Biofuels and the poor: Global impact pathways of biofuels on agricultural markets

This study seeks to assess the future impacts of biofuel production on regional agricultural and related sectors over the next decade with a specific focus on the vulnerable regions of developing nations. Using a modification of the GTAP modeling platform to account for the global interactions of regional biofuel and food markets, the analysis shows that biofuel production levels depend on the assumption about the future price of energy and the nature of the substitutability between biofuels and petroleum-based transport fuels. Low energy prices reduce the demand for biofuels and thus require greater government support to meet the desired production targets. At the other extreme, when prices are high and there is scope for substituting biofuels for petroleum-based fuels, the volume of biofuels produced will exceed the mandates. Even when biofuels are being mainly produced in developed countries, our results indicate that there are impact pathways that extend far beyond the borders of the US, Brazil and the EU. Prices of feedstock and non-feedstock commodities rise in developing countries. There is also a rise in value added from the agricultural sector—a gain that is enjoyed by the owners of land and labor, including unskilled. Hence, to the extent that agriculture is a key sector in getting growth started and addressing poverty needs, the emergence of biofuels can (in this way at least) be a positive force.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of the double exponential jump-diffusion process

The double exponential jump-diffusion (DEJD) model, recently proposed by Kou (Manage Sci 48(8), 1086–1101, 2002) and Ramezani and Zeng (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=606361, 1998), generates a highly skewed and leptokurtic distribution and is capable of matching key features of stock and index returns. Moreover, DEJD leads to tractable pricing formulas for exotic and path dependent options (Kou and Wang Manage Sci 50(9), 1178–1192, 2004). Accordingly, the double exponential representation has gained wide acceptance. However, estimation and empirical assessment of this model has received little attention to date. The primary objective of this paper is to fill this gap. We use daily returns for the S&;P-500 and the NASDAQ indexes and individual stocks, in conjunction with maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to fit the DEJD model. We utilize the BIC criterion to assess the performance of DEJD relative to log-normally distributed jump-diffusion (LJD) and the geometric brownian motion (GBM). We find that DEJD performs better than these alternatives for both indexes and individual stocks.     

活跃因子和杠杆因子表现分析——基于A股市场的多因子资产定价研究

多因子资产定价理论是继CAPM理论之后的重大创新,也是时下资本资产定价研究领域的最新成果。本文搜集整理多因子资产定价理论的相关文献,分析梳理其发展脉络。通过理论探究,引入以市值增长率为代理变量的活跃因子和以资产负债率来衡量的杠杆因子。基于我国A股市场进行Fama-MacBeth横截面和时间序列的回归检验,发现加入活跃因子和杠杆因子后的八因子模型解释能力可以得到进一步的增强,其中活跃因子的表现显著,而杠杆因子对股票超额收益解释能力相对较弱,但仍强于六因子模型中的风格因子。     

Credit market frictions and political failure

We study how an excessively favorable regulatory environment for banks could arise even with a perfectly competitive credit market in a median voter world. In our occupational choice model with heterogeneous wealth endowments, market failure due to unobservability of entrepreneurial talent endogenously creates a misalignment between surplus maximizing reforms and reforms that are preferred by the median voter, who is a worker. This is in contrast to the world without market failure where the electorate unanimously vote in favor of surplus maximizing institutional reforms. This paper illustrates how market failure could lead to political failure even in the benchmark political system that is free from capture by interest groups.     

On the Sources of Inflation in Kenya: A Model‐Based Approach

We develop a semi‐structural new‐Keynesian open‐economy model – with separate food and non‐food inflation dynamics to study the sources of inflation in Kenya in recent years. To do so, we filter international and Kenyan data (on output, inflation and its components, exchange rates and interest rates) through the model to recover a model‐based decomposition of most variables into trends (or potential values) and temporary movements (or gaps) – including for the international and domestic relative price of food. We use the filtration exercise to recover the sequence of domestic and foreign macroeconomic shocks that account for business cycle dynamics in Kenya over the last few years, with a special emphasis on the various factors (international food prices, monetary policy) driving inflation. We find that while imported food price shocks have been an important source of inflation, both in 2008 and more recently, accommodating monetary policy has also played a role, most notably through its effect on the nominal exchange rate. We also discuss the implications of this exercise for the use of model‐based monetary policy analysis in sub‐Saharan African countries.     

客户关系与现代商业银行资产负债管理

现代商业银行资产负债管理的基本理念是以客户为中心,在不影响客户关系的基础上实现资产负债管理的目标,提出利用金融工程的剥离技术,将利率风险和部分信用风险从银行资产负债组合中剥离出来,运用套期保值技术协调风险控制和客户关系.本文指出传统商业银行资产负债管理的最大缺陷并论证了客户关系在现代商业银行资产负债管理中的重要地位.     

浅谈我国房地产政策——以房价的过快上涨所引发的思考

我国近些年来经济突飞猛进的发展,其背后房地产对CDP的拉动功不可没,特别在金融危机中,大幅拉动内需,成为我国实体经济的支柱产业,但随着需求增大,房价节节攀升,购房困难成为百姓实现小康生活的头号难题。本文就房价过高产生的原因,以及如何看待我国的房地产政策谈了几点看法,并针对高房价提出了几点对策建议。     

旅游资产证券化的多元模式探讨——以桂林旅游为例

针对旅游资产证券化模式单一的问题,本文运用广义的资产证券化理论,从实体资产证券化的角度,对国内旅游酒店板块上市公司资产证券化的现状进行了比较研究,分析了旅游上市公司在资产证券化方面普遍存在的问题,并以桂林旅游为例从旅游信贷资产证券化的角度对资产证券化模式的多元化进行了探讨,提出了桂林旅游资产证券化的战略构想。     

日本资产价格泡沫发生机制研究

资金和投资意愿是产生资产价格泡沫的充分必要条件。20世纪80年代后期,滞后的金融体制改革、歪曲的税制、日美贸易摩擦、削减赤字的财政再建计划、良好的经济状况和国家竞争力的整体上升使日本同时具备了资产价格泡沫发生的两个条件。借鉴日本的经验,通过财政、税收政策扩大市场上可投资资产的供给,同时降低预期的投资收益是防止和缓解我国发生资产价格泡沫的主要手段。     

中国资产价格膨胀与日本泡沫经济的比较与启示

近年来,中国资产价格上涨已经引起了国内外广泛关注,这与日本泡沫经济前期的情况如出一辙。_良好的经济基本面、宽松的资金面和市场信心是推动中日两国资产价格上涨的共同因素。而中日两国长期实行出口导向型经济发展战略,依靠间接融资的金融体制,成为导致两国资产价格膨胀的深层次原因。与日本相比,中国资产价格膨胀可以在较大程度上化解,不会重蹈日本资产泡沫破灭的覆辙。但短时间内资产价格过快上涨,成为经济增长和金融稳定的潜在风险,为此,中国应该积极总结日本泡沫经济时期的经验教训,从日本政府的应对政策中得出重要的启示。