印度人微网文章2011年IJRRAS_7_2_07

族和 民族 集 团 。虽 然 来 自印 度 次 大 陆 的 这 些 种 族 和
民族 集 团在人 种 和语 言 方 面 十 分 复 杂 ， 是 ， 论 这 但 无
治 当地 。此后 ， 提讪 銮城 就进 入 了一个 婆 罗 门文 化 菩 时期 ， 有 了一个 印度 化名 字 因他 巴坦 那空 。 Ｐ １ 并 …（５ １） 中国史 书在 记 载 以今 天柬 埔 寨 为 中心 的 中 南半 岛早 期 国家扶 南 建 国的历史 时 ， 提 到一 位 叫做 混 溃 也
《 东南亚南亚研究》
２ １ 第 ２期 ０ １年
东 南 亚 的 印度 人 及 其 历 史 变 迁
何 平
（ 南 大 学 人 文 学 院 ， 南 昆 明 ６ ０ ９ ） 云 云 ５ ０ １
摘要 ： 东南亚 ， 在 印度 人 是 一 个 人 口数 量 仅 次 于 华 人 的 第 二 大 外 来 移 民 群 体 ， 及 东 南 亚 的 每 一 个 国 家 。 东 南 亚 遍 的 印度 人 是 在 不 同 历 史 时 期 从 印 度 次 大 陆 迁 入 东 南 亚 的 ， 人 种 和 语 言 等 方 面 都 有 不 少 的 差 异 ， 此 ， 义 的 印 度 人 在 因 广
今 天越南北 部 地 区以外 的东 南 亚 其 他 地 区 的早 期 国 家 都 叫做 “ 印度 化 国家 ” ３（０２ 但 是 ， 早期 历 史 。［ Ｐ ￣１ ］２ ） 在
国传 说 中 ， 提 到 了 印度 人 到 当地 的情 况 。例 如 ， 都 流 传于泰 国北 部地 区的一部 叫做 《 素 旺空坎史 》 勐 即 《 灯 国史 》的史 书提 到 ， 一 位 印度 王 子 来 到位 于 金 有
湄公 河下 游 的菩 提 讪 銮 城 与 一 位 当地 公 主 结 婚并 统

中国
人口增长 速度快
1993-2011年印度人口数量变化
印度人口众多，会给印度带来怎样的影响呢？（有利、不利）
人口增长造成的人均耕地减少已威胁到印度的粮食安全。 1960年印度的人均耕地为0.21公顷，到1999年人均耕地已 减少到0.10公顷，减少一半还多。 1951年至1996年45年 间，印度的谷物产量增长了2倍，但由于粮食产量的提高被 大量人口的增长所抵消，人均谷物增长量只有35％。预计到 2020年印度的粮食生产将达到饱和状态，谷物短缺会达到 0.36亿至1.42亿吨。
人口增长带来的影响
印度与世界人均耕地面积、粮食产量、国内生产总值的比值
项目 印度人均值/ 世界人均值
耕地面积 （2005年）
粮食产量 （2008年）
国内生产总值 （2008年）
0.66
0.61
0.13
导学题： 归纳印度人口众多的优势。
印度是全球几大移动电话市场 之一。 2008年,移动电话用户达 消费市场广阔 到3.5亿人。
印 度 计 划 生 育 宣 传 画
人口的增长要与资源环境和经济发展相适应
第 节
3 印度
第七章 我们临近的国家和地区
印度 一个立志超越中国的国家
India
印度
India
世界第二人口大国
12.67亿中国：13.6源自亿印度India369.9
人/Km² (2011年)
中国：138人/ Km² 印度人口密度分布图
印度东北部的米佐拉姆邦巴克塔温村，齐沃纳家庭荣获世界上人口最多的大 家庭称号。这位67岁的米佐教主娶了39位妻子，生了89个儿女，娶了14个 儿媳妇，现在又有了33个孙子孙女，因此整个家庭的人口数达到了181人。

4、越南高层形成“三驾马车”，面临对抗中国等难题。据日本《读卖新闻》7月27日报道，越南第十三届国会第一次会议于7月26日下午再次选举阮晋勇为越南政府总理。由此，越南权力中心形成了由67岁的越共中央总书记阮富仲、62岁的国家主席张晋创和61岁的政府总理阮晋勇组成的“三驾马车”体制。
5、俄罗斯与美国将于8月初在美国怀俄明州进行核安全联合演习，旨在防止大规模杀伤性武器扩散的此次演习将针对核弹头运输中可能发生的恐怖袭击而进行。
12、美国国务卿希拉里?克林顿7月11日表示，“从美国的角度看，叙利亚总统巴沙尔?阿萨德已经失去执政合法性”。美国政府在叙利亚问题上一直都采取观望立场，克林顿“措辞凶悍”的讲话等于给叙利亚问题“定了调”。这也许意味着美国接下来会在叙利亚有所动作。虽然叙利亚同利比亚不同，但一旦美国认为阿萨德政府需要更迭，叙利亚政府将面临更为严峻的挑战。
1、美国参议院27日一致通过美国商务部长骆家辉担任美国驻华大使的提名。美国总统奥巴马于今年3月9日正式提名骆家辉出任美国驻华大使，接替时任大使洪博培。骆家辉将成为美国历史上首位华裔驻华大使。
2、美国国会众议院通过由众议院议长博纳提出的提高债务上限及削减赤字方案后，随即被民主党控制的参议院否决。
8、东京都知事石原慎太郎7月16日在东京举行的日本体育协会和日本奥委会（JOC）成立100周年纪念仪式上正式宣布，东京将申办2020年夏季奥运会。东京都政府将2020年夏季奥运会定位为“复兴奥运”，作为日本走出东日本大地震灾Байду номын сангаас阴影向世界展示风采的舞台。
9、“利比亚联络小组”第四次会议7月15日在土耳其伊斯坦布尔举行，32个国家和7个国际组织的代表出席讨论解决利比亚危机的可行性途径，试图加大对利比亚领导人卡扎菲的施压力度，最终迫使其下台。

Firms as Surrogate Intermediaries:Evidence from Emerging Economies∗Hyun Song Shin†Laura Yi Zhao‡December2013AbstractAfirm canfinance investment either by borrowing or by drawing on cash balances, so thatfinancial asset and liability changes tend to have opposite signs.In contrast,financial intermediaries borrow in order to lend,so thatfinancial asset and liabilitychanges have the same rge non-financialfirms in China and India behave likeintermediaries rather than textbook non-financialfirms.We explore the role of non-financialfirms in the shadow banking system.The evidence from China and India isin contrast to US non-financialfirms,which conform to the textbook predictions.∗Preliminary.This study forms part of the background research for the Asian Development Bank technical assistance program on“Financial Regulatory Reform in Asia”.†Corresponding author:Bendheim Center for Finance,Princeton University,26Prospect Avenue,Prince-ton,NJ08540,USA;hsshin@‡Asian Development Bank;yzhao.consultant@1IntroductionThe market stresses faced by many emerging economies in the face of tighter global monetary conditions in2013have focused renewed attention on the transmission offinancial conditions across borders.One conceptual challenge is to reconcile the small net external debt positions of many emerging economies with the apparently disproportionate impact of tighter global monetary conditions on their currencies andfinancial markets.Indeed,some commentators have wondered aloud why emerging economies with low net external debt positions are experiencing such severe stresses.1The purpose of our paper is to offer one missing piece in the puzzle,highlighting the role of non-financial corporations as surrogatefinancial intermediaries that operate across borders.When corporate activity straddles the border,measuring exposures at the border itself may not capture the strains on corporate balance sheets.For instance,if the London subsidiary of the company has taken on US dollar debt but the company is holding domestic currencyfinancial