The Uncertainty of Academic Rent and Income Inequality: The OECD Panel Evidence

The article presents an alternative view on the education—income inequality relationship, which calls into question the neoclassical claim that education increases labor productivity and hence contributes to a higher output, wage and consequently more even income distribution. In the context of public policies, education needs to be seen not only as a factor of income mobility, but also as a “positional good,” which benefits graduates at the expense of non-graduates. Education generates “academic rent,” by which we mean uneven remuneration of workers based on academic signs of distinctions that do not necessarily reflect differences in productivity. Using the robust panel model on a sample of OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries from 1980 to 2015, we show that investments in human capital lead to lower inequality, but overinvestments tends to increase income inequality, which may be related to academic rent. In discussing this result, we consider that uncertainty of academic rent under the condition of a rapid transformation of the workplace caused by the fourth industrial revolution.     

Understanding heterogeneity in price changes and firm responses to a national unhealthy food tax in Mexico

To address the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in Mexico, an eight percent ad valorem excise tax on non-essential energy-dense foods came into effect on 1 January 2014. This paper estimates price changes after the tax implementation among the top four food categories and by leading vs. non-leading firms using purchase information from over 6000 urban households in the 2012–2015 Nielsen Mexico Consumer Panel. We create product-city-month specific prices that correct for potential biases associated with household and retailer characteristics. Using these corrected prices, we conduct before and after quasi-experimental analyses and find that price increases were larger than eight percent for cookies but were less than eight percent for ready-to-eat cereals, salty snacks, and pre-packaged sweet bread. For the latter food group, event-study analyses on the gradual price change over time suggest that price changes might be the result of an increasing price trend rather than the tax implementation. Firm-level analyses mostly show that price increases by the leading firms were larger than the overall increase at the food market level, helping explain variability in post-tax declines in food purchases as reported in other research. We also find that price changes are generally underestimated when we do not correct prices for biases associated with households and retailers. These results improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind heterogeneous changes in purchases after the tax implementation. Additionally, these results can assist policymakers when designing or improving taxes on non-essential energy-dense foods at a time when these policy options are high on the agenda in many places.     

Past,present, and future of green product innovation

Firms are under constant pressure from various governmental and nongovernmental agencies to switch from conventional environmentally polluting products to green product innovations (GPIs). However, the relevant research pertaining to GPI has been published in a diverse set of journals that vary in their scope and readership and, therefore, the scholarly contribution to the topic remains largely fragmented. This study has utilised a systematic literature review approach to examine the literary corpus on GPI to paint a holistic picture of its different aspects. The content and thematic analysis of 85 studies resulted in the extraction of seven key research themes: organisational capabilities, organisational learning, institutional pressures, barriers, structural changes, benefits of GPI, and methodological choices. This study's findings further highlight the various gaps in the GPI literature and raise some research questions that warrant scholarly investigation in the future. Likewise, our study has important implications for practitioners who are likely to benefit from a holistic understanding of the different aspects of GPI. Similarly, policymakers can use this study's findings to introduce policy interventions, especially in countries where GPI adoption is low.     

Identifying Price Reviews by Firms: An Econometric Approach

Price reviews are a potentially costly activity. A significant fraction of unchanged prices may stem from firms not reviewing prices, rather than from obstacles to changing prices per se, such as menu costs. In this paper, we disentangle these two causes of price stickiness by estimating an inflated ordered probit model on a panel of French manufacturing firms. The results point to a low frequency of price reviews, suggestive of the relevance of information costs as a determinant of the observed price stickiness. In view of the “inattentive producers” literature, pointing that the source of price rigidity matters, this is suggestive of a large real effect of monetary policy.     

Effects of investor tax heterogeneity on stock prices and trading behaviour around the ex-dividend day: the case of Australia

Using a sample of Australian stocks during the 1996–2014 period, this study examines how tax heterogeneity between domestic and foreign investors affects trading behaviour and stock prices around the ex-dividend day. Domestic investors prefer dividends and tend to buy stocks cum-dividend and sell them ex-dividend whereas foreign investors tend to trade in the opposite direction. Abnormal trading turnover increases with tax heterogeneity. Moreover, stocks with a larger domestic investor base are associated with a higher price drop-off ratio on the ex-dividend day and higher market value of franking credits. Overall, our findings support the dynamic dividend clientele hypothesis.     

