Viewpoint: Effectiveness or consumer acceptance? Tradeoffs in selecting healthy eating nudges

Governments and companies that want to promote healthier eating must consider both the effectiveness and the acceptance of the ‘nudges’ given to consumers. Our review of the literature uncovers a wide range of nudges towards healthy eating, from nutrition labeling to portion size reductions, which are found to vary greatly in effectiveness and levels of public acceptance (64% of women; 52% of men). Acceptance of a nudge is inversely related to its effectiveness: only 43% of respondents approved the most effective intervention – portion and package size reductions. Approval levels increased with the perceived effectiveness of the nudge and with the perception that the nudge is good for both health and business (as opposed to only one of the two), especially among respondents who identify as conservatives. To encourage acceptance of the most effective nudge strategies, governments and companies should therefore correct misconceptions about which nudges work best, and should underscore the win-win potential for health and business.     

Assessment of OECD Better Life Index by incorporating public opinion

Well-being has a multidimensional nature as it depends on multifaceted factors such as material conditions and quality of life. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed the Better Life Index (BLI) as part of the OECD Better Life initiative to facilitate the better understanding of what drives well-being of people. The BLI is a three-level hierarchical composite indicator that covers several socio-economic aspects. In this paper, considering the entire hierarchical structure of the index, we introduce a bottom-up procedure for the aggregation of the components at each level. We formulate the assessment of BLI as a multiple objective programming (MOP) problem that facilitates the implementation of different concepts to derive different aggregation schemes. We incorporate the data from previous years into the normalization process of the indicators, to take into account the discrepancy on their observed values and smooth their deviations across the years. Also, we consider the public opinion about well-being that is captured from the worldwide responses in the web platform of OECD BLI. We incorporate the public opinion into the assessment models in the form of weight restrictions. In this way, we reduce the effect of compensation that might be imposed by the adopted modelling approach. We apply our methodology to the data of 38 countries (35 OECD and 3 non-OECD economies) for the year 2017. Our findings illustrate that the public opinion in the form of weight restrictions can effectively drive the optimization process and depict the collective preferences to the BLI scores.     

实体经济发展困境及政策建议:从制造业视角

近年来,在虚拟经济高回报率的吸引下,中国经济出现了“脱实向虚”的现象,导致实体经济发展受到极大的冲击,许多制造业企业面临着成本居高不下、人才匮乏、融资困难、专利维权效益不高和舆论环境出现偏差等系列问题。因此,本文通过分析中国实体经济发展存在的问题,提出营造有利于实体经济发展的舆论环境,提出降低实体经济企业成本、加强金融财税支持、强化人才保障、推动研发创新和加强知识产权保护等系列政策建议,以促进实体经济平稳快速发展。     

国家审计能促进国有企业全要素生产率增长吗?

如何促进国有企业治理改善，实现高质量发展，是当前国有企业审计亟须解决的问题。基于2010—2018年审计署公布的中央企业财务收支审计结果公告，采用双重差分模型实证检验国家审计对中央企业控股上市公司全要素生产率的影响及其作用机理。研究发现，国家审计能提高中央企业控股上市公司全要素生产率，主要体现在被审计当年及之后两年，通过扩大国家审计监督内容覆盖广度、拓展国家审计目标深度和加强国家审计权限行使力度实现。进一步发现，国家审计能通过促进中央企业控股上市公司增加研发投入、提高内部控制质量、抑制高管超额在职消费、缓解第一类代理问题等改善公司治理水平，提高全要素生产率。这对优化国有企业审计治理机制，提高全要素生产率，助推经济高质量发展具有启示意义。     

网络媒体关注、审计质量与风险抑制——基于深圳主板A股上市公司的经验数据

以我国深圳证券交易所主板2011—2016年A股上市公司为样本，通过计算可操纵性应计利润衡量审计质量，使用上市公司违规数据衡量经营和交易违规风险与虚假披露风险，考察网络媒体关注的风险抑制作用。研究发现：网络媒体关注度与审计质量具有风险抑制效应，且网络媒体关注对风险的抑制作用更显著；进一步地，网络媒体关注可通过提高审计质量来抑制企业违规风险，审计质量在网络媒体关注与风险抑制之间发挥部分中介作用。     

