Policy competition,imitation and coordination under uncertainty

The paper analyzes under what circumstances policymakers experiment with policies with uncertain outcomes, when they prefer to imitate policies initiated in other countries, and when they prefer to coordinate policies internationally. Policymakers have private costs of active policies and compete internationally in a yardstick competition which gives rise to a potential distortion between what citizens want and what policymakers do. I find that policymakers’ policies as well as regime choice deviate from what citizens want but that an increase in uncertainty about policy outcomes decreases this distortion.     

Economic, organizational, and political influences on biases in forecasting state sales tax receipts

This paper investigates factors influencing fixed bias in forecasting state sales taxes revenues. By extending an existing model used to explain forecast accuracy to include a series of complex interactions related to the potential political and policy use of revenue forecasts, the paper extends our understanding of the forecasting process in government. Exploratory empirical analysis based on survey data is used to provide evidence that bias in forecasting results, at least in part, from political and policy manipulation. There is also evidence that institutional reforms associated with ‘good management’ practices affect forecast bias, but in complex ways depending upon the extent to which political competition exists within the state.     

Spatially blind trade and fiscal impact policies and their impact on regional economies

The evidence for the US suggests that spatially blind policies often generate greater impacts on regional economic growth and development than policies specifically targeted at regions on regional issues generally. In this presentation, attention will be directed to two sets of national policies that have been promulgated without due consideration of their specific spatial (regional) impacts – trade policy and fiscal policy.Drawing on research conducted for the US, Japan and Brazil, an examination of trade policies will be presented, using the experience of NAFTA in North America and MERCOSUR in Brazil. Some further analysis of experience in Colombia will also provide insights into the role of national trade policy and, in the case of Colombia, fiscal decentralization policies. The second part of the presentation will examine fiscal policy impacts mediated through regional business cycles; the experience of Japan and the US will be examined.The results affirm the important implications that national (spatially blind) policies can have on regional economies; in the case of Brazil, trade policies have exacerbated already wide differentials in per capita income across states.     

检视都市永续发展指针的发展历程与内涵:从指针系统建构到政策评估

本文回顾国际上相关的都市永续发展指针系统,探讨指针系统架构与内涵之间的差异,进而说明永续台湾评量系统中"都市台湾"指针系统的重要特色,以及指针项目选定的理论基础.藉由永续台湾评量系统中22个范畴的型态辨识,本文分析了都市在台湾永续发展中所扮演的角色,确认都市生产与生活型态对于整体永续发展的重要性,也验证了生态系统观点中都市对于环境的依存与影响.考量都市发展决策过程需要永续性的评量机制,本文利用都市永续发展指针作为政策评估的重要变量,应用交互式计算机软件<感受性系统模型(Sensitivitv Model Tools)>以系统性观点进行都市发展政策永续性的评析.透过系统软件功能掌握变量结构的完整性以及系统变量之间的相互影响关系,并藉助于团体咨询与讨论的沟通方式建构半量化的(semi-quantitative)系统变量,配合概念化及模糊化的方式界定变量水准以及函数关系进行系统仿真工作.籍由系统仿真了解变量之间的互动关系,而政策评估案例分析显示台北市硬件建设政策较空间调整政策发挥较大的效果.永续指针与系统工具的结合整体而言提供了都市政策永续性评估的沟通与预测接口.     

Banks' environmental policy and business outcomes: The role of competition

By integrating the two areas of competition–performance and environment–performance, this research explores if competition matters in the relationship between environmental practices and interest margins in the market. A panel of 458 banks from 74 countries for the period of 2006–2016 is used, and the sample is further divided into developed and developing countries. This paper uses the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator to tackle potential omitted variable bias, endogeneity, and simultaneity issues. Without competition, environmental practices only affect banks in developing countries; however, the results show a significant impact for the full sample, including developed countries, when the competition is taken into consideration, suggesting that competition might play a role in the relationship of environmental practices and interest margins. In the full sample, competition impacts the relationship negatively after a moderate level of competition is reached in the market. The environmental practices in developing countries are prone to competition in the market. In developed countries, the competition is found to be lightly positively moderating the impact of environmental practices on interest margins. Based on these findings, it is recommended that developing countries should have a low or moderate level of competition to encourage environmental practices. For developed countries, however, high competition should be preferred to encourage banks to consider environmental practices as one of their core business strategies. These findings are found robust to different statistical estimators.     

