The competitive advantage of honesty

We study competitive markets where firms may lie to their workers to reduce costs. Consumers may benefit from firms’ dishonesty through lower market prices. Does firms’ (dis-)honesty affect consumers’ purchasing decisions? Our experiment shows that when honesty is fully transparent, it can provide a competitive advantage: Honest firms sell more and – despite higher costs – achieve higher profits. This finding is in line with our equilibrium predictions when allowing for dishonesty-averse consumers. By identifying circumstances in which consumers – although not the addressee of dishonesty – “punish” firms for their within-firm dishonesty, we contribute both to behavioral ethics and behavioral industrial organization.     

客运企业服务品质综合评价模型研究——基于顾客满意度理论

本文将顾客满意度理论应用于交通运输行业,建立了用于衡量旅客运输企业服务品质的旅客满意度评价理论框架,框架由6个因素组成,其中预期质量、感知质量和感知价值是旅客满意度的原因变量,旅客抱怨和旅客忠诚则是旅客满意度的结果变量。基于上述6变量本文分别设计了评价指标体系,并设计了评价流程。     

Mixed ownership in a mixed duopoly with differentiated products

We determine optimal privatization in a symmetric differentiated duopoly when the public firms do not bear the full cost of production and hence their objective functions differ from the government’s objective function. In the social optimum firms will generally have mixed ownership, and it will depend on the type of uncovered cost, the degree of substitutability of the two products and the output decision rule of the partially public firms. Different types of mixed duopoly emerge, ranging from both firms being partially privatized, to one being fully privatized. We also derive an optimal tax-subsidy scheme as a substitute for privatization.      

Endogenous growth,decline in social capital and expansion of market activities

We model in an endogenous growth set-up the hypotheses that the expansion of market activities weakens social capital formation and that firms can invest in formal mechanisms of control and enforcement to substitute for social capital (trust, work ethics, honesty). The model shows that the economy tends to grow faster when it is relatively poorer in social capital and that perpetual growth can be consistent with the progressive erosion of social capital. These results may help to reconcile Putnam's claim that social capital has declined in the U.S. with the satisfactory growth performance of the U.S. over the same period.     

Market equilibrium in the presence of green consumers and responsible firms: A comparative statics analysis

This paper analyzes how the interaction between green consumers and responsible firms affects the market equilibrium. The main result is that a higher degree of responsibility of consumers and/or firms may both increase and decrease the total abatement and the social welfare. In general an increment in the degree of CSR of a firm entails an increase of its total clean-up and a reduction of the aggregate abatement of its rival. When the rival firm has a high degree of CSR this second effect is stronger than the first and total abatement falls down. At the same time, when the degree of consciousness of consumers and/or firms is very high, responsible firms overprovide environmental quality: in such case a further increment in the level of social responsibility of a market actor may trigger an increase of firms’ total clean-up but a reduction in social welfare.     

Market competition and firms' social performance

This paper investigates whether market competition encourages firms to be more socially responsible. We find that firms in more competitive markets exhibit better overall social performance, as measured by doing well (“strength”) and doing badly (“concern”) in areas such as community, environment, human rights, and treatment of employees. To deal with endogeneity, we instrument market competition on entry barrier and observe that market competition only significantly reduces social concerns but not increases social strengths. Thus, firms are more reactive in reducing social concerns than proactive in augmenting their social strengths. Amongst these concerns, firms appear to be more active in reducing environmental concerns. The paper underscores the limitations in relying on the “invisible hand” of the market to deal with the multi-dimensional challenges of firms’ social performance.     

Role of honesty in full implementation

This paper introduces a new concept of full implementation that takes into account agents’ preferences for understanding how the process concerning honest reporting works. We assume that the agents have intrinsic preferences for honesty in the sense that they dislike the idea of lying when it does not influence their welfare but instead goes against the intention of the central planner. We show that the presence of such preferences functions in eliminating unwanted equilibria from the practical perspective, even if the degree of the preference for honesty is small. The mechanisms designed are detail free and involve only small fines.     

家族控制、制度环境与社会责任选择性参与研究

基于中国2010-2019年上市家族企业的数据,本文对于家族企业会如何选择性对待员工和社区利益相关者进行研究,并关注在不同制度压力情境下家族企业社会责任的选择性参与会发生怎样的变化。研究结果表明随着家族控制权的提升,家族企业会选择承担更多外部社区责任,减少内部员工责任投入。此外,不同的制度压力对于家族企业社会责任行为的约束效果存在差异,具体表现为市场化程度的提高既可弱化家族控制对员工责任的负向影响亦可强化其对社区责任的正向影响,媒体监督和儒家文化作为非正式制度压力,前者主要通过约束监督弱化家族控制与员工责任之间的负相关关系,后者则是通过激励熏陶强化家族控制与社区责任的正相关关系。     

Profitability of corporate social responsibility in network industries

The present paper shows that, when firms compete in a non-cooperative way on the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in network industries, the conventional result of the prisoner’s dilemma structure of the game in standard industries—i.e. to have social concerns is the Nash equilibrium, but it is harmful for firms’ profits—vanishes and, for sufficiently intense network externalities, the equilibrium in which both firms have social concerns is more profitable than simple profit-seeking. Moreover, we show that—when firms cooperate in choosing the profit-maximising level of social concerns—a profit-maximising CSR level does exist, provided that network effects are sufficiently strong. Therefore, in network industries, firms may obtain higher profits engaging in—cooperatively as well as non-cooperatively—CSR activities, showing that firms’ social concerns may be motivated by the owners’ selfish behaviour. Finally, a counter-intuitive result as regards consumer’s surplus and social welfare is obtained: those are always higher under competitive than cooperative choice of CSR because the level of CSR activities is higher in the former case. However, given that firms gain their largest profits with the cooperative choice of CSR, a Pareto-superior outcome is not reached.     

