最低工资标准、人力资本扩张与企业成本加成*

本文以人力资本扩张为切入点，构建了最低工资、人力资本扩张影响企业成本加成的理论框架，并使用中国1998-2013年284个地级市的工业企业数据进行了经验研究。结论显示：最低工资上调会显著抑制企业成本加成的提升，削弱了企业的市场势力，但该抑制效应在人力资本扩张的背景下得以缓解。同时本文通过进一步分组回归发现，最低工资标准与人力资本扩张对企业成本加成具有明显的异质性影响。因此，适度、稳定调整最低工资标准及推动人力资本质量的整体提升有助于保持企业成本加成能力及其动态竞争力。     

Islamic and conventional portfolios optimization under investor sentiment states: Bayesian vs Markowitz portfolio analysis

This paper investigates the portfolio optimization under investor’s sentiment states of Hidden Markov model and over a different time horizon during the period 2004–2016. To compare the efficient portfolios of the Islamic and the conventional stock indexes, we have employed two approaches: the Bayesian and Markowitz mean-variance. Our findings reveal that the Bayesian efficient frontier of Islamic and conventional stock portfolios is affected by the investor’s sentiment state and the time horizon. Our findings also indicate that the investor’s sentiment regimes change the Islamic and the conventional optimal diversified portfolios.Moreover, the results show that the potential diversification benefits seem to be more important when using the Bayesian approach than when applying the Markowitz approach. This finding is valid for the bearish, depressed, bullish and calm states in Islamic stock markets. However, the diversification of potential portfolios is significant only for the bullish and the bubble states in the conventional financial markets.The findings of the study provided additional evidence for investors to exploit googling investor sentiment states to evaluate the portfolio performance and make an optimal portfolio allocation.     

The risk-based approach under the new EU data protection regulation: a critical perspective

Abstract

The first broad reform of personal data protection legislation in the European Union entered into force in May 2018 (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation). Remarkably, with this reform a risk-based approach has been introduced as the core data protection enforcement model, while data protection authorities see their regulatory role significantly weakened. The risk-based approach is to be implemented by the data controllers (i.e. the operators) via data protection impact assessments (evoking the established environmental impact assessment procedure) and notification of breaches, among other procedures. Hence the scope of both the concepts of risk and risk regulation spread beyond conventional domains, namely the environment, public health or safety, i.e. physical risks, to encompass risks to intangible values, i.e. individual rights and freedoms, presumably harder to assess and manage. Strikingly, the reform has been accompanied by a confident discourse by EU institutions, and their avowed belief in the reform’s ability to safeguard the fundamental right to data protection in the face of evolving data processing techniques, specifically, big data, the Internet of Things, and related algorithmic decision-making. However, one may wonder whether there isn’t cause for concern in view of the way the risk-based approach has been designed in the data protection legislation. In this article, the risk-based approach to data protection is analysed in the light of the reform’s underlying rationality. Comparison with the risk regulatory experience in environmental law, particularly the environmental impact assessment procedure, is drawn upon to assist us in pondering the shortcomings, as well as the opportunities of the novel risk-based approach.     

Institutional Economics as Theory of Policy Change: Impact of Past Policy Failures on Present Policy

Social scientists have developed several theories for understanding or evaluating policy change over time. Since all costs or benefits are not internalized owing to positive transaction costs, policymaking is always implemented under cost underestimation conditions and, therefore, is imperfect. I call this trait policy failure in this article. Furthermore, I show that a new framework combining the social costs approach and the legal/economic approach in institutional economics is suitable and can be applied to evaluating how past policy failures affect present policy, providing as an example the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.     

