代理成本与我国铁路改革

文章通过从四个方面分析我国国有铁路存在的代理问题与代理成本,认为如何有效化解代理成本是我国铁路改革的关键,并围绕有效化解代理成本,提出了我国铁路改革的路径和措施。     

浅析我国上市公司资本结构与代理成本问题及对策

现代资本结构理论指出 :在有效的市场条件下 ,上市公司资本结构的变动会影响代理成本的高低 ,进而影响公司的价值。文章在深入分析目前我国上市公司存在着偏好股权融资、代理成本过大等问题的基础上 ,结合MM理论权衡模型 ,提出了优化资本结构 ,降低代理成本 ,提高公司价值的对策和建议     

公司治理委托—代理成本的最优化研究

委托—代理成本是公司治理成本的主要成分,其最优化是公司治理的理想结果。本文扩展了传统意义委托—代理成本的内涵,设立模型分别探讨了搜寻成本、激励成本、监督成本等的最优化问题,提出了公司治理机制建设的思路。     

治理环境、治理结构与代理成本——来自国有上市公司面板数据的经验证据

近年来,大股东与小股东之间的代理问题成为研究的焦点。然而,我国大部分上市公司仍由国家控制,管理者与股东之间的代理问题仍可能是主要的代理问题,却得到了较少的实证关注。基于2003-2005年的面板数据,利用面板最小二乘法固定效应模型实证检验了治理环境、内部治理结构对国有上市公司代理成本的影响。研究发现:(1)外部治理环境对代理成本有显著影响,政府干预显著增加了代理成本,而提高市场化进程和法律对投资者的保护水平有利于减少代理成本;(2)“一股独大”和集中的股权结构能显著减少代理成本,而“多股同大”增加了代理成本,高度分散的股权结构在我国尚不普遍;(3)大董事会和独立董事有利于减少代理成本,而两职兼任增加了代理成本,高管持股对代理成本无显著影响。     

股权结构、大股东行为与代理成本Ⅱ

公司治理所要解决的主要是代理成本问题。在股权分散型公司,公司控制权掌握在经营者手中,代理成本主要表现为经营者代理成本,称为代理成本Ⅰ;在股权高度集中型公司,公司控制权掌握在大股东手中,代理成本主要表现为大股东代理成本,称为代理成本Ⅱ。影响代理成本Ⅱ的基本因素主要是三项:(1)股权集中程度;(2)现金流权与控制权分离程度;(3)经营者与大股东关系状况。公司在某特定阶段上代理成本Ⅱ的大小,就是这三项因素综合作用的结果。一、股权高度集中情形下的代理成本Ⅱ在股权高度集中的情况下,如果大股东是民营企业,则一般会对公司实施严密控…     

工程项目施工过程中成本控制研究

成本控制是工程项目控制的重要部分。本文主要研究了施工过程中的质量成本控制和工期成本控制,提出了质量成本模型和优化的方法以及网络工期的优化方法,同时提出了挣值分析是对传统项目成本控制的创新。     

外部代理成本的特点及控制

外部代理成本指公司作为委托人与公司外部组织发生代理关系而产生的由于双方利益;中突而导致的公司总价值减少。本文将外部代理成本根据代理主体的不同分为外部监督代理成本和外部生产代理成本,分别研究了其主要特点并给出了减少外部代理成本发生的控制手段。     

试论我国上市公司股权结构对代理成本的影响——基于股权分置改革背景

基于股权分置改革的背景,探讨改革前后上市公司债权结构和各个利益相关者之间代理成本的关系,以检验股权分置改革对上市公司债权结构和利益相关者代理成本的影响,以期能够对优化治理结构和缓解代理冲突提供有益参考。     

股权激励与代理成本

传统以管理费用率作为代理成本的替代不能恰当地反映管理者在职消费和职务侵占的真实水平,本文用经过Jones模型纠正的费用率作为代理成本的替代,考察了所有权性质、总经理持股与否及持股比例对代理成本的影响。本文提供了私有制下总经理适当持股有利于降低代理成本的可靠证据,为中国上市公司即将展开的股权激励计划提供证据的支持。     

