养老基金投资管理体制：借鉴与构建

在人口老龄化与经济增长乏力带来的养老金财政压力下,日本将侧重于服务经济增长的政府经营管理的养老金投资模式,转变为追求稳定且有效率投资回报的政府集中管理、民间机构具体投资的模式。借鉴日本经验,我国需要尽快清除养老金统一投资运营的诸多障碍,建立中央政府负责管理和投资战略,国有投资机构具体投资运营的养老金投资模式,采用数量限制投资规则,以服务经济发展和追求稳定投资回报为目标。     

中国养老金隐性债务规模估算

随着我国养老保险体制的转轨,现收现付制下形成的隐性债务开始显性化,形成了庞大的统筹资金缺口.而解决养老金隐性债务的基本前提是要准确测算债务规模.本文在分析隐性债务来源的基础上,将我国参保职工分为五类,采取个体成本法精算出2008年初的养老金隐性债务规模.     

中国人口年龄结构与养老保险制度的福利效应

预测表明,中国人口老龄化程度则在2005年以后不断增加;与此同时,在2030年以前城镇有效劳动力数量不断增加,随后会下降。在此背景下中国的养老保险制度应该在多大程度上发挥再分配的功能是养老保险制度改革需要确定的一个原则。采用中国的参数．评价养老保险制度的福利效应是本文的主要目的。养老保险的福利效应对不同时期出生的人有所差异,如果政府的目标函数兼顾效率和公平。可以得到一个对于社会总福利而言最优的养老保险规模。我们的模拟表明一个合适的现收现付制的养老保险制度在中国可以改进社会总福利。     

延长退休年龄能提高社会养老保险基金的支付能力吗?

本文通过构建我国社会养老保险基金支付能力的精算模型,研究了延长退休年龄后,基金支付能力的变化情况。结果表明,延长退休年龄不一定能够增加养老保险基金的支付能力,因为延长退休年龄后,虽然缴费期限延长了,缴费收入增加了,但养老保险基金支出也增加了,最终结果就是不确定的,要受到很多因素的影响,包括利率、社会平均工资增长率、在职职工工资增长率、养老金增长率和死亡率分布等等。如果要通过延长退休年龄来提高养老保险基金的支付能力,应全面分析各种相关因素的共同作用,否则适得其反。     

Contemporary University Strategising: The Financial Imperative

This paper examines the financially focused strategies now evident amongst institutions competing for space in the global higher education system. In their search for increasing financial self‐sufficiency, universities and other higher education providers are examined for their primary competitive strategies. The study provides comprehensive evidence of their cost and operating efficiency strategies, facilitated by increasingly pervasive financial performance accountability systems. The primary operational strategies of teaching and research are found to have been transmogrified into strategies of customised education and research that is primarily focused upon and measured in terms of its funds generation. These trends contribute to complex performance management and accountability challenges as universities’ senior managers balance their internal financial ambitions with the expectations of external stakeholders, while simultaneously projecting sanitised imagery through corporate public relations strategies.     

对我国金融机构资产负债表、杠杆率与金融稳定的思考

金融机构的资金来源方式、资金运用方式会影响金融机构本身和金融体系的杠杆率与稳定性。若金融机构或金融体系主要通过金融市场融资,资金运用主要集中于金融资产,并且通过金融资产进行再融资的规模不受限制,那么面对宏观经济或金融市场的冲击,这种类型的金融机构或金融体系的杠杆率会快速下降,在其资产和负债的期限错配较严重时,资金链条就会断裂,引发系统性金融风险。通过分析不同的资金来源和运用方式对金融机构杠杆率产生的影响,并结合历史上数次金融危机的教训,针对杠杆率快速下降时如何维护金融稳定提出了政策建议。     

Precarious postdocs: A comparative study on recruitment and selection of early-career researchers

This paper investigates how the recruitment and selection for project-based postdoc positions are organised in the current academic landscape characterised by increasing temporary research funding and how principal investigators construct the ‘ideal’ postdoc. Our findings are based on a qualitative comparative multiple-case study in Social and Natural Sciences departments of universities in four European countries. This study contributes to the literature on the neoliberal university and academic staff evaluation by using a systemic, power-sensitive approach that examines how postdocs enter the academic system and how manifestations of precarity are exacerbated. Our critical analysis reveals three manifestations of precarity that the current academic system creates for postdocs, related to control, contracts, and careers. We discuss the effects for individual postdocs and their careers and the quality of knowledge production in public funded higher education institutions.     

Optimal cash holdings under heterogeneous beliefs

This paper explores a one‐period model for a firm that finances its operations through debt provided by heterogeneous creditors. Creditors differ in their beliefs about the firm's investment outcomes. We show the existence of Stackelberg equilibria in which the firm holds cash reserves in order to provide incentives for pessimistic creditors to invest in the firm. We find interest rates and cash holdings to be complementary tools for increasing debt capacity. In markets with a high concentration of capital across a small interval of pessimistic creditors or by a few large creditors, cash holdings is the preferred tool to increase the debt capacity of the firm.     

Risk management within the cannabis industry: Building a framework for the cannabis industry

Thirty states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of cannabis for medicinal and/or recreational use by either formally or informally de‐criminalizing its use. However, cannabis remains a Schedule 1 drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. Sections 801 through 812), leaving federal law in conflict with the laws of over half of the states. As a result, market participants in legal cannabis businesses face risks due to the industry's unique legal status within the United States. We examine the risks and challenges deemed by the cannabis industry as the top risks facing the industry's continued future growth and its sustainability. In addition to general risks inherent in a nascent industry, a legal cannabis business faces additional risks, such as risks in its banking and finance activity, placement of insurance, payment of taxes, and managing its supply chain. These legal businesses also face true legal risk from the possibility of being shut down by the federal government and seizure of assets and product under the CSA. This paper also examines whether the cannabis industry would benefit from a futures market to mitigate price risk.     

Bank lending margins in the euro area: Funding conditions,fragmentation and ECB's policies

In this paper we study the determinants of lending margins paid by euro‐area corporates for their bank loans. Across two separate groups of countries (distressed and non‐distressed) we examine whether lending margins have been affected by structural changes in the banking sector, the credit and liquidity position of banks and the costs of funding in the corporate and sovereign bond markets. The role of ECB policies with respect to narrowing down the fragmentation in the bank lending channel is also investigated through a structural panel VAR model for the period 2003:1 to 2014:12.