企业政治关联对风险投资引入方式的影响

从资金需求方出发，以2009年10月至2016年12月深圳创业板和中小板首次公开上市的公司为样本，实证检验了政治关联对风险投资引入方式的影响，以及激励机制和监督机制这两种公司治理机制的调节作用，得到结论如下：政治关联企业倾向于在发展后期引入风险投资；政治关联企业倾向于选择国有性质、经验丰富以及参与程度高的风险投资机构；激励机制会加强政治关联企业在发展后期引入风险投资以及选择国有性质、经验丰富、参与程度高的风险投资机构的意愿；监督机制会减弱政治关联企业在发展后期阶段引入风险投资以及选择国有性质、经验丰富、参与程度高的风险投资机构的意愿。结论对拓展政治关联与风险投资领域的理论和实践具有重要启示意义。     

Political connections and higher education

Do political connections affect investment in human capital? This paper studies the higher education decisions of politically connected and unconnected students during China's economic transition. Using the sequential introduction of reforms, I show that economic liberalization increased tertiary educational attainment, as well as sorting of students into different degree types depending on family background. Students whose parents were members of the Chinese Communist Party selected into relatively less prestigious vocational colleges with lower admissions standards. In contrast, politically unconnected individuals responded to the higher skill premium following the reforms by studying harder to obtain more demanding and sought‐after university degrees.     

地方政治权力转移与企业社会资本投资周期--基于政企关系重构的动态研究

文章以2007－2012年我国A 股上市公司为样本,从政企关系重构的视角研究了地方政治权力转移对企业社会资本投资的影响。研究发现：(1)在地方政治权力转移当年,企业会显著提高社会资本投资力度。随着主政官员任期的增加,企业社会资本投资呈现下降趋势。这说明在主政官员任期内,企业社会资本投资呈现先增后减的周期性特点。这种周期性特点仅在民营企业中存在。(2)民营企业社会资本投资的周期性特点在地方官员来自外地、继任官员预期任期较长、管制行业以及融资约束程度高和无政治关联的企业样本中更加显著。(3)在地方政治权力转移当年,民营企业提高社会资本投资力度能够帮助其获得政府补助,但这种优势并不会立刻体现出来;同时,企业提高社会资本投资力度也会对自身的研发投入产生挤出效应,且挤出效应持续存在于继任官员的整个任期中。文章的研究为理解企业建立政企关系的手段、过程与效果提供了新的视角。     

Political Business Cycles,Elections and Entrepreneurial Finance: A Framework

Political processes affect the real economy. An important channel through which politics affects economics is uncertainty. It has been observed that political uncertainty is high around national elections and negatively affects corporate investments and foreign capital inflows. If national elections affect corporations and foreign investors, we should expect them to also affect entrepreneurial finance provided by investors like venture capitalists (VCs). To add to that, in a complex federal democracy, state level politics is a significant source of political uncertainty. This is the first paper to examine the impact of national and state elections on entrepreneurial finance and provides a framework of VC investment behavior in the face of political uncertainty. We find that VC investments decrease significantly due to political uncertainty around national and state elections. VCs respond strongly to national elections by decreasing the total investment value and the number of deals in election years. However, they give a softer response to regional political uncertainty around state elections by decreasing only the average deal size. The findings have important implications for governments, regulators and policymakers, and open up an opportunity to examine a variety of new questions which can provide a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the impact of elections on VC investments.

     

THE POLITICS OF FDI EXPROPRIATION

I examine the role of political instability and fractionalization as potential explanations for the lack of capital flows from rich countries to poor countries (i.e., the Lucas Paradox). Using panel data from 1984 to 2014, I document that (i) developed countries exhibit larger inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI), (ii) countries subject to high investment risk (IR) receive low FDI inflows, and (iii) IR is higher in fractionalized and politically unstable economies. These findings suggest a negative relationship between political instability and FDI through the IR channel. I inspect the theoretical mechanism using a dynamic political economy model of redistribution, wherein policymakers can expropriate resources from foreign investors. The proceeds are used to finance group‐specific transfers to domestic workers but hinder economic growth by discouraging FDI. I show that the political equilibrium exhibits overexpropriation and underinvestment.     