STRATEGIC BUDGET CONSTRAINTS IN A UNIONIZED MIXED OLIGOPOLY

This paper considers the budget‐constraint problem where the government decides whether or not to impose a budget constraint on the public firm, assuming the public firm is less efficient than private firms. We find that imposing budget constraints on the public firm is the preferred choice because of the welfare‐improving effect. Our model suggests that the wage levels of the public firm can be lower or higher than those of private firms depending upon the degree of inefficiency. These results differ from Ishida and Matsushima's findings that in a unionized mixed duopoly, tight budget constraints can enhance social welfare when the public firm is as efficient as private firms.     

Mixed oligopoly, optimal privatization, and foreign penetration

This paper examines the impact of foreign penetration on privatization in a mixed oligopolistic market. In contrast to the simple framework of single domestic market with foreign entry by entry mode of foreign direct investment (FDI) or exports, our result shows that government should increase the degree of privatization along with increasing proportion of domestic ownership of multinational firms. Furthermore, we show that an increase in domestic ownership of multinational firms raises all domestic private firms' profit and social welfare, while it may either increase or decrease public firm's profit. With the aid of numerical example, intensive competition from private firms in general will enhance the degree of privatization gradually; in particular, the degree of privatization is lower in the presence of multinational firms.     

Does social capital determine innovation? To what extent?

This paper deals with two questions: Does social capital determine innovation in manufacturing firms? If it is the case, to what extent? To deal with these questions, we review the literature on innovation in order to see how social capital came to be added to the other forms of capital as an explanatory variable of innovation. In doing so, we have been led to follow the dominating view of the literature on social capital and innovation which claims that social capital cannot be captured through a single indicator, but that it actually takes many different forms that must be accounted for. Therefore, to the traditional explanatory variables of innovation, we have added five forms of structural social capital (business network assets, information network assets, research network assets, participation assets, and relational assets) and one form of cognitive social capital (reciprocal trust). Based on the survey data administered from April to June 2000 to 440 manufacturing firms of diverse industries in a region in the southwest of Montréal, we have found that 68.5% of the firms have developed product or process innovations during the 3 years preceding the survey. Assuming that innovation is not a discrete event but a complex process, we have modeled the decision to innovate as a two-stage decision-making process: in the first stage, the firms deal with the decision about whether to innovate or not whereas, at the second stage, the firms that have decided to innovate must make a decision about the degree of radicalness of the innovation to undertake. In a context where empirical investigations regarding the relations between social capital and innovation are still scanty, this paper makes contributions to the advancement of knowledge in providing new evidence regarding the impact and the extent of social capital on innovation at the two decision-making stages considered in this study. Regarding the decision to innovate or not that firms must initially make, we have provided strong evidence that diverse forms of social capital influence this decision and, more importantly, that marginal increases in social capital, especially in social capital taking the forms of participation assets and relational assets, contribute more than any other explanatory variable to increase the likelihood of innovation of firms. As for the decision to be made at the second stage concerning the magnitude of radicalness to bring in the development of new product or process innovations, this paper contributes to the advancement of knowledge by supplying the strongest evidence that diverse forms of social capital determine the radicalness of innovation, and more importantly, that social capital taking the form of research network assets contributes more than any other explanatory variable to explain the radicalness of innovation. The second variable that exerts the strongest impact on the radicalness of innovation is the number of different advanced technologies employed by firms for production.     

在孵企业创业导向对孵化网络协调绩效影响研究

以陕西省24家孵化器274家在孵企业为样本，运用层级递归模型，验证在孵企业创业导向、社会资本对孵化网络协调绩效的影响。结果表明：①在孵企业创业导向、内外部社会资本对孵化网络协调绩效均具有显著正向影响；②在孵企业内部社会资本在其创业导向对网络协调绩效的影响中具有显著正向调节作用，外部社会资本调节效应不显著；③在孵企业内、外部社会资本具有显著的正向混合调节作用，即当在孵企业同时具有高内部社会资本（高中心性）和高外部社会资本（高外部桥接水平）时，其创业导向对孵化网络协调绩效的影响更显著，而当外部社会资本（外部桥接水平）较低时，低内部社会资本（低中心性）在孵企业创业导向对网络协调绩效具有更强作用。     

