Customer Concentration and Public Disclosure: Evidence from Management Earnings and Sales Forecasts

This study examines the association between customer base concentration and corporate public disclosure policy. When the customer base is more concentrated, large customers face lower costs of accessing the supplier firm's private information, reducing customers' overall demand for the supplier's public information, suggesting a negative association between customer concentration and the amount of public disclosure. Alternatively, large customers have greater bargaining power and may demand that the supplier firm provide more public disclosures. Consistent with customer concentration facilitating private information flow from the supplier to customers, we find that the frequencies of management earnings and sales forecasts are negatively associated with customer concentration among firms with major corporate customers. These associations are stronger when the supplier and customers are engaged in more relationship-specific investments, when customers' private information acquisition costs are lower, and when it is less costly for customers to find another supplier.     

Linguistic Information Quality in Customers' Forward‐Looking Disclosures and Suppliers' Investment Decisions

This study examines whether and how linguistic information quality (measured by readability) of customer firms' management earnings forecast reports (MEFRs) affects supplier firms' investment quality (measured by investment efficiency). Our analyses reveal that supplier investment efficiency is positively associated with the average linguistic information quality of customers' prior MEFRs, and the positive association between supplier investment efficiency and customer MEFRs' numerical information quality is stronger in supplier firms with more readable customer MEFRs. Our analyses also reveal that higher linguistic information quality of customer MEFRs improves the monitoring of supplier firms by their outside stakeholders, such as institutional investors and financial analysts, and ameliorates the negative impact of suppliers' customer‐dependence on their investment efficiency. Our results suggest that greater linguistic information quality of a customer firm's forward‐looking disclosures is associated with higher‐quality investments made by its suppliers along the supply chain.     

Quality,experience, and monopoly: the Soviet market for weapons under Stalin1

Monopoly is a particular problem in markets where experience goods are traded, since the consumer cannot respond to bad experiences by switching repeat purchases to another supplier. New evidence shows how the defence ministry as buyer in the Soviet market for military goods responded to this problem by investing in an evaluation of quality prior to purchase, by showing reluctance to buy, and by exploiting the available non‐market means to influence the defence industry as supplier. The effectiveness of these stratagems was limited by the defence industry's counteractions and because the buyer had no choice but to come to a compromise with the supplier.     

供应商行为与零售商关系承诺间的实证研究

供应商快速反应能力是零售商选择供应商时考虑的最重要因素之一,直接关系到客户关系管理的改善。文章从供应商快速反应能力的角度对供应商行为与零售商关系承诺间的关系进行了实证研究,并发现三类供应商快速反应能力通过客户满意和信任间接影响零售商三类关系承诺,快速响应服务能力是零售商所考虑的最重要的供应商快速反应能力指标。     

基于供应商入侵的两级供应链批量博弈及决策

考虑由一个供应商和一个零售商组成的两级供应链,构建了三阶段博弈模型,研究在不对称信息下供应商入侵对零售商订单量及供应商库存量决策的影响。通过设计市场规模阈值及调查市场规模,进而得出每一阶段下供应商和零售商的利润。对3个阶段供应商和零售商利润先后进行比较分析,发现当后一阶段利润大于前一阶段时,供应链成员才会对订单量及库存量进行调整,从而得出在每阶段零售商订单数量及供应商库存数量范围。结果表明,供应商入侵在一定的零售商订单量及供应商库存量范围内可以提高供应链利润。     

To make or to buy from a common supplier? Strategic considerations and welfare consequences

Consider two downstream firms that each can either produce an input in-house or purchase it from an upstream supplier. We show that depending on the difference between the supplier's and the downstream firms' in-house production costs, outsourcing by both firms could help them achieve a Pareto improvement or leave them trapped in a prisoner's dilemma. Furthermore, we find that two downstream firms may play a chicken game in which each makes a sourcing decision different from its rival if the input supplier is not as efficient as in the previous cases. The welfare implications of various sourcing outcomes are explored.     

Trade credit and ethnicity: Case of ethnic minority area in China

Using data for trade credit practices, this work investigates interfirm trust formation by ethnic minority firms in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The main findings of this research are as follows. First, there is a general ethnic bias against ethnic minority firms in receiving trade credit. Second, ethnic minority firms are less eager than Han firms to build interfirm trust with their business partners by offering trade credit, which is partly due to their financing constraints. Third, ethnic minority firms have less trust of other ethnic minority firms in offering trade credit. Fourth, these trade credit practices by ethnic minority firms tend to be more pronounced in those surviving after 2005. Fifth, ethnic minority firms do not share their members' information regarding productivity within their circle of ethnic minority firms. Overall, interfirm trust is insufficiently formed, even among ethnic minority firms.     