assets at its headquarters,then the company as a whole faces a currency mismatch and will be affected by currency movements,even if no cross-border exposures are registered in the official net external debt statistics.Nevertheless,thefirm’s fortunes (and hence its actions)will be sensitive to currency movements.In the case offirms that straddle borders,it may be more illuminating to look at the consolidated balance sheet that motivates corporate treasurers,rather than the balance of payments statistics that are organized according to residence.One aspect offirms’access to international capital markets is the offshore issuance of debt securities sold to international investors.If the debt securities issued offshore are in foreign currency,offshore issuance would mirror currency mismatches on the consolidated balance sheet.Hence,offshore issuance goes beyond just a measurement issue on the size of the company’s debt and instead addresses the fundamental issue of howfirms will fare when 1For instance,Krugman(2013)“Asian Vulnerability,Then and Now”/2013/08/29/asian-vulnerability-then-and-now/1B i l l i o n U S d o l l a r sB i l l i o n U S d o l l a r s Figure 1:China (left)and India (right):International debt securities outstanding for non-financial corporates by nationality and by residence (Source:BIS Debt Securities Statistics,Table 11D and 12D)global financial conditions and exchange rates change.Figure 1shows BIS statistics on the amounts outstanding of international debt securities issued by non-financial corporate borrowers in China (left)and India (right)by residence of the borrower (blue)and the nationality of the borrower (red).The difference between the red and blue series reflects the offshore issuance of corporate debt securities.We see from Figure 1that offshore issuance activity was small until the 2008crisis,but subsequently grew strongly.The period after 2010has seen a particularly steep increase so that by 2013,the offshore amounts outstanding are equal in size to the onshore issuance outstanding.McCauley,Upper and Villar (2013)describe the recent trend of offshore issuance of corporate debt securities.2Our paper examines the role of the firm as a surrogate financial intermediary that trans-mits financial conditions across borders.The hallmark of banks and other financial inter-mediaries is that they borrow in order to lend.As such,when their financial assets increase through new lending or purchases of securities,their financial liabilities,such as deposits,also increase.In this way,a distinctive feature of financial intermediaries is that the change in their financial assets has the same sign as the change in their financial liabilities.In contrast,textbook non-financial firms behave in a very different way.When a non-Agust´ın Villar “Emerging market debt securities issuance in offshore centres”BIS Quarterly Review,September 2013,Box 2,pp 23-24./publ/qtrpdf/r qt1309b.pdf 2financialfirm undertakes an investment,it canfinance it either by drawing on its existing financial resources or by external borrowing,or a combination of both.A prediction of the “pecking order”theory of corporatefinance(Myers(1984))is that thefirm will draw on internal fundsfirst as the cheapest form offinancing,and only tap outside funding when internal funds are inadequate.A prediction from such behavior would be that changes in financial assets and changes infinancial liabilities will have opposite signs,capturing those firms that raise outside funding while drawing down internal funds.We show that non-financialfirms in emerging economies behave likefinancial intermedi-aries in that co-movements infinancial assets andfinancial liabilities have a positive sign. This is true both in the cross-section,as well as in the time series.In other words,firms that borrow more also hold more cash,andfirms that increase their borrowing also increase their cash holding.To the extent thatfirms’cash holdings are claims on the domestic bank-ing sector,thefirms would be performing afinancial intermediation role by making funding available indirectly to other domestic borrowers.Our paper has a close parallel with Hattori,Shin and Takahashi(2009),who describe the role of non-financial corporates as surrogate intermediaries in Japan in the1980s.Hattori et al.