A political economy perspective on horizontal FDI in a dynamic Cournot-oligopoly with endogenous entry

Entry in a homogeneous Cournot-oligopoly is excessive if and only if there is business-stealing (Amir et al., 2014). The excessive entry prediction has been derived primarily for closed economies and using a welfarist benchmark. We extend this framework and allow for (1) horizontal FDI in a multi-period setting and (2) interest group-based government behaviour. Opening the market to greenfield investments from abroad tends to aggravate the entry distortion. Moreover, market opening may reduce welfare if a more pronounced entry distortion dominates the gain in consumer surplus. Finally, a government, which places sufficiently little weight on the interests of consumers, will object to market opening, even if welfare rises.     

Does board gender diversity influence firm profitability? A control function approach

We investigate the relation between board gender diversity and firm profitability using the control function (CF) approach recently suggested by Wooldridge (2015). The CF method takes account of the problem of endogenous explanatory variables that have potential to bias the results. Using a sample of firms that made up the S&P 500 over the period 2004–2015, we find that the presence of women on corporate boards (measured either by the percentage of female directors on corporate boards or the Blau index of heterogeneity) has a positive and significant (at the 1% level) effect on firm profitability (measured by the return on assets). We compare our results to more traditional approaches (such as pooled OLS or the fixed-effects model). Through this study, we shed light on the effect of women on corporate boards on firm performance, as it is still a controversial issue (Post and Byron, 2015).     

Stability of international environmental agreements under isoelastic utility

There is now a growing consensus that ratifying International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) is the most effective way to tackle transboundary pollution problems. While the social benefit function (SBF) critically affects emission choices as well as decisions to ratify IEAs, the related economic literature has mainly concentrated on scenarios where the marginal SBF is linear. Using climatic data, I find that the linear marginal SBF case does not match data and isoelastic SBFs fit data better. In the more realistic, but not yet explored, context of isoelastic SBFs, I reconsider incentives to ratify IEAs. My analysis gives rise to novel conclusions. For instance, changes in the scale of damages do not affect the level of cooperation. When the scale of damages is small, variations of the SBF parameter reveal that large coalitions including the coalition of all countries are stable, but only when the potential gain from cooperation is sufficiently high.     

为了指标而竞争*——来自中国煤矿企业的证据#br#

中国矿难治理取得了不可忽视的成就，但总结其成功经验的研究尚显不足。本文认为安全生产的总量指标控制是一种降低中国煤矿企业矿难死亡人数的有效方式。笔者手工搜集了2002—2006年中国煤矿企业矿难死亡人数和省级安全生产控制考核数据，并与工业企业数据库进行匹配，发现单个煤矿事故死亡人数和同地区其他煤矿事故死亡人数之间显著负相关，说明企业间存在指标竞争现象。广义双重差分回归结果显示，在控制指标越少的省份，企业间指标竞争越激烈。异质性分析发现，在超标省份或者主管官员晋升的关键时期，指标竞争更加激烈。最后，单个煤矿企业死亡人数与异省邻市矿难死亡人数不相关，排除了矿难导致监管加强的“威慑效应”。本文的研究结果表明，煤矿安全生产总量指标控制对企业安全生产有显著作用。     

Asymmetry,Complementarities, and State Dependence in Federal Reserve Forecasts

Forecasts are a central component of policymaking; the Federal Reserve's forecasts are published in a document called the Greenbook. Previous studies of the Greenbook's inflation forecasts have found them to be rationalizable but asymmetric if considering particular subperiods, for example, before and after the Volcker appointment. In these papers, forecasts are analyzed in isolation, assuming policymakers value them independently. We analyze the Greenbook forecasts in a framework in which the forecast errors for different variables are allowed to interact. We find that allowing the losses to interact makes the unemployment forecasts virtually symmetric, the output forecasts symmetric prior to the Volcker appointment, and the inflation forecasts symmetric after the onset of the Great Moderation.     

Is heterogeneous capital depreciation important for estimating firm-level productivity? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

This paper contributes to the existing literature on estimating firm-level production functions. Using Chinese manufacturing survey data, we employ the firm-level heterogeneous capital depreciation rate to measure firms’ investment and assess its role using Olley and Pakes (1996) (OP) production function estimation technique. Although there is some ongoing debate on the econometric soundness of the OP technique, we argue quantitatively that the heterogeneous depreciation rate muffles the measurement error associated with the key input demand investment. In our sample, it significantly narrows the gap of total factor productivity (TFP) estimates between the OP technique and a state-of-the-art estimation method that works without investment. We further reveal that the improved performance primarily originates from the dynamic evolution in the distribution of the capital depreciation rate.     

