House-Price Crash and Macroeconomic Crisis: A Hong Kong Case Study

House prices crash has become an important feature of macroeconomic crisis. We argue that house prices crash driven by contractionary monetary policy is not only a reaction to crisis, but also accelerates and amplifies the fluctuations of major macroeconomic variable. In this paper, we conduct a case study of Hong Kong in the 1997-1998 financial crisis and quantitatively analyze the mechanism by developing a general equilibrium model incorporating financial accelerator mechanism into both household and entrepreneur sectors. After estimating and simulating the model, impulse response results imply that our model can explain the co-movement of house prices, consumption, and investment better than the alternative models.house prices, fianncial accelerator, consumption, investment, Hong Kong

Stock Price, Real Riskless Interest Rate and Learning

In this paper, I first discover how real riskless interest rate, the tool for conducting monetary policy, is empirically related to stock price. Then, consumption based asset pricing model with rational expectations has been shown to fail in generating the same relationship. However, allowing a small deviation from RE by introducing learning mechanism can quantitatively account for the weak relationship between stock price and the risk-free interest rate. Therefore, I claim that this model could be favorable workhorse for studying monetary policy and asset price

Stock price, risk-free rate and learning

The comovement between stock and short-term bond markets in US data shows to be weak measured by the correlation between stock price-dividend ratio and risk-free rate, as well as the statistics coming from variance decomposition approach. Understanding the weak comovement is important for both investors and policy makers. We show that several rational expectation asset pricing models that match stock market volatility are inconsistent with the weak comovement because stock prices there are fundamental driven. To explain the weak comovement, we present a small open economy model with "Internally Rational" agents, who optimally update their subjective beliefs on stock prices given their own model. Compared with risk-free rate's variation, agents' subjective beliefs are central in generating stock price volatility. When testing our model using the method of simulated moments, we find that it can simultaneously match the basic stock and short-term bond market facts, and the weak comovement between two markets quantitatively

House-Price Crash and Macroeconomic Crisis: A Hong Kong Case Study

House prices crash has become an important feature of macroeconomic crisis. We argue that house prices crash driven by contractionary monetary policy is not only a reaction to crisis, but also accelerates and amplifies the fluctuations of major macroeconomic variable. In this paper, we conduct a case study of Hong Kong in the 1997-1998 financial crisis and quantitatively analyze the mechanism by developing a general equilibrium model incorporating financial accelerator mechanism into both household and entrepreneur sectors. After estimating and simulating the model, impulse response results imply that our model can explain the co-movement of house prices, consumption, and investment better than the alternative models

House-Price Crash and Macroeconomic Crisis: A Hong Kong Case Study

House prices crash has become an important feature of macroeconomic crisis. We argue that house prices crash driven by contractionary monetary policy is not only a reaction to crisis, but also accelerates and amplifies the fluctuations of major macroeconomic variable. In this paper, we conduct a case study of Hong Kong in the 1997-1998 financial crisis and quantitatively analyze the mechanism by developing a general equilibrium model incorporating financial accelerator mechanism into both household and entrepreneur sectors. After estimating and simulating the model, impulse response results imply that our model can explain the co-movement of house prices, consumption, and investment better than the alternative models

Metal-organic framework derived hierarchical porous TiO2 nanopills as a super stable anode for Na-ion batteries

Hierarchical porous TiO2 nanopills were synthesized using a titanium metal-organic framework MIL-125(Ti) as precursor. The as-synthesized TiO2 nanopills owned a large specific surface area of 102 m2/g and unique porous structure. Furthermore, the obtained TiO2 nanopills were applied as anode materials for Na-ion batteries for the first time. The as-synthesized TiO2 nanopills achieved a high discharge capacity of 196.4 mAh/g at a current density of 0.1 A/g. A discharge capacity of 115.9 mAh/g was obtained at a high current density of 0.5 A/g and the capacity retention was remained as high as 90% even after 3000 cycles. The excellent electrochemical performance can be attributed to its unique hierarchical porous feature

