Leaving state sector employment in Russia

I analyse the reallocation of labour and human capital from the state sector to the non‐state sector and non‐employment in Russia. I use a nationally representative household dataset, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to study sectoral mobility in early transition using summary measures of mobility and multivariate discrete choice models. The results show that sectoral mobility varies between different skill groups, and in particular that those with university education, with supervisory responsibility and in white‐collar occupations are less likely to leave state jobs for both non‐state employment and non‐employment. The results suggest that in the early stages of transition in Russia mismatch of skills across state/non‐state employment was significant and that non‐state employment consisted mostly of low skill, ‘bad’ jobs.     

Replacement Investment: Optimal Economic Life Under Uncertainty

Replacement investment is essentially a regenerative optimal stopping problem; that is, the key decision concerns when to terminate the life of existing plant – and hence when to start over again. This paper examines this optimisation problem within a continuous time framework and studies the qualitative and quantitative impact of uncertainty on the timing of new investment (and the criteria that should be used for terminating the life of existing plant).     

How Issue Size, Risk, and Complexity are Influencing External Financing Costs: German IPOs Analyzed from an Economies of Scale Perspective

This paper is focused on the cost of raising capital in Germany. A cross-sectional analysis of flotation cost data for 117 IPOs over the years 1993–1998 is presented. We find average flotation costs to be 7.77 percent of gross proceeds, while underwriting fees average 5.01 percent. Our results extend the literature in two important directions. First, contrary to the conventional economies of scale view we find marginal spreads to be rather constant in gross proceeds and to be higher for more risky and more complex offerings. Fixed costs amount to 5 to 9 percent of underwriting fees. Second, by applying a principal component analysis we find issue size, an issuer risk factor, and an offering method complexity factor to have an economicaly meaningful impact on underwriting fees.     

New Labour and Community Protests: the Case of the Govanhill Swimming Pool Campaign, Glasgow

Taking the case study of a community based protest against the closure of a swimming pool in Glasgow, this paper seeks to raise important critical questions about some of the key ideas informing New Labour's urban policy agenda: social capital and active community. It argues that normative notions of active citizenship seriously conflict with bottom-up community protests, highlighting in the process issues of power and inequality. Against claims that New Labour is promoting government through community, here we claim that in the context of this community protest, there was government against community.     

Managing Earnings with Intercorporate Investments

Abstract:  We explore to what extent firms deliberately manage their financial reports by exploiting the flexibility of generally accepted accounting principles. Using a sample of Oslo Stock Exchange-listed firms with 20–50% equity holdings in other firms, we find that firms with high financial leverage tend to maximize reported earnings from these investments through their choice between the cost method and the equity method, possibly in an attempt to reduce debt renegotiation costs or to avoid regulatory attention. In contrast, managers do not systematically bias reported earnings to extract private benefits or to signal revised expectations about future cash flows. Firms use different earnings management tools in a consistent way, as the earnings effect of the cost/equity choice is not offset by discretionary accruals.     

Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991–1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks.     

股市波动、金融政策和宏观经济关系研究——基于因子VAR模型

通过因子分析从诸宏观经济变量中提取了金融政策因子和宏观经济状态因子,建立了基于VAR的股价波动、金融政策和宏观经济三变量回归模型。研究表明：金融政策影响股价的表现,而宏观经济状态对股价、股价对金融政策和宏观经济状态的影响均不显著;基于标准差的VAR（5）模型相对于基于收益率的VAR（3）模型能更好地刻画股市波动与金融政策、宏观经济三者之间的关系。     

武汉金融安全区模式设计与研究

金融安全与稳定直接关系到一个国家或地区的经济安全与社会稳定。一个地区 ,在突出的支付风险得以逐一化解之后 ,适时启动创建金融安全区工程 ,并以此全面提高金融监管水平 ,实现区域金融业持续稳健发展已经成为当前我们面临的重要课题。本文在论证武汉市开展创建金融安全区的必要性和可行性的基础上 ,提出了构建以武汉金安指数为核心的指标监测体系、具体创建规划以及相应运行规程。     

资本约束下我国商业银行的风险偏好现状与对策研究

随着巴塞尔协议Ⅲ和中国银监会印发的《中国银行业实施新监管标准指导意见》的出台,确立了我国银行业实施新监管标准的政策框架。受此影响,当一部分银行资本充足率不迭标时,可以约束盲目信贷扩张,抑制经济过热的手段之一,调控商业银行整体风险水平;当大部分银行都达到了最低资本充足率要求时,资本约束效应将明显弱化,其他政策工具将是调控信贷的主要手段;而大部分银行为了降低风险。会选择“分母”对策,调整其资产组合。监管部门应我国银行业现状出发,以平滑信贷供给的过度波动为目标,逆风向调整资本充足率,以满足监管要求。