Shareholder Activism through Proxy Proposals: The European Perspective

This paper is the first to investigate the corporate governance role of shareholder‐initiated proxy proposals in European firms. Proposal submissions in Europe remain infrequent compared to the USA, especially in Continental Europe. In the UK proposals typically relate to a proxy contest seeking board changes, while in Continental Europe they are more focused on specific governance issues. There is some evidence that proposal sponsors are valuable monitors, because the target firms tend to underperform and have low leverage. Sponsors also consider the ownership structure of the firm, because proposal probability increases in the target's ownership concentration and the equity stake of institutional investors. While proposals enjoy limited voting success across Europe, they are relatively more successful in the UK. The outcomes are strongest for proposals targeting the board but are also affected by the target characteristics including the CEO's pay‐performance sensitivity. Proposals are met with a significant negative abnormal return of ?1.23%, when they are voted upon at general meetings. The low voting support gathered by proposals and the strongly adverse market reaction suggest that shareholders of European companies use proposals as an emergency brake rather than a steering wheel.     

Cybertax

Internet, the fastest growing communications medium or consumer electronic technology, doubles its size every six months. Within a few years the number of citizens in Cyberspace will outnumber all but the largest nations. The borderless world of the Internet extends its reach to all corners of the world. Best of all, it is almost free. Hardware costs aside, once on the Internet a user can surf anywhere for the price of a local phone call. But what about all the foregone tax revenue that electronic commerce could facilitate? Although Internet commerce is in its earliest stages, its rapid growth is anticipated. Some estimate that in 30 years time, consumer activity online could represent more than 30% of total consumer activity. This leads to the erosion of national tax bases. In this paper we show that, as a measure of last resort, the bit tax can be implemented. Although the exact implementation of such a tax is not yet clear, the general idea of a tax on information from the point of view of an eroding tax base and the changing society is certainly worth considering. Furthermore, the tax revenues could be directed towards improving access to the Internet, educating individuals to become acquainted with the Internet and providing additional needed bandwidth.     

An export model for the Belgian industry

A two-equation model for the export volume and the export price of the Belgian industry is specified as a convex combination of demand and supply determinants and estimated using Bayesian inference methods. The results indicate that, in the medium run, industrial exports are mainly explained by the behaviour of price taking suppliers.     

税收竞争还是税收输出?

原载:Journal of Urban Economics,第54卷,(2003)第639-647页一、引言在税收竞争基本模型①里,两个独立辖区政府为了相互竞争流动税基,把税率设计得很低,结果产生了无效率问题。典型税收竞争模型通常研究的是一系列独立辖区,其中每个辖区都在本区范围内对流动资本征税。征来的税款用来支持公共提供品,而这个公共提供品可能具有或不具有公共产品的那些特征。增加税收会带来资本的外流,而这种资本外流是提供公共提供品的一部分成本,尽管如此,我们并不考虑其他辖区拓宽税基这一有益的情况。由于所有辖区政府都采取相同的行为方式,所以,就会出…     

PRACTICES OF TREASURY MANAGEMENT IN A SMALL OPEN TRADING ECONOMY: THE BELGIAN CASE

There is little systematic information available on the current practices in the area of treasury management among companies outside the US. The purpose of this study is to investigate management practices in the areas of treasury management for companies located in a small open trading economy: Belgium. This article analyses and compares corporate responses in three important areas of treasury management, i. e. managing banking relations, domestic cash management, and foreign exchange management. The results presented in this article indicate that corporate practice in these areas could be much more sophisticated.     

How Country and Safety-Net Characteristics Affect Bank Risk-Shifting

Risk-shifting occurs when creditors or guarantors are exposed to loss without receiving adequate compensation. This paper seeks to measure and compare how well authorities in 56 countries controlled bank risk shifting during the 1990s. Although significant risk-shifting occurs on average, substantial variation exists in the effectiveness of risk control across countries. We find that the tendency for explicit deposit insurance to exacerbate risk shifting is tempered by incorporating loss-control features such as risk-sensitive premiums, coverage limits, and coinsurance. Introducing explicit deposit insurance has had adverse effects in environments that are low in political and economic freedom and high in corruption.     

Just about money? CEO satisfaction and firm performance in small family firms

This paper examines how family ownership and family ties influence the relative importance of economic and non-economic goals on the CEO’s satisfaction with the firm. Using a sample of small high-tech family and non-family firms, we show that the influence of past firm economic performance on CEO satisfaction is weaker in the case of CEOs leading a family firm. Our results also suggest that this influence becomes weaker as the family firm transitions into subsequent generations. However, contrary to our expectations, we were not able to find a differential effect of firm performance on CEO satisfaction between CEOs who belong to the controlling family and those who do not.     

Interrelationships among lean bundles and their effects on operational performance

The aim of our research is to disentangle the complex relations among lean bundles and operational performance. In particular, we focus on the direct and mediating effects on operational performance of three of the main lean manufacturing bundles, namely Just in Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Human Resource Management (HRM). We run statistical analysis on the High Performance Manufacturing round III database, a survey involving 266 plants in nine countries across three different industries. Our results show that JIT and TQM have a direct and positive effect on operational performance while HRM has a mediated effect on it. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are then drawn and discussed.     

The ownership of ratings

We identify the optimal contract between a rating agency and a firm and the circumstances under which simple ownership contracts implement this optimal solution. We assume that the decision to obtain a rating is endogenous and the price of a rating is a strategic variable. Clients hiding their ratings can be an equilibrium only if they are ex ante uncertain of their quality and if the hiring decision is not observable. For some distribution functions, a competitive rating market is necessary for this result to obtain. In this context, competition between rating intermediaries will lead to less information in equilibrium.