Productivity, Profitability, and Firm Value

This study examines the role of productivity in the prediction of future profitability and firm valuation. The results indicate that productivity does not provide much information about future profitability incremental to that provided by current profit rate, but explains cross-sectional differences in market value incremental to that explained by book value and current profit rate.     

Returns to scale effect in labour productivity growth

Economists acknowledge that technical progress and growth in capital inputs increase labour productivity (LP). However, less focus is given to the realization that changes in labour input alone could also affect LP. Because this effect disappears when the short-run technology exhibits constant returns to scale, we call it the returns to scale effect. We decompose growth in LP into three contributing factors: (1) technical progress, (2) capital input growth and the (3) returns to scale effect. We propose theoretical measures for these three components and show that they coincide with the index number formulae consisting of prices and quantities of inputs and outputs. Subsequently, we apply the results of our decomposition to US industry data for 1987–2009. LP in the services sector is shown to grow much slower than that in the goods sector during the 1987–1995 productivity slowdown period. We conclude that the returns to scale effect can considerably explain the gap in LP growth between the two industry groups.     

A deterministic profit attribution model: The postal service,a case study

This paper derives a positive model relating changes in profitability to output levels, price, input quantities, and costs. The model involves decomposition of profit changes to define contributions associated with changes in the product market and production input variables. It can be derived from basic profit concepts without additional assumptions regarding the organization's behavioral decisions or about the shapes of the demand or production functions. It therefore avoids all normative underpinnings and is based strictly on measurable changes in the environment. The model is applied to results obtained from the United States Postal Service income statement. Changes in the Service's productivity and its components (e.g., labor, materials, and capital) are fully reconciled in an accounting sense with reported changes in net income. This reconciliation permits the identification of the sources of net income change.     

Intangible investment in people and productivity

Organizational activity, information and communication technology work, and research and development (R&D) can be classified as work that creates intangible capital. We measure the returns to these three types of labor input by accounting for differences in their productivity compared with other labor inputs using Finnish firm-level data from 1998 to 2008. We apply a novel idea to use hiring as one proxy for productivity and demand shocks. We find that organizational workers increase total factor productivity and improve the profitability of high-productivity firms. R&D workers account for a large share of intangible capital; however, the returns to R&D are low. Investments in organizational competence are more likely to result in more rapid productivity growth. Firms with performance-related pay or domestically owned firms with extensive foreign activities have been among the highest performers with respect to the use of organizational work.     

Decomposing hospital productivity changes, 1985–1988: A nonparametric Malmquist approach

Annual data on U.S. hospitals from 1985–1988 are evaluated by ownership type—profit, nonprofit, state and local government, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—for changes in hospital productivity over time. Distance functions are used to measure Malmquist indices of productivity change, which are then decomposed into indices of efficiency change and technology change. In contrast to previous studies using this approach, we allow for variable returns to scale and use both input and output orientations. We find that changes in technology dominate changes in inefficiency in determining changes in productivity.     

The evolution and determinants of Chinese property insurance companies’ profitability: A DEA-based perspective

The property insurance industry grows fast in China and it is necessary to further investigate the profitability of the Chinese property insurance industry. This study investigates the evolution and determinants of the profitability of 53 Chinese property insurers during the year 2013–2017. Profitability is measured by profit ratio efficiency by data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology and a profit ratio change index is applied to compare the performance of these insurers over different periods. Tobit regression models are used to investigate several influencing factors of profitability. The empirical results show the importance of proper arrangement of costs and revenues for an insurer and help to better understand the effect of firm size, age, and product specification on profitability. Some policy implications and suggestions are also proposed.     