Political turnover and the accumulation of democratic capital

Certain democratic institutions tend to persist in some countries whereas they are frequently reversed in others. Focusing on strong constraints on executive power as one such institution, this paper theoretically studies the cross-country differences in the costs of relaxing these constraints. The model features two political parties that stochastically alternate in office according to a political uncertainty parameter. In each period, the incumbent can make reversible investments into the future government's ability to reform executive constraints. The main results indicate that more competitive elections and higher degrees of policy polarization between the political parties lead to high and persistent levels of investment into the society's stock of “democratic capital”. These higher costs of institutional reform in turn result in durable strong executive constraint-regimes.     

Private Investment and Political Institutions

Recent research has demonstrated a negative link between macroeconomic and political uncertainty and levels of private investment across countries. This raises the question whether certain types of government institutions might help reduce this uncertainty. North and Weingast (1989) propose that political institutions characterized by checks and balances can have beneficial effects on investment by allowing governments to credibly commit not to engage in ex post opportunism with respect to investors. In this paper I develop and test a modified version of their hypothesis, suggesting that checks and balances, on average, improve possibilities for commitment, but that they are not a necessary condition for doing so. Results of heteroskedastic regression and quantile regression estimates strongly support this proposition.     

Political aspects of the capital controversies and capitalist crises

The Cambridge controversies about the theory of capital were ultimately underpinned by a clash between two different visions of capitalism, the neoclassical view, according to which distribution depends on the supply and demand curves of capital and labor, and the post Keynesian view, according to which distribution depends on political and institutional factors instead. I shall argue that the distinction between “meritocratic capitalism” and “patrimonial capitalism,” which underpins the discussions surrounding Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is also connected to those two different visions of capitalism, which were behind the Cambridge controversies. These two visions of capitalism have important implications for our understanding of political power over workers, and also to our understanding of political power over land and its natural resources. The role of land and natural resources was not discussed in the Cambridge controversies, but is addressed in Piero Sraffa’s Production of Commodities, and is implied in Piketty’s inclusion of land in his definition of capital, which brings in a geographical dimension to our understanding of capitalism and capitalist crises, as I shall argue.     

Political stability and growth: An application of dynamic GMM and quantile regression

This paper studies the effect of political stability on economic growth by taking 120 developing countries over the period of 1996–2014. We apply relatively advanced dynamic two step system-GMM and quantile regression. Political stability is found to be a key determinant of economic growth. More importantly, political instability (or risk) is found to be higher in the OIC countries and is a deterrent to economic growth. Also, for the lower and middle income OIC countries, political instability appears to affect economic growth more severely perhaps due to the absence of strong economic and political institutions. Moreover, political instability is also found to be significantly higher in the oil-dependent OIC countries. Notably, political instability is likely to affect growth through the channels of investment and human capital accumulation in the developing countries. Finally, the impact of political stability and political instability on growth is found to be equally distributed across the OIC countries with higher or lower growth level. Therefore, the development of political and economic institutions along with human capital development is recommended for all the developing countries in general and the OIC countries in particular.     

Educated Bandits: Endogenous Property Rights and Intra‐Elite Distribution of Human Capital

This article presents a simple model of endogenous institutions linking property rights to the distribution of human capital between political and economic elite groups. In the absence of institutional constraints, the commitment problem of the political elites is intensified, because their human capital can turn out to be a double‐edged sword raising their efficiency in predation as well as in production. In general, the more human capital the political elites have, the stronger the institutional concessions they are ready to offer to attarct investment. Provided that predation depends sufficiently on human capital, the political elites can credibly commit to respect property rights by specializing in fields that are relevant for the priavte sector. Brain drain can undermine the transition to stable property rights even when the political elites are well‐educated. Comparative narratives from Malaysia and Zimbabwe are presented to motivate the theoretical discussion.     