High-performance supercapacitors based on hierarchically porous carbons with a three-dimensional conductive network structure

Clews of polymer nanobelts (CsPNBs) have the advantages of inexpensive raw materials, simple synthesis and large output. Novel clews of carbon nanobelts (CsCNBs) have been successfully prepared by carbonizing CsPNBs and by KOH activation subsequently. From the optimized process, CsCNBs*4, with a specific surface area of 2291 m2 g−1 and a pore volume of up to 1.29 cm3 g−1, has been obtained. Fundamentally, the CsCNBs possess a three-dimensional conductive network structure, a hierarchically porous framework, and excellent hydrophilicity, which enable fast ion diffusion through channels and a large enough ion adsorption/desorption surface to improve electrochemical performance of supercapacitors. The product exhibits a high specific capacitance of 327.5 F g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 in a three-electrode system. The results also reveal a high-rate capacitance (72.2% capacitance retention at 500 mV s−1) and stable cycling lifetime (95% of initial capacitance after 15 000 cycles). Moreover, CsCNBs*4 provides a high energy density of 29.8 W h kg−1 at a power density of 345.4 W kg−1 in 1 M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate/acetonitrile (TEABF4/AN) electrolyte. These inspiring results imply that this carbon material with a three-dimensional conductive network structure possesses excellent potential for energy storage

Optimized synthesis of ultrahigh-surface-area and oxygen-doped carbon nanobelts for high cycle-stability lithium-sulfur batteries

Hierarchical clews of carbon nanobelts (CsCNBs) with ultrahigh specific surface area (2300 m2 g−1) and large pore volume (up to 1.29 cm3 g−1) has been successfully fabricated through carbonization and KOH activation of phenolic resin based nanobelts. The product possesses hierarchically porous structure, three-dimensional conductive network framework, and polar oxygen-rich groups, which are very befitting to load sulfur leading to excellent cycling stability of lithium-sulfur batteries. The composites of CsCNBs/sulfur exhibit an ultrahigh initial discharge capacity of 1245 mA h g−1 and ultralow capacity decay rate as low as 0.162% per cycle after 200 cycles at 0.1 C. Even at high current rate of 4 C, the cells still display a high initial discharge capacity (621 mA h g−1) and ultralow capacity decay rate (only 0.039% per cycle) after 1000 cycles. These encouraging results indicate that polar oxygen-containing functional groups are important for improving the electrochemical performance of carbons. The oxygen-doped carbon nanobelts have excellent energy storage potential in the field of energy storage

Ultrahigh-content nitrogen-decorated nanoporous carbon derived from metal organic frameworks and its application in supercapacitors

Single electric double-layer capacitors cannot meet the growing demand for energy due to their insufficient energy density. Generally speaking, the supercapacitors introduced with pseudo-capacitance by doping heteroatoms (N, O) in porous carbon materials can obtain much higher capacitance than electric double-layer capacitors. In view of above merits, in this study, nanoporous carbon materials with ultrahigh N enrichment (14.23 wt%) and high specific surface area (942 m2 g−1) by in situ introduction of N-doped MOF (ZTIF-1, Organic ligands 5-methyltetrazole/C2H4N4) were produced. It was found that as supercapacitors' electrode materials, these nanoporous carbons exhibit a capacitance as high as 272 F g-1 at 0.1 A g−1, and an excellent cycle life (almost no attenuation after 10,000 cycles.). Moreover, the symmetric supercapacitors were assembled to further investigate the actual capacitive performance, and the capacitance shows up to 154 F g-1 at 0.1 A g−1. Such excellent properties may be attributed to a combination of a high specific surface area, ultrahigh nitrogen content and hierarchically porous structure. The results shown in this study fully demonstrate that the nanoporous carbon materials containing ultrahigh nitrogen content can be used as a potential electrode material in supercapacitors