Contracting and Reporting Conservatism around a Change in Fiduciary Duties*

We exploit an influential 1991 Delaware court ruling to examine simultaneously two types of conservatism that play important roles in resolving creditor–owner agency conflicts: contracting conservatism and reporting conservatism. The ruling expanded managerial fiduciary duties in favor of creditors for Delaware-incorporated firms in the vicinity of insolvency. In those firms, following the ruling, debt contracts are less likely to include conservative adjustments to accounting numbers used for covenant compliance (i.e., contracting conservatism decreases), while public financial reporting becomes more conservative (i.e., reporting conservatism increases). The decrease in contracting conservatism is concentrated in firms that exhibit a greater increase in reporting conservatism, suggesting that reporting conservatism is more cost-effective in resolving agency conflicts. In addition, the substitution effect is more pronounced in firms facing greater business uncertainty and firms with greater board independence.     

Stock market volatility forecasting: Do we need high-frequency data?

The general consensus in the volatility forecasting literature is that high-frequency volatility models outperform low-frequency volatility models. However, such a conclusion is reached when low-frequency volatility models are estimated from daily returns. Instead, we study this question considering daily, low-frequency volatility estimators based on open, high, low, and close daily prices. Our data sample consists of 18 stock market indices. We find that high-frequency volatility models tend to outperform low-frequency volatility models only for short-term forecasts. As the forecast horizon increases (up to one month), the difference in forecast accuracy becomes statistically indistinguishable for most market indices. To evaluate the practical implications of our results, we study a simple asset allocation problem. The results reveal that asset allocation based on high-frequency volatility model forecasts does not outperform asset allocation based on low-frequency volatility model forecasts.     

Does tourism really cause stress? A natural experiment utilizing ArcGIS Survey123

ABSTRACT

Tourism related stress has recently been revealed as an issue for tourism host community residents. Prior studies have relied on directly asking residents if tourism caused them stress, resulting in possible participant priming. This study utilized the ArcGIS Survey123 app to collect data on resident stress from a community with high levels of tourism visitation and a community with low levels of tourism visitation. During the study, researchers never mentioned tourism. Half of study participants in the community with high tourism visitation discussed tourism directly as a stressor, accounting for almost 5% of all stressful experiences, while no participants in the community with low tourism visitation mentioned tourism as a stressor. Geospatial data revealed that tourism related stressors occurred outside of the ‘tourism zone’ in the community with high tourism visitation, and tourism related stressors mirrored perceived tourism impacts measured in a post experiment survey of study participants.     

Income comparison and happiness: The role of fair income distribution

Relative income gap is one of the most popular approaches for explaining the income–happiness relationship. We argue in this article that when people compare their incomes, they care about distributional fairness more than relative income disparity. It is difficult for us to explain China's income–happiness paradox if we simply compare the income gap and do not explore the income‐generation process leading to income inequality. We therefore employ an approach based on a responsibility‐sensitive theory of justice that decomposes individual income into fair and unfair components. As a proxy for distributional unfairness, unfair income is considered the main source of unhappiness. Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project survey, we find strong support for the negative relationship between income unfairness and happiness. We also find a significantly positive relationship between the relative income gap and income unfairness, which leads us to consider the income comparison hypothesis as the explanation for the income–happiness paradox in a new light. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of our results.     

时间压力对网络冲动性购买的影响研究：交易效用和感知风险的调节

以往关于时间压力对冲动性购买影响的研究结论具有两面性，即促进或抑制。文章引入交易效用和感知风险两个调节变量，通过两个实验探讨了时间压力对网络冲动性购买倾向影响的边界条件。首先，当交易效用较高时，时间压力的增加会导致其网络冲动性购买倾向的提高；而当交易效用较低时，时间压力的增加会导致其网络冲动性购买倾向的降低（实验一）。其次，当人们感知风险较低时，时间压力的增加会导致其网络冲动性购买倾向的提高；而当人们感知风险较高时，时间压力的增加会导致其网络冲动性购买倾向的降低（实验二）。研究结论可以帮助电商企业进一步了解消费者的冲动性购买行为，充分利用时间压力的影响，制定更灵活有效的促销策略。     

Economic uncertainty,oil prices,hedging and U.S. stock returns of the airline industry

This paper examines the impacts of economic policy uncertainty and oil price shocks on stock returns of U.S. airlines using both industry and firm-level data. Our empirical approach considers a structural vector-autoregressive model with variables recognized to be important for airline returns including jet fuel price volatility. Empirical results confirm that oil price increase, economic uncertainty and jet fuel price volatility have significantly adverse effect on real stock returns of airlines both at industry and at firm level. In addition, we also find that hedging future fuel purchase has statistically positive impact on the smaller airlines. Our results suggest policy implications for practitioners, managers of airline industry and commodity investors.     

