都市更新以及法律權利

這篇文章是基於士林文林苑都市更新案 , 論述基礎是在久遠之前對於Ronald Dworkin的理解上,Sovereign Virtue, 中文譯為"至上美德"

球員轉會跟主席

我(很無聊的)在PTT上面跟很多球友分享一篇文章:

夏天快要到了, 球員的轉會市場跟轉會的狀況, 主席的抉擇, 跟一些八卦花邊消息開始在網路上面激起一堆水花.

本週話題是俱樂部利益跟主席利益, 兩者之間是否一致的狀況. 這樣的討論其實對於商學院有點理解的人來說應該會有種似曾相似的感覺, 就像經理人是否把公司的利益跟他自己本身的利益分開, 或者是職員跟公司本身的利益分開, 簡單來說: 這就是代理人問題.

這個問題開始的起點是關於一篇今年夏天是否應該引進 Neymar的文章. 台灣的ESPN轉了一篇中國新浪的報導, 提到Rosell應該非常的想要這個deal能夠go through.

Rosell這個人的背景先講一下: 出身於商人家庭, 他早年事業是從南美洲發跡的, 在商場上最高的職位應該是巴西NIKE 的總裁, 而基於他在南美洲的影響力, 也為FCB引進了不少優秀的南美洲球員.

整體文章的重點應該變成: 如果引進Neymar到底符合的是FCB的利益, 還是符合Rosell以及他前東家在巴西的利益?

競技狀態:
FCB現在最需要的應該是防守的補強而不是進攻, 左後衛的位置基本上還沒有解答(流言Jordi Alba已經成局,但還是得靜觀其變); 中場防守人員一個年紀會逐漸增加(Puyol)一個會偶爾給球隊太多驚喜(嚇) (Pique), 右後衛應該還是D. Alves的天下, 但是沒有人是鐵打的總是需要有人替補. 小朋友可能可以頂上來, 但是還是不要揠苗助長的好.

中場目前看來是相對沒有問題的, Cesc的引進解決了很多問題, 而Xavi+Iniesta應該還能夠用上好一陣子, 防守方面有Busquets跟Mescherano, 而板凳上還有Keita 跟小朋友們~

前場應該是最擁擠, 最沒有老化問題, 也還有新人可以練的狀況.

Neymar是個好球員, 但是今年夏天可以說是最不需要他的時候.

代理人問題:
我在那篇文章裡面大膽了提出兩個代理人問題的假說:
1.) Rosell 需要從他自己的利益出發, 而他的思考邏輯就是個商人
2.) 而不管是誰當俱樂部的主席, 都希望能夠讓俱樂部成為是他的一個媒介, 讓他個人的利益能夠最大化.

然後從這幾年的事件裡面去找是否羅塞爾表現出來的行為可以"驗證"這兩個假說的狀態是否為真.

討論的事件:
1.) Rosell跟前主席Laporta的路線不合之爭:
2.) Rosell對俱樂部財政以及對於上任之後對Laporta以及Cruyff的對待方式
3.) Rosell 在Qatar Foundation贊助的處理方式
4.) Rosell 在Ibra轉會的態度
5.) Rosell在Cesc轉會的態度
6.) Rosell跟Pep對於今年夏天轉會可能的爭議

當然, 有人會認為這些事件單純只是分離的事件, 或者是說, 這些事件的結果可以有多方面的解讀, 也就是說, 每個人可以有自己的詮釋: 如果我要把前六件事件整理成為支持前兩點假說的證據也可以; 或者是說, 我要解讀成為Rosell是個真心為俱樂部好的主席也可以.

得到的結論可以非常不同, 他可能是個很好的在兩者Balanced的主席, 知道什麼時候他自己應該退讓, 什麼時候他自己應該要堅持或者是協助其他人去滿足一些條件; 或者是他沒有忘記他自己商人的角色, 希望讓自己的商業利益最大化.

在整理的過程中我一直質問自己的角度是: 到底什麼是Rosell的incentive?他把巴薩隆納打造成為世界競技狀態頂級的俱樂部最大的好處是為了誰? 其中對他來講最大的利益會是什麼?

我想這會是在今年夏天在關注轉會議題的同時我會不斷想到的一個問號.

在學理上我們一直認為, 如果把代理人的利益跟委託人 的利益一致化, 那麼可以讓兩者之間的衝突最小, 對於代理組織的效率應該是有幫助的. 然而, 再前一波金融危機的時候卻告訴我們不見得是這樣的. 從雷曼兄弟的狀況, 來看, 就算所有人的利益或多或少都綁在一起, 並沒有辦法完全消除代理人問題的發生.

After all, 只要我們有組織, 有委託, 有代理, 這些狀況就會不斷的出現

Messi marked the history last night.

