The funding of subsidiaries equity,double leverage and the risk of bank holding companies

Banking groups exploit double leverage when ‘debt is issued by the parent company and the proceeds are invested in subsidiaries as equity’. Financial authorities have frequently raised concerns about the issue of double leverage because this type of intra‐firm financing appears to allow for both the arbitrage of capital and the assumption of risk. This article focuses on the relationship between double leverage and risk‐taking within banking groups. First, we discuss this relationship based on an examination of balance sheet figures. Second, we analyze a large sample of United States Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) from 1990–2014. The results show that BHCs are more prone to risk when they increase their double leverage, namely, when the stake of the parent within subsidiaries is larger than the stand‐alone capital of the parent. This paper's primary implication for policymakers is that the regulators of complex financial entities should more efficiently address the issue of double leverage, thereby limiting the potential negative consequences that arise from corporate instability.     

Environmental Taxes, International Capital Mobility and Inefficient Tax Systems: Tax Burden vs. Tax Shifting

This paper deals with the so-called double dividend of an environmental tax reform. In a model with only labor and a polluting input as factors of production, we find that society faces a trade-off between internalizing environmental externalities and raising revenues in the least distortionary way. However, if capital enters the production structure, an ecological tax reform may render the tax structure more efficient from a non-environmental point of view, thereby raising not only environmental quality but also private incomes.     

“阶层跨越”还是“阶层固化”——基于代际间经济、教育、社会地位流动的微观测度与比较分析

使用1988年、1995年、1999年、2002年、2007年和2013年中国家庭收入调查数据（CHIPS）,从经济地位、教育背景、社会地位三个维度分析我国代际间阶层流动状况。研究发现：基于经济地位的代际流动性较强,趋于"阶层跨越",但基于教育背景、社会地位的代际流动性较弱,趋于"阶层固化"。近年来,三者的流动性均出现减弱趋势。这表明,当前社会阶层之间的流动可能更多源于经济社会发展所创造的外在环境转变;相比于收入分配,社会不公平的根源可能更多来自于教育等涉及机会均等的领域。此结论在一定程度上可以为当前正在推进的教育"双减"政策提供部分支撑。未来在促进社会公平方面,相关公共政策应着重从基础教育等关乎初始机会均等的领域入手,尤其要注重惠及处于较低阶层的群体。     

The Global Preference for Dividends in Declining Markets

Investors globally prefer dividend‐paying stocks over nondividend‐paying stocks more in declining than in advancing markets, even accounting for firm‐level growth opportunities, size and risk effects. Dividend‐paying stocks outperform nondividend‐paying stocks, from 0.63% (China) to 3.79% (Canada) more per month in declining than in advancing markets. In declining markets, dividend‐paying firms outperform by more than any underperformance in advancing markets. The results are robust across dividend taxation regimes, legal environments, emerging and developed markets, periods prior to and after the 2008 global financial crisis, the exclusion of the dividend declaration month and in respect to segmented or integrated international capital markets.     

Forced Versus Voluntary Dividend Reduction: An Agency Cost Explanation

We examine whether the agency cost arising from shareholder‐bondholder conflict is an important determinant of the timing of dividend reduction decisions. Firms forced to reduce dividends owing to bond covenant violations experience lower earnings, more frequent losses, and greater earnings declines around the dividend reduction year than do firms that voluntarily reduce dividends. Relative to voluntary‐reduction firms, forced‐reduction firms have higher debt‐to‐equity ratios and managerial holdings. These findings coupled with the increased dividend payout ratios and lower announcement period returns suggest that financially distressed firms that anticipate poor performance have greater incentives to delay reducing dividends to avoid a wealth transfer to bondholders.     

Dividend Forecast Biases in Index Option Valuation

Since the early days of option pricing theory,the assumption that the dividends on the underlying stock or index over the life of the contract are known has not been challenged. We examine the sensitivity of index option prices to the assumption of dividend uncertainty. We consider a number of issues related to the forecasting of dividends and build a dividend forecasting model that passes several rigorous tests for unbiasedness. We then generate option prices using contemporary market levels and interest rates. We find that prices generated with the actual dividends are unbiased with respect to those generated using the forecasted dividends. The magnitudes of the forecast errors, however, are sufficiently large to suggest a concern, but the percentage errors are consistently small, typically amounting to less than two percent of the option price. We conclude that the convenient assumption that the stream of future dividendsis known is probably innocuous. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Note on Green Taxes and Double Dividends

Two highly influential articlesin the literature on green taxes and double dividends are Bovenbergand de Mooij (1994) and Goulder (1995). Goulder's primary concernis whether or not green tax reforms may increase welfare definedexclusive of environmental quality, while Bovenberg and de Mooijprimarily focus on the employment effects of such reforms. Unfortunately,Goulder misinterprets Bovenberg and de Mooij's results in takingthe sign of the uncompensated wage elasticity of labour supplyas being the decisive factor for whether or not welfare exclusiveof environmental quality rises under a green tax reform. Thiserror is pointed out and corrected in this note.     

中国经济的发展阶段研究

经济发展是指随着经济增长而出现的经济、社会和政治结构的变化。本文将经济发展研究分成收入、城市化、产业、消费和科技五个方面,运用多种参数指标,立足世界经济的未来与过去,得出我国经济发展的阶段、特点和规律。作者根据国内外关于一国经济发展阶段和中国发展阶段的现实,选择工业化和城市化作为核心指标,对比美国经济发展历程,得出我国经济发展处于“工业化和城市化‘双中期’区间”的判断;并在此基础上分析了“‘双中期’区间”最新时点的关键特征;概括出我国经济发展的双重性规律,提出了中国经济发展战略思路及政策建议。     

The Impact of Personal Taxes on the Firm's Weighted Average Cost of Capital and Investment Behaviour: A Simplified Approach Using the Dempsey Discounted Dividends Model

The discounted dividends model advanced by Dempsey (1996) is extended to provide a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) assessment of investment opportunities with irregular cash flows. Thereafter, the framework is extended to an assessment of the implications of government tax policy for the firm's investment behaviour. The developed framework is consistent with the empirical evidence of Poterba and Summers (1985) which — over the period of UK tax history 1950–1983 encompassing four major tax on equity reforms — observes how the related dividend and investment politics of UK firms appear to be influenced by the level of dividend taxes.