制造企业转型升级中的资源配置有效组态研究——基于模糊集定性比较分析法

制造企业的内部资源有效配置是关系到转型升级成效的内在问题，但资源配置的组态如何影响转型升级成效尚没有得到充分研究。文章将企业的资源要素分为研发投入、人才水平、发展潜力以及客户集中度四个方面，将企业规模设为调节变量，运用模糊集定性比较分析方法，对31家制造企业进行实证研究，得到资源配置的四种有效组态形式为：高抗风险型、高创新投入型、高市场地位型以及紧密客户关系型。研究结论证实了转型升级资源配置组态效应的客观存在，既丰富了企业转型升级理论及方法，也为企业转型升级的路径选择及有效性分析提供了的启示和参考。     

基于经济阈值效应的地方政府举债压力弹性研究

地区所处经济阶段差异会使地方政府行为激励产生异质性,进而影响地区举债压力弹性。从经济阈值效应的独特视角,探究不同经济门槛区间压力波动引起的地方政府举债行为变化,利用举债压力弹性解释地方政府债务规模扩张成因。基于我国283个地级市数据,构建门槛面板模型对理论假设进行经验检验。研究发现:从低到高的经济阈值区间下地方政府举债压力弹性翻倍增长,尤其是在第三经济阈值区间,举债规模扩张呈现加速度特征;财政压力对地方政府举债的刺激作用,只有在第三经济阈值区间才会得以释放;“土地财政”的存在强化了地方政府举债对压力变化的敏感度,并助推了地方政府举债压力的弹性波动。经济处于发达阶段的地方政府的举债压力敏感度,显著高于处于欠发达阶段的地方政府,因此,高水平的城市举债压力弹性及其潜在的债务风险应成为下一步关注的焦点。     

上市公司发放现金股利的价值效应——基于委托代理问题视角的实证研究

现金股利发放反映了债权人、股东、管理者之间的利益分配关系,现金股利的价值效应受到委托代理问题的影响。采用2008—2017年沪深A股上市公司作为研究样本,在委托代理理论的分析框架下实证检验我国上市公司发放现金股利的价值效应。研究表明,发放现金股利可能会损害债权人利益,过度债务公司发放现金股利的价值效应较小,而债务不足公司发放现金股利的价值效应较大。基于管理者代理问题视角的研究发现,现金股利可以有效发挥降低管理者代理成本的作用,当管理者代理问题严重时公司发放现金股利的价值效应更大。基于控股股东代理问题视角的实证结果表明,现金股利可以作为替代性的治理机制约束控股股东行为,当控股股东代理问题严重时现金股利具有更高的价值效应。     

The rebound effect on energy efficiency improvements in China’s transportation sector: A CGE analysis

Energy use is becoming more efficient due to technological innovations. We focused on the transportation sector in China to develop a national multisector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for analyzing the rebound effect from an improvement of 10% in the energy efficiency. We compared the size of the energy rebound effect at both the macroeconomic and sectoral levels in different transportation modal subsectors, namely rail, road, water, and air travel. The findings showed that the magnitude of the rebound effect varies across the transportation modes. This is particularly true for the air transportation sector, which has an economy-wide rebound effect of 30.1% and an own-sector rebound effect of 74.6% because of a sharp increase in the export demand for air transport services. We also quantitatively evaluated the contribution of energy efficiency improvement in the transportation sector to China’s economic growth and carbon reductions and found a positive dividend effect on the economy as well as the environment. The modeling results suggest that improving overall transportation energy efficiency by 10% generates an economy-wide welfare gain of approximately 29 billion yuan, while 19 billion yuan are attributable to a more efficient road transportation subsector. Furthermore, to offset the effects of these mode-specific rebound effects, we simulated the effectiveness of different policies and solutions. These included economic instruments in the form of energy, environmental, and carbon taxes, household transport consumption structure adjustments, and energy structure adjustments. This study revealed that combining these sustainable development policies offers opportunities for economy-wide multisectoral improvements in energy savings, emissions reduction, and economic benefits.     

