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.     

The employment and wage effects of export VAT rebates: evidence from China

Review of World Economics - This paper studies the employment and wage effects of VAT rebates to exporters with comprehensive firm-product-level data of China. It is found that the adjustments in...     

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.     

考虑碳交易的风电-抽水蓄能联合运行模式优化研究

随着"碳达峰—碳中和"的双碳目标成为国家战略,如何快速高质量的发展清洁能源成为亟待解决的问题.本文从经济性和碳排放两个角度研究了风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统的综合效益,建立了包括风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统建设成本、运维成本、备用成本和风电消纳成本四个成本指标以及联合运行效益、削峰填谷效益、网损改善效益和附加效益四个效益指标的风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统综合效益模型.同时,以风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统的综合效益最大化为目标,基于低碳交易规则,提出了风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统优化运行模式.最后,选取了IEEE 14节点系统对模型进行测试,验证了优化方法的有效性.     

Ⅶ度区桥梁抗震防落梁装置施工技术

桥梁结构在强震作用下一般上部构造和下部构造间产生大的相对滑移,当实际的相对滑移量超过桥梁的实际防止落梁的长度的时候,将发生落梁等事故,致使交通发生中断,给抗震救灾工作带来极其严重的阻碍.本文结合贵州省罗望高速第七合同段项目,论述了地震Ⅶ度区桥梁抗震减隔震装置施工技术,并辅以工程实例进行说明,有效预防并减轻地震作用对桥梁构造的破坏,旨在为Ⅶ度抗震区的桥梁防震施工提供一定程度的参考.     

考虑碳交易的风电-抽水蓄能联合运行模式优化研究

随着"碳达峰—碳中和"的双碳目标成为国家战略,如何快速高质量的发展清洁能源成为亟待解决的问题.本文从经济性和碳排放两个角度研究了风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统的综合效益,建立了包括风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统建设成本、运维成本、备用成本和风电消纳成本四个成本指标以及联合运行效益、削峰填谷效益、网损改善效益和附加效益四个效益指标的风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统综合效益模型.同时,以风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统的综合效益最大化为目标,基于低碳交易规则,提出了风电-抽水蓄能联合运行系统优化运行模式.最后,选取了IEEE 14节点系统对模型进行测试,验证了优化方法的有效性.     

绿色信贷政策如何影响重污染企业技术创新?

完善绿色信贷等绿色金融政策框架和激励机制,对于推动经济绿色发展、实现碳达峰碳中和目标至关重要.本文以《绿色信贷指引》(简称《指引》)的出台为准自然实验,以2009-2018年A股上市公司的数据为样本,运用双重差分法考察绿色信贷对重污染企业技术创新的影响.实证结果显示,《指引》出台后,与其他行业企业相比,重污染企业的技术创新产出显著降低.机制检验显示,《指引》通过降低重污染企业的研发投入,进而抑制了企业的技术创新,未能发挥"波特效应".此外,政策引致的信贷约束效应与信息传递效应减少了重污染企业可获得的信贷资源与商业信用,导致技术创新水平下降.进一步分析表明,《指引》对重污染企业创新能力的作用表现出明显的异质性:与国有企业相比,非国有企业受政策影响更显著;与东部地区相比,这种抑制作用在中西部地区的重污染企业中表现的更明显;与弱融资约束企业相比,强融资约束企业受政策影响更显著.以上基于中国经济实践的证据,对于完善绿色信贷政策的资源配置作用、促进低碳经济发展具有一定的借鉴意义.     

Covid-19-tested food labels

While the transmission of virus SARS-CoV-2 via food is rare, some Chinese food retailers are considering a Covid-19-tested food label. However, how consumers may support such a label is unknown. We quantify Chinese consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for food carrying a Covid-19-tested label using an online choice experiment. We find that the WTPs for such a label are always positive for all food products considered. The amount of WTP depends on the entities authenticating the labels, country of origin of the food, and consumers’ socio-demographic status. Contrary to expectation, the knowledge on Covid-19 does not affect consumer preferences for the Covid-19-tested food labels. Our benefit and cost analysis suggests a possible large benefit of creating and administering a Covid-19-tested food label. This study provides insights for policymakers, global food manufacturers, and retailers to create marketing strategies to alleviate consumer food safety concerns associated with Covid-19.     

Beyond symbolic and substantive: Strategic disclosure of corporate environmental information in China

Under increasing regulatory pressure to disclose environmental impacts, corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) is becoming more prevalent. However, the motives for EID and disclosure approaches (i.e., symbolic or substantive) remain controversial. Using a sample of data for 742 listed manufacturing firms in China across 3 years, we provide evidence to show that the level of EID is significantly positively associated with a firm's advertising intensity and that firms in moderately competitive industries have a higher propensity for adopting an EID‐based differentiated strategy than firms in stronger or weaker competitive industries. We also find that firms that are more sensitive to environmental issues strategically understate their environmental impact when directly facing consumers. Our results suggest that the implementation of corporate EID is strategic and that firms have strong market motives, even under regulatory pressure to demonstrate legitimacy. We discuss this study's contributions to research on EID theory and implications for strategic EID management.     

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.