Open economy and financial burden of corruption: theory and application to Asia

We discuss why corruption remains high and show that corruption contributes to the Banking distress and to the rapid transmission across international stock and currency markets. Undeveloped ‘derivative securities’ markets make the risk from stress-induced volatility difficult to manage. Vinod’s (1999) closed economy model is extended to indicate the asymmetry of ‘home bias’ and the effect of corruption on the value at risk (VaR). Our theory predicts that capital flight controls will be many, foreign direct investment (FDI) will be low and cost of capital will be high in corrupt developing countries, which is supported by Asian data. We include some policy recommendations regarding financial institutions and markets.     

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.     

Consumption and stock markets in Asian economies

This paper investigates the causal links between stock market performance and consumption for five Asian economies by applying the bound tests of Pesaran et al. and lag augmented VAR of Toda and Yamamoto . We find two‐way causal relationships between stock market performance and consumption in the cases of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the long run. The existence of such two‐way causal links indicates that stock market performance and consumption mutually affect each other, implying that the previous studies may have overestimated the wealth effect of the stock markets without taking account of the reverse causation from consumption to the stock markets. The short‐run effect of the stock market on consumption is more visible than the long‐run effect in most of the sample economies, suggesting that changes in consumption directly reflect stock market fluctuations.     

Operations of a Pension Fund after the Asian Crisis: The Thai Experience*

During and after the Asian crisis, institutional investors and pension funds in Asian financial markets have been confronted with a number of difficulties effecting their performance and the way they carry out their role within the national pension system. We analyze these problems by comparing the actual investment policy of an institutional investor with an optimal investment strategy derived from the insights of modern portfolio theory. We also analyze whether the organizational set‐up of a pension fund allows it to adequately perform its role within the pension system. As an example, we examine the operations of the Thai Government Pension Fund (GPF). We find that allowing international investments and reducing restrictions on equity investments while lowering the implicit requirements for investments in government debt would allow the GPF to further diversify its investment risk and to increase its risk‐adjusted return. We also show that some changes in the governance structure of the GPF would lower the occurrence of conflicts of interest for the management and increase the efficiency of the GPF operations.     

Small dimension PDE for discrete Asian options

This paper presents an efficient method for pricing discrete Asian options in presence of smile and non-proportional dividends. Using an homogeneity property, we show how to reduce an n0 dimensional problem to a one- or two-dimensional one. We examine different numerical specifications of our dimension reduced PDE using a Crank–Nicholson method (interpolation method, grid boundaries, time and space steps) as well as the extension to the case of non-proportional discrete dividends, using a jump condition. We benchmark our results with Quasi Monte-Carlo simulation and a multi-dimensional PDE     

亚洲金融危机之后的深层思考

进入20世纪90年代以来,全球各类金融危机频频发生。影响国际经济金融秩序的因素发生了新变化,目前的国际金融秩序已经不能适应国际政治格局和经济、技术发展趋势,不能适应调整当前国际金融关系的需要,必须进行变革,并建立公正、合理的国际金融新秩序。     

The hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth in Asian countries - evidence using an asymmetric cointegration approach

ABSTRACT

This study examines the four commonly tested hypotheses in hydroelectricity consumption – economic growth literature for 12 Asian countries. Our results from a recently developed hidden cointegration technique uncover rich and significant relationships between negative and positive components of the variables under consideration. In particular, we find evidence to support the neutrality hypothesis in five countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand), the growth hypothesis in four countries (India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan), and both growth and conservation hypotheses in three countries (China, Malaysia, and New Zealand). These findings suggest that appropriate economic policies should be elaborated on the basis of the country’s specific hydroelectricity consumption–growth nexus. Finally, our new evidence suggests that the lack of stable relationship between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth documented in previous studies for some of these countries could be due to the failure to properly account for the nonlinearity property in the data.     

Valuation of commodity derivatives in a new multi-factor model

This paper extends existing commodity valuation models to allow for stochastic volatility and simultaneous jumps in the spot price and spot volatility. Closed-form valuation formulas for forwards, futures, futures options, geometric Asian options and commodity-linked bonds are obtained using the Heston (1993) and Bakshi and Madan (2000) methodology. Stochastic volatility and jumps do not affect the futures price at a given point in time. However, numerical examples indicate that they play important roles in pricing options on futures. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An outcome-based assessment of international transfer pricing policy

Instead of concentrating on the selection of the optimal transfer pricing method, this paper focuses on the consequences of international transfer pricing for multinational entities. A sample of U.S.-based multinational firms is employed to determine if transfer pricing results in measurable financial outcomes. Results of the study indicate that firms employ international transfer pricing to meet a variety of objectives. The dollar value of international transfers and the foreign sales percentage are both significant explanatory variables for the financial outcomes of these objectives.     

中国与东南亚国家贸易潜力及影响因素研究——基于随机前沿引力模型

运用时变随机前沿引力模型和贸易非效率模型,以1998-2016年中国及东南亚九个国家面板数据为样本,测度中国对东南亚国家出口贸易潜力,并分析其主要影响因素。结果表明：1998-2016年中国对东南亚国家出口贸易潜力呈现先上升后下降趋势,依然有较大提升空间,中国对东南亚国家出口贸易潜力差异较大。航空运输货运量、货币自由度、财务自由度、商业自由度及世界贸易组织成员国均对出口贸易非效率具有显著的影响。