the consumers' choice of general practitioner (GP), assuming they are unable to observe the true quality of GP services. A panel data set for 484 Norwegian GPs, with summary information on their patient stocks, renders the opportunity to identify and measure the impact of GP quality on the demand, accounting for patient health heterogeneity. We apply a multi-equation model in the LISREL format, with GP quality and patient health as latent determinants of demand for GP services. Patient excess mortality rate at the GP level is one indicator of quality. Our results indicate that GP quality has a clear positive effect on demand, even when patient heterogeneity is accounted for.