股权结构对股权代理成本的影响——来自中国上市公司的实证检验

股权代理成本可细分为两种:一是股东与经营者之间的利益矛盾而引起第一类股权代理成本;二是控股股东与中小股东之间的利益冲突而引起的第二类股权代理成本。在理论分析和研究假设基础之上,本文建立了两个回归模型来分别检验我国上市公司的股权结构对两类股权代理成本的影响,并提出通过调整和完善上市公司的股权结构来降低其股权代理成本的建议。     

Technical efficiency of European railways: a distance function approach

This study has two principal objectives. The first objective is to measure and compare the performance of European railways. The second objective is to illustrate the usefulness of econometric distance functions in the analysis of production in multioutput industries, where behavioural assumptions such as cost minimization or profit maximization, are unlikely to be applicable. Using annual data on 17 railways companies during 1988–1993, multioutput distance functions are estimated using corrected ordinary least squares (COLS). The resulting technical efficiency estimates range from 0.980 for the Netherlands to 0.784 for Italy, with a mean of 0.863. The distance function results are also compared with those obtained from single-output production functions, where aggregate output measures are formed using either total revenue or a Tornqvist index. The results obtained indicate substantial differences in parameter estimates and technical efficiency rankings, casting significant doubt upon the reliability of these single-output models, particularly when a total revenue measure is used to proxy aggregate output.     

Privately Owned Railways' Cost Function,Organization Size and Ownership

This paper aims to find the optimal size of an urban private rail organization as well as to evaluate cost difference by ownership. First, after selecting privately owned rail companies, we explore explanatory variables which affect the cost of rail service. Second, keeping in mind previous cost studies of the urban passenger rail industry, we estimate variable cost function with the translog cost function and we construct the total cost function. Third, based on the average cost function, conditions are pinpointed which attain minimum average cost. Finally, based on estimated results, we calculate the size of an urban private rail company and the ownership effects on cost. We conclude that optimal size is about 231 million vehicle-km per year, with a network of 63.8 km length. In terms of total costs, public railways have higher costs than private railways. There is no cost difference, however, in terms of variable costs.     

EU regional policy and tax competition

The European Union (EU) provides coordination and financing of trans-European transport infrastructures, i.e. roads and railways, which link the EU member states and reduce the cost of transport and mobility. This raises the question of whether EU involvement in this area is justified by inefficiencies of national infrastructure policies. Moreover, an often expressed concern is that policies enhancing mobility may boost tax competition. We analyze these questions using a model where countries compete for the location of profitable firms. We show that a coordination of investment in transport cost reducing infrastructures within union countries enhances welfare and mitigates tax competition. In contrast, with regard to union-periphery infrastructure, the union has an interest in a coordinated reduction of investment expenditures. Here, the effects on tax competition are ambiguous. Our results provide a rationale for EU-level regional policy that supports the development of intra-union infrastructure.     

Does yardstick regulation really work? Empirical evidence from Japan’s rail industry

This paper investigates the effectiveness of yardstick regulation by using a data set of rail companies in Japan and estimating the variable frontier cost function. In the variable cost function, both the coefficient of the yardstick regulation dummy and the coefficient of the competitive pressure outside the industry show the negative sign with statistical significance, indicating that the introduction of yardstick regulation and competition tend to decrease a rail company’s variable cost. Between 1995 and 2000, railways to which yardstick regulation was applied improved cost efficiency by about 11.5%.     

