The Rise (and Decline?) of Arab Aid: Generosity and Allocation in the Oil Era

Among non-DAC donors, wealthy Arab states are some of the most prolific contributors of foreign aid. Despite this, relatively little is known about Arab foreign aid. The OECD development database offers a paucity of information, aggregating data for “Arab countries” and “Arab agencies,” without identifying the constituent units of either. A further complication is that Arab donors are not uniformly transparent about their aid efforts, publicizing some of them while keeping other donations secret. In this paper, we advance the state of knowledge of Arab foreign aid in a number of ways. We use AidData to document the trends in reported donations from specific bilateral donors (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) and multilateral agencies (Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, OPEC’s Fund for International Development, and the Islamic Development Bank). Notably, Arab bilateral donors have given less generously over time with aid levels remaining relatively stable despite skyrocketing national wealth. We explore reasons for this decline, including that Arab donors have: shifted their giving from bilateral to multilateral channels, given less as DAC donors have given more, and increased domestic spending at the expense of foreign aid with a view to safeguarding regime security. In addition, we look at the sectoral allocations of Arab bilateral and multilateral organizations, and compare the aid practices of Arab donors to their DAC counterparts. Finally, we suggest why an exclusive focus on aid commitments is problematic where Arab aid is concerned.     

Central Bank Transparency and the Crowding Out of Private Information in Financial Markets

We use an asset market model based on Diamond (1985) to demonstrate that increased central bank transparency may lead to crowding out of costly private information, which can result in a market that is less able to predict monetary policy. Consequently, for intermediate levels of public information precision, it is optimal for the central bank to actually disclose less than it knows. We show that such crowding out can occur, even in the likely scenario that public information is more precise than private information, under the plausible assumption that traders are nearly risk neutral. Central banks should be aware of possible adverse effects of transparency and take note if market participants reduce investment in information.     

政府公共治理、财政透明与企业投资效率

近期的研究支持了转型经济条件下政府与企业之间的密切联系,但却少有研究关注政府公共治理效力对微观企业的影响。基于此,本文以地方政府财政透明度为对象,将政府公共治理因素纳入到企业行为的分析中,观察其对企业投资效率的影响。本文发现,与央企和民企相比,地方政府财政透明度的增加更有助于提高地方国有企业的投资效率;地方政府财政透明度的增加对地方国有企业的过度投资具有更强的抑制作用。本文的研究提供了政府公共治理影响企业价值的经验证据,丰富了转型经济条件下政府——企业的行为分析框架。并且本文对推进财政信息公开、加强社会主义民主制度和责任型政府建设,亦具有积极的实践指导价值。     

当前国际政府债务问题的影响与警示

为应对席卷全球的国际金融危机,各国政府纷纷采取经济刺激措施,代替民间企业和金融机构承担危机成本,这不可避免带来一定的政府债务问题。随着时间的推移,部分政府债务问题逐步凸显,成为全球经济走出危机阴影的障碍。文章分析认为,当前国际上政府债务问题呈现脆弱性、复杂性、集中性和长期性特征,成为全球经济复苏的绊脚石,甚至会给世界各国经济带来灾难性影响。文章同时总结了国际政府债务问题带给我国的启示。     

美国金融监管改革对中国的启示

2010年奥巴马签署的《美国金融改革法案》旨在解决此次金融危机中所暴露出来的金融市场系统性风险,在不断推进金融创新的同时,加强对金融业的监管,最大限度的保护广大投资者的利益。该法案是近年来对美国未来金融业发展以及金融机构监管较为深远的一项改革法案。它将给中国金融市场提供有益的借鉴,要求我们既要尊重金融市场化发展规律,推进金融创新,加强市场透明度,同时也要在统一监管方面做足功课,并积极促进国内监管改革向国际接轨。     

The effect of the market-based monetary policy transparency index on inflation and output variability

This paper examines empirically the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve’s policy under different levels of transparency by using a dynamic and continuous market-based index proposed by Kia (2011 Kia, A. 2011. “Developing a Market-based Monetary Policy Transparency Index: Evidence from the United States.” Economic Issues 16 (2): 53–79. [Google Scholar]) on inflation volatility and output volatility. In theory, the more transparent the monetary policy, the less volatile the money market will be with fewer disturbances and thus the more stable will be the economy. First, a bivariate VAR-BEKK-GARCH(1,1) model is estimated for inflation and output variables in the US economy in order to produce conditional variances and covariance over the period October 1982 to December 2011. Second, by incorporating conditional variances and transparency in a VAR model, impulse response functions reveal that after a positive shock in the Federal Reserve’s transparency (i.e. market participants consider the Federal Reserve’s actions to be more transparent), there is a statistically significant decrease in both inflation volatility and output volatility. Our results reveal the dynamic and crucial role that a central bank’s transparency plays in retaining economic stability and assuring the forecasts concerning inflation and economic growth made by the economic units.     

经理管理防御、媒体监督与会计信息透明度基于中国上市企业不同产权性质的研究

以2008-2014年中国上市企业为样本,考察不同产权性质下经理管理防御对会计信息透明度的影响,并进一步分析媒体监督对二者关系的调节作用.研究发现:在国有企业中,经理管理防御对会计信息透明度具有负向影响;而在民营企业中,经理管理防御显著提高了会计信息透明度.进一步发现,在国有企业中,媒体监督能显著抑制经理管理防御与会计信息透明度之间的负向关系;而在民营企业中,媒体监督不具有显著的调节效应.     

Transparency,idiosyncratic risk,and convertible bonds

We first investigate the relationship among a company's information transparency, idiosyncratic risk, and return of its convertible bonds. The effects of a company's idiosyncratic risk on its equity's value volatility and its credit risk are also examined. The findings indicate that when a company discloses a significant amount of information, it is likely to have a higher idiosyncratic risk and a lower credit risk, with no impact on returns on convertible bonds. The volatility of stock returns is positively related to returns on convertible bonds, and it is found that diversified strategies and returns on a company's equity help to improve its credit rating and that a better credit rating triggers an increase in returns on convertible bonds and idiosyncratic risk, indicating that evaluations of the value of convertible bonds must take pure bonds and equity (option) values into account. After excluding conversion values and estimating the idiosyncratic risk on daily, weekly, and monthly bases, this study suggests that there is a positive relation between returns on convertible bonds and information transparency when estimating idiosyncratic risk on a monthly basis and that a positive association also exists between credit rating, idiosyncratic risk, and returns on bonds.     

International timber markets and tropical deforestation: the evidence from prices

Some scholars suggest that global timber markets, especially those involving high value species, are a leading cause of tropical deforestation. Despite limited empirical evidence, this hypothesis rests on the assumption that global timber markets respond to a common equilibrating mechanism that provides strong enough incentives for loggers in the tropical regions of the world. This article develops a simple model and taps into a unique data set on timber prices of hardwood and softwood in leading markets to test the global timber markets hypothesis. While we find evidence of a global equilibrating mechanism with potentially significant economic incentives to affect tropical deforestation, our results do not endorse the common conjecture in the literature that timber price shocks in developed countries lead to a homogeneous response in terms of deforestation everywhere in the tropical world. Instead, they invite further development of structural global timber market models to assess the linkages between markets and the consequences of such linkages to deforestation.