Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process

A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.     

¿Hay evidencia de ciclo político-económico en el empleo sectorial de México, 1998-2013?

This paper looks for evidence of political-business cycles associated to the presidential elections in the Mexican sectorial employment over the period 1998-2013. By estimating panel data models, and controlling for the effects of the major determinants of employment, no evidence consistent with the predictions of the theoretical opportunistic model is found, i.e. whereas employment shows an expansion before and during the elections periods, the estimates are neither statistically significant nor robust. Furthermore, employment does not experience contractions after the elections or the office taking periods. Notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that employment is positively and negatively affected by output and real wages, respectively.     

Political Connections and Related Party Transactions: Evidence from Indonesia

This paper examines whether politically connected firms use related party transactions as a tunneling mechanism in Indonesia. We further investigate whether the presence of tunneling compels managers to manage earnings to conceal such expropriation of resources. Our study is motivated by conflicting evidence in the extant literature about the role of political connections and related party transactions. Using data from Indonesia, we document that politically connected firms use related party loans to tunnel resources, and that this effect is more pronounced for firms with government connections. We further document that politically connected firms manage earnings to conceal their tunneling activities. By documenting the role of related party transactions as a specific channel through which connected firms expropriate resources, we enrich the political connection and related party transactions literature.     

How local leaders matter: Inter-provincial leadership transfers and land transactions in China

We study how local leaders matter for economic growth by examining the impacts of exogenous transfers of leaders across China’s provinces on land transactions in the primary market. We find that new provincial leaders attract investment in industrial land from the provinces of their previous positions. The leaders’ impacts are greater when their freedom to deploy their business connections in the land market is greater. More importantly, we find evidence of positive impacts of land transactions on economic growth, which should bode well for the careers of the local leaders, albeit there is some evidence of rent seeking among officials especially when they are too old for further promotion.     

Ethnic identities,public spending and political regimes

Do democracies discriminate less against minorities as compared to non-democracies? How does the dominance of an ethnic group affect discrimination under various political regimes? We build a theory to analyse such questions. In our model, political leaders (democratically elected or not) decide on the allocation of spending on different types of public goods: a general public good and an ethnically-targetable public good which benefits the majority ethnic group while imposing a cost on the other minorities. We show that, under democracy, lower ethnic dominance leads to greater provision of the general public good while higher dominance implies higher provision of the ethnically-targetable good. Interestingly, the opposite relation obtains under dictatorship. This implies that political regime changes can favour or disfavour minorities based on the ambient level of ethnic dominance. Several historical events involving regime changes can be analysed within our framework and are consistent with our results.     

高管连锁、同业监督与公司违规

本文选取2011—2018年度A股上市公司为研究样本,以具有竞争关系的同业公司间的高管连锁作为同业监督的渠道,检验了同业监督对目标公司违规的影响。研究发现:(1)同业监督能有效抑制目标公司违规倾向,且这一影响当且仅当连锁公司是同业公司时存在;(2)同业竞争是同业监督的基础,在行业集中度低和行业增长率低的行业中,同业监督对目标公司违规的抑制作用更强;(3)目标公司的政治关联会瓦解同业监督对公司违规的抑制作用;(4)区分违规行为类型后发现,同业监督对经营违规的抑制作用最强,对信息披露违规次之,对领导人违规几乎没有效果。本研究丰富了公司违规监督机制的内容,也提供了辩证看待高管同业兼任的新视角。     

非正规部门竞争、政治寻租与新创企业市场创新

市场创新是新创企业生存发展的根本,然而新兴经济体背景下新创企业的市场创新受到多种特定因素的影响。基于制度基础观,利用世界银行中国企业调查数据,实证考察了非正规部门竞争和政治寻租对新创企业市场创新的影响。研究发现,非正规部门竞争和政治寻租均对新创企业的市场创新具有显著的正向影响,但政治寻租未强化非正规部门竞争对企业市场创新的正向影响;非正规竞争导致的对知识产权保护的需求并非是引致新创企业进行政治寻租的主要原因,资金需求和躲避严苛繁琐的政府管制的需要是引诱企业参与政治寻租的主要原因。因此,政策制定者不必过分担忧非正规部门竞争对新创企业的负面影响,而应通过推进企业注册登记便利化和加强知识产权保护逐步消除非正规经济;要通过持续深化市场化改革和简政放权消除企业寻租的动机。     

谁会更慈善？基于竞争战略与企业慈善行为的研究

以企业竞争战略选择作为出发点,对不同企业的捐赠行为和动机进行了研究。研究发现,与保守型竞争战略定位的企业不同,进取型竞争战略定位的企业更倾向于慈善捐赠行为,幅度更明显。其中,企业违规次数具有正向调节效应、管理者的政治关联具有负向调节效应,由此可以部分说明进取型企业的慈善捐赠行为有一定“伪善性”,或者是在谋求有利于企业的政治关联性。     

COVID-19 fatalities and internal conflict: Does government economic support matter?

This study examines the association between COVID-19 mortality rates and internal conflict and investigates the possible moderating role of government economic support during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Our main hypothesis suggests that countries with lower levels of government economic support are more likely to experience a positive correlation between higher COVID-19 mortality rates and the emergence of internal conflict. Using cross-country data from over 100 countries and controlling for various factors that may influence internal conflict, our analysis provides some support for this hypothesis. The results suggest a possible moderating role for government economic support, with the evidence indicating a weakening or elimination of the association between COVID-19 mortality rates and internal conflict when government economic support is adequate. However, the moderating effect of government economic support is not always significant, and caution is needed when interpreting the results. Our analysis also highlights the potential risks associated with low levels of government economic support during the pandemic. Specifically, we find that in countries where the government's macro-financial package in response to the pandemic is less than approximately 25% of GDP, there is a possible risk of growth in civil disorder resulting from increased COVID-19 deaths per million.     

关于企业税收流失与涉税人员的关系分析

对企业方面的税收流失与会计人员、企业负责人、税务人员、行政长官及社会监督人员的关系进行分析 ,提出税收流失重点在于预防 ,关键在于提高全体社会成员的税收意识 ,最终实现税收流失的源泉控制。