From T-Bills to Stocks: Seasonal Anomalies Revisited

This paper employed eleven data series which consist of stocks, bonds, bills, equity premiums, term premiums, and various default premiums to investigate whether January seasonality reported in existing literature is robust across different states of the economy as this has important trading implications. For the periods 1926–1990, small stocks, small stock premiums, low grade bonds, and default premiums (spread between high grade, low grade and government bonds) reveal January seasonality and that the seasonality is robust across different states of the economy except for low grade bond returns and default premiums. January seasonality for low grade bond returns and low grade bond default premiums are primarily driven by results found during periods of economic expansion. Overall, January seasonality is more evident during the economic expansion periods although the magnitude of default premiums is larger during periods of economic contraction. Furthermore, prior findings of strong summer equity returns are primarily driven by the results found during the periods of economic contraction. It is also found that equity returns are generally higher during periods of economic expansion.     

Do mutual fund flows affect the French corporate bond market?

We study whether investors’ withdrawals from mutual funds affect corporate bond prices. As mutual funds have become major players in the financial markets, they are likely to exert downward pressures on asset prices when facing investors’ redemptions, particularly in the less liquid markets such as corporate bonds. We use a novel dataset on the French bond funds and show that both flows in and out of mutual funds lead to a significant effect on the corporate bond yields. This effect is asymmetric as redemptions provoke a change in yields of greater magnitude than inflows. Moreover, all corporate bonds are not equally affected by investors’ withdrawals from funds: The more a bond is detained by funds, the higher the impact of redemptions on its yield. These three results are robust to various changes in econometric specifications.     

加大生态移民力度,切实保护西部生态环境

我国西部地区生态环境呈加速恶化势态。实施生态移民 ,是保护西部生态环境和全体国民及其后代受益的一大善事。以债券方式筹资在粮足水丰的东北平原和长江中下游平原建设生态移民新村和小城镇 ,将西部生态超载人口迁入 ,从事养殖为主的多种经营活动 ,可以巩固退耕还林还草成果和促进各项林业生态工程顺利实施 ;收到开发、脱贫与生态环境保护兼顾的多重效益 ,也是合理分担保护西部生态环境成本的科学方法。     

基于KMV模型的地方政府债券信用风险问题研究

借助于KMV模型的思想建立了地方政府债券信用风险模型,进一步探讨了模型的概率分布形态以提高模型的预测精度;并在确定预测标准后,针对2009年已发行地方政府债券的部分省市计算了各地安全发债规模。研究表明,基于KMV模型的地方政府债券信用风险模型具有很强的应用性和很好的推广前景;实践中,在对发债主体进行科学选择的基础上,通过该模型能实现对发债规模的控制,达到防止其发生信用风险的可能;同时,所选样本省市(除新疆外)的预测安全发债规模和实际发债额是合理的和安全的。因此,应建立一套科学规范的地方政府债券风险防控机制,以保证地方政府债券的健康发展。