Political instability and households’ investment behavior: Evidence from Burkina Faso

There is a large, rather macroeconomic, literature that shows that political instability and social conflict are associated with poor economic outcomes including lower investment and reduced economic growth. However, there is only very little research on the impact of instability on households’ behavior, in particular their saving and investment decisions. We merge six rounds of household survey data and a geo-referenced time series of politically motivated events and fatalities from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Base (ACLED) to analyze households’ decisions when exposed to instability in Burkina Faso. For identification, we exploit variation in the intensity of political instability across time and space while controlling for time- and municipality-fixed effects as well as rainfall and nighttime light intensity, and many other potential confounders. Our results show a negative association of political instability and financial savings, the accumulation of durables, investment in house improvements, as well as investment in education and health. Instability seems, in particular, to lead to a reshuffling from investment expenditures to increased food consumption, implying lower growth prospects in the future. With respect to economic growth, the sizable education and health effects seem to be particularly worrisome.     

创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构投资策略的影响——制度环境与机构专长的双重调节效应

高管团队作为创业企业的掌舵者，是风投机构制定投资策略的重要信号机制。因此，基于高阶理论，探究创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构投资策略的影响机制，进而剖析制度环境与风投机构行业专长对上述影响的调节机制，得出以下结论：①对于平均年龄较低、受教育水平较高、政治关系较强以及社会关系较强的创业企业高管团队而言，风投机构倾向于采取分阶段投资与联合投资策略；②良好的制度环境能够降低投资成本，帮助风投机构优化价值服务质量，弱化创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构分阶段投资与联合投资的影响；③较高的行业专长意味风投具有较完善的监督机制与丰富的资源网络，能够降低创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构分阶段投资与联合投资的影响。     

民营企业政治联系的背后:扶持之手与掠夺之手——基于资本投资视角的经验研究

以往的研究为政治联系带来的"扶持之手"提供了较多证据,而文章从资本投资视角探讨民营企业构建和维持政治联系所付出的隐性代价,发现在市场化程度较低的地区有政治联系的民营企业资本投资很大程度上受到政府"掠夺之手"的侵害,虽具有较大的投资规模,但却表现为较低的投资效率,并且不利于企业R&D投资;而在市场化程度较高的地区"掠夺之手"则未显著出现。文章认为,从资本投资角度看,在市场化程度较低的地区构建政治联系对民营企业弊大于利。     

创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构投资策略的影响——制度环境与机构专长的双重调节效应

高管团队作为创业企业的掌舵者，是风投机构制定投资策略的重要信号机制。因此，基于高阶理论，探究创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构投资策略的影响机制，进而剖析制度环境与风投机构行业专长对上述影响的调节机制，得出以下结论：①对于平均年龄较低、受教育水平较高、政治关系较强以及社会关系较强的创业企业高管团队而言，风投机构倾向于采取分阶段投资与联合投资策略；②良好的制度环境能够降低投资成本，帮助风投机构优化价值服务质量，弱化创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构分阶段投资与联合投资的影响；③较高的行业专长意味风投具有较完善的监督机制与丰富的资源网络，能够降低创业企业高管团队特征对风投机构分阶段投资与联合投资的影响。     

政治风险规避与中国企业的 OFDI 策略选择

政治风险已经成为中国企业对外直接投资(OFDI )遭受损失最重要的原因之一,但是企业可以通过选择合理的投资策略来规避风险,降低损失。文章基于2004－2013年?中国境外投资企业(机构)名录?提供的 OFDI 企业数据,利用二值选择模型、倾向得分匹配(PSM )法和条件 Logit 固定效应模型分别考察了我国企业面临东道国政治风险时的策略选择问题以及投资经验对政治风险的调节作用。结果发现：东道国政治风险越高,企业越倾向于采取序贯式投资,投资经验可帮助企业规避和降低部分政治风险,提高企业在高政治风险东道国 OFDI 的概率;与生产性 OFDI 企业相比,销售宣传类 OFDI 企业对东道国政治风险的反应弹性较大,在具备投资经验后,对政治风险的敏感性降低。文章为中国企业“走出去”过程中如何有效地规避东道国的政治风险和提高成功并购的概率提供了有益的思路和借鉴。     

