Does stardom affect the informativeness of a CEO's insider trades?

This study examines whether the celebrity or star status of a chief executive officer (CEO) affects the informativeness of his insider trades. Using three different measures to identify star CEOs in a sample of S&P 1500 firms, we find that trades of non‐star CEOs predict future abnormal returns and earnings innovations and that trades of star CEOs do not. The predictive power of non‐star CEO trades is mostly attributable to opportunistic trades, not routine trades. We also find evidence suggesting that the abnormal returns associated with non‐star CEO insider trades are due to the lower visibility and consequently less scrutiny of non‐star CEOs compared with star CEOs.     

分散决策下的双渠道供应链补偿策略——基于消费者渠道选择行为

为了有效解决由于对消费者的争夺从而引发的渠道之间关于定价、服务水平、利润等方面的冲突,基于消费者渠道选择行为,构建了网络直销市场与传统零售市场需求模型和双渠道供应链利润模型,运用Stackelberg模型,在制造商与零售商实施分决策时,通过制造商对零售商实施补偿激励前后的对比,分析了消费者渠道选择行为对网络直销渠道和传统零售渠道定价、制造商与零售商利润以及供应链总利润的影响,并求得最优定价及制造商的最优补偿额度和零售商的最优销售努力水平,进行了不同情况下的双渠道供应链利润的比较分析。结果表明,无论制造商是否实施补偿激励,都应随着网络消费者比例的增加而增加其网络直销价格;零售商的零售渠道价格应根据网络消费者比例的增加先降低到一定水平后再提升。当更多的消费者选择网络直销渠道时,制造商的补偿激励水平和零售商的销售努力程度均会下降。制造商应提高其补偿水平,进而激发零售商提高销售的努力水平,并使双方利润及供应链总利润最大化。研究结果为基于消费者选择行为的供应链补偿研究提供了新方法,对双渠道的供应链补偿研究有借鉴意义。     

土地供给管制与城市住房用地供给错配 ——基于2009—2015年中国城市面板数据的分析

研究目的：分析政府土地供给管制行为对城市住房用地供给错配的影响。研究方法：从土地供应中地方动机、中央规制与市场力量相互动的政治经济学角度进行理论分析，并基于2009—2015年105个重点城市的面板数据进行实证检验。研究结果：（1）城市商住用地供应受地方财政赤字压力的影响，在具备高房价支撑基础的城市，地方采取“饥饿式”供地策略实现其土地财政目标，反之，则通过扩大土地供应量来实现增收目标。（2）在地方差异化供地策略的实施下，偏向中西部和中小城市的新增建设用地配额正向影响城市商住用地出让规模，未考虑城市异质性的住房用地供应调控政策在地方遭遇机会主义执行。研究结论：土地供应错配根源于财政激励下地方政府基于不同市场条件的差异化供地策略的运用；中央地区偏向的土地配额管理和“一刀切”的土地供应调控亦带来住房用地供给错配的意外之果。     

Information disclosure quality: correlation versus precision

We investigate how a multidimensional disclosure quality (i.e., correlation and precision) determines an optimal information disclosure strategy. We find that, for an infinitely lived, unlevered firm with market perfection, a truth‐telling disclosure is optimal at increasing the expected firm value. However, for a finitely lived, levered firm in the presence of market imperfections (e.g., bankruptcy cost), the optimal disclosure quality depends negatively on the level of imperfections. Once we consider the agency problem, such dependence can become positive, thereby highlighting the importance of a proper managerial‐incentive scheme to align the information disclosure interests of managers and shareholders.     

Pricing executive stock options with averaging features under the Heston–Nandi GARCH model

In this paper, we focus on the pricing issue of four types of executive stock options (ESOs) in the Heston–Nandi generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity option pricing model. Based on the derived benchmark strike prices in the proposed framework, we obtain the closed-form pricing formulae for four types of ESOs. In the numerical part, we investigate the sensitivity and cost efficiency of ESOs and suggest that systematic risk (stock β) and the fraction of wealth invested in restricted stock could impede the cost efficiency of ESOs.     

国有资本经营预算能够提高地方国有企业投资效率吗？

以A股地方国有上市公司为研究对象，从投资效率的角度考察国有资本经营预算制度的实施效果，并进一步检验其对企业价值的影响。研究发现，国有资本经营预算能够显著抑制地方国有企业的非效率投资，尤其是抑制过度投资行为,并且这种影响对处于市场化程度较低地区的地方国有企业更加显著。进一步研究发现，国有资本经营预算能够通过抑制非效率投资来促进地方国有企业价值的提升。     

Optimal insurance under rank‐dependent utility and incentive compatibility

Bernard, He, Yan, and Zhou (Mathematical Finance, 25(1), 154–186) studied an optimal insurance design problem where an individual's preference is of the rank‐dependent utility (RDU) type, and show that in general an optimal contract covers both large and small losses. However, their results suffer from the unrealistic assumption that the random loss has no atom, as well as a problem of moral hazard that provides incentives for the insured to falsely report the actual loss. This paper addresses these setbacks by removing the nonatomic assumption, and by exogenously imposing the “incentive compatibility” constraint that both indemnity function and insured's retention function are increasing with respect to the loss. We characterize the optimal solutions via calculus of variations, and then apply the result to obtain explicitly expressed contracts for problems with Yaari's dual criterion and general RDU. Finally, we use numerical examples to compare the results between ours and Bernard et al.     

Incentives to move up: Effects of pay gaps between levels on employee performance

Employees of a certain rank are motivated by the pay gap between them and the levels above (upward comparison), and the pay gap between them and the levels below (downward comparison). In some cases, employees face multiple upward comparisons such as immediate and subsequent upward comparisons. We hypothesise that upward comparison matters more than downward comparison, and in the case of multiple upward comparisons, the immediate one matters more than the subsequent ones. We also hypothesise that the pay gap effect resulting from the upward/downward comparison ought to be non‐linear in that performance increases with pay gap size at a decreasing rate. The results from two empirical studies, namely, a longitudinal field study and a laboratory experiment, largely support our hypotheses.     

Equilibrium theory under ambiguity

We extend the classical results on the Walras–core existence and equivalence to an ambiguous asymmetric information economy; that is, an economy where agents maximize Maximin Expected Utility (MEU). The interest of considering ambiguity arises from the fact that, in the presence of MEU decision making, there is no conflict between efficiency and incentive compatibility (contrary to the Bayesian decision making). Our new modeling of an ambiguous asymmetric information economy necessitates new equilibrium notions, which are always efficient and incentive compatible.     

Can Agents Be Better Off with Pay Caps?

A popular way to discipline the managers of companies or banks that got into trouble during the recent financial crisis has been to impose caps on managers' pay. Using a small extension of the standard principal–agent model, we argue that pay caps might serve the opposite purpose, because the agent might be better off with a pay cap. Specifically, we show that, given a fixed effort level to be implemented, the agent's expected utility can be decreasing in an upper bound for the agent's reward. The effect of pay caps on the general structure of optimal incentive contracts is also characterized. While an improvement of contracting information always helps the principal, it might increase or decrease the marginal cost of imposing pay caps.