Beyond trade creation: Preferential trade agreements and trade disputes

This study investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTA) on bilateral trade disputes. We construct a unique and comprehensive dataset on inter-country trade disputes from 1995 to 2007. The dataset covers 110 countries and 1,162 bilateral country-pair trade disputes. Using this dataset in a gravity-type model of trade dispute analysis, we find that countries belonging to the same PTA tend to experience fewer trade conflicts among themselves than with non-member countries. By studying various types of PTA with different dispute settlement mechanisms, we further find that the dispute-reducing effect only comes from PTA with specific provisions on dispute settlement mechanisms. Moreover, the effect is stronger if those PTA explicitly stipulate that members can also resolve their disputes via the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. However, having PTA that do not address how members should resolve their disputes may lead to more dispute initiations than in cases without PTA.     

Abuse of Market Dominance Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law: The Case of Tetra Pak

Review of Industrial Organization - In this paper, we analyze a recent antitrust case of abuse of dominance that was decided by a Chinese administrative enforcement agency under China’s...     

Broad-Based Employee Ownership and Labour Productivity During the 2008 Recession: Evidence from Public Firms in Europe

Did publicly traded European firms with employee ownership (EO) realize higher firm performance during or after the Great Recession? Contributing to the growing interest in exploring the association between EO and firm performance during and after the 2008 economic crisis, we draw on a longitudinal sample of 4,259 firm-years representing 892 publicly traded firms from 28 European countries. The results show that compared to firms without EO, those with EO experienced higher firm performance during or after the recession, albeit with small effect size. Consistent with past findings, we found that firms with EO were less likely to lower their employee count during or after the recession. Findings are robust to controlling for contemporaneous endogeneity and alternate specifications. Our results indicate that publicly traded European firms with EO, on average, realized higher firm performance in the face of the Great Recession.     

我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空分布及影响因素研究

深入分析我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空格局及影响因素，有助于促进创新创业与企业发展、提高区域科技创新水平。运用空间分析方法和空间计量模型，对2003-2018年我国“一带一路”沿线139个城市风险投资的时空分布特征及影响因素进行分析，结果表明：①沿线地区的风险投资发展具有不均衡性，呈现为沿海高、西部低的分异格局；②风险投资的全局自相关系数均为正，呈现出明显的空间集聚特征；③风险投资机构数、国家高新区数量、风险投资退出、政府引导基金发展、财政科技支出对区域风险投资具有显著促进作用，环境污染对风险投资有一定抑制作用。随着ESG投资理念逐渐获得认可，沿线地区可以通过提升绿色发展水平促进风险投资发展。     

Auditors' Responses to Workload Imbalance and the Impact on Audit Quality*

Using detailed data for fieldwork hours and audit hours by rank from audit engagements in Korea, we examine whether audits conducted under workload imbalance, proxied by busy‐season audits, impair audit quality, and how auditors adjust staff assignments for busy‐season audits. We generally find that busy‐season audits are associated with lower audit quality, and that audit firms reduce the involvement of senior auditors during busy‐season audits. In addition, the greater the involvement of senior auditors and junior auditors, the lesser the deterioration in audit quality. Finally, although there is no increase in interim audits in response to workload imbalance during busy seasons, increasing interim audits can mitigate the negative impact of busy‐season audits on audit quality. Our results are relevant to auditors and regulators, who have expressed concerns about the adverse effects of workload imbalance on audit quality.     

