政府审计、内部控制与企业创新

利用手工收集的政府审计公告数据，以2013—2017年的国有上市公司为样本，采用PSM+DID方法检验政府审计对国有上市公司创新活动的影响，并进一步根据内部控制质量和是否存在内部控制缺陷对样本进行分组检验两者之间的关系。研究结果表明：政府审计显著增加了国有上市公司的创新投入和创新产出；在内部控制质量高和不存在内部控制缺陷的样本企业中，政府审计对企业创新活动的促进作用更加显著。     

企业金融会计的风险防范及控制策略

市场经济体制下,各类型企业业务开展、管理活动开展都会受到行业环境与市场环境的影响。企业在经营发展中需要与“金融”产生很多交集,这也导致企业需要面临一定程度的金融风险威胁。为此,企业需要在金融会计的风险防范及控制上进行更多努力。通过分析可以发现,大多数企业金融会计的风险防范及控制状况并不理想。论文对具体风险防范及控制中存在的不足进行分析,并就如何更好地进行金融会计风险防范及控制提出合理建议。     

Foreign direct investment and economic growth: Is more financial development better?

We investigate the extent to which an increase in financial development affects the positive effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth. Although the financial sector is beneficial for economic growth, the effect of further financial development on growth is found to become insignificant. Using a dynamic panel threshold model on 62 middle- and high-income countries spanning the period 1987–2016, we re-examine the possible nonlinearity between finance, foreign direct investment, and growth. Consistent with the “vanishing effect” of financial development, we find significant evidence that foreign direct investment fosters growth in general, but the growth effect of foreign direct investment becomes negligible when the ratio of private sector credit to gross domestic product exceeds 95.6%. This finding is robust to different econometric methods, various subsamples and interaction analyses, and distinct financial development indicators.     

Sourcing patterns of export‐platform foreign affiliates: The case of Japanese affiliates in Mexico

This study investigates the sourcing patterns of Japanese export‐platform foreign affiliates in Mexico, which mainly export to the United States and Canada. We propose a novel approach to estimate intermediate input elasticities of exports by sourcing country. We find that, on average, Japanese export‐platform foreign affiliates in Mexico source intermediate inputs from third countries, including the United States and Canada, rather than from Japan and Mexico, suggesting that Japanese export‐platform foreign affiliates in Mexico are mainly integrated into the vertical production networks back and forth between Mexico, the United States and Canada. In turn, Japanese foreign affiliates selling domestically in Mexico source intermediate inputs not only within the North American Free Trade Agreement countries but also from Japan. In addition, we find that export‐platform foreign affiliates in Mexico use more labour‐intensive production than do foreign affiliates selling domestically in Mexico. This suggests that saving labour costs is one of the motives for export‐platform foreign direct investment in Mexico.     

Multinational activity of European firms and heterogeneity

This paper offers an empirical assessment of the multinational activity of European firms. It takes the predictions of models of firm heterogeneity and FDI activity as a reference to explore the characteristics of multinational firms from 30 European countries. We use a data set, based on ORBIS, which links information of parent–affiliate pairs of firms. Our results show that more productive firms have greater multinational activity in terms of both scope, the number of foreign markets where they invest, and scale, the volume of local sales by subsidiaries active in foreign markets. The estimation of gravity equations shows that country characteristics that encourage multinational activity successively induce the entry of less productive parent firms. We confirm this asymmetry for the GDPs of the home and host countries, distance, contiguity and other standard gravity equation variables.     

Pernicious pests and public perceptions: Wilding conifers in Aotearoa New Zealand

With significant favourable natural resources, New Zealand has excellent growing conditions for certain exotic conifer species. Although these species have been used for erosion control, and commercial and shelter/amenity plantings for many decades, they do have a high propensity to spread into undesirable locations around the country through natural means. These wilding conifers have become pests. Over the years, these pests have been controlled by landowners, government and community members using various methods, including mechanical and chemical means. Further, new ways of control have also been proposed, including the use of fire, genetics and other technologies. In this paper we examine survey and follow-up focus group data to understand public acceptance of these control methods. Overall, mechanical and selective chemical means were most accepted, while widespread chemical spraying and novel or alternative methods were less acceptable. The survey results and focus group discussions highlight the local, contextual nature of the challenges and opportunities.     

山东省与江苏省对外直接投资差异及影响因素研究

山东、江苏作为中国的经济大省,其对外直接投资已成为推动经济发展的重要因素。基于2008—2017年山东省17地市、江苏省13地市对外直接投资面板数据,利用泰尔指数对两省对外直接投资存在的总体区域间差异进行衡量,并针对对外直接投资差异的相关影响因素进行实证分析。研究结果表明:工业发展水平、人力资源成本、研发水平和金融发展规模对山东省对外直接投资影响显著,经济发展水平、出口贸易和外商直接投资对山东省对外直接投资影响不显著;人力资源成本、出口贸易对江苏省对外直接投资影响显著,研发水平、工业发展水平、经济发展水平、外商直接投资以及金融发展规模影响不显著,分析后提出相关建议。     

Safety risk and international investment decisions

We identify and demonstrate the merit of a novel institutional factor, safety risk, which likely affects multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) international investment decisions. Safety risk refers to the extent to which security and physical well-being are endangered due to normalized aggression and criminality in society. Despite concerns from executives and policymakers, safety risk has attracted little research attention. We validate a safety risk measure and evaluate the construct’s effect on MNCs’ investments. The findings indicate that countries’ safety risk deters MNCs from investing. Further, in post hoc analyses, firms’ prior experiences with safety risk and countries’ private security investments moderated this relationship.