基于经济波动的控股股东与股利政策关系研究——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

文章考察了控股股东和经济波动对上市公司股利政策的影响.结果表明,从控股股东的角度来看,第一大股东持股比例越高,公司越愿意支付股利,尤其是现金股利.当考虑了经济波动的影响时我们发现,在经济下降期,公司不再愿意支付股利,即使支付股利,公司也偏向于支付股票股利.此外,不同股权性质的公司在经济波动期的股利政策也不一样.在经济下降期,非国有控股公司第一大股东比例越高,股票股利支付数量越少,现金股利支付数量越多,但是,国有控股公司这种变化并不显著,说明相对于国有控股公司,非国有企业的股利政策更容易受到经济波动的影响.     

公司治理结构、股利分配与企业创新绩效三元关系实证研究

公司治理是现代企业管理理论的重要组成部分,直接影响公司经营状况、股利政策及创新绩效。采用回归分析法对公司治理、股利支付及企业创新绩效关系进行实证分析。研究发现,董事会结构、第一大股东持股比例与公司创新绩效显著正相关;第一大股东持股比例及前十大股东持股比例平方和越高,企业越倾向高股利支付;高股利支付与企业创新绩效间并无正相关关系,股利支付与企业创新绩效间存在负相关关系,但不显著。最后,从完善公司治理和股利政策方面提出了促进企业技术创新的政策建议。     

外资大股东能抑制现金股利隧道效应吗？——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

提升上市公司治理水平、抑制隧道效应是我国证券市场实施引入外资股东改革的重要目的之一。研究采用动态面板系统GMM估计方法,从现金股利隧道效应角度实证检验引入外资股东是否能有效控制控股股东掏空行为,保护中小股东利益。实证结果证明：（1）外资直接持股能够对现金股利隧道效应发挥一定的抑制作用,而间接持股则没有明显作用;（2）直接持股外资大股东对现金股利隧道效应的抑制作用与其持股比例密切相关,当持股比例适度时,外资股东能够抑制第一大股东的掏空行为,降低第一大股东隧道效应。但当外资持股比例达到一定程度,成为第一大股东或与第一大股东接近时,外资大股东的监督作用和隧道效应抑制作用会消失。无论是改变现金股利隧道效应的度量因子,还是使用更为保守的样本,这一结论都是稳健的。     

财政分权、利益输送与企业现金股利政策

本文以2000～2007年上市公司数据作为研究样本,实证考察了我国的财政分权程度与大股东的利益输送对上市公司现金股利政策的影响。研究发现,我国上市公司大股东的持股比例与上市公司现金股利发放显著正相关。表明大股东利用现金股利进行利益输送的现象确实存在,但在财政分权程度越低的地区这种影响越大。此外,相对于非国有上市公司,国有上市公司的大股东利用现金股利进行利益输送的可能性越大;国有上市公司所属的政府层级越低,大股东利用现金股利进行利益输送的行为越有可能存在。本文的研究表明,要缓解大股东与中小股东之间的代理冲突,除了要完善对大股东的监督与制约机制,还需要改革与完善我国目前的财政分权制度,减轻地方政府的财政压力,从而真正实现政府对企业干预的减少,使公司的现金股利政策成为缓解代理冲突与传递公司信号的工具。     

现金股利政策、大股东掏空和资源配置:基于公司成长性的分析

文章从大股东掏空的视角探究了现金股利政策的制度根源。实证研究发现,公司成长性对现金股利支付率具有较显著的负向影响,现金股利政策具有优化资源配置的作用;即使大股东存在掏空的动机,第一大股东仍有较强的激励优化现金股利政策和公司资源配置;而且,第一大股东优化公司资源配置的激励随着其持股的增加而增强。第一大股东在决定现金股利政策时具有优化资源配置和投资决策的积极功能。     

现金股利与大股东现金流操控关系研究

上市公司分派现金股利是股东从公司获利的方式之一.本文以2004-2006年房地产行业、批发零售业和综合类行业的中国上市公司为研究对象,采用分类统计和多元回归方法,研究现金股利政策实施的影响因素和产生的现金流后果.结果发现第一大股东持股比例显著影响公司现金股利政策;并存在"超能力派现"现象,即公司派现后未分配利润和现金流量净额小于零,说明大股东通过现金股利分派转移了公司现金流.     

股利政策的因素分析：制度和技术的解释——基于公司成长性特征的实证分析

本文以763家上海证券交易所A股上市公司2003年的横截面数据为观察值，从制度和技术两个层面实证分析了现金股利政策的影响因素，分别考察了股权结构和组织特征对现金股利支付率的解释力。本文发现，股权结构（股权集中度和大股东持股）和组织特征（盈利能力、盈余水平、现金拥有量、公司规模和财务杠杆）均对现金股利政策具有一定的影响（而且大多数影响在统计上是显著的）；大股东整体上具有分配现金股利的倾向和能力。企业成长性机会能够弱化大股东集团分配现金股利的激励，并促使公司保留更多的现金用于有价值的投资机会。     

电力行业上市公司现金股利分配政策影响因素实证研究

本文选取了2009年以前在沪深两市上市的54家A股电力行业上市公司作为研究对象,采用多元线性回归理论模型,分析了影响电力行业现金股利政策的影响因素,在此基础上建立了电力行业现金股利政策的回归模型。实证结果显示,电力行业现金股利分配与每股收益、净资产收益率、第一大股东持股比例正相关,而与主营业务收入增长率负相关。     