Land price diffusion across borders – the case of Germany

ABSTRACT

Land market regulations are often justified by the assumption that activities of foreign and non-agricultural investors drive up prices in domestic land markets. However, empirical knowledge about the dynamics of agricultural land prices across borders is sparse. Using the German reunification as a natural experiment, we study the effect of the former inner German border on the dynamics of agricultural land prices in East and West Germany. We apply a land price diffusion model with an error correction specification to analyse spatial agricultural land markets. A novel feature of our model is its ability to distinguish price diffusion within states and across state borders. We provide evidence for a persistent border effect given that the fraction of spatially integrated counties is larger within states than across the former border. Moreover, we observe non-significant error correction terms for many counties along the former border. From a policy perspective, it is striking to realize that even 25 years after German reunification, pronounced land price differences persist. It is quite likely that price diffusion through existing borders within the EU would take even more time given language barriers, different institutional frameworks, and information asymmetries between domestic and foreign market participants.     

Modelling with flexibility through the business cycle: using a panel smooth transition model to test for the lipstick effect

ABSTRACT

Consumer spending typically declines during periods of economic distress, but observers have noted that lipstick purchases appear to increase during recessions, which is often referred to as the lipstick effect. However, the existence of such effect has remained empirically unconfirmed. Using weekly retail scanner data on lipstick sales from 2006 to 2016 in the United States, we applied a Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) demand model to test the relationship between economic distress and lipstick sales. This flexible demand specification allows regression coefficients to vary as a function of an exogenous macroeconomic variables and fluctuate asymmetrically, non-linearly, and time-varyingly across an unlimited number of regimes. Empirical results show the income elasticity of demand for lipstick decreased rapidly from 0.31 to 0.05 during the 2007–2009 recession, then slowly rebounded to 0.31 by the second quarter of 2014, thus first empirically confirming the existence of the lipstick effect.     

The effects of exchange rate pass-through and cost channel on price level: The case of fragile five countries

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated whether the exchange rate and the interest rate had an effect on the inflation rate in the fragile five countries between the years of 1996Q4 and 2015Q4. In this context, a model was created to estimate the effect of interest rate and exchange rate on the inflation rate. The methods used in the study take into account cross-section dependence and heterogeneity. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there was an exchange-rate and interest-rate pass-through effect in the fragile five countries. Moreover, it was found out that the cost channel and price puzzle were effective in Indonesia and South Africa but were not effective in Turkey, Brasil and India.     

基于声誉效应的工程监理激励机制模型研究

为了提高工程监理工作积极性,基于Holmstrom-Milgrom模型,引入声誉效应,建立声誉效应和显性激励机制相结合的动态委托代理激励模型。分析声誉效应发挥激励机制作用条件,并与未考虑声誉效应的委托代理模型进行比较。结果表明:声誉效应在满足一定的条件下,引入声誉激励机制能够增加业主的期望收益,并且能提高监理的努力水平。最后,通过数值仿真模拟验证引入声誉效应的合理性。     

Comparing Compliance Behaviour of Students and Farmers. An Extra-laboratory Experiment in the Context of Agri-environmental Nudges in Germany

Increasing popularity of economic experiments for policy impact analysis has led to an on-going debate about the suitability of students to substitute professionals as experimental subjects. To date, subject pool effects in agricultural and resource economics experiments have not been sufficiently studied. In order to identify differences and similarities between students and non-students, we carry out an experiment in the form of a multi-period business management game that is adapted to an agri-environmental context. We compare the compliance behaviour of German agricultural students and German farmers with regard to water protection rules and analyse their responses to two different green nudge interventions. The experimental results reveal that the direction of the response to the policy treatments is similar. Even unexpected behaviour could be reproduced by the student sample. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the treatment effects differed between the two samples. This implies that experimenters in the field of agricultural and resource economics could use the subject pool of students to analyse the direction of nudge policies. If predictions should be made about the magnitude effects, we suggest using a professional subject pool.     

Trading behaviour connectedness across commodity markets: Evidence from the hedgers’ sentiment perspective

This paper analyses the connectedness network for commercial traders’ sentiment across agriculture, energy, metals and livestock futures markets. The findings find that: (a) producer/merchant/processor/user (PMPU) in agricultural and energy markets are mainly engaged in cross-hedging in the futures market, and most of them would avoid risks in these markets by operating in the metal markets, which can be considered safe for PMPU traders, and that the cross-hedging strategies may play the role of PMPU sentiment spillover across futures markets; (b) as index traders, the swap dealers operate more in two markets, namely between the agricultural and metal markets, or between the agricultural and energy markets; (c) the influence of geopolitical risks in some countries can affect the stability of energy markets, which in turn can cause PMPU system-wide connectedness.