The ‘real’ explanation of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle

This article shows that global capital markets cannot, by themselves, achieve net transfers of financial capital between countries and that both the integration of global financial markets and the integration of global goods markets are needed to achieve net transfers of capital between countries. Frictions (barriers to mobility) in one or both of these markets can impede net transfers of capital between countries, produce the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) results and prevent real interest rates from being equalized across countries. Moreover, there is empirical evidence that barriers to the mobility of goods and services are an important obstacle to international capital mobility.     

The ‘real’ explanation of the PPP puzzle

This article shows that global financial markets cannot, by themselves, achieve net transfers of financial capital and real interest rate equalization across countries and that the integration of both global financial markets and global goods markets is needed to achieve net transfers of capital and real interest rate equalization across countries. Thus, frictions (barriers to mobility) in one or both of these markets can impede the net transfer of capital between countries, produce the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) finding of high-saving-investment correlations and prevent real interest rates from being equalized across countries. Moreover, frictions in global goods markets can explain why real exchange rates deviate from purchasing power parity (PPP) for extended periods of time and can therefore also explain the PPP puzzle. Consequently, we are able to resolve two of Obstfeld and Rogoff’s (2000) ‘6 major puzzles in macroeconomics’ with essentially the same explanation.     

Productivity growth of the cities of Jiangsu province,China: a Kaldorian approach

This paper considers the determinants of economic growth of the cities of Jiangsu province, China, adopting a Kaldorian approach. It is found that there is a close correlation between the growth of non-industry and industry (Kaldor’s first law) that provides indirect evidence for the export-base theory. The paper discusses two competing explanations of the foundations of the Verdoorn law (Kaldor’s second law), which, in its simplest form, is the relationship between industrial productivity and output growth. It also considers the static–dynamic Verdoorn law paradox. This arises from the fact that estimating the Verdoorn law in log-levels often gives statistically insignificant estimates of the Verdoorn coefficient while the use of growth rates gives significant values of around one half. The results show that this does not occur when data for the cities are used. A plausible explanation for the paradox is that it results from spatial aggregation bias. It is also found that inter-province urban productivity disparities first increase, but subsequently decrease over the period considered.     

A Foundational Justification for a Weighted Likelihood Approach to Inference

Two types of probability are discussed, one of which is additive whilst the other is non-additive. Popular theories that attempt to justify the importance of the additivity of probability are then critically reviewed. By making assumptions the two types of probability put forward are utilised to justify a method of inference which involves betting preferences being revised in light of the data. This method of inference can be viewed as a justification for a weighted likelihood approach to inference where the plausibility of different values of a parameter θ based on the data is measured by the quantity q (θ) = l ( , θ) w (θ), where l ( , θ) is the likelihood function and w (θ) is a weight function. Even though, unlike Bayesian inference, the method has the disadvantageous property that the measure q (θ) is generally non-additive, it is argued that the method has other properties which may be considered very desirable and which have the potential to imply that when everything is taken into account, the method is a serious alternative to the Bayesian approach in many situations. The methodology that is developed is applied to both a toy example and a real example.     

Multinationals' diversification and the risk-return trade-off

This paper advances a theoretical rationale to explain Bowman's paradox (1980) that firms with high returns can have low risk. Here we draw on the rich body of international management research and argue that global market diversification, which provides firms with three distinct options and opportunities over domestic firms, can explain the high return-low risk profile. We also argue that no strong theoretical rationale exists in support of either related or unrelated product diversification generating such a favorable risk-return profile. By integrating both the product and the global market dimension of diversification into our analyses and by controlling for the industry effect, this paper sheds new light on the relationship between corporate diversification and the risk-return tradeoff. The results of this research, which are based on the diversification experiences of 125 multinationals, reveal the strikingly important, though so far overlooked, role that global market diversification plays in the joint management of corporate risk and return. Global market diversification here reflects both the multiplicity of international market areas in which a firm operates and the distribution pattern of a firm's industries across these multiple areas.     

