Reexamining the permanent income hypothesis with uncertainty in permanent and transitory innovation states

In this paper, we reexamine the permanent income–consumption relationship analytically and empirically, based on the innovation regime-switching (IRS) model developed in [Kuan, C.M., Huang, Y.L., Tsay, R.S., 2005. An unobserved component model with switching permanent and transitory innovations. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 23, 443–454]. A novel feature of the IRS model is that it explicitly allows for uncertainty in innovation states. When the labor income follows an IRS process, it is shown that the agent’s perception on the likelihoods of income innovations being permanent and transitory plays a crucial role in determining the optimal forecasts on the change of consumption. The effect of a current labor income innovation on consumption is a weighted average of two distinct effects resulting from permanent and transitory innovations with the weights equal to the perceived likelihoods of the respective states. Also, past innovations may affect consumption when there are revisions in the perceived likelihoods of previous states. Our empirical study on US data shows that consumption indeed reacts significantly to the perceived likelihoods of innovation states. However, even after controlling for the effect of state uncertainty, we find consumption vastly underreacts to permanent innovations in labor income but reacts about the right magnitude to transitory ones when compared with the prediction of the permanent income hypothesis. This evidence is similar to [Elwood, S.K., 1998. Testing for excess sensitivity in consumption: A state-space unobserved components approach. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 30, 64–82] but in sharp contrast with that found in [Hall, R.E., Mishkin, F.S., 1982. The sensitivity of consumption to transitory income: Estimates from panel data on households. Econometrica, 50, 461–480].     

Are residual economic relationships normally distributed? Testing an assumption of neoclassical economics

In both theoretical and applied contexts, neoclassical economics typically assumes that residual economic relationships are mean-zero, finite-variance, normally distributed random variables. However, many have challenged this view, from various perspectives. The Austrian economists, specifically in the tradition of Mises and Rothbard, reject outright the effort to mathematically model human choices. This Austrian view is often derided as unscientific. However, some of the most mathematically sophisticated work in financial economics also rejects the orthodox bell curve. In this paper, we test Benoit Mandelbrot’s “stable Paretian” hypothesis on ten major macroeconomic data sets and reject the normal distribution in nine of them. We further argue that the stable Paretian hypothesis (and, more generally, the field of “chaos theory”) is far more compatible with the Austrian position than one might initially suspect.

Environmental policy in the European Union: Fostering the development of pollution havens?

A pollution haven occurs when dirty industries from developed nations relocate to developing nations in order to avoid strict environmental standards or developed nations imports of dirty industries expand replacing domestic production. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the European Union (EU) has increased its imports of “dirty” goods from poorer, less democratic countries during a period of more stringent environmental standards. Previous empirical studies such as those by Levinson and Taylor [Levinson, A., and Taylor, M.S., in press. Unmasking the Pollution Haven Effect. International Economic Review.], Ederington, Levinson and Minier [Ederington, J., Levinson, A., and Minier, J., 2005. Footloose and Pollution-Free. Review of Economics and Statistics., 87: 92-99.], Kahn and Yoshino (2004), and Ederington and Minier [Ederington, J., and Minier. J., 2003. Is Environmental Policy a Secondary Trade Barrier? An Empirical Analysis. Canadian Journal of Economics., 36: 137-54.] find evidence that United States imports are responsive to changes in environmental stringency, but the effects of EU policy have not been examined as thoroughly. Our study follows Kahn [Kahn, M.E., 2003. The Geography of Us Pollution Intensive Trade: Evidence from 1958 to 1994. Regional Science and Urban Economics., 33: 383-400.] and examines the impact of industry energy intensity and toxicity, measured by an energy index and a Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) index, on imports into the EU, at the 2-digit industry level from 1970 to 1999. We use the signing of the Maastricht Treaty to signify a period of more uniform and stringent community wide environmental standards (1993-1999), and identify the level of per capita GDP within an EU trading partner. We find an increased amount of EU energy intensive trade with poorer countries during the period with more stringent EU environmental standards. This result is not robust, however, when poorer countries are defined by OECD membership and geographic region. We do not find an increased amount of EU toxic intensive trade with poorer countries although there is some evidence of increased EU imports of toxic goods from poorer OECD and non-EU European countries. For our full sample of trading partners in all regions, the evidence supports the PHH for EU energy intensive trade, but not for toxic intensive trade. Results for regional trade analysis are less clear.     

