A new perspective on the exporter productivity premium: online trade

We use a unique firm-level data set including 9000 companies from 26 European Union countries covering four different sectors to take a close look at the relationship between online exports and productivity. The online exporter productivity premium is estimated using different techniques (ordinary least squares, quantile regressions and robust estimation). Results consistently indicate that the estimated online exporter productivity premium is statistically different from zero, positive and significant from an economic point of view. European online exporters, according to these results, are approximately 2% more productive than non-online exporters. Productivity differences between firms could be related to variables that are not included in the empirical model. More research would be needed to address this issue in the future.     

Predicting the equity market with option-implied variables

We comprehensively analyze the predictive power of several option-implied variables for monthly S&P 500 excess returns and realized variance. The correlation risk premium (CRP) and the variance risk premium (VRP) emerge as strong predictors of both excess returns and realized variance. This is true both in- and out-of-sample. Our results also reveal that statistical evidence of predictability does not necessarily lead to economic gains. However, a timing strategy based on the CRP leads to utility gains of more than 5.03% per annum. Forecast combinations provide stable forecasts for both excess returns and realized variance, and add economic value.     

On the test of the correction mechanism for mis-pricing between assets using a statistical yield spread model

This paper investigates the existence of a correction mechanism for mis-pricing between Japanese stock and bond. By this correction mechanism we mean that when deviations occur from the equilibrium levels of the expected return differentials between stock and bond — the risk premium differentials, the market will tend to correct the mis-pricing and bring the expected return differentials back to the equilibrium levels. We assume that the yield spread between the predicted earnings price ratio of stock and the yield to maturity of bond reflects the risk premium between stock and bond, and estimate the equilibrium risk premium differentials and mis-prices between stock and bond by modelling their behaviors with a statistical yield spread model (SYS). Empirical results strongly indicate the existence of the mis-pricing correction mechanism, suggesting the inefficiency of securities markets.     

The Structural Relation Between Mortgage and Market Interest Rates

This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between primary and secondary mortgage markets and the short-term and long-term market interest rates. Using a series of monthly data on fixed rate mortgage rates and GNMA rates, we explore the dependence and speed of adjustment in these primary and secondary mortgage rates to each other as well as to the long and short-term government rates. The results indicate that residential mortgage rates in general, appear to follow the long-term rate and are not very sensitive to movements in the short-term interest rate.     

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.     

Myopic loss aversion and the equity premium puzzle reconsidered

Benartzi and Thaler [The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (1995) 73–92] offer a quasi-rational explanation for the equity premium puzzle. We reconsider their methodology and, making a simple modification to it, find that their analysis is not robust.     

DEFAULT RISK AND DIVERSIFICATION: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS

Recent advances in the theory of credit risk allow the use of standard term structure machinery for default risk modeling and estimation. The empirical literature in this area often interprets the drift adjustments of the default intensity's diffusion state variables as the only default risk premium. We show that this interpretation implies a restriction on the form of possible default risk premia, which can be justified through exact and approximate notions of "diversifiable default risk." The equivalence between the empirical and martingale default intensities that follows from diversifiable default risk greatly facilitates the pricing and management of credit risk. We emphasize that this is not an equivalence in distribution, and illustrate its importance using credit spread dynamics estimated in Duffee (1999) . We also argue that the assumption of diversifiability is implicitly used in certain existing models of mortgage-backed securities.     

当前经济环境下的注册会计师诚信建设

在当前经济环境下,随着审计市场竞争的加剧,注册会计师行业遭遇到了严重的诚信危机。审计市场的逆向选择现象在一定范围内存在,起到了不良的示范效应。只有从外因与内因这两个方面入手,不断完善注册会计师行业的诚信环境以及加强从业人员自身的诚信意识,才能促进注册会计师行业得到更健康长远的发展。     

债券溢折价实际利率摊销法的再探讨

基于实际利率法的两项基本规定推论出债券溢折价摊销额、利息收入、债券投资账面价值的计算规律,据此认为实际利率法是一种集精确性与简便性为一体的摊销方法,并非会计界认为的二者不可兼得。     

电子商务网上交易的信用查询研究

目前制约我国电子商务发展的诸多因素中，信用缺失问题是最主要的原因。信用问题的核心是信用信息的真实性，而对这种真实性进行信用查询的目标是为了降低买卖双方在网上交易过程中的风险。我们可以利用互联网技术在信息传播方面即时性、广延性的特点和优势，在电子商务平台上构建信用查询体系，来降低交易风险。从信息组织的角度对信用及信用查询体系作了初步探讨，分析了电子商务环境下信用的特点及组织实施信用查询所涉及的主要技术和方法。