疏忽责任与责任保险的需求

本文研究侵权法体系里疏忽责任制度的两个重要特点。首先,根据单侧模型的分析,在疏忽责任制度里过度严格的行业标准并不会抑制企业的风险活动,因为他们可以选择成为"疏忽"而不需要去忍受过多的预防成本;其次,研究了为什么理论上疏忽责任制度里不存在责任保险的需求,但实际上在实施疏忽责任制度的国家里责任保险却异常发达的原因;通过信息模型,给出了责任保险存在的两个必要条件:一是信息的价值必须为正,二是阻止的成本必须大于满足不成为"疏忽"标准的注意成本和保险成本之和。     

Risk,Liability, and Monopoly

The paper explores a monopolist's safety and output choices when there are potentially large-scale claims that can lead to firm insolvency. Analysis of a monopolized market yields different conclusions than models of rule choice where perfect competition or simple cost-minimization are assumed. The following are shown to be true when consumers do not internalize expected, uncompensated hazard costs: (1) potentially insolvent firms may make more efficient safety and output choices than fully capitalized firms and (2), for any level of capitalization, compliance with a negligence rule—where liabilities are removed—may in fact result in less output and safety than under strict liability, where hazard costs are at least partially internalized. When consumers fully discount risks, a negligence rule dominates strict liability because it allows for less costly, credible commitments to profit- and welfare-maximizing safety investments. The analysis demonstrates that the optimal legal system—including financial responsibility requirements—is particularly sensitive to market structure and the characteristics of firms’ risk reduction technology     

Marketing Strategy, Product Safety, and Ethical Factors in Consumer Choice

Firms that wish to be morally responsible in providing products that meet a high standard of safety may face problems competing against firms that make unsafe products and sell these products at cheap prices; these problems may be compounded when consumers do not accurately process information about safety and risk. This paper presents a conceptual argument that the tort system may serve to promulgate information which makes it feasible for firms to market safe products even in the face of these competitive obstacles.To corroborate the conceptual argument, the paper presents the results of an experimental study about the impact of negligence liability information on consumer product safety evaluation. The results show that provision of negligence information heightens consumer concern for safety and firms' ethical behavior, and increases the proportion of consumer choices in favors of the brands sold by manufacturers with a favorable track record for quality. More importantly, they indicate that provision of negligence information reduces the likelihood that brands which conform to inferior safety standards will be chosen by consumers who care about safety standards.     

BETTER THAN DYNAMIC MEAN‐VARIANCE: TIME INCONSISTENCY AND FREE CASH FLOW STREAM

As the dynamic mean‐variance portfolio selection formulation does not satisfy the principle of optimality of dynamic programming, phenomena of time inconsistency occur, i.e., investors may have incentives to deviate from the precommitted optimal mean‐variance portfolio policy during the investment process under certain circumstances. By introducing the concept of time inconsistency in efficiency and defining the induced trade‐off, we further demonstrate in this paper that investors behave irrationally under the precommitted optimal mean‐variance portfolio policy when their wealth is above certain threshold during the investment process. By relaxing the self‐financing restriction to allow withdrawal of money out of the market, we develop a revised mean‐variance policy which dominates the precommitted optimal mean‐variance portfolio policy in the sense that, while the two achieve the same mean‐variance pair of the terminal wealth, the revised policy enables the investor to receive a free cash flow stream (FCFS) during the investment process. The analytical expressions of the probability of receiving FCFS and the expected value of FCFS are derived.     

The Relationship Between Competition and Incumbent’s Innovation

A static model is developed to analyse the incumbent’s innovation strategy under monopoly and duopoly. A number of potential objectives for the incumbent are modelled here, including the maximization of revenue, profit, and welfare (which are common among the network industries). Its marginal cost depends upon investment in new technologies and processes. The incumbent chooses its price and its level of investment in innovation. The incumbent’s elasticity of demand under both market structures and the incumbent’s market share under duopoly determine which market structure creates more incentives to innovate. For certain values of these variables, duopoly provides more incentives to innovate than monopoly. As expected, the incentives to innovate increase when the incumbent places greater weight on social welfare.     

Dynamic Agency and Investment Theory under Model Uncertainty

We extend dynamic agency and investment theory by incorporating model uncertainty. As concerns regarding model uncertainty induce a trade‐off between incentives and ambiguity sharing, the principal tends to delay the cash payout to the agent. We find model uncertainty lowers the firm value, the average q and marginal q, where q is defined as the ratio between a physical asset's market value and its replacement value. Furthermore, model uncertainty leads to insufficient investment, which provides an alternative explanation for under‐investment. Finally, the optimal pay‐performance sensitivity of the agent's continuation value to the firm's output is state dependent and exceeds the lower bound when it is close to the payout boundary.     