(2009)show how thefinancial liberalization of the1980s enabled large manufacturing firms in Japan to gain access to funding by issuing securities,especially from international investors who sought yen exposure.As new funding sources opened up,firms recycled yen funding through the banking system in the form of bank time deposits.Through this channel, thefinancial assets of non-financialfirms increased in step with theirfinancial liabilities in the1980s.Banks in Japan suffered a reversal of roles in which corporate borrowers became corporate depositors,and banks were pushed to seek borrowers in riskier sectors such as in commercial real estate.The parallel between Japan in the1980s and the emerging economies in2013lies in the role of non-financial corporates as surrogate intermediaries.The evidence in our paper comes from a large panel of non-financialfirms emerging economies in the Compustat Global database in which we examine both the cross-section3patterns in corporate balance sheets,as well as the growth of individualfirms’financial assets and liabilities withfirmfixed effects.The evidence from the major emerging economies is especially noteworthy given its contrast to US non-financialfifirms are seen to conform to the textbook prescription for corporatefinancing choices in whichfinancial assets and liabilities move in the opposite directions,consistent with the pecking order theory of financing(Opler et al.(1999)).Our paper has a point of contact with the many studies that have explored the trends and implications of corporate cash holdings.Traditional studies focus onfirm value,merges and acquisitions,and dividend issuance.Harford(1999)shows that cash-richfirms are more likely to attempt acquisition and their mergers tend to be followed by a decline in operating performance.Lie(2000)finds that a large increase of dividends mitigates the agency problem associated with excess cash-holdings.Denis and Sibilkov(2010)show that as due to costly externalfinancing,greater cash holdings increase the value of constrainedfirms.Our paper contributes to this literature by exploring the implications of the non-financialfirms’cash holdings for the liquidity in the banking system.Given the importance of corporate liquidity,many works explore its determination.Opler et al.(1999)and Ferreira and Vilela(2004)find supportive evidence for a static trade-offtheory using data from the United States and European countries respectively.Bates et al. (2009)argues that precautionary motives explain the rise of US industrialfirms’cash-to-asset ratio.The role of corporate governance is also explored.As an example,Dittmar et al.(2003)finds that the agency problem is an important determinant of corporate cash holdings,and thatfirms in countries with poor shareholder rights hold twice as much cash asfirms in countries with good shareholder protection.Other factors are also found to affect corporate liquidity:tax cost for multinational companies to repatriate foreign income(Foley et al.(2007)),the predation risk(Haushalter et al.(2007)),the diversification of investment opportunities(Duchin(2010)),and the incentive to hedge cashflow shocks during bad times (Lins et al.(2010)).Adding to this line of literature,our paper explores a new perspective4to understand non-financialfirms’cash holdings through their role as surrogatefinancial intermediary.Our paper is also related to the studies on thefinancing decisions offirms,in particular the use of debtfinancing.This line of literature focuses on two competing theories:the trade-offtheory and the pecking order theory.The empirical evidence is mixed.Shyam-Sunder and Myers(1999)argues that the basic pecking order model has more explanatory power than the static trade-offtheory in explaining thefinancing patterns of public and maturefirms in the United States.On the other hand,Frank and Goyal(2003)and Fama and French(2005)find pervasive evidence contradicting the pecking order ter on, Leary and Roberts(2010)show that the pecking order theory performs better in explaining firms’financing decisions only when factors typically attributed to other theories are simul-taneously accounted for.These two theories focused mainly on the traditional explanations for corporate use of debt,for example taxes,bankruptcy