是近视?还是轻视?——跨国公司在发展中国家对商业伦理的背叛

通过事实说明一些世界大型跨国公司在发展中国家(以中国和印度这两个人口最多的发展中国家为代表)的经营存在着不容乐观的背叛商业伦理的行为,阐述、分析了其背后的主要原因并提出了解决问题、推动跨国公司在东道国重返伦理化经营之路的对策和措施。     

The operation of the Mexican banking system under foreign multinational corporations’ control: new activities and traditional income

This paper discusses the operation of banks in developing economies dominated by foreign multinational corporations (FMCs), and argues that banks have acquired new activities without drastically modifying the composition of their income. This discussion takes place in the light of the profound changes in financial systems that have modified the linkages between banks, capital markets, businesses and households, during the period of globalization and financialization. The main argument of this paper is that although foreign multinational corporations have become dominant in developing countries, and bank activities have diversified, the multinational corporations of the banking sector still rely on interest margins, particularly from consumer credit. This is explained in terms of specific bank credit activities that operate under oligopolistic structures, a condition that has not being modified by foreign multinational corporations’ dominance in developing banking markets.     

试论政府对引导规范企业承担社会责任的作用

与跨国公司相比，我国企业在履行社会责任方面仍存在一定差距，企业公民意识淡薄。应对跨国公司履行社会责任的动机和我国企业承担社会责任现状进行分析，构建企业社会责任的成本与收益关系模型，并借鉴国外成功经验探讨中国政府在企业履行社会责任中应发挥的重要作用。     

论跨国公司的社会责任——读霍肯的《商业生态学:可持续发展的宣言》有感

本文简要介绍和评述了霍肯的著作《商业生态学:可持续发展的宣言》的基本思想和主要观点,强调了解决商业与环境之间二元悖论问题的关键,在于设计、创造一个可持续发展的商业模式,使之能融入生态系统的可恢复体系中,并强调在这个过程中,企业"对社会负责"是一种自愿的行为。从霍肯的观点出发,笔者反思了跨国公司违背生态伦理的种种"罪行",提出必须以更为冷静、客观的态度来看待跨国公司,并提出了"拯救跨国公司=拯救人类自己"的主张。     

Toward a Humanist Reconstruction of Economic Science

This paper examines whether governance matters for the economic growth of developing countries, empirically captured within the institutional economics theoretical framework using the panel data estimation procedure. In doing so, it tests the effect of several dimensions of governance on the growth of 84 low and middle-income economies using regression specifications common in the growth literature. The empirical results show that political stability and government effectiveness is significantly positively correlated with growth. Voice and accountability and corruption are statistically significantly negatively correlated with growth. The regulatory quality and rule of law dimensions of governance are negatively but statistically insignificantly correlated with growth. The findings of this study imply that the dynamics of the current modern economy makes it necessary for developing countries to act now and within their own country, improve the dimensions of governance and establish good governance practices that are domestically relevant and internationally comparable and consistent.     

Are business cycles stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend? Empirical evidence from 79 developing countries

There is a large literature that tests the univariate time series properties of the real output series following the seminal work of Nelson and Plosser (1982). Whether or not real output is characterized by a unit root process has important implications. A unit root in real output, for instance, is inconsistent with the notion that business cycles are stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend. In this paper, we investigate the univariate time series properties of real output for 79 developing countries using the conventional augmented Dickey and Fuller (1979) unit root test, the Zivot and Andrews’ (1992) one structural break unit root test, and the Lumsdaine and Papell (1997) two structural breaks unit root test. Our main finding is that, for 40 countries, real output is stationary around a trend. This indicates that business cycles are stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend for only 51% of the developing countries in our sample.     

