Short-sale constraints and informational efficiency to private information: A natural experiment

Exploiting a regulatory change in short-sale constraints (Regulation SHO) as a natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of short-sale constraints on informational efficiency of stock prices to private information. I find that short-sellers act as informed traders prior to forthcoming analyst news and trade on negative private information. When short-sale constraints are relaxed for pilot stocks (treatment group), both trading volume and stock price sensitivity increase prior to the analyst announcement for bad news but not for good news, relative to that of nonpilot stocks (control group). The findings are consistent with the Diamond and Verrecchia model that predicts that short-selling increases the speed of adjustment of stock prices to private negative information. In the cross-section, the effect of Reg SHO is stronger in stocks of firms with weak and uncertain information environments (i.e., small firms and firms with high analyst forecast dispersion).     

经济增长和人口集聚对城市环境空气质量的影响及区域分异——以第一阶段实施新空气质量标准的74个城市为例

为评估经济增长和人口集聚对城市环境空气质量的影响,寻求源头改善城市环境空气质量的可行路径,以第一阶段实施新空气质量标准的74个城市为例,基于输出导向的数据包络分析模型,以经济和人口指标为输入,以城市环境空气质量指数为输出,计算城市经济增长和人口集聚的整体效率,表征经济增长和人口集聚对城市环境空气质量的影响。结果表明:三大城市群中,京津冀的环境影响比长三角大26.0%,长三角比珠三角大11.2%;省会城市中,中部地区的环境影响最大,东北地区其次,西部地区第三,东部地区最小。快速推进的工业化和城镇化,投资拉动冶金、能源重化工产业和房地产业高速发展,土地财政助推人口密度不断提高,使得大气污染物在城市局地范围内、短时间、大量集中排放,远超城市大气环境容量,是造成城市环境空气质量明显下降的根本原因。改善城市环境空气质量,必须从环境影响源头入手,加快经济转型升级步伐,适度、有序推进人口城镇化。     

融资约束条件下我国中小板上市公司投资效率测度

文章以我国中小企业板上市公司为研究对象,从企业经理人追求利润最大化行为出发构建中小企业的投资支出模型。不同于已有文献仅从投资-现金流敏感性角度入手的实证研究,文章的研究方法无需对样本公司进行分组,而且可以定量测度融资约束条件下的公司投资效率问题。实证结果表明：由于融资约束的存在,使得我国中小板上市公司实际投资支出最优水平低;现金流的增加不仅可以缓解融资约束压力,还能够降低融资不确定性,债务融资比例越高,融资约束越大,进一步加剧了未来融资时的不确定性;我国中小板上市公司融资约束程度与企业规模呈负相关关系,且投资效率随时间呈现下降趋势,意味着近年来我国出台的一系列旨在改善中小企业融资难的政策措施,在实践中并没有起到有效缓解融资约束的作用。     

英语课堂如何通过提问提高教学效率

提问是一种古老的教学技能,它的历史比班级授课制要久远,几乎是自有教育开始就有提问存在。恰当的课堂提问不仅能巩固知识,激发学生学习兴趣,启迪学生思维,发展学生的心智技能和口头表达能力,丰富学生的认知结构,而且通过师生、学生之间的对话还能够发现问题,创造性地解决问题。而英语课堂尤其需要通过提问来提高学生的学习兴趣和教师的教学效率。文章从提问的策略、方法入手,探讨如何在英语课堂中巧妙地设计提问来提高教学效率,从而达到师生双赢。     

Trading with Tigers: A Technical Analysis of Southeast Asian Stock Index Futures

ABSTRACT

Our paper examines the profitability of technical trading rules in Southeast Asian (SEA) ‘tiger cub’ stock index futures markets during and after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007/2008. Using daily closing price data from 2007 to 2012, we explore technical trading rules such as exponential moving averages (EMA (20), EMA (100), EMA (20,100)) and moving average convergence divergence (MACD) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. The findings reveal that after applying trading rules that account for transaction costs and risk, abnormal profits cannot be achieved above a naı¨ve ‘buy-and-hold’ strategy (with the exception of EMA (100) and EMA (20,100) in Indonesia, and EMA (20,100) in both the Philippines and Thailand). There appears to be some degree of success with the application of longer-term trading rules; however, unless transaction costs can be reduced, investors are best advised to pursue passive investment approaches. Despite the economic uncertainty associated with the GFC and ongoing market volatility, it appears that SEA tiger cub stock index futures markets are weak-form efficient.     

