Board gender diversity and environmental performance: An industries perspective

This study investigates whether gender diversity on the board of directors in the United States is associated with firms' environmental performance. Under the theoretical framework of resource dependence theory, we argue that gender diversity brings a greater variety of skills to the board. Diversity allows for a healthy mix of knowledge and experience to improve the decision‐making process of the board. Using propensity score matching and controlling for endogeneity, this study uses a more rigorous statistical model than previous work. It also uses content analysis of directors' biographies to provide evidence of the role that gender diversity plays. We find gender diversity is positively associated with firms' environmental performance scores primarily in the more environmentally impacting industries. Therefore, our research provides valuable direction for those firms working to improve both their boards' gender diversity and their environmental performance. Our findings also offer insight into the mixed results of previous studies.     

财政转移支付与地方政府支出行为——基于中国地市面板数据的实证分析

本文运用一个简单的理论框架分析了转移支付对地方政府财政支出行为的影响效应,并实证检验了省以下政府间财政转移支付对地方政府财政支出行为的影响效应。分析结果表明:一般性转移支付与地方财政支出之间存在显著的替代效应,而专项转移支付与地方政府财政支出之间存在着显著的互补效应,并且地方政府并不存在反应过度问题。本文的政策建议是:从短期来看,中央政府通过一般性转移支付方式可以有效降低基层政府的财政债务负担,通过专项转移支付可以有效提高基层政府公共服务的供给数量和质量;从长期来看,应进一步完善分税格局,给予地方政府(特别是基层政府)更多与其事权相匹配的税权能力。     

The determinants of Latin American exchange rate regimes

The experience of the last thirty years suggests that a wide range of factors affects policymakers’ choice of exchange rate regime. The initial explanation was that changes in the international sphere dominated domestic policies and strongly influenced how governments decided among the trade-offs. More recently, domestic political factors’ influence on the choice of exchange rate regimes have been emphasized, providing detailed and rich insights into the dynamics of the choice. Neither approach has been entirely successful. Both internal and external factors must be taken into account. This article builds on previous empirical work and takes into account domestic and international influences on the choice of exchange rate regimes in Latin America between 1964 and 1996. In addition, we highlight a variety of ‘interactions’, choices of economic policy that are affected by both national and international pressures and that, in turn, influence the choice of exchange rate regime. The empirical model uses multinomial ordered logit analysis to determine the factors in exchange rate determination and to compare the explanatory of the models with and without the interaction variables.     

Working capital management and corporate governance: a new pathway for assessing firm performance

This study reports the relationship of working capital management (WCM) and corporate governance (CG) on firm performance (FP) using system generalized method of moments (SGMM). SGMM controls potential sources of endogeneity. This study uses US listed firms and includes two stages. In the first stage, the individual impact of WCM and CG on FP is examined. In the second stage, the collective effect of WCM and CG on FP is examined. The study finds that efficient WCM and good CG practices do affect FP on both an individual basis and on a collective basis. Therefore, this study recommends that the impact of WCM, being a short-term performance indicator, and CG, being a long-term indicator should be considered collectively in the future while investigating financial FP.     

地方经济增长目标对外商直接投资的影响与机制研究

经济增长目标管理是中国宏观经济的重要现象,外商直接投资的注入为经济增长提供了重要的源泉。文章基于中国各地级市政府工作报告公布的年度经济增长目标,形成284个地级市2001~2016年面板数据,检验经济增长目标对吸引外资的影响。研究发现,经济增长目标的提高显著增大了实际利用外资数量,该发现是稳健的,在进行了变换度量变量、回归样本和考虑内生性的稳健性检验之后,结论依然成立。究其机制,在既定的经济增长目标的激励下,地方政府扩大土地出让面积,增大人均财政支出,以此吸引外商直接投资。文章还发现,地方经济增长目标的提高将导致外商直接投资显著增加的效应,仅在欠发达的中西部地区成立,在2012年之前出现。文章的发现为进一步优化政府目标管理实现经济高质量发展提供了有益的参考。     

An Integrated Corporate Governance Framework and Financial Performance in South African‐Listed Corporations

This paper investigates the relationship between an integrated corporate governance (CG) index and financial performance using a sample of 169 South African (SA)‐listed corporations between 2002 and 2007. We find a statistically significant and positive association between a broad set of good CG practices and financial performance. In a series of sensitivity analyses, we find that our results are robust to endogeneity, different financial performance proxies, alternative CG weighting scheme and firm‐level fixed effects. We further distinctively examine the link between complying with SA context‐specific stakeholder CG provisions and financial performance. In line with political cost and resource dependence theories, our results reveal a statistically significant and positive nexus between compliance with stakeholder CG provisions and financial performance.     

Board Share‐Ownership and Takeover Performance

Abstract:   We investigate the relation between takeover performance and board share‐ownership in the acquiring company for a sample of 363 UK takeovers completed in the period 1985–96. In investigating this relationship we pay particular attention to the composition of board shareholdings as well as their size. Thus, in addition to the analysis of total board holdings, we analyse the separate impact of CEO shareholdings and of the pattern of non‐executive and executive holdings within the board. In addition to our detailed examination of board holdings we assess the impact of non‐board holdings. Our analysis controls for a number of non‐shareholding constraints on discretionary director behaviour and for a variety of other influences on takeover outcomes including: the means of payment; acquirer size and market to book value; the relative size of the acquirer and the target; the nature of the bid in terms of hostility and industrial direction; and the pre‐takeover performance of the acquiring company. We assess performance in terms of announcement returns, long run share returns and a portfolio of accounting measures. We find evidence that overall board ownership has a strong positive impact on long run share returns and a weak positive impact on operating performance. However, much stronger effects are found when the overall board measure is split into CEO, executive, and non‐executive directors. We find strong evidence of a positive relation between takeover performance and CEO ownership, which holds for both long run returns and operating performance measures. This finding is robust to controlling for other factors that determine takeover performance and holds in a two stage least squares framework that controls for endogeneity effects. Shareholdings of other executive directors, non‐executive directors, and non‐board holdings are found to have no significant effect on takeover performance.     

Relationships between Technical Efficiency and Financial Management for Czech Republic Farms

This paper provides the first analysis of the relationship between farm financial structure and technical efficiency in Central and Eastern European farming during the transition to a market economy. First, technical efficiency scores for a sample of Czech farms are computed with data envelopment analysis, accounting for sampling variability by using the Simar and Wilson bootstrapping procedure. The confidence intervals show that corporate livestock farms are the most homogenous in terms of technical efficiency. Second, a Tobit model is applied for the investigation of factors, including financial considerations, which influence the variation in technical efficiency. The potential endogeneity of the financial variables in the explanation of efficiency is examined, following Smith and Blundell. The Amemiya estimator is used for those cases which are revealed as endogenous. The analysis indicates substantial differences in the way in which the different management structures are treated by lenders. De novo, individual farms are subject to stringent evaluation of their loan applications, which is not the case for the successors of the former collective and state farms.     

Business Cycle Synchronization in the Enlarged EU

This paper analyzes the synchronization of business cycles between new and old EU members using various measures. The main findings are that Hungary, Poland and Slovenia have achieved high degree of synchronization for GDP, industry and exports, but not for consumption and services. The other CEECs have achieved less or no synchronization. There has been significant increase in synchronization of GDP and its major components within EMU. This lends support to the argument of OCA endogeneity but there is also evidence of a world cycle. The consumption-correlation puzzle remains, but its magnitude has greatly diminished in the EMU members.