Effects of employees’ opportunities to influence in-store music on sales: Evidence from a field experiment

The effects of in-store music on consumer behavior have attracted much attention in the marketing literature, but surprisingly few studies have investigated in-store music in relation to employees. By conducting a field experiment in eight Filippa K fashion stores in Stockholm, Sweden, we investigate whether it is beneficial for store owners to give employees more opportunities to influence the in-store music. We randomly assigned the stores into a treatment group and a control group, with the employees in the treatment stores having the opportunity to influence the in-store music through an app developed by Soundtrack Your Brand (SYB). The experiment lasted 56 weeks and sales data were also gathered 22 weeks before the experiment, resulting in a total of 4626 observations. Our results show that sales decreased by 6% when the employees had the opportunity to influence the music played in the store, and the effect is driven by a reduction in sales of women's clothing. Interviews with the employees revealed that they had diverse music preferences, frequently changed songs, and preferred to play high-intensity songs. Employees thus seem to make choices regarding the in-store music that reduce sales, implying that store owners might want to limit their opportunities to influence the background music.     

效率视角下"一带一路"沿线国家创新影响力研究

从效率差异视角构建国家创新影响力评价方法，揭示“一带一路”沿线国家创新要素流动倾向性以促进交流合作。运用DEA模型测算各国创新效率，根据DEA原理识别国家间的认可关系，构建创新网络并用节点特征向量中心度表示各国创新影响力，分析创新影响力类型、创新网络特征及创新投入冗余率与产出不足率。结果发现，各国创新效率存在显著差距;各国分别处于创新网络中心、核心和边缘位置，国家创新影响力依次递减;按照创新要素相对强度，沿线国家可分为6种创新类型;最后，提出沿线国家间开展创新交流与合作的必要性和途径。     

Feelings of ownership and volunteering: Examining psychological ownership as a volunteering motivation for nonprofit service organisations

Given many nonprofit service organisations rely on volunteers to provide valued services to their communities, examining the factors that impact the retention and recruitment of volunteers is of central importance for the success and longevity of many community-based services. Psychological ownership is a phenomenon whereby objects that are not physically or legally possessed can be the target of ownership feelings. While such psychological ownership has been examined in the paid-employment literature as an antecedent for prosocial behaviours, there has been no examination of psychological ownership within the volunteering literature. As such, this paper examines the role of psychological ownership as a factor in volunteer retention for predominantly community-based nonprofit service organisations by examining how the sense of ownership over the nonprofit service provider affects volunteering attitudes and intentions. Alongside ownership, previous volunteering behaviours, and time pressures are also examined as contributing factors. Results indicate that volunteering does increase ownership perceptions, and those ownership perceptions have positive outcomes for volunteering behaviours. However, time pressure is a significant moderator of these relationships and different volunteering behaviours can be observed for high and low time-pressured volunteers.     

机构投资者能抑制盈余管理吗?--基于退出威胁视角的经验证据

退出威胁是股东参与公司治理的重要方式。本文以2010?2017年A股上市公司为样本,检验机构投资者的退出威胁与企业盈余管理之间的关系。结果显示:机构投资者能够抑制企业的真实盈余管理,而对应计盈余管理的影响并不显著;机构投资者退出威胁能够降低真实和应计盈余管理水平。进一步考虑机构投资者异质性发现,相比敏感型机构投资者,抗压型机构投资者退出威胁更可能降低企业真实盈余管理水平;当管理层的薪酬对股价越敏感时,机构投资者退出威胁的作用越大;机构投资者退出威胁的影响效应在民营企业中更显著。本文的研究结论为认识我国机构投资者,尤其是以QFII和社保基金为代表的抗压型机构投资者在公司治理中的作用提供了新的思路。