Debt and Taxes and Uncertainty

With a graduated personal tax schedule, Miller showed that there could be an equilibrium debt supply for the corporate sector as a whole. In the presence of uncertainty there is also a unique debt/equity ratio for each individual firm, and this ratio is related to the firm's operational risk characteristics. However, if firms merge and spin off in response to tax incentives, the identity of firms is ambiguous and only the corporate sector is a meaningful construct. These arguments are developed in both discrete and continuous models that employ extensions of the arbitrage-free pricing theory.     

教育与资本怎样的前景怎样的现实

来自政府的声音: "动员各种社会资源,发展教育" 此次论坛上财政部长助理张少春的发言是最受关注的发言之一.他的演讲传达出的信息有这样几方面:第一,谈到现实,他认为全社会对教育的巨大需求与我国公共投入不足已成为我国教育事业发展的突出矛盾.近年来,以公共部门投入为主,多渠道筹措教育经费的教育投入机制成为解决这一问题的重要途径,也使得公共部门与私营部门在教育领域的合作日益密切.第二,谈到前景,他认为,1.中国经济持续、快速的增长对高技能人才产生巨大的需求,这为私营部门的参与提供了广阔空间.2.随着公共财政职能的不断完善,财政资金将在各项教育事业中重新进行分配,进一步优化财政支出结构,提高资金的使用效率.在"十一五"期间,我国将把公共支出的重点转移到农村.我们将逐步把全体农村适龄儿童的义务教育全部纳入公共财政体制.     

East and west and north and south : A preliminary model

The Brandt report and other proposals for a new North-South world order continue to be the focus of lively debate, yet it is often argued that little concrete has emerged from their recommendations. A major reason for this, the author argues, is that the East-West conflict component is not sufficiently taken into consideration-East-West tensions are a severe constraint on and a determining factor of North-South relations. Using influence diagrams, the author develops a flexible framework for discussion and assessment of N/S-E/W relations.     

Director gender and mergers and acquisitions

Does director gender influence CEO empire building? Does it affect the bid premium paid for target firms? Less overconfident female directors less overestimate merger gains. As a result, firms with female directors are less likely to make acquisitions and if they do, pay lower bid premia. Using acquisition bids by S&P 1500 companies during 1997–2009 we find that each additional female director is associated with 7.6% fewer bids, and each additional female director on a bidder board reduces the bid premium paid by 15.4%. Our findings support the notion that female directors help create shareholder value through their influence on acquisition decisions. We also discuss other possible interpretations of our findings.     

Political corruption and mergers and acquisitions

This research examines the relation between political corruption and mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We find that local corruption increases firm acquisitiveness but decreases firm targetiveness. The levels of corruption in acquirer areas relate positively to the bid premiums and negatively to the likelihood of deal completion. Corruption motivates acquiring firms to use excess cash for payment, which mitigates the negative effect of corruption on acquirer shareholder value. The evidence indicates that acquisitions help acquiring firms convert cash into hard-to-extract assets and relocate assets from the high to low corruption areas, thereby shielding their liquid assets from expropriation by local officials.     

Trust and cross-border mergers and acquisitions

A number of studies suggest that social trust matters for investment. Using different measures of trust from World Values Survey, we show that countries where people display higher levels of trust engage in more cross-border M&A activities. When they do, these acquirers pay lower premiums. To the extent that these acquirers also tend to engage in larger acquisitions as well, our findings suggest that a larger selection pool of potential targets and higher value targets enable these acquirers to negotiate for lower premiums. We do not find evidence of the significant effect for target country trust levels. Hence, trust may benefit those acquiring firms in cross-border transactions.     

Tournament-based incentives and mergers and acquisitions

This research examines the relation between tournament-based incentives, which are proxied by the difference between a firm's CEO pay and the median pay of the senior managers, and mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We find that tournament-based incentives are positively related to firm acquisitiveness and acquiring firms' stock and operating performance. Further analysis indicates that positive acquisition performance increases the likelihood of the CEO being promoted from inside the acquiring firm. Our evidence is consistent with the view that tournament-based incentives motivate acquiring firms' managers to make greater efforts and take more risk that result in superior acquisition performance.     

Corporate Innovations and Mergers and Acquisitions

Using a large and unique patent‐merger data set over the period 1984 to 2006, we show that companies with large patent portfolios and low R&D expenses are acquirers, while companies with high R&D expenses and slow growth in patent output are targets. Further, technological overlap between firm pairs has a positive effect on transaction incidence, and this effect is reduced for firm pairs that overlap in product markets. We also show that acquirers with prior technological linkage to their target firms produce more patents afterwards. We conclude that synergies obtained from combining innovation capabilities are important drivers of acquisitions.     

Stock and Bond Liquidity and its Effect on Prices and Financial Policies

An asset is liquid if it can be traded at the prevailing market price quickly and at low cost. We show that in addition to risk, liquidity affects asset prices and returns. Theories of asset pricing suggest that the expected return of an asset is increasing in its risk, because risk-averse investors require compensation for bearing more risk. Because investors are also averse to the costs of illiquidity and want to be compensated for bearing them, asset returns are increasing in illiquidity. Thus, asset prices should depend on two asset characteristics: risk and liquidity. This paper surveys research on the effects of liquidity on asset prices and returns, showing that liquidity is an important factor in capital asset pricing.     

旅游企业与社区居民利益冲突及协调博弈研究

随着旅游业发展的深入,旅游企业与社区居民的利益冲突及协调问题成为影响旅游业发展的重点问题。从旅游企业和社区居民的单次博弈入手建立模型,并通过重复博弈模型分析,探索实现利益协调的路径。提出完善社区居民旅游开发参与机制和构建收益均衡分配机制,解决旅游企业与社区居民的利益协调问题。     

Corporate governance and environmental performance and disclosures

In this study the relationships between good corporate governance practices and environmental performance and disclosure are examined. Firms that are among the major emitters of toxic emissions in the United States comprise the sample for the study. Pollution performance is measured using a methodology that includes both the toxicology of the emissions and the population density of the community. A corporate governance measure and a pollution disclosure evaluation that were previously presented in the accounting literature are utilized in the study to validate the main performance measure.The findings indicate that there is no relationship between good governance and good pollution performance. Additionally good governance is positively related to pollution disclosure while the correlation does not hold when governance was improved by SOX. The overall findings support legitimacy theory. This may indicate that the story about pollution performance is better than the actual outcome.     

科技与资本的最佳结合与良性互动

自1997年经济合作与发展组织(OECD)发布<国家创新体系>报告以来,建设国家创新体系,促进科技创新,成为世界各国关心的重要问题.国家创新体系(National Innovation System)的基本含义,是指由公共、私有部门和机构组成的网络系统,强调系统中各行为主体的制度安排及相互作用.其中技术创新是国家创新体系的核心,制度创新是国家创新体系的一个基本变量,企业是技术创新的主体和投入的主体,资本市场是实现技术产业化的重要平台.     

Consumer preferences and product and process R&D

Firms often conduct both product and process R&D. Consumer preferences typically play a vital role in determining these R&D choices. The economics literature, however, has mostly ignored the interrelationship between the R&D choices of firms and consumer preferences. Istudy product and process R&D from the perspective of their relationship with consumer preferences. In doing so, I find a novel distinction between the two kinds of R&D. This distinction can explain several empirical observations regarding firms' choices of the two, and can also potentially enable us to better empirically identify the two.