U.S.-China Economic and Political Relations: Youths’ Perceptions

This paper is a study of the perceptions of young adults in the U.S. and China on the relations between the two nations. We conducted a case study by distributing a 17 question survey to 201 American undergraduate students (NYC) and 164 Chinese undergraduate students (Shanghai). The questions probed their views of U.S. and China’s economic and political systems, the future economic growth and political power in the world of the two nations, and the future political and economic relations between the two powers. The results of our study reveal a number of important perceptions that both U.S. and Chinese students have, some being similar and others being in sharp contrast. Most students in both countries view future political and economic relations between the U.S. and China predominantly as cooperative but only based on each nation’s self-interests. Both Chinese and American students agree that China is gaining political strength and economic influence among the advanced and the emerging nations of the world. While most of the U.S. students believe that China has been and will continue to grow at a much faster rate than the U.S., Chinese students are more likely to believe that this rate of growth is unsustainable. The results from our survey are compared and contrasted to the findings of national surveys for both countries. We believe that the study provides valuable insights into the similarities and differences in viewpoints of the next generation of adults in both nations about future U.S.-China relations.     

我国审计市场规模经济研究

本文借助产业组织理论框架，采用规范研究的方法分析了我国审计市场规模经济的现状和存在的问题。研究结果发现，在我国审计市场上“四大”具有很强的规模效应，我国本土事务所的规模经济效应不明显。为了优化我国审计市场结构，作者提出了打造大型事务所和培育事务所的行业专长等政策建议。     

The impact of labour unions on external auditor selection and audit scope: evidence from the Korean market

We examine whether labour unions influence external auditor selection and audit scope. As a major user group of financial information, labour unions likely demand financial information of high quality and thus high-quality audits. As a union’s request for wage increases is likely strong when a firm is performing well, management facing wage negotiations with the labour union has incentives to manipulate earnings downward and may therefore prefer auditors who allow more discretion. Using union data unique to Korea during 2005–2008, we find that firms with a stronger labour union tend to choose higher-quality auditors (i.e. Big N or industry specialist auditors). We also find that unionization is negatively (positively) associated with positive (negative) abnormal audit fees and audit hours, and the effects are more pronounced when the union is stronger and more active. Given that departures from normal audit fees and audit hours in either direction arguably impair audit quality, this finding is consistent with our prediction of unions’ demand for high-quality audits. Overall, our findings suggest that labour unions play an important role in determining audit quality.     

Overlooked alternatives in managerial investment decisions: a reply

Some empirical evidence on the question of product differentiation in the market for audits is presented. Using agency cost and signalling frameworks we posit that there will be a demand for varying levels of audit quality. Because audit quality is not directly observable to investors we postulate that quality will be proxied by the auditor's brand name reputation. Big Eight auditors are categorized as being high quality producers. Using data on companies newly listing on the New Zealand Stock Exchange we test the derived models of auditor choice. Auditor choice is a dummy variable (0,1) partitioned on the basis of non Big Eight and Big Eight accounting firms. The results provide support for the idea of product differentiation in the market for audits.     

Guanxi: Personal connections in Chinese society

Guanxi is known to be an important feature of Chinese society, and while studies of the subject are voluminous, the present study attempts to explore two critical aspects that tend to be neglected. First, previous studies have mostly dealt with guanxi in business activities, but we analyze the meanings of guanxi in the context of ordinary people. More importantly, even though guanxi has routinely been attributed to Confucianism, it begs the more fundamental question of why Chinese society has developed Confucianism and why the latter has become the dominant ideology over the centuries. We provide a plausible account of this important question from both sociological and economic perspectives. Secondly, we illustrate the general implications of guanxi in Chinese society, in particular relating guanxi to the development of democracy and of the rule of law. Consequently, its significance in Chinese society is actually more important than what has been suggested in the literature. Finally, we present some preliminary empirical evidence, based on survey results, of the importance of guanxi in contemporary Chinese society.     

强制性与自愿性审计师变更下的经济后果比较--来自1997-2001年中国上市公司的经验证据

本文在国内较早对审计师变更后上市公司对审计师的选择行为及其经济后果进行了较为全面地实证研究,并首次比较了自愿性和强制性两种不同审计师变更的差异,运用1997-2001年的数据,我们发现,强制性变更公司和自愿性变更公司在变更前后的财务状况、审计师选择、审计意见均存在着较大的差别,并且,这些审计师选择行为与审计意见的回归结果也存在重大差异,相比之下,自愿性变更公司表现出更明显的"意见购买"迹象,它们通过选择一贯对客户出具非标比例较低的"温和"审计师这种较为隐蔽的行为在一定程度上实现了其目的.     

