Video mining: Measuring visual information using automatic methods

Marketers are becoming increasingly reliant on videos to market their products and services. However, there is no standard set of measures of visual information that can be applied to large datasets. This paper proposes two standard measures that can be automatically obtained from videos: visual variation and video content. The paper tests the measures on crowdfunding videos from a leading online crowdfunding website, and shows that the proposed measures have explanatory power on the funding outcomes of the projects. These measures can be effectively implemented and used for large datasets. Further, researchers can apply these measures to other sets of visual information, and marketers could use the research to guide their video design and improve their video marketing effectiveness.     

省思与规制:我国跨境期货交易法律困境及应对

我国推进期货市场"走出去"及国际化战略须以跨境期货交易法律机制构建为前提。文章通过厘定跨境期货交易内涵边界及监管正当性,省思主要法律困境及应对思路,提出应致力于跨境期货交易立法监管理念创新,确立跨境交易监管认同机制,提升跨境期货衍生品交易经纪能力,适度扩大衍生品跨境投资参与主体范围,逐步取消QDII投资品种限制,并从跨境期货交易运行保障、立法监管、风险控制以及解纷机制等方面建构系统法律保护体系,切实保障跨境交易整体性金融安全。     

Unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing

Labor unemployment insurance reduces unemployment concerns. We argue that these benefits moderate incentives to smooth earnings to reduce employees’ concerns about unemployment risk. Using exogenous variations in unemployment insurance benefits, we find evidence consistent with this argument. We also find that the link between unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing is stronger when there is higher unemployment risk and when the firm is likely to employ more low-wage workers, who find unemployment insurance benefits especially useful. Our paper contributes to the literature by showing that public policy decisions such as unemployment insurance have significant, albeit probably unintended, externalities on corporate financial reporting.     

Who benefits in a crisis? Evidence from hedge fund stock and option holdings

We use a unique data set of hedge fund long equity and equity option positions to investigate a significant lockup-related premium earned during the tech bubble (1999–2001) and financial crisis (2007–2009). Net fund flows are significantly greater among lockup funds during crisis and noncrisis periods. Managers of hedge funds with locked-up capital trade opportunistically against flow-motivated trades of non-lockup managers, consistent with a hypothesis of rent extraction in providing crisis era liquidity. The success of this opportunistic trading is concentrated during periods of high borrowing costs, in less liquid stock markets, and is enhanced by hedging in the equity option market.     

Does economic performance affect officials’ turnover? Evidence from municipal government leaders in China

As is well known, Chinese central government has full authority to determine the provincial and local officials’ turnover. However, China has not in detail interpreted the standards of officials’ promotions so far. In this paper, the latest database of city-level leaders for the period between 2002 and 2013 is utilized to investigate the influences of economic performance on party secretaries’ odds of being promoted. The estimation results by a panel multinomial logit method indicate that municipal annual GDP per capita is significantly positively associated with leaders’ chances of promotion. Specifically, the average GDP growth rates during leaders’ tenures have much higher effects. Moreover, some important factors of leaders’ personal characteristics also affect the political turnover. For instance, party secretaries’ connection with China’s Communist Youth League, political experience, educational level and professional expertise all have positive impacts on their chances of obtaining a promotion. In contrast, leaders’ ages and tenures are found to be negatively related to their promotion possibilities.

     

DO SCANDALS TRIGGER GOVERNANCE CHANGES? EVIDENCE FROM OPTION BACKDATING

We examine whether firms charged with backdating option grants make discernible changes to board structure and activity and whether such changes help recoup value losses from the revelation of option backdating. We find that these firms increased board size, reduced duality, and increased board independence. In addition, the boards and the compensation committees of these firms experienced significant increases in meeting frequency. We also find that firms in the same sectors that had not been identified as backdating option grants experienced similar changes in board activity and some elements of board structure. Additional analysis reveals that increases in board size, chief excutive officer turnover, and the meeting frequency of the audit committee are related to buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns in the postscandal period.     

Does default point vary with firm size?

This article aims to improve the predictive ability of KMV model by distinguishing firm size. The evidence suggests that default point would vary with firm size. Using the method of particle swarm optimization, we obtain the optimal default point separately for large firms and small firms. Several statistical tests such as the model confidence set methodology show that our relatively tractable model is more likely to have the strongest predictive ability.     

Structural estimation of behavioral heterogeneity

We develop a behavioral asset pricing model in which agents trade in a market with information friction. Profit‐maximizing agents switch between trading strategies in response to dynamic market conditions. Owing to noisy private information about the fundamental value, the agents form different evaluations about heterogeneous strategies. We exploit a thin set—a small sub‐population—to point identify this nonlinear model, and estimate the structural parameters using extended method of moments. Based on the estimated parameters, the model produces return time series that emulate the moments of the real data. These results are robust across different sample periods and estimation methods.     

Stochastic Payments per Claim Incurred

We propose a Bayesian model to quantify the uncertainty associated with the payments per claim incurred (PPCI) algorithm. Based on the PPCI algorithm, two submodels are proposed for the number of reported claims run-off triangle and the PPCI run-off triangle, respectively. The model for the claims amount is then derived from the two submodels under the assumption of independence between the number of incurred claims and the PPCI. The joint likelihood of the number of reported claims and claims amount is derived. The posterior distribution of parameters is estimated via the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling approach. The Bayesian estimator, the process variance, the estimation variance, and the predictive distribution of unpaid claims are also studied. The proposed model and the HMC inference engine are applied to to an empirical claims dataset of the WorkSafe Victoria to estimate the unpaid claims of the doctor benefit. The Bayesian modeling procedure is further refined by including a preliminary generalized linear model analysis. The results are compared with those in a PwC report. An alternative model is compared with the proposed model based on various information criteria.     

进城务工提升了农民的获得感吗——基于中国家庭追踪调查数据的实证分析

持续增强人民群众的获得感是我国新时代民生事业建设的重要任务.农业劳动力向城市转移显著提高了农民的收入水平,增加了农民在物质层面的获得感,但其对农民精神层面获得感的影响尚不清楚.基于中国家庭追踪调查2016年收集的调研数据,利用倾向得分匹配(PSM)与反事实分析方法的实证评估结果表明,进城务工就业不仅提高了农民收入,而且提升了农民对收入水平的主观感受及其对生活的满意程度,并且使得农民对未来更加充满信心,然而进城务工并没有提升农民对其社会地位的主观判断.对于那些没有选择进城务工的农民,务工就业甚至可能会降低其对生活的满意程度及对其社会地位的主观判断.尽管进城务工就业从总体上对提升我国农民的获得感起到了重要促进作用,但是对不同特征农民获得感的影响有着明显的异质性.