As the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve conducts a monetary policy—including interest rate regulation and money supply—that not only affects domestic inflation and employment but also exerts significant global spillover effects. The 1977 amendment to the Federal Reserve Act established the Fed's "dual mandate" framework—stabilizing prices and promoting maximum employment. Over the past two decades, the U.S. has faced multiple economic shocks, including the subprime mortgage crisis, the COVID‑19 pandemic, and persistent high inflation. In stagflationary environments, inflation and employment objectives often conflict, making the dual mandate a focal point in macroeconomic discussions. This paper employs literature review and comparative analysis methods, drawing on academic journals and official Federal Reserve reports to trace the historical background and legal origins of the dual mandate, summarize scholarly support for and critiques of the system, compare theoretical differences between the dual mandate and single inflation targeting frameworks, and assess the impact of the dual mandate on the Fed's monetary policy choices over the past twenty years. Most existing studies examine inflation or labor markets separately, thereby lacking a systematic integration and synthesis of research on the dual mandate. Comparative analysis reveals that the dual mandate offers greater policy flexibility during recessions and crises, while single inflation targeting excels in maintaining long‑term price stability. Neither system is universally superior, their effectiveness depends on specific economic cycles. By integrating diverse research findings and comparing the practical performance of these two central banking frameworks under different economic conditions, this study enhances understanding of institutional design logic in advanced economies and provides insights into China's macroeconomic policy approach, which seeks to balance price stability with employment protection.

Show more

This paper investigates whether a relatively simple ARMA-GARCH specification is useful for modelling and forecasting daily FTSE 100 returns. Closing prices from 31 May 2023 to 28 August 2026 generate 823 percentage log returns. Of these, 758 observations are used for estimation and the final 65 trading days are kept aside as an out-of-sample test. Several low-order ARMA and GARCH specifications, under normal and Student-t errors, are compared using only the estimation sample. BIC selects ARMA(0,0) for the mean equation. For volatility, Student-t GARCH(1,1) is retained because it is parsimonious and its parameters are statistically significant. Out of sample, the mean forecast gives an RMSE of 0.5760 and an MAE of 0.4190, only slightly better than a zero-return benchmark. The reported directional accuracy of 56.9% is largely explained by the positive constant mean, which produces a positive sign forecast on every test day. For conditional variance, GARCH performs better under MAE, whereas the 20-day rolling variance has lower MSE and QLIKE. Overall, the model is more useful for tracking changes in risk than for forecasting the short-run direction of FTSE 100 returns.

Show more

This study study whether and how equity participation by Chinese government guidance funds (GGFs) changes the trade credit that firms obtain from their business counterparties. Using 25,149 firm-year observations of nonfinancial Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share companies between 2012 and 2023, this study find that, after controlling for firm characteristics and industry and year fixed effects, GGF-backed firms carry 2.72 percentage points more trade credit as a share of total assets, equivalent to 13.5% of the sample mean. The estimate holds under alternative exposure and trade-credit measures and firm fixed effects, and it survives a series of sample adjustments, propensity-score matching, a Heckman correction, and an instrumental-variable specification. GGF backing is further associated with lower discretionary accruals, more analyst attention, and a higher corporate reputation score, consistent with improved information and trust between the firm and its suppliers. Cross-sectional tests locate the effect mainly among smaller firms and among firms facing fewer financing constraints, lower distress risk, and stronger market positions, indicating that suppliers weigh both public certification and commercial capacity. By identifying supplier finance as a relevant spillover of government-sponsored equity, the paper extends research on public capital and traces a governance–attention–reputation route from equity participation to working-capital access.

Show more

Using the implementation of the national Information-for-Citizens-Benefit pilot, this paper matches the registered location of enterprises with the annual reports and financial data of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets from 2008 to 2024, and uses the difference-in-differences method to examine whether government information integration changes corporate digital behavior. The estimation results show that after entering the pilot, the digital word frequency in corporate annual reports increases significantly. Further analysis finds that bank loan balances rise, the internal control index improves, and the incidence of internal control failure declines. The policy effect is stronger in enterprises with higher ex-ante financing constraints; the within-group effect is significant in cities with better digital foundations, but the between-group difference across cities is not yet significant. The above evidence indicates that government information integration and government process adjustment can influence corporate digital choices, and can be explained from two aspects: external financing and internal governance.

Show more