Signal Jamming in Pretrial Negotiation with Multiple Defendants

This article analyzes the pretrial settlement process among an uninformed plaintiff and multiple defendants who share information about the winning chances of their cases. We show that when the chances are negatively correlated, cross-type subsidization occurs to circumvent the possibility of signal jamming, that is, the settlement offer of a strong defendant (a weak defendant) is distorted upward (downward), as far as the no-distortion equilibrium is not viable. In this equilibrium, the plaintiff settles with defendants with probability one.     

Ethnic Networks in FDI and the Impact of Institutional Development

Ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs are known for their active business networking practices, particularly in Southeast Asia. This paper empirically investigates the role of ethnic Chinese networks in promoting foreign direct investment (FDI). We further evaluate whether the effectiveness of networking activities are affected by the level of economic and institutional development of the source and the host countries. Using a standard gravity model, we find that ethnic Chinese networks are significant in facilitating cross‐border investment between countries. The strength of ethnic Chinese networks between country pairs, approximated by the product of the numbers of ethnic Chinese in both countries, is positively correlated with the cumulative amount of their reciprocal FDI. More importantly, this significant relationship is not limited to countries in Southeast Asia, but is applicable to other country pairs included in the study as well, regardless of whether the investment is originated from industrial countries or developing economies. Finally, the analysis finds no evidence that ethnic networks are only effective in countries where economic and legal institutions are under‐developed. Ethnic Chinese networks have played a significant role in promoting FDI to countries with a relatively higher bureaucratic quality, much more so than to countries with a lower bureaucratic quality.     

What Does it Take to Sell Environmental Policy? An Empirical Analysis of Referendum Data

We analyze the factors that influence the support for environmental policy proposals. Swiss referendum data show that proposals obtain more yes-votes if they do not restrict consumption possibilities directly, if they are endorsed by the largest business association, if environmental preferences are strong and economic conditions are favorable at the time of the referendum. Also, there are more pro-environmental votes in cantons with higher population density. On the other hand, yes-votes do not seem to depend on whether a proposal involves a tax or not.     

Dynamics of Business Cycles in Asia: Differences and Similarities

The paper documents the extent of similarities and differences of business cycle characteristics of the Asian countries and compares the cyclical regularities in this region with those of the G‐7 countries. The Asian economies are generally more volatile than the G‐7 countries, but the amplitude of economic fluctuations in the Asian countries tends to decrease over time. Comovement and persistence properties of business cycles in the Asian countries are very similar to those of the G‐7 economies. The authors find that while the patterns of business cycle fluctuations in the main macroeconomic aggregates display important similarities, the behavior of fiscal and monetary policy variables exhibits significant differences across the Asian countries. Moreover, there is a high degree of comovement between the individual country business cycles and different measures of the Asian business cycle, indicating that there is a regional business cycle specific to the Asian countries.     

POVERTY, NON-WHITE POVERTY, AND THE SEN INDEX

This paper investigates the impact of economic growth, and more specifically robust economic growth along with other macroeconomic determinants, on poverty levels using both the U.S. official measure of poverty and an estimated time series of Sen indices of poverty. The results reveal that the period of robust economic expansion that the U.S. economy experienced during the 1990s did not have a significant impact on poverty using either measure. In addition, we find that the impact of growth and other macro controls is dramatically different when a subset of the poverty population, namely non-white poverty, is investigated. The percentage of households headed by women is shown to be a significant factor in examining poverty for this subgroup.     

Can consumers enforce environmental regulations? The role of the market in hazardous waste compliance

We examine the U.S. hazardous waste management industry to assess the role that consumers play in encouraging environmental compliance. We first examine whether environmental performance affects consumer demand and find that noncompliance does decrease demand, at least in the short term. Next we consider whether market characteristics affect compliance behavior. While we do not find evidence that market size affects behavior, local competition does appear to increase compliance. However, as competition becomes less localized, it has a smaller effect. Finally, regardless of the pressures exerted by consumers to comply, commercial managers are less likely to be in compliance than on-site managers. For example, President Bush’s 2006 budget request for EPA significantly cut funding to the states who are responsible for over 95% of environmental inspections (ECOS, 2005). At the federal level, the number of positions for compliance monitoring decreased by over 17% from FY 2001 to FY 2003 (U.S. GAO, 2002).     

利用产学联系的中小企业ERP引进策略

本文对引入公司资源管理计划系统的必要性进行了研究,并对中小型企业运用公司资源管理计划系统的关键因素进行了深入的分析。在此基础上,我们给出了支持中小企业实施公司资源管理计划系统和促进中小企业电子商务发展的相关计划和教育产业关系模型。公司资源管理计划系统的实施,首先需要对该系统进行系统化的评估,进而选择适合公司自身环境的资源管理计划系统。除一些关键因素外,许多环境因素对引入该计划体系起着很大的影响作用。环境因素主要包括公司资源管理计划系统的专家、顾问、开发者和信息系统管理者;另外还包括公司的筹资能力和组织内的信息化程度。     

Do more able managers provide better non-GAAP earnings?

This paper investigates whether managerial ability is associated with non-GAAP earnings quality. I find that the quality of non-GAAP earnings is greater for high-ability managers than low-ability managers. I also find that investors consider non-GAAP earnings released by high-ability management to be informative. Additional tests show that the positive association between managerial ability and the quality of non-GAAP earnings is stronger when return volatility or managerial stock ownership is greater. The results are robust to alternative measures of managerial ability and non-GAAP earnings quality and to controlling for endogeneity bias. Overall, this paper provides evidence that managers of high ability use non-GAAP reporting as a signalling tool to reduce information asymmetry.     

Cross-sectional differences in the liquidity effects of open market share repurchases

I examine liquidity changes associated with open market share repurchases, with the focus on potential cross-sectional variations of liquidity effects. I hypothesize that a liquidity change, either a decrease or an increase, will be larger in a firm with a higher degree of pre-announcement information asymmetry. Results suggest that the null hypothesis of no liquidity change cannot be rejected. In particular, there is no evidence for cross-sectional variation of liquidity changes across firms with differing degrees of information asymmetry. Special/thanks go to Kim Woo Choong, former chairman of DAEWOO Group, and Park Chung Kil for their support.     

Efficiency of the OLSE for regressions on two-dimensional grids with sinusoidal regressors and spatially correlated errors

For spatial regressions with sinusoidal surfaces, the ordinary least squares estimator (OLSE) is shown to be asymptotically as efficient as the generalized least squares estimator (GLSE) in that the covariance matrices of the two estimators have the same nontrivial limit under the same normalization.