THE CHANGING VOLATILITY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

During the last decade economic literature explored the presence of and reasons for what became known as “the great moderation” in the US and other G7 countries. “The great moderation” describes the decrease in economic volatility experienced in many of the G7 countries. This paper finds that in South Africa volatility is also not constant (it even finds that there are autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic effects present) and that volatility also decreased, particularly since 1994. Following the literature, the paper explores several reasons for this decrease and finds that smaller shocks, better monetary policy and improvements in the financial sector that place less liquidity constraints on individuals and allow them to manage their debt better are some of the main reasons for the reduction in the volatility of the South African economy. The literature on the G7 also suggests that better inventory management contributed to the lower volatility. However, this seems not to be true for South Africa.     

商业银行服务营销战略透析——以中国银行为例

美国次贷危机波及全球金融体系、金融产品及金融衍生产品的受信度受到质疑。我国的商业银行受此冲击强度较小，很大程度上取决于银行战略眼光和营销运作的成功。本文从营销战略的角度，结合中国银行服务营销的运行状况，对中国银行发展走势及营销战略进行深度透析。     

Understanding the Large Negative Impact of Oil Shocks

This paper offers a plausible explanation for the close link between oil prices and aggregate macroeconomic performance in the 1970s. Although this link has been well documented in the empirical literature, standard economic models are not able to replicate this link when actual oil prices are used to simulate the models. In particular, standard models cannot explain the depth of the recession in 1974–75 and the strong revival in 1976–78 based on the oil price movements in that period. This paper argues that a missing multiplier-accelerator mechanism from standard models may hold the key.     

从“大萧条”看中美两国应对当前金融危机之策

本文站在历史的角度，审视与检讨中关两国政府在应对当前由次贷风暴引发的金融危机中的得与失。历史是一面镜子，发生在20世纪30年代的世界性大萧条与今日美国金融危机在很多方面具有相似之处。以史为鉴，在百年一遇的危机面前，各国政府应携手并进，同舟共济，避免陷入更深的困境。当前的局势为中国充分展示负责任大国的形象提供了契机。     

入世对中国期货市场发展的优势分析

经济全球化的要求使各国经济必须融入世界经济运行的大循环。作为融入世界经济的重要渠道，入世将会极大地影响中国的金融市场。期货市场作为金融市场的一个有机组成部分。也将深受影响。它将通过入世的宏观与微观效应，获得进一步的发展。     

Modelling the inflation process in transition economies: Empirical comparison of Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic

This paper starts from the observation that inflation in transition economies appears to be persistently high and volatile and attempts to provide some empirical characterisation of the inflation process in three such transition economies: Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. We first consider the role of monetary growth as a major causal factor for inflation in these economies, and argue that the evidence provides rather weak support for the causal relationship. We then propose a transition economy cost-plus model and estimate this using the equilibrium-correction modelling (ECM) strategy augmented by introduction of a number of transitory factors and changes in the internal structure of the real economy which we believe may have had a significant impact on inflation in these economies. We show that this approach enables us to account for long-run inflation in these economies from the early 1980s to the present despite the turbulence of the latter part of the sample period. Our results support wage and exchange rate based inflation policies.     

现代企业财务风险的测定和防范

在市场竞争环境下，现代企业面临的各种风险不断增多，财务风险作为企业特有的风险日益突出，是企业利用融资财务杠杆的直接后果，企业必须重视财务风险的测定和防范，以增强企业财务实力。     

工业企业的清洁生产与产品生态设计初探

清洁生产是现代工业企业重要的生产模式,也是提高企业核心竞争力促进可持续发展的重要途径。企业要推行清洁生产必须根据产品生命周期搞好产品生态设计。本文主要对清洁生产起源、产品生态设计的准则及产品生命周期分析方法等进行了初步探讨。     

迎接知识经济时代 实现财务管理创新

随着知识经济的日益发展,尤其是我国改企建制工作的广泛推行和进一步深化,勘察设计企业为了能更好地应对市场竞争的挑战,其日常运作的各项工作就需要有所改进。而作为企业管理的核心,财务管理则需要密切配合企业改制工作的整体部署,进行相应的创新。本文结合勘察设计企业的实际情况,谈谈实现财务管理创新的几点思路。     

Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991–1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks.