When stock price crash risk meets fundamentals

We investigate the relationship between fundamental strength and stock price crash risk by analyzing a large sample of Chinese firms. We mainly find that firms with stronger (weaker) total fundamental strength, higher (lower) profitability and higher (lower) operating efficiency have lower (higher) stock price crash risk. Moreover, this negative relationship is more pronounced for firms with a great number of short-term institutional investors and opaque firms. Additional test illustrates that internal control could ameliorate this negative relationship. All these findings are robust to alternative measurements of crash risk and endogeneity correction.     

地方科技创新目标约束、财政科技支出与城市创新

在创新引领发展背景下，各地区呈现出创新竞争发展格局。基于2013-2019年我国各省市设立的科技创新目标，结合城市面板数据和城市创新指数数据，实证检验地方科技创新目标约束对城市创新的影响效应及作用机制。研究结果显示：总体而言，创新投入目标约束能够显著促进城市创新，但创新产出目标约束和创新企业目标约束对城市创新无显著影响。就作用机制而言，创新投入目标约束通过扩大财政科技支出提升城市创新水平。异质性分析结果表明，创新投入目标约束对城市创新的促进作用在东部地区显著，在中部地区和西部地区不显著。同时，采用门槛模型考察创新投入强度目标对城市创新的影响,发现当创新投入强度目标超过门槛值2.8%时，会抑制城市创新。     

年龄、临近死亡时间和老年人医疗费用——关于“红鲱鱼”假说的验证

年龄的增长是否必然带来医疗费用的增长?以往的实证研究仍存在争议。使用CLHLS数据,区分不同人群,采用两部模型研究年龄和临近死亡时间与老年人医疗费用的关系。研究发现:虽然在低龄群体中医疗费用随年龄增长而提高,但高龄群体随着年龄的增长医疗费用显著下降;在死亡样本中医疗费用随年龄的增长而下降,而存活样本中并未发现年龄的显著影响。然而,临近死亡时间越短则医疗费用越高,这一规律在各群体中保持稳健。临近死亡时间并未显著影响失能老年人的医疗费用,却显著提高了一年内死亡样本的照料费用。研究表明,寿命的延长并未导致医疗费用的增长,而是推迟了医疗费用高峰期的到来。为此有必要发展和完善临终关怀服务和长期照护保障制度,以降低老年人生命末期的医疗费用并提高生命质量。     

营商环境与政府支持对企业数字化转型的影响——来自上市企业年报文本挖掘的实证研究

选取2013—2019年沪深两市A股上市公司为研究样本，通过文本分析识别企业数字化转型程度，实证分析营商环境与政府支持对企业数字化转型的影响，以及企业数字化转型的经济后果，并充分考虑其中存在的异质性问题。结果表明：第一，营商环境方面，政府治理环境和法治建设环境优化均对企业数字化转型具有促进作用，外商投资环境优化对企业数字化转型具有抑制效应；政府支持方面，财政科技支出作为典型的政策工具，对企业数字化转型具有重要影响，其强度越大，企业数字化转型程度越高。上述结论在更换指标计算方法、延长时间窗口等稳健性检验后依旧成立。第二，企业数字化转型能够显著促进企业经济效益提升。第三，营商环境与政府支持对企业数字化转型的影响因企业产权性质、企业所处地区，以及企业所处行业差异而有所不同。为加快企业数字化转型，在持续深化“放管服”改革，优化营商环境的同时，应充分考虑企业产权、地区、行业层面特征，坚持差异化政策供给。     

Cross-temporal forecast reconciliation: Optimal combination method and heuristic alternatives

Forecast reconciliation is a post-forecasting process aimed to improve the quality of the base forecasts for a system of hierarchical/grouped time series. Cross-sectional and temporal hierarchies have been considered in the literature, but generally, these two features have not been fully considered together. The paper presents two new results by adopting a notation that simultaneously deals with both forecast reconciliation dimensions. (i) The closed-form expression of the optimal (in the least squares sense) point forecasts fulfilling both contemporaneous and temporal constraints. (ii) An iterative procedure that produces cross-temporally reconciled forecasts by alternating forecast reconciliation along one single dimension (either cross-sectional or temporal) at each iteration step. The feasibility of the proposed procedures, along with first evaluations of their performance as compared to the most performing ‘single dimension’ (either cross-sectional or temporal) forecast reconciliation procedures, is studied through a forecasting experiment on the 95 quarterly time series of the Australian Gross Domestic Product from Income and Expenditure sides. For this dataset, the new procedures, in addition to providing fully coherent forecasts in both cross-sectional and temporal dimensions, improve the forecast accuracy of the state-of-the-art point forecast reconciliation techniques.     

Expenditure responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

We examine how the COVID-19 contagion influences consumer expenditure patterns. We show that the consumption expenditure responses to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are significantly different between the older and younger generations. We find that older adults spend less than the younger generation by at least 5% during the pandemic. In fact, those aged above 60 significantly decrease their spending even on food and drink products by 13%. We also find that older adults forgo shopping in favor of the younger generation. These responses might be due to the fear of COVID-19 infection (Immordino et al., 2022).