国家治理视角下的政府审计目标与对象

关于政府审计目标的主要观点目前有公共受托责任论、权力制约与监督论、公共资金管理与控制论以及审计信息论,而对政府审计对象的表述更是琳琅满目。将政府审计置于国家治理系统内来考虑,可以将政府审计的最高目标定位为维护国家或人民群众的根本利益,把政府审计对象抽象化为权力、谁来使用权力和如何使用权力。这种认识从国家治理和权力视角诠释了政府审计的本质,它可以提高政府审计自身的权威性,还可以更好地让政府审计发挥国家治理工具的作用。     

A fresh look at fiscal multipliers: one size fits it all? Evidence from the Mediterranean area

Following the adoption of important fiscal stimuli to fight the recent crisis, a large literature estimated fiscal multipliers. Focusing on an area particularly appealing, given its diversity and the diversity of the response of countries that compose it to the current crisis, namely the Mediterranean area, we unveil major disparities regarding the significance, sign and size of fiscal multipliers depending mainly on the economic characteristics, the type of multiplier, the time span and the type of fiscal stimulus. Evidence of such important heterogeneities highlights the need for better cooperation among countries, particularly regarding the design of fiscal policy. Failing to do so might divert public resources to ineffective fiscal policies in some countries, or, on the contrary, deprive other countries of potentially high benefits of appropriate fiscal policies, including a reliable tool for exiting the current crisis.     

How Does FDI Affect Health?

This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on population health using panel data for up to 179 countries for the period between 1980 and 2011. Our main finding is that the relationship between FDI and health is nonlinear, depending on the level of income: FDI has a positive effect on health at low levels of income, but the effect decreases with increasing income, then changes sign and becomes increasingly negative at higher levels of income.     

控制能力、代理成本与独立审计的公司治理效应——中国民营上市公司的经验证据

以近几年中国民营上市公司为样本,实证分析实际控制人控制能力、代理成本、会计师事务所选择及其治理效应,可以发现实际控制人控制能力越强的公司越倾向于选择曾经被监管机构赋予专项复核资格的会计师事务所。通过两阶段回归发现,市场对聘请此类会计师事务所作出了正面评价,而且此类会计师事务所对大股东占用上市公司资金具有监督和抑制作用。     

China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Reducing or Increasing the World Uncertainties?

Although worldwide poverty, a basic concern of John Kenneth Galbraith, is reducing on average, I argue that poverty remains a critical issue in many countries. This led the Chinese government to propose the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Broadly, the BRI constructs a cross-continental nexus between countries to reduce their development uncertainties by increasing their connectivity. As a result, the Chinese government has invested trillions of infrastructure dollars in projects that have been introduced to the involved countries as sovereign debt along with the participation of Chinese multinational corporations. Although evidence has shown that this initiative is gaining increasingly more support from the less-developed countries, signs of uncertainty in various forms have clearly emerged. In light of such, I propose that possible in-country political instability, political conflicts among the participating countries, national debt defaults, and competition between China and the United States of America in regional influence may have added to the underlying uncertainties that have challenged the world.     

从企业集团的边界看中央企业集团整体上市

本文在研究企业集团边界的基础上,分析了中央企业集团整体上市的利弊得失。企业集团作为一种企业间组织形式,在某些情况下比一个独立大企业节约组织成本．比若干独立企业节约交易成本．是若干企业通过特定的联结而形成的一种有效率的企业问组织形式。从企业集团边界角度．中央企业集团采取母公司或主营业务的整体上市不一定有利于其实现效率,也不是从根本上解决国内企业集团治理中的大股东侵犯债权人或中小股东利益问题的最佳策略。完善中央企业集团治理重在产权制度改革和从根本上改善公司治理的法律制度。     

The Differential Impact of Public and Private Governance Institutions on the Different Modes of Foreign Investment

This paper examines the respective impacts of public and private governance institutions on foreign direct and foreign portfolio investment inflows. We present two hypotheses: (1) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has no further discernible impact on this correlation; (2) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign portfolio investment (FPI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has a further positive impact on this correlation. Our findings, which are based on panel data analysis, show both hypotheses to be valid.