对当前我国金融改革的思考

我国在初步形成了较高水准的产业资本力之后,亟待提升基于市场竞争形成的金融资本力,而我国目前的市场竞争格局却在约束金融资本力的提升。无疑,我国金融业应在更大程度、更高层次扩大对内开放的基础上,全面构筑竞争性金融市场体系,切实降低民营资本参与市场竞争的准入门槛,营造良性的竞争环境,力争在金融创意、机制设计与市场运营方面取得根本性突破,以期激活民间营商禀赋,提高金融要素配置效率,锻造中国版金融资本力。     

Financial Strain and Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has increased over the past decade. Although poverty and sudden financial shock faced by households via unanticipated adverse events, such as sudden loss of income, are among major contributors, the findings of our study suggest that having an adequate stock of savings and financial assets might reduce the probability of household SNAP participation. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we tested whether a household’s emergency savings, asset poverty, and debt burden could predict SNAP participation separately from the effects of income and program participation. Results demonstrate that a household’s lack of emergency savings and asset inadequacy increased the probability of its SNAP participation. Implications for financial practitioners and policy makers are discussed.     

The Progress of Financial Market Integration in East Asia

The study investigates the progress of financial market integration in selected East Asian countries after the 1997 financial crisis. Adopting Johansen (Econometrica 59:1551–1580, 1991) multivariate cointegration on the region’s credit and stock markets, the study finds only partial cointegration in both markets which imply a low level of integration. However, for regional stock markets, the result suggests that the level of integration has been improving after the crisis.     

The significance of financial self-efficacy in explaining women’s personal finance behaviour

Much policy attention has been placed on enhancing individuals’ financial knowledge and literacy, chiefly through financial education programs. However, managing one’s personal finances takes more than financial knowledge and literacy: an individual also needs a sense of self-assuredness, or ‘self-belief’, in their own capabilities. This personal attribute is known within the psychology literature as ‘self-efficacy’. This paper examines the significance of an individual’s financial self-efficacy in explaining their personal finance behaviour, through the application of a psychometric instrument. Using a 2013 survey of Australian women, financial self-efficacy emerges as one of the strongest predictors of the type and number of financial products that a woman holds. Specifically, our analysis reveals that women with higher financial self-efficacy – that is, with greater self-assuredness in their financial management capacities – are more likely to hold investment and savings products, and less likely to hold debt-related products. Even alongside other important factors – such as education, financial risk preferences, age and household income – the explanatory power of financial self-efficacy is found to be significant at the 1% critical level. Moreover, the significance of financial self-efficacy is independently identified from that of financial literacy factors, which bears important implications for the development of policies aiming to improve financial outcomes.     

中东阿拉伯国家金融自由化探析

金融全球化是经济全球化的核心,而金融自由化则是金融全球化的重要组成部分。20世纪七十年代以来全球开始了以放松金融管制为主要内容的金融自由化进程。中东阿拉伯国家的金融自由化是其宏观经济改革战略的一部分,它力图通过自由化、现代化、提高透明度以及加强风险监管来提高金融中介效率。中东金融改革是一种渐进式的改革,包括货币政策改革、银行体系自由化和开放资本市场。中东金融体系已经成为世界金融体系的一部分,但在金融效率、深度和竞争力方面与发达国家和新兴国家相比还有很大的差距。     

Do ‘his’ education and class matter? The changing effect of the husband on women's labour‐market transitions in Italy and Britain

A new stream of sociological and demographic theory emphasizes individualization as the key process in late modernity. As maintained by Hakim ( 2000 ), women also have increasingly become agents of their own biographies, less influenced by the social class and the family. In this study, I intend to contribute to this debate by analysing how, in Italy and Britain, women's movements between employment and housework are linked to their husband's education and class, and how this link has changed across cohorts. Using discrete‐time event‐history modelling on the BHPS and ILFI, my findings show that in both countries, if the woman's educational and labour‐market profile is controlled for, the husband's occupation and education have lost importance. Yet, although based more on ‘her’ than ‘his’ profile, divisions along ‘classic’ lines are still evident and not context‐free, and they assume different forms in the two countries with distinctive institutional and cultural settings. In ‘liberal’ Britain, women's labour‐market participation responds more to motherhood and class than to education, while in ‘familistic’ Italy education seems more important, which suggests the existence of returns over and above strictly human capital/economic ones.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE GROWTH ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE

A positive relationship between FDI and economic growth under two economic conditions has been estimated: a sufficient level of human capital and well-developed financial markets, respectively. However, these two conditions can be fundamentally different catalysts for FDI to promote economic growth in the perspective of growth accounting. Using data from 69 countries over 1970–1989, we find that FDI promotes productivity growth only when the host country reaches a threshold level of human capital; and FDI promotes capital growth only when a certain level of financial development is achieved. ( JEL F21)     

The restructuring of the U.K. financial services industry in the 1990s: a reversal of fortune?

