Monetary and banking policy transmission through interest rates: an empirical application to the USA,Canada, the UK and the Eurozone

The main purpose of this paper is an examination of the pass‐through interest rate transmission from the wholesale rates (central bank and/or money market rates) to the retail rates (deposit and lending rates) of the banking system. Knowledge of the transmission substantially helps us to calculate the pass‐through interest rate margin or mark‐up in the banking systems under examination (USA, Canada, the UK and the Eurozone). The selection of the wholesale interest rate is also an important part of this pass‐through transmission framework because it is related to the money supply process and therefore the central bank's policy capabilities. In the empirical part, a Johansen (1988) cointegration based error‐correction procedure (ECM‐GE) is implemented for the wholesale interest rate selection. Then an LSE–Hendry general‐to‐specific model (GETS) is applied, for the revelation of the banking sector pass‐through interest rate behaviour. In the empirical part, on the issue of the wholesale interest rate selection, the USA and the Eurozone seem to favour the Money Market rate while the UK and Canada favour the central bank policy rate. The results indicate two types of interest rate pass‐through behaviour, with market structure implication – namely, the US and UK banking systems contrasted with Canada–Eurozone.     

Expressive Constitutionalism

We argue that the standard Constitutional Political Economy defence of constitutionalism, that derives from an argument relating to the shift from narrowly self-interested motivations in the in-period context to relatively general-interest decision making in the constitutional context, is flawed precisely because it is intended to relate to essentially political settings where decision making must be construed as collective in nature. We suggest an alternate account of expressive constitutionalism that points to a specific defence of constitutional conventions that are insulated from popular voting.     

河北省实施排污权交易的实践与反思——基于河北省满城县经验的探讨

排污权交易作为环境控制政策的手段之一,已成为备受关注的环境经济政策。河北省满城县进行了排污权交易的试点探索,在实践中存在不少问题和困惑,诸如：排污权性质、排污总量的确定、交易价格等都需要进一步研究和探讨。     

基于信息熵的三种灰色关联度在房地产住宅消费决策中的优化与比较

介绍了房地产住宅消费决策优化与比较问题的理念,阐述了灰色关联决策的基本原理和三种灰色关联度的决策方法,基于信息熵的基本原理确定了各个目标因素的权系数,建立了相应的决策模型,针对示例方案进行了分析,并作了系统的总结。     

房地产价格变动中的汇率因素分析

在构建了适合中国国情的房地产价格与汇率关系模型的基础上,利用该模型并结合2000年第三季度至2008年第二季度的最新数据,对中国35个城市房地产价格与汇率的关系进行实证研究。研究结果显示,汇率对房地产价格有负影响,这与理论和当前实际情况都比较相符,说明人民币汇率已能发挥一定经济调节的功能。     

China’s house price: Affected by economic fundamentals or real estate policy?

Many theory and empirical literature conclude that house price can reflect economic fundamentals in the long-term. However, by using China’s panel data of 35 main cities stretching from 1998 to 2007, we find that there is no stable relationship between house price and economic fundamentals. House price has deviated upward from the economic fundamentals since government started macro-control of the real estate market. We consider that the mechanism between the house price and economic fundamentals is distorted by China’s real estate policy, especially its land policy. Meanwhile the policy itself is an important factor in explaining the changes of China’s house price. Then we estimate the dynamic panel data model on house price and the variables which are controlled by real estate policy. The result shows: land supply has negative effects on house price; financial mortgages for real estate have positive effects on house price; and the area of housing sold and the area of vacant housing, which reflects the supply and demand of the housing market, has negative effects on house price. We also find some differences in house price influence factor between eastern and mid-western cities. Finally, we propose policy suggestions according to the empirical results.     

中国真实利率的平稳性和区制性:基于马尔科夫区制转换模型

通过引入三种均值方差都可能不同的区制,并基于改进的马尔科夫区制转换模型对1989年2月至2010年4月中国真实利率演变的考察,结果表明不同阶段的真实利率的确存在不同的均值和方差;考虑到区制转换特征之后,真实利率大体平稳,有均值回复趋势。而以往的应用中,忽略了这种区制转换特征可能导致对真实利率预测值的系统性偏差。     

房地产还原利率的构成与测算

从分析投资的风险补偿入手，提出了房地产还原利率的构成和测算公式，同时指出了构成房地产还原利率的银行利率应是复利计算方式下，相应年期的利率，然后探讨了房地产还原利率各构成部分的测算过程，并以中国房地产市场个人住房抵押贷款市场为例，给出了不同收益年限的房地产还原利率参考数据。     

Effect of religious priming in prosocial and destructive behaviour

In this paper, we study the behavioural impact of religious priming by showing participants religious words in a scrambled sentence task before a dictator game and a joy‐of‐destruction game. We also elicited data on individual religiosity and religious affiliation using a questionnaire. Priming religious words significantly increased prosocial behaviour in the dictator game, and the effect was especially striking among those reporting no religion, atheists and agnostics. The religious prime has no significant effect in mitigating destructive behaviour or own expectations of the other's destruction choice, but both destructive behaviour and expectations correlate positively with the multi‐dimensional religiosity measure.     

Product mix,transactions and cost behaviour: a study of South African bank branches

This paper utilizes microeconomic theory and a panel data set to assess the impact of product mix and transactions on cost behaviour of bank branches in South Africa over the short and long‐term. Estimates of properties of concavity and monotonocity indicate that the cost functions of typical bank branches in South Africa are neither consistent with short‐term nor long‐term cost‐minimizing behaviour. This corroborates earlier findings which indicate that South African banks have low production efficiency and high market power. In addition the cost functions and two production‐output type indices indicate that overall, the intermediation‐output type mix (foreign exchange and custodial services) has a more significant effect on cost behaviour than the production‐output type mix (cheque and deposit accounts). The variety of production‐output type services provided by a branch appears to have limited effect on costs. However the financial value of production‐output type transactions has an impact on costs while the financial value of intermediation type products does not. Branches that provide intermediation‐output type products tend to have higher variable costs – the key determinant of costs is the number of transactions.