cost,transaction costs,adverse selection and agency conflicts.Our paper,by investigating the surrogatefinancial interme-diary roles of the non-financialfirms,suggests that the non-financialfirms in China borrows in order to invest,especially in the form of deposit and other short-term investments.Before documenting the key facts,we delve deeper into the institutions that underpin the empirical results.In particular,we explore how the availability offinancing from inter-national capital markets induces large non-financialfirms to engage infinancial transactions in the shadow banking system that have the tell-tale attributes offinancial intermediation. The institutional backdrop of the shadow banking system in China is a tightly regulated formal banking sector,which sits alongside a highly open and trade-dependent economy. Even if capital account transactions through banks can be tightly regulated,the current account transactions of thousands offirms generated in the course of international trade will be much harder to monitor and regulate.By its nature,shedding light on the shadow banking system andfirms’roles in the system presents formidable challenges in measurement and for data availability.However,5Figure2:Non-financialfirms as intermediary.In this diagram,firms with access to international capital markets act as an intermediary for outside funding when the banking sector has restricted access to international capital markets.the advantage of our approach is that,however thefirms managed to change theirfinancial claims and liabilities,the consequences of their actions will be captured in the snapshot of the consolidated balance sheet at the reporting period.As such,for the purpose of gauging the scale of intermediation performed by non-financialfirms,we can simply read offthe financial assets and liabilities,without having to capture in detail all the specific practices that thefirms engage in reaching theirfinal position.When the availability of externalfinancing from international capital markets varies with global liquidity conditions,a prediction of our approach is that the surrogatefinancial intermediation activity of non-financialfirms in emerging economies will reflect(at least in part)the ebb andflow of global liquidity conditions themselves.Consistent with this hypothesis,wefind that the extent of intermediation activity of non-financialfirms co-moves strongly with indicators of credit availability at the global level.We contrast the evidence from emerging economyfirms andfirms from the United States.While USfirms conform closely to the textbook model,firms from emerging economies exhibit the distinctive positive co-movement offinancial assets and liabilities.We conclude with some broader lessons for the operation of thefinancial system in a tightly regulated economy.6Chinese corporate Hong Kong bankFigure3:Offshore borrowing by a non-financial corporate in foreign currency2BackgroundAn economy with an openfinancial sector and convertible capital account will be sensitive to globalfinancial conditions,but the sensitivity to externalfinancial conditions also applies to economies that are tightly regulated and whose capital accounts are closed.Just as water willfind cracks to trickle through a rock,so will international capitalfind ways into an open economy when it has a large volume of transactions associated with trade.This is so even when thefinancial sector is tightly regulated and external borrowing is restricted by regulations that govern capital inflows.The role of non-financialfirms is crucial in this respect as the channel through which capital inflows take place.Figure2depicts an economy with a banking sector that has restricted access to wholesale funding in international capital markets,but where a subset offirms have access both to the domesticfinancial system as well as international capital markets through tradefinancing or the operation of overseas offices.Although non-financialfirms are subject to regulations in their use of international capital markets,the sheer number of suchfirms as well as the complexity of their transactions make them much harder to regulate than the banks.As well as the corporate bond market,global banks provide another channel to the international capital markets.Figure3is a