Exchange rate exposure and foreign exchange derivatives: do ineffective hedgers modify future derivatives use?

Recent studies examining the relationship between stock returns and exchange rate changes have provided evidence that the exchange rate exposure of non-financial companies is reduced by the use of foreign exchange derivatives. Building on such research, this study investigates whether past ineffective derivative hedging contributes to explaining future derivatives use. To the extent that companies monitor the effectiveness of their currency risk management practices, past ineffective hedgers can be expected to modify their future use of foreign exchange derivatives accordingly. In our study of 94 non-financial US multinationals, we provide evidence that the change in derivatives use from 1996–1998 to 1998–2000 can be explained in part by the ineffective hedging of currency risk in 1996–1998, controlling for variables associated with theories of optimal hedging. Additional analyses confirm that such primary results are robust to firm size, the level of foreign operations, and the use of derivatives to partially hedge currency risk. Our results imply that as exchange markets and risk management practices change, the use of derivatives to manage exchange rate risk also changes. Our contribution to this field of study is that we find evidence that past ineffective hedgers tend to increase their future use of FXDs.     

Exchange Rate Pass‐through: The Role of Regime Changes

We consider the effect on the degree of exchange rate pass‐through of the exchange rate regime in operation. We test the hypothesis that pass‐through will be lower under a float as firms may be reluctant to pass appreciations or depreciations on to their customers when there is a strong chance that they will be subsequently reversed. Taylor’s hypothesis that pass‐through will be lower in a low‐inflation environment is also considered. Both hypotheses are assessed in relation to the price of manufactured imports into New Zealand and we find that, whereas the shift to a float dramatically lowered the degree of pass‐through, the later shift to a low‐inflation regime has no significant additional effect on the pass‐through relationship.     

一个培育我国外贸新增长点的设想--发展环渤海区域外贸城市群

对外贸易的拉动作用是实现我国十六大经济增长目标的重要保证。但是，反观当前的国内外环境，我国进出口贸易的发展遇到了诸多困难。欲解决这些问题，必须进行制度创新，其中培育城市群是一种可行的办法。而环渤海区域以其特有优势，成为培育对外贸易城市群的首选。为此，我国需要在环渤海区域大力发展高新技术产业，培育产业集群，引导民营企业发展，以及发挥政府的政策作用。     

The Cost of Capital of Cross‐listed Firms

This paper analyses the cost of capital of firms with foreign equity listings. Our purpose is to shed light on the question whether international and domestic asset pricing models yield a different estimate of the cost of capital for cross‐listed stocks. We distinguish between (i) the multifactor ICAPM of Solnik (1979) and Sercu (1980) including both the global market portfolio and exchange rate risk premia and (ii) the single factor domestic CAPM. We test for the significance of the cost of capital differential in a sample of 336 cross‐listed stocks from nine countries in the period 1980–99. Our hypothesis is that the cost of capital differential is substantial for firms with international listings, as these are often large multinationals with a strong international orientation. We find that the asset pricing models yield a significantly different estimate of the cost of capital for only 12% of the cross‐listed companies. The size of the cost of capital differential is around 50 basis points for the US, 80 basis points for the UK and 100 basis points for France.     

Foreign debt and economic growth

This paper empirically examines the relationship between government foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP based on a total sample of 77 countries, as well as sub‐samples of various regions. Cross‐sectional estimates of the coefficient of foreign debt based on the total sample have a negative sign, but are not always statistically significant. Available data from African countries indicate that foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP were negatively related at a high level of significance. For industrialized and Latin American sub‐samples, this relationship is negative but statistically insignificant. The sub‐sample Asian and other developing countries show a positive but insignificant relationship. JEL classification: F34, H6, O23.     

Formal business process engineering based on graph grammars

Designing and managing a company's specific landscape and its business processes has been identified as a great challenge for several years. Business processes are highly dynamic and distributed and can only rarely be planned, modeled and analyzed completely. For a computer-aided business process system, which supports the designing and managing process, first of all a powerful uniform formalism is necessary, where all necessary knowledge concerning company's and its processes can be represented. In this paper we will concentrate on the introduction of such a formal methodology to describe business processes, company organization structures and information technology structures in one uniform formalism. The ideas we use are mainly based on methods from graph grammars, process management, Artificial Intelligence and business process (re)engineering.     

The liquidity effects of foreign exchange intervention

This paper examines the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention in a two-country, two-currency, general equilibrium model that allows for liquidity effects. Both sterilized and non-sterilized intervention operations have significant impacts on the allocation of liquidity in international financial markets. Whether intervention is successful in moving the exchange rate in the desirable direction depends upon the degree of sterilization of intervention and the intratemporal elasticity of substitution of the consumption goods. The model shows that there exist circumstances in which the response of exchange rate to intervention is ‘perverse’ as documented in the empirical literature.     

Tinbergen in De Economist

Jan Tinbergen's scientific writings cover six main areas of research. His articles in De Economist represent these areas; in some cases the contributions to De Economist were of a pioneering nature (business cycles, economic models, economic integration); in others De Economist was the first or even single outlet for Tinbergen's work. This article provides an overview of these contributions. The wide scope of Tinbergen's areas of research goes together with a unity in approach, the characteristics of which are: policy relevance, quantification and measurement, balance in analysis and presentation, and learning from experience. Tinbergen's articles in De Economist bear witness to this approach which at the time also met with scepticism and resistance as this overview shows. According to Houthakker, Tinbergen's main contribution may be that, amidst the pleas of interest groups and the slogans of the laity, an attempt is made that the voice of the professional economic researcher be heard. Tinbergen's work still sets an agenda for both economic research and policy making.     

Are emerging economies less efficient? Performance persistence and the impact of business group affiliation

By drawing a theoretical distinction between the persistence of superior and poor performance, we reconcile the conflicting predictions of the ‘revisionist’ and accepted views on the persistence of firm performance in emerging economies. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in the United States and India, we show that superior firm performance in emerging economies persists only as much as developed economies in line with the revisionist argument. We also provide evidence consistent with the accepted view that poor firm performance persists longer in emerging economies compared to developed economies. Further exploration of the latter shows that, contrary to predictions of extant theories, firms in emerging economies that are affiliated with an MNC or a business group have a greater persistence of poor performance than firms that are unaffiliated with these intermediate governance structures, and hence would be better off operating at arm's length. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

浅议现代企业的财务管理

论述现代企业财务管理的一般方法、企业目标与财务管理的关系。