Firm-level determinants of tax evasion in transition economies

Business tax evasion is an important issue for governments. Yet the factors that determine business tax evasion have not been sufficiently examined in the literature in general, and in transition contexts in particular. To address this gap, this study uses the WB/EBRD Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) database with a sample of over 12,692 firms from 26 transition economies. Applying various modelling strategies, we argue that tax evasion is a function of firm-level and institutional-level variables. We contribute to the literature by providing robust evidence showing that the perceived tax burden has a positive impact on tax evasion. We also find that the tax evasive behaviour of firms is positively influenced by low trust in government and in the judicial system as well as by higher perceptions of corruption and higher compliance costs. We find that smaller firms, individual businesses and firms in sectors that are less visible to the tax administration are more likely to get involved in evasive behaviour. Overall, institutional factors play an important role in determining firms’ tax evasion behaviour in transition economies. This finding has important policy implications.     

Recurrence plots analysis of the CNY exchange markets based on phase space reconstruction

The employment of autocorrelation-based transformation to study the dynamics of the exchange rate system is meaningful because it benefits for chaotic prediction on the basis that the transformation from an exchange rate sequence to its associated autocorrelation sequence is reversible. This paper examines the influence of autocorrelation-based transformation on the systemic dynamics using exchange rates of CNY against different currencies among USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, MYR and RUB. First, we construct recurrence plots of exchange rate return sequences and autocorrelation sequences with a fixed sliding window length of 20. The recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) shows that the exchange rate return sequences exhibit lower degrees of determinism than the autocorrelation sequences. Further, by analyzing the RQA measures with bootstrap techniques and box plots, we reveal that the RQA measures of the exchange rate return systems and the autocorrelation sequence systems are mostly significant, and the vertical structures of recurrence plots of autocorrelation sequences are more sensitive to the shuffles of bootstrap techniques. Finally, we investigate the evolution of RQA measures with the changes of sliding window lengths. The analysis shows that appropriately adjusting the sliding window length can increase the systemic determinism.     

Open Market Operation Effectiveness in China

This paper examines the effectiveness of target rate guidance in open market operation by the central bank in China (PBOC). We find that target rate change in open market operation is effective in adjusting the short-term Treasury rates. The target rate changing direction is more effective than the target rate changing level. There is no significant asymmetry in the effectiveness between the target rate increase and target rate decrease. We also document that the effectiveness of the target rate is conditional on liquidity operation of the same direction, especially when they both aim to loosen the monetary policy. Furthermore, consecutive operations with higher intensity appear to be more effective in adjusting the market interest rate.     

Can negative interest rates really affect option pricing? Empirical evidence from an explicitly solvable stochastic volatility model

The profound financial crisis generated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the European sovereign debt crisis in 2011 have caused negative values of government bond yields both in the USA and in the EURO area. This paper investigates whether the use of models which allow for negative interest rates can improve option pricing and implied volatility forecasting. This is done with special attention to foreign exchange and index options. To this end, we carried out an empirical analysis on the prices of call and put options on the US S&P 500 index and Eurodollar futures using a generalization of the Heston model in the stochastic interest rate framework. Specifically, the dynamics of the option’s underlying asset is described by two factors: a stochastic variance and a stochastic interest rate. The volatility is not allowed to be negative, but the interest rate is. Explicit formulas for the transition probability density function and moments are derived. These formulas are used to estimate the model parameters efficiently. Three empirical analyses are illustrated. The first two show that the use of models which allow for negative interest rates can efficiently reproduce implied volatility and forecast option prices (i.e. S&P index and foreign exchange options). The last studies how the US three-month government bond yield affects the US S&P 500 index.     

Shanxi Merchants’ Multilevel Financial System in Ming and Qing Dynasties,China

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), China saw rapid development in industrial and commercial sectors. Over this period, a group of merchants originating from the inland province of Shanxi gradually built a multilevel financial system and became leaders in China’s banking sector. The system of financial institutions they established (pawnshops, seal shops, money shops, loan banks, and draft banks) each had a unique business model, with specific target client group and carefully designed risk management. They were also interconnected to allow for flexible capital flows, contributing to the fast economic growth in this period. Nevertheless, the traditional system also had limitations, leading to its replacement by modern banks eventually.     

Contained crisis and socialized risk: Unconventional monetary policy by the Bank of Japan in the 1890s

In the 1880s, Japan experienced its first stock investment boom, which was highly leveraged by the banking sector. In 1890, its first financial crisis occurred and triggered a de-leveraging process. With a high lower bound of the conventional interest rate intervention under the fixed exchange rate regime, the Bank of Japan decided to implement a massive securities purchases first time among major industrial economies and continued this unconventional policy until the early 1900s. We examine how the unconventional intervention for a decade affected the stock prices and the trade volumes, and show that the upward distortion in market pricing was considerable and that the equity-risk premium accordingly dropped, which meant socialization of the risk associated with the industrial investment.     

Stock Price Index and Exchange Rate Nexus in African Markets

This paper examines the relationship between stock price index and exchange rate in six African markets using monthly data for the period January 2007 to October 2015. A quantile regression approach is used. This methodology is shown to perform better than the ordinary least squares estimators, particularly when the conditional distribution is heterogeneous. Our empirical evidence reveals an interesting pattern in the association of these two financial markets in Africa, which shows that the negative relationship between stock and foreign exchange markets is more apparent when exchange rates are extremely low or high. The negative relationship between the two variables is in line with the portfolio balance effect.     

浅谈工程施工投标技巧

面对日益激烈的市场竞争,企业如何提高中标率以及如何在投标中获取最大的利润等都已经成为人们较为关注的重点,其中投标的编制技巧与报价策略都成为投标单位较为关注的热门话题,而投标策略和技巧在中标率较高的施工企业中有着不可忽视的作用。投标技巧主要就是以投标人在投标过程中需要关注的问题为重点。     

Spillovers between sovereign CDS and exchange rate markets: The role of market fear

As important variables in financial market, sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) and exchange rate have correlations and spillovers. And the volatility spillovers between the two markets become further complicated with the effect of market fear caused by extreme events such as global pandemic. This paper attempts to explore the complex interactions within the “sovereign CDS-exchange rate” system by adopting the forecast error variance decomposition method. The results show that there is a relatively close linkage between the two markets and the total spillover index of the system is dynamic. For most of the past, the exchange rate has a higher spillover effect on the sovereign CDS than vice versa. Moreover, after the market fear variables are introduced, the “sovereign CDS-exchange rate” system and market fear variables present bidirectional spillovers. The results of the study have particular significance for maintaining the financial stability and preventing risk contagion between markets.     

The Relationship Between Sovereign Spreads and International Reserves: Does the Exchange Rate Regime Matter?

International reserves have been put forward as an important factor affecting sovereign spreads in the literature. This article empirically analyzes whether the relationship between international reserves and sovereign spreads depends on exchange rate policy in emerging markets. The analysis is carried out using exchange rate classifications based on both the officially declared regimes and the actual exchange rate behavior. The results show that international reserves reduce sovereign spreads for all levels of exchange rate flexibility using both classifications. Reserves have a similar effect on spreads for all exchange rate categories, except for hard pegs, under which the effect is larger.