Managing Earnings with Intercorporate Investments

Abstract:  We explore to what extent firms deliberately manage their financial reports by exploiting the flexibility of generally accepted accounting principles. Using a sample of Oslo Stock Exchange-listed firms with 20–50% equity holdings in other firms, we find that firms with high financial leverage tend to maximize reported earnings from these investments through their choice between the cost method and the equity method, possibly in an attempt to reduce debt renegotiation costs or to avoid regulatory attention. In contrast, managers do not systematically bias reported earnings to extract private benefits or to signal revised expectations about future cash flows. Firms use different earnings management tools in a consistent way, as the earnings effect of the cost/equity choice is not offset by discretionary accruals.     

Pharmaceutical cost‐sharing systems and savings for healthcare systems from parallel trade

This paper studies the consequences of parallel trade in a two‐country model. It compares a coinsurance scheme (consumers pay a percentage of the drug price) and an indemnity insurance scheme (reimbursement is independent of the drug price) with respect to changes in copayments and public health expenditure. In the destination country, copayments for patients decrease to a larger extent under indemnity insurance, whereas reductions in public health expenditure occur only under coinsurance. In the source country, copayments increase less under coinsurance, whereas health expenditure is reduced more under indemnity insurance. In both countries, total expenditure under parallel trade is lower.     

股改降低了上市公司代理成本吗?——来自中国A股市场的经验证据

以我国A股上市公司为研究样本,以代理成本为研究对象,对股改之于代理成本的影响进行实证分析发现：股改的完成并没有显著地影响代理成本,控股类型仍然是影响代理成本的主要因素,股权分置改革对于企业代理成本的积极影响不能一蹴而就,股改完成后我国还需要在法规、制度、市场以及公司治理结构等方面进行全方位的配套改革。     

Estimating Recreation Preferences Using Hedonic Travel Cost and Random Utility Models

Over the last decade, several authors have questioned thevalidity of the hedonic travel cost model, arguing instead that the random utility model is a superior method forvaluing recreational site attributes. This paper demonstrates that the two methods emanate from a similar utilitytheoretic framework; yet in practice these methods differ in the assumptions made in their application.Constraining the underlying utility functions to be consistent, both models are applied to the valuation ofrecreational site attributes in the Southeastern United States. The way in which each method estimates preferencesfor site attributes is shown to depend critically on the method and the functional form of theunderlying utility function.     

内部控制缺陷披露对资本成本的影响研究——基于沪深两市A股的经验数据

文章选取我国A股上市公司2011--2012年披露的年报及相关信息为样本数据,建立多元回归分析模型分别对沪深两市178家样本上市公司2012年的权益资本成本和债务资本成本进行检验。研究结果显示：披露内部控制缺陷的样本公司存在较高的资本成本,缺陷的披露与权益资本成本和债务资本成本呈现显著正相关,权益资本成本对缺陷信息的披露敏感度更高。对控制变量回归分析,发现股权投资者更有动力积极获取公司经营管理信息,而债权投资者更关注财务指标信息。总体来看,我国资本市场对内部控制缺陷信息的披露作出了较为稳定的资本成本定价,内部控制缺陷的披露对资本市场来说具有重要价值。     

政府补助与公司投资行为——基于中国上市公司的数据

基于公司投资视角,以2007—2012年我国资本市场上A股上市公司为样本,研究政府补助对公司投资行为的影响,结果显示：政府补助越多,公司投资支出水平越高;政府补助对非国有公司的投资激励作用比国有公司更有效;公司产权性质差异会影响政府补助的投资激励效应;市场化程度越低、经济增长越缓慢的地区,政府补助对公司投资支出的影响越敏感;上市公司的非效率投资问题比较突出,政府补助加剧了上市公司的过度投资行为。因此,政府应根据微观企业主体的差异性来制定和实施相应的补助政策,以实现预期效果。     

连锁零售企业人力资源管理困境探析——以浙江为例

近年来在我国沿海地区,连锁零售企业在快速发展的同时正遭遇越来越多的问题,其中最突出的问题存在于人力资源管理方面,如人力资源短缺与流失严重,人力成本增长过快等等。只有认真分析人力资源管理面临的问题并予以破解,连锁零售企业才可能克服发展的瓶颈,重新获得快速的增长。     

港口工程造价计价方式

港口工程在很大程度上受到自然因素的影响,再加上较长的建设周期,因此成本居高不下。而造价作为港口工程项目综合管理的重要指标之一,其计价是成本控制的主要方式,需要通过对影响造价计价的各种制约因素进行控制,以提高工程成本管理的有效性,最大限度发挥投资的效益,这也正是本文研究的宗旨所在。     

影响模具成本的主要因素分析

本文根据模具行业的发展现状,特别对影响模具成本的因素进行了分析,指出影响模具成本因素的问题所在,要稳定模具成本就必须对材料费和制造费进行有效的控制,要千方百计消除人为因素的干扰,才能更好地降低模具成本,报出合理的模具价格,赢得市场。