都市农民的二次分化与分类社会保障对策

都市农民工在城市产业分工体系的影响上已经出现了具有层级意义的二次分化,由此产生了对社会保障需求不同层次的差异性,存在实施分类社会保障的现实可能性.因此,按照城乡协调的科学发展观的要求,城镇社会保障的制度扩展与制度创新应该依据都市农民工的分化状况有序地进行城乡社会保障制度的对策.     

股利政策冲突、稳健会计选择与公司债务成本

本文研究了我国上市公司的会计稳健性动因,并在此基础上研究了会计稳健性对上市公司债务融资成本的影响后果.通过对沪市A股公司2004～2008年相关数据的分析,在应计为基础的会计稳健性测量指标下,研究结果表明:与股利分配方案相关的债权人-股东冲突越严重,上市公司越倾向于采用更为稳健的会计选择;同时,会计稳健性越高的公司,债务成本也相应更低.本文认为,随着我国银行业的市场化,以银行为主体的债权人将基于风险控制的考虑,要求上市公司提供稳健的会计数据;在银行利率决策时,稳健会计信息发挥了作用,稳健性较高的上市公司得以获得较低的利率水平.     

State dependence in youth labor market experiences, and the evaluation of policy interventions

We investigate the extent and type of state dependence in labor market outcomes for young low-skilled Australians. Our model allows for three labor force states, employment, unemployment and out of the labor force, and for observed and unobserved heterogeneity. We find evidence of occurrence dependence, but no lagged duration dependence. A past employment spell increases the probability of employment in the future, but the length of the spell does not matter. A past spell of unemployment undoes the positive benefits from a spell in employment. Interpretations of these effects and implications for labor market policies are discussed.     

Monetary policy and bank performance: The role of business models

This paper examines the relationship between monetary policy and bank performance in a multiple-instrument environment, particularly highlighting the conditioning role of bank business models. Employing a unique dataset of Vietnamese commercial banks from 2007 to 2019, we display that banks react to monetary policy changes, either when the central bank increases policy rates or injects money into the economy through open market operations, by decreasing overall returns and increasing financial instability. Additionally, we document that the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves benefits bank outcomes, contrasting to open market operations, albeit the central bank uses both of these policy instruments to alter money supply in the economy. Our key analysis of interest reveals that business models considerably matter in the effects of monetary policy on bank performance. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that banks’ business models that yield more non-interest income or diversify more into different income sources may mitigate the pass-through of monetary policy to bank performance. This finding holds across all interest- and quantitative-based monetary policy indicators and across all the functions of risk-taking behavior, earning-profit capacity, and financial stability. Furthermore, while plotting the marginal effects of monetary policy, we realize that they are insignificant for banks whose business models heavily rely on non-traditional segments.     

Deregulation of short selling and corporate cash dividend policy: A quasi-natural experiment from China

This study takes China’s short selling deregulation as a quasi-natural experiment, employs a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2017, and tests the impact of a short selling pilot on firms’ cash dividends using a difference-in-differences model (DID). We find that China’s short selling pilot significantly increases the pilot firms’ cash dividends. The mechanism test shows that short selling can improve the pilot firms’ cash dividends by playing a corporate governance role to restrain dual agency costs such as management fees and major shareholders’ tunneling. Furthermore, we identify that short selling restrains the behavior of “large stock dividends” and increases the cash dividends of “large stock dividends” firms. Moreover, the governance effect of short selling is complementary to the external governance environment. The higher the degree of marketization and government quality, the more significant the governance effect of short selling to increase the pilot firms’ cash dividends. This study enriches not only the research related to cash dividends in emerging economies, but also provides new empirical evidence for the evaluation of China’s short selling deregulation and offers valuable lessons to other emerging economies.     

