金融学专业考研复试专业英语题目

13. Efficient Market Hypothesis 有效市场假说

The efficient market hypothesis states that current prices in a financial market will be set so that the optimal forecast of a security’s return using all available information equals the security’s equilibrium return, because in an efficient market all unexploited profit opportunities will be eliminated by arbitrager (套利者).

14. “Lemons Problem” 次品问题

A particular aspect of the way the adverse selection problem interferes with the efficient functioning of a market is called “lemons problem”.

We can use the used-car market to illustrate this concept. Potential buyers of used cars are frequently unable to assess the quality of the car, that is, they can’t tell whether a particular used car is a good car or a lemon (次品). The price that a buyer pays must therefore reflect the average quality of the cars in the market, somewhere between the low value of a lemon and the high value of a good car. The owner of a used car, by contrast, is more likely to know whether the car is a good car or a lemon. If the car is a lemon, the owner is more than happy to sell it at the price the buyer is willing to pay, which, being somewhere between the value of a lemon and a good car, is greater than the lemons value. However, if the car is a good car, the owner knows that the car is undervalued at the price the buyer is willing to pay, and so the owner may not want to sell it. As a result of this adverse selection, few good used cars will come to the market. Because the average quality of a used car available in the market will be low and because few people want to buy a lemon, there will be few sales. The used-car market will function poorly or even disappear.

15. Principal-agent Problem 委托-代理问题

Principal-agent problem refers to that the managers in control (the agents) may act in their own interest rather than in the interest of the stockholder (the principals) because the managers have less incentive to maximize profits than the stockholder do. The principal-agent problem, which is an example of moral hazard, arises only because a manager has more information about his activities than the stockholder does. So, there is asymmetric information.

16. What’s “irrational exuberance” proposed by Alan Greenspan? 非理性繁荣 Irrational exuberance refers to a phenomenon that asset prices, in the stock market and real estate, are driven well above their fundamental economic values by investor

psychology. The result is an asset-price bubble (资产价格泡沫), such as the tech stock market bubble of the late 1990s or the recent housing price bubble in subprime crisis.

17. How to solve asymmetric information problems? 如何解决信息不对称的问题？

18. Securitization and Subprime mortgage 资产证券化与次级抵押贷款 (1)Subprime mortgages are mortgages for borrowers with less-than-stellar credit records.

(2)Securitization is the process of transforming otherwise illiquid financial assets (such as residential mortgages, auto loans, and credit card receivables), which have typically been the main business of banking institutions, into marketable capital market securities.

19. What’s time-inconsistency problem? 时间不一致问题

The time -inconsistency problem is some thing we deal with continually in everyday life. We often have a plan that we know will produce a good outcome in the long run, but when tomorrow comes, we just can't help ourselves and we deny our plan because doing so has short-run gains. In other words, we find ourselves unable to consistently follow a good plan over time, and the good plan is said to be time-inconsistent and will soon be abandoned .

20. Political Business Cycle 政治经济周期

Political business cycle is a process that can be illustrated in the following example. Just before an election, expansionary policies are pursued to lower unemployment and interest rates. After the election, the bad effects of these policies, that is high inflation and high interest rates, come home to roost, requiring contractionary policies that politicians hope the public will forget before the next election.

21. What’s money multiplier and what are the factors that affect it? 货币乘数及其影响因素？

(1)The money multiplier, denoted by m, tells us how much the money supply changes for a given change in the monetary base. The relationship between the

money supply, the money multiplier and the monetary base is described by the following equation: M = m × MB

(2)The money multiplier is a function of the currency ratio set by depositor c, the excess reserves ratio set by banks e, and the required reserve ratio set by the Fed r. The money multiplier m is thus

22. What are the tools of monetary policy? 货币政策工具

There are three tools of monetary policy that can be conducted by the central bank, such as open market operations, discount lending and reserve requirements. (1)Open market operations (公开市场操作) are the most important monetary policy tool, because they are the primary determinants of changes in interest rates and the monetary base, the main source of fluctuations in the money supply. Open market purchases expand reserves and the monetary base, thereby increasing the money supply and lowering short-term interest rates. Open market sales shrink reserves and the monetary base, decreasing the money supply and raising short-term interest rates. Open market operations have four advantages over the other tools of monetary policy: ①Open market operations occur at the initiative of the Fed, which has complete control over their volume. ②Open market operations are flexible and precise, and they can be used to any extent. ③Open market operations are easily reversed.④Open market operations can be implemented quickly, since they involve no administrative delays.

(2)The facility at which banks can borrow reserves from the Fed is called the discount window (贴现窗口). The facility is intended to be a backup source of liquidity for banks during financial crisis.

The most important advantage of discount policy is that the Fed can use it to perform its role of lender of last resort (最后贷款人). The disadvantage of discount policy is that the decisions to take out discount loans are made by banks and are therefore not completely controlled by the Fed.

(3)Changes in reserve requirements (法定存款准备金) affect the money supply by causing the money supply multiplier to change. A rise in reserve requirements reduces the amount of deposits that can be supported by a given level of the monetary base and will lead to a contraction of the money supply. A rise in reserve requirements also increases the demand for reserves and raises the federal funds rate. Conversely, a

decline in reserve requirements leads to an expansion of the money supply and a fall in the federal funds rate.

Reserve requirements have at least three disadvantages: ①Owing to financial innovation, reserve requirements are no longer binding for most banks, so this tool is much less effective than it once was. ②Raising the requirements can cause immediate liquidity problems for banks where reserve requirements are binding. ③Continually fluctuating reserve requirements would also create more uncertainty for banks and make their liquidity management more difficult.

23. Law of One Price and Theory of Purchasing Power Parity一价定理与购买力评价理论

(1)The law of one price states that if two countries produce an identical good, and transportation costs and trade barriers are very low, the price of the good should be the same throughout the world no matter which country produces it.

(2)The theory of purchasing power parity (PPP) states that exchange rates between any two currencies will adjust to reflect changes in the price levels of the two countries. The theory of PPP is simply an application of the law of one price to national price levels rather than to individual prices. The statement that exchange rates equal relative price levels is sometimes referred to as absolute PPP (绝对购买力平价). Relative PPP (相对购买力平价) states that the percentage change in the exchange rate between two currencies over any period equals the difference between the percentage changes in national price levels.

24. Real Exchange Rate 实际汇率

The real exchange rate refers to the rate at which domestic goods can be exchanged for foreign goods. In effect, it is the price of domestic goods relative to the price of foreign goods denominated in the domestic currency. For example, if a basket of goods in New York costs $50, while the cost of the same basket of goods in Tokyo costs $75 because it costs 7500 yen while the exchange rate is at 100 yen per dollar, then the real exchange rate is 0.66 (=$50/$75). The real exchange rate is below l, indicating that it is cheaper to buy the basket of goods in the United States than in Japan.

25. Why the theory of purchasing power parity cannot fully explain exchange rates? 购买力平价的缺陷