Barcelona - Granada 5:3, 2012 Mar. 20
Messi score a hat-trick and then broke the record of César Rodríguez Álvarez , a record held for 57 years(since 1955) (he has 234 now while Cesar has 232)

That's see where he score his first goal, in 2005. I would say this might be the favorite way for him to score, lift the ball elegantly over the goalkeeper. (and seeing Ronaldinho lifted Messi on his back...so touching)
Goal.com wrote a report here, I do not think I can write a better one than theirs. Yet, I would like to share this video on youtube, the annual Estrella Damm

The success of Messi is not a coincidence. If you have seen him playing for Argentina you might see a quite different players. I am not saying he is not a great player, of course he is! Yet, without the full support of the team, it is not quite possible to achieve things of this height today. He is a lucky boy, with Pere Gratacos(his B-team period coach), Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola, with Ronaldinho and with Xavi and Iniesta. With so many great teammates he grows along and the 30-year tradition of La Masia.

This is "US", this is Barcelona, and as a fan of such team, I deeply understand the quotation "Som UN"

p.s. the first part of the video shows how the lover of a Barcelona fan is struggling. We always can make up some stories linked back to the team and make a whole lecture of it. (:P) I think the final part is what we Barcelona fan should do, and left the lecture part to our team and Estrella Damn (:PPP)

Another two BRIC countries, China v. India.

As I wrote in the article regarding to Brazil, I mentioned that BRIC countries have quite different economic base in nature. The news today reflects quite well on the difference for BRIC on this economic growth crossroad.

1. Inflation is the major concerns for China and India:
US stocks fall as commodity decline on China concern
The reporter points out the slowdown in China, particularly in the housing markets, drives the commodity price lower today. This is not a fresh story that China wants to curb their real estate markets and control some  more on inflation. However, such attempts may hurts their economic growth further, yet we did not see the immediate consumption growth comes along yet. Since both expected inflation and policy uncertainty are high, (when I talks of uncertainty, I mean the uncertainty on the results.), I do not see why Chinese citizens may let loose their purse. Plus, a sizable proportion of their income might already pledge into the housing market, which won't be available for the following years to come.

Shanghai Index lost 1.36% yesterday, a stronger retreat may be seen before April.

India Holds rate, as inflation accelerates
India also has similar problems. Their central banker just decided to keep the rate high to curb inflation. Unlike Brazil, which cut their interest rate to boost growth, India and China remain very cautious on the domestic inflation since they mostly has to import the commodities that are needed for manufacturing and exporting sectors.

2. Manufacturing, Consumption and Infrastructure:
As for now, Brazil tends to focus more on manufacturing, while China are trying to create more domestic demands. Brazil has the opportunity from two big games, so I would think it is a brighter future for them, as long as they take the chance well. As for China, the key is still on housing market. If they can free some more capital from housing projects, such capital could do much more in other sectors.

India is still a terra incognita for me, yet my best guess is from what a friend,who frequently travel there, advises me, focus is on infrastructure. He mentioned to me that India is still quite in lack of some modern infrastructure as we take for granted. Traffic, power supply, water supply, etc. The only problem is government deficit, now runs some 5% of their GDP. Could government play a major roles to push further public investment? Their capacity is in doubts.

Would BRIC icon fade its charms for the following 3 years? I would say a no, yet it won't shine as bright as what we have expected before.

Brazil, Brazil

The performance of Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, "Brazil , Brazil"  in 1994, in Roma.

As for this blog, I am not going to talk about opera or classic music(although that is a field that I enjoy a lot) Yet, some recent updates about Brazil really worth some attentions.

To start with, I would like separate BRIC into two groups of countries: I personally really do not like BRIC, or BRICS (with South Africa) as a combined concept. They are actually two types of very different economies: Brazil and Russia have a great share of GDP based on natural resources; while China and India has a strong focus on manufacturing and service industries. They are by no means alike.

Now, let's focus on Brazil:

1.) Brazil, the rise of natural resource super-power
This is the basic ideas of Brazil. Lots of people views it as a natural resource super power. Iron Ore, Oil reserves, corn (turns into ethanol), and soybeans. Overall, it exports everything that matters in our daily life. This week there is a news, regarding to recent GSCI commodity Index rise on Bloomberg.

It is quite fair to say, "When Brazil sneezes, the whole commodity world catches cold."

2.) Capital control and interest rate:
What's the major concerns for a export-oriented economy? Exchange rate!

As Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff once mentioned as "monetary tsunami" as all countries, the developing or the developed alike, are competing to depreciate their currency.
So, they try to prevent capital inflows that could appreciate their currency. How?

