Target CEO age,ownership decisions,and takeover outcomes

This paper examines the effect of target CEO age, in association with target corporate governance mechanisms, on the ownership decisions and takeover outcomes in eight East and Southeast Asian countries. The results show that acquirers are more likely to select partial-control acquisitions of target firms managed by older CEOs, and that the impact of target CEO age on the partial-control acquisition propensity is much stronger in emerging markets relative to developed economies. The study further finds that target CEO age leads to a lower probability of obtaining desired equity ownership levels compared to unmatched ownership achievements, controlling for target corporate governance structures. The findings also run robustness checks regarding variations in the compulsory acquisition cut-off in the sample countries. Overall, this paper adds to the growing of mainstream corporate governance literature regarding the relevance of CEO personal characteristics in agency problems for corporate decisions.     

The effect of mental availability on snack food choices

This research evaluates how mental availability affects consumer choice of specific branded packaged snacks versus unbranded non-packaged snacks. Mental availability captures the probability of concepts coming to mind when making decisions. Concepts nested within a broad network of memory associations (e.g., those created by marketing for branded packaged goods) are more likely to come to mind and be chosen - potentially disadvantaging unbranded non-packaged foods. However, our research shows that some unbranded non-packaged snacks actually have greater mental availability and are more likely to be chosen, countering concerns over the detrimental effect of marketing food and inadvertently encouraging sub-optimal choices. The effect of mental availability holds when taking into account established drivers of snack food choice, such as hunger, self-control and past behavior.     

When Social Infrastructure Deficits Create Displacement Pressures: Inner City Schools and the Suburbanization of Families in Melbourne

Under advanced capitalism, gentrification converges with the post‐Keynesian ‘unhinging' of the state from the project of social reproduction, including its responsibilities for collective consumption (e.g. housing, schools). Gentrification research scrutinizes this convergence through the ongoing assault on social/affordable housing, and yet anaemic housing welfare is not its endpoint. The social contract is further fractured through the ongoing discreditation and dismantling of the full gamut of legacies of the publicly regulated Keynesian inner city, including essential social infrastructure. Focusing on public schools, as an essential site for social reproduction, this article explores how the struggle for the city under neoliberal gentrification may be emerging along additional (non‐housing) vectors. Based on a qualitative study of families' experiences of poor public education provision in central Melbourne (Australia), this article argues that the exclusionary effects of gentrification likely exceed residential encroachment as state subsidization of residents continues to yield to the subsidization of capital. In particular, this article identifies life‐stage specific, infrastructure‐related displacement pressures wrought by a state failure to provide adequate public primary schools in the ‘regeneration' of central Melbourne, and it illustrates how these pressures prompt housing strategies that unevenly divest families of the locational advantages secured in the inner city. Highlighting the role of public school deficits in the reluctant suburbanization of lesser‐resourced families assists in foregrounding state complicity in displacement dynamics and the potential for these to magnify socio‐economic, gendered and socio‐spatial inequalities across the city.     

The Real and Accrual-based Earnings Management Behaviors: Evidence from the Split Share Structure Reform in China

This paper investigates the earnings management activities in Chinese listed firms and the impact of the split share structure reform (SSSREF). We demonstrate that Chinese listed firms exhibited a long-term positive relationship between real and accrual-based earnings management activities over the 2002–2011 period. This reflects the environment of weak investor protection and lack of effective corporate governance in China. Our results also indicate that the SSSREF in China has not fundamentally improved firms' quality of financial information. This may be because ownership concentration remains high. However, it is of interest that the reform has created an incentive alignment effect exogenously. We find that firms' use of discretionary accruals was constrained, and they have consequently shifted to less detectable and under-scrutinized real earnings activities after the reform. This shift is similar to that seen with the direct regulatory changes in accounting reporting rules on firms' earnings behaviors in developed countries where the investor protection environment is strong. We suggest that firms' shifting between the accrual and real-based earnings methods is an overlooked area for investors to consider in the emerging market context, and may require the attention of regulators.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIRM BOUNDARY AND FINANCING CONSTRAINTS ON UTILITY COSTS: THE CASE OF MUNICIPALLY OWNED ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION UTILITIES