The restructuring of Italian agriculture and its impact upon capital–labour relations: Labour contracting and exploitation in the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain of the Lazio Region,Central Italy

Labour contracting is anywhere on the rise globally, even in fully developed capitalist countries. Far from being an anomaly in the smooth everyday functioning of the economy, contractors are a crucial node in facilitating and ensuring global capital's control over local labour regimes. This article uses a global value chain perspective to investigate the re‐emergence of gangmasters and gang labour in the agricultural sector of Lazio, Central Italy. It analyses the fruit and vegetable supply chain formation and configuration in the Lazio Region with the aim of identifying the underlying processes leading to the creation of gangmasters by capital to have a cheap and disposable, especially migrant, labour force. It also intends to give a more nuanced understanding of labour contracting in this context.     

生产分工视角的中国对美国货物出口竞争力验证

考虑生产分工对中美间经贸联系程度、贸易规模和结构的影响,基于生产分工下价值链视角,构建出口竞争力测度指标体系,验证中国对美国货物出口竞争力。结果显示:2016年及之前,中国仅在杂项制品大类上,对美国显示出较强出口竞争力,机械和运输设备、动物和植物油、油脂和蜡我国具有比较优势,化学成品及有关产品、按原料分类的制成品双方竞争性较强,其余大类上,中国对美国出口竞争力不具优势。引入其他国家作对比的分析结果表明:中国对对比国家均无显著出口竞争力,而且对美国出口具有单价优势的资本技术密集型产品,对这些国家出口多缺乏单价优势,而2017年以来对美国和对比国家的贸易变化,进一步勾画出中国对美国货物出口竞争力不足。在生产分工主导全球产业发展背景下,提升我国在全球生产分工中的参与地位,宜强化自主技术研发、提升外资质量和技术外溢、加快"走出去"学习先进技术。     

媒体关注与企业创新绩效

媒体关注是会发挥信息功能的正面效应进而促进企业创新，还是会发挥负面效应给管理者形成外部压力从而抑制企业创新？在梳理媒体关注信息功能的基础上，基于2010~2018年A股上市公司数据分析媒体关注与企业创新绩效的关系。研究发现：媒体关注对企业创新绩效起到促进作用，在控制了内生性问题后，这一结论依然成立。通过对报道性质进行区分，发现非负面报道对创新绩效的促进作用更加明显，而负面报道并没有显著降低企业创新绩效。在影响机制分析中发现融资约束在媒体关注与企业创新绩效之间起到中介作用，即媒体关注通过缓解企业融资约束进而提高创新绩效。     

土地产权稳定能促进农户绿色生产行为吗？——以广东省确权颁证与农户采纳测土配方施肥技术为例证

土地产权趋于稳定将强化农户的剩余控制权和剩余索取权，进而激励农户改进农业生产行为，但这种激励具有情景依赖性：由于农户进行农业生产经营的能力和目的不同，并不是所有的农户都会因此而改进农业生产行为。采用2018年广东省“千村调研”数据，分析确权颁证对农户采纳测土配方施肥技术的影响，结果表明：农地确权颁证虽然赋予农户实现农地价值的剩余权，但能否促进农户采纳测土配方施肥技术还取决于农户自身的获益能力和收益本身的效用。如果农户缺乏实现农业生产超额利润的能力（低收入农户），即使土地产权趋向稳定，也难以产生采纳测土配方施肥技术的动力；如果实现农地价值的最优方式是“他用”而非“自用”，即使采纳测土配方施肥技术会带来农业生产超额利润，农户也不会积极采纳；如果农户具有实现农业超额利润的能力（高收入农户）和预期（以农业为主业的农户），则确权颁证会促进其采纳测土配方施肥技术。农地确权颁证对农户绿色生产行为的促进有着情景依赖性，因而，在农地确权颁证的同时要完善农地流转制度，通过土地产权稳定和流转稳定的双重激励更有效地促进农业生产经营主体积极施行绿色生产行为。