2-1): Tax Measurements:
Impose capital tax on borrowing on foreign currency(6%), yet allow their exporter to hedge on such risk. This is pretty much what every countries are doing now.
2-2): Interest Rate:
Reduce the core interest rate(Selic rate), the key purpose of doing so is to reduce the speculative inflows that prepare to pocket the profit from the interest rate difference.
2-3): Open Market Operation: Brazilian central bank simply purchase U.S. dollar from the market.

3.) Latin America international organization:

IDB, Inter-American Development Bank, warns that now there is building up a crisis environment in Latin America. and they prepare to raise a contingency funds  that might help the region to shelter some key sectors from possible crisis hits. These sectors are social development, public infrastructure, and SME enterprises.

From all of these, several things come to my notice:
1.) Inflation and Interest Rate:
As for Brazil now runs an inflation rate of 5.8%(12 months from Feb, 2011 to Feb, 2012), given their 2011 GDP growth of 2.7%, Brazilian economy now really in a shaky status. To run a interest rate cut and a pro-export exchange rate is quite danagerous.

I still recall, in later 2009, I had this discussion with my professor back then, talking of the possible effect of appreciation to curb on the inflation rate. How it was reported by Bloomberg regarding to India's choice to appreciate their currency. However, such measure might not be suitable for Brazil since they are actually the exporter of natural resource rather than the importer.

My guts feeling tells me that, Brazil might fall to the similiar case as other natural resource exporters. They has the resources, yet they only export such ingredients. The fortune they sit on prevent them from build up the capacity to transform these resources into more valuable products. Take oil for exapmle, they pump oil from the sea, however, they lack the capacity to refine oil locally. Therefore, the major profit of owning such resources would still be pocketed by other international companies. (that happens in Mexico) They end up buying more expensive, refined oil product abroad.

To shake off such reliance, they might need to swift their economy focus. Such things are yet seen to be initiate.

2.) Domestic consumptions and big games:
Brazil is going to host 2014 world cup and 2016 summer Olympic. What does it mean? It means there is a great number of construction will be needed along the way. Actually, it is a prefect timing for Brazil to foster their local capacity on industrial goods. In that sense, they could build up their own sustainable domestic economic force rather than relying on export.

3.) Investment decisions?
I actually just urge my family and friends to clear up their Latin America holdings. The exit decision merely reflects the increase of uncertainty and a good timing to take profits. yet I am still optimistic about the development of the region. Brazil is certainly a place shall deserve a great attention of world capital.

Disclaimer:  The article, and related links, are only express the views of the news agnecy and the blogger. People who read this article has to reach their own investment decision.

Stress test, Banking industry in EU and US

It seems stress test is the hot topic for today.

I was a bit surprised when I browsed through Bloomberg news. I was expecting to see more report on "ratios." However, I see more dollar amount of loss for the banks under different stress. Such presentation of stress test recalls my memories of the other article I read few days ago. Then it is clear for me how and why they express the stress test in this way.

Here comes this Dealbook article first:

What Europe could have learned from the US bank bailout? by Peter Evais

There are two things to look at here.
1.) Capital ratio:
There are two ways you  might book up the capital ratio, you raise more fresh capital or just reduced the exposure of risk of your assets. For the later approach, the demand to improve "adequate" ratio might eventaully hurt the industries and companies, which would lose their credits from banks.

Europe and United States have quite different ideas on such ratio thing. As quoted from the article, William C. Dudley, the president of FED of NY, mentioned that they not only look at the ratio and also look at the absolute amounts.  In other words, the supervisory body wants banks to raise capital, and they cannot deliberately reduce their risk exposure.

Therefore, United States has another focus here. If these banks cannot make a cut on their risky exposure, how much loss they might have to face during the most adversary times?

2.) Possible loss under the worse scenario:

The stress test results are out from United States. The worse scenario is, the unemployment rate at 13%, 50% stock price drop and 21% of housing price drop. Then they assess the possible loss for each bank, and measure their possible capital ratio under such scenario.

Surprisingly, Citi is among those who failed the test. 15 out of 19 banks under the same test pass it.

Eventually, Banks should be the institutions which can absorb risks, especially during hte bad times. As I see, the various American legislation movement now are moving toward that direction. Banks cannot take too many risks, and  they should have enough reserve to go through the bad times, for themselves and for the public. I personally like the ideas behind this logic. Just do not know how exactly it would turn out to be alike for banking industries.

歐美各國這一陣子都在給自己的銀行進行壓力測試,主要目的是希望檢測這些主要銀行在經濟危機的狀態下是否有足夠的資本去承擔損失並且度過難關.

然而Peter Evais在Dealbook的一篇文章顯示了美國人跟歐洲人對於在銀行資本適足率處理上的差異. 當然, 這個比率是得看的, 但是美國人更在乎絕對的金額.

