县乡财政:困境与出路

近年来,我国的财政收入以年均20%的速度增长。但在财政收入总量增长的同时,基层财力不足问题严重。主要表现为县乡财政困难和庞大的债务问题。据不完全统计,目前我国县乡政府的债务总规模在4000亿元到1万亿元之间。县乡财政困难不仅严重影响基层经济的发展和公共物品的提供,同时也制约了我国社会整体发展水平的提高,更不利于全面建设小康社会。解决县乡财政困难问题已刻不容缓。本文在考察了县乡财政困难具体情况的基础上,从我国现行财税体制、经济和社会因素等方面进行了多角度的原因分析,力图为县乡财政解困提出一些切实可行的政策建议。     

政府主导还是市场主导--我国转轨金融运行机制的评价研究

转轨过程中,我国金融运行机制是采取政府主导还是市场主导模式是经济学界争论的焦点,文章应用ARCH类模型对我国金融运行机制进行实证研究,结果表明我国金融运行机制与西方市场经济国家存在显著区别。在我国转轨的特定阶段,金融系统无法依靠自身的力量达到稳定状态,只有靠外部力量的非市场干预才能实现金融系统的平稳运行。目前在金融系统自身不具备自我稳定的功能条件下,政府的外部干预是金融系统平稳运行的前提,否则会导致金融系统陷入剧烈的波动之中。     

金融风险管理的演进:动因、影响及启示

近半个世纪以来,无论是金融风险管理的理念和组织架构,还是金融风险管理的具体内容和方法,都发生了巨大的变化。本文从金融机构对自身利益的追逐、外部环境的复杂多变、金融理论与技术的进步以及人们对重大损失性事件的反思等方面,深刻地揭示了推动金融风险管理演进的主要因素,沿着这一思路,本文进一步分析了这一演进给金融领域带来的深远影响及其对我国金融业发展的启示意义。     

可持续增长率与财务管理目标相关性分析

可持续增长率是企业现有财务资源所能够支持的销售收入的最大增长率,代表企业最适宜的增长速度。企业的财务管理目标是企业价值最大化,而决定企业价值的重要因素是由销售收入增长所带来的未来现金流量。企业以可持续增长率作为销售增长目标,有利于企业价值的持续增加;而将企业价值最大化作为财务管理目标又有利于企业的可持续增长,可持续增长率与财务管理目标密切相关。本文将以可持续增长率与财务管理目标的相关性作为研究起点,试图从财务管理目标的角度来进一步认识可持续长率。     

中国农村金融体系的资金配置功能分析

按照金融功能观,资金配置是金融体系最重要的功能.中国农村金融体系未能有效地发挥资金配置功能,是因为过去的农村金融改革主要遵循金融机构观.金融机构观使得农村金融体系不能适应外部环境,从而也就不能满足农村经济发展的需要.     

IPO anomalies and innovation capital

Innovation capital are typically expensed and/or unrecognized as assets under current generally accepted accounting principles. This results in accounting-related information asymmetry. This paper examines the association of innovation capital (as measured here by the proxies of R&D expenditures and granted patents) and initial public offerings (IPO) anomalies. These anomalies include initial IPO underpricing, duration of honeymoon (a distinct feature of the Taiwanese IPO environment), and long-term performance. The theoretical model underlying this research is a signaling model. The results indicate that more innovative firms are more likely to be underpriced, and have longer honeymoon periods than less innovative firms. Further, the more innovative firms have positive and growing long-term market-adjusted returns. This stands in contrast to the declining long-term stock performance of initial public offering firms that is evidenced in the literature. We conclude that pre-IPO research and development expenditures disclosed in the IPO prospectus, official monthly reports of newly developed patents released to the public, and the frequency of patent citations significantly signal both underpricing and future market performance of IPO firms in Taiwan.     

Monetary Policy and Financial Markets

Monetary policy and financial markets are intrinsically linked. Central banks conduct monetary policy by influencing financial market prices. Financial market prices reflect the expectations of market participants about future economic and monetary developments. Monetary policy works primarily through expectations. Transparency and credibility render monetary policy more effective. However, they are no substitutes for action. If a credible central bank uses words with the explicit aim of substituting them for action, it will risk losing credibility. To avoid what has been described as “the dog chasing its tail” problem, central banks must exercise caution in basing their monetary policy decisions on financial market information. The information about expected future developments reflected in market prices must be continuously cross-checked against economic and monetary indicators in what amounts to a “checks and balances” approach to monetary policy.     

Financial acumen, women speculators, and the Royal African company during the South Sea bubble

Price bubbles provide a unique opportunity to study the financial acumen of shareholders. We focus on the 1720 South Sea episode as experienced by the Royal African Company whose stock was more speculative than other joint stocks. During 1720 the company had a new large stock issue. This paper examines the financial acumen of those women who traded senior and engrafted stock across 1720. We find that depending on the pricing regime, these women at worst broke even on their activities or had positive speculative gains. Our findings are consistent with a growing literature on the positive link between gender, capital gains and financial markets.     

Sources of gains from international portfolio diversification

This paper looks at the determinants of country and industry specific factors in international portfolio returns using a sample of forty eight countries and thirty nine industries over the last three decades. Country factors have remained relatively stable over the sample period while industry factors have significantly increased during the last decade and dropped again since 2000. The importance of industry and country factors is correlated with measures of economic and financial international integration and development. We find that financial market globalization is the main driving force behind the changes in relative magnitude of the different shocks. Country factors are smaller for countries integrated in world financial markets and have declined as the degree of financial integration and the number of countries pursuing financial liberalization has increased. Higher international financial integration within an industry increases the importance of industry factors in explaining returns. Economic integration of production also helps in explaining returns. Countries with a more specialized production activity have higher country shocks.     

A study of earnings-management motives in the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models: The Canadian and French cases

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that potentially influence earnings-management policy with reference to the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models. Canada and France, respectively, belong to those different socio-economic environments. Earnings-management practices detected in those countries are expected to be affected by specific socio-economic features of the Anglo-American and the Euro-Continental environments. We explain earnings-management practices by incentives suggested in the literature to reveal which motives are prominent within each environment.We tested our earnings-management motives (EMM) model using appropriate panel-estimation techniques over 1674 Canadian and 1470 French firm-year observations. Our results provide evidence that incentives for earnings management for French firms are specifically linked to contractual debt costs and effective tax rate. However, Canadian firms show specific incentives matched with a dynamic capital market. Issuing equity is a strong motive for earnings management in Canadian firms.