Russian Railways Reform and the Problem of Non‐discriminatory Access to Infrastructure

Abstract Restructuring of the Russian railways system is well under way. Among the policies just now coming into practice are two that are standard in railways restructuring in other countries: the provision of access to the infrastructure by independent train operating companies, and assurances of non‐discriminatory access terms for such companies. However, 'discrimination'– in the traditional economic sense – is a standard and often welfare‐enhancing pricing strategy for the recovery of fixed costs in a sector, like railways, with declining average costs. If competition regulators are unable to distinguish between discrimination that harms competition and discrimination designed only to recover fixed costs, policy makers in Russia and elsewhere will face a choice between large government subsidies and large welfare losses. In these circumstances, other restructuring models should be considered.     

Cost-based Phillips Curve forecasts of inflation

It is a well-established idea that prices are a function of marginal cost, yet estimating a reliable measure of marginal cost is difficult to do. Stock and Watson (1999) use the Phillips Curve to forecast inflation for a variety of existing activity variables that researchers commonly use to proxy for marginal cost. This paper uses a similar type of approach to examine the performance of a new candidate for the activity variable, which is marginal cost measured following the theoretical methodology of Bils (1987), which we find to be simple yet powerful when implemented empirically. We then use the Phillips Curve to conduct pseudo out-of-sample inflation forecasts for the US using: output, unemployment, hours, the labor share, the capacity utilization rate, and the new measure of marginal cost. For almost all cases, forecast errors are lowest in the regressions with the new marginal cost variable, indicating that this new measure is an improvement over previous attempts to proxy for marginal cost.     

Endogenously chosen travel costs and the travel cost model: an application to mountain biking at Moab,Utah

The travel cost model is frequently used to estimate net willingness to pay for recreation at remote sites by using the visitor's travel costs as a proxy for the price of recreation. However, some concern has been raised over the validity of using the visitor's stated travel costs as a proxy for price. This paper addresses some of these concerns, by examining the possible over-estimation of consumer surplus due to endogenously chosen travel costs. This paper extends past theoretical work for the linear model by developing a correction for endogenously chosen travel costs in more commonly used nonlinear models such as the Poisson or count data model. Also provided is the first empirical test of the presence of endogeneity and an estimate of the magnitude of the error from ignoring endogeneity in travel costs. After applying this test and the correction to data that was gathered for mountain biking at Moab, Utah the estimate of consumer surplus falls from US $153 to US $135, which is a 12% reduction.     

The contributions of technical and allocative efficiency to the economic performance of European railways

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relative contributions of allocative and technical efficiency to the productivity performance of European railways over the period 1972 to 1999. A stochastic frontier approach is used to analyse the cost structure of the railway industry. We estimate a translog cost system in which allocative inefficiency is modelled through an exact relationship between the cost share equations and the cost function. To allow the estimation of such a model using the sample theory approach we assume that the share equation residuals represent deviations from first-order conditions and, therefore, that they represent exclusively allocative inefficiencies. The use of this simplifying assumption renders our analysis computationally tractable, but it could be inconsistent with the economic theory of duality and for that reason caution is required in interpretation of results. Acknowledging this caveat, we find that European railways have experienced significant cost increases due to inefficient behaviour, with a mean value of around 15%. In contrast to previous studies, however, our estimates indicate a larger role for allocative inefficiency, which accounts for around of a half of the total increase in cost inefficiency.

Proxy contests and corporate democracy

A proxy contest is a fight between two management teams to gain proxies from shareholders.The management team which accumulates a majority of votes wins the competition for corpo rate control. This paper attempts to construct a formal model of proxy contests and analyze their implications for the shareholders’ benefit and power of control over the firm.     

晚清铁路建设与市场发展

1881—1911年中国兴起了铁路建设的浪潮。我们从史料中整理了这一时期的小麦价格,将府间价格差对铁路建设进行回归,发现铁路造成铁路连接的府的价格离散程度下降了3.8%,占当时整个价格离散程度下降的约40%,控制铁路建设的内生性以后结果依然显著。我们还发现,铁路提高了沿线府间与邻近铁路府间的市场整合程度。与此同时,铁路削弱了与其平行的传统商路沿线府间的市场整合程度,却提高了铁路与传统商路联运网络中府间的市场整合程度。