Profit and productivity of US Class I railroads

This paper examines how productivity changes and price changes have contributed to short‐run profit change in the railroad industry. Using an unbalanced panel of US Class I railroads for the period 1996–2003, a short‐run profit change decomposition model is used to attribute intertemporal profit change to its causal factors. We find that productivity improvements and an increased scale of production contributed to increases in profit, and that variation in operating efficiency had a mixed impact on profit. We also find that relative changes in rail rates and variable input prices exerted downward pressure on profit. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

电子商务逆向物流定价策略研究

运用需求博弈模型证明在当今以顾客价值为导向的电子商务市场中实施逆向物流的必要性;利用利润最大化模型,研究电子商务市场逆向物流退货政策中的最优价格制定策略,最后,针对电子商务环境下几种典型的商品定价提出了几点可行性的建议。     

A superlative index number formula for the Hicks-Moorsteen productivity index

The Malmquist and Hicks-Moorsteen productivity indexes are the two most widely used theoretical indexes for measuring productivity growth. Since these productivity indexes are defined by unknown distance functions, it is necessary to estimate the distance functions to compute them in principle. On the other hand, the Törnqvist productivity index is an empirical index number formula that is directly computable from the prices and quantities of the inputs and outputs alone. Caves et al. (1982) imply that the Malmquist index coincides with the Törnqvist index under profit maximizing behaviour and constant returns to scale technology. The purpose of the present paper is to point out that the Hicks-Moorsteen productivity index coincides with the Törnqvist productivity index under the same condition. We emphasize that the condition of constant returns to scale is indispensable for deriving the equivalence between the two indexes. Moreover, even when this condition is relaxed to the α returns to scale, the equivalence between the Hicks-Moorsteen and Törnqvist productivity indexes is shown to hold true.     

Airline flight networks, cycle times, and profitability: 2004–2006

This research investigates the relationships between airline flight networks, aircraft cycle times, and carrier profitability for ten large US domestic airlines. We find that direct point-to-point flight networks and short cycle times are operational factors that airlines should exploit to improve profitability. These findings are based on the analysis of 11.9 million flight records from 2004 through 2006. The results contradict earlier research validating performance advantages of hub-and-spoke flight networks. Today, the advantages of passenger consolidation at hub airports are lost to lower aircraft utilization and productivity problems created by the extended cycle times at hubs. We also find that airline operating profit can be increased by improving the efficiency of the aircraft turnaround process and decreasing aircraft fleet complexity. This research also provides an estimate of the marginal opportunity cost of ground time. A 1-min reduction in aircraft fleet ground time increases the average sized carriers’ operating income by $12 to $18 million.     

What factor contributes to productivity growth of Chinese city banks: The role of regional difference

This study pays more attentions to investigate the performance of Chinese city banks, which can make up the blanks large banks left in the financing market, further improving local economic development. The study modifies the profit productivity indicator of Juo et al. (2015) under the short-run assumption to measure the profit productivity and its components. Our study finds that there exists a significant difference among banks by regions, and the eastern regional city banks have a best profit efficiency, but decline more than the others. The decomposed component, price effect, plays a most important role to explain the profit productivity change.     

金融危机时期公允价值计量对股票收益率和市场波动性的相关性研究

文章研究我国A股非金融类上市公司在金融危机时期,公允价值计量的资产和损益对股票收益率和市场波动性的影响。文章选取2007年第4季度-2009年第2季度7个季度的面板数据,运用固定效应模型进行回归分析,结果表明:公允价值计量的资产对股票收益率有显著影响,公允价值计量的损益的会计信息没有反映在股价上,对股票收益率无显著影响;公允价值计量的资产和损益都没有加剧市场波动,反而降低了市场波动,即公允价值在我国没有起到金融危机助推器的作用。     

电子商务环境中现代物流的发展及对策

本文探讨了现代物流在电子商务供应链管理中的作用，以及电子商务与现代物流的协同发展，明确了现代物流是信息流、商流和资金流最终实现的根本保证．现代物流的发展是电子商务的利润源泉，从而进一步提出电子商务下发展现代物流的对策研究。     