會這麼做很簡單, 因為增加資本適足率有兩種方式, 一種是充實自己的資本, 但另外一種方式就是把風險性資產降低, 換句台灣人常聽的話, 就是 "雨天收傘"

美國的各大銀行前一陣子才因為"雨天收傘太快"跟聯邦政府達成一個和解的協議(主要就是在房地產查封的過程過快而沒有進行應有的程序) 而美國政府也意識到, 如果銀行業不能夠成受衝擊而直接進行降低風險資產的動作的話, 那麼對於整體經濟的衝擊是不容小覷的.

因此本周發布的壓力測試消息主要都著重在銀行可能的損失金額, 以及他們現有的資本是不是可能承受這樣的損失. 我不確定下一部他們要做的是什麼, 但可以預期的是會更加限制銀行業可以承做的風險性資產範圍, 以及加速鼓勵銀行進行充實資本的計畫.

歐盟呢? 我不知道, 我只回憶起因為雨天收傘在倒掉了一家瑞士的石化廠. 雖然國際清算銀行也指出, 歐盟區的銀行的確有出售風險性資產跟減少貸放的狀況, 然而其他的借款者因此而進入這個市場所以對於產業的影響是較小的. 但是無法否認的是這個從去年十二月開始的新政策讓歐元區特定的借款成本增加, 對於整體歐元區的復甦事實上是非常不利的.



Language tense for time preference, an academic argument

For the Netherlands, the future is NOW!!

The other day in the behavioral economics class, I discussed such ideas with my fellow classmates , concerning whether the verb tense might influence some economic behaviors in different cultures. It seems some scholars indeed try to use quantitative models to explore such effect.

The working paper  in January done by Yale Economics Professor Keith Chen indicated that, for people using languages with weak future-time reference(FTR), they would have higher saving rates. The reason is that, they perceive the future as PRESENT! Consequently. any problems that might happen in the future would not be perceived that "remote." Therefore, people in this language group will react to problems as if it is "NOW!" 

The immediate comparison is between German and English. I am not familiar with German, yet, as the author suggest, in German you could say "Morgen regnet es" ,directly translated as "It rains tomorrow." Yet, in English it should be written as "It will rain tomorrow" Usage of "will" or not is a key indication of strong or weak FTR form. As noted in this case, German speakers could take a future event  as present one and start taking precautionary measures to deal with such event.

The second interesting results is, after adjusted to such effect, people in southern Europe actually save MORE than their Northern counterparts. In other words, if southern Europeans were speaking in the same language structure as the Northern Europeans, then they would have saved more than these Northern parts!

Language is playing a role in our economic decisions!

Federal States of EU?

Yesterday I just had such discussion with my neighbor on the opposite side of hall. It is quite interesting for some of our discussion point.

1.) Could that be a better rescue package if EU would have been a federal states?

His answer is YES. The coordination of EU member states are quite weak now and he considers such weakness is the major reason why it takes so long for EU to reach a deal for the crisis. It is never be easy to reach an agreement that please all.

2.) How commom European might think of the idea of federal states?

History is a devil here. The general public might not happy with such ideas when continental Europe was torn aparted more than once. Particularly, the recent two world war was central-staged in European theater. Such trauma is not easy to mend. Economically speaking, even Greece today is still paying something they owe Germany during the war. (which was forced  upon! the story is quite astonishing and I am not sure of the source of such claim) I still recall that when Austria is not happy of Liechtenstein entering into the EEA agreement due to some territorial problems that is not fully solved in the Empire days....

This question is a bit side-tracked when I talk of the Netherlands. He personally favors Republic over the Monarchy democracy. He believes that Dutch people should have more public consensus mentality if they have been given a Republic system. Actually, when Taiwan was once ruled by Dutch, the Netherlands was back then a Republic system. The continuous wars just brought down such system and other country would "install"(well, that is pretty much his perspective) a king on the Dutch people....

3.) Do EU has the capacity to become a federal states?

This is more my own question. I still recall the day when I were in Norway and had the competition law class. Professor just point out the ECJ do not really have the capacity to handle all the cases and duly ruling is extremely important for business world. If it even comes to more general issues, it could still take forever to solve if the current EU system do not have the capacity to deal with that.

He suggests that it should starts from the core body of EU, if the core can function it right, then the expansion on the power can be progressed in schedule. Just like what they have done before in economic integration.

We will see, this idea/topic is truely interesting now.

ING+荷蘭政府 v.s. 歐盟(1)：金融風暴中的國家紓困

圖片來源：Jock Fistick/Bloomberg

大家還記得在台灣過去經常舉辦的ING路跑賽嗎？從2008年成為最後一屆。面對2008年美國次貸風暴，ING需要出售資產來彌補巨幅虧損。在台灣的業務就轉售與富邦。爾後，ING在 2009-2013年，一系列對於其全球各地的轉投資業務出售。
背後，有甚麼樣的故事？