融资约束条件下我国中小板上市公司投资效率测度

文章以我国中小企业板上市公司为研究对象,从企业经理人追求利润最大化行为出发构建中小企业的投资支出模型。不同于已有文献仅从投资-现金流敏感性角度入手的实证研究,文章的研究方法无需对样本公司进行分组,而且可以定量测度融资约束条件下的公司投资效率问题。实证结果表明：由于融资约束的存在,使得我国中小板上市公司实际投资支出最优水平低;现金流的增加不仅可以缓解融资约束压力,还能够降低融资不确定性,债务融资比例越高,融资约束越大,进一步加剧了未来融资时的不确定性;我国中小板上市公司融资约束程度与企业规模呈负相关关系,且投资效率随时间呈现下降趋势,意味着近年来我国出台的一系列旨在改善中小企业融资难的政策措施,在实践中并没有起到有效缓解融资约束的作用。     

Firm age and performance

Amid increasing interest in firm age and its effects on firm performance, this special issue offers an exhaustive review of the literature and a novel collection of evidence on the effects of firm age on performance, including a special focus of interest on innovation performance, financial performance, exports, survival and growth. This editorial positions the theme in the extant literature, and provides key definitions and challenges ahead in the field of evolutionary economics. It introduces the collection of articles composing the special issue. The papers offer a diversity of country contexts, as well as analytical approaches and methods. They include an exhaustive review of the literature on age and firms’ performance, and present original empirical studies focusing on the effects of age on firms’ economic outcomes on the one hand, and on innovation outcomes on the other hand. While most of the papers use econometric analysis, the level of analysis ranges from firm to individual.     

On perpetual American put valuation and first-passage in a regime-switching model with jumps

In this paper we consider the problem of pricing a perpetual American put option in an exponential regime-switching Lévy model. For the case of the (dense) class of phase-type jumps and finitely many regimes we derive an explicit expression for the value function. The solution of the corresponding first-passage problem under a state-dependent level rests on a path transformation and a new matrix Wiener–Hopf factorization result for this class of processes. Research supported by the Nuffield Foundation, grant NAL/00761/G, and EPSRC grant EP/D039053/1.     

Quantifying corruption by a human capital earnings equation

This paper uses a human capital earnings equation to quantify administrative corruption in the public sector. Regression analyses are conducted based on information from surveys administered to public officials in Albania. After accounting for officials’ characteristics, e.g., schooling, experience, gender, type of agency, and public and private sectors’ features, we deduce that the administrative corruption was on average 2.6× the officials’ current salary in Albania, which is equivalent to 16.7% of the country’s GDP.

The structure of bias in peer voting systems: lessons from the Eurovision Song Contest

This paper assesses whether and how common characteristics of jury members or peer voters affect the outcomes of voting systems. In particular, we analyze to what extent these common features result in voting bias. We take as a case study the Eurovision Song Contest for which an extensive amount of historical data is available. In contrast to earlier studies we analyze the impact of common factors on the bias individually for each country, which is necessary to substantiate the publicly debated accusations of regional block voting by certain groups of countries. We establish strong evidence for voting bias in the song contest on the basis of geography, even after correction for culture, language, religion and ethnicity. However, these effects do generally not correspond to the usual accusations. We believe that our findings extend to all instances where groups of jury members or peer voters share certain common factors, which may cause voting bias. It is important to identify such structures explicitly, as it can help avoiding bias in the first place. The authors are grateful to Marieke van Dijk for excellent research assistance and to Laurens Swinkels, Ieva Pudane, Gijsbert van Lomwel, Jelena Stefanovic, and Bas van den Heuvel for useful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Kursprognose mit Hilfe der Technischen Analyse — Eine empirische Untersuchung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

历史与现在——国际商法的演进对我们的启示

文中对国际商法从古代商法、中世纪商人法到近代商法国内化以及现代商人法的历史演进过程进行研究,并从纵向和横向的角度解读了国际商法的发展带给我们的启示。     

典则判别在财务困境预测的应用

本以我国上市公司为研究对象,选取了2003-2005年ST的108家公司和非ST的108家公司共216家为样本,利用上市公司公开披露的年报财务信息和数据,选取了38个财务指标,应用逐步回归方法,选取显的预测变量,运用判别分析法,借助SPSS统计分析软件,建立上市公司财务困境预测模型.研究发现,判别分析能比较准确地预测上市公司。     

Foreclosure,REO, and Market Sales in Residential Real Estate

Assessment of lender and third-party bidder acquired properties at foreclosure auction is provided. Properties acquired at foreclosure auction by third-party bidders transact at a discount to lender dispositions of real estate owned (REO) properties. The discount reflects a reduction in costs associated with lender owned (REO) dispositions and uncertainty faced by third-party bidders. Moreover, there is a ranking in transaction prices among initial purchases by third-party bidders at foreclosure auction, REO sales, non-distressed property sales and the subsequent sales of third-party bidder acquired properties. Third-party bidder auction prices are below REO sale prices, which are below non-distressed property sale prices, which are below the subsequent sale prices of third-party bidder acquired properties. The price spacing by cohort is logical, intuitive and economically justified in a market with rational participants. Implications are also apparent for the measurement of price changes, net sale proceeds and returns to residential real estate.