外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本

基于股权代理成本角度,采用2010年中国沪深两市发行A股的非金融类上市公司截面数据,并运用最小二乘法和logistic二元逻辑回归模型,研究了外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本之间的关系。研究发现,股权代理成本高的公司更加倾向于寻求有效的外部监督,聘请高质量的会计师事务所;股权激励并不能起到完善公司内部治理机制的作用,反而会提高股权代理成本;股权激励会提高公司对外部审计质量的要求。     

Incentives, Risk, and Agency Costs in the Choice of Contractual Arrangements in Agriculture

The author develops a theory of the choice of contractual arrangements in agriculture by analyzing the incentives, risk-premia, and agency (supervision and shirking) costs under different contracts using the principal–agent framework. The theory is able to explain many tenancy-related issues, such as why sharecropping can be the optimal contract even in the presence of considerable shirking by the tiller, the predominance of sharecropping and of the 50*T*:*T*50 output share, the coexistence of sharecropping with other contracts, and the tenancy ladder.     

Father Knows Best: Using Adam Smith to Teach Transactions Costs

Adam Smith's moral philosophy can be used to introduce economics students to the important idea of transactions costs. The author provides a brief background in this article to Smith's moral philosophy and connects it to the costs of transacting in a way that fits easily into the standard principles of microeconomics classroom. By doing so, instructors can also demonstrate to students that there are connections between ethical behavior and market outcomes.     

Estimating Costs of Children from Micro-Unit Records: A New Procedure Applied to Australian Data

Measuring the costs of children is of immense practical importance in a range of economic and social policy areas. In this paper, we introduce a new econometric procedure that improves on existing methods for obtaining estimates of such costs from a demand system. We develop, using an extended linear expenditure system, an iterative maximum likelihood estimator that overcomes possible estimation problems that arise from the 2-step estimation procedures employed by earlier authors. We also allow for a more general assumption about the equation “errors”, that of non-zero correlation between the errors for different commodities in the same household. Another important contribution is the development of an estimation procedure for sets of seemingly unrelated regressions where the different sets of equations are linked by some common parameters. The proposed procedure is applied to the 1988–89 and 1993–94 Australian Household Expenditure Surveys and results obtained update estimates of both the commodity-specific and general scales previously obtained for Australia.

     

Estimating Distribution Costs with the Eaton–Kortum Model

Economists have mainly relied on input–output tables to calculate domestic trade costs for a relatively small number of developed countries. In this work we use an augmented Eaton–Kortum model to estimate the distribution costs of a group of consumption goods for 60 countries, which include both developing and developed countries. Our results show that developing countries are subject to much higher distribution costs, and that reductions in the distribution costs can result in large welfare gains.     

Adjustment Costs, Firm Responses, and Micro vs. Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: Evidence from Danish Tax Records

We show that the effects of taxes on labor supply are shaped by interactions between adjustment costs for workers and hours constraints set by firms. We develop a model in which firms post job offers characterized by an hours requirement and workers pay search costs to find jobs. We present evidence supporting three predictions of this model by analyzing bunching at kinks using Danish tax records. First, larger kinks generate larger taxable income elasticities. Second, kinks that apply to a larger group of workers generate larger elasticities. Third, the distribution of job offers is tailored to match workers' aggregate tax preferences in equilibrium. Our results suggest that macro elasticities may be substantially larger than the estimates obtained using standard microeconometric methods.     

Piece Rates, Fixed Wages, and Incentive Effects: Statistical Evidence from Payroll Records

We develop and estimate an agency model of worker behavior under piece rates and fixed wages. The model implies optimal decision rules for the firm's choice of a compensation system as a function of working conditions. Our model also implies an upper and lower bound to the incentive effect (the productivity gain realized by paying workers piece rates rather than fixed wages) that can be estimated using regression methods. Using daily productivity data collected from the payroll records of a British Columbia tree-planting firm, we estimate these bounds to be an 8.8 and a 60.4 percent increase in productivity. Structural estimation, which accounts for the firm's optimal choice of a compensation system, suggests that incentives caused a 22.6 percent increase in productivity. However, only part of this increase represents valuable output because workers respond to incentives, in part, by reducing quality.     

