东亚股票市场的一体化及其趋势——基于股指趋同性的分析

伴随着国际资金的频繁流动,东亚金融市场成为国际证券投资的主要地区。东亚各国和地区为了使其股票市场健康稳定发展,采取了一系列措施增强其区域内股票市场的一体化程度。本文通过Johansen协整,方差分解等方法,分析了当前东亚股票市场的股票指数与两大国际股票市场(美国和日本)股票指数的趋同性,以此为基础讨论东亚股票市场的全球一体化程度与区域一体化程度。本文研究发现,东亚股票市场的一体化程度不高,但其全球化程度高于其区域化程度。     

中国在东亚国际垂直专业分工体系中的地位与政策选择

文章通过分析东亚国际垂直分工体系的形成与发展,评价了中国在东亚分工体系中的地位,认为促进区域经济一体化、加快比较优势的转化及提高吸收能力可以促使中国在东亚国际垂直化分工体系中获得更多的分工利益。     

中亚油气资源开发合作与我国能源安全战略

我国经济社会的快速发展,使得支撑经济发展的能源安全问题日益突出。我国已经成为石油气资源的第二大消费国,第三大进口国,对外依存度在未来二十年内将达50%以上。实现能源进口多元化,就能降低对外能源依存所带来的国际政治经济压力。中亚与我国毗邻,能源蕴藏丰富。我国与中亚进行广阔的能源合作,将十分有利于构建国家能源安全体系。     

2006年全球经济展望:维持增长然幅度较缓慢

预计发达国家今明两年的经济增长将减缓,发展中国家虽然保持稳健增长的态势,但增长率将从2004年的6.8%减缓至2005年的5.8%,2006年则进一步减至5.7%。中国2006年全年继续维持9%左右的经济增长不致有太大问题。唯一担心的是2006年上半年中国可能出现通货紧缩。     

Can (unusual) weather conditions in New York predict South African stock returns?

This paper investigates the explanatory power of certain weather variables, measured as deviations from their monthly averages, in a leading international financial trading centre, i.e., New York, for South African stock returns, over the daily period January 2nd, 1973 to December, 31, 2015. The empirical results highlight that these unusual deviations of weather variables have a statistically significant negative effect on the stock returns in South Africa, indicating that unusual weather conditions in New York can be used to predict South African stock returns, which otherwise seems to be highly unpredictable. In fact, a forecasting exercise recommends that a trading rule that considers those weather variables through a GARCH modelling approach seems to outperform the random walk model and thus beat the market.     

Merger and acquisitions in South African banking: A network DEA model

Banking in South Africa is known for its small number of companies that operate as an oligopoly. This paper presents a strategic fit assessment of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in South African banks. A network DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) approach is adopted to compute the impact of contextual variables on several types of efficiency scores of the resulting virtual merged banks: global (merger), technical (learning), harmony (scope), and scale (size) efficiencies. The impact of contextual variables related to the origin of the bank and its type is tested by means of a set of several robust regressions to handle dependent variables bounded in 0 and 1: Tobit, Simplex, and Beta. The results reveal that bank type and origin impact virtual efficiency levels. However, the findings also show that harmony and scale effects are negligible due to the oligopolistic structure of banking in South Africa.     

Examining dynamic currency linkages amongst South Asian economies: An empirical study

In this paper, we examine the currency market linkages of South Asian member countries using daily data from 6 January 2004 to 31st March 2016. Time invariant and varying Copula GARCH models show that South Asian countries, except for India and Nepal/Bhutan, have low levels of currency market linkages which can be ascribed to poor levels of intra-regional trade intensity and portfolio flows. We reconfirm the copula results through Diebold and Yilmaz methodology and document that currency market connectedness is very limited in the South Asian region. The trends of the fundamental determinants of currency co-movements for the South Asian member countries were compared with its neighbouring regional economic bloc in Asia which has a much longer history and a wider membership base i.e ASEAN + 6. From a comparative analysis, it was found that South Asia member states have to work on their governance parameters, improve on their trade linkages and trade tariffs and work towards greater degree of capital account convertibility with adequate safeguards to achieve higher levels of currency market linkages.     

Analysing job creation effects of scaling up infrastructure spending in South Africa

In a first for South Africa, this article draws on literature on infrastructure productivity to model dynamic economy-wide employment impacts of infrastructure investment funded with different fiscal tools. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, the South African investment plan is modelled, given the infrastructure externality. Alternative fiscal scenarios to finance the policy are modelled in the article. In the long run, unemployment decreases for all types of workers under one of the scenarios. In the short run, only elementary occupation workers benefit from a decrease in unemployment; for the rest, unemployment rises.