Investor behaviour and reaching for yield: Evidence from the sterling corporate bond market

We provide evidence on how corporate bond investors react to a change in yields, and how this behaviour differs in times of market‐wide stress. We also investigate ‘reaching for yield’ across investor types, as well as providing insights into the structure of the corporate bond market. Using proprietary sterling corporate bond transaction data, we show that insurance companies, hedge funds and asset managers are typically net buyers when corporate bond yields rise. Dealer banks clear the market by being net sellers. However, we find evidence for this behaviour reversing in times of stress for some investors. During the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’, asset managers were net sellers of corporate bonds in response to a sharp rise in yields, potentially amplifying price changes. At the same time, dealer banks were net buyers. Finally, we provide evidence that insurers, hedge funds and asset managers tilt their portfolios towards higher risk bonds, consistent with ‘reaching for yield’ behaviour.     

Does bank ownership affect lending behavior? Evidence from the Euro area

We analyze the differences in lending policies across banks characterized by different types of ownership, using micro-level data on Euro area banks during the period 1999–2011 to detect possible variations in bank lending supply responses to changes in monetary policy. Our results identify a general difference between stakeholder and shareholder banks: following a monetary policy contraction, stakeholder banks decrease their loan supply to a lesser extent than shareholder banks. A detailed analysis of the effect among stakeholder banks reveals that cooperative banks continued to smooth the impact of tighter monetary policy on their lending during the crisis period (2008–2011), whereas savings banks did not. Stakeholder banks’ propensity to smooth their lending cycles suggests that their presence in the economy has the potential to reduce credit supply volatility.     

Cyclicality of taxes and external debt

In their work, Vegh and Vuletin have shown that statutory tax rates are acyclical in developed economies and procyclical in developing ones. This article extends their analysis by checking the interaction of statutory tax rates with countries’ external public debt. In general, we found that the value added tax rates are changed procyclically in both developed and developing countries (i.e. taxes are raised in bad times and reduced in good times). However, when the external debt is high, in the developing countries the procyclicality increases, while the opposite result holds for developed economies. This pattern occurs mainly in times of recession, when the need for loans is the highest. Although we found that there was a reduction in procyclicality after the 2000s, these findings pose a challenge to policy-makers, who should think of ways of dealing with lack of foreign funds in difficult times.     

公允价值会计计量对中国银行业的影响

随着中国国有银行的上市及公允价值在金融工具会计准则中的大量运用,公允价值计量的实施不仅孕育着巨大的机遇,而且也存在许多威胁金融安全的因素。因此,在坚持渐进式推广公允价值应用范围的前提下,必须充分考虑到公允价值的各种变量与不确定性,科学设计改革路径,使公允价值计量的风险最小化,确保公允价值计量得到有效的实施。     

政府换届、经济政策与政治经济周期

在梳理政治经济周期理论的基础上,比较中西方国家该理论前提、内在逻辑的差异,并从实际出发提出相关命题,建立计量模型,运用中国1953年～2008年的年度数据进行实证研究.结果表明,"两会"召开周期 (中央政府换届)与经济波动周期之间存在较显著的相关性;中央政府换届导致地方政府交流周期,政绩考核晋升机制使地方政府产生纵向、横向上的竞争,并形成周期性的经济发展举措,进而加大了对经济周期的影响;中央政府政治周期使财政政策、货币政策具有一定的顺周期特征,地方政府通过财政项目竞争、软预算约束以及货币信贷倒逼机制,扩大了财政政策、货币政策的顺周期性;在受到国际经济危机异常冲击时,我国财政政策、货币政策表现出平稳经济波动的特征.     

The cyclicality of bank regulation in a general economic framework

This article utilizes a representative agent model to address how the regulation policies for banks should respond to the general economic condition. With the consideration of a self-fulfilling deposit insurance facility with sufficient bank reserve to meet the expected need of liquidity shock, our model suggests a counter-cyclical capital adequacy requirement in a competitive loan market. The exception might occur when the moral hazard problem becomes very unwieldy and the representative individual is rather risk averse. With regard to the closure policy, we find that it is closely related to the individual’s degree of risk aversion. A counter-cyclical closure policy is recommended when the individual is highly risk averse. Otherwise, a pro-cyclical closure policy is preferred.     

Endogenous cyclical corporate tax burden in China: The role of tax quotas and growth targets

Using data from China Annual Survey of Industrial Firms and addressing potential endogeneity problem, we find that corporate tax burden in China is procyclical during recessions and countercyclical during booms. The cyclicality is stronger for enterprises whose corporate income taxes are levied by Local Tax Bureau (LTB). Procyclicality of corporate tax burden during recessions is larger for enterprises located in county, non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), non-high-tech enterprises and large-medium enterprises. Furthermore, tax quotas and growth targets of local governments enhance procyclicality during recessions and the countercyclicality of corporate tax burden during booms. Tax collection and government spending are important channels through which tax quotas and growth targets affect the cyclicality of corporate tax burden, respectively. This paper provides important policy implications for China during economic recessions.     

A tale of two states: asymmetries in the UK small,value and momentum premiums

This article performs comparative analysis of the asymmetries in size, value and momentum premium and their macroeconomic determinants over the UK economic cycles, using Markov switching approach. We associate Markov switching regime 1 with economic upturn and regime 2 with economic downturn. We find clear evidence of cyclical variations in the three premiums, most notable being that in the size premium, which changes from positive in expansions to negative in recessions. Macroeconomic indicators prompting such cyclicality the most are variables that proxy credit market conditions, namely the interest rates, term structure and credit spread. Overall, macro factors tend to have more significant impact on the three premiums during economic downturns. The results are robust to the choice of information variable used in modelling transition probabilities of the two-stage Markov switching model. We show that exploiting cyclicality in premiums proves particularly profitable for portfolios featuring small cap stocks in recessions at a feasible level of transaction costs.     

R&D intensity of investment across Europe before and after the crisis

In this paper we investigate the comovements between the R&D intensity of private investment and GDP growth in different European Union (EU) areas over the period 1999–2014. Our empirical analysis shows that only core countries display a common countercyclical mechanism leading to an increased intensity of R&D over prolonged downturns. The lack of an effective countercyclical pattern of R&D intensity over the evolution of GDP growth in periphery countries makes this area highly vulnerable to persistent recessions, with potentially harmful consequences for long‐term growth. For recent EU members the evidence of acyclicality should be evaluated in the light of the catching‐up process still at work in this area. Our analysis suggests that any successful EU innovation policy should not disregard the potential divergence in R&D performance due to the dispersion of the countercyclical properties of the investment intensity in productivity enhancing activities in the different EU areas.     

Fiscal Cyclicality in the Brazilian Economy: Something Is Changing

This article provides empirical evidence of the degree of fiscal cyclicality in the Brazilian economy from 2000 to 2010. The degree of fiscal cyclicality is estimated through OLS and GMM models for three different time samples with the objective of observing a change in the stance in the conduct of fiscal policy. The fiscal policy from January 2000 to December 2010 was countercyclical. However from 2000 to 2007 the search for credibility implied a cyclical fiscal policy. In contrast, after 2007, the possibility of using a countercyclical fiscal policy became feasible.