ENVY-FREENESS AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: A REPLY TO KOLM'S COMMENT

Abstract. This reply takes up specific points raised by Professor Kolm over which there persists some disagreement between us. It offers a rather broad, philosophically oriented discussion of the issues. I explain why I think Kolm is right in preferring the term 'equity'to that of 'envy-freeness,'but I express moral doubts concerning the interpretation proposed by Kolm of equity as a criterion of equal liberty. On this basis, I then defend my own specific interpretation of equity as a welfarist-egalitarian criterion, and express some reluctance as to the alleged 'moral irrelevance'of individual preferences in the theory of equity. I also briefly discuss the conceptual role played by counterfactuals and try to mitigate somewhat Kolm's critique of the use of axioms involving 'imaginary' situations.     

A Bayesian framework for combining valuation estimates

Discounted cash flow, method of comparables, and fundamental analysis typically yield discrepant valuation estimates. Moreover, the valuation estimates typically disagree with market price. Can one form a superior valuation estimate by averaging over the individual estimates, including market price? This article suggests a Bayesian framework for combining two or more estimates into a superior valuation estimate. The framework justifies the common practice of averaging over several estimates to arrive at a final point estimate.     

Extraction rights allocation with liquidity constraints

We study the optimal allocation of a resource in a second-best world in which parties may be liquidity-constrained due to credit frictions and capital market imperfections. In this setting, common to various natural resource industries, agents are unable to bid more than their budget regardless of their valuation. While auction markets are widely used mechanisms for allocating natural resource extraction rights and conservation contracts, we show that in these circumstances the competitive market –which allocates items based on rank order of bids– fails to achieve the first-best allocation. The market outcome is welfare-dominated by a hybrid mechanism consisting of random assignment followed by resale in a secondary market. Via the initial lottery, the hybrid-mechanism allocates the items with positive probability to high-valuation low-wealth individuals who would not have been able to afford them in a competitive market. High-valuation high-wealth agents, on the other hand, acquire the items in the secondary market if they do not receive them in the initial lottery. Therefore, equity in the allocation of access to the resource may be justified not only by distributional concerns but also by economic efficiency. We illustrate our model using data from buybacks of harvesting rights in the seafood industry.     

Why are shareholders not paid to give up their voting privileges? Unique evidence from Italy

Dual-class share unifications have typically been argued to be beneficial for voting shareholders, who are usually compensated for the loss of their superior voting privileges. However, no covenants exist that make this compensation mandatory for voting shareholders. In this paper, we examine a subset of dual class share unifications from Italy where, in the main, voting shareholders are not offered any compensation in lieu of the loss of their superior voting rights. We present a simple model describing the conditions under which the controlling voting shareholder will choose not to offer compensation to minority voting shareholders as part of a share unification. Our empirical results support the model predictions.     

资本结构与代理成本关系研究评述

资本结构与代理成本之间的关系始终是研究者关注的焦点。本文认为,资本结构中权益资本和债务资本会引发不同的代理成本,其产生的根源在于管理者与股东以及债权人与权益投资者之间存在不同的利益格局。在第一类和第二类代理冲突中,债务均具有重要的地位,但债务在第二类代理冲突中的作用与第一类冲突中显著不同。当企业股权集中时,大股东掌握着企业的实际控制权,企业的主要代理问题成为控股大股东与中、小股东之间的代理问题,这会导致其资本结构的代理成本与第一类和第二类代理成本显著不同。     

Joint tests of contagion with applications

Joint tests of contagion are derived which are designed to have power where contagion operates simultaneously through coskewness, cokurtosis and covolatility. Finite sample properties of the new tests are evaluated and compared with existing tests of contagion that focus on a single channel. Applying the tests to daily euro zone equity returns from 2005 to 2014 shows that contagion operated mainly through higher order moment channels during the GFC and the European debt crisis, which were not necessarily detected by traditional tests based on correlations. The empirical results have important implications for pricing risk and constructing well diversified portfolios.     

Market reactions to ECB policy innovations: A cross-country analysis

Regulators have been paying increasing attention to governing and steering market fluctuations, with their role in shaping the economic cycle being ever more crucial. The combined effect of the financial and sovereign debt crises, as well as the approach to the zero lower bound, has made actions even more pressing, forcing the European Central Bank to resort to unconventional instruments to revive the economies and counter deflationary pressures. By using a combined event study and panel regression methodology, we investigate whether European Monetary Union equity markets react heterogeneously to standard and non-standard European Central Bank policy innovations. Our results show that conventional policies unevenly affect financial indices in the Eurozone and, hence, are bound to generate asymmetries that reflect on real economies, while unconventional measures, albeit with different intensities, exercise a homogeneous pressure on all markets. Our evidence highlights the beneficial impact of unconventional measures and suggests that they can play a useful role even in non-crisis times.     

Monetary policy,doubts and asset prices

Asset prices and the equity premium might reflect doubts and pessimism. Introducing these features in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian model changes optimal policy in a substantial way. There are three main results: (i) asset-price movements improve the inflation-output trade-off so that average output can rise without much inflation costs; (ii) a “paternalistic” policymaker – maximizing the expected utility of the consumers under the true probability distribution – chooses a more accommodating policy towards productivity shocks and inflates the equity premium; (iii) a “benevolent” policymaker – maximizing the objective through which decisionmakers act in their ambiguous world – follows a policy of price stability.     

Option implied volatilities and the cost of issuing equity

The structure of a firm-commitment Seasoned Equity Offering (SEO) resembles a put-option underwritten by an investment bank syndicate (Smith, 1977). Employing implied volatilities from issuers’ stock options as a direct forward-looking measure, this paper examines the impact of expected price risk around SEO issue dates on the direct cost of issuing equity. Using a comprehensive sample of 1208 SEOs between 1996 and 2009, we find issuers with higher option implied volatilities raise less external equity capital and pay higher investment bank fees in the stock market, ceteris paribus. The effect of implied volatility on the investment bank fees is stronger for larger issuers with lower pre-SEO abnormal realized stock volatilities, and for SEOs with higher expected price pressures around issue dates. These relationships are robust to adjustments for correlations among control variables, sample selection bias and also simultaneous determination of offer size and SEO fees.     

基于主成分分析和BP神经网络算法的股权众筹风险评价研究

近年来,随着股权众筹的迅速发展,其在实际运作中风险评估和防范问题引起了人们的关注.基于此,本文首先利用主成分分析的方法构建了股权众筹风险评估指标体系,其次,利用BP神经网络以众投邦平台股权众筹项目为例进行了实证研究.结果显示:众筹风险评估指标体系由审核估值风险、发起人能力风险、项目本身风险、法律风险、经营风险、监管风险及流动性风险等七个指标构成;BP神经网络的方法在股权众筹风险评估方面是可行且有效的.研究结论可为我国股权众筹风险评估和防控及金融风险防控具有重要的理论及现实意义.