Mandatory IFRS adoption and management forecasts: The impact of enforcement changes

We examine how concurrent enforcement changes affect the positive relationship between mandatory IFRS adoption and firms’ voluntary disclosure. We show that the increase in the issuance of management forecasts after IFRS adoption is smaller for firms from IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes than for those from countries without such changes. We find no difference in the increase of forecast informativeness between firms from IFRS-mandating countries without concurrent enforcement changes and firms from non-IFRS-mandating countries; however, firms domiciled in IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes exhibit a significantly smaller increase in forecast informativeness. Our findings suggest that better IFRS enforcement distinctly weakens (strengthens) the positive effect of IFRS adoption on voluntary (mandatory) disclosure.     

Forget about ‘the ideal worker’: A theoretical contribution to the debate on flexible workplace designs,work/life conflict,and opportunities for gender equality

This study integrates insights from Self-Determination Theory and Boundary Theory to present scenarios on how flexible workplace designs can trigger multiple motivational processes underlying gendered work/nonwork integration behaviors, and how these affect work/life conflict. We disentangle processes underlying work engagement and work/life conflict, explaining the paradoxical outcomes found with regard to gender inequality in terms of work/life performance, satisfaction, and health. Policy makers and organizations need an increased understanding and a reconceptualization of these issues, realizing that the ideal worker does not exist. Instead, a long-term perspective is needed in order to truly realize the potential benefits of flexible workplace designs for all stakeholders. Organizations need to take responsibility for preventing individual workers’ depletion and stimulating the regeneration of workers’ resources.     

Gender wage gaps and economic crisis in Greece

ABSTRACT

We examine gender wage gap (GWG) in Greece for 2013, by using a survey data set. Our findings show first, that the unadjusted GWG is 15.3%, while European Commission reports a value of 15%. Secondly, we derive the ‘adjusted’ GWG, using the Oaxaca and Ransom (OR) and the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (JMP) methods to be ranging from 10% to 13.6%. Thirdly, looking into the behaviour of the full population, we find a decreasing trend for the discrimination effects, an increasing trend for the residuals effects and a ‘random’ endowments effects while moving to higher deciles. These three effects are associated to the economic crisis 2008–2015. Fourthly, our findings do not show evidence of either a ‘glass ceiling’ effect or a ‘sticky floor’ effect. Finally, that there is strong evidence that investing in higher education reduces the wage discrimination between sexes.     

京津冀雾霾污染与产业结构、城镇化水平的空间效应研究

京津冀地区是全国雾霾污染的重灾区。本文分析了京津冀地区13个城市的雾霾污染空间相关性，发现其具有显著的空间溢出效应，呈现出“高—高”型集聚和“低—低”型集聚的特征。基于京津冀地区13个城市2000—2012年的面板数据，使用三种类型空间权重矩阵构建空间杜宾模型发现：京津冀雾霾污染与产业结构、城镇化水平显著相关；产业结构与其呈“倒U型”曲线，目前产业结构和城镇化水平对自身及其邻近地区的雾霾污染具有明显的加重作用；城镇化水平对邻近地区雾霾污染具有双向效应。产业结构调整优化和城镇化水平质量的提高会缓解京津冀雾霾污染，实际人均GDP、对外贸易依存度、FDI、人口密度等也会对京津冀地区及其周边地区的雾霾污染产生影响。     

Do health system reforms stand a chance?

While most major reforms of health systems fail, those that succeed are motivated by politicians' quest for reducing the health burden on their budget in response to a shift in voters' preferences away from public health. An Edgeworth box is used to depict their preferences, in addition to those of (potential) patients and health‐care providers. Politicians are found to severely constrain the area of mutual advantage, suggesting that only minor reforms are possible unless they promise to lower health‐care expenditure. An efficiency‐enhancing change that would enlarge the box and hence the area of mutual advantage would be to suppress the requirement imposed on health insurers to purchase domestically, rather than being free to directly import health‐care services and drugs.     

