External Constraints on Monetary Policy and the Financial Accelerator

We develop a small open economy macroeconomic model where financial conditions influence aggregate behavior. Our goal is to explore the connection between the exchange rate regime and financial distress. We first show that a calibrated version of the model captures well the behavior of the Korean economy during its financial crisis period of 1997–98. In particular, the model accounts for the sharp increase in lending rates and the large drop in output, employment, investment, and measured productivity. The financial market frictions play an important role, further, explaining roughly half the decline in overall economic activity. We then perform some counterfactual exercises to illustrate how the fixed exchange rate regime likely exacerbated the crisis by tying the hands of monetary policy.     

British export market selection and pricing

The existing literature favors key market concentration in exporting, but the results of a recent survey of industrial exporters in the north of England show that the key market argument is weak both on logical grounds and in empirical support. There is an alternative strategy—market spreading—supported by various company, product, market, and marketing factors. The need is for situational analysis, not general theories. This article also addresses the key issue of export pricing—the most highly rated marketing variable in exporting. It is seen that whereas many of the popular criticisms of exporters are apparently unfounded, there are some problems of policy consistency, particularly in responding to floating currencies. These are especially serious in view of the high emphasis placed on price competitiveness in exporting.     

1999年度我院自然科学基金项目中标率高的几点思考

国家自然科学基金申报是科学性与艺术性高度结合的创造性劳动。高中标率背后离不开高效务实的科技管理。思想重视、措施得力、主攻目标明确，迎来了我院 1999年基金项目申报的大丰收。     

Nominal exchange rate volatility,relative price volatility,and the real exchange rate

We model real exchange rate, nominal exchange rate, and relative price volatility using real and nominal factors. We analyze these volatility measures across developing and industrialized countries. We find that the inclusion of nominal factors achieves a sizable reduction in the real exchange rate volatility spread between developing and industrialized countries. In addition, we find that nominal factors matter to real exchange rate volatility in the short run and the long run, and that for developing countries, a higher share of real exchange rate volatility stems from relative price volatility.     

ARBITRAGE BOUNDS FOR PRICES OF WEIGHTED VARIANCE SWAPS

We develop a theory of robust pricing and hedging of a weighted variance swap given market prices for a finite number of co‐maturing put options. We assume the put option prices do not admit arbitrage and deduce no‐arbitrage bounds on the weighted variance swap along with super‐ and sub‐replicating strategies that enforce them. We find that market quotes for variance swaps are surprisingly close to the model‐free lower bounds we determine. We solve the problem by transforming it into an analogous question for a European option with a convex payoff. The lower bound becomes a problem in semi‐infinite linear programming which we solve in detail. The upper bound is explicit. We work in a model‐independent and probability‐free setup. In particular, we use and extend Föllmer's pathwise stochastic calculus. Appropriate notions of arbitrage and admissibility are introduced. This allows us to establish the usual hedging relation between the variance swap and the “log contract” and similar connections for weighted variance swaps. Our results take the form of a FTAP: we show that the absence of (weak) arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of a classical model which reproduces the observed prices via risk‐neutral expectations of discounted payoffs.     

Mixed bundling auctions

We study multi-object auctions where agents have private and additive valuations for heterogeneous objects. We focus on the revenue properties of a class of dominant strategy mechanisms where a weight is assigned to each partition of objects. The weights influence the probability with which partitions are chosen in the mechanism. This class contains efficient auctions, pure bundling auctions, mixed bundling auctions, auctions with reserve prices and auctions with pre-packaged bundles. For any number of objects and bidders, both the pure bundling auction and separate, efficient auctions for the single objects are revenue-inferior to an auction that involves mixed bundling.     

Improving the perceptions of hotel managers

This research seeks to identify the importance of various capabilities and psychosociological factors of hotel managers, in order to improve their perception of the competitive environment emerging in the post-Internet era. Specifically, the study analyzes the relevance of education, experience, globalization capabilities, networking, creativity and vision of the future, and other factors related to personality and leadership, to advance the accuracy of this perception. The research used questionnaires with Spanish hotel managers, a Delphi study with international experts, and structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses formulated. The results corroborate the model established, and stress the importance of the education and globalization capabilities in this field.     

我国第四方物流发展的SWOT分析

第四方物流在我国具有广阔的发展空间,大力发展第四方物流必将使我国物流产业真正得到质的提升。本文利用SWOT分析方法,找出我国第四方物流发展中存在的机遇和挑战,并提出了相应对策和建议,为我国第四方物流发展提供决策依据。