参与产学研合作对科研人员国际和国内论文发表的影响——区域边界和院校层次的调节作用

当前文献对参与产学研互动是否会正向或负向影响科研人员的学术绩效尚未形成一致结论。本文搜集参加广东省企业科技特派员计划的共3 524名科研人员的相关数据,考察参与学企人员流动形式的产学研互动对其学术绩效的影响,包括对国际和国内论文发表的影响。研究发现,参与学企人员流动对学术绩效既有正向促进作用,也有负向削弱效应。结果表明,参与计划对特派员国际论文发表的促进作用大于国内论文。参与后,特派员国际论文发表的增长速率有显著增加,而国内论文发表的增长速率却明显减低。且高层次院校科研人员参与学企人员流动比一般院校人员获得更高的国际论文产出。本地科研人员参与学企人员流动能够比区域外人员获得更高的国际论文产出。研究结论对平衡科研人员学术研究和创新成果转化活动的政府产学研政策、学研机构行政机制和企业管理策略都具有重要参考价值。     

Firms’ performance following the initial resignation of independent directors: evidence from Taiwan

This study investigates the operating performance of firms listed on the Taiwan stock exchange following the initial resignation of independent directors. The results show that the firms’ operating performance following the resignation of these directors has not only deteriorated, but is also significantly below the industry average. In addition, firms with a relatively severe agency problem, including firms that have lower insider or institutional shareholdings, receive audit opinions other than unqualified opinions or change their auditors prior to the resignation of the independent directors, tend to perform more poorly following the resignation.     

公司诉讼风险对审计决策的影响研究——基于异常审计费用和审计意见的证据

近年来上市公司诉讼风险不断攀升，对审计师决策行为的影响日益凸显。基于这一背景，系统探讨公司诉讼风险对审计决策的影响，分别研究公司诉讼风险对审计费用决策和审计意见决策的影响，并考察在诉讼风险冲击下审计费用决策和审计意见决策间的关系,同时结合我国制度背景，研究法律环境差异性对两种决策之间关系的影响。研究发现：公司诉讼风险越高，审计师收取正向异常审计费用的概率越高，出具非标准审计意见的可能性越大；审计费用策略和审计意见策略之间存在替代关系，即审计师倾向于在出具标准审计意见时收取正向异常审计费用作为风险补偿。进一步研究表明，在外部法律环境薄弱地区，审计费用决策和审计意见决策之间的替代关系更加显著。研究结论有助于合理解释和评价审计师的决策行为，对监管机构规范审计师的行为有着一定的启示意义。     

Public Attention and Auditor Behavior: The Case of Hurun Rich List in China

Adverse client publicity can entail regulatory scrutiny over audited financial statements and impose political costs on auditors. We use the changes in client publicity caused by their controlling owners’ presence on the Hurun Rich List (the rich listing) in China to test the hypothesis that auditor conservatism increases with client publicity. Our evidence indicates auditors issue more adverse audit opinions to clients and charge higher fees following the rich listing events. Moreover, we observe that auditors strategically respond to clients with different attributes—for clients whose owners accumulated wealth in a more questionable manner, auditors choose more stringent audit reporting to better defend themselves from regulatory scrutiny; for clients without such attributes, auditors primarily rely on increasing audit fees to cope with any post-listing increase in audit risks. Our analyses also suggest the impacts of rich listings tend to be concentrated among large audit firms with stronger reputation concerns or among engagement auditors with more conservative reporting styles. By showing how auditors manage political risks associated with heightened public scrutiny, we contribute to both the auditing and political cost literature.     

异常审计费用、审计质量与IPO定价——基于A股市场的分析

以A股市场2006—2012年IPO公司为研究对象，探讨异常审计费用与审计质量的相关性及其在IPO定价中的作用。结果发现：对全样本，异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平显著负相关，与可操纵性应计利润的绝对值和股票上市后的长期市场表现不相关；当考虑异常审计费用的方向时，正的异常审计费用与IPO抑价水平、可操纵性应计利润的绝对值显著负相关，与股票上市后的长期市场表现显著正相关，而负的异常审计费用与三者的相关性均不显著。这表明作为会计师事务所努力程度的体现，正的异常审计费用不会损害审计质量，相反在一定程度上能提升审计质量。因此，监管部门应更多地关注审计收费不足所存在的风险。