How Do Investors' Expectations Drive Asset Prices?

Based on an extension of the process of investors' expectations to stochastic volatility we derive asset price processes in a general continuous time pricing kernel framework. Our analysis suggests that stochastic volatility of asset price processes results from the fact that investors do not know the risk of an asset and therefore the volatility of the process of their expectations is stochastic, too. Furthermore, our model is consistent with empirical studies reporting negative correlation between asset prices and their volatility as well as significant variations in the Sharpe ratio.     

International Rent Sharing and Domestic Labour Markets: A Macroeconomic Analysis

Compared to international trade relations relatively little is known about the role foreign direct investment linkages play in the transmission of disturbances from one country to the next. Inspired by the microevidence on profit sharing within multinational corporations and within industries, we investigate for six countries whether a cross-border rent-sharing phenomenon can be identified at the macroeconomic level. The rent-sharing hypothesis implies that an increase in foreign profitability should boost wages and/or employment in the domestic economy. We find corroborative evidence for Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. US labour market conditions, by contrast, are not affected by changes in profitability in other countries. JEL no. E32, F23, F40, J23, J31     

Group competition for rents

This paper examines rent dissipation in a two-stage group rent-seeking contest without a predetermined distribution rule. the rent in this setting exhibits both public and private good characteristics depending on the stage of the contest. Focusing on the relationship between group size and aggregate rent seeking we find that social waste depends not only on total numbers but also on the distribution of population across groups. We show that group size asymmetry acts to reduce rent dissipation.     

Exact Solutions of a Model for Asset Prices by K. Takaoka

We are concerned with a model for asset prices introduced by Koichiro Takaoka, which extends the well known Black-Scholes model. For the pricing of contingent claims, partial differential equation (PDE) is derived in a special case under the typical delta hedging strategy. We present an exact pricing formula by way of solving the equation. Mathematics Subject Classification(2000):91B28,35K15     

The Value of the Rent Control Option

In this paper, we combine direct arbitrage arguments and an option-pricing approach to develop a method of pricing the option for rent control. For a lump-sum payment of key money, a tenant acquires the right to rent a real estate unit for an exogenously determined controlled rent, as opposed to paying the free-market rent. The tenant may continue exercising this right as long as he or she lives. Alternatively, the tenant may sell the right to occupy the controlled rent unit and receive a fraction of the key money paid by the subsequent tenant. We value the equilibrium key money, in a representative agents partial equilibrium, while endogenously determining the expected tenure duration in a controlled rent unit. We propose a procedure for valuing rent control options different from the representative agents. Our analysis shows that under real-world levels of conditional life expectancy, the level of the fraction of the key money retained by a departing tenant has an insignificant effect on the expected tenure duration in a controlled rent unit and on the level of key money.     

现行企业所得税优惠政策评析

现行企业所得税制度已经运行十年有余,作为非基准税收制度的所得税优惠政策也越来越多,并且其执行效果不尽如人意。通过对现行所得税优惠的政策制度基础进行分析,可得出如下基本判断:两税并存是我国高税率、多优惠的制度基础;作为非基准税收制度的所得税优惠政策对基准所得税制度修订过多,税制的改革已成为必要;改革的方向是两税并轨,清理优惠,对于需要保留的税收优惠政策应贯彻以行业优惠为主、区域优惠为辅的原则。     

Energy Prices and Carbon Taxes under Uncertainty about Global Warming

This paper extends the strategic interactions between producers of fossil fuels concerned about their profits and a taxing government concerned about the consumers’ welfare for uncertainty: global warming follows an Itô -process. Stochasticity requires to differentiate between reversible and irreversible emissions in contrast to the deterministic version. The unconstrained (= reversible) case allows for a closed form solution but not the more realistic and constrained case. Nevertheless interesting analytical properties (e.g. about when to stop emissions, implicit conservation due to monopolistic supply) are derived and complemented by a numerical example.     

论中国寻租社会成本的量度

中国寻租社会成本的量度可以从两个不同的视角进行分析通过寻租社会成本的计量公式可以求出不包括外部性在内的中国寻租的社会成本;从外部性角度考虑,可以通过亚当·斯密的职业选择理论,抽象出一个模型来分析影响政府人选择职业的各种因素,从而剖析我国的寻租活动的社会成本.     

Implementation and imbalance: dealing with hangover from the Uruguay Round

The Uruguay Round agreements impose bound obligations to implement,but provide only unbound promises of assistance—is therea legal solution within the WTO legal system, i.e. can implementationassistance be made a legal obligation? The author concludesthat the Doha negotiations on trade facilitation and on aidfor trade demonstrate that such a legal arrangement cannot beconstructed. This is not, however, a problem; the internationalcommunity has provided extensive trade-related assistance throughbilateral and multilateral development agencies. Regarding theoverall Uruguay Round imbalance (developing countries gave morethan they got), failure of the international community to acknowledgethat the imbalance stems in major part from the WTO agreementon intellectual property (TRIPS) has retarded a general making-up.     

A discrete and a continuous-time model based on a technical trading rule

In this article we propose a model in discrete and continuoustime that incorporates explicitly a technical trading rule inthe specification of the volatility. The proposed discrete-timemodel is an alternative to GARCH-type processes. We derive conditionsfor the covariance and strict stationarity of the discrete-timeprocess and we study the estimation and inference problems.We also analyze the conditions under which the discrete-timeprocess converges in distribution to a diffusion process. Toillustrate the proposed model and compare it with the GARCHspecification, we analyze the daily closing stock prices oftwo major U.S. companies (Microsoft and Oracle), two stock indices(DAX and NASDAQ) and two U.S. Dollar exchange rates (Euro andSterling)