Testing market efficiency with the pricing kernel

Market efficiency and the pricing kernel are closely related. A non-monotonic decreasing pricing kernel implies the existence of a trading strategy in contingent claims that stochastically dominates a direct investment in the market. Moreover, a market is assumed to be efficient only if no dominating strategies exist. Empirically, many studies of the pricing kernel find non-monotonicity, apparently ruling out market efficiency. However, these results are often unreliable, because the pricing measures of the pricing kernel are estimated using differing filtration sets. We show this effect both theoretically and empirically, and we discuss recent approaches in the literature for achieving more reliable estimates of the pricing kernel, potentially leading to better tests of market efficiency.     

市场孵化、发展政策与国家能力——建设有效市场的政策逻辑

市场有效性取决于制度质量，但是一个欠发达国家不可能迅速建立起符合有效市场要求的高质量制度。为打破在发展中国家普遍存在的"低制度质量—增长停滞"的恶性循环，文章基于中国经验，提出了一个国家实施孵化市场的发展政策与制度建设同步并举的发展赶超路径，通过培育现代产业、扶植竞争性企业和优先发展公共事业尤其是基础设施，籍此扩充市场参与者数量、提升市场参与者能力、扩大市场边界和规模，加速市场发育，并由此反过来倒逼推动制度质量提升。进一步，我们指出，要正确制定和有效实施如此广泛的发展政策，需要来自国家力量的保障。在现有文献所提出的维持有效市场需要依靠国家财政能力和法治能力支撑之外，文章提出发展中国家还需要建设基于"对外学"和"干中学"的国家学习能力，用于在制定和实施发展政策中纠错纠偏，并补偿一国发展早期天然存在的国家财政能力和法治能力的欠缺。尽管文章分析主要结合中国经验展开，但针对的是发展中国家共性问题，对广大发展中国家具有普遍参考价值。     

技术市场对重大科技创新影响的实证分析——技术输出与技术吸纳视角

利用2006-2018年全国省级面板数据，从技术吸纳和技术输出视角研究技术市场对重大科技创新的影响。结果发现，技术输出和技术吸纳对重大科技创新的影响呈现异质状态，即技术输出能够显著促进重大科技创新水平提升，而技术吸纳对重大科技创新的影响不显著。考虑到技术输出与重大科技创新可能存在内生性问题，选取劳动争议处理量作为工具变量进行回归，研究表明该结果具有稳健性。此外，研发人员与经费投入、高等教育水平等因素在促进重大科技创新水平提升过程中具有一定局限性。基于此，提出强化技术市场对重大科技创新影响效应的对策建议。     

区域技术市场发展对创新的驱动作用

利用我国2002-2015年省级面板数据，考察技术市场对创新的影响，研究区域研发环境与技术创新的协同作用。首先，通过构建GMM模型稳健性检验，发现在控制物质资本、人力资本、制度因素、R&D投入、FDI、对外贸易、市场化程度等各种影响因素后，技术市场对创新具有显著影响，且对技术含量较高的发明专利的影响弹性最大；其次，通过交互项检验和门槛回归，发现R&D物质资本和人力资本对技术市场存在两个门槛，跨越门槛将增加技术市场的边际创新产出；再次，技术市场发展对各类专利贡献率的测度结果显示，发达地区技术市场对发明专利的贡献最大。据此提出加速我国技术市场发展、因地制宜改善区域研发环境、进一步强化技术市场驱动高质量创新发展等政策建议。     

私法自治原则下职务发明奖酬制度研究

职务发明法律制度旨在协调职务发明人与单位间的利益关系，鼓励相关主体创新，进而促进科技成果转化、加快创新型国家建设。然而《职务发明条例（草案）》中的职务发明奖酬制度约定优先原则极不稳定及政府对市场过度干预的现实，与职务发明制度立法目的背道而驰。因此，要实现对立法本质的回归，应坚持以私法自治为基础，建立以企业为主体、市场为导向的科技创新激励机制，充分发挥科技成果转化相关立法的激励作用。     

Dissecting the idiosyncratic volatility anomaly

The idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) anomaly, documented in Ang, et al. (2006), has garnered a great deal of attention in the literature. Yet questions remain regarding the robustness and pervasiveness of the IVOL anomaly, with a particular concern that the IVOL anomaly might simply be the manifestation of market microstructure effect. In this paper, we show that the IVOL anomaly is strong and pervasive after we exclude stocks most susceptible to market microstructure noise — such as microcap stocks, penny stocks, and stocks with strong short-term return reversal. These results are robust to equal-weighting or value-weighting stocks in the IVOL portfolios. Our findings suggest that rather than being the cause of the anomaly, market microstructure noise actually weakens the IVOL anomaly.     

Market liberalization and tax avoidance: Evidence from the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Program in China

This study employs two market liberalization programs in China, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SHSC) program and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SZHSC) program, as an exogenous shock to stock market liberalization to explore the impact of market liberalization on tax avoidance. By employing the staggered difference-in-difference regression on Chinese listed firms, we found that market liberalization reduces tax avoidance by approximately 13.1%. This result is robust under parallel trend examination, falsification test, alternative regression methodology, and different measurements for tax avoidance. Additionally, this effect is greater for non-state-owned firms and for firms that have less external monitoring, higher information asymmetry, and stronger financial constraints.     

Do insiders time management buyouts and freezeouts to buy undervalued targets?

We provide evidence that managers and controlling shareholders time management buyouts (MBOs) and freezeout transactions to take advantage of industry-wide undervaluation. Portfolios of industry peers of MBO and freezeout targets show significant alphas of around 1% per month over the 12-month period following the transaction. These returns are not explained by a battery of risk factors or empirical methodologies, but exhibit significant heterogeneity across deals. Additional tests show that, on average, abnormal returns to industry peers are a reliable proxy for those to the target firm. Further, MBOs and freezeouts are announced during troughs of industry profitability.     

企业创新投入对行业成长性的影响

在“万众创新”背景下，已有文献关注到企业创新投入在微观层面的经济后果，但对中观视角行业表现的作用机制研究较少。以我国沪、深两市A股上市公司为研究对象，探究企业创新投入对行业成长性的影响机理以及行业研发环境和企业市场势力的调节效应。结果发现，企业研发资金投入强度和技术人员投入强度与行业成长性间存在显著正相关关系，行业技术环境和行业政策环境起正向调节效应，但企业市场势力会削弱上述正向关系。研究结论不受内生性问题的影响，且稳健性检验结果并未发生改变。建议构建包含政府、行业和企业的协同创新体系，通过创新政策支持、优势资源整合及良好环境的营造，促进企业创新投入和行业可持续发展。     

Inconsistent Signals,Earnings Announcements,and Market Uncertainty

We test the proposition in Johnstone (2016) that new information may lead to higher, rather than lower, uncertainty about firms’ future payoffs. Based on the Bayesian rule, we hypothesize earnings news that is inconsistent with investors’ prior belief will lead to higher market uncertainty. Using earnings signals in the past few quarters to proxy for investors’ prior belief, we find supporting evidence that, relative to consistent earnings news, inconsistent news results in an increase in market uncertainty measured by implied volatility. Inconsistent earnings news has a larger effect on market uncertainty when prior beliefs are stronger and when the news is negative. Overall, our evidence highlights the importance of prior belief and inconsistent signals in understanding the effect of earnings news on market uncertainty.