独董与其他高管的公司治理作用有差异吗？——基于政治关联与审计契约视角的检验

以2007—2011年A股非金融保险业上市公司为样本,从政治关联与审计契约角度揭示独立董事与其他高管在公司治理中的差异。研究发现:在审计师选择方面,独立董事存在政治关联的企业倾向于选择高质量的审计服务,其他高管存在政治关联的企业倾向于选择低质量的审计服务。结合对审计费用考察发现,其他高管存在政治关联的企业选择较低质量审计服务的同时却支付相对较高的审计费用,但又并没有支付显著高于独立董事存在政治关联的企业选择高质量审计服务时支付的审计费用。     

国家审计理论的几个基本问题研究——基于多学科的视角

国家审计是国家治理的基石与保障,国家审计体现了国家政治意志,国家政治、经济和文化的发展又调整着国家审计的功能和边界。基于多学科视角探讨国家治理与国家审计的协同关系,揭示国家审计的哲学本质与政治功能,理清国家审计的经济边界,分析国家审计的法治建设与文化建构等基本问题,构建国家审计基础理论的分析框架,认为国家审计可以通过提升组织的设计与管理、政治制度的设计、合法化的基础及文化与社会等要素来改进国家治理。     

西北内陆中心城市低收入人口居住空间及其社会效应——以兰州市为例

以兰州市各街道的低收入人口为研究对象,根据2013年6月进行的兰州市居民调查问卷和棚户区统计数据,借助Arc GIS10.0、SPSS平台,综合运用数理统计、反距离空间插值、主成分因子分析和聚类分析等方法,揭示兰州市低收入人口的属性特征、空间分布、聚居类型及社会效应。结果表明:在社会属性方面,低收入人口主要是低龄、低学历、下岗及退休、无职业且家庭结构较复杂人口;在空间分布方面,低收入人口"西高东低"分布不均衡,呈现"多中心"组团结构,"核心—边缘"特点明显;在聚居类型方面,可将其居住空间划分为原住型、流动型和移民型;在社会效应方面,带来空间分异、居住隔离、资源剥夺和公共安全等一系列社会问题,建议通过调整福利政策、倡导混合居住、拓宽就业渠道和加强规划引导等措施加以消解。     

边界视角下中国京津冀地区协调发展的壁垒与破解

从边界效应转化的视角探讨了中国京津冀地区的协调发展。主要观点如下:从均衡发展的视角讲,京津冀一体化的范围由三地经济边界而非行政边界决定;边缘地区合作先行是实现京津冀地区在循环因果累积机制的支持下和谐发展的必要前提;地方政府是省际边界屏蔽效应的主要来源,因此京津冀合作必须摒弃地方政府的干预,发挥市场、中央政府以及次区域组织在资源流动和配置、制度供给和协调规划方面的影响作用,共同促成边界区域合作的内生动力,以显著降低边界合作的交易成本,实现边界效应从屏蔽到中介的转化。最后,以京廊边界为例探讨了边界转化的路径。     

服务型制造项目治理的影响因素及其作用路径

在网络结构和治理模式影响服务型制造项目治理绩效的相关研究成果的基础上,加入中间变量——治理能力。运用结构方程模型方法,利用调查问卷数据进一步分析了网络结构、治理模式、治理能力与治理绩效之间的影响关系,构建了服务型制造项目治理影响路径图。结果表明:网络结构和治理模式对项目治理能力都有显著的直接影响;治理能力对项目治理绩效有直接的、显著的正向影响;网络结构与治理模式互相影响。     

Think Twice Before Going for Incentives: Social Norms and the Principal's Decision on Compensation Contracts

Principals make decisions on various issues, ranging from contract design to control system implementation. Few studies examine the principal's active role in these decisions. We experimentally investigate this role by studying how a principal's choice of an incentive contract that may discourage misrepresentation, compared to a fixed‐salary contract, affects the honesty of his or her agents’ cost reporting. Results show that, besides an incentive effect and a principal trust effect, the active choice for incentives produces a negative “information leakage” effect. When principals use incentives, their choices not only incentivize truthful reporting and signal distrust, but they also leak important information about the social norm, namely, that other agents are likely to report dishonestly. Agents conform to this social norm by misrepresenting cost information more. Our results have important practical implications. Managers must recognize that their decisions can leak information to their agents, which may produce unanticipated consequences for the social norms of the organization.     

Foreign Institutional Ownership and the Global Convergence of Financial Reporting Practices

This paper investigates whether foreign institutional investors affect the global convergence of financial reporting practices. Using several measures of reporting convergence, we show that U.S. institutional ownership is positively associated with subsequent changes in emerging market firms’ accounting comparability to their U.S. industry peers. We identify this association using an instrumental variable approach that exploits exogenous variation in U.S. institutional investment generated by the JGTRRA Act of 2003. Further, we provide evidence of a specific mechanism—the switch to a Big Four audit firm—through which U.S. institutional investors affect reporting convergence. Finally, we show that, for emerging market firms, an increase in comparability to U.S. firms is associated with an improvement in the properties of foreign analysts’ forecasts.     

A Tale of Two Anomalies: Higher Returns of Low‐Risk Stocks and Return Seasonality

Prior studies have shown that low beta and low volatility stocks earn higher average returns than high beta and high volatility stocks, contradicting the prediction of the capital asset pricing model and the fundamental relationship between risk and return. In this paper, we demonstrate that this phenomenon is driven by the seasonality of stock returns. We show that the risk‐return tradeoff does hold in the nonsummer months, and that switching to a portfolio of low‐risk stocks in summer outperforms—both in terms of absolute and in risk‐adjusted returns—buy and hold strategies as well as the Sell in May strategy of switching to treasury bills in summer.     

Continuous disclosure compliance: does corporate governance matter?

Our study investigates the quality of firms’ continuous disclosure compliance during mandatory continuous disclosure reform, and whether the compliance quality is impacted by corporate governance, using the New Zealand market as the setting. We use a novel coding of different categories of disclosures (non‐routine, non‐procedural and internal), which represents the extent of proprietary insider information inherent in disclosures, to evaluate firms’ compliance quality. Our findings provide evidence that firms’ compliance quality improved after the reform, and this improvement is inconsistently impacted by corporate governance. Our findings provide important implications for regulators in their quest for a superior disclosure regime.     

Determinants of corporate risk disclosure in large Spanish companies: a snapshot

Improvements in risk disclosure have been an important part of the corporate governance reforms. This paper is intended to identify the factors that explain the extent to which a sample of 35 listed Spanish firms disclose risk-related information. This study focuses on the risk disclosures made in the corporate governance reports during the year 2009. Using the content analysis technique an index was developed in order to assess the amount and quality of the risk information disclosed by Spanish companies. Several characteristics were selected and their influence on the level of risk disclosure was tested empirically. Results indicate that sector and risk level are positively related to the extent of corporate risk disclosures. This study adds to the international research on risk disclosure by extending the scope of the current understanding of risk reporting practices and their determinants. The findings could be especially useful for regulators and policy-makers in order to enhance risk disclosure and to improve transparency.