#br# 融资融券加大了沪深股市波动吗*

融资融券设计初衷是通过融资加强市场流动性和通过融券提供投资者规避价格下跌风险的金融工具，改善由供求关系严重失衡导致市场巨幅震荡的局面，实现资本市场长期稳定的目标。实际操作中，融资融券疏通货币市场和资本市场间的资金流动，撬动巨额资金涌入股市；融资规模扩张过快而融券做空力量薄弱，业务结构发展严重失衡，导致两融业务具有“小冲击、大波动”的金融加速效应，放大了外部冲击引起股价上涨和下跌的幅度。协整回归分析表明，两融业务规模的扩张和收缩对上证指数涨跌具有显著的同向影响。TGARCH事件模型结果进一步证实融资融券从稳定股价到加剧波动的功能变化。随着标的股票扩容和业务常规化，两融业务导致股市投机过度，加剧了沪深两市的资产价格异动，没有达到平抑波动的设计预期。     

Attitudes about EU expansion and zero‐sum thinking

EU expansion can be seen as a positive‐sum process benefiting all countries by creating larger markets that stimulate more productive economies through increased specialization and economies of scale, implying that the general public in all countries should favour expansion. Contrarily, expansion can be perceived as zero‐sum. Capital and production relocate from higher to lower wage regions while labour does the opposite, possibly raising unemployment and reducing wages in the higher wage regions. The general public in these countries may come to oppose EU expansion attributing any deterioration in their work situation to the gains of new citizens of the European Union. Analysis of changes in Irish attitudes towards EU expansion in 2002, 2007 and 2009 finds no evidence of a link from lowered economic conditions to increased opposition to EU expansion. The only evidence for zero‐sum thinking is that diminished economic circumstances are associated with increased opposition to immigration, but this is not associated with increased opposition to further EU expansion.     

Does economic policy uncertainty affect cryptocurrency markets? Evidence from Twitter-based uncertainty measures

Using daily data from August 9, 2015, to July 7, 2020, this study examines the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the returns of four cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple. To this end, two new measures of EPU (Twitter-based economic uncertainty and Twitter-based market uncertainty) are considered. A Granger causality test using the recursive evolving window approach shows a significant causality between the Twitter-based EPU measures and the BTC/USD exchange rate from October 2016 to July 2017. Moreover, a significant causality was noted from the EPU measures to the ETH/USD exchange rate from June 2019 to February 2020 and from the EPU measures to the XRP/USD exchange rate from January 2020 to February 2020. The Twitter-based EPU measures primarily positively affect the returns of the related cryptocurrencies during these periods. These results are robust to different measures of Twitter-based EPU and different econometric techniques. Potential implications, including the COVID-19 era, are also discussed.     

Study of emerging air taxi network operation using discrete-event systems simulation approach

This research focuses on understanding the air taxi operations to determine the number of air taxis required to fulfill the demand for urban air mobility in New York City (NYC). We leverage the Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify (DMADV) framework and integrate it with the systems simulation approach. Upon investigation, we find that all the parameters linearly impact the vehicle utilization, while other measures are robust, specifically with respect to the seating capacity. It is also recommended to operate initially with 70 air taxis in NYC to achieve a trade-off between customer wait time and vehicle utilization. The proposed approach can act as a recommender system for air taxi companies.     

How to increase multichannel shopping satisfaction? An adapted Kano based stage-gate approach to select new technologies

Today, brick-and-mortar retailers with integrated online shops have many alternatives to increase their customers’ shopping satisfaction: They could invest in (for the retailers) new physical store technologies (e.g., beacons or magical mirrors if not implemented up to now), new online shop technologies (e.g., visual tagging or webcams), or in new less technology-based improvement options (e.g. events or product testing). We propose an adapted Kano based stage-gate approach to support multichannel retailers confronted with such selection problems. The approach is applied to a major European sporting goods retailer. 37 improvement options are pre-selected and evaluated by current and potential customers. It can be shown that instore returns, instore services, reserve&collect, click&collect, customization, product testing, and magical mirrors are drivers of satisfaction for the current customers and should be implemented in contrast to, e.g., geofencing or beacons. The potential customers are more technology-savvy, but show similar categorizations as a current customer segment and so confirm the selection.