The impact on stock prices of deferral and elimination of internal control audit requirement for small firms

This paper examines the cumulative market reaction to the events related to deferral of internal control audit requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and its elimination under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for nonaccelerated filers (small firms). We document that small firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns around these events; and the differences between the cumulative abnormal returns for small firms and the two control groups (accelerated and large accelerated filers) were negative and significant at the 1% level. These results support the notion that market participants value the reliability of financial information irrespective of the firm size. Within the small firms, we find no firm characteristic significantly explains the market reaction to the events considered. That is, all small firms lost market value in reaction to the events that delayed and eliminated their internal control audit requirement.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

A critical appraisal of the reporting quality of published randomized controlled trials in the fall injuries

To evaluate the quality of reporting in published randomized controlled trials (RTCs) in the field of fall injuries. The 188 RTCs published between 2001 and 2011, indexed in EMBASE and Medline databases were extracted through searching by appropriate keywords and EMTree classification terms. The evaluation trustworthiness was assured through parallel evaluations of two experts in epidemiology and biostatistics. About 40%–75% of papers had problems in reporting random allocation method, allocation concealment, random allocation implementation, blinding and similarity among groups, intention to treat and balancing benefits and harms. Moreover, at least 10% of papers inappropriately/not reported the design, protocol violations, sample size justification, subgroup/adjusted analyses, presenting flow diagram, drop outs, recruitment time, baseline data, suitable effect size on outcome, ancillary analyses, limitations and generalizability. Considering the shortcomings found and due to the importance of the RCTs for fall injury prevention programmes, their reporting quality should be improved.     

External Debts,Institutions and Growth in SSA

The study investigates the impact of institutional quality on the external debt–growth nexus in SSA. Data from 36 SSA economies over the 1996–2013 periods were used. The results from the IV-System GMM imply that institutional quality has robust effects on the external debt–growth nexus. Thus, the impact of external debt on growth is through host nation’s institutional quality. However, the mediating effect of institutional quality on this nexus is up to a point. When a country is on the wrong side of the debt-laffer curve, external debt becomes irrelevant; and institutional quality can no longer help.     

人力资本与大学生就业——基于2010年对北京18所高校毕业生的调查

综合素质作为人力资本的核心体现,总体上不能提高就业概率,就业意愿和就业行为有助于展示人力资本价值,可提高就业率。与2008年相比,2010年综合素质和就业行为对大学生就业的作用减弱,就业意愿的作用增强,在一定程度上支持了读书无用论的观点,这会打击人力资本投资的热情,导致弃考、弃学现象,并最终影响国民素质的提高和经济的可持续发展。因此,要高度重视大学生就业问题。首先,要完善大学生就业机制,促进高素质人才顺利就业。打破体制性分割,建立全国统一的劳动力市场体系,提高社会保障的统筹层次,并加强就业服务与指导,减少交易成本,促进双方匹配。其次,要加强市场监管,规范信息发布、面试、录用等环节,确保透明、公开、公平,让拥有真才实学的优秀大学生脱颖而出。再次,要从创业教育、创业指导、创业资金等方面扶持更多的大学生创业,开辟一条增量型就业之路。     

The Challenge of Humanistic Economics

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Compare Program in 2003 to increase transparency between healthcare providers and consumers. Implemented in 2005, this transparency consists of hospitals' collecting and making publicly available a set of hospital quality score measures. The CMS induced participation by financially penalizing hospitals that did not publicly report a specific subset of these measures (called “starter” measures). Three years into the program, the penalty for non-reporting both the starter measures and other (“non-starter”) measures was increased. I use a difference-in-differences methodology to analyze the effect of the increased CMS penalty on the likelihood that a hospital publicly reported its starter and non-starter measure scores. I find that the penalty had an economically and statistically insignificant effect on the probability that a hospital publicly reported its starter scores, but a statistically significant 8.0 percent effect (p-value<0.01) on whether it reported its non-starter scores. These findings are robust to a series of alternative empirical specifications.     

论地方涉台立法权的适度拓展——以平潭综合实验区为考察对象

平潭综合实验区的开发建设要求地方涉台立法作出积极的回应,适度拓展地方涉台立法权正是这种回应的基础性内涵。适度拓展地方涉台立法权,不仅是平潭综合实验区开放、开发建设的需要,也是应对海峡两岸关系发展的不确定性,促进海峡两岸和平发展的需要。现实中,拓展地方涉台立法权面临诸多障碍,但仍已具有法理、政策依据和精神支持,应当从扩大立法权源、拓展立法内容、丰富立法参与等方面拓展地方涉台立法权的空间。     

少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系构建研究——以凤凰为例

关注游客对民俗旅游产品的体验需求,有利于做好游客的体验管理,提升游客的体验质量,实现少数民族地区民俗旅游产品的可持续发展。以体验经济为时代背景,从游客体验角度出发,在梳理旅游体验质量影响要素的基础上,提出少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系的理论模型假设;通过随机抽样的调查方式,采用因子分析和方差分析方法,构建了少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系,包括产品体验、环境体验、管理体验和个人能力4个主要素;并在此基础上,提出了凤凰民俗旅游产品游客体验管理对策,即打造核心体验产品、构筑完美体验环境、加强全面体验管理和高度挑战个人能力。     

大学生综合素质测评体系理论及应用研究

当前高校都树立了教学、服务和管理三位一体的素质教育目标,因此建立一个符合时代要求的大学生素质测评体系尤为关键。要想对大学生素质有客观准确的测评,就需要科学的测评指标选择,并且赋予各指标适当的权重。为了满足21世纪社会对人才新要求,高校应该从过去的素质测评体系中汲取经验,充分适应时代的新要求,构建适合素质教育的新的大学生素质测评体系。     

合作社生猪质量供给困境与治理研究——基于集体行动理论的视角

专业合作社成员在空间分布上呈现出明显的地缘性特征,使得合作社对生猪质量控制具有天然的优势,但仍无法避免成员“搭便车”的困境。文章以奥尔森的集体行动理论为指导,设计了选择性激励、允许成员异质性以及强制措施等治理机制,并通过对金诚众和合作社的案例分析,提出扶持合作社进行生猪品牌建设,提高生猪抽检比例,加强猪肉产品的认证管理等政策建议。