Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

地方债务治理对银行信贷资金"脱虚向实"的影响——基于国务院"43号文"准自然实验的经验考察

国务院"43号文"的实施,为研究地方债务的治理效果提供了一个准自然实验场景.研究发现:地方债务治理对银行金融资产没有产生影响,但会显著增加银行总贷款、个人贷款和企业贷款,有助于银行信贷资金的"脱虚向实";地方债务治理能显著增加银行实体行业贷款,但不能显著增加银行非实体行业贷款和建筑业贷款.机制检验发现,地方债务治理可以通过降低借款人和借款企业的融资成本,间接性地影响银行信贷资金配置.进一步研究发现,国务院"43号文"实施后,资产质量高的银行倾向于增加企业贷款和实体行业贷款,资产质量低的银行倾向于增加个人贷款;银行规模可以强化地方债务治理对银行贷款增长的促进作用.因此,为促进银行信贷资金的"脱虚向实",应提高地方债务治理水平,强化对银行业务的监管与引导,加强风险管理,保障银行资产质量.     

The economic burden of depression among adults with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States

Aims: Depression is the most frequent comorbidity reported among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Comorbid depression negatively impacts RA patients’ health-related quality-of-life, physical function, mental function, mortality, and experience of pain and symptom severity. The objective of this study was to assess healthcare utilization, expenditures, and work productivity among patients with RA with or without depression.

Materials and methods: Data from adult patients who had at least two visits each related to RA and depression over a 1-year period were extracted from the Truven Health MarketScan research databases. Outcomes comprised healthcare resource utilization, work productivity loss, and direct healthcare costs comparing patients with RA with depression (n?=?3,478) vs patients with RA without depression (n?=?43,222).

Results: Patients with RA and depression had a significantly greater relative risk of hospitalization and number of all-cause and RA-related hospitalizations, utilization of emergency services, days spent in the hospital, physician visits, and RA-related surgeries compared with RA patients without depression. Patients with RA and depression had a higher risk of and experienced more events and days of short-term disability compared with patients without depression. The incremental adjusted annual all-cause and RA-related direct costs were $8,488 (95% CI = $6,793–$10,223) and $578 (95% CI = –$98–$1,243), respectively, when comparing patients with RA and depression vs RA only.

Limitations: The current analysis is subject to the known limitations of retrospective studies based on administrative claims data.

Conclusions: This study suggested increased healthcare utilization, work productivity loss, and economic burden among RA patients due to comorbid depression. These findings emphasize the importance of managing depression and including depression as a factor when devising treatment algorithms for patients with RA.     

Public investment criteria under optimal nonlinear income taxation without commitment

In this study, we highlight that the incredibility of the government's commitment to a certain tax policy is a determinant of production inefficiency. We show that if the government cannot commit to a certain tax policy and if the types of taxpayers are completely separated, then the production efficiency theorem could be violated in an optimal solution. In this case, an incremental unit of public or private capital affects taxpayers' labor supply through wage rates. In a situation where public capital is more (less) complementary to labor than private capital, public investment tightens (relaxes) the incentive compatibility constraint more than private investment.     

军民融合协同创新驱动产业园区高质量发展研究

军民融合产业园区高质量发展对于推进军民深度融合、在全国形成可复制可推广经验具有重要意义。军民融合协同创新通过促进新知识涌现、推进新产业集聚发展，最终汇聚经济发展新动能，驱动园区高质量发展。在提出军民融合协同创新驱动园区高质量发展的机理与组织框架基础上，将发展模式归纳为以分享经济为背景的资源共享模式、以新型研发机构为核心的第三方模式、以产业联盟为核心的产业链拓展模式和以交易平台为核心的“PPP”模式，最后提出相关对策建议。     

Asymmetric Loss and the Rationality of Inflation Forecasts: Evidence from South Korea

We examine asymmetry in the loss functions of South Korean consumers' and the Bank of Korea's (BOK) inflation forecasts, and test the rationality of these forecasts under the assumption of a possible asymmetric loss function. Under an asymmetric loss function, we find evidence of asymmetry and support for rationality. We also examine whether the BOK's forecasts incorporate respective forecasts and consensus forecasts efficiently. They broadly use available information efficiently, and their results are robust to inflation‐targeting measures and the recent global financial crisis. However, our results suggest that the information efficiency of the BOK's forecasts for consumers was affected during the period 2007–2008.     

Flight‐to‐safety and the credit crunch: a new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression†

Despite France's importance in the interwar world economy, the scale of the French banking crises of 1930–1 and their consequences have never been fully assessed quantitatively. The lack of banking regulation severely limited the availability of balance sheet data. Using a new dataset of individual balance sheets from more than 300 banks, this article shows that the crises were much more severe than previously thought, although they did not affect the main commercial banks. By reconstructing financial flows, this study shows that the fall in bank credit was mostly driven by a flight‐to‐safety by deposits, from banks to savings institutions and the central bank. The decrease in bank deposits due to bank runs was offset by an increase in deposits with savings institutions, with the central bank, and in cash hoarding, whereas the decrease in bank credit was not offset by an increase in loans from non‐bank financial institutions. In line with the gold standard mentality, cash deposited with savings institutions and the central bank was used to decrease marketable public debt and increase gold reserves, rather than pursuing countercyclical policies. Despite massive capital inflows and rising aggregate money supply, France suffered from a severe, persistent credit crunch.     

我国现代农业发展的现状、问题与对策研究

近年来,在科技支撑和制度支持的背景下,我国的现代农业得到了长足发展,取得了举世瞩目的成绩。但是在发展过程中也出现了很多问题,例如:与发达国家相比,科技装备相对落后,现代农业人才严重短缺,金融支持力度不足,市场机制不完善等,因此深入研究现代农业具有重要的现实意义。文章首先对何为现代农业进行了详细阐述;然后分析了我国现代农业发展的现状;再次分析了我国现代农业发展中存在的主要问题;最后提出了切实可行的对策,为现代农业发展提供一些参考,促进现代农业科学发展。     

哈尔滨市快递自提点空间布局与影响因素研究

快递自提点作为解决物流"最后一公里"服务瓶颈问题的关键,逐渐成为地理学研究新的关注点.本文基于2020年3月哈尔滨市菜鸟驿站和邮政站点的POI数据,综合运用文本分析、数理统计等方法,分析哈尔滨市快递自提点的空间布局特征和影响因素,研究发现:哈尔滨市快递自提点存在布局不平衡现象已初步显现,市辖区快递自提点布局存在冗余和空间浪费现象,而远郊县快递自提点存在建设较薄弱等问题,并有针对性地提出了哈尔滨市快递网点布局服务体系的优化对策.     

Financial Crises and Current Account Surpluses

Atlantic Economic Journal - The Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had persistent current account surpluses in recent decades. While oil production set Norway apart, the...