The relationship of customer complaints,satisfaction and loyalty： Evidence from China＇s mobile phone industry

Customer satisfaction and loyalty is subject to the influence of different types of customer complaints and will be with different results. In this paper, according to the hypotheses about the relationship of complaint, satisfaction and loyalty, a Structural Equation Model based on PLS （Partial Least 2 Squares） is built. By using the PLS Graph, these hypotheses are empirically tested by the data from China＇s mobile phone consumers. The study suggests that direct complaint should have a positive effect on satisfaction. However the degree of effect depends on the result of dealing with complaints. So the number of direct complaints should be controlled within the enterprise＇s ability of dealing with complaints. Meanwhile, comparing with directly complaining customers, indirectly complaining customers are more likely to repeat the purchasing and become loyal customers.     

Quality of Firms’ Exports and Distance to Destination Countries: First Evidence from Germany

This paper uses a tailor-made new data set of 7,112,614 observations for export quality (measured by the unit value of exports) at the firm-product-destination level for German and the reporting year 2011. Data are from 119,280 firms that exported 4986 products (recorded at the HS6-level) in 1,632,731 firm-product combinations to 174 countries. The paper investigates for the first time the link between the quality of firms’ exports and the distance to destination countries for Germany. It is shown that, in line with theory, the quality of exported goods and distance to destination countries are statistically positively correlated.     

School Boarding and Students’ Prosocial Behaviors: Evidence from Rural China

This study investigated the effects of boarding at school on students’ prosocial behaviors in rural China using data from the National Children's Study of China. The instrumental variable (IV) approach was used to control for potential endogeneity, and the IVs were the proportion of boarding students in higher grades and the school area per student. The ordinary least squares and IV estimates showed that boarding students exhibited more prosocial behaviors, including compliance with rules, positive traits, and altruistic attitudes. These results were robust. Heterogeneity analyses suggested that students from low-income families, children who were not “left behind,” high-grade students, and female students were more likely to benefit from boarding. We found that these effects were primarily due to boarding students developing stronger feelings of trust and support from their peers and teachers and participating in more school-organized events and team activities.     

Decomposing and Analysing the Determinants of Current Accounts’ Cyclicality: Evidence from the Euro Area

Open Economies Review - In this paper, we decompose the current account (CA) balance in 19 Euro area countries into cyclical and non-cyclical components. For the period 1999:Q1 to 2015:Q4, we...     

The origin of FDI and domestic firms’ productivity—Evidence from Vietnam

This study examines how the origin of foreign investors affects the degree of horizontal and vertical technological spillovers, using firm-level panel data from Vietnam in 2002–2011. The results show a positive association between the presence of Asian firms in downstream sectors and the productivity of Vietnamese firms in supply industries, but no significant relationship in the case of European and North American affiliates. Within Asia, we find that foreign direct investment from China and Taiwan generates positive vertical spillovers to local suppliers. We hypothesize that distance, preferential trade agreements, and institutional or technological differences that affect the degree of local sourcing significantly impact vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. The horizontal spillover effects are in general negative and statistically significant. Various robustness checks are performed.     

Taxation officers’ grassroots work experience and tax performance: Evidence from China

This paper examines the effect of grassroots work experience on the working capacities of Chinese officials and how this effect manifests in their measurable performance. Using the Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database (CIED, 1998–2007) and provincial-level local taxation directors’ personal data, we assess the actual tax burden of firms as a measure of directors’ tax levy performance. We analyze these officials’ grassroots work experience data in relation to the level of tax levy in their jurisdictions and find that grassroots work experience significantly improves jurisdictional tax levy performance, reflecting an enhancement effect on directorial capacity associate with grassroots work experience. This relationship remains robust even as we examine alternative hypotheses such as post-employment education, first-time appointment age and promotion incentives. Our analysis reveals that the threat of local tax penalties and the rate of tax offenses are two important mechanisms relating to this measure. Moreover, our findings are particularly significant in local taxation directors with higher first-time employment age and grassroots experience related to economics. Overall, this paper supports the notion that grassroots work experience plays a key role in shaping officials’ working capacity and provides suggestions for optimizing the tax levy system.     

Shadow banking,macroprudential policy,and bank stability: Evidence from China’s wealth management product market

This study examines whether shadow banking activities reduce the stability of 269 commercial banks in China, and if they do, whether a tightening macroprudential policy could mitigate this negative effect. A quarterly bank level, unbalanced panel data of wealth management products (WMPs) from 2006 to 2018 measured China’s shadow banking activities. The results show that China’s shadow banking activities weaken the stability of banks, especially for principal-floating WMPs, long-term WMPs, and WMPs issued to individual investors. China’s macroprudential supervision improves the soundness of banks and eases the negative effects of shadow banking on banking stability. Our results suggest the necessity to design specific macroprudential policies based on different kinds of shadow banking activities and different types of banks.     