中国房地产市场弱式有效性的实证研究

研究目的:实证分析中国房地产市场有效性的水平。研究方法:根据萨缪尔森和费马的市场有效性假设对中国房地产市场的有效性进行检验。采用自相关性分析、工具变量法求解联立方程、VAR模型等进行统计检验并对结果进行分析。研究结论:中国房地产市场尚未达到弱式有效。     

大陆与香港金融新合作的中长期效应评析

2003年6月底中央政府与香港特别行政区政府签署了《内地与香港关于建立更加紧密经济关系的安排》后，两地在金融领域的合作不断加快。在目前已呈现出短期效应基础上，对可能产生的中长期效应要进行合理地预测。     

环境管制与企业竞争力——基于“波特假说”的质疑

波特假说认为,恰当的环境规制可以激发被管制企业创新,有利于提升企业的竞争力。然而本文通过分析发现,波特假说不具有一般性。环境管制对企业竞争力的影响主要是在企业的生产成本、产品的差异化、企业对环境管制的态度等方面,企业的处境不同,环境管制对企业竞争力的影响也就不同。我们不能完全迷信于波特假说,而是要具体分析我国企业的现状,制定适合我国企业发展的环境管制措施,尽量减少对我国企业竞争力的负面影响。     

Volatility,maturity and volume in the Indian metals futures

This study examines the validity of Samuelson hypothesis and the mixture of distribution hypothesis to uncover time-to-maturity and trading volume as the sources of volatility in gold and copper futures. Exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model is used for empirical analysis. Leverage effect is found in copper futures but not in gold futures. We find evidence of the Samuelson maturity effect even after controlling for the trading volume. The mixture of distribution hypothesis is strongly supported. Hence trading volume, a proxy for information arrival, is one of the important determinants of volatility, and it dominates time-to-maturity. The results have implications for setting the desired level of margin requirements in futures contracts, designing effective hedging strategy and strengthening the risk management practices.     

Innovation,complementarity, and exporting. Evidence from German manufacturing firms

This paper assesses whether there might be complementarities between different types of innovation activities (product, process and organizational) and how these effects may be linked to the likelihood that a firm will export. Complementarity is addressed through the properties of supermodular functions, and firm heterogeneity by export destination is explored. A new econometric strategy to test for pairwise complementarity in a function with three independent variables and a binary dependent variable is proposed. Exogenous and endogenous innovation variables are considered by using bootstrapping for hypothesis testing, propensity score matching and treatment effects models. The empirical analysis shows that complementarity relationships between innovation strategies are more likely to exist when firms export to multiple foreign markets.     

会计估计变更市场反应的实证检验

本文通过考察市场能否识别会计估计变更的实质来验证市场有效性。按照会计估计变更的性质，本文将会计估计变更进行三种不同分类，逐一比较每种分类中的不同类别的公司的累计非正常报酬率（CAR）。以特定窗口的CAR为被解释变量，以会计估计变更的方向、会计估计变更占净利润比例、样本公司是否属于“失当组”公司、年报公布好的或坏的消息等因素为解释变量，进行多元回归。实证结论支持“机械性”假说。     

Employment protection and leverage adjustment speed: Evidence from China

Stricter employment protection may affect capital structure adjustment speed in two ways. First, it may increase the cost of capital and decrease the leverage adjustment speed. Second, it increases financing needs and capital adjustment speed. Using China's 2008 Labor Contract Law as a natural experiment and the PSM-DID methodology, we find that the latter effect dominates the former. Specifically, stricter employment protection increases leverage adjustment speed, and this effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned firms and firms with larger leverage deviations. Furthermore, transmission channel tests show that employment protection increases firms’ substitution of labor with capital, driving up investment and financing needs. Finally, the increased leverage adjustment speed induced by enhanced employment protection is beneficial to firm performance.