水资源管理的供给侧结构性改革研究

根据供给侧结构性改革的背景和基本内涵,对水资源供给侧结构性改革的内涵进行研究,提出了狭义和广义的水资源供给侧结构性改革的内容。在分析水资源需求新形势的基础上,提出了水资源供给侧结构性改革的要求。根据水循环理论提出了水资源管理是推动水资源供给侧结构性改革的重要抓手,并在最严格水资源管理制度的基础上,提出了符合水资源供给侧结构性改革要求的水资源管理制度。     

组合式房产税改革的宏观经济效应 ——兼顾居民用房与商业用房的DSGE框架分析

本文通过构建包含房产税的动态随机一般均衡（DSGE）框架，兼顾居民用房与商业用房，模拟分析房产税改革对主要宏观经济变量的影响。研究结果表明：（1）提高居民用房房产税税率对总消费、投资、房价和总产出等变量的均衡值和波动均以负面影响为主，但会降低社会福利损失；（2）降低商业用房房产税税率对总消费、投资、房价和总产出等变量的均衡值和波动均以正面影响为主，但会提高社会福利损失；（3）提高居民用房房产税税率与降低商业用房房产税税率同时实施时，不仅能够对冲居民用房房产税改革对宏观经济的负面影响，尤其是能够有效对冲改革对投资和总产出的负面影响，还会降低社会福利损失。因此，中国下一步试点改革应当重点关注组合式改革方案。     

Estimating effects of cooperative membership on farmers’ safe production behaviors: Evidence from pig sector in China

This research studies the determinants of pig farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives and the effects of farmers’ cooperatives on pig farmers’ behaviors in adopting safe production practices using data from a household survey of 540 cooperative farmers and 270 non-cooperative farmers from four main pig production provinces in China. The propensity score matching (PSM) method was adopted to deal with possible self-selection bias associated with farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives due to observables, which is further supplemented by a sensitivity analysis to assess the degree to which the PSM results are robust to the presence of unobservables. The PSM results show that the cooperative membership has significant and positive influence on farmers’ propensity to adopt safe production practices and the effects are heterogeneous across a number of key cooperative, farm and household attributes. Specifically, the membership effects tend to be bigger for cooperatives led by Investor-owned firms (IOFs) and farms of small production scale. And the effects tend to be greater for households (1) of medium and high level of education, (2) of less than 10 years of pig production experience, (3) of no off-farm job experience, and (4) that are specialized in pig production. The sensitivity analysis further increases our confidence in the results for the feed use and the breed use, however, the results for vaccination, drug use and waste disposable are more sensitive to the influence of unobservables, therefore should be interpreted with caution.     

Policy induced increases in private healthcare financing provide short-term relief of total healthcare expenditure growth: Evidence from OECD countries

Healthcare reforms have long been advocated as a cure to the increasing healthcare expenditures in advanced economies. Nevertheless, it has not been established whether a market solution via private financing, rather than public financing, curb aggregate healthcare expenditures. To our knowledge, this paper is the first that quantifies the impact of reforms that significantly increases (decreases) the private (public) share of healthcare financing on total healthcare expenditures relative to income in 20 OECD countries. Our reform measure is based on structural break testing of the private share of total expenditures, and verification using evidence of policy reforms. To quantify the effect of these reforms we apply Propensity Score Matching and Inverse Probability Weighted regression analysis. Over a 5-year evaluation period the reforms lead to an accumulated cost saving 0.45 percentage points of GDP. The yearly effects of the reforms are largest in the first years in the post-reform period and decreases in size as a function of time since the reform. Our findings suggest that the investigated healthcare reforms have a relatively short-lived effect on aggregate health spending relative to GDP. The findings are robust to various sensitivity tests.     

The price of fear: Estimating the financial cost of bullying and harassment to the NHS in England

Using a spectrum of measures, this paper estimates some of the financial costs of bullying and harassment to the NHS in England. By means of specific impacts resulting from bullying and harassment to staff health, sickness absence costs to the employer, employee turnover, diminished productivity, sickness presenteeism, compensation, litigation and industrial relations costs, we conservatively estimate bullying and harassment to cost the taxpayer £2.281 billion per annum.