The Effect of Environmental Risk on the Efficiency of Negotiated Transfer Prices

This study investigates whether environmental risk affects the efficiency of negotiated transfer prices. We analyze a setting where the buyer faces environmental risk but the seller does not. From the risk‐neutral firm's perspective, the transfer should be made in our setting because the expected value of the buyer's profit is greater than the certain opportunity cost of the seller from the transfer. We develop hypotheses to predict that, as environmental risk increases, it becomes more difficult for buyers and sellers to reach agreement. Such difficulty reduces efficiency in terms of both firm profit and negotiation time. We test our hypotheses via an experiment in which buyer and seller dyads negotiate over the transfer of a resource at six levels of environmental risk. Results show that, as predicted, environmental risk decreases efficiency. Specifically, as environmental risk increases, the frequency of agreement decreases, thereby reducing expected firm profit. Further, environmental risk increases negotiation time for those dyads that are able to reach an agreement. Data suggest that the cause of the decreased efficiency is that buyers and sellers use different reference points for determining a fair transfer price and environmental risk exacerbates the effects of such differences.     

State Fragmentation and Rights Contestation： Rural Land Development Rights in China

The functionalist reasoning of institutional changes builds on individual rationality and explains institutional changes from the demand side. While insightful, a comprehensive understanding also needs to take into account the supply side, The state, as the ultimate supplier of institutional changes, plays the pivotal role of agency; therefore, its willingness and ability decide how such regime change occurs and what partieular form the new regime takes. Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese economy has embarked on a path of rapid industrialization and urbanization. The contestation over rural land development rights in China offers an excellent case to illuminate the importance of state agency in institutional changes. Drawing on case studies in China＇s three major urbanizing regions, this article analyzes how villages brought their own land directly to the land market and reaped handsome profits. We argue that the three successful cases, Nanhai in Guangdong, Kunshan in Jiangsu and Zhenggezhuang in Beijing, all represent a product of active agency on the supply side. The Chinese state＇s fragmented authority provides a favorable institutional environment for such changes.     

Effectiveness of Capital Controls and Sterilizations in China

Since 2003, China has been facing a trilemma of determining how to maintain independent monetary policy and limit exchange rate flexibility simultaneously, while facing persistent and substantial international capital flows. The present paper is an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of China＇s sterilizations and capital mobility regulations, measured by sterilization and offset coefficients, respectively, using monthly data between mid-1999 and March 2009. We find that the effectiveness of China＇s sterilizations is almost perfect in terms of the monetary base, but not in terms of M2, and that China＇s capital controls still work but are not quite effective. Recursive estimation reveals that increasing mobility of capital flows and decreasing effectiveness of sterilizations might undercut China＇s ability to maintain monetary autonomy and domestic currency stability simultaneously. To solve the trilemma smoothly, China＇s monetary authority should continue to relax the management of the exchange rate, and take further steps towards deregulation of capital outflows.     

Controls and Cooperation in Interactive and Non‐Interactive Settings

Prior research finds that controls that induce cooperation among collaborators on a project increase trust, and that this increased trust increases subsequent cooperation among collaborators. We extend this work by investigating how controls influence cooperative behavior in two settings. The first is an interactive setting where people work together and can benefit from each other's work. The second is a non‐interactive setting where people do not work together directly but where behavior can be observed. We propose that because controls are likely to engender greater trust and reciprocity in interactive settings than in non‐interactive settings, the effect of controls on future cooperative behavior will be greater for controls in interactive settings than for controls in non‐interactive settings. We find that controls in both settings increase future cooperative behavior, but the effect is significantly greater in interactive settings (where reciprocity and trust are more likely to develop). Furthermore, this increased cooperation is observed in an uncontrolled task, suggesting that the control fosters trust in others rather than trust in the control. These findings suggest that the benefits of controls are more substantial in work environments characterized by extensive teamwork and where employees benefit from each other's work.     

What is the role of government trust in a firm's R&D investments? Evidence from SMEs

We examine how government trust shapes the R&D behaviors of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). To study this, we use data collected on 3045 Chinese SMEs to find that for every standard deviation increase in the government trust index, an SME has a 23.9% increase in their R&D investments. Our findings are robust after accounting for endogeneity using an instrumental variable and controlling for the impact of social trust. We further discover that SME owners who are more motivated to conduct innovation will make more R&D investments when they trust the government, driven in part by their willingness to take more risks. Finally, the effect of government trust on R&D investments is less salient when the region has a high marketization level.     

