Multidimensional Competition and Corporate Disclosure

In this paper, we argue that the influence product market competition exerts on disclosure is defined by the combined effect of the incentives and disincentives to disclose raised by the multiple competition dimensions. We distinguish between firm‐ and industry‐level competition measures, and we hypothesize that the former raises agency and proprietary costs, whereas the latter creates incentives to disclose either to fulfil the owners’ need for information to monitor managers or to deter the entrance of new competitors in the industry. Our research design allows for non‐monotonic relationships between competition and disclosure as well as for interactions between competition dimensions. Using a sample of US manufacturing companies, we gather evidence that is consistent with our hypotheses. First, we find an inverted U‐shape relationship between corporate disclosure and a firm's abnormal profitability, which is suggestive of firms being reluctant to disclose when they are underperforming (outperforming) their rivals because of the fear of unveiling agency conflicts (raising proprietary costs). Second, we observe a U‐shape relationship between corporate disclosure and industry profitability, although this U design evolves to approximate a rising function as the protection provided by entry barriers increases.     

纺织服装出口存在的问题及对策

探讨了当前我国纺织服装出口中存在的问题及不足,提出了我国政府、中介组织及纺织服装企业的应对措施,指出,应从提高企业的核心竞争力、充分利用国际贸易体系规则、加快企业创新发展的速度、强化政府功能、发挥中介组织的职能等方面予以完善,以最大限度的获取贸易利益。     

When does universal peace prevail? Secession and group formation in conflict

This paper analyzes secession and group formation in the general model of contests due to Esteban and Ray (1999). This model encompasses as special cases rent seeking contests and policy conflicts, where agents lobby over the choice of a policy in a one-dimensional policy space. We show that in both models the grand coalition is the efficient coalition structure and agents are always better off in the grand coalition than in a contest among singletons. Individual agents (in the rent seeking contest) and extremists (in the policy conflict) only have an incentive to secede when they anticipate that their secession will not be followed by additional secessions. Incentives to secede are lower when agents cooperate inside groups. The grand coalition emerges as the unique subgame perfect equilibrium outcome of a sequential game of coalition formation in rent seeking contests. Received: March 2004, Accepted: October 2004, JEL Classification: D72, D74 We thank Joan Maria Esteban, Kai Konrad, Debraj Ray, Stergios Skaperdas and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on the paper. We also benefitted from comments by seminar participants in Barcelona, Istanbul, Paris and WZB Berlin.     

Behavioural Bias and Conflicts of Interest in Analyst Stock Recommendations

Abstract:  This paper tests whether sell-side analysts are prone to behavioural errors when making stock recommendations as well as the impact of investment banking relationships on their judgments. In particular, we analyse their report narratives for evidence of cognitive bias. We find first that new buy recommendations on average have no investment value whereas new sell recommendations do, and take time to be assimilated by the market. We also show that new buy recommendations are distinguished from new sells both by the level of analyst optimism and representativeness bias as well as with increased conflicts of interest. Successful new buy recommendations are characterised by lower prior returns, value stock status, smaller firms and weaker investment banking relationships. On the other hand, successful new sells do not differ from their unsuccessful counterparts in terms of these measures. As such, we provide evidence that analysts are prone both to behavioural bias as well as potential conflicts of interest in their new buy stock recommendation decisions. We also show that these two explanations of analyst behaviour are to a great extent independent of each other. Consequently, the recent attempts by regulators to address potential conflicts of interest in analyst behaviour may have only limited impact.     

Interactions between Corporate Agency Conflicts

This paper examines simultaneous incentive conflicts between shareholders, bondholders, and managers. Manager-owner conflicts arise from information asymmetries, and interact with traditional shareholder-bondholder conflicts (i.e., underinvestment and asset substitution conflicts). Managers are aligned with the bondholders' preference to avoid underinvestment, but are aligned with the shareholders' preference for asset substitution, to the extent that riskier investments increase the manager's information advantage. The interactions between conflicts extend the agency cost literature and facilitate empirical implications linking the influence of each party to investment opportunities, financial policy, compensation contracts, and firm value.     

对日美贸易摩擦的回顾与展望

日美贸易摩擦是战后日美经济贸易关系中一个非常突出的问题,是日美全部经济摩擦的基点,在相当程度上决定着两国其它方面摩擦的产生,发展和解决方式。本文将在简要回顾日美贸易摩擦的历史发展进程的基础上,分析其特点及其产生根源,并进一步探讨新世纪日美贸易摩泊发展趋势。     

DO MARKETS PENALIZE AGENCY CONFLICTS BETWEEN CONTROLLING AND MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS? EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

Using a sample of Chilean listed firms with widespread presence of economic conglomerates that use pyramid structures to control affiliated companies, we find that firms where controlling shareholders have higher coincidence between cash and control rights are persistently more valued by the market. We carefully check that our results are not driven by omitted variable biases and control for reverse causation using a feature of Chilean Corporations Law that provides an exogenous instrument for ownership concentration.     

产权缺陷与伦理冲突

本文认为,在各种社会制度中,产权制度是最基本的,产权制度如果存在缺陷必然引致道德秩序上的混乱。在产权依附于特权的条件下,不可能产生真正的市场经济;在垄断制度下,在效率上损失了资源利用水平;在权能分离条件下,即在由古典企业向现代企业制度转换过程中,至少有三种诱发败德现象发生的可能。     

Rhetoric and hegemony in consumptive wildlife tourism: polarizing sustainability discourses among angling tourism stakeholders

Nature-based tourism frequently results in controversies over access rights, but also over how resources should be managed and utilized. In this article, we explore disagreements on management strategies and angling practices, which followed in the wake of the gradual introduction of increasingly strict harvest regulations in salmon angling in the Orkla River of Norway. Different views on what represent the most severe threats to the salmon stock appeared in this case to originate in rather complex patterns with respect to the ways stakeholders related to and engaged with salmon, rivers and nature in general. The identification of incompatible goals and motives of various categories of stakeholders has for long been a dominant approach in research on these types of conflicts. In this contribution, we broaden the scope by exploring how such controversies involve competition for hegemony with respect to how management and angling practices should be discursively framed.