土地价格与企业创新*——来自微观数据的证据

近年来，中国土地出让价格迅速攀升，对企业行为产生了重要的影响。本文利用土地交易的微观数据，采用工具变量的方法研究了土地价格上涨对于工业企业创新的影响。研究发现土地价格上涨会减少企业申请专利的数量。其原因在于地价上涨缩紧了企业的资金约束，并影响了企业的资源配置，造成企业减少研发投入。异质性研究表明，高地价对位于产业园区的企业、国有企业的不利影响更小，但是对创新型试点城市中的企业的抑制作用更强。     

地方政府经济竞争下的企业负担*——来自上市公司的经验证据

本文基于分权体制下政企之间的两阶段动态博弈模型以及在此基础上构建的计量模型，将地级市之间经济竞争程度与A股非金融类上市公司数据相匹配，验证了地方政府经济竞争程度与企业实际税负之间的关系。研究结果表明，当地方政府所面临的经济竞争程度越激烈时，其辖区内上市公司的实际税负越低。进一步分析发现，地方政府经济竞争对辖区企业的减税效应存在显著的地区、产业和所有制异质性；分位数回归发现，辖区企业处于不同税负强度时，地方政府经济竞争的减税效应也存在明显差异。在当前减税降费、让利于企的新时代背景下，本文的研究对落实减税降费政策和规范横向竞争中地方政府行为具有启示意义。     

为了指标而竞争*——来自中国煤矿企业的证据#br#

中国矿难治理取得了不可忽视的成就，但总结其成功经验的研究尚显不足。本文认为安全生产的总量指标控制是一种降低中国煤矿企业矿难死亡人数的有效方式。笔者手工搜集了2002—2006年中国煤矿企业矿难死亡人数和省级安全生产控制考核数据，并与工业企业数据库进行匹配，发现单个煤矿事故死亡人数和同地区其他煤矿事故死亡人数之间显著负相关，说明企业间存在指标竞争现象。广义双重差分回归结果显示，在控制指标越少的省份，企业间指标竞争越激烈。异质性分析发现，在超标省份或者主管官员晋升的关键时期，指标竞争更加激烈。最后，单个煤矿企业死亡人数与异省邻市矿难死亡人数不相关，排除了矿难导致监管加强的“威慑效应”。本文的研究结果表明，煤矿安全生产总量指标控制对企业安全生产有显著作用。     

Board diversity reforms: Do they matter for EU bank performance?

We examine the impact of governance reforms related to board diversity on the performance of European Union banks. Using a difference‐in‐difference approach, we document that reforms increase bank stock returns and their volatility within the first 3 years after their enactment. The type of reform matters, with quotas increasing return volatility. The effectiveness of reforms depends on a country's institutional environment. The impact of reforms on return volatility is found to be beneficial in countries more open to diversity, with common law system and with greater economic freedom. Finally, reforms play a bigger role in banks that have ex ante less heterogeneous boards.     

Paper Versus Practice: A Field Investigation of Integrity Hotlines

In an effort to motivate firms to more rapidly detect potential misconduct, legislators, regulators, and enforcement agencies incentivize firms to have integrity or “whistleblowing” hotlines. These hotlines provide individuals an opportunity to report alleged misconduct and seek guidance about how to appropriately respond. Beyond some isolated examples, little is known about the responsiveness of hotlines to actual claims of alleged misconduct. I undertake a field study to investigate how hotlines function in practice by making four different inquiries involving alleged misconduct to nearly 250 firms. I find that one-fifth of firms have impediments (e.g., phone line disconnected, email bounce back, direct to incorrect website) that hinder reporting and approximately 10% of firms do not respond in a timely manner. Overall, this investigation illuminates several differences between integrity hotlines “on paper” and how they actually perform in practice.     

Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

CEO compensation in EU telecom companies: Does the state design the right incentives?

This paper analyzes the structure of CEO pay in European fixed telecommunication companies, focusing on the impact of state ownership. Results show that, under the (partial or total) control of the state, the level of CEO compensation is lower and pay-performance sensitivity is higher than in privately-controlled firms. This finding suggests the state provides an incentive as well as a monitoring effect. However, when the state holds the majority of the shares, the pay level is significantly affected by the CEO power, suggesting that in these firms, CEOs are more likely to be entrenched with boards and succeed in raising their pay.     

The HRM–capital market link: Effects of securities analysts on strategic human capital

This article develops theory about an agency problem affecting the strategic human capital (SHC) of the firm. It proposes three categories of SHC‐related choices managers must make that imply a trade‐off between near‐ and long‐term performance. Dispersed shareholding, firm coverage by securities analysts, and their practice of publishing quarterly earnings forecasts are argued to entail a bias in management incentives, shifting the balance in this trade‐off toward near‐term performance. To restore the balance, securities analysts would need to distinguish transitory from recurring effects of SHC‐related choices in their valuation models (e.g., treating certain labor cost savings during cyclical downturns as transitory). Restoring the balance would also require them to anticipate long‐term effects in their long‐term earnings forecasts (e.g., long‐term positive effects of retaining employees with valuable skills during cyclical downturns). The article discusses specific transitory cost effects and long‐term effects they could potentially take into account. The skills and incentives needed by analysts to account for such effects are argued to vary across firm segments.     

Managerial Overconfidence,Self-Attribution Bias,and Downwardly Sticky Investment: Evidence from Korea

The extant literature on behavioral corporate finance has explored the effects of overconfidence on investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICS) to explain overinvestment, yet it has overlooked the asymmetric behavior of investments in relation to changes in cash flow levels. This study examines whether investments behave asymmetrically responding to changes in cash flows and, if so, how managerial overconfidence affects asymmetric ICS. Using a sample of KOSPI and KOSDAQ firms in Korea, we find the incidence of downwardly sticky ICS in unconstrained firms. We then find that overconfident managers encourage ICS to be stickier than their rational peers do in unconstrained firms. Finally, we find that managerial overconfidence intensified by self-attribution bias induces ICS to get even stickier, suggesting more explicit evidence of corporate investment distortions. The results of alternative tests using the asymmetric models of Homburg and Nasev (2008) are qualitatively consistent with prior results. Overall, our findings imply a higher incidence of excessive investment commitments driven by overconfident managers.     

Perceptions of Agriculture and Food Corporate Social Responsibility

An online survey of 1,201 U.S. residents was conducted in April 2015 to better understand individuals’ perceptions of prominent areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the food supply chain. Demographic and household consumption information, including supermarket patronage, was collected. Each respondent completed best–worst tasks for CSR areas designed to elicit their relative importance of CSR areas. Overall, health and safety were perceived as the most important CSR area, and environment was prioritized second. Indicating gender as female and/or reporting age over 65 was positively correlated with the relative importance placed on health and safety, but negatively correlated with the size of preference share for nearly all other CSR areas investigated. Membership in the younger age categories was positively correlated with the size of the preference shares devoted to procurement, labor, fair trade, and biotechnology.