信用悖论及其解决

信用悖论是银行业在其信用风险管理过程存在的较大问题:保持良好的客户关系与分散信用风险之间的矛盾。笔者考察和研究了运用现代资产组合理论进行风险分散化贷款组合管理的KMV模型和以金融创新——信用衍生品进行对冲组合管理的理论和实践。     

Sunspot equilibria and the transfer paradox

Summary. We show that for international economies with two countries, in which agents have additively separable utility functions, the existence of sunspot equilibria is equivalent to the occurrence of the transfer paradox. This equivalence enables us to provide some new insights on the relation of the existence of sunspot equilibria and the multiplicity of spot market equilibria.Received: 1 October 2003, Revised: 1 April 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: C62, D52, F3, F20, 012.Correspondence to: Thorsten HensWe would like to thank Anke Gerber for carefully checking and improving our arguments. Moreover, we are grateful to Piero Gottardi for his encouragement and his comments, to Andreu Mas-Colell and Mike Jerison for very fruitful discussions and to Klaus Schenk-Hoppé for his support in using . All remaining errors are ours.     

An Outline of the Mathematical Theory of Democracy and Its Applications

This paper summarizes the authors studies in mathematical theory ofdemoocracy (Tanguiane 1991, 1993, 1994, 1997). The main consideration is theformalization of the notion of representativeness measured by the weight ofthe coalition represented in each event of decision making. Therepresentativeness is used to estimate the quality of individualrepresentatives (president) and two forms of representative bodies likecabinet (named by analogy with the cabinet of ministers) and council(parliament). In particular, we suggest a solution to Arrows paradox byproving that there always exists an Arrovian dictator who is morerepresentative of the society than a dictator in a proper sense. We alsooutline possible applications of the model to Gallup polls, multicriteriadecision making, and analysis of political situations.     

近代中国农业合作金融制度的演进--基于国家与社会之间关系视角的研究

近代中国的农业合作金融制度对当时农村的社会经济发展产生过重大影响,但并没有取得预期的效果。文章从国家与社会之间的关系视角来考察近代中国农业合作金融制度的演进历程,试图从制度演进角度来展现近代中国农业合作金融的全貌。研究表明：（1）近代中国的农业合作金融先后经历了三种不同的制度模式,即北洋政府时期的社会引动与农民自动型制度、南京国民政府前期的国家和社会引动以及社会自动型制度、南京国民政府后期的国家代动与农民被动型制度;（2）无论哪一种制度模式,虽然起到了缓解农村金融枯竭、打击传统高利贷和促进农村经济发展的作用,但又都未能跳出合作金融悖论的怪圈,而合作金融悖论导致近代中国合作金融制度背离了“草根金融”的本质并最终走向失败。文章为当前我国如何构建合适的新型农村金融体系提供了一定的历史借鉴。     

Procurement bidding with restrictions

In many procurement situations with simultaneously offered projects, firms face participation restrictions and can bid only on a subset of the projects. This phenomenon is prevalent in a variety of observed situations such as bidding for private label supplies, business to business procurement or government projects. We show that for the case of n bidding firms where each is restricted to bid on a subset of the offered projects, there exists a symmetric equilibrium in which each bidder has a positive expected equilibrium profit. Prices are bounded away from marginal costs even if all the bidders are homogenous. This results from the fact that there is a positive probability that each firm will find itself in the position of being the sole bidder on a project. While the equilibrium probability of bidding on a project increases with its value, it is interesting to note that the bidding probability on the projects approaches an equiprobable one as the number of bidding firms increases. We find that the equilibrium profits decrease as firms are able to bid on more of the available projects. In contrast, bidder commitment to bid on specific projects increases the equilibrium profits of all firms. We also examine the effect of heterogeneity on equilibrium profits. Greater heterogeneity in the project valuations leads to lower firm profits. On the other hand, heterogeneity among bidders in terms of the number of projects that they are constrained to bid on leads to greater profits for the firms that can bid on more projects (regardless of the mix of the firms in the industry.) Finally, we analyze the effect of uncertainty in project valuations and show greater uncertainty in project valuations (as represented by a mean preserving spread) decreases the equilibrium profits. We conclude with an empirical analysis of bidding behavior that tests the predictions of the theory. We find that the probability of bidding on a particular project is increasing in its value, decreasing in the other projects values and decreasing in the number of bidding subjects. Furthermore, the value of the bids on a project increase with its valuation and decrease with the total number of bidders.