关于中部六省旅游联动共谋中部崛起的探讨

中部崛起关系我国经济发展的全局，具有重要战略意义。借鉴长三角地区成功发展的启示，中部地区要实现崛起必须在发挥六省各自优势的同时，充分进行区域协作，实行区域联动。在目前六省竞争有余，协作不足的情况下，有必要利用六省旅游资源丰富、互补性强，旅游产业发展态势良好的有利条件，充分发挥旅游业关联带动作用明显、区域协作性强的产业持质，以旅游业为中部六省联动的首选行业，进行六省区的协作，实现六省旅游资源、客源市场共享，域内各级政府与旅游企业间的联动。并以此为范例，带动其他产业的协作与联动，开创六省上下一条心、紧抓机遇共谋崛起的良好局面。     

The Informational Role of Stock and Option Volume

This article analyzes the intraday interdependence of orderflows and price movements for actively traded NYSE stocks andtheir Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE)-traded options.Stock net trade volume (buyer-initiated volume minus seller-initiatedvolume) has strong predictive ability for stock and option quoterevisions, but option net trade volume has no incremental predictiveability. This suggests that informed investors initiate tradesin the stock market but not in the option market. On the otherhand, both stock and option quote revisions have predictiveability for each other. Thus, while information in the stockmarket is contained in both quote revisions and trades, informationin the option market is contained only in quote revisions.     

Informational Networks, Entrepreneurial Action and Performance

This paper develops a model that incorporates personal and business networks, firm action, and performance based on the existing literature. It explores the links between information and entrepreneurial-type action, and action and performance. Survey data was collected from a sample of 100 manufacturing firms in Thailand. Results show that entrepreneurs value the information they receive from their networks. However, there is little statistical support for tangible links between personal or business networks and entrepreneurial action and performance, or between action and performance.     

Carbon taxes and the double dividend hypothesis in a recursive-dynamic CGE model for Spain

A carbon tax is potentially a policy that can reduce CO₂ emissions and mitigate climate risks, at lowest economy-wide costs. We develop a dynamic CGE model for Spain to assess the economic and environmental effects of a carbon tax, and test the double dividend (DD) hypothesis. We simulate the impact of three carbon taxes: €10, €20 and €30 per ton of CO₂. For each tax, four ‘revenue recycling’ scenarios are examined: a reduction of taxes on capital, on labor, on value-added tax, and a scenario in which revenues are not recycled. We find a DD for taxes of €10/ton and lower, within five to seven years of implementation. We estimate an annual CO₂ emissions reduction of around 10% with this tax. Under some circumstances, the DD can be achieved for a tax of €20/ton. In any case, recycling revenues to cut pre-existing taxes reduces costs of imposing carbon taxes.     

Strategies for Improving Codes of Ethics Implementation in Construction Organizations

It is necessary to reconsider the assumptions upon which the process of implementing compliance with ethical programs rests, in both theoretical and practical terms. These assumptions should hinge on organizational enablers that allow embeddedness of codes of ethics in the web of an organization's processes. This article sets out to describe an approach that will facilitate implementation of codes of ethics in construction organizations and a comprehensive literature survey approach is adopted to achieve this. The paper equally employs the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model as a tool to stimulate ethical behavior in an organization, with the focus on the enabler criterion of the model. The authors discuss organizational enablers in relation to the implementation of ethical codes. The study demonstrates how ethics can be managed in an organization by proposing a framework to enhance codes of ethics embeddedness in the web of an organization. The paper indicates current research gaps and future opportunities for both academics and practitioners.     

Maintaining a Reputation for Consistently Beating Earnings Expectations and the Slippery Slope to Earnings Manipulation

This paper investigates whether maintaining a reputation for consistently beating analysts' earnings expectations can motivate executives to move from “within GAAP” earnings management to “outside of GAAP” earnings manipulation. We analyze firms subject to SEC enforcement actions and find that these firms consistently beat analysts' quarterly earnings forecasts in the three years prior to the manipulation period and continue to do so by smaller “beats” during the manipulation period. We find that manipulating firms beat expectations around 86 percent of the time in the 12 quarters prior to the manipulation period (versus 75 percent for control firms) and that manipulation often ends with a miss in expectations. We document that executives of manipulating firms face strong stock market and CEO pressure to perform. Prior to the manipulation period, these firms have high analyst optimism, growing institutional interest, and high market valuations, along with powerful CEOs. Further, we find that maintaining a reputation for beating expectations is more important than CEO overconfidence and is incremental to CEO equity incentives for explaining manipulation. Our results suggest that pressure to maintain a reputation for beating analysts' expectations can encourage aggressive accounting and, ultimately, earnings manipulation.     

Product pricing and solvency capital requirements for long-term care insurance

This paper presents a comprehensive assessment of premiums, reserves and solvency capital requirements (SCRs) for long-term care (LTC) insurance policies using Activities of Daily Living and US data. We compare stand-alone policies, whole life insurance policies with LTC benefit riders (LTC insurance combined with whole life insurance), life care annuities (LTC insurance combined with annuities) and shared LTC insurance in terms of net premium cost and SCRs. Net premiums and best-estimate reserves for base LTC insurance policies are determined using Thiele’s differential equation. Product features such as the elimination period and the maximum benefit period are compared using a simulation-based model. We show how a maximum benefit period can reduce costs and risks for LTC insurance products. SCRs for longevity risk and disability risk are based on the Solvency II standard formula. We quantify the extent to which whole life insurance policies with LTC benefit riders and life care annuities provide lower SCRs than stand-alone LTC insurance policies.     

Impacts of derivative markets on spot market volatility and their persistence

In this article, we investigate the impacts of futures and options markets on the volatility of the underlying market. Unlike earlier studies, the focus is on their persistence over time. Tests on the Hang Seng index yield several interesting results that often contrast with previous findings. Empirical results suggest that the quality of new information generated by derivative trading determines the impacts on the spot market volatility. The futures market provides new, material information reducing spot market volatility. The Options market, on the other hand, generates noisy information and distorts price, which is followed by an increase in volatility and a decrease in its sensitivity to price change. While the impact of futures persists, that of options mostly disappears as the market matures. Our conjecture is that the futures market is mainly driven by informed, experienced participants, while the options market attracts new, inexperienced investors.     

Do Asian stock market prices follow martingales? Evidence from spectral shape tests

This paper examines the martingale hypothesis for five Asian stock markets using the spectral shape tests of Durlauf (1991). Unlike the variance ratio test employed in previous studies (eg, Panet al, 1991), the spectral shape tests are consistent againstall stationary alternatives to the martingale null.The spectral shape tests were applied to daily and weekly returns on the stock indices of Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan over a period of 17 years. The results show that the martingale null is rejected for most markets. There is some evidence that the rejections may be due to low frequency or long memory influences.The authors are lecturers, Department of Finance and Banking, National University of Singapore. This paper was presented at the Third International Conference on Asian-Pacific Financial Markets, September 9–11, 1993 in Singapore. We have benefited greatly from the comments of Y K Tse and other conference participants.