强制分红对企业创新的负面影响

近年来出现的分红与再融资挂钩政策,不仅没有给股民带来多少即时收益,反而损害了企业与股民的长期利益：一方面分红给股民带来收入幻觉,其实真正的受益者是大股东与管理层;另一方面强制分红政策产生监管悖论,也不符合国际趋势。股民与企业的利益结合点在于企业的创新,强制分红损害了创新的可持续,从而损害彼此利益。停止强制分红、放权于市场才是正确选择。     

Advertising in a new competitive environment: Persuading customers to buy

It is no longer enough for advertisements to make consumers stay in the living room to watch the commercials or stop reading a newspaper article. The message, no matter how memorable, must persuade the consumers that the advertised product is different enough—and good enough—that they should try it.     

The Joint identification of utility and discount functions from stated choice data: An application to durable goods adoption

We present a survey design that generalizes static conjoint experiments to elicit inter-temporal adoption decisions for durable goods. We show that consumers’ utility and discount functions in a dynamic discrete choice model are jointly identified using data generated by this specific design. In contrast, based on revealed preference data, the utility and discount functions are generally not jointly identified even if consumers’ expectations are known. The separation of current-period preferences from discounting is necessary to forecast the diffusion of a durable good under alternative marketing strategies. We illustrate the approach using two surveys eliciting Blu-ray player adoption decisions. Both model-free evidence and the estimates based on a dynamic discrete choice model indicate that consumers make forward-looking adoption decisions. In both surveys the average discount rate is 43 percent, corresponding to a substantially higher degree of impatience than the rate implied by aggregate asset returns. The estimates also reveal a large degree of heterogeneity in the discount rates across consumers, but only little evidence for hyperbolic discounting.     

Exchange risk and asset returns: A theoretical and empirical study of an open economy asset pricing model

This study develops a consumption-based asset pricing model in which domestic consumers can buy goods from domestic and foreign markets but can only invest in domestic markets. In this model, the exchange rate influences asset prices through the marginal utility of consumption and increases the risks investors face. We find that our model can successfully price the 25 Fama–French portfolios and industry portfolios in the Chinese market, and the exchange rate is an important pricing factor in the unconditional linear model. We also find that the exchange risk is time-varying and countercyclical, which can help to explain the countercyclicality in equity premium.     

Persuasive advertising,autonomy, and the creation of desire

It is argued that persuasive advertising overrides the autonomy of consumers, in that it manipulates them without their knowledge and for no good reason. Such advertising causes desires in such a way that a necessary condition of autonomy — the possibility of decision — is removed. Four notions central to autonomous action are discussed — autonomous desire, rational desire and choice, free choice, and control or manipulation — following the strategy of Robert Arrington in a recent paper in this journal. Replies are made to Arrington's arguments in favour of advertising. It is also claimed that the argument developed by Philip Nelson, which concludes that even if persuasive advertising does override autonomy, it is still in the interests of consumers to be subjected to it, is seriously mistaken. Finally, some caveats concerning informative advertising are presented. The author has recently received the degrees of B. A. and B. Phil. at Oxford University, and is presently working on a D. Phil. thesis, in which an ideal utilitarian/perfectionist theory is developed. It is hoped that this theory will supply plausible solutions to a number of problems in practical ethics. He has had an article, The Argument from Marginal Cases, published in Journal of Applied Philosophy, II, 2, 1985, and another, The Avoidance of the Problem of Evil: A Reply to McGrath will be published this year in Analysis.     

Pragmatism versus Idealism: Understanding the Negotiating Practices in China and India

China and India are now emerging as major players in the new international economic order. Their economies are growing at a rapid pace, and increasingly foreign investors are flocking to these countries to capitalize on the emerging opportunities. Although economic and social transformation is under way in these societies, this transformation is occurring within a backdrop of an institutional context that is rather different from what is present in Western societies. We draw upon an institutional theory framework to compare and contrast China and India along the dimensions of the regulatory, normative, and the cognitive dimensions. The regulatory dimension refers to the restrictions or lack thereof that might impact foreign investors and/or the manner in which they are implemented. Normative dimension refers to the dominant cultural norms and values present in a given society, while cognitive dimension pertains to the acceptance or the lack thereof of foreign investment. These dimensions are then posited to impact on the negotiating processes that are characteristic of that society. We compare and contrast the negotiating practices in China with that of India and outline strategies through which foreign investors may manage the negotiating process in these countries more effectively. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

基于信息披露的QFII超额收益率与中小投资者保护

本文研究了QFII机构2007-2009年投资我国A股市场的超额收益率,静态分析结果表明QFII持股上市公司无法产生正的超额收益;动态分析结果表明QFII增仓上市公司可以产生显著为正的超额收益,而QFII减仓上市公司产生显著为负的超额收益。另外,通过问卷调查法获取中小投资者的投资弱点,从QFII机构信息披露的角度研究如何保护中小投资者利益,对证券监管部门规范QFII信息披露,引导中小投资者理性投资,以及保护中小投资者利益等方面均有一定的启示意义。     

