涉外企业的货币经营风险管理

结合涉外企业投入与产出所处市场的分割程度或一体化程度,分析了当地企业、进口企业、出口企业或全球经营企业所面临的货币经营风险;对计量涉外企业货币经营风险的方法进行比较,认为管理层估计法对于计量货币经营风险以及制定相应的竞争对策有着重要作用;分别从金融性套期保值、经营性套期保值和营销策略等视角讨论货币经营风险的管理。笔者认为:金融性套期保值通过锁定涉外企业的外币现金流出或流入,可部分抵消涉外企业的货币经营风险暴露;经营性套期保值通过调整企业的经营业务并尽可能多地增加经营现金流,可从根本上提高涉外企业适应汇率变化的能力;通过影响涉外企业及其竞争对手所处的经营环境,营销策略有助于降低涉外企业的货币经营风险暴露。     

Investing in fertilizer–mining companies in times of food scarcity

The primary goal of the paper is to show the validity of investing capital in fertilizer–mining companies, both from a market return perspective for individual or institutional investors, or from a hedging standpoint for insurance companies and other economic actors exposed to inflation risk and high agricultural commodity prices. After providing some elements on the fertilizer market and describing the joint dynamics of corn, wheat and fertilizer prices over the last decade, we analyze an exhaustive sample of listed fertilizer producing companies over the years January 2004–December 2012. We show that their shares generated quite good returns over the whole period and extremely high ones during the years January 2004–December 2007, both in absolute terms and compared to their betas. We also exhibit that these returns display higher sensitivities to major agricultural indexes than to the World Bank Fertilizer Index, making the hedging argument quite compelling.     

资源工程体系建设探讨——以三峡库区坡地资源开发保护体系建设为例

资源工程是实现社会经济发展的基本途径。资源开发体系和保护体系建设是构成资源工程体系的主要内容。文章阐述了如何设计一个资源开发和保护体系的总体思路（包括原则、目标、内容、行动、效益评估）,并以长江三峡库区坡地资源利用保护为例,通过植物篱农林复合技术,使水土流失和环境退化基本得到了控制,经济产出比纯柑桔系统和纯粮食作物系统分别高出１／５和１／４,成为开发与保护融为一体、经济和生态相互促进的技术。这一技术值得在中国东部湿润半湿润区域推广。     

工作场所手传振动的测量与评估——以割草机和绿篱机为例

根据ISO 5349:2001规定，将三轴加速度传感器安装在割草机和绿篱机的手柄上，通过振动分析仪AWA 6258测量割草机和绿篱机的频率计权振动总值，以进行手传振动的危害评估。结果表明:割草机和绿篱机的日振动暴露量A(8)值均超过了我国标准规定的日暴露振动限值3.5 m/s2，预计分别经过1.8～8.5 a和1.9～5.2 a后，暴露于割草和修枝工种人群的10%以上将出现振动性白指，为了有效降低或避免手臂振动病的发生，该行业的作业人员每日接触振动的时间应该控制在2.6 h以内。     

北京4种阔叶绿篱球的减噪效应及其影响因子

运用AWA6288型多功能声级及TmeRTA音频分析软件等仪器对北京4种常见阔叶绿篱球的减噪功能进行了测定,并对其结构特征进行了定量化统计,以探寻与植物减噪密切相关的影响因子。结果表明：小叶黄杨球（Buxus microphylla）平均相对A声级减噪能力最强,为1．76dB／m;紫叶小檗球（Berberis thunbergii cv．atropurpurea）相对最差,为1．05dB／m。紫叶小檗球与大叶黄杨球（Euonymus japonicus）、小叶黄杨球、金叶女贞球（Ligustrum vicaryi）在平均相对A声级减噪能力、减噪率方面均存在冠著差异。影响单株植物减噪排名前5的相关结构因子分别是树冠体积（0．804）、冠高（0．781）、绿篱高度（0．733）、叶质地（0．690）、平均冠宽（0．679）;叶大小、冠层、叶质地和倾斜状态、叶密度、枝密度5个主因子的累积方差贡献率已达85．233％,在绿化减噪应用中要重点考虑这5个因子。大叶黄杨球平均相对A声级减噪能力随植株大小变化没有显著变化,与树体各结构因子不相关,这可能与研究的样本量较少或者树体结构特征差异不明显有关;影响不同种类植物减噪的相关因子不尽相同。     

The yen for gold

In this article, we examine whether gold could be an exchange rate hedge in Japan, using data from 1986 to 2007. In the literature on this area, most research focuses on the linear relationship—rather than the non-linear one—between gold returns and the exchange rate fluctuation of the Japanese yen. In the present paper, we use the depreciation rate of the yen as a threshold variable to distinguish between a high depreciation regime and a low depreciation (or appreciation) regime. With this specification, we build a threshold vector autoregressive model to investigate the causality between the gold return and the yen depreciation rate. We find that when the yen depreciation rate is greater than 2.62%, investing in gold could avoid the depreciation loss. Therefore, we conclude that the effectiveness of gold as an exchange rate hedge depends on the depreciation rate of the yen. This finding could benefit both the Japanese monetary authority and investors who hold Japanese yen in their portfolios.     

Correlation structure between inflation and oil futures returns: An equilibrium approach

We use an equilibrium model of a monetary economy to understand the economics behind the correlation between inflation and oil futures returns. We find that some of the positive correlation found in empirical studies is due to the fact that oil is in the consumption basket; however, this accounts only for a minor part of it. There exist other important sources of correlation related to monetary shocks and output shocks. In particular, we find that the correlation is extremely sensitive to the reaction of the central bank to output shocks, while the reaction to inflation changes is less significant. We estimate our model using maximum likelihood with the following data sets: crude oil futures prices, nominal interest rates, inflation rates and money supply growth rates. Our estimates suggest that the monetary authority overreacts to output shocks by increasing the money supply in a more than necessary amount, generating a significant source of positive correlation. From a practical perspective, We find that it is a good strategy to use as a hedge, the futures whose maturity is closer to the hedging horizon. This is particularly true for short-term hedging.     

Long-term trends in the Real real prices of primary commodities: Inflation bias and the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis

In his recent article on measuring the long-term trends in the real prices of primary commodities, Cuddington (2010) extends in several important respects our earlier efforts (Svedberg and Tilton, 2006) to correct real commodity price trends for biases in the Consumer Price Index and other deflators. First, he argues for a log-linear relationship between prices and time. Second, he proposes a simple and quick method for obtaining corrected price trends from the published but uncorrected estimates. Finally, he illustrates, for the case of copper and presumably for many other commodities as well, the difficulties of obtaining real price trends significantly different from zero when the log values of the price data contain a unit root, requiring the use of difference stationary models.We welcome these insights, which should improve and make easier efforts to estimate correctly real commodity price trends over the long run. We would stress, however, that it is still important to correct for the biases in inflation indices, notwithstanding the failure of difference stationary models to obtain long-run real price trends (both corrected and uncorrected) significantly different from zero.