Exploring the causal effect of religious piety on dividend policy: evidence from historical religious identification

Theory suggests that religious piety is associated with greater risk aversion and more conservative financial policies. Returns to shareholders through dividends are much more certain than returns through capital gains expected to be realized far into the future. We hypothesize that religious piety leads to a higher likelihood of dividend payments. We exploit the variation in religious piety across the US counties and estimate the effect of religion on dividend policy. To draw a causal inference, we use historical religious piety in 1971 as the instrument. Our two-stage least squares results confirm that religious piety induces firms to pay larger dividends.     

Voluntary zero-dividend paying firms: characteristics and performance

We investigate the characteristics of ‘voluntary zero dividend paying’ firms and their subsequent performance. We define NDR_HP (no dividends or repurchases, with high profitability) firms as those with profits above the industry median and yet pay out zero dividends (including share repurchases). Signalling, agency, residual dividend, and life cycle theories explain firm characteristics and dividend payouts, to which we add the novel variables CEO overconfidence and market competition. We discover that growth opportunity, capital expenditure, and CEO overconfidence are positively related to NDR_HP. In addition, we find that the NDR_HP group outperforms all other groups in terms of future performance.     

The behaviour of the US consumer price index 1913–2003: a study of seasonality in the monthly US CPI

This article analyses the seasonality in the monthly consumer price index (CPI) over the period January 1913 to December 2003. We examine three types of month effects: if the mean of monthly CPI changes of the entire data set, and of a given month were significantly different from zero; if the mean of monthly CPI changes of a given month was different from the mean of the other months; and if the variance of the monthly CPI changes for a given month was different from the variance of the other months. The mean of monthly CPI changes for the entire data set (0.27%) was found to be significantly greater than zero. The means of monthly changes show a downward trend from September to December. When the data are sliced into three sub-periods, we find an increasing trend in the means and medians of monthly changes but a decreasing trend in the SDs of the monthly changes. The mean of monthly CPI changes during the republican presidencies (0.15%) was significantly lower than during the democratic presidencies (0.38%).     

Joint implementation under asymmetric information and strategic behavior

Joint Implementation (JI) under the Framework Convention on Climate Change means that countries could partly offset their national abatement commitments by investing in CO₂ abatement projects abroad. JI is introduced as a mechanism for achieving a certain global abatement target less costly by separating the commitments from the implementation of measures. This paper studies the design of a JI contract when the investor has incomplete information about the foreign firm which carries out the JI project (the host). Asymmetric information leads to a decrease in the potential cost savings from JI. Furthermore, private information held by the potential host firm could give the firm a significant positive utility of participating in JI projects. The possibility of being a host for a JI project in the future can prevent potential host firms from investing in profitable abatement projects today. The paper analyzes the impact on emissions of CO₂ of strategic behavior among potential hosts for JI projects.     

The effect of managerial ability on dividend policy: how do talented managers view dividend payouts?

We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani’s (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, that is, variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24 000 observations across over 20 years (1989–2011), our results show that firms with more talented executives are more likely to pay dividends and, among firms that pay dividends, pay significantly larger dividends. A rise in managerial ability by one SD raises the propensity to pay dividends by 27% and, for firms that pay dividends, increases dividend payouts by 29%. Our results are consistent with the notion that talented managers, confident in their ability to keep the firm profitable, are more willing to pay larger dividends because they are less concerned about having to reduce dividends in the future. Further analysis shows that our results are not likely vulnerable to endogeneity.     

产业政策对企业跨界经营行为的影响

基于2006—2015年中国A股上市公司的数据,研究了产业政策对企业跨界经营行为的影响。结果表明:产业政策会引导企业通过跨界经营进入政策支持行业;通过有关联跨界进入政策支持行业的企业的经营绩效会显著提高,而无关联跨界反而会降低企业价值;在产业政策的引导作用下,企业为了政策寻租而采取的无关联跨界行为,既不利于自身的长远发展,又会降低产业政策的效果。     

基于创新型企业成长视角的国外创业政策述评

本文对国外支持创新型企业成长的创业政策进行了综述,分析总结了国外创业政策的含义和目标、创业政策工具的种类和其有效性研究以及改进政策效果的途径。这有利于我国有效制定和实施创业政策,从而促进我国创新型企业的快速成长,推动就业、区域创新和地区经济的发展。     

Environmental regulation and firm location choice in China

How may environmental regulation affect firm location choice? While this question has generated great research interest from high-standard, industrial economies, in this article we turn the spotlight to low-standard, developing countries and use China’s Census of Manufactures data during 2003–2008 to explore how firms with different ownership, during different policy regimes as well as from different industries may respond to environmental regulations in different ways. Results show environmental stringency has a positive effect on state-owned enterprises’ location choice during 2003–2005, but the effect becomes insignificant during 2006–2008. Private-owned enterprises, foreign-owned enterprises and collective-owned enterprises are more likely to enter areas with less stringent environmental regulations during 2003–2005. However, this pattern is reversed for the period of 2006–2008. Furthermore, the above relationships are more pronounced for firms in polluting industries.     