企业产权、财务重述与审计师变更——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

文章运用我国上市公司的数据,实证检验了上市公司的财务重述行为对审计师变更的影响。研究结果表明,对于国有企业来说,重述公司的审计师发生变更的概率要低于非重述公司,但如果重述公司上期被出具了标准无保留意见,审计师变更的概率会上升;在非国有企业中,未发现重述与审计师变更之间存在显著相关关系。对国有企业来说,财务重述与审计师变更类型之间无显著关系;在非国有企业,有微弱的证据表明,财务重述公司更容易将事务所变更为小所,如果上期被出具了标准无保留意见,这种倾向更明显。研究结果表明,上市公司和审计师之间存在"审计合谋",这一问题在国有企业中更为严重。     

Dynamics of volatility transmission between the U.S. and the Chinese agricultural futures markets

The U.S. and China are two of the biggest players in the world agricultural market. The literature documents that volatility in the U.S. agricultural futures market spills over significantly to that of China. This article provides further insights into the spillovers from China to the U.S. as well as the time horizon and dynamics of the bidirectional spillovers through the application of a multivariate extension of the heterogeneous autoregressive model, in relation to four commodities – soybean, wheat, corn and sugar. The results confirm the existence of significant spillovers from the U.S. to China for four commodities, which are primarily generated by the shorter-term volatility components in the U.S., and provide evidence for the increasing pricing power of the Chinese market. The findings are robust against various specifications and have important investment and policy implications.     

代理成本与审计师选择--基于中国IPO公司的研究

西方大量研究表明,公司的代理冲突程度越高,选择大事务所进行审计的动力就越强。文章在对179家IPO公司研究后发现,建立在英美市场经济条件下的代理理论对我国审计师选择行为的解释力并不充分。在公司规模、成长性、财务杠杆、管理层持股比例、董事会独立性等反映公司代理冲突的变量中,仅公司规模与是否选择大事务所进行审计有显著正向关系,管理层持股与是否选择大事务所审计则呈倒U形关系,没有发现成长性、财务杠杆与审计师选择存在显著关系的证据。     

终极控制权、审计师行业专长与盈余稳健性

文章探讨了上市公司终极控制权和审计师行业专长对会计盈余信息稳健性的影响。研究结果表明,终极控制权与现金流权的分离程度越大,公司的盈余信息越不稳健;相对于非行业专长审计师审计的公司,专长审计师审计的公司对损失的确认更及时;更重要的是发现具有行业专长的审计师能够显著抑制由于终极控制权分离所造成的会计盈余信息不稳健的行为。国内外学者研究表明,稳健的会计盈余信息能够导致正面的经济后果,文章的研究结论暗示雇佣一个行业专长的会计师事务所对存在终极控制权分离的公司是有利的。     

Not all international monetary shocks are alike for the Japanese economy

This paper examines the influence of monetary aggregates shocks in the U.S., China and the Euro area on Japan. China's monetary expansion has significant effects on Japan's economy that are quite different from those of the U.S. and Euro area. In line with the implications of the Mundell–Fleming model when there are capital controls in place, Chinese monetary expansion is found to primarily affect Japan through trade. The income absorption effect of China's monetary expansion is substantial for Japan. China's monetary expansion results in significant increases in Japan's industrial production, exports and inflation, and decreases in the trade-weighted yen. After 24 months, monetary shocks in China forecast 20% of the variation in Japan's real trade balance. In contrast, U.S. monetary expansion results in contraction in Japan's industrial production, exports and trade balance (expenditure-switching). Monetary expansion in the Euro area does not significantly affect Japan. Structural vector error correction models and a factor-augmented model are estimated to establish robustness of results.     

The Analysis of U.S. Deposit Insurance System and the Enlightenment to China

U.S. deposit insurance system has important and deep influence on the building and operating of the deposit insurance system for many countries in the world. Based on the analysis of the development stage and status quo of the U.S. deposit insurance system, this paper suggests that China should learn from the experience of U.S. deposit insurance system, to build and perfect the laws of deposit insurance system, and the mandatory, the scope, the insurance premium, and the top insurance amount of the deposit insurance system should be stated, and the deposit insurance agencies should maintain their independence and restrain the moral hazard. Only in that way can the deposit insurance system of China be built and perfected.     

我国制造企业“服务增强”的实证研究及政策建议

通过"服务"增强制造企业竞争力、形成服务差异化竞争已成为全球化竞争和知识经济背景下我国制造企业的重要战略选择。本文在界定"制造企业服务增强"微观层面概念和阐述其表现形式的基础上,提出国内制造企业的服务增强具有明显的"质量弥补"特征;随后通过问卷调查获取国内制造业的大样本数据,针对基于要素替代的质量弥补以及服务差异化竞争对绩效的影响展开实证研究;最后,指出国内制造业服务增强存在的不足和问题,提出相应的对策建议。本文对企业管理实践者和政策制定者都有较强的启发意义。     

Signing auditors’ foreign experience and audit pricing

This study investigates whether signing auditors who have foreign experience affect audit fees. Using a sample of 20,712 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market during the period of 2007–2017, this paper finds that signing auditors’ foreign education experience is significantly positively associated with audit fees, suggesting that signing auditors with foreign education experience can earn audit fee premiums. Furthermore, audit firm size reinforces the positive relation between signing auditors with foreign education experience and audit fees. In addition, above findings are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests using alternative measures of audit fees and signing auditors with foreign education experience and our conclusions are still stand after using the PSM, Heckman two-step approach, Placebo test and differences-in-differences method to address the potential endogeneity problem.     

