We empirically investigate whether reserve currency preferences have been a source of stability for the international monetary system. Our findings suggest that reserve-hoarding countries, especially the emerging/developing countries, tend to adopt a stabilizing diversification strategy in their...

In this paper, we study the sensitivity of insurance companies’ stock returns with respect to expected and unexpected changes in the Federal funds target rate over the period 1988-2007. We confirm Bernanke and Kuttner (2005) that, as stocks in general, insurance stock returns are only...

This paper investigates the role of foreign exchange reserve investment to hedge overall macroeconomic risks. Different from usual micro profit-maximizing purpose, the investment with macro objective is unique in the field of foreign reserve investment. We propose a framework of...

We investigate whether financial reform can reduce income inequality in Asia, with particular emphasis on the role of human capital. Extending Galor and Zeira (1993), we demonstrate that financial reform is effective in reducing income inequality, and the effect is more profound in a country...

Underground subways are constructed in major cities across China to overcome the transportation problems in the urbanization process. The aim is to develop a comprehensive risk checklist associated with subway projects and a methodology to assess the risks at the early stage of a project. Based...

type="main" xml:id="twec12251-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Whether and what type of the lobbying-induced trade policies can improve the domestic welfare? We show that as compared to the case of no lobbying and the case of domestic lobbying, the domestic-foreign lobbying may achieve the lowest tariff and...</p>

This paper begins with a statistical formulation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and discusses the major econometric problems raised in the literature in testing this hypothesis using panel data. A simple t-test is then presented that avoids these econometric problems. The result from...

Under the "community building" banner, Chinese municipalities are encouraged to experiment with a new model of urban management, based on creating grassroots social networks gathering a variety of private and public players to deal with community matters. The informal mobilization of...