The Eurozone Crisis and Emerging‐Market Expansion: Capital Switching and the Uneven Geographies of Spanish Urbanization

The theory of capitalist urbanization posits that the built form serves as a crucial sink through which overaccumulated capital is ‘switched' from industrial production into long‐term investment in urban infrastructure. Since Harvey's (1978) deployment of the theory, researchers have attempted to empirically substantiate the switching thesis with limited success. Christophers (2011) revisited the debate with new data and methods to support the claim that significant investment had switched into the built environment at the onset of the 2007/08 financial crisis. However, Christophers' study overlooks how crises are also geographically displaced. This article analyses Spanish trade data for the years 1993 to 2013, the years prior and subsequent to the housing‐induced economic crisis (1997 to 2006). Two studies are undertaken. The first replicates Christophers' methodology to assess how and to what extent a sectoral switch into property investment occurred in Spain between 1997 and 2006. The second modifies the methodology to investigate the extent to which overaccumulated capital in Spain has been geographically displaced through investment in the Moroccan building industry since 2006. These approaches situate uneven development (geographical switching) and turnover time (sectoral switching) as the twin dynamics through which capitalist urbanization is spatio‐temporally fixed.     

Asset allocation in markets with contagion: The interplay between volatilities,jump intensities,and correlations

We study the impact of financial contagion on the dynamic asset allocation problem of a CRRA investor facing an incomplete market with two risky assets. We apply a Markov chain regime-switching framework with state-dependent jump intensities, diffusion volatilities and diffusion correlations. The key model feature that a switch to the bad contagion regime is triggered by a loss in one of the risky assets allows for the implementation of a hedging demand against contagion risk. Moreover, a state-dependent diffusion correlation combined with heterogeneity in jump intensities and volatilities can, e.g., generate a flight to quality effect upon a systemic jump.     

The designing of corporate accounting law in Japan after the Second World War

After the Second World War, during the neutralization of the controlled economy of wartime Japan, a design for a Corporate Accounting Law was elaborated by the Investigation Committee on the Business Accounting System. The Investigation Committee tried to establish not only new business accounting standards but also a central and independent administrative organ of corporate accounting regulation on the basis of the Corporate Accounting Law. The Corporate Accounting Law was expected to lay the legal foundation of the new corporate accounting regulation regime in Japan. Nevertheless, even though the original design of the fundamental accounting law was never realized, it should be considered the starting point for our understanding of external accounting history in post-war Japan.     

A useful tool for forecasting the Euro-area business cycle phases

Based on a novel extension of existing multivariate Markov-switching models, we provide the reader with a useful tool for analyzing current business conditions and making predictions about the future state of the Euro-area economy in real time. Apart from the Industrial Production Index, we find that the European Commission Industrial Confidence Indicator, which is issued with no delay, is very useful for constructing the real-time predictions.     

Regulating prices for shifting between service providers

The price that a regulated access provider charges for shifting customers between service providers has significant welfare implications. Typical regulatory approaches to pricing, such as pricing based on fully allocated cost or incremental cost, ignore the characteristics of consumer demand. A theoretical alternative, Ramsey pricing, considers only the elasticity of demand for given products. This paper directs attention to the competitive process. Using US long-distance telephone services as an example, this paper shows how empirical evidence concerning customer acquisition costs, customer switching costs, and churn among service providers can help to inform price regulation.     

Regime-switching and interest rates in the European monetary system

This paper examines the impact that a currency target zone has on short-term interest rates. For a number of countries in the European Monetary System, we characterize the short rate using a regime-switching model that allows for a differently parameterized mean-reverting square-root process in each regime. We find that the volatility, the level, and the speed-of-adjustment are all higher in the regime that is operative during speculative attacks and currency crises. Moreover, we allow the conditional probability of being in each regime to be state-dependent so the model can be used to examine questions relating to the likelihood of realignments and the stability of the target zone system.     

基于FPGA的OBS边缘节点总线控制硬件设计

给出了一种OBS边缘节点总线控制的硬件设计方案。该方案采用循环四次握手的方式完成主模块与其它从模块的通信,用轮询的方式把几个可能引起时序上冲突的信号,按顺序分配到不同的时钟周期上。整个方案以FPGA芯片EP2C20F484C8为基础实现,在Quartus Ⅱ软件上编译通过。仿真结果显示:该方案不仅能够解决时序冲突的问题,而且最高工作频率达到340 MHz,在整个控制模块中占用的逻辑单元(LE)数目仅为0.9%。     

基于竞价上网的煤电纵向一体化及其效率

煤电矛盾的根源是价格双轨制和地区生产不对称性，纵向兼并能有效解决现阶段煤电矛盾，但一体化是否有反竞争效应却值得商榷。本文通过纵向兼并交易的博弈模型，研究电力竞价上网背景下，存在上下游纵向兼并的煤电交易行为均衡路径及其效率，认为煤电纵向兼并的竞争效应与反竞争效应并存，但如果煤炭可现货交易，竞争效应大于反竞争效应。文章最后提出了相应的政策建议。     

Optimal Mortgage Refinancing with Regime Switches

A model of rational mortgage refinancing is developed where the drift and volatility of interest rate process switch between two regimes. Because of the possibility of a regime shift, the optimal refinancing policy is characterized by the different threshold of interest differential for each regime. Numerical simulation demonstrates that the optimal refinancing threshold in each regime can be smaller or larger than the threshold under single-regime models. Finally, we evaluate the predictions of the model, based on the estimated parameters for a two-regime model to capture the evolution of the mortgage rates in the US. Our model can produce both late and early refinancing, which is consistent with the observed refinancing behavior. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Sumitomo Trust and Banking Co., Ltd.     

The Price Impact of Lending Relationships

This study analyzes the impact of bank relationships on a firm's borrowing costs. We find that a firm's borrowing costs decrease with relationship strength, proxied by the share of bank debt provided by the lender. Borrowing costs, however, rise with relationship length. While the increase over time is weak on average, bank‐dependent borrowers face a substantial premium after several relationship years. Switching the lender initially leads to only a small price discount on average. However, the discount is considerable for borrowers that switch and had a strong relationship with their previous lender. Our results suggest that close lending relationships lead to benefits for the firm, but may also imply hold‐up costs in the long term.