The Workout of Banking Crises: A Macroeconomic Perspective

This paper provides a macroeconomic perspective for governmentinterventions in banking crisis. Such crisis occur when a largenumber of banks fail to meet capital requirements or are insolvent.Using a macroeconomic model with financial intermediation, ouranalyis suggests that strict enforcement of capital-adequaterules suffices in prosperous periods. Capital requirements serveas an indicator for crises interventions in critical stateswhich may require interest rate intervention and restructuringof the banking industry. These policies can be reinforced byrandom bailouts and temporary financial relief, with a largepercentage of the costs being covered by current and futureowners of banks. (JEL D41, E4, G2)     

ANALYSIS OF THE POSSIBILITIES FOR EXPANSION OF SERVICES IN TANZANIAN SAVINGS AND CREDITS CO‐OPERATIVE SOCIETIES: LEARNING FROM ECONOMIES OF SCALE

Savings and Credit Co‐operative Societies (SACCOS) increasingly recognized as the valuable tool for economic development in low‐income countries. However, recently researchers reported that one of their primary challenges to their expansion is the high level of inefficient. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between growth and efficiency of SACCOS using economies of scale concept. Then we address the role of management of the capital structure and allocation of resources in the expansion of SACCOS. The study used financial statement data from 60 SACCOS in Tanzania for the period of 2004–2011. The findings supports that most of SACCOS are small and cost inefficient because the industry is young, but, the efficiency increases as SACCOS expand. Second the allocation of resources in liquid, financial and non‐financial investment leads to no expansion in SACCOS. Thus, the growth of SACCOS via increasing loan to members, members’ savings, shares, and institutional capital should be encouraged as it increases the efficiency of SACCOS. Also, SACCOS should minimize the allocation of assets in other investments which are different from credit to members.     

技术创新、金融创新与经济增长——基于中国省际面板数据

本文从实证分析层面对金融创新、技术创新与经济增长之间的作用关系进行探讨。基于我国 2000~2015 年省级面板数据,采用GMM估计方法,利用动态面板模型进行实证检验。结果表明：技术创新对经济增长的影响显著为正,单独的金融创新对经济增长起抑制作用,二者的交互作用则对经济增长起显著性正向作用。脱离实体经济的金融创新将抑制经济增长,也会间接阻碍技术创新对经济增长的影响。本文结合当前经济形势,从金融机构与创新企业相接轨共同提高创新水平、培养创新型人才等角度提出建议。     

Determinants of total efficiency in water utilities in Mexico

By using panel data analysis across 368 water utilities in Mexico over the period 2010–2014, we find that small firms are more efficient than medium and large providers and that increasing production is associated with less efficiency. Billing, income collection and profitability are relevant factors to improve efficiency. Medium and large firms require to measure consumption by service with meters in order to increase efficiency, while small firms do not require it.     

Component efficient solutions in line-graph games with applications

Recently, applications of cooperative game theory to economic allocation problems have gained popularity. We investigate a class of cooperative games that generalizes some economic applications with a similar structure. These are the so-called line-graph games being cooperative TU-games in which the players are linearly ordered. Examples of situations that can be modeled like this are sequencing situations and water distribution problems. We define four properties with respect to deleting edges that each selects a unique component efficient solution on the class of line-graph games. We interpret these solutions and properties in terms of dividend distributions, and apply them to economic situations. This research has been done while the third author was visiting Tinbergen Institute at the Free University, Amsterdam. The research is part of the Research Programme “Strategic and Cooperative Decision Making” at the Department of Econometrics. Financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of the Russian-Dutch programme for scientific cooperation, is gratefully acknowledged. The third author also appreciates partial financial support from the Russian Leading Scientific Schools Fund (grant 80.2003.6) and Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund (grant 02-02-00189a). We thank three anonymous referees for their valuable comments.