增值税改革、资本和资本有机构成:基于马克思主义政治经济学的视角*

本文在全面介绍马克思主义政治经济学中关于资本及资本有机构成分析框架及论断的基础上,利用我国2005—2015年地级市的面板数据,采用双重差分模型全面考察了增值税转型和“营改增”两次改革对地区资本及资本有机构成的影响。本文研究发现：增值税转型后固定资本投入增加,可变资本投入相对减少,资本有机构成进一步提高;而“营改增”后,固定资本和可变资本投入均有增长,但资本有机构成相对下降。本文检验了马克思主义政治经济学对资本及资本有机构成论断在我国的现实意义,对进一步加强应用马克思主义政治经济学指导我国财税制度改革进行了有益尝试。     

Expropriation risk and FDI in developing countries: Does return of capital dominate return on capital?

Previously reported effects of institutional quality and political risks on foreign direct investment (FDI) are mixed and, therefore, difficult to interpret. We present empirical evidence suggesting a relatively clear, statistically robust, and intuitive characterization. Institutional factors that affect the likelihood of an abrupt and total loss of foreigners’ capital (i.e., return of capital) dominate factors that affect rates of return conditional on a strictly positive terminal investment value (i.e., return on capital). The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that expropriation risk is most important among the available measures of different dimensions of institutional quality. A one-standard-deviation reduction in expropriation risk is associated with a 72% increase in FDI, which is substantially larger than the effects of any other dimensions of institutional quality as simultaneously estimated in our empirical models of expected FDI inflows. We show that this evidence is consistent with the predictions of a standard theory of FDI under imperfect contract enforcement and multiple dimensions of political risk.     

Investment and technological choice in a right-to-manage model

We analyze the interactions between investment and local wage bargaining in a putty-clay model where the investment decision commits the firm to a particular capital intensity. This technological precommitment is used strategically in order to manipulate the bargaining outcome. We show that this strategic behavior induces a nonmonotonic relationship between the capital and labor demands of the firm and most of its environmental parameters (e.g., the bargaining power of the union, its minimum wage requirement, the capital cost). The results we obtain in our putty-clay framework thus contradict several conclusions of the standard literature on wage bargaining and investment.     

政治关联断损、研发投入与企业创新效率

政治关联断损现象逐渐引起学者重视，但少有研究涉及政治关联断损对企业创新的影响。基于中组部“18号文”导致上市公司大量官员独立董事强制辞职事件，通过使用双重差分模型对2012-2016年沪深A股上市公司相关数据进行实证研究发现，官员独立董事辞职造成的政治关联断损能够显著促进企业增加研发投资，虽然对提高企业创新效率无显著影响，却能够增强研发投资对创新效率的正向影响。政治关联断损层级与企业研发投资间具有显著负向关系，虽然对创新效率无显著影响，却对研发投资与创新效率间关系起显著负向调节作用。政治关联断损和断损层级对企业研发人员投入强度无显著影响，也不能显著调节研发人员投入强度与创新效率间的关系。     

家庭金融视角下人力资本与家庭消费关系的实证研究——来自CFPS的调查

人力资本投资作为家庭金融活动中的非生产性投资,其最终形成的人力资本水平与家庭消费行为之间存在紧密联系。研究表明,人力资本水平高的居民家庭,往往具有较高的边际消费倾向和更强的财富效应,特别是在衣着支出和娱乐支出方面。提高人力资本水平更主要是通过改变消费者的客观环境以及主观消费观念等来改变其消费行为,从而促进消费。