Permit markets,carbon prices and the creation of innovation clusters

Innovation clusters combining public and private effort to develop breakthrough technologies promise greater technological advances to slow down climate change. We use a multi-country model with an emission trading system to examine whether and how international climate policy can incentivize countries to create such innovation clusters. We find that a minimal carbon price is needed to attract applied research firms, but countries may nevertheless fail to invest in complementary research infrastructure. We construct a mechanism that leads to innovation clusters when emissions targets are set before uncertainty surrounding technological developments is resolved. It is a combination of low permit endowments for the country with the lowest costs to build the needed infrastructure, compensation for this country by profits from permit trade, and maximal possible permit endowments for the remaining countries. We outline how the EU-ETS can be further refined according to this mechanism.     

Domestic political connections and international expansion: It's not only ‘who you know’ that matters

Former politicians on the board of directors bring to the firm domestic political connections and political knowledge. Previous research has mainly highlighted the role of contacts, without fully recognizing the role of political knowledge accumulated at home. By focusing on the effect of domestic political connections on foreign direct investment, we show that domestic political knowledge also shapes foreign expansion. We argue that contacts provided by former politicians may not be useful for foreign expansion whilst their political knowledge can be of help in countries with discretionary governments and with similar institutional environments to the one of the home country.     

Effect of Price Change Alert on Perceptions of Hotel Attribute-based Room Pricing (ABP) versus Traditional Room Pricing (TRP)

Aside from marketing information on traditional room rates, hotels and online travel agents (OTAs) are trying a new pricing technique based on the attributes of guestrooms. This research investigates how attribute-based room pricing (ABP) differs from traditional room pricing (TRP) in influencing consumer reactions when consumers receive a price change alert before (vs. after) sales. Through a series of experiments, we found that TRP and ABP result in similar alert attitude, brand attitude, and visit intention for presale price change alert. However, ABP leads to more favorable results for postsale price change alert. We examined the underlying mechanism and found that perceived fairness mediates the effect of pricing strategy on brand attitude, price alert attitude, and visit intention for postsale alert only. This research provides hotel managers and OTA marketers with guidance on when to send either type of price change message to consumers.     

Risk spillover between Bitcoin and conventional financial markets: An expectile-based approach

In order to challenge the existing literature that points to the detachment of Bitcoin from the global financial system, we use daily data from August 17, 2011–February 14, 2020 and apply a risk spillover approach based on expectiles. Results show reasonable evidence to imply the existence of downside risk spillover between Bitcoin and four assets (equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities), which seems to be time dependent. Our main findings have implications for participants in both the Bitcoin and traditional financial markets for the sake of asset allocation, and risk management. For policy makers, the findings suggest that Bitcoin should be monitored carefully for the sake of financial stability.     

Increasing linkages among European regions. The role of sectoral composition

This paper analyses changes in economic regional interlinkages in Europe over time and investigates the factors that could explain the dynamics of these changes. Our four main findings are the following: (i) we detect a significant surge in regional synchronisation after the Great Recession; (ii) we identify the regions most interrelated with the rest of Europe, namely, Ile de France, Inner London and Lombardia; (iii) we find that sectoral composition explains regional synchronisation in Europe, mainly after the Great Recession and (iv) we document that sectoral composition has important implications for aggregate economic fluctuations, in particular, that similarities in services-related sectors across regions explain a nonlinear relationship between sectoral composition and regional business cycle synchronisation. We also propose a new method to measure time-varying synchronisation in small samples that combines regime-switching models and dynamic model averaging.     

Unbiased estimation of expected return using CAPM

Estimation of expected return is required for many financial decisions. For example, an estimate for cost of capital is required for capital budgeting and cost of equity estimates are needed for performance evaluation based on measures such as EVA. Estimates for expected return are often based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), which states that expected excess return (expected return minus the risk-free rate) is equal to the asset's sensitivity to the world market portfolio (β) times the risk premium on the “world market portfolio” (the market risk premium). Since the world market portfolio, by definition, contains all assets in the world, it is not observable. As a result, an estimate for expected return is commonly obtained by taking an estimate for β based on some index (as a proxy for the world market portfolio) and an estimate for the market risk premium based on a potentially different index and multiplying them together. In this paper, it is shown that this results in a biased estimate for expected return. This is undesirable since biased estimates lead to misallocation of funds and biased performance measures. It is also shown in this paper that the straightforward procedure suggested by Fama and MacBeth [J. Financ. Econ. 1 (1974) 43] results in an unbiased estimate for expected return. Further from the analysis done, it follows that, for an unbiased estimate, it does not matter what proxy is used, as long as it is used correctly an unbiased estimate for expected return results.     

Derivative activities and the risk of international banks: A market index and VaR approach

The results of a comparison of international banks using a three-factor multi-index model and a modified value-at-risk (VaR) analysis indicate that the use of options increases the interest rate beta for all banks, while both interest rate and currency swaps generally reduce risk. The results are the strongest and the most consistent for U.S. dealer banks, followed by European banks, and then Japanese banks. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the VaR approach to risk management can effectively be used by both domestic as well as international banks, although the results appear to be somewhat sensitive to the regulatory environment in which the bank operates.     

Lead markets, innovation differentials and growth

This article suggests that the specialization of countries in international trade is determined by the lead-lag market pattern of national markets. Many internationally successful innovations have been adopted first in one country while other countries initially either preferred other designs or an established product. A model for the international diffusion of innovations is presented in which nationally preferred innovation designs compete to become a globally dominant design. In this model, there are country-specific market attributes that increase the likelihood that the choice a country makes among alternative technologies is followed around the world. It is argued that technological knowledge gaps are not the origin of an international competitive advantage. Instead, a country gains a competitive advantage because a specific innovation design was adopted earlier than in any other country. This gives local firms a head start in producing, gathering marketing intelligence and securing the property rights of a globally successful innovation. In countries with lag market characteristics, domestic innovations are less likely to get adopted worldwide. Lag markets often switch from a domestic innovation design to a foreign innovation design, which increases imports. The lead-lag market explanation of trade specialization has implications for national policies. In this model domestic innovations do not always foster exports; idiosyncratic innovations induced by lag market contexts can hamper the export chances of local firms and in the end lead to an increase in imports. It is suggested that in order to increase exports, national policies have to distinguish between a domestic lead and lag market context in each industry. While in a lead market context, traditional policy instruments that enhance the rate of innovations are effective, in a lag market situation national follower strategies are more appropriate.     

《国际贸易实务》教学之"七用"谈

我国加入WTO后，对高校的国际贸易实务教学提出了更高要求，文章以七个方面总结了教学工作中的若干经验。     

Catching up with the Americans

This paper develops an international version of the consumption-based capital asset pricing (CCAPM), which we refer to as “catching up with the Americans.” Previous CCAPM research develops the concept of “catching up with the Joneses,” where a representative economic agent exhibits higher marginal utility of consumption as a result of higher past per capita consumption in his own country. Catching up with the Americans, on the other hand, is an international habit-preference hypothesis. It extends the idea of catching up with the Joneses by stating that consumers of non-U.S. countries gain higher marginal utility of consumption as a result of higher past American consumption growth. Contrary to much of the CCAPM literature, we test this version of the model using long bond rates rather than equity returns. However, like most of the previous research on the CCAPM, the catching up with the Americans model fails to explain the relationship between consumption and asset returns.