Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991–1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks.     

中国财政性教育投资的实证分析与对策研究

在现代市场经济社会里 ,几乎所有国家的政府投资在为全社会提供教育服务方面都起着主导作用。我国财政性教育投资严重不足 ,而且教育投资结构很不合理 ,因此必须改变教育投资观念 ,切实、稳定增加财政的教育投资 ,优化财政教育投资结构     

Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers: Inflation versus Money Supply and Exchange Rate Targets

Some recent papers have shown how a simple contract can eliminate the inflationary bias of discretionary monetary policy. This paper shows that if the central banker is risk averse, a contract in terms of money is superior to one in terms of inflation. The paper also shows that, if the central banker cares about his reappointment, an exchange rate target might always leads to the implementation of the optimal policy.     

Price Rigidity and the Selection of the Exchange Rate Regime

We evaluate and qualify Friedman's, 1953, “case for flexible exchange rates” in the presence of sticky prices in a two country model. We find that a flexible regime performs indeed better when the degree of nominal price rigidity is high while a bilateral peg does better when prices are fairly flexible. This result obtains independent of whether monetary policy is activistic or not and is mostly due to the negative relationship between employment and productivity shocks when prices are relatively sluggish (Gali, 1999). A unilateral peg tends to produce the lowest level of world welfare but it sometimes represents the best monetary arrangement for the pegger. JEL Classification Numbers: E32, E52, F33, F42     

境外战略投资者参股中资银行与中国金融安全

近期，关于引入境外战略投资者是否会影响中国金融安全的讨论颇多，但研究者在讨论时所使用的金融安全概念较为模糊，不利于正确理解两者之间关系。本文从界定金融安全的概念入手，澄清了金融安全的学术含义及当前人们所关心的金融安全问题，之后对目前引进战略投资者的情况进行介绍，通过对我国的引资政策和相关数据的深度分析得出结论，认为不应该对中国金融安全过分担忧，而阻碍通过引入境外战略投资者促进银行业改革的战略。     

The Foundation and Pattern Choice for the Sustainable Development of Chinese Financial Trust Industry

Since it was resumed in 1979, China＇s financial trust industry has experienced five major improvement and rectification. With the implementation and promulgation of ＂one law and two regulations＂ and the establishment of China＇s Trust Industry Association, financial trust industry is developing into a relatively good stage. In view of practice and regular patterns of its development, we have to set up ideas of sustainable development so as to prevent the financial trust industry from involving in a circle of ＂development-- reorganization---development again--reorganization again＂. At present, the premise to realize financial trust industry＇s sustainable development is to fully understand the unique comparative advantage of financial trust industry and establish scientific market function.     

Demand‐side housing policy in Costa Rica: a response to the housing deficit

The purpose of this study was to establish what the housing needs of Costa Rica are and to assess what policies have been implemented to respond to their housing deficit. In order to answer these questions, a combined methodology consisting of primary and secondary data was used. Using open‐ended questions and a topic schedule, face‐to‐face interviews with Costa Rican housing authorities were conducted at the interviewee's work place in Costa Rica in May 2003. The most recent secondary data available in the country was used to compute the housing deficit and to study the effects of demographics on current housing needs. Sources of the secondary data were the Costa Rica Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements, and the National Institute of Statistics and Census. The Costa Rican government has made great progress in reforming the housing finance system in order to meet the housing demand of its citizens. In 2002, Costa Rica had a 75.6% home ownership rate. Yet, even in light of the housing system's current success, many social, economic and political barriers threaten to undermine its accomplishments and the peoples’ ability to obtain safe and affordable housing. The paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the current housing finance system as well as the government strategies for addressing difficulties.     

Financial Globalization,Social Exclusion and Financial Crisis

This paper suggests one set of mechanisms that ties financial globalization processes to local dynamics of financial inclusion or exclusion. Specifically, this paper explores the worldwide reconsideration of financial firms’ strategies that has accompanied financial globalization. It is shown that the neoliberal and asymmetric‐information approaches to credit markets and financial crises in developing economies overlook these dimensions of financial globalization because of their tendency to focus on representative credit markets. Banks’ strategic shift has led to the global homogenization and stratification of financial practices—and this in turn has been a key driver of processes of financial exclusion. Financial exclusion then involves bifurcation within financial markets, so that different markets serve different portions of the household and business population. This analysis suggests a reconstruction of Minsky’s microfoundational model of the origins of financial fragility and crisis, which shifts from Minsky’s emphasis on a representative borrower–lender relationship to a situation of borrower–lender relationships in bifurcated markets.     

Use of Statistics in the Monetary Policy of the Czech National Bank: The Case of a Country in Transition

In the presented text the authors judge the importance of statistics in the monetary policy of the Czech National Bank (CNB) over the course of the economic transformation process, with particular consideration of changing statistical needs and the possibilities and limits of statistical data exploitation in the monetary analyses. The importance of statistics lies on the level of collection and processing of statistical information and on the level of use of statistical methods to analyse data. Since the start of the 1990s the requirements for statistics were significantly influenced by monetary policy. In the period 1990–1997, monetary targeting was the primary influential factor. Since 1998, the monetary policy is influenced by inflation targeting. Statistical priorities switched from monetary data to economy and financial market data. Much progress has been made in the use of statistical methods for analysing data. Statistics available at present cover the CNB's standard monetary-policy requirements and are on par with those in developed countries. Its further development will reflect the standard changes taking place in the more advanced countries.     

A Study of Accountants' Judgments With Respect to the Provision of Consolidated Financial Statements

The release of the Australian Accounting Standards Board AASB 1024. Consolidated Accounts. in September 1991 represents a fundamental shift in concept, criteria and approach. The Standard is based on the entity concept and adopts 'capacity to control' as the sole criterion for identifying related entities for the purpose of preparing consolidated financial statements. A conceptual (substance-over-form) approach is used to implement the control criterion. In essence, this approach requires accountants to make professional judgments about the existence of control based on the substance of group structures and arrangements rather than their legal form. Concerns about the subjectivity and possible variability of accountants' judgments cast some doubt on the operational effectiveness of the conceptual approach. In response to these concerns, this paper reports the results of an experiment that examines the consolidation judgments accountants make in response to a number of hypothetical scenarios. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to provide some insights into the likely quality and reliability of consolidation judgments under the conceptual approach adopted by AASB 1024. The results indicate that accountants can be expected to exhibit broad consensus in their consolidation judgments. In addition, an analysis of the variables suggests that the degree of share ownership is the most significant factor in making such judgments. Nevertheless, other factors including the composition of the board of directors, the existence of a special arrangement, and interactions with the other variables also proved to be significant. Overall, the study provides tentative support for the conceptual approach adopted in AASB 1024.