Family Business Succession in Hong Kong: The Case of Yung Kee

This case study examines the succession of Chinese family business in Hong Kong, drawing upon theories of the firm. More specifically, it utilizes capabilities theories, property rights economics and Neo-Confucianism to understand management disputes and infighting among the members in a Chinese family business in Hong Kong. This paper will argue that the founder of a Chinese business firm in Hong Kong is able to lead his or her offspring to create a dynamic enterprise via charismatic leadership and family rules embedded in traditional Chinese values. However, these two strategic assets disappear following the passing away of the founder as well as the emergence of new social values. When the founder passes on the enterprise to his or her offspring using more or less the equal inheritance system, the traditional Chinese value is unable to enforce the leader’s will to consolidate the strengths of the second generation family members to maintain the founder’s business. Furthermore, when the business is owned by all family members, property rights of the firm become unclear. Without effective enforcement of traditional Chinese values and with collective ownership rights, some family members will have the incentive to capture the economic rent that is shared by all members. In other words, some family members behave opportunistically or even cheat in order to capture economic gains in the public domain. High monitoring and enforcement costs in the form of court battle and endless disputes will occur. Rent dissipation occurs in the form of deterioration of the quality of the family business. This case study is based on Yung Kee, an internationally well-known roast goose restaurant in Hong Kong as an illustration.     

The Stakeholder Model: The Influence of the Ownership and Governance Structures

This paper addresses the possibilities to introduce the stakeholder model in the firm, especially the possibility to give property or decision rights to stakeholders. This paper argues that it is not practical to give full property rights to more than one group of stakeholders. Decision rights to employees and creditors are already in place in some countries, but the possibility to introduce them more generally to other stakeholder groups depends very much on the governance and ownership structure of the firm and the legal environment. The future of the stakeholder model in a globalised economy is also analysed.Eva Jansson is currently associate professor of managerial economics at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. She holds a BA in statistics from the University of Stockholm and graduated in economics from Universitat of Barcelona. She holds a Ph.D. from Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. Her research interests have been in fiscal policy, regulations of service sectors and recently topics in corporate governance. Special interest has been given to international comparison of ownership structures, changes in ownership structure of Spanish firms and to the evolution of ownership structures of privatized Spanish firms. Recent works include topics on the stakeholder model.     

Gender and Property Rights: Capital,Kin, and Owner Influence in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Sweden

Historically an important dimension of the separation of management from ownership has been gendered property rights. During the formative years of industrial capitalism, men had privileged property rights. By marrying they acquired capital of their own, as well as the control of the wife's assets. In Sweden unmarried women were gradually given economic rights, but for married women coverture continued for another 50 years, until 1921. This seemingly illogical development could partly be explained by a transaction cost approach. Thus, while the introduction of full property rights for unmarried women must certainly have lowered transaction costs, the extension of such rights to married women would probably have increased these costs. As women formally gained equal rights to dispose of their capital, ownership did not in practice necessarily mean control. Today in Sweden both top management and boards are almost exclusively male, while women have gained some access to middle management. The immediate mechanisms behind this informal reproduction of men's privileged access to economic power should probably be sought in strategies such as gendered social closure, male networks and bonding.     

The characteristics of intellectual property rights regimes: How formal and informal institutions affect outward FDI location

This study examines the institutional arrangements that define the characteristics of national legal systems that are used to protect intellectual property (IP) assets embedded in outward FDI. The focus of the study is on how the institutional underpinnings of IPR regimes affect the costs and risk of using legal arenas to enable effective use of IP assets. Following a property rights approach it is postulated that formal and informal institutional arrangements influence how IP regimes affect the transaction costs and risk associated with converting ownership rights over IP into economic rights. Informal institutions are considered to affect the behaviour of agents involved in enforcing legal rights. This behaviour influences how IP law is implemented in legal arenas and thereby impacts on the efficacy of IPR regimes to help secure economic rights from the use of IP assets. Using data on outward FDI from the USA to 42 host countries the results find that the strength of informal institutions connected to the enforcement of IP in a country directly affects outcomes and positively moderates the effect of formal legal aspects of IP law on FDI flows. The results highlight the importance of informal institutional aspects connected to the behaviour of enforcement agents when using national legal systems to protect IP rights in cross-frontier transactions.     

Trade and the enforcement of environmental property rights

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between trade and the regulation of what are otherwise open-access resources when enforcement of property rights is costly. When enforcement costs are significant, environmental property rights are only adopted and enforced when the potential resource rents exceed the regulatory cost. Since trade affects the magnitude of these rents, trade can affect the willingness to regulate. One of the most striking consequences of the presence of an enforcement cost is that the decision to liberalize trade, even at autarkic prices, can result in a switch in the regulatory regime and potentially reduce economic welfare.     