企业债券期限结构研究——基于交易成本和代理成本视角

发行长期债券可以降低交易成本．但债券期限越长，代理成本就越高。企业在发行新债券时必须对交易成本和代理成本进行权衡．寻求最优债券期限结构。模型证明，发行企业债券时运用提前赎回条款、卖回条款、偿偾基金条款和转换权等债券契约条款可以同时达到降低发债总成本和延长企业债券融资期限的目的。     

Incentives and Female Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from Panel Firm Level Data

The goal of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurial activity and to analyze the incentives of female participation in the labor market. Female entrepreneurial activity is closely related to social and economic issues. They represent a driving force, active and effective members of economic, political, professional and managerial societies. On the other hand, they have families with serious maternal responsibilities and inelastic household obligations, roles which they are trying to balance effectively. To that reason, specific actions and carefully designed measures are essential in encouraging and promoting them to engage into entrepreneurial activity. To investigate the issue of entrepreneurial activity, personal characteristics and various motivation incentives are examined in order to determine the major factors that may influence female entrepreneurial spirit in Greece. Obtaining data from 1600 industrial firms located in the prefecture of Piraeus over the period 1999–2009, this study makes use of the panel methodology approach to provide evidence about the main determinants of female entrepreneurship. What is found is that a combination of pull and push motives and effective mentoring framework, in addition to a set of personal characteristics such as risk of failure, educational level, creativity, innovativeness, ambitiousness and marital status, seem important for the encouragement of women entrepreneurship in Greece to start up a new business. The implications seem very substantial for the formulation and implementation of effective support policies and measures for female entrepreneurs’ vital start up and early stage period.     

企业的性质:要素使用权交易合约之履行过程

本文对企业的性质进行了分析 ,发现企业的性质在于 ,企业是市场中由要素所有者签订的一组不完备的要素使用权交易合约的履行过程。要素使用权交易合约的履行过程包括要素投入、要素使用权 (核心是剩余控制权 )的行使以及要素增值的分配 (核心是剩余索取权的行使 )以及企业组织资本与组织资产的创造和使用等 ,这一过程融交易功能与生产功能于一体。该组合约的关键内容就在于企业剩余索取权与剩余控制权的安排。作为要素使用权交易合约的履行过程 ,企业与市场是不能截然对立分离的 ,即要素市场、资产及服务市场等与要素使用权交易合约的签订与履行是互为基础 ,互相促进的。     

Agency Structure and Firm Culture: OSHA, EPA, and the Steel Industry

We compare models of Occupational Safety and Health Administration(OSHA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcementand compliance for steel plants during the 1980s. We find thatOSHA and EPA respond similarly to plant-level compliance andmeasures of hazardousness, but differently to firm-level complianceand risks of plant closing, and we relate the differences tothe agencies' differing organizational structures. Plant-levelcompliance is affected by enforcement pressure, compliance costs,and the firm's overall compliance behavior in similar ways forthe two regulatory areas, but environmental compliance was alsosensitive to plant size and risk of closing. Finally, we findthat the likelihood that a plant was in compliance with oneagency seemed at most weakly related to whether it was in compliancewith the other, but that plants likely to receive enforcementattention from one agency were also more likely to receive enforcementattention from the other agency.     

An Agency Perspective on the Costs and Benefits of Privatization

This paper proposes a unified theoretical framework to discuss the costs and benefits of privatization using the recent advances of Incentive Theory. I begin by presenting a simple model in which the State (the principal) delegates a task (e.g., the production of a public good) to the private sector (the agent). I give and discuss conditions for the “Irrelevance Theorem” due to Sappington and Stiglitz [Sappington, D., & Stiglitz, J. (1987) Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 6, 567–582] to hold under complete contracting. I then show how various contract incompletenesses can make either public or private ownership optimal. Finally, I provide critical assessments of these results. I thank Patrick Rey and Wilfried Zantman for useful comments on an earlier draft. The excellent comments of two referees have also improved substantially the presentation and organization of the paper. I am deeply indebted to Denis Gromb for his extremely detailed comments.     