金融发展、企业创新与经济增长

本文通过在一般均衡模型中引入银行部门,考察了金融发展对企业创新和经济增长的影响。基于模型的理论分析表明,在均衡状态下,金融发展可以提高经济中储蓄向投资转化的效率、缓解信息不对称,有效降低了研发部门的外部融资成本,从而促进企业增加研发投入,并推动经济实现更高速的增长。在此基础上,本文以中国31个省份2008—2016年的面板数据对上述结论进行了实证检验,相关结果表明:(1)金融发展对企业研发投入具有显著的促进效应;(2)在工业化程度、外商投资水平较高的地区以及政府支出水平较低、人才资源相对短缺的地区,金融发展的促进作用更加明显;(3)企业研发创新可以有效推动经济增长,且在金融支持实体经济中发挥了重要的中介作用。本文的理论和实证分析揭示了“金融发展—企业创新—经济增长”的内生性传导机理及其在中国的体现,从而为金融支持创新型经济增长的改革逻辑奠定了初步的理论和经验基础。     

铬掺杂对硅酸铁锂电学性能影响的计算机仿真研究

硅酸铁锂是一种锂离子电子的正极材料,由于其晶胞在理论上可允许可逆脱嵌两个锂原子,使得其理论比容量有巨大的提升空间,加上原料易得、无污染及成本低的优势,受到了人们的重视。正极材料掺杂被认为是改善其导电性能的有效途径。论文通过运用基于第一性原理方法的计算机仿真技术,对铬掺杂硅酸铁锂的结构和导电性能的影响进行了计算机仿真研究,结果表明未掺杂的硅酸铁锂其带隙快读为2.44eV,掺杂铬之后硅酸铁锂带隙减小为2.31eV,表明铬掺杂可提高硅酸铁锂的导电性能。     

新形势下高校创新型学生社团建设与创新人才培养

在我国高等学校面对教育新形势的背景下,学生社团的建设与管理要求人们做好教育和引导工作。创新型社团的建设应该因势利导,解决当前面临的问题,与指导教师加强联系,共同制定明确的建设和管理目标,建立合理的管理模式,并创建具有特色的活动与品牌文化。在人才培养方面,应为学生提供更多受教育和实践锻炼的机会,开展学术性交流和培训活动,以培养具有专业素养的创新型人才。     

Effects of consumer cohorts and age on meat expenditures in the United States

Meat demand is likely influenced by the birth cohort and age of the individual. In this study, we examine the demand for beef, pork, poultry, and other meat in the United States using the 1984–2012 Consumer Expenditure Survey and the almost ideal demand system with the incorporation of age, period, and cohort (APC) effects. We find that the model with APC effects performs better than the models without APC effects. The results indicate that cohorts born in earlier time periods are expected to purchase significantly less poultry compared to cohorts born in later time periods, when they are measured at the same age. Over the life cycle, purchase of poultry is expected to increase with age while the opposite is true for red meat. We also find that the own-price elasticity for beef is highest among the products examined, while the own-price elasticity for other meat is lowest and the inclusion of APC effects increases the absolute value of the own-price elasticities for beef, pork, and poultry, but reduces the own-price elasticity for other meat. Our forecasts indicate that the aggregate poultry purchase will continue to increase until 2022, while the aggregate purchase of red meat will slightly increase until 2017, but will either decrease or stay at same level from year 2017 to 2022.     

“丝绸之路经济带”沿线国国家风险评级与对策研究

为了使中国企业在“走出去”的过程中合理识别和评估东道国的国家风险，提高国家间投资合作的效率，本文以中资企业对外投资中面临的国家风险为主要研究对象，构建了中国对外直接投资国家风险评价体系。从投入产出角度，运用超效率DEA模型与Malmquist指数相结合的分析方法，从静态与动态的时间角度对2014—2018年“丝绸之路经济带”沿线国家风险进行实证分析。研究发现：从静态层面看，中南亚区域呈现较高的国家风险，我国应加强与东道国联系，重点关注东道国投资环境的变化；欧洲地区特别是中东欧国家更适合中国企业对外投资，合作规模有待进一步扩大；西亚地区投资风险两极分化，我国应密切关注高风险国家投资风险的隐患，并建立相应的补偿机制。从动态层面看，通过Malmquist指数分析可知，研究年份间“丝绸之路经济带”沿线国家风险在逐步改善，国家管理的整体趋势向着良好的方向发展。基于分析结果，本文提出了相关的政策建议。