Accounting for the stock of human capital: Selected evidence and potential implications

Accounting for the Stock of Human Capital: Selected Evidence and Potential Implications. — Given the observed distribution of output and labor across countries, most capital flows should be from rich to poor countries. As is shown for a limited sample of countries, accounting for differences in the stock of human capital substantially reduces the implicit cross-country rate of return differentials. Additionally, accounting for human capital externalities based on independent empirical evidence, turns around the predicted rate of return differentials in favor of rich countries. Hence, the world economy may converge to a rather unequal distribution of incomes as long as human capital accumulation is neglected as the key variable limiting economic development.     

Valuing the Option to Purchase an Asset at a Proportional Discount

I analyze the value of a nonstandard call option that allows the holder to purchase an underlying asset at a discount proportional to the asset's market price. Several applications for this type of option exist, including its use in employee compensation contracts. I derive the value of this option for a dividend-paying asset and for an option whose exercise price reflects a time-varying discount factor. The derived value incorporates the optimal time at which the option should be exercised. One application of this option relates to a residential real estate program in China.     

综合物流企业基于J2EE的信息系统设计及实现

试用J2EE平台构建综合物流企业管理信息系统,使其具有灵活性、可伸缩性,更适应网络环境。     

Spillovers in Exchange Rates and the Effects of Global Shocks on Emerging Market Currencies

This paper provides an investigation into the spillover effects of exchange rate returns and volatility for developed and emerging market currencies, using data from 1997 to 2011. The results suggest that spillovers in exchange rate returns have increased steadily over time, in moderate reaction to economic events. In contrast, spillovers in total observed volatility (measured by squared returns) react more strongly to economic events, and this transmission has remained at a relatively high level since the global financial crisis. Furthermore, over the course of time, global shocks would appear to account for a larger proportion of aggregate exchange rate volatility (and the relative importance of domestic shocks has declined). The paper also considers whether the increase in volatility spillover is due to sudden shocks, or whether it is due to changes in the stochastic trend of the underlying volatility process. The results suggests that in most cases, this increase is due to sudden shocks, however, in certain instances country‐specific events may perpetuate changes to the trend of the underlying volatility spillover.     

Local Officials＇ Incentives and China＇s Economic Growth： Tournament Thesis Reexamined and Alternative Explanatory Framework

To explain China's dramatic economic growth, researchers have proposed a “tournament thesis.” According to this thesis, the central government's ability to set growth targets has played a crucial role in growth since political promotion is largely based on local economic growth. We use provincial officials' career mobility data to test this thesis. For both time periods (1979–1995 and 1979–2002), economic performance, measured in annual, average and relative terms, did not affect these officials' career advancement. We then sketch an alternative analytical framework to explain Chinese local officials' strong urge for developmentalism and, finally, draw policy implications from this explanatory framework.     

Leverage and growth: Effect of stock options

Previous literature documents a negative relationship between leverage and firm growth. This paper finds that once the incentives provided by stock options are accounted for, leverage does not affect firm growth. The paper also finds that the sensitivity of CEOs’ wealth to stock price (i.e. option delta) instead of leverage has a negative relationship with growth. These findings suggest that incentive contracts that tie managers’ wealth to firm value prevent managers from overinvesting. Thus in presence of options the role of debt as a disciplining mechanism has become less important.     

Relationship between portfolio diversification and value at risk: Empirical evidence

This research explores the risk associated with the stocks prices in the seventeen selected companies that are listed in Indian BSE (100) National as well as portfolios of investment that are constructed from these seventeen companies employed. Additionally, for considering the possibility of international diversification, construction of portfolios of investment form stock price indexes in various emerging markets and developed countries of the world is considered. Correlations for domestically as well as internationally diversified portfolios are computed to unveil the relationship between stock prices of various firms as well as domestic and internationally diversified portfolios of investments. Further, to understand the effect of diversification on the risk associated with each of the portfolios of investments employed, value at risk analysis (VaR) is undertaken for studying the benefits associated with domestic as well as international diversification (if any).The study results show that domestic diversification lowers the expected losses associated with each of the domestic portfolios of investment employed where the international diversification substantially mitigates the portfolio risks. Results from VaR analysis reveal that diversification lowers the portfolio risks and additional reduction in portfolio risks is realized by international diversification.     

Agglomeration and productivity: Firm-level evidence from China's textile industry

Is the spatial concentration of manufacturing activity able to enhance firm-level productivity? This question is particularly relevant to production in China, which has a huge territory and population, but a skewed distribution in terms of urban–rural development. This paper aims to examine the dynamics of industrial agglomeration and the impact of agglomeration on firm-level productivity in China's textile industry by using a firm-level panel dataset from 2000 to 2005. First, the average value of the Ellison–Glaeser (EG) index (city level) is found to be approximately 0.00019. Moreover, the calculated city EG index of spatial concentration for each year exhibits a decreasing trend of spatial agglomeration for garments and other fiber products, but an increasing trend for the textile industries' agglomeration in China. The above findings are similar to the findings of Lu and Tao (2009). Secondly and importantly, this study finds an inverted U-shape relationship between agglomeration and productivity. It suggests that while industrial agglomeration enhances firms' productivity, agglomeration diseconomies may appear if the degree of agglomeration is too high.     

A LONG‐RUN VIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY GENDER GAP IN AUSTRALIA*

Australian universities were first established in the 1850s, well before the introduction of compulsory schooling. From the middle of the twentieth century, the introduction of mass secondary school education and the expansion of the number of universities widened student access to universities. Subjects offered in higher education increased in scope and labour market discrimination diminished. These factors, together with supply‐side changes, meant that women were more easily able to shift into investing in skills. By 1987, Australian women were more likely than men to be enrolled at a university. These aggregate figures, however, disguise considerable heterogeneity across fields of study.     

MUTUAL FUND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION – APPLICATION OF SYSTEM BCC MODEL

For the first time, this research adopts the system BCC model in data envelopment analysis in order to evaluate mutual fund performance and compares the results between the BCC model and the system BCC model. This study is based on the sample of stock funds and balanced funds in Taiwan, with the empirical results summarised as follows. (i) Under the system BCC model, the average score of balanced funds is greater than the average score of stock funds. (ii) There is a significant difference in efficiency scores between the BCC model and the system BCC model, and it is proper to adopt the system BCC model. (iii) The number of major reference sets that have been referenced under the BCC model is larger than under the system BCC model. (iv) If we neglect the distinctions between stock funds and balanced funds, there will be errors on performance assessment. Ultimately, the results reveal that there is a significant difference between the two models. Provided no consideration is made for the funds belonging to two different systems, errors in performance evaluation are inevitable. This research provides investors with both a more accurate and comprehensive evaluation method.