Debt contract strictness and auditor specialization

The conflicts of interest among managers, shareholders and creditors resulting in agency costs, can be mitigated by restricting managers’ adverse behavior, through financial covenants to better align the various stakeholder interests. Thus, debt contract strictness represents an important aspect of agency costs between creditors, shareholders, and management that is not always captured by interest rates. The contract setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate how creditors may rely on auditors to alleviate information uncertainty stemming from reliance on management's financial reporting and thus alleviate the creditor's potential loss of invested capital. After controlling for borrower risks, loan characteristics, and audit factors, we show that auditor industry specialization is significantly associated with a reduction in the strictness of debt contracts, consistent with creditors viewing certain industry expert auditors as effective monitors against financial reporting manipulation aimed at the avoidance of debt covenant triggers that protect creditors against potential loss. Further, we find that the association between loan strictness and auditor specialization is attenuated by stronger corporate governance systems, external monitors, and prior lender relationships.     

A new innovation paradigm: European cohesion policy and the retreat of public science in countries in Europe's scientific periphery

This article seeks to undertake a critical assessment of the changing position of public science in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the countries on the periphery of European research. These countries are driven by new innovation paradigm based on entrepreneurship, which are implemented within the European Smart specialization strategy (S3). This article argues that S3 is widely implemented in the cohesion countries and, while it provides substantial resources for science, technology, and innovation, it fails to provide sustainability in the public research sector. This has direct implications for policies concerning innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. In order to prove the thesis, the article provides theoretical argumentation for emergence of a new innovation paradigm, driven by the rise of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, its incorporation into S3, and a consequent retreat of science policy in favor of entrepreneurial policy. The empirical analysis is focused on the funding trends seen in the business and public research sectors over the last decade (2008–2017), which have clearly shown that S3 has not contributed, despite expectations, to an increase in public expenditure for science. This signifies S3's neglect of public research within entrepreneurial ecosystems and challenges the ability of S3 to reduce wide disparities in research and innovation performance across the European Union. This ultimately endangers the innovation potential of the entrepreneurial ecosystem itself.     

Do seasoned industry specialists provide higher audit quality? A re-examination

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the recent findings in Gaver and Utke (2019) (GU) who find that seasoned industry specialist auditors provide higher audit quality. We first illustrate how the magnitude of residuals from the accruals model can vary significantly by industry, thus highlighting the importance of including industry fixed effects when the dependent variable is discretionary accruals. We next replicate GU’s findings. We first attempt to replicate prior literature after including industry fixed effects in the audit quality (discretionary accruals) models. This is an important control, as the relevant benchmark for a firm with an industry specialist auditor is a peer firm in the same industry with a non-specialist auditor. We find that after including industry fixed effects, there is no association between seasoned industry specialist auditors and discretionary accruals. We also find that the association between industry specialization and discretionary accruals is very sensitive to the way in which the researcher calculates specialization. Our findings are informative for shareholders of public companies who vote on auditor ratification.     

产品内分工条件下上海制造业的升级路径：以上海大众为例

文章分析了产品内分工条件下上海制造业在国际制造业分工中的地位,指出上海制造业目前面临的最大问题是欠缺核心技术与自主品牌。因此,通过自主创新提升技术能级以及培育自主品牌是上海制造业升级的必然选择。但创新能力的提升和品牌的培育是个复杂的技术、经济和社会过程。因此,现阶段通过大规模的创建具有自主知识产权的国际品牌来实现上海制造业整体升级尚不现实。上海制造业在参与国际竞争和和产品价值链分工中,还要走一段时期的“国际代工”道路,并通过嵌入全球生产网络来提高技术能力,进而提升在国际分工中的位置。文章以上海大众为例,分析了上海大众升级的约束条件,以及上海大众实现由OEM、ODM向OBM升级的策略选择。     

Economic diversification of a single-asset tourism city: evidence from Antalya†

It is often argued that the growth of single-asset tourism places is fragile because it is vulnerable to economic fluctuations and is based on specialization and localization economies that lead to an ever stronger lock-in process of path-dependent urban economic development and, in the end, slow growth. In this paper, it is doubted whether a high urban tourism growth implies an ever stronger specialization and an ever stronger lock-in. This paper shows that the growth of tourism stimulates the growth of related and unrelated industries and generates a diversification of the economy, even though some other sectors are crowded out. Antalya (Turkey) is selected as a case-study area not only because its economy is dominated by tourism (it is a good example of a single-asset tourism city), but also because its economy shows a tendency to economic diversification at the sectoral level. This diversification tendency is shown by means of a shift-share analysis and Herfindahl indexes.     

专业化分工视野下的税源分类管理初探

可支配资源的严重不足及有限的管理资源没有得到优化配置和高效使用,是当前税源管理的基本格局。创新税源管理方式,应当借鉴专业化分工有助于提高效率的经济理论,甄别管理对象或划分工作职责开展税源分类管理,优化配置有限的税收征管资源,提高税源控管的针对性,实现税源管理的低成本和高效率。     

THE EFFECTS OF CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING ON AGGREGATE INDUSTRY SPECIALIZATION

It has been widely argued that the purpose of corporate restructuring during the 1980s was to produce a population of more industry-specialized, competitive firms in response to intensifying global competition. A number of studies show that corporate restructuring resulted in increased corporate focus during the 1980s. However, no study has yet examined whether corporate restructuring resulted in increased specialization at the industry level during the 1980s. This study examines this issue. First, we examine whether or not aggregate industry specialization increased during the 1980s. That is, we ask: did the average firm in any given U.S. industry become more or less specialized to that industry during the 1980s? Second, we examine whether corporate restructuring was a significant determinant of change in aggregate industry specialization during the 1980s. Using a sample of 686 four-digit SIC industries and 64 two-digit industry groups, this study finds that aggregate industry specialization declined very slightly at both the four-digit and two-digit level between 1981 and 1989. This study also finds that sell-offs of establishments through corporate control transactions or interfirm asset sales had no significant effect on aggregate industry specialization.     

经济转型期我国区域分工演化分析

本文在探讨区域分工理论的基础上,分析了经济转型时期我国区域分工的特征与发展势态。作者指出,在全国产业结构趋同客观存在的同时,资源型区域产业虚髙度化明显,区域分工向不利于其长期战略的方向发展,进而提出了协调我国区域分工的几点设想。     

农村产业专业化过程中市场风险问题研究

农村产业专业化过程中市场风险的大小直接关系着整个农业发展甚至国民经济的稳定,本文根据影响农村产业专业化过程中市场风险的各种因素,建立风险指标体系,利用模糊递阶层次分析模型确定风险程度并最终提出相应对策。     

高校行政人员专业化研究

行政人员是科学管理高校的重要力量之一,高校管理队伍的重要作用不容忽视。我国高校必须尽快适应全球一体化带来的国际间高等教育资源的竞争,行政管理水平对高校的发展起着至关重要的作用。高校的科学管理正在迅速发展,高等教育管理研究也展现出独特的活力,开展高校行政管理专业化的研究具有重要的现实意义。