The Impact of Occupational Community on the Quality of Internal Control

Senior executives in major corporations have drawn attention in recent years for a range of unethical activities. Despite a rise in measures to protect against such lapses, executives still make decisions whether or not to comply with reporting standards, best practices, industry norms and legislation. The prior literature in this area addresses individual characteristics of decision makers and social networks between executives and boards of directors, but to this point has largely overlooked group dynamics of the executive team. Our study addresses this gap and examines the relationship between an occupational community of top executives and the quality of internal control. We construct a unique measure for the executive occupational community based on CEO and CFO’s joint tenure. Our findings show that the number of years of CEO/CFO’s joint tenure is significantly and negatively associated with internal control weakness, suggesting that the longer the executive relationship, the lower the likelihood of internal control weakness. Our study indicates that the presence of an occupational community contributes to better internal control.     

Cognition of disaster risk in a tourism community: an agricultural heritage system perspective

Cognition of risk is the first step in reducing disaster damage and losses. In this study, risk cognition in the Hani Rice Terraces, the core tourism attraction in Yuanyang County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, China, is analyzed based on field survey and participatory geographic information system (GIS). The results show that tourism communities have cognition of risk; are more sensitive to hazards (especially drought); have more severe potential damage and losses from hazards; and also have more enthusiasm to adapt to disaster risk, when compared with a non-tourism community. On disaster vulnerability maps, the tourism communities identified the unique “Forest – Village – Terrace - River” landscape while the non-tourism community only recognized the terrace and the village as the main elements affected by hazard. Also, the tourism communities had deeper understandings of drought, flash floods and landslide disaster risks. A conceptual model based on “Pressure – State – Response” relationships is put forward to explore the situation in which, in the tourism community, terraces have a greater variety of functions and enhanced values resulting in the spatial expansion of hazard effects.     

海南高新技术产业发展探讨

实现海南产业超前发展战略,大力发展高新技术产业是重要的突破口.海南高新技术产业发展已进入了迅速成长并日益成熟的发展阶段,呈现良好的发展态势和广阔的发展前景,同时也面临着严峻的挑战,其发展需要建立健全高新技术产业目标体系、高新技术产业管理体系、高新技术产业发展体系、高新技术产业扶持体系.     

保险公司诉讼与诉讼预期相关性研究

近年来我国保险诉讼案件增势不减,有的历经一审、二审,有的还要再审。从媒体披露的结果看,保险公司无论作为原告还是被告,似乎都是胜少败多。本文通过对北京某人寿保险股份有限公司2005年～2008年诉讼、诉讼预期数据的实证调研,探讨保险公司诉讼预期是否实现及实现程度,在此基础上提出更理性、更具可操作性的建议。     

A Brief Survey of Modern Optimization for Statisticians

Modern computational statistics is turning more and more to high‐dimensional optimization to handle the deluge of big data. Once a model is formulated, its parameters can be estimated by optimization. Because model parsimony is important, models routinely include non‐differentiable penalty terms such as the lasso. This sober reality complicates minimization and maximization. Our broad survey stresses a few important principles in algorithm design. Rather than view these principles in isolation, it is more productive to mix and match them. A few well‐chosen examples illustrate this point. Algorithm derivation is also emphasized, and theory is downplayed, particularly the abstractions of the convex calculus. Thus, our survey should be useful and accessible to a broad audience.     

Second-party and third-party punishment in a public goods experiment

We experimentally investigate whether third-party punishment is more effective than second-party punishment to increase public goods contribution. In our experiment, third parties first played the standard public goods game and then made punishment decisions as independent bystanders. We find that third parties punished more frequently, severely and less antisocially, resulting in a higher contribution level than that driven by second-party punishment. The third party’s exaggerated emotion towards free riders is proposed to explain their superior punishment effectiveness.     

福斯特对马克思生态唯物主义思想的建构

约翰·贝拉米·福斯特作为北关生态学马克思主义流派中的领军人物之一，他从20世纪80年代开始研究马克思的生态思想．对马克思的生态唯物主义思想作了一个系统清晰的梳理。在对马克思唯物主义思想建构的过程，福斯特主要通过考察伊壁鸠鲁、费尔巴哈以及达尔文等人的思想对马克思生态唯物主义思想的形成产生的深远影响。在他们的启发和影响下，马克思最终完成了自然、历史和实践的统一。     

从非价格制度谈对市场经济内涵的再认识

随着市场经济的发展，环境污染、外部负效应、社会道德水平下降和贫富分化严重等市场失灵造成的社会不良现象相继出现，暴露出了一个问题，即市场经济价格机制并不是万能的。非价格制度的作用以及市场经济的进入时机与条件，都是市场经济模式运用中更广泛的内容。文章从市场经济的一般理论与特征入手，针对其内在的缺陷，引入非价格制度的概念与作用，指出非价格制度其实应作为市场经济本身的一部分来认识，从而对市场经济理论进行深入探讨。     

Quantitative Analysis of Foreign Trade and Environmental Efficiency in China

This article analyzes the relationships among trade, the economy, and environmental quality in China. First, in the context of these relationships, the Super-SBM model is used to calculate the environmental efficiencies of thirty Chinese provinces and cities to obtain the degrees of regional disparity. Second, China’s provincial panel data from 2003 and 2012 are used to establish an influential factor indicator system of environmental efficiency. A section-weighted fixed effect model then provides insights about influential factors such as spatial heterogeneity. Third, the article establishes a variable coefficient model to identify the relationships among the objects of the study and divides the Chinese regions into four types. The suggestions include enhancing environmental and business regulations to ensure equilibrium between trade, the environment, and local economies.     

“大城管”视野下的政府协调与公务协助机制

大城管,即构建城市综合管理体制,是破解当前城市管理难题的可行路径.良好的城市综合管理体制包括建立各部门协调机制,构建公务协助机制.本文从城市综合管理的概念入手,分析城市综合管理需要构建协调机制的缘由,明确有效协调机制的关键因素,并提出建立有效的公务协助机制的正确方向.