schematic illustration of the activities of a non-financialfirm from China7-400-300-200-100100200300400Jan-2003Oct-2003Jul-2004Apr-2005Jan-2006Oct-2006Jul-2007Apr-2008Jan-2009Oct-2009Jul-2010Apr-2011Jan-2012B i l l i o n H K d o l l a r s Claims on non-bank customers in China (F.C.)Liabilities to non-bank customers in China (F.C.)Figure 4:Hong Kong banks’claims and liabilities to non-bank customers in China in currencies other than Hong Kong dollars (Source:Hong Kong Monetary Authority)with operations in Hong Kong,who borrows in US dollars from an international bank in Hong Kong and posts Renminbi deposits as collateral.The transaction would be akin to a currency swap,except that the settlement price is not chosen at the outset.The transactions instead resemble the operation of the old London Eurodollar market in the 1960s and 70s.For the Chinese corporate,the purpose of having US dollar liabilities and holding the proceeds in Renminbi may be to hedge their export receivables,or simply to speculate on Renminbi appreciation.Figure 4provides some aggregate evidence for the transactions depicted in Figure 3.Figure 4plots the claims and liabilities of Hong Kong banks in foreign currency to customers in China.Foreign currency,in this case,would be US dollars mainly for the assets and Renminbi mainly for the liabilities.Both have risen dramatically in recent years,reflecting the rapidly increasing US dollar funding of non-financial corporates from China.As well as channeling capital flows into China,non-financial firms play a more direct role as a financial intermediary through the institution of “entrusted loans”.Entrusted 8Figure5:Non-financialfirms as intermediary through“entrusted loans”.This diagram depicts the operation of“entrusted loans”where non-financialfirms lend to other non-financialfirms with limited access to bank lending.The bank acts as delegated manager of the loan contract.loans are loans granted by onefirm to anotherfirm directly.However,a commercial bank administers the loan as a delegated manager.Figure5illustrates the operation of an entrusted loan,where a largefirm with access to bank loans recycles the loan by granting an entrusted loan to anotherfirm-typically a smallerfirm with restricted access to bank lending,or a property-relatedfirm.The commercial bank administers the entrusted loan, and the entrusted loan stays offthe bank’s balance sheet,and hence does not count against lending limits set for the commercial bank by the bank regulators.From Figure5,we see that the lendingfirm in the entrusted loan relationship behaves like afinancial intermediary, simultaneously borrowing and lending.Increased incidence of such intermediation activity will be captured in a snapshot of the lendingfirm’s balance sheet as the simultaneous increase in bothfinancial assets andfinancial liabilities.Quantitatively,the intermediation conducted through entrusted loans is large relative to the lending through the formal banking sector.Figure6plots the quarterlyflow of entrusted loans and domestic currency bank loans in China,as published by the People’s Bank of China statistics on all systemsfinancing(also called total socialfinancing).We see that theflow of entrusted loans have increased in recent quarters,reaching25%to30%of90.00.51.01.52.02.53.0T r i l l i o n R M B0%5%10%15%20%25%30%Figure 6:Quarterly flow of entrusted loans and Renminbi bank loans (Source:People’s Bank of China,/publish/diaochatongjisi/4032/index.html)formal bank lending in China.3DataWe now turn to our empirical analysis,starting with a description of the data used in our study.The activities illustrated in Figures 5and 2suggest that the transactions underlying the surrogate intermediation done by non-financial firms can be complex and not easy to disentangle.Nor are these transactions easily measured or monitored.Our strategy,therefore,is to focus on the snapshot of the balance sheet at the end of the year,and investigate the co-movement in financial assets and financial liabilities of the firms,both in the cross-section and over time for each firm individually.Our firm level data comes from Compustat Global.The advantage of this data is two-fold.First,the database includes listed firms in China,which would include the largenon-financial firms that would be