Welfare Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Cost Saving vs. Signaling

We compare the effects of two types of foreign direct investment (FDI) (viz., FDI for trade cost saving and FDI for signaling foreign cost of production) on consumer surplus, profit of the host-country firm and host-country welfare. We show that the effects are dramatically different. If the reason for FDI is to save trade cost, FDI (compared to export) always makes the consumers better off and the host-country producer worse off, while the effect on host-country welfare is ambiguous. However, if the FDI is to signal the foreign cost of production, FDI (compared to export) always makes the host-country producer better off and increases host-country welfare, while it makes the consumers almost always worse off.     

Strategic Policy and Environmental Quality: Helping the Domestic Industry to Provide Credible Information

This paper shows that a country can improve an industry's competitiveness by requiring domestic firms to produce at the environmental standards at which they claim to produce or otherwise impose a penalty on those firms found cheating. Competitiveness will improve because this regulation will help the domestic industry to provide credible information about the environmental quality of its production. The credible information will differentiate domestic products from other products on the world market, and in this way increase consumers' willingness to pay for domestic products. Even if the government has no preferences for environmental quality, it has incentives to regulate its cheaters in order to help the domestic industry to provide credible information and thereby improve competitiveness.     

基于不对称需求信息的激励机制模型研究

针对由单制造商和单销售商组成的供应链,提出了供应链双方需求信息对称情况下的激励机制模型,并在此基础上建立了供应链双方在需求信息不对称情况下的运作策略模型。制造商通过折扣,运用激励相容机制使销售商诚实申报需求信息,使得供应链利润最大化的同时供应链成员实现双赢。数字试验结果表明:①所提策略是有效的;②该策略不仅能提高制造商利润,而且也能改善销售商的利润。     

浅论我国农产品流通企业扩张的基本规律与政策规制

通过对农产品流通企业扩张形式全面的理论梳理, 研究总结了二种类型的农产品流通企业扩张基本规律,即纵向扩张和横向扩张,并对中国农产品企业扩张问题进行了实证研究,最后对我国农产品流通企业扩张提出建议.     

Overcompliance and Voluntary Agreements

Voluntary agreements with industry offer many examplesof overcompliance with respect to environmentalstandards. Such phenomena seem to be irrational butappear less surprising considering firms' strategiesare aimed to internalise environmental quality. Wemodel the choice of the environmental quality ofproducts in a one-shot game between a monopolist andconsumers, to show the existence of inefficientequilibria where quality is low because of moralhazard. The firm can, however, change its' equilibriumstrategy in a repeated but finite game, in order tobuild an environmental reputation if we suppose thatconsumers' information is not only imperfect withregard to quality, but also incomplete with respect toany environmental constraint that may affect thebehaviour of firms (like the threat either of astricter regulation or of potential entry). In atwo-period model, we show the existence of a perfectBayesian equilibrium in mixed strategies where thefirm can revert to the production of green products inorder to influence consumers' beliefs and acquire anenvironmentally friendly reputation. Due to thepeculiarity of environmental information (greenproducts are credence goods), we claim that anexplicit agreement is also necessary in order toestablish monitoring and controlling procedures toverify the performance of firms. These procedures canexplain per se the diffusion of voluntary agreementsthat are nevertheless self-enforcing because of thereputation effect.     

要素价格扭曲与异质性企业区位选择——基于泊松面板回归的实证研究

采用生产函数法,论文详细测算了1998-2007年中国大陆除西藏以外267个城市的要素价格扭曲。接下来,运用中国工业企业数据库中的数据,构建泊松面板回归模型考察了要素价格扭曲对于不同生产效率企业选址产生的影响。按行业、区域分别划分样本以及稳健性检验均表明:(1)较高的要素价格扭曲水平对于该地区新进入的低效率企业的期望值具有显著为正的影响,而对于该地区新进入的高效率企业的期望值则具有显著为负的影响;(2)地区运输成本和环境管制强度对于不同效率企业选址的影响存在异质性,而其他区域特征解释变量对于选址企业数量的影响均显著,且方向与理论预期一致。     

Finance,investment and innovation: A theoretical and empirical comparative analysis

The paper compares the relative efficiency of country models in the relationship between finance and investments. Results, confirmed under three different panel data estimates (Arellano-Bond GMM method, random and fixed effect estimates) suggest that: i) the UK thick market reduces informational asymmetries for large firms and for those firms providing good signals to shareholders; ii) the Japanese vertical (between firms and banks) integration and horizontal (among firms) integration almost eliminates financial constraints (the horizontal integration effect) and equates agency costs across firms (the vertical integration effect). These results are consistent with the short-termist hypothesis which assumes that the Japanese economic system can process information more efficiently reducing managerial myopic behaviour and thereby determining positive effects on long term growth.     

企业定期投资与分红的数学模型

在企业资金增长率不变情况下,分析了企业定期分红,企业定期分红与定期投资数学模型的性质．给出了企业只考虑分红时分红比例的取值范围,也说明了定期投资对企业稳定增长的重要性．