Peer effects in decision-making:Evidence from corporate investment

We show that peer effects influence corporate investment decisions. Using a sample of China’s listed firms from 1999 to 2012, we show that a one standard deviat...     

The seasoned executive's decision-making style

Leaders make decisions every day of their lives, but how they do it changes dramatically over the course of their careers. At lower levels, the job is to get widgets out the door; action is at a premium. At higher levels, the job involves decisions about which widgets to offer and how to develop them. To climb the corporate ladder and be effective in new roles, managers need to change the way they use information and evaluate options. Based on a study of the decision-making profiles of more than 120,000 executives, the authors found that people make decisions very differently in public than they do in private and that the decision styles of successful managers evolve in highly predictable patterns. The most successful managers and executives become increasingly open and interactive in their leadership (or public) styles, and more analytic in their thinking (or private) styles, as they progress in their careers. The research shows that decision-making profiles do a complete flip over the course of a career; that is, the decision profile of a successful CEO is the opposite of a successful first-line supervisor's. When does the major change in focus occur? Somewhere between the manager level and the director level, executives find that formerly effective decision styles no longer work so well. At this point, decision styles fall into a "convergence zone", where managers use all styles more or less equally. From then on, the executives continue to evolve their styles. The most successful managers come to the convergence zone quickly and continue to adjust their styles as their careers progress. Low performers seem to stagnate once they hit the convergence zone; their styles do not evolve in new directions. Clearly, relying on past successes and habits is no guarantee of success-indeed, it may be the road to failure.     

The effect of emotion and time pressure on risk decision-making

Emotion and time pressure are two important factors affecting risk decision-making. This study explored the interaction of emotion and time pressure on risk decision-making by adopting 3 (emotion state: positive emotion, negative emotion, and control group)?×?2 (time constraint: high time constraint and no time constraint) between-subject experiment design. The results showed that (1) both emotion and time pressure exerted significant effect on risk decision-making (generally, positive emotion renders participants more risk prone than negative emotion, and high time pressure promotes people more risk seeking than no time pressure); (2) time pressure polarized the effects of different emotions on risk decision-making. As effects of emotions were polarized under high time pressure, two distinct cognitive pathways may function in human decision-making. Based on our experimental result and previous neuroeconomic works, we proposed a novel dual cognitive pathways model to explain phenomenon in the current article.     

世贸组织决策机制的公平性分析

WTO与IMF和世界银行不同,"一成员一票"制度只是在名义上给予发展中国家以平等的表决权,WTO的决策机制仍然缺乏应有的公平性.因此发展中国家需要提出针对性措施,以完善WTO的决策程序.     

关于IT环境下税收决策分析系统的构想

建立IT环境下的税收决策分析系统需要经过“四步骤”,即建立必要的基础理论;形成符合科学发展观的税收分析业务的指标体系框架;建立观察分析问题的视角与算法构成的方法体系,通过分析内容体系与方法体系的多对多排列组合,为各种的、动态的分析提供数据平台;运用数据库技术,围绕主题确定分析原型,提供管理者使用。     

基于随机微分博弈的保险公司最优决策模型

本文研究了基于保险公司与自然之间二人-零和随机微分博弈的最优投资及再保险问题。假设保险公司具有指数效用,自然是博弈的虚拟对手,通过求解最优控制问题对应的HJB I方程,得到了保险公司的最优投资和再保险策略以及最优值函数的闭式解。结果显示,在完全分保时(即自留比例为零),保险公司应该将全部财富购买无风险资产,即风险资产投资额为零;在不完全分保时保险公司将卖空风险资产,且卖空数量及保险自留比例都随保险公司盈余过程与风险资产间的相关性的提高而增大,随终止时刻T的临近而增加,但随市场中无风险资产回报率的增加而减少。     

高校《中国近现代史纲要》教学中的多媒体应用问题思考

<中国近现代史纲要>课程中应用多媒体已经是时代发展的必然趋势.联系当前教学中出现的多媒体教学问题,文章分析指出高校<纲要>多媒体教学问题的本质是任课教师的多媒体教学备课问题和驾驭多媒体课件的能力问题,因此任课教师应该精心设计多媒体课件并提高自身教学能力,成功驾驭多媒体课件.     

