The Legislator as Political Entrepreneur: Investment in Political Capital

This paper applies the standard Austrian theory of capital investment to the standard interest group model of legislator behavior. Distinguishing between reputational capital and representative capital as interdependent forms of political capital, I argue that legislator behavior (specifically roll call voting) can be explained as entrepreneurial investment in political capital under uncertainty. I discuss several examples in which this approach can potentially add predictive power regarding legislative voting.     

中国钢铁业：结构、行为和绩效分析

国际环境快速变化,国内钢铁业如火如荼,认清中国钢铁行业的现状,通过产业组织理论的市场结构、市场行为和市场绩效的分析方法对钢铁全行业进行分析,提出改善钢铁行业结构,建立金融规避风险机制,促进产业前向整合之对策。     

对马克思按分配原则的反思

马克思的劳动价值论不仅是剩余价值的理论基础和分析资本主义分配的理论依据，同时也是马克思设想的社会主义按劳分配的逻辑起点。只是以往我们对按劳分配原则的最本质的含义理解不够透彻。实质上，应该说马克思设想的按劳分配原则最本质的内容包括三点，即在未来的社会主义社会中，个人消费品的分配以劳动量的大小为依据，等量劳动获取等量报酬，承认能力本位。在社会主义市场经济条件下的按劳分配原则，仍然没有偏离这三点本质的含义，但已经有了新的特点和形式。     

EDGAR on the internet: The welfare effects of wider information distribution in an experimental market for risky assets

Policies such as the SEC’s Fair Disclosure Rule, and technologies such as SEC EDGAR, aim to disseminate corporate disclosures to a wider audience of investors in risky assets. In this study, we adopt an experimental approach to measure whether this wider disclosure is beneficial to these investors. Price-clearing equilibrium models based on utility maximization and non-revealing and fully-revealing prices predict that in a pure exchange economy, an arbitrary trader would prefer that no investors are informed rather than all are informed; non-revealing theory further predicts that an arbitrary trader would prefer a situation in which all traders are informed rather than half the traders are informed. These predictions can be summarized as “None > All > Half”. A laboratory study was conducted to test these predictions. Where previous studies have largely focused on information dissemination and its effects on equilibrium price and insider profits, we focus instead on traders’ expected utility, as measured by their preferences for markets in which none, half, or all traders are informed. Our experimental result contradicts the prediction and indicates “Half > None > All”, i.e. subjects favor a situation where a random half is informed. The implication is that in addition to testing predictions of price equilibrium, experiments should also be used to verify analytical welfare predictions of expected utility under different policy choices. JEL Classification D82, D53, G14, L86 This work was largely completed while this author was at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.     

基于我国证券市场羊群行为的宏观与微观策略

证券市场的羊群行为是指投资者在证券投资中模仿其他投资者决策,在股票价格波动中追涨杀跌的行为.导致我国证券市场羊群行为的原因包括宏观和微观两个层面.为此,本文从宏观和微观两个层面提出抑制羊群行为的相应策略,即培育市场理性与培育理性投资主体两项对策.具体包括:完善信息披露制度;改善证券市场供求关系;完善合理的交易制度;规范证券公司"信息串联"行为;培育理性投资者等.以此来实现改善上市公司的信息披露质量,促进证券市场效率,以减轻羊群行为之害.     

Art as an investment: Short and long-term comovements in major painting markets

This paper examines the short and long-term price linkages among major art and equity markets over the period 1976–2001. The art markets examined are Contemporary Masters, French Impressionists, Modern European, 19^th Century European, Old Masters, Surrealists, 20^th Century English and Modern US paintings. A global equity index (with dividends and capitalisation changes) is also included. Multivariate cointegration procedures, Granger non-causality tests, level VAR and generalised variance decomposition analyses based on error-correction and vector autoregressive models are conducted to analyse short and long-run relationships among these markets. The results indicate that there is a stationary long-run relationship and significant short and long run causal linkages between the various painting markets and between the equity market and painting markets. However, in terms of the percentage of variance explained most painting markets are relatively isolated, and other painting markets are generally more important than the equity market in explaining the variance that is not caused by innovations in the market itself. This suggests that opportunities for portfolio diversification in art works alone and in conjunction with equity markets exist, though in common with the literature in this area the study finds that the returns on paintings are much lower and the risks much higher than in conventional financial markets.The authors would like to thank delegates to the 14th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, University of New South Wales, seminar participants at the Queensland University of Technology and Massey University, Masaki Katsuura, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The financial assistance of a Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Business Research Initiative Grant is also gratefully acknowledged.     

如何保护中小投资者的利益

我国证券市场繁荣发展的基石是有效保护投资者的利益,而其中最主要的是保护中小投资者的利益,股票市场的中小投资者地位处于劣势,加之我国股票市场的不规范,企业筹资理念的错位,使其利益经常遭受侵犯,文章结合一些案例,对侵犯中小投资者利益的手法进行了剖析,并提出了相应的保护中小投资者利益的若干措施。     

我国大型百货商场的市场定位与发展策略

文章在分析我国零售企业市场状况和竞争态势的基础上,提出我国大型百货商场的目标市场应为中高档顾客群,并以此目标市场为基础,将突出产品特色、优化服务、心理定价、产品保证、购物环境和树立形象等作为我国大型百货商场的市场定位与发展策略。     

我国银行业的市场结构分析及改革对策

经过二十多年的改革,我国银行业市场结构有了很大变化。运用市场份额、市场集中度、进入、退出壁垒和产品差异化等指标,分析了我国银行业的市场结构,得出我国银行业有寡头垄断特征,并呈现出向垄断竞争市场结构过渡的趋势。在分析我国银行业市场绩效低下原因的基础上,初步提出了银行业优化市场结构,提高竞争力的对策。     

Domestic financial market frictions,unrestricted international capital flows,and crises in small open economies

Summary. We present an example of a small open economy where small increases in the world interest rate may induce a sharp decline in output and a precipitous depreciation of the exchange rate. Due to a costly state verification problem in domestic credit markets, combined with unrestricted international capital flows, our economy generates two long-run equilibria, one with low GDP and a relatively depreciated real exchange rate (RER), and one with high GDP and a relatively appreciated RER. The first is always a saddle, while the second may be a sink or a source, depending on the level of the world interest rate. A crisis is identified with the economy switching from an equilibrium path approaching the high-output steady state to the saddlepath approaching the low-output steady state. In Mexicos recent history, periods of growth associated with appreciation of the RER have alternated with periods of sharp contraction and depreciation of the RER. Our economy displays such behavior in response to changes in the world interest rate.Received: 9 April 2002, Revised: 20 March 2003JEL Classification Numbers: E5, F4.G. Antinolfi, E. Huybens: We thank Steve Fazzari, Tim Kehoe, Todd Keister, Manuel Santos, Karl Shell and especially Bruce Smith for very helpful discussions. Jaime Calleja Alderete, Eduardo Camero Godínez, and Juan Vargas Hernández provided excellent research assistance. All remaining errors are ours. Huybens was an assistant professor in the Centro de Investigación Económica, ITAM, at the time this article was written, and part of this work was completed while Antinolfi was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not reflect those of the World Bank or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Correspondence to: G. Antinolfi