基于价格契约的生产制造型企业VMI系统研究

随着生产制造型企业在中国的大力发展,大量多品种零部件库存管理变得非常重要。文章对生产制造型企业实施VMI的特点进行了分析,从供应商的利润和生产制造型企业零部件成本两个角度进行研究。供应链双方愿意为长期战略合作实现双赢创造条件,牺牲部分自己的利益。文章构建了供应商和生产制造型企业之间的利益分享模型,并通过算例验证了模型的有效性。     

基于数量损耗的生鲜电商供应链协调研究

针对单一生鲜供应商和单一生鲜电商组成的二级供应链,通过Stackberg博弈模型和供应链契约理论分析3种模式下的供应链最优收益、生鲜农产品采购数量、生鲜电商单位农产品销售价格、生鲜电商自营物流服务水平.结果表明:生鲜损耗率在一定区间时,协调后的供应链利润总大于协调前;契约参数满足一定条件时,"收益共享+成本共担"的混合契约可以协调生鲜电商供应链,实现双方的帕累托改进.     

Looking back: Government politics and trust in rural developments in Tanzania and Zimbabwe 1980–1990

Trust is assigning the right to act to others. Trust is therefore building community. But trust can increase and wane with complex consequences. Community was built differently in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Tanzania reached independence already in 1961; Zimbabwe in 1980. Both were subjected to British colonialism. Both experienced liberation movements more harshly suppressed in Zimbabwe than in Tanzania. Both had large rural populations. It can be argued that some level of generalised trust among people within the state’s formal boundaries is a condition for a functioning democracy. Distrust that makes a citizen, a group or a whole category of people exit from the state’s basic institutions fragments the state. The question here is how government politics in rural affairs, both policy-making and the organisation of implementation, affected trust relations between rulers and rural citizens in the two countries. The assumption is the less positive meaning policy has, the less trust, a reduced willingness to assign authority to policy maker and implementers.     

The implications for suppliers of the spread of supermarkets in southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The growth of supermarkets in southern Africa opens local and regional markets to suppliers through participation in supermarket supply chains. Supermarkets in the region provide an important route to market for processed foods and household consumable products. Through a regional value chain lens, this article provides an assessment of the implications of the growth of supermarkets for the participation of suppliers in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The research finds that, while supermarkets provide important opportunities for suppliers, they also exert considerable buyer power that limits supplier development and upgrading. High private standards, onerous requirements and costly trading terms negatively affect supplier participation in value chains. Long-term investments are required to build the capabilities of suppliers to meet supermarket requirements in terms of quality, consistency, volume and cost-competitiveness.     

新增值税条件下购货方纳税筹划理论探析

2009年新《增值税暂行条例》的实施为增值税纳税人的纳税实务提供了更大的筹划空间。对于购货方为一般纳税人而言,选择供货方的纳税筹划方法为购货价格折让率基础上的议价。而当购货方为小规模纳税人时,纳税筹划方法为最低供货价格的选择。企业可以根据既定的纳税人身份科学地进行增值税的纳税筹划,以达到少缴税或递延纳税并为企业财务管理目标服务的目的。     

Downstream Research Joint Venture with Upstream Market Power

In a vertically related industry, we examine the downstream firms' incentives to invest in cost‐reducing Research and Development (R&D), and to form a Research Joint Venture (RJV), under two alternative structures of input supply: exclusive vertical relations and a single supplier. In contrast to the “hold‐up” argument, in which downstream firms invest non‐cooperatively and spillovers are low, R&D investments are higher under a single supplier than under competing vertical chains. Downstream firms' incentives to form a RJV are also stronger in the former case than they are in the latter. We identify conditions under which an RJV is beneficial for society. Integrated innovation and competition policies are also discussed.     

Optimal R&D Policy and Managerial Delegation Under Vertically Differentiated Duopoly

The paper investigates the optimal research and development (R&D) policy in a vertically differentiated market with managerial delegation. We consider not only discriminatory R&D policy but uniform R&D policy as well. It shows that R&D policy can vary depending on the regulator's objective: social welfare, consumer surplus or producer surplus; however, the outcomes are invariant to the nature of market competition. Undoubtedly, the relative‐performance contract plays a crucial role for elaborating policy effects. The government prefers discriminatory R&D policy to uniform policy under a consumer‐oriented objective. On the contrary, under a producer‐oriented objective, the government would prefer to choose uniform R&D policy rather than discriminatory policy.