Investor efficiency in the face of takings

Governmental entities at all levels are empowered to acquire private property for the public's benefit, provided that just compensation is paid. The level of compensation typically viewed by courts as just is market value, but questions arise as to whether market value compensation motivates the private owner of land, potentially subject to a taking, to improve the property to a degree that is socially efficient. Earlier works have found market value to be a compensation level too high to promote efficiency. The present paper offers an analysis, based on a simple model of investor profit maximization, that provides a unified view of models presented in some important earlier works. In a special application of the general case, it is shown that market value can be too low a level of compensation to promote efficient behavior by the land owner.     

Risk-taking incentives of executive stock options and the asset substitution problem

Various theoretical models show that managerial compensation schemes can reduce the distortionary effects of financial leverage. There is mixed evidence as to whether highly levered firms offer less stock‐based compensation, a common prediction of such models. Both the theoretical and empirical research, however, have overlooked the leverage provided by executive stock options. In principle, adjusting the exercise prices of executive stock options can mitigate the risk incentive effects of financial leverage. We show that the near‐universal practice of setting option exercise prices near the prevailing stock price at the date of grant effectively undoes most of the effects of financial leverage. In a large cross‐sectional sample of Canadian option‐granting firms, we find evidence that executives' incentives to take equity risk are negatively rather than positively related to the leverage of their employers.     

监管制度变迁对深圳证券市场效率的影响

本文回顾了十多年来我国证券市场监管制度的变化,运用统计分析和混沌理论来分析市场监管制度对深圳股票市场市场效率的影响.本文认为,深圳股票市场在经历了十年多的发展后市场效率在宏观上有所提高.对重大监管政策出台前后市场变动情况的统计分析表明,大量监管政策的出台在微观层面也有一定的改进.     

Hedging Housing Risk*

An unusually rich source of data on housing prices in Stockholm is used to analyze the investment implications of housing choices. This empirical analysis derives market-wide price and return series for housing investment during a 13-year period, and it also provides estimates of the individual-specific, idiosyncratic, variation in housing returns. Because the idiosyncratic component follows an autocorrelated process, the analysis of portfolio choice is dependent upon the holding period. We analyze the composition of household investment portfolios containing housing, common stocks, stocks in real estate holding companies, bonds, and t-bills. For short holding periods, the efficient portfolio contains essentially no housing. For longer periods, low-risk portfolios contain 15 to 50 percent housing. These results suggest that there are large potential gains from policies or institutions that would permit households to hedge their lumpy investments in housing. We estimate the potential value of hedges in reducing risk to households, yet yielding the same investment returns. The value is surprisingly large, especially to poorer homeowners.     

中国股市趋向弱势有效之实证研究

本在对中国股票市场有效性的研究结果进行考察的基础上，运用有效市场理论分析了相关研究中存在的问题，最后得出中国股票市场正趋于弱势有效的结论。     

从博弈的角度看中小股东解决纠纷的过程--从一个流行模型的残缺谈起

经研究发现 ,张维迎教授在 2 0 0 1年第五版的《博弈论与信息经济学》中所借用的承诺要胁诉讼博弈例子中对诉讼费用的处理有点不妥 ,便作出了适当的调整 ,但却得出了令人沮丧的结论 :承诺要胁诉讼不成立 !继续研究发现只有打破这种败诉风险由当事人承担的机制 ,才能传递出有力量的信号 ,才能做到真正的威胁 ,那就是建立“生死与共”的竞争性的律师定价机制和保费率真正是胜诉率信号的诉讼费用保险机制与最经济的诉讼程序与非诉讼程序、保障其实现的机制和可供的备选机制。本文论证了其合理性     

地区物价指数的编制方法研究

地区物价指数是反映不同地区价格水平的差异程度的综合指标。本文研究了建立地区物价指数及遵循的原则 ,同时给出了两种建立地区物价指数的方法     

审计市场中的合并、产业专用化投资和价格竞争

本文从产业组织的角度，分析了审计市场的合并、产业专用化和价格竞争等竞争行为，并进一步探讨了这些行为对审计质量和社会福利的影响。本文认为，审计质量的信号传递机制推动了产业中的合并行为，而审计产业的专用化投资行为在于策略性地阻止进入。由于审计产品的异质性、信任品特性以及强大的买方谈判能力使得审计市场存在激烈的价格竞争，而合并和产业专用化投资有助于事务所降低成本。因而，审计市场的竞争提高了社会福利。     

The macroeconomic determinants of technology stock price volatility

Stock prices reflect the value of anticipated future profits of companies. Since business cycle conditions impact the future profitability of firms, expectations about the business cycle will affect the current value of firms. This paper uses daily and monthly data from July 1986 to December 2000 to investigate the macroeconomic determinants of US technology stock price conditional volatility. Technology share prices are measured using the Pacific Stock Exchange Technology 100 Index. One of the novel features of this paper is to incorporate a link between technology stock price movements and oil price movements. The empirical results indicate that the conditional volatilities of oil prices, the term premium, and the consumer price index each have a significant impact on the conditional volatility of technology stock prices. Conditional volatilities calculated using daily stock return data display more persistence than conditional volatilities calculated using monthly data. These results further our understanding of the interaction between oil prices and technology share prices and should be of use to investors, hedgers, managers, and policymakers.     

The survivorship bias, share price effect, and small firm effect in Canadian markets

After controlling for survivorship bias, we examine the relation between average returns, firm size, and price levels for Canadian stocks during the 1975-1994 period. Our findings indicate that there is a significant inverse share price level effect in Canadian markets. When we compare the results of the overall sample with the groups of surviving firms and delisted stocks, the latter group shows strong performance for large-size, high-priced stocks. Evidence that supports an independent size effect is less clear for Canadian stocks. A small size effect exists only among the higher share price denominations, which suggests a confounded size-price effect. Although the delisted group returns are statistically different from those of the survivor and the overall groups, which implies some evidence of survivorship bias, the difference between the survivor group and the overall group is weak at best.