ABSTRACT: A number of studies have examined costs and potential for scale and scope economies in electricity distribution; however, few if any, have examined this area in terms of the unique constraints associated with municipal ownership or historical and regulatory constraints associated with former municipal ownership. This paper focuses on 19 distribution‐only municipally owned utilities for a ten‐year period (1988–97). Distortions from variable outputs but largely fixed inputs are minimized. The data used were collected specifically to assess productivity, cost, and efficiency performance and include value‐based capital inputs and service prices. Outputs include energy conveyed and number of connections; inputs include capital, system losses, labour, and materials. We examine the effect of using third‐party financing (e.g., connection charges), with its inherent principal‐agent problems, on utility costs, as well as the effect of shared services and multi‐utility output (e.g., electricity and water). A translog total cost function is estimated. Our findings suggest significant returns to scope but also significant increases in costs associated with the use of third‐party financing. The results also suggest scale diseconomies. Shared outputs, which have been greatly restricted or eliminated under restructuring, may have provided larger, and now lost, economies than the scale returns blindly pursued by some through restructuring or incented/forced mergers or divestitures. Finally, it is clear that third‐party financing can raise costs; such financing is widely used among utilities providing electricity, gas, water, and telecommunications, and should be closely scrutinized.     

新生代农民工实现体面劳动的主要障碍与政策选择

体面劳动是一种令劳动者感到有尊严的劳动,是一种符合社会前进方向的劳动价值观.作为实现工业化和城市化的重要力量,新生代农民工能否实现体面劳动越来越受人关注.本文在分析影响我国新生代农民工体面劳动主要障碍因素和其产生原因的基础上,提出保障农民工体面劳动的对策措施,为体面劳动国家计划的完善和促进体面劳动的实现做出贡献.     

Consumer purchase behaviour for oysters: an empirical study in some state capital cities of Australia

Oysters represent an excellent source of major nutrients, especially proteins, vitamins and minerals. The consumption of oysters in Australia has not grown enough to match to their increased availability. This study is designed to provide information for the oyster industry to better attract more consumers to eat oysters. Six antecedent variables affecting the consumer choice of oysters: quality, safety, labelling, presentation, psychological aspects and preferred values for packaging and price, were identified by principal component factor analysis. A logistic regression approach predicts the consumer choice of oysters using these six factors and the demographic factors in the binary choice model. The outcome of the modelling predicts that the consumer choice of ‘dine in or out’ for oysters is significantly linked to age, gender, residence, labelling and preferred values, while the frequency of eating oysters annually is significantly influenced by the factors of age and preferred values. The oyster promotions such as nutritional marketing of oysters that have low cholesterol, cooking shows and special activities that target specific subsections of the consumer market are recommended in the study.     

Binary games with many players

Summary. We examine a problem with n players each facing the same binary choice. One choice is superior to the other. The simple assumption of competition - that an individual’s payoff falls with a rise in the number of players making the same choice, guarantees the existence of a unique symmetric equilibrium (involving mixed strategies). As n increases, there are two opposing effects. First, events in the middle of the distribution - where a player finds itself having made the same choice as many others - become more likely, but the payoffs in these events fall. In opposition, events in the tails of the distribution - where a player finds itself having made the same choice as few others - become less likely, but the payoffs in these events remain high. We provide a sufficient condition (strong competition) under which an increase in the number of players leads to a reduction in the equilibrium probability that the superior choice is made.Received: 24 July 2003, Revised: 24 January 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: C72, D02, D49, L19.Flavio M. Menezes: Correspondence toThis paper has benefitted from comments by an anonymous referee and seminar participants at the ANU, Boston University, Harvard University Law, Economics and Organization Seminar, University of Wisconsin and at the Econometrics Society Australasian Meetings, Auckland New Zealand. We also thank Lucian Bebchuk, Eddie Dekel, Oliver Hart, Luis Kaplov, Paulo Monteiro and John Quiggin for very useful comments. All errors are our own. Menezes acknowledges the financial support from ARC (grant no. 00000055) and the hospitality of EPGE/FGV and RSPAS/ANU.     

协调区域经济发展 保障国家经济安全

缩小东西部差别,促进公平,促进各地区经济协调发展,对于长治久安无疑具有重大的经济、政治和社会意义。本文通过统计分析,对内地区域间经济进行横向与纵向的比较,结合发展经济学与区域经济学理论分析了西部贫困的主要原因:历史、自然环境、社会经济结构、人力资源、投资差距以及制度等。提出协调区域经济发展的战略选择:大环境(ESP)战略、教育与信息化战略、比较优势战略、反贫困与反腐败战略等。     

市场化与法治化:政府经济行为的模式选择

理解政府经济行为要结合经济法应有的研究重点来考察,经济法上的政府经济行为应该从“法”这一基本规定出发去理解。沿着这样一条思路,政府经济行为在模式选择上首先必须坚持市场化,必须以市场作为出发点和归宿。这既是市场经济发展的客观要求,也是中国加入WTO后与世界接轨的基本要求。其次,政府经济行为必须实现法治化,它对于保证市场经济的有序运行具有重要意义,是实现依法治国基本方略的内在要求,是中国应对加入WTO的客观选择。