Shaping consumer preference using alignable attributes: The roles of regulatory orientation and construal level

The structural alignment literature suggests that people place more weight on alignable (vs. nonalignable) attributes when evaluating competing options. The present research proposes that consumers' regulatory orientation moderates this process. Specifically, consumers differentially weight alignable versus nonalignable attributes depending on whether they are prevention or promotion-oriented. Results of four studies indicate that prevention-oriented consumers who tend to construe information at a more concrete level rely more on alignable attributes when evaluating two options as compared to promotion-oriented consumers who tend to construe information at a more abstract level, and are influenced more by nonalignable attributes. The authors further show that consumers' construal level and differential ease of processing the two types of attributes mediate the influence of regulatory orientations on their relative weighting of alignable versus nonalignable attributes and product evaluations.     

The Stockholder – A Lesson for Business Ethics from Bioethics?

Business ethics – both stockholder and stakeholder theories – makes the same mistake as the one made by the traditional ethics of medicine. The traditional ethics of medicine was a teleological ethics predicated on the assumption that the goal of medicine was to prolong life and promote better health. But, as bioethicists have made plain, these are not the only or even the overriding goals of most patients. Most of us have goals and values that limit our desire for medical treatments. Similarly, the view of the stockholder in business ethics is that the stockholder has only one interest – profit. If stockholders have no other values or interests that would limit their desire for additional profit, their sole interest is in profit maximization. But investors are real people with interests and values that balance and limit their desire for profit. It would be an extremely odd individual who cared for nothing except more profit. And institutional investors are supposed to serve the interests of individual investors. Stockholders hold many stakes in the firms in which they invest. The conclusion that most stockholders have interests that would limit the pursuit of maximum profit has significant implications both for business ethics and for the management of for-profit corporations. Something like “informed consent for investors” is needed. Corporate managers, to the extent that they are to be agents of their stockholders, must not simply pursue profit maximization. They must ascertain the interests and values of their investors that limit the single-minded pursuit of profit.     

Customer satisfaction and customer behavior: The differential role of brand and category expectations

Previous research has suggested that consumers use multiple strands to evaluate their satisfaction with a product and to establish postpurchase behavioral intention. However, prior empirical research has focused on which individual standard best predicts satisfaction. In contrast, this article develops and tests a model of consumer satisfaction and postpurchase behavioral intention in which consumers simultaneously use multiple standards—perceptions of performance, brand expectations, and category expectations. The results of an experiment for a simulated service encounter provide support for the proposition that consumers use multiple standards and that these standards have differential effects on such postpurchase outcomes as satisfaction, repurchase intention, and willingness to recommend. Brand expectations are shown to be better predictors of affective outcomes (such as satisfaction), while category expectations are shown to be better predictors of behavioral outcomes (repurchase and recommendation). Consistent with prior research, perceived performance is shown to have a strong effect on both satisfaction and behavioral intention.     

Consumer Protection Law in Ethiopia: The Normative Regime and the Way Forward

The 1960 Civil Code of Ethiopia and other laws have been providing a certain level of protection to consumers until the enactment of laws – in 2010 and 2014 – that expressly deal with consumer protection. This article examines consumer protection in Ethiopia with prime attention to the Trade Competition and Consumer Protection Proclamation No. 813/2013 (enacted in 2014). The social context which prompted the enactment of specific consumer laws in Ethiopia, sources that have influenced Ethiopia’s consumer law regime, rights of consumers, obligations of business persons, regulatory enforcement schemes and some features of consumer protection in digitalized services are highlighted. Moreover, the article briefly deals with the way forward regarding consumer enablement as a path to the effective implementation of consumer rights to choice, safety, information and redress. It is argued that the articulation of specific consumer laws can hardly be implemented unless consumers are adequately empowered to secure their rights and entitlements through effective redress which should include public interest litigation, class action and enhanced civil society engagement.     

Treasury Bond risk and return, the implications for the hedging of consumption and lessons for asset pricing

All consumption-based models of asset pricing imply that the relation between the conditional mean and conditional volatility of any asset reflects the effectiveness of holding that asset as a hedge against intertemporal variation in the marginal utility of consumption. For Treasury Bonds of various maturities, we find significant positive relations. Our empirical findings support the conclusion that investors must sell bonds short to hedge shocks to marginal utility, because realized bond returns tend to be high (low) when investors least (most) desire an additional dollar of consumption. Implications for special cases of the general consumption-based model are also discussed.     

