Attracting Attention: Cheap Managerial Talk and Costly Market Monitoring

We provide a theory of informal communication—cheap talk—between firms and capital markets that incorporates the role of agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. The analysis suggests that a policy of discretionary disclosure that encourages managers to attract the market's attention when the firm is substantially undervalued can create shareholder value. The theory also relates the credibility of managerial announcements to the use of stock-based compensation, the presence of informed trading, and the liquidity of the stock. Our results are consistent with the existence of positive announcement effects produced by apparently innocuous corporate events (e.g., stock dividends, name changes).     

Yesterday's Bad Times Are Today's Good Old Times: Retail Price Changes Are More Frequent Today Than in the 1890s

This paper documents differences in the nominal rigidity of retail prices across two 28-month periods: 1889–91 and 1997–99. The most striking finding is that prices changed much less frequently in 1889–91. In the late-1800s when price changes did occur they were smaller on average and more narrowly distributed with fewer small or large price changes. Further, price changes were more permanent 100-plus years ago. These differences are consistent with a high occurrence of temporary price shocks and a higher cost of changing prices in 1889–91 than in 1997–99.     

Wage expectations in northern and southern Italian regions: An interpretation based on psychological and social factors

Individual wage expectations of Italian unemployed are studied. The analysis is carried out separately for the North‐Central and southern Italian regions using semiparametric additive models. Results show a marked difference in expectations formation across regions. We argue that as far as the labour market information in the South is less diffuse and more ambiguous than in the North, the divergence between the econometric model based on a utility‐maximisation mainstream theory and the actual wage expectation mechanism may be large. A tentative explanation based on psychological and social factors is offered.     

环保约谈能否促进企业绿色投资

环保约谈制度是提高环境治理水平所实行的环境执法监督新方式,对于破解环境治理难题,提高环境治理绩效至关重要。本文利用环保约谈所产生的准自然实验变化,以2013—2019年我国重污染行业上市公司为研究样本,考察环保约谈对企业绿色投资的影响。双重差分法的检验结果表明：在环保约谈所涉及城市的上市公司中,环保约谈促进了企业绿色投资。在此基础上,进一步检验发现,环保约谈对绿色投资的促进效果较为明显的企业主要来自于全要素生产率较高,行业市场竞争程度低及融资约束低的企业。研究结论从企业加强环保绿色投资决策的角度为环保约谈的经济后果提供了微观的证据,这不仅对于我们了解环保约谈这一政策对微观主体企业的影响效应具有一定意义,同时,对国家在经济发展中,如何实施更好的环境治理政策具有一定的指导意义。