From T-Bills to Stocks: Seasonal Anomalies Revisited

This paper employed eleven data series which consist of stocks, bonds, bills, equity premiums, term premiums, and various default premiums to investigate whether January seasonality reported in existing literature is robust across different states of the economy as this has important trading implications. For the periods 1926–1990, small stocks, small stock premiums, low grade bonds, and default premiums (spread between high grade, low grade and government bonds) reveal January seasonality and that the seasonality is robust across different states of the economy except for low grade bond returns and default premiums. January seasonality for low grade bond returns and low grade bond default premiums are primarily driven by results found during periods of economic expansion. Overall, January seasonality is more evident during the economic expansion periods although the magnitude of default premiums is larger during periods of economic contraction. Furthermore, prior findings of strong summer equity returns are primarily driven by the results found during the periods of economic contraction. It is also found that equity returns are generally higher during periods of economic expansion.     

How are China''s state-owned enterprises doing in the 1990s? Evidence from three interior provinces

Since its inception in the early 1980s, the success of China's enterprise reforms remains hotly debated. This paper introduces a new element into the analysis of state-owned enterprise performance by drawing on the recent increase in inter-regional income disparities. It is argued that as a result of less favourable structural conditions and stronger fiscal dependence on the central government, reform implementation in the interior provinces has lagged behind the progress made along the coast. This hypothesis is investigated using enterprise survey data from three interior provinces which is compared to a similar survey carried out earlier in four coastal cities. The evidence generally supports the view of larger administrative restrictions in the interior and relatively poor economic performance.     

普京内政外交新动向探析

在当今世界,俄罗斯在解决国际重大争端,处理全球重大事务等方面具有不可或缺、不可替代的重要地位和作用.因此,研究普京的内政外交新动向意义重大.在内政方面,普京正在全力实施以能源、武器和原材料生产为核心的中长期经济振兴计划,提出了10年内翻番的目标.在对外事务中的布局层次是--独联体是重中之重,欧洲及美国是首要,亚太一些周边大国是关键,东欧、中东、非洲和拉美不可忽视.     

纯氧曝气的研究进展

介绍了纯氧曝气的生化机理、应用领域、供氧方式、污泥性能等以及它与普通空气曝气相比在技术、经济方面显示出的优越性。随着纯氧曝气的发展和国家新标准增加了脱氮除磷方面的排放要求，使得纯氧曝气在城市污水处理老厂的改造和新厂的建设中具有很好的前昔。     

Are Securitizations in Substance Sales or Secured Borrowings? Capital‐Market Evidence*

Two standard‐setting approaches have emerged globally to guide the choice of accounting for securitizations: the control and components approach (SFAS No. 125 and SFAS No. 140) and the risks and rewards transfer approach (IAS No. 39). A lack of consensus about derecognition accounting is a major impediment to achieving convergence in global standards that must be resolved. Thus, both SFAS No. 140 and IAS No. 39 will be reexamined, and evidence pertinent to the debate is timely and important. In this study, we present evidence consistent with the view of credit‐rating analysts, who view many securitizations as, in substance, secured borrowings. Specifically, for a sample of originators applying sale accounting guidance in SFAS No. 125 / 140 during the period 1997‐2003, we show that off‐balance‐sheet debt related to securitizations has, on average, the same risk‐relevance for explaining market measures of risk (that is, CAPM beta) as on‐balance‐sheet debt. We also find that, in a returns and earnings association framework, the pricing multiple on securitization gains declines as the amount of off‐balance‐sheet debt increases, implying that investors take off‐balance‐sheet debt into account when assessing the valuation‐relevance of such gains. For those who advocate the control and components approach to securitization accounting, our results suggest that, at least for frequent securitizers, the put option arising from implicit recourse is a “missing piece” that is not currently accounted for when calculating securitization gains. Our results challenge the extant measurement standards in SFAS No. 140.     

Strategic alliances and internationalisation in the aircraft manufacturing industry

Based on an indicator measuring the technological level of aircraft, this paper shows that in the aircraft industry, firms are obliged to deal not only with high technological barriers, but growing financial and market barriers, too. In order to reduce these, a complex network of relationships has developed over time. This network involves both main firms belonging to the world oligopoly and firms capable of offering specialised technology and/or a potential broadening of the market. The result is a worldwide production organisation. This paper highlights the fact that the aircraft industry is undergoing a global reorganisation featuring an integration process where six groups (two in Europe and four in the United States) have come to the fore. In the future, it will be possible to imagine new forms of co-operation between the emerging European and American groups.     

当前我国中西部地区民间投资状况的透视与思考——以山东西部城市菏泽为例

经过20余年的经济发展,在东部沿海的私营经济发展如火如荼的同时,我国中西部地区的民间投资也日趋活跃,本文试图以山东西部城市菏泽为例,对目前我国中西部地区的民间投资状况予以透视与思考。     

DEFAULT RISK AND DIVERSIFICATION: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS

Recent advances in the theory of credit risk allow the use of standard term structure machinery for default risk modeling and estimation. The empirical literature in this area often interprets the drift adjustments of the default intensity's diffusion state variables as the only default risk premium. We show that this interpretation implies a restriction on the form of possible default risk premia, which can be justified through exact and approximate notions of "diversifiable default risk." The equivalence between the empirical and martingale default intensities that follows from diversifiable default risk greatly facilitates the pricing and management of credit risk. We emphasize that this is not an equivalence in distribution, and illustrate its importance using credit spread dynamics estimated in Duffee (1999) . We also argue that the assumption of diversifiability is implicitly used in certain existing models of mortgage-backed securities.     

Statistical Decision Problems and Bayesian Nonparametric Methods

This paper considers parametric statistical decision problems conducted within a Bayesian nonparametric context. Our work was motivated by the realisation that typical parametric model selection procedures are essentially incoherent. We argue that one solution to this problem is to use a flexible enough model in the first place, a model that will not be checked no matter what data arrive. Ideally, one would use a nonparametric model to describe all the uncertainty about the density function generating the data. However, parametric models are the preferred choice for many statisticians, despite the incoherence involved in model checking, incoherence that is quite often ignored for pragmatic reasons. In this paper we show how coherent parametric inference can be carried out via decision theory and Bayesian nonparametrics. None of the ingredients discussed here are new, but our main point only becomes evident when one sees all priors—even parametric ones—as measures on sets of densities as opposed to measures on finite-dimensional parameter spaces.     

Use of Statistics in the Monetary Policy of the Czech National Bank: The Case of a Country in Transition

In the presented text the authors judge the importance of statistics in the monetary policy of the Czech National Bank (CNB) over the course of the economic transformation process, with particular consideration of changing statistical needs and the possibilities and limits of statistical data exploitation in the monetary analyses. The importance of statistics lies on the level of collection and processing of statistical information and on the level of use of statistical methods to analyse data. Since the start of the 1990s the requirements for statistics were significantly influenced by monetary policy. In the period 1990–1997, monetary targeting was the primary influential factor. Since 1998, the monetary policy is influenced by inflation targeting. Statistical priorities switched from monetary data to economy and financial market data. Much progress has been made in the use of statistical methods for analysing data. Statistics available at present cover the CNB's standard monetary-policy requirements and are on par with those in developed countries. Its further development will reflect the standard changes taking place in the more advanced countries.