Random disturbances and the choice of exchange regimes in an intergenerational model

An overlapping generational model is used to derive the consumption demand for individuals of each generation under expected utility-maximizing behavior: these demand functions are used to derive macroeconomic equilibrium under fixed and flexible exchange rates. The standard aggregate results concerning the insulating role of flexible rates for real external disturbances and fixed rates for internal disturbances are shown. However, the variability of an individual's utility need not be the same as the variability of aggregate variables. It is shown that the form of the utility function and the sources of disturbances are crucial in determining which exchange regime is preferable.     

Convergence of utility indifference prices to the superreplication price in a multiple‐priors framework

This paper formulates a utility indifference pricing model for investors trading in a discrete time financial market under nondominated model uncertainty. Investor preferences are described by possibly random utility functions defined on the positive axis. We prove that when the investors's absolute risk aversion tends to infinity, the multiple‐priors utility indifference prices of a contingent claim converge to its multiple‐priors superreplication price. We also revisit the notion of certainty equivalent for multiple‐priors and establish its relation with risk aversion.     

Who is afraid of disposition of financial assets? The moderating role of regulatory focus in the disposition effect

The disposition effect refers to the tendency of financial consumers to sell winning assets (e.g., stocks) too early and to hold losing assets for too long. This effect implies that investors behave asymmetrically under the conditions of paper gains and losses. Although prior research on the disposition effect drew primarily on prospect theory as the explanatory mechanism, we focus on regulatory focus, an alternative mechanism. Regulatory focus theory suggests that people pay distinctive attention to profits and losses depending on self-regulation orientations (i.e., promotion focus vs. prevention focus). We argue that regulatory focus has different influences on financial consumers’ investment behavior in the gain and loss domains. In three experimental studies, we demonstrate that regulatory focus moderates the disposition effect. The results of the current studies imply that the disposition effect is primarily driven by prevention- (vs. promotion-) focused individuals who behave asymmetrically in the gain and loss domains.     

Consumer emotional intelligence and its effects on responses to transgressions

This research suggests that consumer emotional intelligence (CEI) is an important construct in explaining why some consumers react destructively to conflicts in consumer-brand relationships whereas others approach them constructively. The results of the study show that (1) when encountering transgressions in relationships with brands, consumers low in CEI are more likely to respond to transgressions destructively than those who are high in CEI; (2) the effects of CEI on destructive responses are greater if a transgression affects consumers’ self interests rather than society’s interests; and (3) low CEI consumers are more likely to attribute negative intentions to the company and are therefore more likely to respond destructively than high CEI consumers.     

Market-based and accounting standards for public utility rate regulation

The possible usefulness of finance theory in developing appropriate approaches to the regulation of public utility service prices has received considerable attention. Of particular interest has been the matter of cost of capital as a guide to fair rate of return determination. From an underlying concept of the proper goal of regulation—to duplicate for public utility investors the risks and rewards they would be subjected to if their capital were committed to unregulated enterprises—the present paper develops a basis for selecting the correct regulatory approach. That approach is seen to be supportive of traditional accounting-based regulatory commission procedures, and to argue against cost of capital as a return standard.     

Do social product features have value to consumers?

The present paper utilizes a random utility theoretic experimental design to provide estimates of the relative value that selected consumers place on the social features of products. Experiments were conducted in Hong Kong and Australia using both university students and supporters of the human rights organization Amnesty International. The paper focuses on two classes of social features, “labor practices” and “animal rights and the environment”. The results show that the social features of products can, on average, affect an individuals' likelihood of purchasing a product. Also, this paper finds distinctive segments of ethically orientated consumers.     

Institutional investors as stewards of the corporation: Exploring the challenges to the monitoring hypothesis

The study explores the challenges UK‐based institutional investors face when trying to monitor investee companies and influence their social, environmental, and governance practices. Consistent with previous research, I find that misalignment of interests within the investment chain and dispersed ownership are factors which inhibit investor activism. However, other underexplored challenges include lack of investee company transparency and investor experience in activism, as well as low client demand for engagement and internal conflicts of interest. The results contribute to the literature on institutional investor activism by using direct empirical evidence to systematically discuss the challenges to stewardship. Given the intensification of media and regulatory attention on shareholders in the post‐global financial crisis era, coupled with investors’ growing awareness and practice of stewardship, the research opens new avenues for enquiry which go beyond the on‐going debate about the monitoring versus short‐termism roles of institutional investors.     

Policy implications

Abstract: In the European Union, the framework of financial services legislation at EU level has been aimed primarily at forming a single market for banks, insurers and other financial services firms. Substantial progress has been made towards this objective. Also, the EU initiatives have stimulated a reappraisal of national regulatory systems. Most of this EU legislation (with the exception of the consumer credit directives) has not had consumer protection as one of its main aims, although it has been assumed that consumers will eventually benefit from a wide choice of financial services providers and from price competition. However, partly in response to consumer pressure, the European Commission is developing a set of initiatives more closely geared to protecting consumers’ interests. Within the context of the EU’s approach, there remain considerable variations in the approach to protecting consumers’ interests in different member states as a result of legal and cultural differences.