Chief Audit Executive as Supervisory Board Member and Executive Compensation Contracts

This paper studies a unique phenomenon in China's corporate governance—that chief audit executives (CAEs) sit on supervisory boards (CAE duality)—and examines its effects on executive compensation contracts. Using a sample of listed firms between 2010 and 2018, we find a significant positive relation between CAE duality and pay-for-performance sensitivity, which suggests that the dual position helps integrate monitoring resources and reduces agency costs. This positive relation is more pronounced when companies face a stricter monitoring environment and in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than in SOEs. In addition, we find that the recent reforms on compensation strengthen the role of CAE duality in SOEs. Further analysis identifies the reliability of performance information (i.e., earnings quality) and reduced executive self-interested behaviours (i.e., perquisite consumption) as the influencing mechanisms that increase the demand for performance-based compensation and thus improve pay-for-performance sensitivity.     

Determinants of China's bilateral trade balance in global value chains

This paper identifies the determinants of China's bilateral trade balance using a new measure based on international input–output data, the so-called ‘trade in value-added’ (TiVA), which can prevent double counting in the estimation of bilateral trade balance. Our results show that using a measure based on gross exports, rather than TiVA, causes relatively large overestimation of the impact of the RMB exchange rate on China's bilateral trade balance. This overestimation is mainly because that the increasing production of exports may require increasing intermediate imports as a consequence of international fragmentation of production in global value chains. In addition, our results also show that the impact of FDI inflows on China's bilateral trade balances depends on the position and role of China and its trading partners in GVCs.     

Can Shareholders Be at Rest after Adopting Clawback Provisions? Evidence from Stock Price Crash Risk

Using a propensity score matched sample and a difference‐in‐differences research design, we find that stock price crash risk increases after a firm voluntarily incorporates clawback provisions in executive officers' compensation contracts. This heightened crash risk is concentrated in adopters that increase upward real activities‐based earnings management and those that reduce the readability of 10‐K reports. Based on cross‐sectional analyses, we also find that the increased crash risk is more pronounced for adopters with high ex ante fraud risk, low‐ability managers, high CEO equity incentives, and low dedicated institutional ownership. Collectively, our results suggest that the clawback adoption per se does not curb managerial opportunism but rather induces managers to use alternative channels for concealing bad news, which may contribute to a greater stock price crash risk; and the increase in crash risk is more likely in cases where incentives are strong or monitoring is weak. Our results should be of interest to regulators and policymakers considering the effects of clawback adoption on the investing public.     

河北省北部山区农村生态环境治理及绩效评价

[目的]农村生态环境是一个复杂的系统,严重的生态环境问题制约着农村经济的发展以及新农村建设,探讨其治理和绩效,有利于解决生态环境建设中的各种问题,对于区域发展具有重要的理论和实践意义。[方法]文章通过构建农村生态环境治理及绩效评价指标体系,采用层次分析法确定各个指标的权重以及灰色关联法分析各指标间的灰色关联度。[结果]河北省北部山区农村生态环境治理绩效评价指标体系要素层中权重值大小依次为生态经济(0. 483 9)、生态环境(0. 273 6)、生态人居(0. 137 1)、生态保护(0. 105 4),说明该地区农村经济水平已达到一定水平,但生态环境、生态保护等仍有待提高。灰色关联法计算结果表明河北省北部山区生态环境中关联系数最高的是畜禽粪便处理率(0. 754),生态经济中关联系数最高的是农民人均纯收入(0. 624),生态保护中关联系数最高的是化肥施用量(0. 846),生态人居中关联系数最高的是饮用水合格率(0. 682),而关联度大小依次为生态保护(0. 724)、生态环境(0. 662)、生态人居(0. 573)、生态经济(0. 543),说明该地区生态环境治理仍有很大空间。[结论]研究结果指出河北省北部山区农村生态环境治理的不足,为进一步完善区域生态环境具有重要的指导意义。     

Does economic policy uncertainty raise corporate precautionary cash holdings? Evidence from China

Using China as the research setting, this paper investigates the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and corporate precautionary cash holdings. Empirical results show a U-shaped relation between economic policy uncertainty and corporate precautionary cash holdings. Empirical analysis, in terms of ownership structure, firm size, corporate competitiveness and geographical location, further shows that (i) the effects for economic policy uncertainty in both state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises are significant, but the effect is stronger for state-owned enterprises; (ii) such significant effect is also found more strongly in small and medium-sized enterprises and highly competitive enterprises; and (iii) the effects for eastern, central and western China are all statistically significant, but the effect is strongest for eastern China.     

Online marketing: When to offer a refund for advanced sales

Advance selling is a marketing strategy commonly used by online retailers to increase sales by exploiting consumer valuation uncertainty. Recently, some online retailers have started to allow refunds on products sold in advance. On the one hand this reduces the net advance sales, but on the other hand it allows a higher advance sales price. This research is the first to explore the overall effect of allowing a refund on profits from advance sales, identifying conditions where advance selling with or without refunds (or no advance selling at all) is best. We analytically compare the profits of three advance selling strategies: none, without refund, and with refund. We show that selling in advance and allowing a refund is optimal for products with a relatively small profit margin and small strategic market size, and that the added profit can be considerable. Our results guide managers in selecting the right advance selling strategy. To facilitate this, we graphically display, based on the two dimensions of regular profit margin and strategic market size, under what conditions the different strategies are optimal.     

结构嵌入、动态能力与组织绩效:一个混合模型

供应链企业对外部关系网络的结构性嵌入，有利于其获取更多异质性资源，这为组织绩效提升奠定了基础。在构建结构嵌入、动态能力与组织绩效关系混合模型的基础上，实证检验了结构嵌入对组织绩效的影响。研究结果表明：结构嵌入与组织绩效间存在显著的倒“U”型关系，即结构嵌入具有“拐点”效应，过高水平的结构嵌入不利于组织绩效提升；环境动态性在结构嵌入对组织绩效的影响中发挥有中介的调节作用；学习能力和创新能力在结构嵌入对组织绩效的影响中存在有调节的中介效应。     

Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

上市公司负面声誉与分析师关注:"趋之若鹜"抑或"避之若浼"

本文选取2008-2018年A股上市公司为样本,以公司违规处罚作为负面声誉的代理变量,考察分析师在选择跟踪对象时会否将公司负面声誉纳入考量.研究发现,公司违规处罚导致分析师关注度显著降低.机制检验表明,违规处罚通过降低投资者信息需求和分析师供给意愿两条路径影响分析师关注.拓展性分析发现,公司所受处罚越严重、被罚款金额越多,分析师关注度越低;处罚事件对分析师关注的负面冲击具有长期效应;对于非国有企业和处于高社会信任水平地区的公司,违规处罚对分析师关注的负向影响更显著.本文为深入理解我国证券市场中的声誉机制提供了经验证据,亦为监管机构加大违规惩处力度、借助分析师等市场"看门人"的力量提增监管威慑力提供了政策参考.     

城市信用建设制度化实践的影响因素、区域差异与创新发展

通过对主要城市信用法规数据的梳理,从经济发展、城市治理、信用意识、城市特质等多角度探讨了城市信用建设制度化实践的影响因素.研究发现人均GRP、第三产业发展、信用意识、失业率显著正向影响城市信用建设制度化实践;异质性分析表明西、中、东部地区城市基于不同驱动因素而表现为"学习型"、"回应型"与"变革型"的制度化实践与创新方式;因此可分别通过加强城市信息化建设、推进城市信用宣传教育以及城市信用制度体系化等措施促进信用建设制度化实践的发展.