土地细碎化和土地质量是否影响小麦技术效率*——基于山东省小麦种植户的实证分析

［目的］小麦是我国重要的口粮之一，提高小麦的技术效率对于保障粮食安全具有重要的战略意义。在测算小麦技术效率的基础上，找出影响小麦技术效率的关键因素，为保障国家口粮安全提供参考。［方法］基于调研数据，运用超越对数生产函数以及一步随机前沿分析方法，构建计量模型分析土地细碎化和土地质量对小麦技术效率的影响。［结果］全部样本的技术效率差距较大，规模经营农户的技术效率高于小农户，农户技术效率最高的种植面积为67~333hm2，代表小麦种植的适宜规模。从技术效率的影响因素来看，土地细碎化程度和土地质量都对小麦生产的技术效率产生显著影响。［结论］为了提高小麦的技术效率，应该发展多种形式适度规模经营，鼓励创新土地流转形式，提高农业机械化水平； 深入开展土地质量调查，因地制宜地选择土地修复路径； 实行精准补贴，切实保护农民的利益。     

What is driving increases in dietary quality in the United States?

Over 1994–2010, adult dietary quality in the United States increased by 10 percent. We find a shift in consumption between at-home and away-from-home food played a relatively minor role as compared to changes in demographics and educational attainment. The two largest contributors we identify include an increased usage of nutritional information and a shift away from relying heavily on price, taste, storability and ease of preparation when shopping for food. Our findings suggest nutrition policy discussions could focus on further shifting attitudes/preferences towards healthier diets while allowing consumers to better extract nutrition information when making food choices.     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

CEO internal experience and voluntary disclosure quality: Evidence from management forecasts

Internally‐promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally‐promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher quality disclosure than outsider CEOs. Using a sample of US firms from the S&P1500 index from 2001 to 2011, we hand‐collect whether a CEO is hired from inside the firm and, if so, the number of years they worked at the firm before becoming CEO. We then examine whether managers with more internal experience issue higher quality disclosures and offer three main findings. First, CEOs with more internal experience are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Second, CEOs with more internal experience issue more accurate earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Finally, investors react more strongly to forecasts issued by insider CEOs than to those issued by outsider CEOs. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that these results extend to mandatory reporting quality (i.e., accruals quality, restatements, or internal control weaknesses), perhaps because mandatory disclosure is subjected to heavy oversight by the board of directors, auditors, and regulators. Overall, our findings suggest that when managers have work experience with the firm prior to becoming the CEO, the firm's voluntary disclosure is of higher quality.     

Effects of export product diversification on quality upgrading: an empirical study

This paper empirically examines the effects of export product diversification on overall export quality in a panel data set of 115 countries from 1970 to 2010. It uses the data sets of the overall export quality and three export diversification measures of the International Monetary Fund: the extensive margin (variation in the number of new products exported), the intensive margin (variation in export values among existing exports), and the overall (Theil) index. It finds that export quality has only been increasing with a higher variation in export values among existing exports in low- and lower-middle-income countries. It also observes that export quality has been increasing with both a higher variation in export values among existing exports and new products exported in upper-middle- and high-income countries. The results are robust to the changing measures of controls in the benchmark model, the inclusion of many other controls; i.e. various measures of globalization, country size, factor endowments, macroeconomic stance, etc., and the exclusion of outliers.     

Advancing environmental productivity: Organizational mindfulness and strategies

This study investigates the importance of mindfulness‐based organization systems and policies on the organization's continuous efforts to become a greener company. The study is devised as a pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis of productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling of U.S. companies. The data set taken from U.S. Newsweek 500 recorded 600 companies dispersed into 63 industries during the period of 2012–2014 and provided 1,498 company–industry–year observations. The study found that systems and policies (e.g., deployment of third‐party auditors for its environmental metrics report; linkage of the remuneration of company's senior executive team with the achievement of environmental performance targets; and establishment of a committee at the Board of Directors' level whose mandate includes sustainability of the company in environment‐ and resource‐related matters) connect the company's mindfulness to its effort in improving the environmental quality through the company's productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling. The relationships are positive and significant. Also, systems and policies serve as a motivator for the firm to continue to improve upon the current achievements. The study emphasizes the importance of translating organizational and individual mindfulness into organization policies and systems in order to motivate the organization to continuously improve its productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling leading to improvements in environmental quality.     

Multi-stakeholders’ assessment of bike sharing service quality based on DEMATEL–VIKOR method

ABSTRACT

Bike sharing is a sustainable mode of urban transportation. Assessing the perceived service quality is essential to improve the development of bike sharing. Most of the existing research evaluates the service quality of bike sharing only from the perspective of its users. This study assesses the perceived quality gap among four different stakeholders including government regulators, platform operators, bike association and users. First, an evaluation criteria system consisting of sixteen criteria obtained from the five dimensions of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy is constructed based on a revised service performance model. Thereafter, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model that combines Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) with VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) is proposed. Then, the model is applied to evaluate the service quality of bike sharing in Xi’an City. Finally, some useful suggestions are given to improve the bike sharing service quality from the perspective of multi-stakeholders.     

Multigroup validation of the service quality,customer satisfaction and performance links in higher education

The notion of ‘students as customers’ continues to be prominent, yet is insufficiently explored, especially from the standpoint of various stakeholders. To address this inadequacy, the present study employs a multigroup analysis of the service profit chain (SPC) model in higher education (HE). Its purpose is to examine the complete SPC model regarding stakeholder perceptions in order to inform its validation and implementation. A cross-sectional survey was employed in order to enable multigroup comparison of a comprehensive research model on subsamples of employees and students by means of structural equation modeling (SEM). Results provide support for the proposed SPC model within the sample of vocational colleges. Besides strongly linked constructs (quality–satisfaction–loyalty), some notable weaknesses (cracked ‘satisfaction mirror’) are found. Multigroup analysis also indicates some important differences between employees and students. Implications are provided for strategic service management in HE, which should acknowledge the differences among stakeholder perceptions.     

创新驱动产业转型升级研究——基于中国1998-2016年省域面板数据

为了探究创新驱动产业转型升级的作用机制,构建了创新投入与创新产出对产业转型升级内涵质量与外显效应的影响模型,并提出研究假设。基于中国1998-2016年省域面板数据,借助Eviews 9.0计量软件,采用固定效应模型进行实证研究。结果表明,所提出的研究假设均得到验证。创新产出对产业转型升级内涵质量具有积极影响,创新产出的各表征变量(专利授权数、技术市场合同成交金额、新产品销售收入)每增长1%,产业转型升级内涵质量的表征变量人均国内生产总值将提高0.014 8%～0.051 1%。创新投入对产业转型升级外显效应具有积极影响,创新投入的各表征变量(R&D经费内部支出、R&D人员全时当量)每增加1%,产业转型升级外显效应的表征变量产业结构层次系数将提高0.007 1%～0.010 5%。因此,创新能够驱动产业转型升级,但创新投入与创新产出对产业转型升级的影响机制并不相同。研究结果为创新驱动产业转型升级问题的研究提供了一个新的研究范式,对实施创新驱动发展战略、促进产业转型升级有借鉴意义。