家电制造业上市公司经营绩效的实证分析

近几年家电制造业上市公司经营业绩呈现下滑趋势，一些大型家电制造商在2001年陷入严重亏损，究其原因，营业费用比率的逐年过度上涨占很大一部分。本试以实证的方法来分析两的相关性，并且从中发现问题，提出相应的建议。     

Housing Statistics: Some Sources and Some Limitations

There are presently more statistics on the size, composition, and quality of the housing stock than ever before. This article discusses some of these sources and some of their limitations. The number and diversity of housing statistics, however, can overwhelm the user, and a model or framework is needed to keep the analyst on target. The same is true of a discussion of housing statistics. The framework in Kristof's study of housing needs for the National Commission on Urban Problems is used to limit the discussion to significant housing statistics from which any type of housing analysis can be constructed.     

The ethics of sentencing white-collar criminals

The consistent sentencing of white collar criminals does not exist in today's judicial system. Guidelines for sentencing individuals and corporations have already been developed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission but have not yet been implemented in the courts. Pros and cons of the guidelines are given, as is the extent and form of sentencing deemed appropriate for the individual or corporation. The activities of the sentencing commission are depicted by a timeline. Phillip W. Balsmeier is a professor of Management at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA. He has published in Industrial Managementand the Journal of Small Business Management.Jennifer Kelly is a Master of Business Administration student at Nicholls State University. She is a graduate assistant in the President's office at the University.     

New evidence about regional income divergence in China

There are many empirical studies trying to test if there is income convergence across the provinces of China. In this paper, we bring new information to the current literature by applying non-linear panel unit root test of Exponential Smooth Auto-Regressive Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ESTAR-ADF) unit root test developed by Cerrato et al. (2008) to the time series data for the period 1952–2003. The number of converging provinces decreases in the post-reform period when using panel ESTAR-ADF test. Furthermore, our results find evidence of increasing regional disparity that has been prevailing in China since the open door economic reforms of the late 1970s, which confirms the view of Pedroni and Yao (2006) that interprovincial inequalities have been widening since 1978.In addition, we also examine the determinants of conditional convergence in China. The results indicate that low inflation, transport and telecommunication infrastructure, and trade openness could stimulate economic growth in China. Human capital also play a significant role in growth, and it exhibits non-linearity between human capital and growth in the sense that at low levels of human capital the effect on growth is negative and became positive at middle levels.     

A new family-community social structure

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether a new family-community social structure of accumulation (FSSA) has emerged in the Unites States to contribute to long-wave growth and development through the early decades of the 21st century. Institutions that promote system-functions or public goods are required for sustainable growth and development. Three dimensions of the potential FSSA institutions are examined in this paper, within the context of the systemic circuit of social capital: (a) stability within families, (b) trust and association in the community, and (c) the degree of relative equality. Overall, the findings are that a new FSSA does not currently operate in the US because the emerging family type is not promoting sufficient stability, trust has diminished to low levels, and structural inequality has continued to rise. These factors have negatively impacted long-term economic performance through several transmission mechanisms, which are analyzed in the paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the combined ASE-AFEE sessions of the 2003 ASSA meetings. The author wishes to thank Jonathan Goldstein, Terry McDonough, Ron Stanfield and Patrick Welch for comments and encouragement on the earlier version.     

Cofinancing to Manage Risk in the Motion Picture Industry

Cofinancing is a term used in the movie industry to describe films for which multiple firms share the cost of production and revenues. We find that one-third of movies produced by major studios between 1987 and 2000 are cofinanced. Anecdotal evidence strongly indicates that cofinancing is for the purpose of risk management. However, the major studios are publicly traded firms, which allows investors to make their own diversification decisions, leading us to question the importance of cofinancing for risk management. Contrary to industry claims, we find that cofinancing decisions are unrelated to the distribution of individual movie returns—studios do not appear to cofinance relatively risky films. But we do find that studios are more likely to cofinance movies that account for a large fraction of their total annual production budget, which reduces portfolio risk via the law of large numbers. Toward an alternative explanation for cofinancing, we also find that cofinancing between two major studios impacts the release dates of their other movies.