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.     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.     

Panel LM unit root tests with level and trend shifts

This paper considers a Lagrange multiplier (LM) based panel unit root test that allows for heterogeneous structural breaks in both the intercepts and slopes of a series. We note that many popular time series variables are likely to exhibit changing means and/or trends over time. Given that the usual tests will depend on the nuisance parameters indicating the locations of the trend breaks, we adopt a transformation procedure that makes our new panel unit root tests invariant to the nuisance parameters. To illustrate the importance of the power gain provided by our test, we examine the convergence hypothesis using relative ratios of per capita health care expenditures in 20 OECD countries. Our results provide evidence that the convergence hypothesis is supported.     

Re‐vitalizing money demand in the Euro area. Still valid at the zero‐lower bound

The analysis of monetary developments has always been a cornerstone of the ECB's monetary analysis and, thus, of its overall monetary policy strategy. In this respect, money demand models provide a framework for explaining monetary developments and assessing price stability over the medium term. It is a well‐documented fact in the literature that, when interest rates are at the zero‐lower bound, the analysis of money stocks become even more important for monetary policy. Therefore, this paper re‐investigates the stability properties of M3 demand in the euro area in the light of the recent economic crisis. A cointegration analysis is performed over the sample period 1983 Q1 and 2015 Q1 and leads to a well‐identified model comprising real money balances, income, the long‐term interest rate and the own rate of M3 holdings. The specification appears to be robust against the Lucas critique of a policy dependent parameter regime, in the sense that no signs of breaks can be found when interest rates reach the zero‐lower bound. Furthermore, deviations of M3 from its equilibrium level do not point to substantial inflation pressure at the end of the sample. Excess liquidity models turn out to outperform the autoregressive benchmark, as they deliver more accurate CPI inflation forecasts, especially at the longer horizons. The inclusion of unconventional monetary policy measures does not contradict these findings.     

正交实验设计方法在B to B电子商务体系质量改进中的应用

电子商务在全球快速地发展，中国企业面临着由B to C方式向B to B方式的转变，本文采用正交实验设计的方法来解决已建成电子商务体系的质量，以满足新的需求。     

我国B2C电子商务支付方式及信用风险分析

个人支付是开展B2C电子商务的必备条件，是制约中国B2C电子商务发展的瓶颈之一。本文介绍了目前国内的支付体系和B2C电子商务支付方式，从交易的信用风险角度分析了我国B2C电子商务支付现状的成因，并提出了初步对策。     

Programme Evaluation with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Selective Implementation: The Mexican PROGRESA Impact on Child Nutrition

This paper considers the impact of Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación ( PROGRESA ), a large Mexican rural anti-poverty programme that had an evaluation sample in which overall treatment was randomly assigned to some communities but not others, on child nutrition. When we examine the impact of PROGRESA based on the presumption of randomized allocations, we find that PROGRESA had no or even a negative impact on child nutrition. However, not all children designated to receive nutritional supplements actually did so. Our preferred estimates – child fixed-effects estimates that control for unobserved heterogeneity that is correlated with access to the supplement – indicate a significantly positive and fairly substantial programme effect of the nutritional supplements on children 12–36 months. They imply an increase of about a sixth in mean growth per year for these children and a lower probability of stunting. Effects are somewhat larger for children from poorer communities but whose mothers are functionally literate. The long-term consequences of these improvements are non-trivial; its impact working through adult height alone could result in a 2.9% increase in lifetime earnings.     

葡萄球菌肠毒素B抗肿瘤作用的实验研究

探讨了葡萄球菌肠毒素B(SEB)对动物移植性肿瘤的抑制作用。以小鼠移植性肿瘤肝癌(Heps)、L2网织细胞瘤和肉瘤180(S180)为模型,环磷酰胺为阳性对照组,生理盐水为阴性对照组,观察不同剂量(5、10和20ng·Kg-1·d-1)SEB的抗肿瘤作用。不同剂量的SEB对小鼠肝癌(Heps)有明显抑制作用,抑瘤率分别为44.6%、46.7%和51.8%(P值均<0.05),对小鼠L2网织细胞瘤也有一定的抑制作用,抑瘤率分别为17.4%、44.7%(P<0.05)和44.1%(P<0.05)。SEB对小鼠S180的抑制作用不显著。结论是葡萄球菌肠毒素B(SEB)具有抗肿瘤效应,可作为一种有前途的抗肿瘤制剂进行研究。     

Market microstructure in a global B2B network

On‐line marketplaces raise several interesting issues, among them the relevance of location when content is digitized, and the assessment of a supplier's capabilities when buyers worldwide only have electronic contact with sellers. In global B2B on‐line marketplaces, market microstructures, i.e. which firms compete for the same customers, are thus likely to be influenced by how customers value location and firm capabilities in their decisions to do business with different suppliers on‐line. We suggest that both these sets of attributes will continue to matter on‐line—firms possessing similar capabilities, as well as firms that are similar in location by country, time zones or clusters, will compete for business from the same customers. We model the similarity in competitive positions between pairs of firms based on the overlap in their customer networks, using data on actual interactions between supplier and customer banks on an electronic trading system. Using QAP network regression techniques on the 100 largest banks in this industry, we find that similarity in capabilities influences who competes with whom, and that location still matters in a global B2B exchange. Interestingly, location influences who a firm's competitors are, but not where its customers are from. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LIQUIDITY AND THE INFORMATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF AFRICAN STOCK MARKETS

The hypothesis that a stock market price index follows a random walk is tested for 11 African stock markets, Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe using joint variance ratio tests with finite-sample critical values, over the period beginning in January 2000 and ending in September 2006. The iid random walk hypothesis is rejected in all 11 markets. In four stock markets, Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia and South Africa, weekly returns are a martingale difference sequence. Liquidity is an important factor which contributes to whether a stock market follows a random walk.