The Impact of Regulation on Utilities’ Investments: A Survey and New Evidence from the Energy Industry

Over the last 30 years, regulated sectors have undergone deep reforms in their institutional configuration, tools and goals. This paper reviews the impact of this evolution on energy firms’ investments. First, we survey the existing evidence on the effects of the presence of independent regulatory agencies on utilities’ investment rates in Europe in the MENA countries, and in Latin America, focussing on the role of de facto independence and the institutional framework. Second, we discuss the impact of incentive- versus rate-of-return regulation on firms’ incentives to invest and the interaction with firm private/public ownership. In this regard, we provide new econometric evidence of the recent developments of regulation, using a sample of European energy utilities tracked from 1997 to 2013. Our results confirm previous findings that investment is higher under incentive regulation than under rate of return regulation. However, differently from the earlier results, we find that investments seem to be driven more by the weighted average cost of capital than by the X-factor. The paper concludes reviewing recent evidence on service quality regulation on firm investment specifically on the impact of reward/penalty schemes on capital and operational expenditures.     

Effects of outside directors on firms’ investments and performance: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in Japan

This study presents evidence on the impact of outside directors on firms’ investment behavior and performance with a focus on the recent quasi-natural experiment that rapidly increased the number of outside directors in listed firms. Using a panel of Japanese firms, we compare listed and unlisted firms and conduct instrumental variable estimations to examine causal relationships. The results indicate that the rapid increase in the number of outside directors among listed firms did not promote active investments or risk-taking behavior. In addition, it had no significant impacts on the profitability and productivity of the firms.     

Deflation,Productivity Shocks and Gold: Evidence from the 1880–1914 Period

In this paper we examine the sources and impact of deflation on the growth experiences of the four dominant countries on the gold standard in the period 1880–1913: the United States, The United Kingdom, France and Germany. We distinguish between good deflation, (driven by positive aggregate supply shocks) and bad deflation (driven by aggregate demand shocks). We use an empirical Blanchard/Quah model which decomposes the behaviour of prices, output and the money stock into the impact of shocks such as a world price level shock, a domestic supply shock, and domestic demand shocks including a shock to the domestic gold stock. Our key finding is that the European economies were essentially classic in the sense that output was mainly supply driven and that money was neutral even when country specific gold stocks are included. In the United States, however, we observe both good and bad deflation.     

Production fragmentation,upstreamness, and value added: Evidence from Factory Asia 1990–2005

We exploit the recent release of the 2005 Asian Input-Output Matrix to dress a picture of the geographic fragmentation of value added in Factory Asia from 1990 to 2005. We document 3 stylized facts. The first is that the average share of foreign value added embedded in production rose by about 7 percentage points between 1990 and 2005, from 9% to 16%. The second is that, contrary to popular belief, China has emerged as a major source of value added to other Factory Asia countries’ production. Third, we find empirical support for the smile-curve hypothesis. Country-industries at the upstream and downstream extremities of the supply chain embed a larger share of value added than those with intermediate levels of upstreamness.     

Does transfer of control rights and private benefits of control increase efficiency? Evidence from China’s privatization of the SOE’s

This study assesses China’s overall privatization efficiency from the perspective of private benefits of control. Results suggest that there is no statistically significant change in the firm’s performance after the transfer. However, ROE is negatively correlated with the magnitude of block premiums at the point of purchase. The research also finds that the average private benefit of a private controlling shareholder is significantly higher than that of a state-controlling shareholder. Obtaining private benefits of control is often the private buyers’ main acquisition motive. However, private benefit undermines the future corporate performance; therefore, lowering the private benefits may help improve the efficiency of privatization. As of now, privatization by means of controlling right transfer among listed companies is inefficient in China.     

The effect of value-added tax on leverage: Evidence from China’s value-added tax reform

In this paper, we use China’s value-added tax (VAT) reform in 2007, which was aimed to encourage fixed investment purchasing, as a natural experiment to explore the effect on firm financial leverage. Results show an expansion in firm balance sheet after the reform, manifested by greater liabilities (long-term, short-term and total liability) and asset. Moreover, in terms of the ratio to asset, it’s found that long-term liability rose while the short-term liability dropped, and as a net effect, the total asset-liability ratio declined as the latter effect dominated. To theoretically explain the observed patterns, three mechanisms are highlighted, “income effect”, “maturity-match effect” and “market disciplining effect”, where income effect corresponds to a proportional expansion of balance sheet while the latter two effects alter the composition of firm leverage.