The role of permanent and transitory components in business cycle volatility moderation

The paper examines the processes underlying economic fluctuations by investigating the volatility moderation of U.S. economy in the early 1980s. We decompose the volatility decline using a dynamic factor framework into a common stochastic trend, common transitory component and idiosyncratic components. We find that the moderation of business cycle was a result of the moderation in transitory and idiosyncratic components. Our results suggest that important part of stochastic process that drives economy is transitory. The paper investigates the role of oil prices, monetary and financial market factors. Proposed economic factors do not have a significant relationship to either transitory or permanent components. In addition, we find that transitory shocks are as common during the 1980s and 1990s as they were during the 1960s and 1970s.

Ambidexterity under digitalization: A tale of two decades of new media at a Swedish newspaper

The digitalization of the newspaper industry represents a significant challenge for incumbent companies to engage new technologies. Many companies in the industry have had to seek new markets through digital technologies to survive. This paper explores how one of the largest Swedish newspapers, Aftonbladet, has strategically embraced new media and new markets. We report a decade of engaged scholarship based on interviews and archival analysis that covers 20 years of strategic acts at the company. We consider this effort as a case of organizational ambidexterity under digitalization. The analysis seeks to extend theoretical understanding of the interrelationships between strategic intent and technological choice. The paper contributes to the understanding of ambidexterity under digitalization by theoretically framing it in terms of strategic acts. The research suggests that digitalization implies a more complex ambidexterity interrelationship between old and new markets and technologies. As digitalization enables the loosening of previously tight couplings, the clear theoretical distinction between old and new, and critically, the unproblematic transition, is brought into question. The paper suggests replacing the notion of an orderly shift from the old to the new with ambidexterity under digitalization as a duality of both old and new undergoing continual reconfiguration.     

News sentiment,credit spreads,and information asymmetry

This paper examines how the sentiment of firm-specific news affects CDS spreads conditional on the degree of information asymmetry. Using a large set of news releases, we document a strong negative relationship between the sentiment of firm-specific news and CDS spreads. More importantly, consistent with the role of public news in reducing information asymmetry, we find evidence that the relation between news sentiment and CDS spreads is stronger for firms with higher information asymmetry. Furthermore, the relation is stronger for news with negative sentiment and during the 2008 financial crisis. Our results are robust to alternative sentiment measures.     

Do news shocks increase capital utilization?

Using the workweek of capital as a measure of capital utilization, we empirically test whether news shocks actually increase capital utilization. To this end, by estimating a panel VAR on two-digit manufacturing data identifying news shocks as innovations to stock returns orthogonal to the variations in current-period TFP growth, we find the positive response of capital utilization to news shocks. Moreover, to explain the positive response of capital utilization to news shocks in terms of plant-level investment behavior, we propose a heterogeneous plant model that combines the fixed cost of capital adjustment and an endogenous capital utilization choice. With the presence of fixed costs, except for the plants that have recently adjusted capital stock, news shock shortens the effective time horizon of currently installed capital stock and increases capital utilization. When the model economy is calibrated to match the salient features of the plant-level investment rate distribution, the economy generates a news-driven positive response of capital utilization.     

Monetary policy shocks and exchange rates in Asian countries

In this paper, we empirically investigate the effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rates in Asian countries. To do so, we use VAR models which impose sign restrictions on impulse responses to identify monetary policy shocks. We find that contractionary monetary policy shocks lead to significant exchange rate appreciation in Malaysia, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. However, in India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, we find either a significant depreciation or no significant effect. These results suggest that an interest rate increase (or decrease) may not necessarily shield Asian countries from exchange rate depreciation (or appreciation) pressure following a U.S. interest rate increase (or decrease).     

Time-varying relationship of news sentiment,implied volatility and stock returns

I examine the relationship between aggregate news sentiment, S&P 500 index (SPX) returns, and changes in the implied volatility index (VIX). I find a significant negative contemporaneous relationship between changes in VIX and both news sentiment and stock returns. This relationship is asymmetric whereby changes in VIX are larger following negative news and/or stock market declines. Vector autoregression (VAR) analysis of the dynamics and cross-dependencies between variables reveals a strong positive relationship between previous and current period changes in implied volatility and stock returns, while current period and lagged news sentiment has a significant positive (negative) relationship with stock returns (changes in VIX). I develop a simple trading strategy whereby high (low) levels of implied volatility signal attractive opportunities to take short (long) positions in the underlying index, while extremely negative (positive) news sentiment signals opportunities to enter short (long) index positions. The investor fear gauge (VIX) appears to perform better than news sentiment measures in forecasting future returns.     

The triggers and clustering properties of merger waves

This article studies the triggers and the agglomeration of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within clusters constituted by time, market and industry. Based on almost 500,000 individual transactions, we find that industry factors play a significant role in triggering activity and that M&A agglomerates strongly across related industries. While clustering in time turns out to be insignificant, stock market effects can be either an attracting or a repelling force, depending on the type of deal examined. This supports the view that merger waves are largely driven by industry shocks.     

Countercyclical Bank Capital Requirement and Optimized Monetary Policy Rules

Using BoC-GEM-Fin, a large-scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with real, nominal, and financial frictions featuring a banking sector, we explore the macroeconomic implications of various types of countercyclical bank capital regulations. Results suggest that countercyclical capital requirements have a significant stabilizing effect on key macroeconomic variables, but mostly after financial shocks. Moreover, the bank capital regulatory policy and monetary policy interact, and this interaction is contingent on the type of shocks that drive the economic cycle. Finally, we analyze loss functions based on macroeconomic and financial variables to arrive at an optimal countercyclical regulatory policy in a class of simple implementable Taylor-type rules. Compared to bank capital regulatory policy, monetary policy is able to stabilize the economy more efficiently after real shocks. On the other hand, financial shocks require the regulator to be more aggressive in loosening/tightening capital requirements for banks, even as monetary policy works to counter the deviations of inflation from the target.     

中国经济周期波动的制度冲击效应分析

经济制度变革成为中国宏观经济经历的影响最深远的整体性、持久性的外生冲击之一,制度变动的冲击对我国经济周期的变动特征产生了深刻的影响。文章运用经济计量方法对制度冲击改变我国经济周期特征进行了检验,并通过市场化程度、非国有化水平和开放度三个制度冲击变量检验了其与我国经济周期波动的相关性,其结论证明在我国受政治背景的影响而出台的重大的经济制度改革对经济的发展影响巨大而深远,制度变动冲击对经济的周期变动的方向及程度起到了较大的决定作用。     

货币供给、货币流通速度与经济波动

通过修正的计算货币流通速度的指标,结合广义货币供给增加量来考察我国货币冲击对经济波动的影响,利用1997—2011年的季度数据通过建立VAR模型、格兰杰因果关系检验、脉冲响应及方差分解来实证检验我国货币冲击对经济波动的影响。