Past Returns and Investment Trust Discounts

Abstract:   The relationship between past net asset value returns and the current discount on investment trusts is investigated. The relationship is weaker for the component that is common to all trusts in the same sector, and is significantly stronger for more liquid trusts. The time lag before returns have their full impact on discounts is consistent with the requirements of distinguishing 'skill' from noise. Although discounts vary widely even within the same sector, the range of variation appears to be consistent with an arbitrage equilibrium, in which the profits of exploiting apparent pricing anomalies are just insufficient to invite arbitrage trades.     

论电信业互联互通规制创新

互联互通是一个世界性的监管难题,但又是电信业改革的基础。如果没有互联互通,新兴的运营商就难以进入市场,电信业的竞争发展就无从谈起。从我国实际情况出发,有效成分定价原则和整体价格上限法的综合运用不但能提高企业效率,降低成本,促进行业竞争,而且能避免掠夺性定价行为,价格战等行为的发生,它是我国现阶段可以考虑的一种较优的接入定价选择。     

Collusive Long-Run Investments Under Transmission Price-Caps

In the short run, constraints in the electricity transmission system may give market power to generators. This paper examines whether the constraints themselves are a long-run equilibrium outcome in a competitive environment. We show that independent transmission companies and generators can tacitly collude to raise prices to consumers and divide the resulting profits. We also show that price cap regulation does not prevent this behavior and may in fact contribute to it. The mechanism for collusion is that generators locate their plants so that a capacity-constrained transmission line lies between them and their consumer market. We show that this constraint-based collusion can be sustained in a static game without any punishment strategies.     

基于蓝牙技术的小区警情无线监测系统

蓝牙技术目前是最先进的无线网络技术,它以低成本、近距离、微功耗的无线连接为基础,取代电缆,将一定范围的计算机通信电路及设备连接起来,实现不同设备之间的快速互连。应用蓝牙技术与蓝牙芯片ROK101007相结合,提出了“智能小区警情监控系统”方案,这种“高效、快速、低耗、稳定、可靠”的方案,具有广阔的应用前景。     

Auditors' Responses to Workload Imbalance and the Impact on Audit Quality*

Using detailed data for fieldwork hours and audit hours by rank from audit engagements in Korea, we examine whether audits conducted under workload imbalance, proxied by busy‐season audits, impair audit quality, and how auditors adjust staff assignments for busy‐season audits. We generally find that busy‐season audits are associated with lower audit quality, and that audit firms reduce the involvement of senior auditors during busy‐season audits. In addition, the greater the involvement of senior auditors and junior auditors, the lesser the deterioration in audit quality. Finally, although there is no increase in interim audits in response to workload imbalance during busy seasons, increasing interim audits can mitigate the negative impact of busy‐season audits on audit quality. Our results are relevant to auditors and regulators, who have expressed concerns about the adverse effects of workload imbalance on audit quality.     

Enablers for end‐user entrepreneurship: An investigation on Italian food bloggers

This article examines unconventional entrepreneurship (accidental or end‐user entrepreneurs) to determine whether the decision‐making phase of the entrepreneurial process is collective. The analysis identified a virtuous circle that links knowledge, innovation, judgment, and decision making to collective interactions built on passion, experience, and sharing. To study food bloggers as unconventional user entrepreneurs, data were collected and analyzed using netnographic analysis. A supplementary online survey of food bloggers and their followers was also performed. Three groups of food bloggers are identified: amusing, functional, and fervent. Only fervent food bloggers, thanks to the virtuous circle built on passion, experience, and sharing as enablers, can be considered accidental or end‐user entrepreneurs.     

A general framework for price regulation of airports

Price cap regulation (PCR) was first implemented for privatized utilities in the UK in the 1980s. It has since been adopted by numerous countries as a regulatory regime in several sectors. This paper focuses on the development of different forms of price regulation of airports of which PCR is one variant. In countries where airport privatization is still in the early stages, the spectrum of airports and varied nature of regulatory regimes can be confusing and the lack of a general framework can itself become an obstacle to privatization. This paper proposes a general framework comprising decisions to be made for seven variables which is able to accommodate the diversity of airports and varied approaches that may be required as well as transitions between approaches. These approaches include light-handed regulation, price or revenue yield caps, rate of return regulation, earnings sharing, as well as choice of till.     

An Epistemological Reflection on Social and Solidarity Economy

Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is emerging as life affirming solutions to the global crises through the multiple ways people locally reinvent economic life on the margins of the capitalist system based on values of solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability. Although the SSE builds on a strong foundation of real practices and institutions of economic transformation as the way forward for us, this paper argues that this world of practice is in need of its theory to frame discourses and engage with the bigger picture with confidence as an alternative to the dominant economic paradigm. The author argues that the orthodox economics, with its ontological construct of the homo economicus, Cartesian dichotomy and logical positivist epistemology severely constrains our abilities to understand and appreciate economic alternatives based on ‘other’ rationalities. Hence, there is a need for an epistemological revolution to construct a coherent theoretical framework from the wreckages of the neoclassical economics for the SSE. This paper seeks to outline the basic structure and the key elements of the ontological and the epistemological framework for this ‘science-in-the-making’ as a step to stimulate further debate for a paradigm revolution.     

浅谈公路桥梁盖梁施工支架方案

公路桥梁中盖梁为常规构造物,工程施工时均涉及到盖梁施工方案的比选和确定。本文将对两个项目工程的盖梁施工方案进行比较、分析和总结,对今后盖梁施工方案的编制有所帮助和借鉴。     

集聚、研发要素流动与产业竞争力 ——以高端服务业为例

利用新经济地理学理论构建了高端服务业集聚、研发要素流动影响高端服务业竞争力的理论模型。理论分析表明,高端服务业竞争力与高端服务业集聚度、研发要素流动、劳动力数量、工业品支出份额正相关,与产品间替代弹性负相关。继而,利用我国大陆31个省份2003-2018年数据,空间探索性分析发现中国省域间高端服务业竞争力存在明显空间正自相关性。空间面板计量模型检验结果也很好地支持了理论模型的结论。表明高端服务业聚集度、R&D人员流动量和R&D资本流动量的提升正向促进高端服务业竞争力,但三者的总效应主要是由直接溢出效应决定的。本文结论为我国进一步促进高端服务业集聚,统筹区际间研发要素流动,进而提升中国高端服务业竞争力提供政策启示。