Analysts' Forecasts and the Broker Relationship

Analysts' ability to forecast earnings per share has been the subject of considerable debate. A concern highlighted in previous research is the agency problem which may arise when analysts have a close working relationship with the firms for which they are providing forecasts. This paper provides evidence that this relationship does not improve the accuracy of the earnings forecasts, but stimulates optimistic forecasts. In addition, the paper examines whether firm size is a factor in forecast accuracy or bias.     

国际分散化投资与本土偏好行为——基于QDII对外投资基金的实证分析

本文运用2009年中国8家QDII基金境外组合的周收益历史数据,与基于全球29个股市指数的收益数据构建的国际投资分散化有效前沿进行比较,探讨QDII基金在境外投资过程中是否存在“本土偏好”。研究发现我国QDII基金与国际投资分散化有效边界都存在着不同程度的偏差,反映出较显著的本土偏好的投资行为。本土偏好减弱了国际分散化效果,降低了QDII基金的绩效。资本管制、交易成本和信息不对称是造成本土偏好的主要原因,因此放松资本管制,降低交易成本,降低信息获取成本,加快资本市场开放和合作能够使投资者更好地享受国际分散化投资带来的利益。     

财政分权与投资偏好的地方政府行为——基于省级面板数据的实证研究

1994年,中国政府通过分税制对财政分权制度进行了重大调整,改变了地方政府的行为约束和激励,我们观察到地方政府出现偏好投资的现象.为此,通过构建数理模型并提出两个假说,然后使用28个省份1994 ～ 2008年间的面板数据对财政分权与投资偏好的地方政府行为进行实证检验.结果发现,中央政府对地方官员任职控制力越强,地方官员的投资偏好就越大;在保持财政事权不变条件下,地方政府在财政分权中所占份额越小,其发展经济和增加投资的偏好也越大.     

Imperfect Accounting and Reporting Bias

Errors and bias are both inherent features of accounting. In theory, while errors discourage bias by lowering the value relevance of accounting, they can also facilitate bias by providing camouflage. Consistent with theory, we find a hump‐shaped relation between a firm's propensity to engage in intentional misstatement and the prevalence of unintentional misstatements in the firm's industry for the whole economy and a majority of the industries. The result is robust to using firms’ number of items in financial statements and exposure to complex accounting rules as alternative proxies for errors and to using the restatement amount in net income to quantify the magnitude of bias and errors. To directly test for the two effects of errors, we show that when errors are more prevalent, the market reacts less to firms’ earnings surprises and bias is more difficult to detect. Our results highlight the imperfectness of accounting, advance understanding of firms’ reporting incentives, and shed light on accounting standard setting.     

Gains from international monetary policy coordination: Does it pay to be different?

In a two country world where each country has a traded and a non-traded sector and each sector has sticky prices, optimal independent policy in general cannot replicate the natural-rate allocations. There are potential welfare gains from coordination since the planner under a cooperating regime internalizes a terms-of-trade externality that independent policymakers overlook. If the countries have symmetric trading structures, however, the gains from coordination are quantitatively small. With asymmetric trading structures, the gains can be sizable since, in addition to internalizing the terms-of-trade externality, the planner optimally engineers a terms-of-trade bias that favors the country with a larger traded sector.     

Rock Paper Scissors

Rock Paper Scissors is used to resolve conflict when a compromise is not possible. Individuals playing ``games' tend to have biases they prefer to play. I show that Rock Paper Scissors with biased players results in a player with a high valuation for winning being victorious with a probability greater than a player with a low valuation. Thus, it frequently achieves the efficient outcome. Furthermore, as the benefit to victory increases for all players, victory for each player becomes equally likely. Therefore, it is often efficient for minor conflicts while it performs no better than a coin-flip for major conflicts.      

“工薪族”金融投资理财行为差异分析——基于河南省1685份问卷的抽样调查

"工薪族"已经成为我国商业银行重要的理财细分市场客户群体。为分析我国"工薪族"客户金融投资理财行为和投资理财需求差异,以河南省8个市县地区为样本,采用分层随机抽样法选取近2 000名"工薪族"理财客户进行了问卷调查。调查结果表明:绝大多数"工薪族"属于风险厌恶型投资者,偏好风险较低的金融资产;但是,"工薪族"的负债比例却较高且集中在房屋和汽车等方面;中高收入地区"工薪族"更偏好理财产品,而低收入地区"工薪族"更偏好银行储蓄;低收入地区"工薪族"在投资理财时存在更为明显的从众行为。