Fire sales by euro area banks and funds: What is their asset price impact?

The assets under management of investment funds have soared in recent years, triggering a debate on their possible implications for financial stability. We contribute to this debate assessing the asset price impact of fire sales in a novel partial equilibrium model of euro area funds and banks calibrated over the period between 2008 and 2017. An initial shock to yields causes funds to sell assets to address investor redemptions, while both banks and funds sell assets to keep their leverage constant. These fire sales generate second-round price effects. We find that the potential losses due to the price impact of fire sales have decreased over time for the system. The contribution of funds to this impact is lower than that of banks. However, funds’ relative contribution has risen due to their increased assets under management and banks’ lower leverage and rebalancing towards loans. Should this trend continue, funds will become an increasingly important source of systemic risk.     

新加坡公共研发投入体系变革及其启示

为适应经济社会发展和应对未来挑战,新加坡不断加大公共研发投入规模,同时调整公共研发投入体系。近年来,新加坡更加注重部门与统筹投入兼顾,全方位支持创新活动和关注研发与经济社会关系,并通过新设或改造公共部门实施这些变革。这些做法促进了新加坡通过公共研发投入实现国家目标,对我国当前财政科技投入从分配到协调的转变具有重要借鉴意义。我们应该：适应国家经济发展,不断调整投入重点;既要强调自由研究,也要进行科学评估;建立多环节协调机制,营造良好的创新环境．     

基于循环经济的环境财务分析指标体系构建

目前我国的经济增长与自然环境之间的矛盾十分突出,需要大力发展循环经济,而建立环境财务分析指标体系,有助于推动企业循环经济的发展。本文介绍了循环经济的基本理论,简要回顾了国内外关于循环经济的理论研究成果。在此基础上,分析了循环经济对传统财务分析指标的影响,主要体现在主体多元化、目标多元化和指标多样化上。并根据3R原则设计了若干环境财务分析指标,指出了这些指标在沃尔评分法中的应用。     

A Pearson's test for symmetry with an application to the Spanish business cycle

In this paper, we look for asymmetries in the Spanish business cycle. To that end, we firstly propose an easy nonparametric testing procedure to test for symmetry based on a Pearson's chi-squared statistic, which we call P-test. Then, we test for two popular forms of asymmetry, deepness and steepness, using a battery of nonparametric tests. In addition, we analyse possible complementarities between the tests used in this paper, and we compute p-value adjustments for multiple tests.     

The Coordination Role of Stress Tests in Bank Risk‐Taking

We examine whether stress tests distort banks' risk‐taking decisions. We study a model in which a regulator may choose to rescue banks in the event of concurrent bank failures. Our analysis reveals a novel coordination role of stress tests. Disclosure of stress‐test results informs banks of the failure likelihood of other banks, which can reduce welfare by facilitating banks' coordination in risk‐taking. However, conducting stress tests also enables the regulator to more effectively intervene banks, coordinating them preemptively into taking lower risks. We find that, if the regulator has a strong incentive to bail out, stress tests improve welfare, whereas if the regulator's incentive to bail out is weak, stress tests impair welfare.     

Cities under stress

This paper studies the effect of terrorist attacks on the internal structure of cities. We develop an urban framework with capital structures suitable for the study of this question and analyze the long and short term implications of this type of events. In the long run, the analysis shows that a terrorist attack will affect urban structure only modestly, relative to the potentially large decrease in the level of economic activity in the city. Land rents will not decline at all locations. In the short run, agglomeration forces will amplify the effect of the original destruction and will reduce urban economic activity temporarily.     

VOLUNTARY IMPORT EXPANSION AND DIRECT INVESTMENT*

This paper analyses the welfare effects of a market‐share Voluntary Import Expansion (VIE) in the presence of foreign direct investment utilizing a duality approach. Introducing the cost burden of VIE explicitly, this paper considers the conditions under which a market‐share VIE is voluntary to the importing country. It is shown that the voluntary nature of VIE depends upon the capital import, cost burden and price difference effects and that a VIE is truly voluntary if it is accompanied by direct investment. We also show the existence of a complementary relationship between VIE and direct investment in attaining a particular level of welfare.     

On the optimality of optimal income taxation

The Mirrleesian model of income taxation restricts attention to simple allocation mechanism with no strategic interdependence, i.e., the optimal labor supply of any one individual does not depend on the labor supply of others. It has been argued by Piketty (2009) [12] that this restriction is substantial because more sophisticated mechanisms can reach first-best allocations that are out of reach with simple mechanisms. In this paper, we assess the validity of Piketty?s critique in an independent private values model. As a main result, we show that the optimal sophisticated mechanism is a simple mechanism, or, equivalently, a Mirrleesian income tax system.     

Water in the desert? The influence of Wilhelm Röpke on Ludwig Erhard and the social market economy

It is commonly believed that Wilhelm Röpke heavily influenced Ludwig Erhard and, through him, West Germany’s social market economy. This article demonstrates that Röpke’s influence on Erhard was limited. Although the two men shared many common ideals, they also differed on many fundamental issues. Moreover, Erhard developed his ideas before he read Röpke’s wartime trilogy.     

Soft related lending: A tale of two Korean banks

In this paper, we present indirect evidence that the IMFs insistence on foreign control of two large nationwide Korean banks in exchange for short-term support during the 1997 financial crisis helped restrain soft related lending practices. News signaling the likely sale of a bank to a foreign financial institution yields an average daily decrease of about 2% in the stock price of related borrowers. News indicating difficulty in finding an interested foreign investor generates an increase in the stock price of related borrowers of about the same magnitude. These signals have larger impacts on less-profitable, less-liquid, and more bank-dependent firms.