candidates for the intermediation activity described so far.Since we are interested in the firms engaged in the surrogate intermediation rather than the small and medium sized enterprises that are the ultimate borrowers,confining attention to10the largefirms will not miss the bulk of the surrogate intermediation.Second,Compustat Global imposes accounting classifications that are designed to ensure that cross-country comparisons are possible.Cross-country comparability is important for our purpose,as one of the checks to our main investigation is to compare the empirical results for China with that for the United States.For such an exercise,cross-country comparability is crucial,and Compustat Global ensures broad comparability.3.1Firm level data for ChinaOur sample offirms from China in Compustat Global covers thosefirms with Global Industry Classification Standard(GICS)sector codes not equal to40.The sample period is from1990 to2012,with data cutoffdate as November30,2013.For our benchmark regressions,we exclude thefirms which are outliers in terms of the ratio of cash and short-term investments to sales(above the99.5or below the0.5percentiles).After the sample selection,there are 1532firms in our sample.As our focus is on the surrogate intermediation activity offirms,our focus is on the cash and short-term investment position of thefirms,as well as otherfinancial assets.In what follows,“cash”is taken to mean cash and short-term investments.Financial liabilities are defined as the sum of the short—term debt and the long-term debt,which includes bank loans.Firm leverage is defined asfinancial liabilities divided by total assets.The summary statistics are presented in Table1.We note the following features.First,cash-holdings of Chinesefirms grew rapidly over the sample period.The average cash-holding increased more thanfive-fold from RMB248.6 million in1990to RMB1,488.3million in2012.Second,the growth of cash holdings was skewed to largefirms in the later periods,as suggested by the faster growth of the mean cash holding relative to the25and75percentiles. Therefore,the rapid growth of the averagefinancial liabilities seems mainly to have been driven by largefirms.11Table1:Description of variables for the1990-2012Compustat sample for publicly traded Chinese non-financial companies.Cash includes short-term investments;financial liabilities are defined as the sum of the short—term debt and the long-term debt;firm leverage is defined asfinancial liabilities devided by totalper-centileper-centilefirms A.1990-2012cash879.871.4198.4501.1179931532financial liabilities1,911.1119.0318.1893.0179931532 sales5,374.2351.1832.92,252.6179931532firm leverage27.1%15.1%25.3%36.7%179931532 cash/sales31.5%10.4%19.9%37.9%179931532financial liabilities/sales59.3%19.0%39.2%72.4%179931532B.1990-2001(Period1)cash248.623.979.1205.84919775financial liabilities607.774.3170.0390.44919775 sales1,226.7192.2388.4838.34919775firm leverage26.7%16.3%25.6%35.6%4919775 cash/sales31.1%7.3%17.1%38.4%4919775financial liabilities/sales63.9%24.0%45.6%78.3%4919775C.2002-2007(Period2)cash662.686.5206.1455.258731260financial liabilities1,533.5164.0382.8915.358731260 sales4,509.0395.5878.12,214.658731260firm leverage28.6%17.1%27.0%38.0%58731260 cash/sales30.0%10.8%19.9%36.5%58731260financial liabilities/sales64.6%21.0%43.2%79.7%58731260D.2008-2012(Period3)cash1,488.3135.6354.0838.372011499financial liabilities3,109.5149.8447.21,450.072011499 sales8,912.8587.81,393.43,799.172011499firm leverage26.1%12.8%23.7%36.0%72011499 cash/sales33.0%12.0%21.2%38.7%72011499financial liabilities/sales51.9%15.2%32.3%62.0%7201149912Figure7:China:Ratio of aggregate cash to aggregate sales offirms in sample(positive bars)and ratio of aggregatefinancial liabilities to aggregate sales(negative bars)Third,cash holdings grew faster than sales,which in turn grew more rapidly thanfinancial liabilities.As a result,the ratio of cash to sales ratio has increased during the sample period, while the ratio offinancial liabilities to sales has fallen in the sample period.Figure7shows the cash to sales ratio andfinancial liabilities to sales ratio of the sample Chinesefirms.The chart indicates that the cash to sales ratio co-moved with thefinancial liability to sales ratio Figure8is the scatter plot of cash