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights: The Special Case of China

China is the largest source of counterfeit goods. Both U.S. and European Union customs statistics put the People's Republic of China at the top of the list of pirated product seizures. Along with the remarkable growth in the Chinese economy and exports has come the growth of counterfeit product production and distribution throughout the world. To present a full picture of the many intellectual property rights (IPR) protection problems in China this article reviews Chinese history and traditional attitudes toward individual ownership of IP under Confucianism and communism. Finally, the article presents a view of the current enforcement of IPR rights in China describing the major difficulties encountered by rights owners.     

Managerial Ownership and Agency Cost: Evidence from Bangladesh

This study examines the influence of managerial ownership on firm agency costs among listed firms in Bangladesh. This is an institutional setting that features a mixture of agency costs. This institutional setting has a concentration of ownership by managers, but the firms are not solely owned by managers. The extant literature suggests that the sacrifice of wealth by the principal and potential costs associated with monitoring the agents is known as the agency cost. This study uses three measures of agency cost: the ‘expense ratio’, the ‘Q-free cash flow interaction’, and the ‘asset utilisation ratio’. The finding of the study is that managerial ownership reduces the firm agency cost only under the ‘asset utilisation ratio’ measure of agency cost; this is robust with regard to a number of robustness tests. Furthermore, the non-linearity tests suggest that the convergence of interest is evident with very high and low levels of managerial ownership. The entrenchment effect by the owners is evident at moderate levels of managerial ownership. Although there has been great scepticism among management researchers on the validity of agency theory, overall, the findings of this study do not reject the validity of agency theory. Given that the entrenchment by managers is evident at certain levels of ownership and that the agency problem may still exist between insiders and outsiders, legislative guidelines for controlling share ownership may be required.     

享年次高的诺贝尔奖得主——新制度经济学大师罗纳德·科斯

1991年诺贝尔经济学奖得主、英国和美国(双重国籍)经济学家和法学家罗纳德·科斯是交易成本理论、科斯定理和科斯猜想的首创者,法律经济学和新制度经济学的开山鼻祖,产权理论和产权经济学的奠基人,他开启了产权理论、法律经济学和新制度经济学三个领域的研究方向。科斯是国际经济学界的泰斗级大师和巨匠,他在阐述经济组织产生的原理、交易成本分析以及推动法学、经济史和组织理论的发展方面作出重要贡献,发展了新古典经济学,开创了现代企业理论。科斯一生都关切和热爱中国,一直密切关注着中国的经济改革,其经济理论和深邃思想对中国的经济改革影响巨大而深远。     

Ownership and capital structure in Latin America

This study evaluates the capital-structure determinants of Latin American firms using a comprehensive sample covering seven countries. Firms in the region have debt levels similar to those of U.S. firms, which is puzzling, given that Latin American firms experience relatively lower tax benefits and higher bankruptcy costs. This study argues that ownership-concentrated firms avoid issuing equity because they do not want to share control rights. Latin American firms have high ownership concentration, which creates an ideal setting to study how ownership concentration explains firms' capital structure. Consistent with the control argument, this study finds a positive relation between leverage and ownership concentration, when losing control becomes an issue. Also, the study shows a positive relation between leverage and growth. In addition, the study reports that other determinants that do not proxy for control rights are consistent with previous findings. Firms that are larger, have more tangible assets, and are less profitable are also more leveraged.     

相关和自主的立体企业剩余产权--主体性的视角和观点

经济学的企业产权理论所揭示的是相关性企业产权,是关于产权的一般规定和共性,是不完整的。企业产权必定具有特殊性,具有共性之上的个性和相关性基础上的自主性,尤其是从管理学和主体性的视角观察,必定会得出这样的认识和结论。企业产权的本质是相关与自主统一的主体性剩余产权,而且是一种立体结构,有企业契约、团队生产和管理、企业和企业家创新等层面的相关和自主统一的主体性剩余产权。     

Asset management

Asset management—overseeing the long-term value of a property—constitutes a fourth aspect of many hotel deals that has been added to ownership, management, and financing. Usually agents for owners, asset managers can also work on behalf of the lender.     

跨国公司内部贸易的无形资产产权界定分析

本文认为,目前跨国公司内部贸易成了国际贸易一种重要形式,界定跨国公司内部转让的无形资产产权不仅是确定转让价格是否符合正常交易价格标准的关键环节,也可加强防范跨国公司通过将无形资产在跨国子公司之间内部转移,人为地操纵转移价格,损害东道国税收利益。美国以及OECD(经济合作与发展组织)就有关跨国转让无形资产产权归属问题制定了一系列相关规则。我国在制定关于跨国公司内部转让无形资产方面的法律规范时,首先要界定产权归属,在这方面可以借鉴国际有关经验特别是美国的有关规定,在主张法定所有者对受法律保护的无形资产享有控制权并获得由无形资产带来的收益的同时,对不受法律保护的无形资产则可适用开发商——协助商法则。     

TRIPs约束下的国际技术转移

《与贸易相关的知识产权协议》的签订一定程度上强化了发展中国家的知识产权保护，使技术的国际转移更多地通过贸易而非FDI的形式进行，同时，也使发展中国家的短期静态收益受损，充分利用TRIPs中的一些条款是发展中国家发展本国技术能力的重要条件。     