在线商家的退货管理

随着中国电子商务不断发展，商品退货问题日益凸显。加强和改善退货管理，将帮助在线商家吸引和稳定客源，提高在市场中的竞争力。文章建立在线商家利润最大化的模型，比较在线商家管理退货物流的不同模式，给出将退货物流外包的条件：再对舍有退货政策的利润函数进行优化，结合企业实践经验，探讨退货比率等参数对退货政策的影响，为中国在线商家的退货管理提出建议。     

REAL OPTIONS AND THE CROSS‐SECTION OF EXPECTED STOCK RETURNS

This paper surveys the theoretical literature investigating the effect of firms’ investment flexibility on the cross‐section of expected stock returns. Real options analysis derives firms’ value‐maximizing investment policies as functions of exogenous fundamental drivers of profitability and calculates firms’ market values as functions of the same variables. These functions yield the relationship between expected stock returns and firm fundamentals. Several plausible explanations for the value premium – the high average stock returns earned by firms with high book‐to‐market ratios – emerge from this literature.     

浅析对直播电商平台的投资问题

论文首先利用PEST环境分析法探讨直播电商行业的环境,使读者进一步明晰直播电商行业的宏观投资环境。然后微观上,论文对直播电商行业的价值链和盈利点进行分析,使读者清楚电商行业的发展现状。另外,对直播电商行业的风险进行分析,使读者明确直播行业的具体投资风险点。最后,针对直播电商行业的现状给予投资建议。     

Multidivisional Strategy and Investment Returns

This paper studies the influence of multidivisional structure on investment returns using a large database of projects in the U.S. film distribution industry, a setting in which divisionalization exists without horizontal diversification—all divisions of multidivisional distributors release feature films. The findings are consistent with a positive effect of multidivisional strategy on investment returns, even if total investment need not increase. Multidivisional strategies are more consequential for higher profitability when firms share key human talent across their divisions.     

企业盈利能力评价指标完善及综合运用浅析

以提高投资者运用企业盈利能力评价指标指导其决策的有效性为基础,讨论了现行主要的企业盈利能力评价指标,初步分析了现有盈利指标计算方式本身存在的缺陷,提出了改进后的盈利指标计算公式,介绍了以权责发生制为基础获得的盈利能力指标的不足,设计了基于现金收付制的新的盈利指标,浅析了运用财务信息分析企业盈利能力的局限性,引出了评价企业盈利能力的部分非财务性指标。     

Technical efficiency in texas nursing facilities: A stochastic production frontier approach

A rapidly aging U. S. population is straining the resources available for long term care and increasing the urgency of efficient operations in nursing homes. The scope for productivity improvements can be examined by estimating a stochastic frontier production function. We apply the methods of maximum likelihood and quantile regression to a panel of Texas nursing facilities and infer that the average productivity shortfall due to avoidable technical inefficiency is at least 8 percent and perhaps as large as 20 percent. Non-profit facilities are notably less productive than comparable facilities operated for profit, and the industry has constant returns to scale.     

A statistical equilibrium model of competitive firms

We find that the empirical density of firm profit rates, measured as returns on assets, is markedly non-Gaussian and reasonably well described by an exponential power (or Subbotin) distribution. We start from a statistical equilibrium model that leads to a stationary Subbotin density in the presence of complex interactions among competitive heterogeneous firms. To investigate the dynamics of firm profitability, we construct a diffusion process that has the Subbotin distribution as its stationary probability density. This leads to a phenomenologically inspired interpretation of variations in the shape parameter of the Subbotin distribution, which essentially measures the competitive pressure in and across industries. Our findings have profound implications both for the previous literature on the ‘persistence of profits’ as well as for understanding competition as a dynamic process. Our main formal finding is that firms' idiosyncratic efforts and the tendency for competition to equalize profit rates are two sides of the same coin, and that a ratio of these two effects ultimately determines the dispersion of the equilibrium distribution.