holdings versus sales,plotted in log scale.The slope of the scatter is close to1,suggesting that there is a roughly proportional relationship between cash holdings and sales,so that sales are a good normalizing variable forfirm size.A roughly proportion relationship between cash and sales would be consistent with a“buffer stock”view of cash holdings,wherefirms hold cash to serve as a buffer against shocks to cashflows.13Figure8:Scatter plot of cash vs sales in log scale for samplefirms in2000and2011.3.2Bond IssuanceAs well asfirm-level data,we will also employ aggregate corporate bond issuance series for non-financialfirms from China as an aggregate explanatory variable in the panel regressions. Aggregate corporate bond issuance serves as an indicator of the availability of credit through debt markets.When the corporate bond is issued in foreign currency,the issuance series also serves as an indicator of global capital market conditions and the availability of credit tofirms in China from international investors.Figure11shows the total outstanding amounts of bonds for different sectors in China. The chart uses total depository data from China Central Depository and Clearing Co.Cor-porate bonds grew from literally nothing to RMB5trillion between1997and2012.Even when the amounts are normalized relative to China’s GDP,we see from Figure10that the corporate bonds outstanding has increased very rapidly from only1%in2005to10%of China’s GDP by2012.Figure11shows the breakdown of total corporate bonds by instrument.The corporate bonds category encompasses commercial paper(CP)and medium-term notes(MTN),both of which are shorter maturity instruments.Medium-term notes(MTNs)have grown most14Figure9:Total bond depository amount of China.Source:China Central Depository and Clearing Co..Figure10:Total bond depository amount to GDP ratio in China.Source:China Central Depository and Clearing Co..15Figure11:Breakdown of total corporate bond depository amount.Source:China Central Depository and Clearing Co..significantly since their inception in2008,indicating the increasing need for medium-term financing for Chinesefirms By2012,MTNs accounted for over half of the total corporate bonds.Foreign currency bond issuance by Chinesefirms has also increased rapidly in recent years.The outstanding balance increased from USD4.7billion in2001to USD81.7billion in2012.Figure12plots the foreign currency bond outstanding relative to China’s GDP by sector.We see that private issuance byfirms was lower than the issuance by the government sector,but private issuance overtook government sector issuance in2008and has pulled away further since.As of2012,foreign currency corporate bonds outstanding is around1%of China GDP,while government bonds accounted for only0.25%.4Panel Regressions for ChinaWe proceed to examine panel regressions that ascertain howfinancial asset holdings vary with thefirm’sfinancial liabilities.16Figure12:Foreign currency bond outstanding to GDP ratio by government,financial institutions and other corporates.Source:Asian Development Bank.4.1Panel regressions in log ratiosOurfirst set of panel regressions are for log of cash(including short-term investments)to sales ratio regressed on log offinancial liabilities to sales ratio.Our interest is in the sign of the coefficient on log offinancial liabilities to sales ratio.We include log sales andfirm leverage,defined asfinancial liabilities to total assets,as control variables.We also include the full set of yearfixed effects andfirmfixed effects.Table2presents the regression results. We present results below on the case where we have dropped observations forfirms that have zerofinancial liability at any date in the sample.Qualitatively,the results are unchanged when we includefirms with zero debt,although the coefficient is smaller.Column(1)is for the full sample.We see that the sign on ln(fin liab)is positive and significant at the1%level.The coefficient of0.209implies that a1%increase infinancial liabilities to sales ratio in the cross-section translates into a0.21%increase in cash and short-term investment holdings to sales ratio.In columns(2)to(5),we examine subgroups offirms arranged into four size quartiles based on the average sales of thefirms over the period.As largefirms may have better17。