社会主义市场经济与中国特色现代产权制度构建

现代产权制度是我国社会主义市场经济有序运行的制度基础。归属清晰,权责明确,保护严格,流转顺畅的现代产权制度与我国以公有制为主体多种所有制共同发展的经济制度和社会主义市场经济体制相适应。通过完善法律制度、健全市场体系、深化企业改革、规范产权交易来加快中国特色的现代产权制度构建。     

Intellectual Property Securitization and Growth Capital in Retail Franchising

A retail franchisor needs growth capital so that the brand continues to grow and franchisor–franchisee relations remain strong. However, access to corporate liquidity to fund such franchise growth options is not unlimited. A method of raising finance particularly suited to retail franchisors is intellectual property (IP) securitization that allows companies to account for intangible assets such as intellectual property, royalty and brands and realize their full value. In recent years, a number of large restaurant franchisors have securitized their brands to raise funds, including Dunkin Brands and Domino's Pizza (Domino's). We use property rights approach to show that IP securitization provides mechanisms that explicitly define ownership of intangible assets within the securitization structure and thus enables a company to raise funds against these assets. Using a case study example of a retail franchise IP securitization transaction, we also provide evidence that these mechanisms are not overly restrictive and can be used more widely to help fund retail franchise growth and expansion.     

Creativity or Coercion: Alternative Perspectives on Rights to Intellectual Property

Part one of this paper considers the question of property rights in general and asks how such rights can be justified, contrasting Consequentialist with other approaches and concludes that it is impossible to avoid a broadly Consequentialist approach. Part two considers the question of intellectual property (IP) and asks how property rights justifications apply to it. The basic economics if IP is indispensable in this discussion. Finally, part three, considers IP in the light of modern technological developments. I conclude that the real dangers lie more in the specific ways government and special interests respond to this technology than from the nature of IP rights themselves. Peter Lewin is a Clinical Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, School of Management. His research and publications are varied but usually contain aspects of policy analysis. His recent work focuses on the use of knowledge by the business firm.     

‘Business Ethics from the Internal Point of View’

The notion that the firm, and economic activity in general, is inherently amoral is a central feature of positive economics that is also widely accepted in business ethics. Theories as disparate as stockholder and stakeholder theory both leave this central assumption unchallenged. Each theory argues for a different set of external ethical restrictions, but neither adequately provides an internal connection between business and the ethical rules business people are obliged to follow. This paper attempts to make this connection by arguing that the purpose of business is to produce a good or service for trade. Trade involves both a respect for individual autonomy and property rights and squarely places moral norms internal to the practice of business. Trade is not a contingent activity of business, it is a practice rule which also provides the common sense boundary between business and charity on the one hand, and crime on the other. Business and those who engage in it are, from the internal point of view, bound by the purpose of trade and not just the laws of the land.     

公私伙伴关系的公共经济学分析

公私伙伴关系(PPP)是政府与私人伙伴之间关于公共服务供给的一种协议。PPP理论从三个方面丰富和发展了公共经济学基础理论:首先,提倡政府与市场是一种合作关系;其次,它从公共产品供给主体的创新、放松所有权约束、强调服务供给效果和提升公共支出效率等方面丰富了公共产品理论;再次,它将交易成本经济学、代理理论和产权理论结合起来,置政府、市场和第三部门于一个"市场"内,融合并发展了公共选择理论。     

Ownership control of foreign affiliates: A property rights theory perspective

This paper applies property rights theory to explain changes in foreign affiliates’ ownership. Post-entry ownership change is driven by both firm-level characteristics and by the differences in the institutional environments in host countries. We distinguish between financial market development and the level of corruption as two different institutional dimensions, such that changes along these dimensions impact upon ownership change in different ways. Furthermore, we argue that changes in ownership are affected by the foreign affiliate’s relatedness with its parent’s sector, as well as by the affiliate’s maturity. We use firm level data across 125 host countries to test our hypotheses.     

《物权法》:国家、公民财产权利保障书

《中华人民共和国物权法》是一部明确物的归属、保护物权、充分发挥物的效用、维护市场经济秩序、维护国家基本经济制度、关系人民群众切身利益的民事基本法律,是法律体系中起支架作用的重要法典。它的作用:一是定分止争,通过确认物的归属,加强对物权的保护,达到维护社会正常秩序的目的。它与社会公众的衣食住行和生老病死等切身利益息息相关,密不可分,被称为"公民财产权利保障书"。二是促进物尽其用,通过规范物权人的权利义务,为物权人充分利用财产提供良好的法制环境,鼓励权利人创造财富,积累财富,扩展物业。它在总结我国民事立法和司法活动长期积累的经验基础上,结合中国的实际情况,设计出了一整套体系完备的物权法律规则,是一部保障安居乐业法,也是一部促进经济发展、构建和谐社会法。