Whereas for much of the 1980s the financial services industry was characterised by growth and expansion, the late 1980s and early 1990s was a period of redundancies and financial losses. This paper seeks to explain this reversal of fortune and the responses of the financial services industry. The restructuring of the financial System at a global level, through a process of disintermediation, and at a national level, in response to financial re-regulation, led to an intensification of competition between financial institutions and helped produce a developed countries debt crisis, founded in personal and corporate indebtedness. In the wake of this crisis, the financial services industry has been in transition. Bureaucratic labour market models have been overturned in favour of more flexible variants, while at the same time many financial services firms have engaged in the wholesale spatial reorganisation of their activities. One important consequence has been a process of ‘financial infrastructure withdrawal’, by which services and operations are withdrawn from certain social groups and certain localities. This process, which revolves around a rubric of risk reduction and a ‘flight to quality’, has introduced an element of exclusion and closure to the operation of financial Systems within developed countries. In this sense, the reaction of the financial services industry to the developed countries debt crisis mirrors that which followed the less developed countries debt crisis of the early 1980s; that is, abandonment and retreat to a more affluent client base. As was the case during the less developed countries debt crisis, the current process of financial infrastructure withdrawal has serious social and economic implications for those social groups and localities abandoned by the financial community.     

Review of CIS Stock Markets: Future Perspectives

This paper critically reviews the market structure of major stock exchanges in eight members of Countries of Independent States (CIS)—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Because these markets are somewhat similar in terms of their size, trading volume and market design, their comparative analysis will enhance our knowledge on the development of the financial sector in CIS countries. By examining the data provided by the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges, we observe the similarities and differences among these markets that may be improved through structural changes. Later we discuss what CIS equity markets can learn from the successful examples of small and emerging company marketplaces. We also study the advantages and disadvantages of potential regional consolidation among these eight stock exchanges. We propose that while current fragmented structure may be beneficial in the short or medium term, the stock exchanges of CIS countries will benefit from consolidation in the long term. Later we focus on the Baku Stock Exchange (BSE) and propose specific suggestions to develop the market mechanism and facilitate a better environment of financial markets in Azerbaijan. We find that the BSE currently lacks several fundamental factors required to establish well-functioning financial markets. Our suggestions aim to contribute to the improvement process started by BSE management.     

Race and Gender Differences in Workplace Autonomy: A Research Note

While many studies have focused on race and gender differences in monetary labor market rewards, few studies have used national samples to examine race and gender differences in nonmonetary labor process rewards. Utilizing multivariate analysis on data from the 1993 and 1997 National Employee Survey, the present study examines how race and gender interact in shaping workplace autonomy. We regress an index of autonomy on human capital, structural level variables, and race and gender interaction terms. Findings show that black and white females, relative to white males, fare worse net of controls for human capital and structural level variables. Black males fare worse than white males when controlling for human capital but this disadvantage fails to retain its significant effect when controlling for structural level variables. We conclude that contrary to some beliefs that black females have experienced greater success in the labor market as a result of affirmative action policies, black females remain hindered by the double jeopardy of race and gender.     

Silencing the Call to Action: A Bird’s Eye View of Minority Language Media and Political Participation in Eurasia

Do citizens living in linguistically diverse countries without benefit of diverse media outlets find this to be a barrier to civic engagement? This study considers the interrelated effects of media access and social capital on political engagement in 15 Eurasian countries as that region continues to transition to an open economy and democracy. Drawing upon individual-level survey data, and controlling for relevant political and socioeconomic factors, regression analyses suggest a significant impact of media plurality, interpersonal trust, and government confidence on both voting turnout and unconventional political participation. The effect of social capital is mixed. Results indicate that higher levels of trust contribute to participation, while greater confidence in government is associated with less participation. These preliminary tests also show that collective action is generally lower in countries having greater linguistic diversity, but suggest that having access to political news in one’s own language can indeed contribute to more activism.     

Family Migration as a Class Matter

Traditionally, family migration was conceptualized as a separate form of migration from labour migration. Increasingly socio‐economic criteria (labour market participation, language competence, financial resources, independence from welfare), have been applied to family migration policies in Europe, and are harder to fulfil by those with a weaker labour market position. Hence class now plays an increasingly significant role in stratifying the right to family migration. The article examines the imposition of minimum income requirements in three countries – the Netherlands, Norway and the UK – and the significance of class in its economic and cultural dimensions in meeting the requirement. For those without sufficient economic capital to meet the requirement, cultural capital may facilitate the development of coping strategies to overcome or reduce the duration of family separation. Class is not the only stratifying element: gender, age and ethnicity interact with and reinforce the effects of class.     

Effects of positive attitude and optimism on employment: Evidence from the US data

Using samples from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and following a bivariate probit approach, the current study estimates the worker's employment probability equations in both cross-sectional and panel data frameworks. The study demonstrates that the employment of the worker, which depends on both the worker's labor market participation decision and the employer's hiring decision, is determined partly by the positive and optimistic attitude of the worker. The effects of these attitude variables on both decisions are even larger than the effects of standard human capital variables. The study further demonstrates that the attitude variables affect employment probabilities of men and women differently because their effects on participation and hiring decisions are different.     

