The impacts of Hong Kong’s Currency Board reforms on the interbank market

Among the economies with a Currency Board System (CBS), Hong Kong (HK) is probably the one with the largest and most developed financial sector, as well as the highest capital mobility. Hence, studying HK’s CBS is not only crucial to HK, but also important for the understanding of the modern CBS. This paper outlines the major monetary reforms in HK since the late 1980s. The impacts of these reforms and the 1997–1998 Asian Financial Crisis are then examined empirically. We focus on the differentials between the US and HK interbank interest rates. We assume the conditional-mean equation follows an autoregressive process and the conditional-variance equation follows a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity process. This model captures the time-varying level and volatility of the differential. In light of the empirical results we provide an assessment of the reforms in HK.     

Optimal Intervention Policies for a Small Monetary Economy

We analyze the gains from trade for a small cash-in-advance economy with endogenous labor supply and learning-by-doing in the accumulation of human capital. Contrary to previous findings, we show that free trade is not optimal independently of the relative amount of cash required for the purchase of each good. Furthermore, a monetary rule à la Friedman can eliminate distortions deriving from the cash-in-advance constraint only under segmented financial markets; in any case, it cannot restore the economic optimum. Finally, we identify government intervention policies, such as wage and export subsidies, that can be welfare improving.     

Government financing in an endogenous growth model with financial market restrictions

Summary. In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth model with market regulations on explicitly modeled financial intermediaries to examine the effects of alternative government financing schemes on growth, inflation, and welfare. In the presence of binding regulation, there is always a unique equilibrium. We perform four alternative policy experiments; a change in the seigniorage tax rate, a change in the seigniorage tax base, a change in the income tax and a change in the fiscal-monetary policy mix. We find that in the presence of binding legal reserve requirements, a marginal increase in government spending need not result in a reduction in the rate of economic growth if it is financed with an increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Raising the seigniorage tax base by means of an increase in the reserve requirement retards growth and it has an ambiguous effect on inflation. An increase in income tax financed government spending also suppresses growth and raises inflation although not to the extent that the required seigniorage tax rate alternative would. Switching from seigniorage to income taxation as a source of government finance is growth reducing but deflationary. From a welfare perspective, the least distortionary way of financing an increase in the government spending requirements is by means of a marginal increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Under the specification of logarithmic preferences, the optimal tax structure is indeterminate. Received: March 20, 2000; revised version: June 26, 2001     

HEDGING STRATEGIES AND MINIMAL VARIANCE PORTFOLIOS FOR EUROPEAN AND EXOTIC OPTIONS IN A LÉVY MARKET

This paper presents hedging strategies for European and exotic options in a Lévy market. By applying Taylor’s theorem, dynamic hedging portfolios are constructed under different market assumptions, such as the existence of power jump assets or moment swaps. In the case of European options or baskets of European options, static hedging is implemented. It is shown that perfect hedging can be achieved. Delta and gamma hedging strategies are extended to higher moment hedging by investing in other traded derivatives depending on the same underlying asset. This development is of practical importance as such other derivatives might be readily available. Moment swaps or power jump assets are not typically liquidly traded. It is shown how minimal variance portfolios can be used to hedge the higher order terms in a Taylor expansion of the pricing function, investing only in a risk‐free bank account, the underlying asset, and potentially variance swaps. The numerical algorithms and performance of the hedging strategies are presented, showing the practical utility of the derived results.     

Perceptual difference of dependence and its impact on conflict in marketing channels in China: An empirical study with two-sided data

Although many firms have adopted the relational exchange or relationship marketing philosophy for developing long-term inter-firm relationships in marketing channels, the issues pertaining to channel conflict still deserve further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible impact of perceptual difference of dependence between members in channel dyads on perceived channel conflict. By analyzing paired data collected from both sides of supplier-retailer dyads in China, we test two hypotheses about perceptual difference of dependence and its impact on conflict. We found that there was considerable perceptual difference of dependence between both sides of the dyads, and that the perceptual difference of dependence asymmetry between the two was positively associated with channel conflict perceived by the supplier side. Both researchers and practitioners should be aware of such differences when confronted with channel conflict issues, especially in international channel settings.     

Global Strategy in the Internet Era

This article examines the joint effects on business strategy of the Internet and globalization. It develops a framework for evaluating how the Internet affects the globalization potential of individual industries and the global strategies that companies should adopt. The impact of the Internet will not be uniform. Not only do its direct effects vary from one industry to another, but also it speeds up globalization at different rates in different industries. The article shows how to use the Internet to support five types of global strategy: market participation, products and services, activity location, marketing, and competitive moves.     

China's health care reform: A tentative assessment

China has recently unveiled an ambitious new health-care reform plan, entailing a doubling of government health spending as well as a number of concrete reforms. While the details of the plan have not yet been completely announced, we offer a preliminary assessment of how well the reform is likely to achieve its stated goal of assuring every citizen equal access to affordable basic health care. The reform is based on three fundamental tenets: strong role of government in health, commitment to equity, and willingness to experiment with regulated market approaches. Within this framework, the reform offers a number of laudable changes to the health system, including an increase in public health financing, an expansion of primary health facilities and an increase in subsidies to achieve universal insurance coverage. However, it fails to address the root causes of the wastes and inefficiencies plaguing China's health care system, such as a fragmented delivery system and provider incentives to over-provide expensive tests and services. We conclude that China should consider changing the provider payment method from fee-for-service to a prospective payment method such as DRG or capitation with pay-for-performance, and to develop purchasing agencies that represent the interests of the population so as to enhance competition.     

Superneutrality, indeterminacy and endogenous growth

In this paper, we explore the possibility of having money as a source of indeterminacy in endogenous growth models. We adopt the simple Ak model of endogenous growth to be the main analytical vehicle whose balanced growth paths do not display local indeterminacy. Money is introduced via either a general cash-in-advance (CIA) constraint or a pecuniary transactions costs (PTC) technology. It is shown that local indeterminacy of the dynamics is due to the presence of an intertemporal substitution effect on capital accumulation that works against and dominates the conventional inflation effect of Tobin [1965, Money and economical growth. Econometrica 33(4), Part 2, 671]. If money is growth-rate superneutral, then the intertemporal substitution effect is absent so that local indeterminacy cannot occur. Finally, the strength of the intertemporal substitution effect depends positively on the intertemporal elasticity of substitution in consumption.     

Industry drivers of global strategy and organization

This article reports on a research study of how 18 worldwide businesses belonging to some of the largest American multinational companies responded in their strategies to industry globalization forces. The findings reveal some effective approaches, but at the same time show that most of these businesses lagged in their response. In particular, organizational, managerial and cultural barriers to implementation hampered efforts to change. This article develops a series of lessons on how multinational companies can improve their formulation and implementation of global strategy. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.