Wisdom or Widgets: Whither the School of ‘Business’?

The development of quantitative methods has proved to be invaluable in contemporary academic life; it has opened up the world to empirical studies. Yet there is a cost. 'The mind of man,' writes John Dewey, 'is taken captive by the spoils of prior victories' (Gummere, 1988, p. 25). In the social sciences, and particularly in the business area, quantitative methods have become a fetish and have led to the crowding out of non-empirical work. 'Wisdom or Widgets' examines the implications of this disturbing phenomenon.     

Tests of a Deferred Tax Explanation of the Negative Association between the LIFO Reserve and Firm Value*

Guenther and Trombley (1994) and Jennings, Simko, and Thompson (1996) document a negative association between a firm's last-in, first-out (LIFO) reserve and the market value of its equity. In this paper, we test a deferred tax explanation of this negative association. Specifically, we argue that investors, conditional on adjusting inventory to as-if first-in, first-out (FIFO), estimate a firm's future LIFO liquidation tax burden as its LIFO reserve multiplied by the appropriate corporate tax rate and include this tax-adjusted LIFO reserve in the valuation of a LIFO firm's net assets. On the basis of this argument, the tax-adjusted LIFO reserve is in effect an estimate of an off-balance-sheet deferred tax liability and, as a result, we predict a negative association between the tax-adjusted LIFO reserve and market value of equity. We test our deferred tax explanation by estimating a valuation model in which a firm's market value of equity is expressed as a function of the firm's assets, liabilities, deferred tax liability, and tax-adjusted LIFO reserve; the model is estimated separately in years preceding and following the reduction of tax rates mandated by the US Tax Reform Act of 1986. Test results provide strong support for the deferred tax explanation of the negative association between a firm's LIFO reserve and the market value of its equity.     

加入WTO对土地利用规划管理的挑战与对策研究

土地利用规划管理作为一项政府职能，作为实施和落实土地利用规划的手段，在我国加入WTO后，其管理人员的素质和观念、管理的模式、管理的机制和法规等必将面临新的挑战，同时也将面临着各方面的机遇，在此基础之上，论文阐述了加入WTO后我国土地利用规划管理的基本原则及对策，包括规划管理体制的改革、规划管理方式的转变、规划管理的手段的调整、规划管理政策的健全等各方面的内容。     

Dividend Taxes and Implied Cost of Equity Capital

We estimate firm‐level implied cost of equity capital based on recent advances in accounting and finance research and examine the effect of dividend taxes on the cost of equity capital. We investigate whether dividend taxes affect firms' cost of capital by testing the relation between the implied cost of equity capital and a measure of the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield, which we define as the product of dividend yield and the dividend tax penalty. The results generally support the dividend tax capitalization hypothesis. We find a positive relation between the implied cost of equity capital and the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield that is decreasing in aggregate institutional ownership, our proxy for tax‐advantaged investors. The evidence in this study adds to the understanding of the effect of investor‐level taxes on equity value.     

Determinants of the Demand for Home Equity Credit Lines

From the Survey of Consumer Finances conducted in 1989 and 1992 a logit model was tested for demographic and financial influences on household decisions to utilize home equity line credit. Results indicate that among households with credit lines other than credit card lines or business lines, the choice of a home equity credit line in lieu of another type of check credit line is influenced principally by percentage of equity in the home, income, net worth, age of the borrower, and credit price. Several implications may be derived from this study. As the markets reflect more complete information about the low-risk attributes of this credit, the convenience as a payment mechanism, and the tax subsidy to homeowners, it is expected that home equity credit lines users will be distributed more evenly across income and wealth categories.     

海门市土地利用结构优化研究

在对海门市土地利用现状分析的基础上。结合当地社会经济发展的需求和有关规划控制指标。借助灰色线性规划模型求解未来该市土地利用结构优化数据。寻求符合社会，经济和生态三效益的土地利用规划方案。并在实施中取得了较为满意的效果。     

Did the Glorious Revolution contribute to the transport revolution? Evidence from investment in roads and rivers 1

The Glorious Revolution has been linked with Britain's economic development in the eighteenth century. This article argues that it contributed to the early transport revolution. First, it shows that the regulatory environment became more favourable for undertakers, with their rights being better protected. Second, it shows that investment in improving roads and rivers increased substantially in the mid‐1690s shortly after the Glorious Revolution. Regression analysis and structural breaks tests confirm that there was a change in investment even after controlling for other determinants of investment. The results have implications for debates on the role of political change in British economic growth.     

考虑零售商多任务参与下的供应链激励合约研究

运用多任务委托代理模型研究零售商产品销售和市场知识共享两项工作任务的最优激励合约后得出,若两项工作任务的成本函数之间相互独立,那么激励相容条件下两项工作任务的最优业绩报酬也是相互独立的,且最优激励因子是各项任务下制造商边际收益的增函数、是零售商绝对风险规避系数、各项任务边际成本变化率和业绩方差的减函数,同时提出了效率风险的概念;而如果两项工作任务的成本函数是相互依存的,那么在激励相容条件下,产品销售任务的最优激励合约是“门槛型激励合约”,并定量地给出了零售商的“门槛激励条件”,最后结合模型结论从理论上解释了供应链企业间普遍存在的一些现实问题。