The effects of incentive types and appeal regulatory framing in travel advertising

What types of incentives and regulatory-framed advertising appeals are preferable when the promoted travel destination in a travel advert is spatially distant vs. near? Based on construal-level theory, this paper addresses this question by investigating whether there is a matching effect between the spatial distance of the travel destination and the incentives or the regulatory-framed appeals in ads. The experimental results indicate that when the promoted travel destination is spatially distant, consumers prefer non-monetary incentives and promotion-framed appeals. When the travel destination is spatially near, however, monetary incentives and prevention-framed appeals can generate better advertising effectiveness.     

Liability of Foreignness in Fast-Expanding Markets: Evidence from Ghana

In this study, we sought to establish if the idea of liability of foreignness (LOF) also persists in the fast-expanding markets (FEMs) and whether there are certain firm characteristics that can mitigate or accentuate this effect. We utilize data from the World Bank enterprise surveys conducted in Ghana in 2007 and 2013. We operationalize liability as the probability that a firm suffered from a crime in the year under study. We also specify empirical probit and instrumental probit models with controls to answer the above research question. We find that there is LOF in fast-expanding markets, and this effect is robust to different specifications. Given that our liability is crime, we moderate the LOF effect with data on security expenditure. The results still show that even if firms increased their security expenditure, the LOF effect still persisted. The study makes a contribution to the international business literature by testing the LOF effect in a new unit of analysis and is also one of the earliest to operationalize a firm's liability in the form of crime it suffers in its operating environment. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Retailer–manufacturer responsibility in the marketing of firearms: exploring the concept of negligent distribution

One of the most divisive, controversial issues confronting Americans today is the regulation of firearms. Statistics pertaining to firearm-related injuries and death in the United States are staggering; approximately 32,000 Americans die annually from gunshot wounds, the vast majority of which can be attributed to handguns. Estimates of the costs of gun-related violence in the United States run as high as $100 billion/year. Not surprisingly, the firearms death rate in the United States is among the highest in the world, and clearly the highest among industrialized nations. To what extent, if any, do manufacturers and retailers share responsibility for harm caused by firearms? Manufacturer/retailer responsibility for firearm-related injuries may be tested under any one or more of a number of legal theories: products liability, public nuisance, and negligence. Of particular interest to marketers and retailers is the assertion that responsibility can be traced to negligent distribution practices. Although negligent distribution has been alleged in a number of key cases, the concept remains ambiguous. What does seem clear is that legal responsibility for injuries and death attributable to handguns has expanded, and negligence in marketing and distribution practices will become a paramount issue shaping the future direction of the firearms industry worldwide.     

股权激励、代理成本与企业投资效率

将股权激励、所有权结构、代理成本与投资效率纳入一个统一的分析框架,使用产权属性作为调节变量,代理成本作为中介变量,实证检验股权激励是否影响投资效率,以及股权激励、所有权结构、代理成本与投资效率之间的关系。结果表明:股权激励能够抑制上市公司的非效率投资,代理成本的中介效应显著,但所占比重很小,非国有企业的抑制作用大于国有企业,非国有企业的中介传导机制畅通;国有企业"期权激励"方式能够显著抑制非效率投资,非国有企业的非效率投资通过实施"股票激励"方式能够得到显著抑制;实施股权激励计划能够显著抑制上市公司的投资不足,非国有企业的抑制作用大于国有企业,非国有企业的代理成本中介效应机制畅通,国有上市公司的代理成本中介效应不显著。     

Merger and Innovation Incentives in a Differentiated Industry

This paper considers a duopoly with product differentiation and examines the interaction between merger and innovation incentives. The analysis reveals that a merger tends to discourage innovation, unless the investment cost is sufficiently low. This result holds irrespective of whether side payments between firms are allowed. When side payments between insiders within the merged firm are permitted, a standard result in the literature is reconfirmed, which suggests that a bilateral merger-to-monopoly is always profitable. When such side payments are not permitted, however, it is shown that a merger is not profitable when the efficiency of the new technology is relatively high and the investment cost is below a particular level.     

CEO given names and corporate green investment

Drawing on the psychology of names, this study examines whether a CEO having a given name that has a moral meaning (a moral name) affects corporate investment decisions on environmental protection. We find that a CEO having a moral name plays a significant role in increasing a firm's green investment. Further analysis shows that this positive relationship is more pronounced for state-owned firms. When CEOs' economic incentives are increased, the positive effect of CEOs' moral names on green investment is reduced. Overall, our findings suggest that given names with moral meanings have implications for the moral behavior of executives.     

Labor market equilibria under limited liability

This paper explores the impact of limited liability on labor market equilibria. Assuming risk-neutrality, the effect of limited liability on production decisions is neutral. It is demonstrated that neutrality of the production decision will not hold under safety-first type of risk aversion. In particular limited liability generally decreases usage of capital. The changes in the quality of labor depend on the magnitude of complementarity between capital and labor and on whether the output clasticity of labor is greater or less than unity. Hence it is possible for limited liability to decrease the usage of labor and capital and hence reduce output.     