媒体关注与公司现金股利支付*

随着中国证监会针对上市公司现金股利支付行为的一系列政策的出台,公司的现金股利支付行为成为广受热议的重点话题。本文从媒体关注视角研究了中国上市公司的现金股利支付行为。通过实证研究,本文得到如下研究结论：（1）媒体关注的增多可以显著提高公司未来股利支付意愿和支付水平;（2）媒体关注与“铁公鸡”公司、“微股利”公司的比例显著负相关;（3）与国有控股公司相比,媒体关注对民营控股公司未来股利支付意愿和支付水平的正面影响更为显著;（4）媒体关注对第一类和第二类代理问题更严重的公司的现金股利支付意愿和支付水平的正向影响更强。进一步的研究还显示,媒体关注与现金股利支付意愿和支付水平的正相关关系在管理层持股比例低、非国际四大会计师事务所审计、分析师跟踪少的公司样本中更显著。以上结论说明媒体关注是除行政治理外,另外一种督促上市公司支付现金股利的重要机制。本文除了具有丰富媒体治理和股利政策两方面理论研究的贡献外,对监管机构规范资本市场股利支付行为和保护投资者权益具有重要政策启示。     

中国外部治理环境与上市公司现金股利政策间关系的实证研究

以中国沪深两市A股上市公司为研究样本,用现金股利支付意愿和现金股利支付水平衡量上市公司的现金股利政策,用市场化程度、政府干预程度、金融发展水平和法律保护水平反映外部治理环境,构建Logistic模型实证检验了中国外部治理环境与上市公司的现金股利政策的关系。研究发现:中国的外部治理环境越好,上市公司的现金股利支付意愿越强、支付水平越高;外部治理环境可以明显影响中国上市公司的现金股利政策。     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Neurally reconstructing expected utility

While the concept of “expected utility” informs many theories of decision making, little is known about whether and how the human brain might compute this quantity. This article reviews a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) experiments designed to localize brain regions that respond in anticipation of increasing amounts of monetary incentives. These studies collectively suggest that anticipation of increasing monetary gains activates a subcortical region of the ventral striatum in a magnitude-proportional manner. This ventral striatal activation is not evident during anticipation of losses. Actual gain outcomes instead activate a region of the mesial prefrontal cortex. During anticipation of gain, ventral striatal activation is accompanied by feelings characterized by increasing arousal and positive valence. These findings affirm the role of emotion in the anticipation of incentives, and may provide an initial step towards a neural reconstruction of expected utility.     

Duplication, Growth and ‘Total Return Economics’

Maintenance consumption is an expense recovered in product prices, yet also a source of taste satisfaction which must be exhausted, rather than reinvested, from the capital affording it. This riddle is solved in the duplication rules: the cost of maintenance consumption is recovered in pay and prices, but an equal flow is exhausted from the human capital of the worker earning the pay. The rules impact tradition in several ways. If output is defined in principle as value added, then it cannot also be described as consumption plus net investment without double-counting the maintenance consumption recovered in prices. Also rate of return in the stationary state is not zero, but is the rate sufficient to offset the exhaustion of individual human capital. The rules lead to new insights into economic return, and support an argument that all growth at the scale of closure is due to productivity gain rather than to thrift.     

John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution

Although he was much influenced by David Ricardo when he wrote the classical part of his Principles , John Stuart Mill was not a Ricardian when he penned his theories of wealth and distribution. They are based on a triple foundation. First, a belief that economics is a moral discipline. Second a theory of custom-driven human behavior. Third, an empirically formed conviction that the institutions of state, education and business cooperate to structure the distribution of income. On the basis of these presuppositions, Mill formulated 1) an institutional theory of the formation of human and non-human wealth and 2) an even more institutional theory of distribution demonstrating how the aforementioned institutions malignantly skew the distribution of income to the advantage of the propertied classes and to the extreme disadvantage of the working class. As a social economist, Mill recommended institutional reforms designed to eradicate the poverty of the working class.     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Simulating the Effect of Regulatory Systems in a Fishery, An Application to the French Driftnet Albacore Fleet

With a thin economic component, most bio-economic models of fisheries failto assess the effects of the regulation systems on firms. In order to analysethe short term consequences of different management schemes, a simulationmodel is applied to the French driftnet albacore fleet: licence allocation withdriftnet regulation, individual quotas, and individual transferable quotaswithout any input control. Vessel technology is estimated by using the datacollected, and groups of vessels are distinguished according to criteria ofperformance. We present the adjustment within firms and between groupsunder different scenarios (limited entry with and without driftnetregulation, individual quotas and individual transferable quotas allocation),and we compare their results in terms of quasi-rent value and otherindicators such as hake harvests or dolphin by-catches.     

Knowledge as a Path-Dependence Process

By following a new approach proposed by Cognitive and Neuroeconomics, this paper presents and extends that part of Hayek's theory concerning knowledge in path-dependent terms, and shows that this is a fertile theory, opening new lines of inquiry for contemporary economics. In his theory of knowledge Hayek shows that the dynamics of economic change is path-dependent, in a different and more profound way than in the rest of the path-dependent literature. This literature deals with an important controversy, which will be also discussed and its specific and original meaning will be highlighted. As it will emerge, knowledge as a path-dependent process is consistent with cognitive theories of perception and learning and it plays a more important role than is traditionally assumed. Path-dependence is in fact always present in the cognitive dimension of perception and in individual decision-making processes, as well as in the processes of organizational innovation, and even in the macro-dimension of institutional change. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.