Unleashing the Power of Networks: Shareholder Activism,Sustainable Development and Corporate Environmental Policy

In recent years, a new trend has emerged in which shareholder activists have formed networks to empower shareholders and magnify shareholder voices. This study explores the structural patterns and effectiveness of shareholder activism networks and shows how those networks affect corporate sustainability policies. We draw upon stakeholder influence theory, stakeholder network management theory and recent studies on activism networks to examine a shareholder activism network formed around environmental issues. The study found that (1) the structure of shareholder activist networks is largely driven by organizational attributes such as organization type, organizations’ human resources, media visibility and history; and (2) activist organizations with high centralities and eigenvector centralities enjoy more efficient results. This study contributes to our understanding of the business responses to shareholder demands on improving environmental performance and paves the way for future research on sustainable development through partnerships with shareholder networks. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

农户生物菌肥购买意愿及行为的影响因素研究*——基于山东省设施菜农的调研数据

[目的]生物菌肥对于土壤改良、环境改善、食品安全具有重要意义,但目前生物菌肥在整个肥料产业中所占份额较小,迫切需要探讨如何从农户角度提高生物菌肥的施用比例。[方法]基于设施蔬菜农户的数据,构建Bivariate Probit模型,对农户生物菌肥的购买意愿和行为的影响因素进行比较研究。[结果]农户的生物菌肥购买意愿和行为总体上呈现一致性,愿意购买的农户中有97. 77%的农户具有实际的购买行为;但两者的影响因素有所差异,从差异因素来看,质量安全检测对购买意愿具有显著的正向影响,但对购买行为的影响并不显著;农户文化程度、种植年限、对无公害、绿色、有机蔬菜的了解程度,经销商推荐,施肥指导对购买行为具有显著的正向影响。从共同因素来看,生态环境认知变量对购买意愿和购买行为影响不显著。[结论]要推广生物菌肥,需要进一步加强质量安全检测体系对农业行为的约束性,提升经销商的规范经营意识,采用集中招标等灵活的价格政策,提升农户的生态技能,并在保护生态环境方面出台更完善的农业绿色发展政策。     

Corporate Risk Disclosure and Audit Fee: A Text Mining Approach

The aim of this study is to introduce an innovative text mining approach to assess firms' risks using unstructured textual disclosure from annual reports. Specifically, we use Natural Language Processing techniques to extract firms' self-identified risks including financial, strategic, operational, and hazard risks based on an enterprise risk management framework. We examine the association between these four risk measures derived from the risk factor section in 10-K filings and audit fees. The results show that audit fees are significantly and positively related to firm-specific financial, strategic, and operational risks, indicating the informativeness of corporate textual risk disclosures. This study provides direct support for the recent US reporting regulatory requirement of adding a new section on risk factors in corporate annual reports.     

Energy‐milk price transmission at the product brand level

This article estimates the pass‐through rates between diesel fuel and retail milk prices at the product brand level. Using a random coefficient logit demand model and taking the direct and indirect impacts of energy prices, this research identifies changes in pass‐through rates before and after the great recession in 2008. Empirical results show that diesel prices significantly impacted the retail prices of milk products and are an important determinant of food price inflation. Pass‐through rates are estimated to range from 0.16 to approximately 0.60 through 2008 with an average of 0.22 for the whole period. Statistical tests indicate that pass‐through rates before June 2008 were significantly higher than after June 2008 when they dropped significantly to 0.04 to 0.17. Interestingly, private label brands have the lowest pass‐through rates, implying that compared to manufacturer brands, private label prices are more insulated from diesel price shocks.     

Europe’s Search for Superstar Firms: The Puzzle of European Champions

Intereconomics - Europe appears to be on a quest for so-called ‘European champions’. These firms have become a symbol and measure for European competitiveness. To date, we know little...     

The dynamic impact of intellectual capital on firm value: evidence from China

We examine the dynamic relationship between intellectual capital (measured by human capital and organizational capital) and firm value of Chinese listed firms. We do causality identification using system GMM and IV estimation, and find no significant relation between human capital and firm value, but organizational capital positively affects firm value with a lag. Our findings are robust to firms with different property rights, of different sizes, or in different industries, with the only exception of capital-intensive firms, in which human capital has a significant influence on firm value. The results imply that the improvement of organizational system plays a more important role in raising the value of a firm in a typical developing country, like China.     

Communication and Comovement: Evidence from Online Stock Forums

We study investor communication and stock comovement using a novel data set from an active online stock forum in China. We find substantial comovement among the returns of a stock and its “related stocks,” which are frequently discussed in the subforum dedicated to the given stock. Comovement is greater when the discussion of related stocks is more intensive. Further, the effect of communication on comovement is stronger for stocks associated with higher information uncertainty. Codiscussed stocks are more actively traded and experience more correlated trading. A trading strategy that exploits communication‐driven comovement generates abnormal returns. Our findings highlight the impact of investor communication on asset comovement.     

The heterogeneous relationship between board social ties and corporate environmental responsibility in an emerging economy

Firms in emerging economies are faced with multiple, incompatible institutional forces in their environmental activities. Which of these forces will be dominant and instantiated within an organization is partly determined by the social relationships that a firm maintains with external actors. This paper investigates the relationship between board social ties and the level of environmental responsibility undertaken by firms in China, an emerging economy, by categorizing board social ties into three types in terms of the three isomorphic forces in the institutional field (coercive, normative and mimetic). Drawing on institutional and agency theories, using a sample of listed firms in environmentally sensitive industries, and a generalized least squares regression method, the results provide empirical evidence that ties that are linked to coercive and normative forces (i.e., political organizations and universities) are related to a higher level of environmental responsibility; however, those that are linked to mimetic forces (i.e., industrial peers) have a negative association with environmental responsibility, which is mitigated by CEO power. These findings suggest that the heterogeneous effects of board social ties on environmental responsibilities experienced by firms in a context of environmentalism are at an early stage.     

Factor Heterogeneity,Factor Market Imperfection and Trade

This paper develops a tractable model of examining how factor heterogeneity and imperfect factor market interact for determining a pattern of trade. Institution plays a crucial role for the interaction. In my work, firm productivity is defined as a composition of factor productivity and technology. Thus, input selection should affect the pattern of Melitz’s intra-industry allocation due to the incurring transaction cost. For a simple model, I assume two factors (labor and capital) and two sectors, which are relatively less institution-dependent and relatively more institution-dependent. When the economy is open, effect of the transaction cost on income distribution is more drastic for an institutionally underdeveloped country. Depending on institutional quality, the economic openness reallocates resource across countries through job creation or job destruction. The job turnovers redistribute income between heterogeneous labors within countries. The income redistribution is catalyzed by international mobility of capital. As a result, income disparity is widened between the institutionally developed country and the institutionally underdeveloped country. This paper can contribute to the literature of institution and international trade.