An Intertemporal CAPM Approach to Evaluate Mutual Fund Performance

Merton (1973) and Campbell (1993) have demonstrated that if an investor anticipates information shifts, he will adjust his portfolio choice today in an attempt to hedge these shifts. Exploiting these insights, we construct a new performance measure to evaluate fund managers' hedging ability. This new measure is different from two widely adopted performance evaluation measures: securities selectivity and market timing. Moreover, an econometric methodology is developed to simultaneously estimate the magnitudes of these three portfolio performance evaluation measures. The results show that mutual fund managers are on average with positive security selection and negative market timing ability. Furthermore, the mutual funds with investment style classified as Asset Allocation generally have positive hedging timing ability.     

Substitution Possibility between Unpriced Pulp and Wastepaper in the U.S. Paper and Paperboard Industry

A greater use of recycled wastepaper would preserve virgin forests as well as reducing the amount of wastepaper going to landfills. These environmental goals depend critically on the elasticity of substitution between pulp and wastepaper in producing paper and paperboard. Since most of the pulp consumed by U.S. paper mills and paperboard mills is transferred internally from vertically integrated pulp mills, the price data on pulp is not available. This paper constructs an econometric model which enables us to estimate the substitution possibility between unpriced pulp and wastepaper in the U.S. paper and paperboard industry. Empirical results show that the elasticity of substitution between unpriced pulp and wastepaper is positive, but not statistically significant.     

从进口替代到出口导向:大陆与台湾贸易发展战略的路径比较

本文从发展经济学角度对两岸从进口替代转为出口导向这一关键时期的发展路径作一比较。首先分阶段分别分析台湾与大陆各自外贸发展战略的演进历程,然后就两岸从进口替代到出口导向在路径上的异同方面进行比较。     

Ownership concentration and corporate governance practices: substitution or expropriation effects?

The objective of this study is to analyze the relation between ownership concentration and corporate governance practices of a group of Canadian companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. We rely on the corporate governance index developed by the Report on Business (ROB) in 2002. Our empirical results are consistent with the expropriation effect argument that predicts a negative relation between deviation from the one share‐one vote rule and corporate governance best practices. In this context, the dominant shareholder has incentives to maintain weak internal controls in order to facilitate expropriation. In addition, consistent with prior research, our results give partial support to the substitution effect argument by showing a negative impact of ownership concentration on the board composition subindex. Copyright © 2007 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Charging for public services: the case of utilities in Norwegian local governments

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of utility charges using a panel data set for a sample of Norwegian local governments. There is strong evidence of revenue substitution in the sense that local governments increase their utility charges when other sources of revenue (lump-sum grants and regulated tax revenue) become more restricted. Moreover, local political institutions are shown to be important: a high share of socialist representatives in the local council leads to high utility charges, whereas a strong political leadership is able to keep utility charges low.     

More Facts about Prices: France Before and During the Great Recession

Using microprice data, we document new facts on price rigidity in France: (i) each month 20.1% of prices are changed, which compares to 24.1% in the United States—excluding sales, however, the fraction of prices modified each month is about the same in France and in the United States (around 17%); (ii) the distribution of price changes is quite dispersed; (iii) the frequencies of price increases and decreases contribute a lot to inflation variations, and price increases are more frequent in January (even when sales are excluded); (iv) sales contribute significantly to the volatility of inflation but play a minor role in the transmission of macroeconomic fluctuations to prices; and (v) during the Great Recession patterns of price adjustment were only slightly modified.     

电子货币影响短期利率的实证研究:基于狭义电子货币的视角

基于电子货币的狭义定义,本文从狭义电子货币影响货币供求的角度选择影响短期利率的解释变量并构建理论模型。在控制其他影响因素后,发现狭义电子货币对30天期Chibor利率的直接影响并不显著,而主要受传统货币电子化、移动网络等支付技术发展影响的变量,如货币供给流动性、金融电子化程度以及现金漏损率与30天期Chibor利率之间存在长期协整关系,货币供给流动性、金融电子化程度以及现金漏损率对30天期Chibor利率的影响方向均为正。     

我国奢侈品税的政策效应分析

2006年4月,中国调整了消费税税目,将部分游离于消费税之外的奢侈品纳入了课税范围,其目的在于调节贫富差异,促进社会公平。究竟能否达到政策目标,由于改革时日尚短,缺乏足够的数据资料,难以进行实证检验。因此,本文主要从经济学理论方面进行分析和探讨,预期在中国当前的现实状况下,奢侈品税不仅难以缩小贫富差距,相反,还很有可能遏制国内新兴产业的发展。     

贸易战略选择:一般情形与大国情形

发展中国家普遍具有的二元经济结构的特征决定了这些国家经济发展的一个根本途径就是实行工业化。可供选择的实现工业化的手段包括出口促进和进口替代战略,而不同战略的业绩比较一直是学者们争论的焦点。文章通过一个简单的三部门模型,讨论了一般情况下不同贸易战略的绩效,并讨论了大国条件下不同贸易战略选择的特殊性以及有关我国贸易战略选择的问题。     

Fungicide resistance and misinformation: A game theoretic approach

Fungicide resistance is a serious problem for agriculture today. This analysis provides additional insight into the strategic behavior of farmers when their fungicide use generates a negative intertemporal production externality in the form of fungicide resistance. We find that when farmers encounter this type of externality, they choose fungicide levels that exacerbate fungicide resistance. We examine a compensation mechanism in which a farmer reduces fungicide use in exchange for a transfer. This mechanism reduces fungicide use; however, misinformation about the severity of fungicide resistance generates distortions. We find that one-sided misinformation could lead a farmer to choose socially optimal fungicide levels, which makes the compensation mechanism less necessary. In addition, we show that when both farmers are misinformed, the mechanism could lead farmers to choose fungicide levels below the socially optimal level depending on their pessimistic beliefs about the severity of fungicide resistance.