旅游发展下客家妇女的地位变迁研究--成都龙泉洛带古镇的个案调查

关注旅游发展下客家妇女地位变迁状况，有益于深化旅游对东道主女性影响研究和客家文化变迁研究。以四川龙泉洛带古镇为例，采取问卷调查与个案访谈法，综合采用定量和定性分析，探究旅游发展下洛带古镇客家妇女家庭地位和社会地位的变迁状态、变迁特点和变迁原因。研究表明，旅游发展影响洛带客家妇女地位变迁；旅游对洛带客家妇女家庭地位变迁影响强度大于社会地位变迁，且更易于被感知；旅游参与方式对洛带客家妇女地位变迁程度无明显影响；旅游影响洛带客家妇女地位变迁的原因集中表现在生计、自由空间和家庭分工的改变。     

再论加快我国行政区划体制的改革与创新

新时期,我国的政府职能转变、交通通讯技术以及城市化加速发展使行政区划管理的基础条件发生了变化,同时提供了改革创新的新动力。因此,我们必须思考加快我国行政区划体制的改革与创新。     

Entry dynamics of self-employment in South Korea

The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether the entry into self-employment was an inevitable move due to economic recession (push hypothesis) or a voluntary move due to entrepreneurship (pull hypothesis) in Korea. It also examines how this decision is affected by changes in socio-economic conditions. The empirical analysis in this study exploited the matched sample for the adjacent months in the Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS) conducted by Korea National Statistical Office in 2000–2004. The empirical results showed that the push aspect of self-employment was strong in Korea over the whole sampled periods. The entry into self-employment in South Korea is largely attributable to economic sluggishness and an increase in unemployment rather than a voluntary transition resulting from entrepreneurship. Policy environment (such as providing information and financial support for new start-ups after the Asian financial crisis), which is a country-specific factor magnified the pushed effects. For the pushed (unprepared) self-employed people, not only is there a need to expand the coverage of vocational training programmes, but also it is vital that social safety nets are strengthened and supplemented.     

The valuation consequences of voluntary accounting changes

Firm management typically claims that voluntary accounting method changes (VACs) are made to enhance the informativeness of earnings by better matching accounting practices with economic reality. In contrast, skeptics argue that managers adopt new accounting procedures to opportunistically manage earnings and influence their firm’s stock price. In this paper, we investigate these alternative motives for VACs. Specifically, we investigate whether VACs cause equity prices to deviate from their fundamental values in the short-term by studying the long-run stock-price performance for a sample of firms that voluntarily change accounting methods. In addition, we investigate changes in earnings informativeness by examining the behavior of earning response coefficients and the relationship between earnings and future cash flows in years surrounding the VAC event. In contrast to prior research, we find little evidence that a strategy based solely on the earnings effect of a VAC can generate abnormal returns. While we find weak evidence of post-VAC abnormal returns for extreme VACs, this result appears to be driven by the accruals anomaly documented in Sloan [Sloan, R. G. (1996). The Accounting Review, 71, 289–315]. Our evidence further suggests that earnings informativeness is not significantly altered by voluntary changes in accounting methods. Taken together, our evidence suggests the market recognizes the financial statement effects of alternative acceptable accounting methods and efficiently processes the valuation implications of VACs.

江苏省城市土地集约水平时空差异研究

城市土地集约利用是城市可持续发展的必然要求。根据江苏省城市土地集约利用现状及特点,从土地投入水平、土地利用程度、土地产出水平和土地生态效益四个方面建立了城市土地集约利用水平评价指标体系,运用基于熵值法的多因素综合评价方法对2005～2009年间江苏省13个地级城市土地集约利用水平进行时空差异分析,得出结论:(1)从时间变化特征上看,2005～2009年间江苏省城市土地利用集约度呈现总体上升趋势,但各地区之间存在差异;(2)从空间变化特征上看,由于受区位因素及产业结构等因素的影响,江苏省城市土地集约利用水平由南向北呈现明显的空间梯度差异,苏南地区的城市土地集约利用水平相对较高。最后根据影响因素的不同,有针对性地提出提高城市土地利用集约度的相应建议。