Diversification strategies and firm performance in Vietnam

This paper is based upon the assumption that a firm's profitability is determined by its degree of diversification which is, in turn, strongly related to the antecedent decision to carry out diversification activities. This calls for an empirical approach that permits the joint analysis of the three interrelated and consecutive stages of the overall diversification process: diversification decision, degree of diversification and outcome of diversification. We apply parametric and semi‐parametric approaches to control for sample selection and the endogeneity of the diversification decision in both static and dynamic models. For the analysis, we use the census dataset on the whole firm population in Vietnam, as a representative of transition countries. After controlling for industry fixed‐effects, the empirical evidence from the firm‐level data shows that diversification has a curvilinear effect on profitability: it improves firms’ profit up to a point, after which a further increase in diversification is associated with declining performance. This implies that firms should consider optimal levels of product diversification when they expand their product offerings beyond their core business. Other noteworthy findings include the following: (i) the factors that stimulate firms to diversify do not necessarily encourage them to extend their diversification strategy; (ii) firms that are endowed with highly technological resources and innovation investment are likely to successfully exploit diversification as an engine of growth; and (iii) while industry performance does not have a strong influence on the profitability of firms, it impacts their diversification decision as well as the degree of diversification.     

民营化进程、企业目标函数选择与转轨效率

文章把转轨过程看作是政府可控的变量,从我国转轨中民营企业独特的目标函数出发,分析经济转轨过程中国有企业的成本函数选择对民营企业经营目标和经营行为的影响,以及在改革进程可控条件下,不同程度的改革进程是如何决定民营企业对目标函数和企业行为选择的,并对该选择与改革对社会福利水平的影响作了进一步分析。研究发现,政府与民营企业具有追求收入最大化内在合作的要求,该要求是竞争中双方博弈的均衡解;在非利润最大化目标函数的框架下,选择渐进转轨不会导致社会总产出的急剧下降,从而避免经济转型发生社会震荡。并且民营企业在改革进程中的目标函数选择与企业行为与实施的改革战略(改善社会福利)具有内在的一致性,因此,民营企业在改革不同阶段的选择行为对改革进程起到了一定的促进作用。     

出口战略、代工行为与本土企业创新—来自江苏地区制造业企业的经验证据

对来自江苏省微观企业大样本调查问卷的实证分析表明:以代工方式切入全球价值链生产体系是我国制造业本土企业参与全球市场的主要手段之一;我国制造业企业对国外市场依赖程度的不同会对其创新活动产生倒U型非线性影响效应;完全依赖于国外市场的代工企业创新活动显著受到代工"俘获效应"和"锁定效应"的负面作用影响。进一步分析还发现,我国代工企业的关键设备引进等行为,可能是阻碍其自主创新能力形成的重要因素之一。     

Dynastic entrepreneurship,entry, and non-compete enforcement

We investigate entry in a dynastic entrepreneurship (overlapping generations) environment created by employee spinoffs. Contracting failures, caused by non-verifiability of profits from new activities in original firms and overall profits from subsequent entrants, may lead respectively to implementation of new employee ideas in spinoffs and constraints on borrowing to buy out non-compete agreements. If borrowing constraints are not binding, enforcement of non-compete agreements unambiguously improves social welfare outcomes, increasing the entry of both original firms and subsequent generations of spinoffs. However, if employees are unable to buy out their non-compete covenants, enforcement of these agreements shuts down socially profitable spinoff firms. Non-enforcement sacrifices entry of original firms that would be marginally profitable in the absence of employee spinoffs, but otherwise clearly improves social welfare outcomes over enforcement in the presence of binding finance constraints.     

Can Allowing to Trade Permits Enhance Welfare in Mixed Oligopoly?

We compare the effects of tradable emission permits (TEP) and non-tradable emission permits (NTEP) in a mixed oligopoly, where public firms and private firms compete in a product market. If all technologies and initial endowments of emission permits are symmetric among public and private firms and if the emission constraint is exogenous and binding, social welfare is greater (resp. smaller) under TEP than under NTEP when the weight of social welfare in each public firm's objective function and the degree of convexity of the production cost function and that of the abatement cost function are small (resp. large).     

IPO underpricing: A social comparison perspective

This paper studies a social comparison perspective on IPO underpricing. The social comparison theory in behavioral psychology suggests that when people do not know how to make a decision or are exposed to new information, they refer to the behavioral norm of the public or the behavior of others to frame their decisions. I argue that when IPO firms and underwriters are uncertain about an IPO firm's intrinsic values, they refer to similar IPO issuing firms in the same industry that went public earlier to determine the IPO offer price. Using a sample of Taiwan IPOs, I find evidence that supports the social comparison explanation of IPO underpricing.     

Strategic corporate social responsibility,imperfect competition,and market concentration

We examine the strategic use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in imperfectly competitive markets. Before firms decide upon supply, they choose a level of CSR which determines the weight they put on consumer surplus in their objective function. First, we consider Cournot competition and show that the endogenous level of CSR is positive for any given number of firms. However, positive CSR levels imply smaller equilibrium profits. Second, we find that an incumbent monopolist can use CSR as an entry deterrent. Both results indicate that CSR may increase market concentration. Finally, we show that CSR levels decrease as the degree of product heterogeneity increases in Cournot competition and are zero in Bertrand Competition.