Large,entrepreneurship and regional development policy: ‘growth poles’ in the Mezzogiorno over 40 years

Large firms are often perceived by economists and policy-makers as ‘growth poles’ to promote development in backward regions. The idea behind the ‘growth poles’ is that large firms may have a leverage effect on the birth and growth of small and medium sized firms. Regional policy in Italy, particularly in the Mezzogiorno, has subsidized large external plants since the 1950s. A new wave of planning agreements in the 1990s is going to redesign and to strengthen this policy orientation. This paper offers empirical data on plant location and growth at provincial level over 40 years. There is no evidence of overall long term growth impact of large acternal plants in the Mezzogiorno, while there are interesting variations by sectors. A theoretical interpretation of the impact of large firms on local entrepreneurial resources is offered, pointing to the negative effects of large firms on the supply of local entrepreneurship. Policy implications are discussed.     

Doing more and doing better are two different entities: Different patterns of family control and environmental performance

Family firms bear two types of agency costs, including type I and type II agency problems, in corporate environmental practices: (1) Outside executives at family firms hesitate to engage in environmental strategies, which can lead to drops in profits; (2) Controlling families employ opportunistically environmental management to achieve their interests. We argue that a primary cause for the agency problems lies on ineffective internal corporate governance at family firms, which can cause loss of managerial (or power) balance between outside executives and family executives. Our findings show that family firms with ownership and strategic control (FSC), which family executives and outside executives monitor and constrain each other, can achieve the highest environmental performance. Moreover, external controls, including product market competition and provincial environmental regulations, substitute effective internal control of FSC. The environmental performance premium of FSC is more prevalent when the production market competition is lower. Family firms with ownership, operational, and strategic control (FOSC) can achieve higher environmental performance within a province with more stringent environmental regulations.     

锅炉、压力容器焊接质量控制

文章介绍了影响锅炉、压力容器焊接质量的因素及相应的焊接质量控制措施,对提高锅炉、压力容器质量有一定指导作用。     

Satisfaction and dimensions of control among call centre customer service representatives

This study explores the perceptions of HR managers on the strategic management of labour turnover in a selection of large hotels in Australia and Singapore. The main argument is that the effects of labour turnover can be mitigated with strategically managed human resources through the four key HR activities. The hotel industries in both Singapore and Australia revealed a comparable range of HR policies and practices being adopted, with an explicit recognition of the contribution an organization’s human resources have on the bottom-line. There was a clear convergence towards minimizing turnover primarily through the recruitment, selection and induction processes. This was despite fundamental social, economic and labour differences between Singapore and Australia.     

An assessment of China's joint prevention and control policy on sulfur dioxide emissions reduction: A spatial econometric analysis

Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is a typical pollutant that affects human health, climate, and environmental and ecological conditions. China has been experiencing high concentrations of SO₂, particularly in urban areas, since the 1990s. In 2010, a “joint prevention and control” (JPC) policy was issued to address air pollution problems and strengthen the regulation of SO₂ emissions. This study aimed to describe the mitigation effects of this policy on SO₂ emissions in 116 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2017. We applied global and local Moran's I indices to confirm the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation in SO₂ emissions and constructed four spatial models to assess the effect of the JPC policy in reducing SO₂ emissions and its transmission mechanism. We found that the policy decreased SO₂ emissions by 1.89 × 10⁴ tons, SO₂ intensity by 1.70 tons per km², and SO₂ per capita of 158.49 tons per 10,000 people in each city, on average, all of which are significant changes. The empirical results also show that population growth, economic structure, and environmental protection significantly decrease SO₂ emissions. Finally, we recommended policies to encourage regional cooperation under the JPC policy, with the aim of promoting further reductions in SO₂ emissions.