International R&D Spillovers: An Application of Estimation and Inference in Panel Cointegration

In this paper, we apply the asymptotic theory of panel cointegration developed by Kao and Chiang (1998) to Coe and Helpman's (1995) international R&D spillovers regression. The OLS with bias-correction, the fully-modified (FM) and the dynamic OLS (DOLS) estimations produce different predictions about the impact of foreign R&D on total factor productivity (TFP) although all the estimations support the result that domestic R&D is related to TFP.     

Cross-Subsidization,Cost Allocation,and Tacit Coordination

This paper considers the prospect that multiproduct firms facing each other in separate markets might tacitly coordinate their production through strategic common service cost allocations and mutually benefit from such action as a consequence. Our analysis suggests that decentralization cum tacit coordination may be possible in equilibrium, with or without public disclosure of allocation choices. In turn, tacit coordination may contribute to explanations for multiproduct firms' decisions to decentralize. The implications for trade oversight bodies are ambiguous. While tacit coordination results in an anti-competitive distortion toward monopolies, it also induces greater specialization which reduces the diseconomies of scope.     

Simultaneous screening and college admissions

We analyze a simultaneous screening problem in competition among top schools. The model predicts that when the second best school has similar prestige to the best one it could attract better students by choosing the same entrance examination date.     

西部地区村级规划体系构建研究

构建适于西部地区农村发展的村级规划体系、编制实用型村庄规划,对于实施乡村振兴战略和农村人居环境整治工程具有重要的理论探索和实践意义。文章在剖析西部地区村级规划编制中存在的"缺位或流于形式、实用性较差、无视规划用地"等问题基础上,采用对比分析法,厘清村级层面各类规划相互关系,进而提出村级规划体系构建的原则与框架。研究表明:(1)西部地区村庄规划体系建立与规划编制迫在眉睫;(2)现有主要村级层面规划中,乡村振兴战略规划是村庄产业发展导向与战略功能定位,村土地利用规划是村庄用地空间布局与管制规划,共同构成多元化完整的村庄规划体系;(3)"一张图"融合、战略定位先行、公众参与等是构建实用型村级规划体系的基本原则;(4)村级规划体系的逻辑架构为"双结构""双理念"和"5维导向",实施模式以"1+N模式";(5)西部地区村级规划应以多个村落共同编制为主要形式,同时探索留白机制,提高规划弹性。     

公积金：内地要向香港学习

为解决人口急剧老龄化问题，保障大多数人的退休生活，香港特区政府自2000年12月起正式推行强积金（强制性公积金）计划。强积金是以职业为基础的退休保障计划，除豁免人士外，凡年龄在侣岁至65岁之间的雇员和自雇人士都必须参加强积金。强积金计划推行时间虽然不长，但其效果非常明显，目前已覆盖了86％的香港就业人士。在强积金投资上，香港特区政府对投资范围、投资比例及投资工具等都作了详细的规定，保证了基金的稳健运营。由于人们可以灵活地选择其养老金账户的投资方式，近年来，强积金的总资产净值每年增长超过三成，截至去年底已滚存至1200亿港元。     

Joint estimation of technical efficiency and production risk for multi-output banks under a panel data cost frontier model

This article generalizes production risk from a single output production function to a multiple output cost frontier, which is able to examine input-oriented technical efficiencies and production risk simultaneously in the context of a panel data. Furthermore, the joint confidence interval estimates for technical efficiencies are constructed by means of multiple comparisons with the best approach. Whether taking production risk into account or not offers quite dissimilar implications in terms of the average technical efficiency measure and the identification of multiple efficient banks achieving the optimal cost frontier. It is suggested that inferences drawn on the basis of the confidence intervals of technical efficiency provide much more fruitful and insightful information than the point estimation alone. Bank specific risk parameters are found to be highly and positively correlated with fixed-effect estimates, implying that the more risk-averse a bank is, the more technically efficient it will be.

Co-opted directors,gender diversity,and crash risk: evidence from China

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This study examines how the composition of the board of directors at Chinese firms affects crash risk. The results indicate that co-opted directors...     

Structural changes in heterogeneous panels with endogenous regressors

This paper extends Pesaran's (Econometrica, 2006, 74, 967–1012) common correlated effects (CCE) by allowing for endogenous regressors in large heterogeneous panels with unknown common structural changes in slopes and error factor structure. Since endogenous regressors and structural breaks are often encountered in empirical studies with large panels, this extension makes Pesaran's CCE approach empirically more appealing. In addition to allowing for slope heterogeneity and cross‐sectional dependence, we find that Pesaran's CCE approach is also valid when dealing with unobservable factors in the presence of endogenous regressors and structural changes in slopes and error factor loadings. This is supported by Monte Carlo experiments.     

Does microtherm boost pharmaceutical companies’ market capitalization returns?

The purpose of this study was to survey the relationship between the temperature factors and market capitalization returns of pharmaceutical companies by analysing both the daily and weekly frequency data in Taiwan. The threshold regression model with the GJR-GARCH process was applied for examination in this study; we found that pharmaceutical companies’ market capitalization returns could be boosted after exposure to extremely low temperatures for a period of time. Besides, the delayed effect of cold weather is demonstrated to exist. This phenomenon can be illustrated by epidemiological evidence-related mental factors, not by traditional behavioural finance. Moreover, lower weekly average temperatures are beneficial for investors to gain weekly pharmaceutical companies’ market capitalization returns. We are of the opinion that our findings offer an insightful suggestion for investors to buy pharmaceutical stocks at an opportune moment.     

Testing spatial regression models under nonregular conditions

In time series context, estimation and testing issues with autoregressive and moving average (ARMA) models are well understood. Similar issues in the context of spatial ARMA models for the disturbance of the regression, however, remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we discuss the problems of testing no spatial dependence in the disturbances against the alternative of spatial ARMA process incorporating the possible presence of spatial dependence in the dependent variable. The problems of conducting such a test are twofold. First, under the null hypothesis, the nuisance parameter is not identified, resulting in a singular information matrix (IM), which is a nonregular case in statistical inference. To take account of singular IM, we follow Davies (Biometrika 64(2):247–254, 1977; Biometrika 74(1):33–43, 1987) and propose a test procedure based on the supremum of the Rao score test statistic. Second, the possible presence of spatial lag dependence will have adverse effect on the performance of the test. Using the general test procedure of Bera and Yoon (Econom Theory 9:649–658, 1993) under local misspecification, we avoid the explicit estimation of the spatial autoregressive parameter. Thus our suggested tests are entirely based on ordinary least squares estimation. Tests suggested here can be viewed as a generalization of Anselin et al. (Reg Sci Urban Econ 26:77–104, 1996). We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the finite sample properties of the proposed tests. Simulation results show that our tests have good finite sample properties both in terms of size and power, compared to other tests in the literature. We also illustrate the applications of our tests through several data sets.