统计信息的革命科学决策的基石--记中国工商银行综合统计系统(CS2002)

对于商业 银行来说,统 计信 息系统 是介 于前台 业务操 作 系统 和 后 台 管 理决 策 分 析 系 统 之 间 的 至 关 重 要 的“中间 件”。在数据上升 到信息,进 而凝聚成知 识的过程中,在业 务、管 理和 决策的 流程 中,统 计信 息都起 到 了承上启下 的关键作 用。统计 信息系统 准确、及时 、完整地反映 当 前业 务 经 营 状 况, 能 够 为 决 策 层 准 确 把 握 经 营 情况、及 时做出科学 决策提供坚 实的基础 。也正 因为如此,在国 内银 行业信 息化 建设 进入新 阶段 后,统 计信 息 领域的信息 化建设已 经成为各大 商业银行关 注的重…     

个人保险、消费和储蓄决策

本文通过失业保险,研究了家庭保险、消费和储蓄的决策问题。在连续时间情形下,本文将随机问题转化为确定性问题来考察,运用最优控制理论,考察了家庭的决策过程。分析了购买保险对于个人消费和储蓄决策的影响,以及如何通过保险稳定其财富和提高终生效用,同时探讨了人均消费和人均资本存量的动态变化过程,得到了关于经济增长路径的结论。     

反洗钱决策支持系统可行性分析

洗钱是指为了掩盖非法收入的真实来源和存在，通过各种手段使其合法化的过程。巴塞尔银行监管委员会从金融角度将洗钱定义为：“银行或其他金融机构可能无意间被利用为犯罪资金的转移或存储中介。罪犯及其同伙利用金融系统将资金从一个账户向另一个账户作支付和转移，以掩盖资金的真实来源和受益所有权关系；或利用金融系统提供的安全保管服务存放款项，即为洗钱。”     

Experimental evidence on financial incentives, information and decision-making

This paper reports on a series of experiments aimed at exploring in greater detail previous work on the effects of financial incentives on information use and task performance in a principal-agent setting. The paper also develops some new statistical modelling in the area of experimental testing including incorporation into the modelling approach of data from post-experiment questionnaires. We find significant support for the finding that profit-related individual money rewards encourage increased accessing of valuable but costly past profit information by agents – and that this in turn enhances individual performance in earning profit for the agency.     

The influence of the precautionary principle on science-based decision-making: questionable applications to risks of radiofrequency fields

The precautionary principle, recognized by the European Commission as a 'full-fledged and general principle of international law,' has been advanced as a paradigm for response to potential risks to the environment or health when scientific data are uncertain. But lacking the elements and operational qualities that characterize principles that have proven useful in law, politics, science, and ethics, the precautionary principle lends itself to regulation based on the perception of a threat or fear itself. In the absence of scientific evidence for risk, recent application of the precautionary principle to questions about radiofrequency electromagnetic fields of cellular telephones and cellular telephone base stations has produced wasteful and misguided regulations and questionable advice to the public. The formation of scientific 'fire brigades' is suggested for rapid acquisition of targeted scientific data needed so that precautionary policies on technologically driven issues can be based on quantitative risk assessment.     

Respondable risk and incentives for CEOs: The role of information-collection and decision-making

This paper examines the incentive provision when the agent can respond to risk by exerting effort to collect information about the underlying state and making corresponding decisions. Such effort is shown to be more valuable in a riskier environment and incentives can increase with “respondable” risk. The relation between incentives and risk is more positive when the agent's effort is more effective in collecting information or in acting upon it. Using data on chief executive officers (CEOs), I find that incentives for CEOs increase with industry-wide risk, a measure of respondable risk. The positive relation diminishes when the CEO is less able to collect information or is less effective in acting upon it.     