动员效力与经济理性:农户参与新农保的行为逻辑研究——基于武汉市新洲区双柳街的调查

本文通过问卷调查发现,农户普遍了解新农保,参保积极,但缴费水平偏低;宣传动员有助于提升农户信息了解程度,从而提升农户参保广度,但对参保深度无显著影响。当信息充分时,农户参保行为是完全经济理性行为,情理动员无显著影响;当信息不充分时,农户参保行为是有限理性行为,情理动员可以提升参保广度,但参保深度不足。社会动员效力与特定社会背景下社会成员的价值理念相关。在当前经济理性主导下,社会动员必须符合农户的经济利益。作为后发展国家,社会成员对新制度的理解与接受能力有限,社会动员具有推动社会跨越式发展的功能。     

Mehr Arbeit,mehr Armut? Ausmaß und Hintergründe der Entkoppelung von Erwerbsarbeit und materieller Sicherheit von Alleinerziehenden im Ländervergleich

Labour market reforms implemented in recent years in a number of countries have aimed to increase participation rates among single parents in order to reduce the disproportionately high poverty rate and share of benefit recipients among them. However, our quantitative analyses based on EU-LFS and EU-SILC indicate that paid work has to some extent become dissociated from material security. Although participation rates among single parents rose in the five years before the financial and economic crisis, their risk of being in poverty remained the same or actually increased. This finding holds true for different types of welfare state, as the comparison between Germany, France, Sweden and the UK shows. The potential poverty-reducing effects of increasing labour market participation are clearly being weakened by certain counter-trends. Possible explanations, which apply to varying extents in the four countries, are declining market wages and reductions in social transfers. Moreover, previously latent material risks of lone parenting unfold with the modernisation of gender roles and the erosion of lone mothers ‘avant-garde’ role as working parents. This is a common challenge across countries which has so far not been addressed sufficiently by social and labour market policies.     

Source country culture and labor market assimilation of immigrant women in Sweden: evidence from longitudinal data

This paper analyzes the role of source country culture on gender roles for labor market assimilation of immigrant women in Sweden. Sweden ranks as one of the world’s most gender-equal countries and at the same time a recipient of many immigrants from countries with more traditional views on gender roles and gender equality. I find that the labor force participation of immigrant women in Sweden is related to their source country culture, in the sense that women from countries where women’s labor market participation is low (high) also have low (high) participation in the Swedish labor market. However, all immigrant women assimilate towards, but do not reach parity with, the participation rate of native women, and the difference between women from high- and low-participation countries diminishes with length of residence in Sweden. This indicates that source country culture on gender roles does not have a persistent effect on immigrant women’s labor market participation in Sweden. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of taking into account unobservable time-constant individual and source country factors when estimating the relationship between source country culture and immigrants’ labor market outcomes. Neglecting to control for these factors could lead researchers to misrepresent the rate of assimilation and overstate the effect of source country culture.     

Re‐Thinking Migrants’ Networks and Social Capital: A Case Study of Iranians in Turkey

Existing research on international migration has focused on the importance of social networks and social capital in the countries of origin and destination. However, much less is known about the importance of social networks and associated social capital in transit countries. Drawing on ethnographic research on Iranian transit migrants in Turkey, this paper argues that migrant networks and social capital are equally important in transit countries. These networks, however, do not always generate positive social capital for Iranian migrants as there are scarce resources and there is no “enforceable trust”. Iranian migrant networks reorganized in a transit country like Turkey are not static structures and they are largely affected by macro‐variables such as current immigration and asylum policies of Turkey and Europe, transnationalism and globalization, and other place‐specific features like Turkey’s location bridging East and West, the existence of human smuggling networks, and its proximity to Iran. But Iranian migrant networks in Turkey are also affected by micro‐variables, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity of individual migrants.     

Welche familienpolitischen Maßnahmen fördern die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation von Müttern?

This article investigates the effects of family policies (child care, parental leave, financial transfers) on labour market participation of mothers in 21 European countries. In contrast to previous studies, the correlation of child care provision with national culture and the cultural influence on maternal employment decisions are also estimated. The microeconomic theory of labour supply provides the theoretical framework of the analysis. With the use of hierarchical logistic regression models the hypotheses are tested on the data of the European Social Survey (2004/2005) and contextual variables of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As a central result the level of child care provision for children below the age of three is found to be the single variable with regards to increasing labour market participation, particularly for mothers of young children. This political measure is strongly correlated to national culture.     

Basic relationships between human capital,migration and labour markets in the Western Balkans: An econometric investigation

The high outward mobility that characterises the countries in the Western Balkan region—already for three decades—is often seen as tightly linked to labour market imbalances and persistently low utilisation of human capital over time. To shed light on these issues we analysed the effects of labour market determinants and human capital endowment on migration and vice versa by estimating simultaneously a system of equations that accounted for such relationships in the context of WB countries. The period under analysis is 2007–2019 and the destination countries are the EU15. The empirical results confirm the importance of wage gaps and their changes as an important pull factor for driving emigration. In addition, gaps in human capital emerge as a powerful determinant for explaining emigration into countries where returns to human capital are relatively higher.