创新环境激励与企业成长:基于中部创新型企业的实证

从国内外科技型企业成长与激励的理论综述入手,通过对我国中部地区128家创新型企业的问卷调查,对创新型企业成长的外部创新环境激励模型进行了假设验证,揭示了科技项目引导、产业技术政策、科技金融支持、科技奖励与知识产权保护,以及区域创新体系建设5个方面的创新环境因素对企业成长的激励效应。研究发现,政府科技项目的合理导向、企业技术战略联盟以及功能完善的技术市场是促进创新型企业快速成长的最重要外部因素。     

R&D Returns,Spillovers and Firm Incentives: Evidence from China

Using a new data set of 12,000 firms in China, this paper estimates the returns to R&D investment and its spillover effects, and investigates how the returns to R&D depend on firm incentives. For the firms in the sample, the results show that on average firm output increases around 0.4 yuan for each additional 1 yuan spent on R&D in the previous year, and there is high R&D return regardless of whether the endogeneity of R&D intensity is dealt with or not. Interestingly, the marginal return to R&D is significantly higher in firms whose CEOs were not appointed by the government, and lower when CEO pay is directly related to annual performance. The return to R&D is higher in relatively poor regions and for firms with worse access to finance. There are also non-trivial R&D spillover effects.     

工资、生产效率与企业出口——基于单位劳动力成本的分析

在劳动力供给下降、工资逐年上涨的背景下,生产效率提高的幅度超过工资上涨的幅度会导致单位劳动力成本的下降,这意味着制造业整体竞争力得以提升,从而可以激励工业企业更重视国内市场的开拓.文章综合工资和生产率因素,以单位劳动力成本衡量企业的竞争力,基于1998-2007年中国工业企业的面板数据,研究了单位劳动力成本对制造业企业出口密集度的影响.面板固定效应模型和Tobit模型的估计结果显示,单位劳动力成本对企业出口密集度存在显著的正向影响,即单位劳动力成本的下降会抑制企业出口,企业会降低出口密集度并增加产品在国内市场的份额.Heckman选择模型两步法也表明,单位劳动力成本对企业出口的集约边际和扩展边际均存在显著的正向影响,单位劳动力成本下降会导致企业减少出口倾向和出口密集度.     

Earnouts: The Effects of Adverse Selection and Agency Costs on Acquisition Techniques

We examine the effects of adverse selection and agency costson the structure of the consideration offered in an acquisition.Specifically we investigate factors affecting the benefits arisingfrom use of earnouts. We find that when targets have greaterprivate information, consideration is more likely to be basedon the future performance of the target. We also find an earnoutis more likely to be used in an acquisition if the target isa smaller, private company in a different industry than theacquirer. In addition, earnouts are more likely to be used whenfewer acquisitions take place within an industry and when targetsare service companies or companies with more unrecorded assets.Finally, we compare the use of earnouts with the use of stockand find that financing considerations are a more importantfactor in the use of stock.     

Charles Sanders Peirce and the Social Ontology of the Firm: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Agency

The ontological framework developed in the article aims to contribute to the social ontology of the firm by achieving three objectives: (i) to provide a well-developed conception of the human mind and conscience, (ii) to define the role of human agency in an evolutionary context and (iii) to highlight the importance of semiosis for the emergence of social structures with an emphasis on the concept of the firm as a social entity. Peirce’s semiotic conception of mind and consciousness provides insights for combining human signifying practices and social emergent properties. Thereupon, the semiotic attributions of the human mind may be understood as a basis for the ontological perspective of the firm.