The interplay between cost accounting knowledge and presentation formats in cost-based decision-making

Most studies on cost-based decision-making examine the profit impact of cost reports that rely on different methods to allocate costs. In practice, firms’ cost reports often employ the same cost allocation method with subtle variations in the way that the cost data are presented. This paper examines experimentally the profit impact of a cost report’s presentation format in relation to a decision maker’s level of cost accounting knowledge. Using a customer profitability report prepared using activity-based costing and presented in either a tabular or a graphical format, participants analyze a complex pricing and resource allocation task that affects firm profitability. The results suggest a strong relation between presentation format and cost accounting knowledge. Specifically, decision makers with a low level of cost accounting knowledge attain higher profits when they use a graphical format in comparison to a tabular format. More surprisingly, graphs (versus tables) have an adverse effect on profits for users with a high level of cost knowledge. This result has broad implications: in order to facilitate the decisions of a variety of users of accounting data (e.g. managers, external investors, etc.), firms may need to adapt the presentation format of their accounting data to the level of accounting sophistication of the users.     

多媒体自助终端的远程安装和维护

多媒体自助终端是继ATM后的又一大自助设备,可为客户提供自助式查询、转账、第三方存管、基金、缴费、卡密码修改、打印对账薄（单）及存折补登等多种金融服务。目前,中国工商银行浙江省绍兴市分行（以下简称＂我行＂）共有多媒体自助终端146台,分布在城乡各个网点,多媒体自助终端得到了广泛应用。     

The effects of hospital ownership on medical productivity

To develop new evidence on how hospital ownership and other aspects of hospital market composition affect health care productivity, we analyze longitudinal data on the medical expenditures and health outcomes of the vast majority of nonrural elderly Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for new heart attacks over the period 1985-1996. We find that the effects of ownership status are quantitatively important. Areas with a presence of for-profit hospitals have approximately 2.4% lower levels of hospital expenditures, but virtually the same patient health outcomes. We conclude that for-profit hospitals have important spillover benefits for medical productivity.     

The effects of accounting restatements on firm growth

Do restatements result in lower firm growth? One argument in support of this contention is that accounting restatements hurt contracting relations between the firm and outside parties such as a firm’s customers and suppliers, negatively impacting firm cash flows. The negative impact on cash flow reduces the level of internal cash holdings available for investment. Another argument is that restatements dampen firm growth by increasing the firm’s cost of external financing. We empirically evaluate these arguments by using the standard sales growth based financial planning model. In carrying out our analysis, we distinguish the effects of restatement on overall firm growth as well as its components of internally and externally financed growth. Our findings suggest that overall firm growth rates decline following a restatement. Furthermore, we find that accounting restatements have a greater adverse impact on externally financed growth rates. We also find that not all restatements yield identical effects: the impact of restatements is more pronounced for the subsample of firms identified to have undertaken the more egregious fraudulent reporting than the subsample of firms that reported restatements to correct previous accounting errors. We also find that firms with severe restatements, measured based on announcement period market reactions, have lower externally financed growth. Overall, our evidence highlights the adverse impact of restatement on firm growth, particularly through external financing.     

The effects of anti-takeover measures on Japanese corporations

This study examines 130 Japanese firms that announced and adopted pre-warning anti-takeover measures between 2005 and 2007. Consistent with the managerial entrenchment hypothesis, the announcement-associated abnormal returns are negative and statistically significant. An examination of the relationship between the abnormal returns and the firm’s ownership structure also supports the signaling hypothesis. The abnormal returns are positively related to the managerial shareholding variable as the managerial shareholding variable ranges from near-zero to an intermediate level; however, the relationship becomes negative as managerial shareholding increases past intermediate levels. Nevertheless, further examination of the post-adoption operating performance shows no significant trend towards deterioration as is predicted by the managerial entrenchment hypothesis. The results primarily support the signaling hypothesis: Japanese managers adopt anti-takeover measures mainly to deter hostile takeovers, and the anti-takeover measures, per se, do not fundamentally affect managerial behaviors.     

The effects of trading activity on market volatility

The paper re-examines the question of excessive implied persistence of volatility estimates when GARCH type models are used. Ten actively traded US stocks are considered and as already established in the literature, when volume traded is inserted in the GARCH (1, 1) or (EGARCH 1, 1) models for returns, the estimated persistence is decreased. Since volume is affected also by within-the-day price movements and hence is not weakly exogenous relative to returns, alternative proxies for trading activities are suggested. It is concluded that the difference between the opening price and the closing price of the previous day accounts also for most of the persistence in the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity.