Empathy as added value in predicting donation behavior

Past behavior and socio-demographics represent traditional predictors of charitable giving. The present study examines, in a real fundraising setting, whether measures of empathy (i.e., empathic concern and personal distress) can improve these predictions. The findings confirm the relevance of traditional predictor sets and the added value of including measures of empathy. Empathic concern positively affects the donation decision. In addition, empathy negatively affects the donor's generosity toward one charity. However, for people with high empathic concern, considering only generosity toward one charity could be misleading because such people are more likely to donate to different charities. This result has implications for overall generosity. Therefore, a clear distinction between both personality traits is necessary.     

Ethical Leader Behavior and Big Five Factors of Personality

Most research on ethical leadership to date investigates the consequences of ethical leadership rather than its antecedents. Here, we aim to contribute to this field by studying leader personality as a potential antecedent of ethical leader behavior. In two multisource studies, we investigated the relationships between personality traits and ethical leader behavior. Leader personality was measured through self-ratings using the five-factor personality framework. Two subordinates rated their leaders’ ethical behavior. Study 1 used a uni-dimensional Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS). In study 2 we used this scale as well as an instrument distinguishing three different ethical leader behaviors, namely, fairness, role clarification, and power sharing. Further, in study 2 we controlled for the influence of the relationship between leader and followers (LMX). As expected, conscientiousness and agreeableness were most consistently related to ethical leadership. In study 1, after controlling for the other personality traits, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership. In study 2, after controlling for other traits and LMX, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership and the behavior role clarification, and agreeableness with power sharing and fairness. Also, emotional stability related positively with ethical leadership and role clarification after controlling for LMX. As expected, openness to experience and extraversion were unrelated to ethical leader behaviors.     

Code of Conduct for Non-Executive and Supervisory Directors

After the corporate scandals at the beginning of the new millennium, corporate governance codes were drafted and implemented in national laws and regulations. Unfortunately, due to an ongoing supply of new financial scandals and societal deceptions, our society increasingly distrusts executive directors, non-executive directors and supervisory board members, as they often appeared to play a significant role in these scandals. Non-executive directors (NEDs) and supervisory directors (SDs) are often accused of having overlooked the important issues in their supervising role or having failed to intervene in company decision making. Previous research has shown that many NEDs and SDs operate on the basis of their own unwritten rules, which may very well be different from those of their colleagues. In this article we examine whether and how a code of conduct or code of ethics might help to further clarify how NEDs/SDs should act. We also investigated the views of NEDs/SDs themselves. It appears that current corporate governance codes are not sufficient to guide directors on behavioral aspects of their supervisory role. This article shows that a code of conduct could provide this guidance to NEDs/SDs on several issues. First, a code of conduct would compel the Supervisory Board to reflect on its own values. Second, it would compel NEDs/SDs to verbalize their unwritten rules. The results may be applied internationally and could have relevance to the experience of executive directors in addition. This article may serve as a discussion document for other jurisdictions in addition.     

中国债券市场的改革与发展

中国实施改革开放政策以来,我国债券市场稳步发展,为金融市场创新,优化资源配置,支持国民经济又好又快发展发挥了重要作用.后危机时期,我国债券市场发展巳站在新的历史起点上,面临严峻的挑战和难得的机遇.因此,需要加快债券市场的改革与发展,推进经济结构战略性调整,促进我国经济发展方式转变.     

Liquidity mergers

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions “liquidity mergers,” since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent.     

Considerations on the subject of lease accounting

The question of the correct method for recording lease transactions has already been the subject of debate both domestically and internationally for some time now (2009). The discussion on a set of rules for recording such operations has recently been fuelled by the inclusion in the FASB and IASB's agendas of a joint project regarding accounting rules for both the lessor and the lessee. To this very moment the preliminary output of this joint project has been the drafting of a discussion paper published on 19 March 2009. The present work offers a critical commentary on the main innovations introduced by the boards on the subject of lease accounting and illustrates an alternative accounting model which, starting with the identification of the essential economic elements of any lease contract, would be best suited to representing, in accounting terms, the reasoning and the actual purpose of a lease transaction.     

On the regulation of spatial externalities: coexistence between GM and conventional crops in the EU and the ‘newcomer principle’*

Pollen‐mediated gene flow is one of the main concerns associated with the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. Should a premium for non‐GM varieties emerge on the market, ‘contamination’ by GM pollen would generate a revenue loss for growers of non‐GM varieties. This paper analyses the problem of pollen‐mediated gene flow as a particular type of production externality. The model, although simple, provides useful insights into coexistence policies. Following on from this and taking GM herbicide‐tolerant oilseed rape (Brassica napus) as a model crop, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate data and then estimate the effect of several important policy variables (including width of buffer zones and spatial aggregation) on the magnitude of the externality associated with pollen‐mediated gene flow.     

从“前店后厂”到产业一体化——广东玩具业在全球生产网络中的升级与优化

本文从全球玩具生产网络出发,以广东玩具产业为例,着重分析粤港"前店后厂"在传统加工贸易模式基础上的产业升级与优化,进而分析中国玩具业在全球生产网络中的发展变化与趋势。结合世界玩具产业的总体发展状况,提出了促进中国玩具业发展的建议与对策。     

城市化、产业结构与经济增长动态关系的实证研究——以深圳为例

本文运用协整、格兰杰因果检验和向量自回归模型,利用1979～2009年的年度经济数据对深圳城市化、产业结构和经济增长的关系进行层次递进的实证分析,实证研究表明:深圳城市化、产业结构和经济增长之间存在长期均衡关系;深圳城市化对于经济增长的影响效应显著强于经济增长对于城市化的影响;深圳的城市化水平与经济结构之间互为格兰杰因果关系;从长期来看,非农业产值所占比重对于经济增长具有较强的解释力,经济增长和非农业产值所占比重的提高均有助于优化产业结构。     

Do production subsidies have a wage incidence in wind power?

Employment in electricity generation from renewable resources has expanded rapidly in the US and in Texas during the last decade. Availability of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) has been an important driver of this growth. Using establishment-level employment and payroll data for Texas at the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS)-6 level, we analyse the differences in average wages between firms generating electricity from fossil fuels and those generating electricity from wind power. We compare relative average wages before and after the rapid expansion of wind power development that followed the ex ante renewal of the PTC in 2006. Our main finding using both the parametric and nonparametric estimation techniques proposed by Racine and Li (2004), is that average payrolls for wind power generators increased relative to fossil fuel-based electricity generators after 2006.