What can we learn from past price stabilization policies and market reform in Mexico?

This paper reviews experience with policy reforms in the maize sector in Mexico, beginning in the 1980s with particular reference to impacts on price variability. It analyses Mexico’s transition from past price stabilization policies under a state-trading enterprise to market reforms implemented during the 1990s. The nature, extent, and costs to producers and consumers of maize policies is discussed for both the pre-reform and the reform periods. Although wide ranging reforms have been introduced, impacts on efficiency and fiscal outlays have been less than expected.     

2006年石油价格展望

本文对影响2006年石油价格的因素做了系统分析。认为2006年形成油价风险的主要动因已从需求的波动转向供给的波动;2006年油价将由于供求的脆弱平衡维持高位运行的格局,并且,由于供给链中潜在的危机,油价波动性将会非常大;但在全球经济增速下降、石油需求增长放缓、石油生产国家和公司仍然在努力满足市场需求、炼油瓶颈有望缓和的大背景下,油价在2006年按2005年可比价格计不会大幅上升,不会对全球经济产生重大负面影响。     

Spatial Competition and Shopping Externalities: Evidence from the Housing Market

In search markets, greater spatial concentration of sellers increases price competition. At the same time, though, a greater concentration of sellers can create a shopping externality by attracting more buyers to the site. Using housing sales data, we test for spatial competition and shopping externality effects on prices and marketing time. We find that they reflect both competitive and shopping externality effects from surrounding houses, although the relative strength varies with how fresh the house is in the market, the freshness of surrounding houses, and the phase of the market cycle. New listings have the strongest shopping externality effect on neighboring houses that have been on the market for some time. Vacant houses have their strongest competition effects in the declining market and externality effects in the rising market. Fresh houses on the market reap little benefit from shopping externalities in all phases of the market cycle.     

Informed and uninformed trading on the Australian dollar

Using a high-frequency data set of the spot Australian/US dollar, this study examines the distribution of quotes, spreads, and returns across the trading day. By identifying the direction of trade and the subsequent quote returns from contributing banks, the segmented nature of the market into market-makers and informed and uninformed traders is investigated. The results suggest that the economic gain possible from private information is maximised over 2 to 5 quotes and is rapidly eroded by 20 quotes (about 2 min later during busy trading times) as other new information enters the market. Also, the analysis is revealing of discontinuities in trading and the volatility of pricing across the trading day.     

金融投机、实需与国际大宗商品价格——信息摩擦视角下的大宗商品价格影响机制研究

本文实证考察了2005-2015年金融投机和实需对国际大宗商品现货价格的影响及其作用机理。首先对具有信息噪音属性的金融投机进行了明确识别。其次,从多个维度出发区分市场信息摩擦状态,定量分析不同信息摩擦环境中金融投机和实需的影响差异。研究发现:大宗商品价格在长期中由实需因素主导,短期中由金融投机主导;短期中,相对于低信息摩擦环境,在市场波动性较高、金融压力上升以及投资者情绪高涨的高信息摩擦环境中,以金融投机为主的信息噪音对大宗商品价格的影响更强。进一步分析证实,相比于低信息摩擦环境,高信息摩擦环境中金融交易者的市场份额反而降低。据此,本文提出稳定大宗商品市场的关键在于提高市场透明度,减少信息摩擦,从市场质量出发降低信息噪音的影响。     

The Dutch urban ground lease: A valuable tool for land policy?

Once heralded by both liberals and socialists as a tool for Dutch municipal governments to prevent land speculation and to implement spatial policies, a century later the Dutch ground lease (erfpacht) is now despised by many. The ground lease was the subject of strong debate in the recent past and is likely to remain so. It has been argued that lessees should have the right to become owner of the land, and this ‘right to buy’ has indeed been implemented in the land policies of several municipalities. The Dutch urban ground lease seems to be under serious pressure. Is it outdated or is it still a valuable tool for land policy? Before we answer this question, we firstly will provide an historical overview of Dutch ground lease. Secondly, the different types of ground lease will be elaborated. Thirdly, the focus will be on the urban ground lease used by Dutch municipalities and the developments in the use of this instrument. Fourthly, the recent policy changes will be dealt with, followed by an assessment.     

Information,market power,and price volatility

We consider demand function competition with a finite number of agents and private information. We show that any degree of market power can arise in the unique equilibrium under an information structure that is arbitrarily close to complete information. Regardless of the number of agents and the correlation of payoff shocks, market power may be arbitrarily close to zero (the competitive outcome) or arbitrarily large (so there is no trade). By contrast, price volatility is always lower than the variance of the aggregate shock across all information structures. Alternative trading mechanisms lead to very distinct bounds as a comparison with Cournot competition establishes.     

Consumer experiences,attitude and behavioral intention toward online food delivery (OFD) services

Prior research has mostly examined consumer attitudes toward online services/retailing in general and a few researchers have addressed consumer experiences with online food delivery (OFD) services. The purpose of this study is to examine the structural relationship between convenience motivation, post-usage usefulness, hedonic motivation, price saving orientation, time saving orientation, prior online purchase experience, consumer attitude and behavioral intention towards OFD services. The study proposes an integrative theoretical research model based on the Contingency Framework and Extended Model of IT Continuance. 224 valid questionnaires were collected to empirically test the research model using the partial least square (PLS) path modeling approach. The results imply that the proposed hypotheses were supported, except for the relationship between prior online purchase experience and post-usage usefulness. Practical implications and limitations are discussed.     

Market maker competition and price efficiency: Evidence from China

We test the relationship between market maker competition and stock price efficiency. Using the number of market makers as a proxy for competition, the results show a strong positive correlation between competition and stock price efficiency. Moreover, price efficiency is higher when competing market makers have higher research ability. We suggest that market maker competition increases price efficiency through two channels: 1) Competition decreases transaction costs, and 2) Uninformed market makers learn from orders submitted by informed market makers through competition. The latter happens only in the group of market makers with higher experiences. The results imply that the price efficiency can be improved by enhancing the competition of market makers with high research ability and experiences.     

Competition in the stock market with asymmetric information

We build a game theoretical model to examine how the level of information advantage of insiders and the competition between insiders and sophisticated investors affect stock price movements and traders’ trading strategies and profits. We show that the competition between insiders and sophisticated investors can reduce the losses of less sophisticated investors, and thus alleviates the disadvantaged position of the less sophisticated investors. Further, traders’ profits are affected by the accuracy of insiders’ private information, and the number of days that insiders have obtained the information in advance. These findings show the importance of information transparency and the role of sophisticated investors in limiting insiders’ trading advantages and mitigating the expropriation of investors by insiders.