Risk taking under transition: An empirical comparison between Chinese,western-, and eastern-German managers

Even after 10 years, countries under transition are still on their way to becoming developed, internationally competitive countries. At this stage it is helpful for business cooperation to know whether managers in countries undergoing transition are behaving like socialists or Western managers, or somewhere in between. Many joint ventures and other alliances between Western companies and companies in countries in transition are seeking to establish new markets with new products or new technologies (i.e., new processes). They are risky because the returns are uncertain. Understanding the risk attitudes of managers in countries in transition can explain different investment behavior and provide vital information for installing the right incentives. This study compares the risk attitudes of Chinese, eastern, and western German managers. Chinese managers' risk attitudes seem to be more similar to the attitudes of western German managers than to those of their counterparts in eastern Germany. Some of the reasons and consequences are discussed in this article. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

State tax competition for foreign direct investment: a winnable war?

When a multinational firm invests in a country, potential host states compete for the firm by offering firm-specific tax reductions. Critics blast such incentives for transferring rents to the firm without affecting the investment decision. In fact, these incentives are tied to the firm's use of domestic inputs and therefore affect output decisions. With positive interstate spillovers, a federal subsidy is necessary to reach the national optimum without tax competition. Competition reduces state taxes and the need for federal subsidies. Also, under competition, the firm locates efficiently. Therefore, tax competition does not always reduce national welfare.     

Bending and Stretching the Health Care Cost Curve

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) has a number of provisions that aimed at slowing the rate of growth of health care spending. This paper examines the most prominent of these provisions and finds them to be seriously flawed and unlikely to deliver savings as intended. They are either too weak or liable to compromise quality. Moreover, some of the most important drivers of health care costs, such as fee for service payments to physicians under Medicare or limitations on physician liability are not addressed adequately. Thus, it is unlikely that the PPACA in its present form will do much to reduce the growth rate of health care expenditures.     

Managerial Incentives and Investment Policy in Family Firms: Evidence from a Structural Analysis

This paper provides evidence that CEO incentive pay mediates the effect of family preferences on corporate investment policy. Our study focuses on the option portfolio volatility sensitivity vega, which motivates the risk‐taking behavior of undiversified managers. After controlling for factors that affect incentive pay and investment policy simultaneously, we find that one‐third of underinvestment in riskier R&D projects in active family firms can be attributed to a significantly lower vega. Passive family firms allocate more capital to R&D as opposed to active family firms, and are more active in M&A deal making. In contrast to many prior studies, pay incentives and families are not associated with capital expenditures. Overall, our empirical results suggest that CEO pay incentives induce investment policy contingent on firm risk. Family CEO incentive pay manifests the family preference for lower risk, especially in firms with higher firm risk. Nonetheless, after replacing family CEOs with outside professionals, investments in both R&D and M&A increase, which is consistent with the family preference for extended investment horizons. Interestingly, such a preference seems not to be manifested in incentive pay.     

Trade Policy Making in a Small Island Economy: The WTO Review of the Maldives

The purpose of this paper is to examine trade policy regime and trade‐related development issues in the Maldives on the basis of the Trade Policy Review Maldives 2003 of the WTO. The key theme of the paper is that, given the narrow resource base and small domestic market, openness to foreign trade and investment remains the ‘natural’ policy choice for a small developing economy like the Maldives. Since the late 1980s, the Maldivian government has made considerable progress in implementing policy reforms driven by this conviction. However, the reform process is far from complete. High import tariffs maintained predominantly on revenue considerations, a large direct role played by the public sector in foreign trade and some key sectors of the economy, lack of transparency in duty concessions and other investment incentives, failure to incorporate environmental concerns as part of the national development policy, and delays in meeting reform commitments under the WTO are among the key items of the unfinished reform agenda.     

财产保险投资所得课税规则的国际比较及其启示

财产保险投资所得课税规则涉及资本利得的税务处理和一般性投资所得的税务处理两个方面,如何对待实现的和未实现的资本利得或损失是形成税制差异的核心所在。我国应通过扩大投资准备金税前扣除范围、适当降低资本利得适用税率等方式对财产保险投资给予税收支持。     

湖北葛洲坝三联公司向美国法院申请执行中国法院就美国罗宾逊公司所供直升机产品责任损害判决案评析

湖北葛洲坝三联实业股份有限公司向美国罗宾逊直升机有限公司购买的直升机因产品质量问题而坠毁。中国公司先在美国起诉,美国公司以法院不方便管辖为理由,要求移交中国法院审理。中国法院作出不利于美国公司的判决,中国公司向美国法院申请执行中国法院的判决。美国公司企图以法律文书送达不当、超过诉讼时效为由,要求美国法院驳回执行请求。美国联邦地区法院认为中国判决超过时效,驳回中国公司的请求。但美国联邦上诉法院则根据《海牙公约》和美国法律,认为中国法院判决没有超过时效,从而支持了中国公司的请求。本文在概述案情、法院推理的基础上,就本案涉及的法律问题进行了评析,以便对今后中国企业在类似的涉美诉讼中有所借鉴。