Does rice farming shape audit quality: Evidence from signing auditors level analysis

This study examines whether signing auditors from rice planting regions affect audit quality. Using a sample of 12,223 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market over the period of 2004–2015, our findings reveal that signing auditors from rice regions are significantly negatively associated with the likelihood of unclean audit opinions, suggesting that signing auditors with rice culture are more likely to succumb to the managers and hamper independence, and thus are more inclined to issue favorable audit opinions, and eventually impair audit quality. Furthermore, audit firm size and industry expertise attenuate the negative relation between signing auditors with rice culture and audit quality. In addition, above findings are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests using different measures of audit quality and signing auditors from rice cultivating areas and our conclusions still stand after using the Heckman two-step approach, placebo test and differences-in-differences method to address the potential endogeneity problem.     

The role of social capital in the labour market in China1

Social capital is considered to play an economic role in labour markets. It may be particularly pertinent in one that is in transition from an administered to a market‐oriented system. One factor that may determine success in the underdeveloped Chinese labour market is thus guanxi, the Chinese variant of social capital. With individual‐level measures of social capital, we test for the role of guanxi using a dataset designed for this purpose, covering 7,500 urban workers and conducted in early 2000. The evidence is consistent with the basic hypothesis. Both measures of social capital – size of social network and Communist Party membership – have significant and substantial coefficients in the income functions. Social capital can have influence either in an administered system or in one subject to market forces. It appears to do so in both parts of the labour market.     

Cross-border innovation intermediaries – matchmaking across institutional contexts

This paper draws attention to the specific aspect of institutional environments in international matchmaking for innovation. While technology is largely global this exploratory study of 18 cross-border cases between Europe and China points to the impact of distant institutional environments on the success and structure of cross-border collaborative innovation. Addressing differences in governance, market regulation, policy, IPR protection, language and culture like the Chinese guanxi are specific services based on dedicated capabilities of international innovation intermediaries.     

审计师变更的原因:意见分歧

本文选取2002至2005年间我国A股市场发生自愿性审计师变更的公司为研究样本,主要运用Logistic回归模型,对我国上市公司审计师变更的原因进行实证研究。结果发现,异地审计、控股股东或董事长变更、非标意见、盈余管理是影响审计师变更的显著因素,而财务困境变量对模型并没有显著的解释能力。本文将审计师变更的原因分为意见分歧和非意见分歧,并发现,与非意见分歧相比,意见分歧是审计师变更的更为主要的原因。本文还发现,公司披露的审计师变更原因并不可靠,而更可能是为了掩盖意见分歧的借口。     

贸易统计差异与中美贸易平衡问题

本文研究发现(1)中美进出口计价方式不同和运输时滞导致双边贸易统计数据存在差异是自然的。(2)参照剔除香港转口毛利后中美贸易新估计值,1995—2003年美国对华出口低估年均在24%以上,从华进口高估年均在35%以上,而中国对美出口低估年均在20%以上,从美进口相对没变。(3)考虑服务贸易后,美中商品与服务贸易逆差估计值与中国对美贸易顺差新估计值已相当接近。上述结果得到IMF数据的证实。(4)外商在华直接投资增加会造成中国对美出口增加、对美贸易顺差增加。依据中美两国月度数据计量的结论是相一致的。这一结果证实中美贸易平衡问题已超越中美两国贸易范围而成为外商在华直接投资所引致的贸易逆差转移问题。剔除外资企业进出口贡献及贸易统计差异后,中国对美贸易估计值已非常趋近于美国对华贸易估计值。     

Economics of Guanxi as an Interpersonal Investment Game

The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple model of guanxi given stylized facts. I first outline the intrinsic characteristics of guanxi to draw the stylized facts, and then use these facts to model it as an interpersonal investment game. I find that the degrees of the ability and loyalty of the Recipient must be reasonably high enough for the interpersonal investment to take place. After the investment has occurred, the degree of loyalty must be higher than that of the ability to guarantee stable gaunxi relationships. When the interpersonal investment is made, it is a signal of trust in the ability and loyalty of the Recipient. However, if the ability factor dominates, then the Recipient will not always feel loyal enough to return the favor. This indicates that loyalty counts for more than ability. A related result is that a stable guanxi relationship is unlikely to occur for a highly able person given the equal chance of the two characteristics. This paper also presents some interesting implications for corruption and lock‐in relationships.