美食佳酿共享中秋明月

中秋,是中国人最喜欢的传统佳节之一.与家人齐聚一堂的中秋之夜,自然少不了一桌地道的美食和锦上添花的各式月饼,更少不了把酒问明月的言欢心境.     

How a Reduction of Standard Working Hours Affects Employment Dynamics

December 1, 1996 a new law was implemented in Portugal to gradually reduce the standard workweek from 44 to 40 h. We study how this mandatory reduction affected employment through job creation and job destruction. There was considerable regional, sectoral and firm-size variation in the share of workers who were affected by the working hours reduction. We exploit this variation to assess the impact of the workweek reduction. We find evidence that the working hours reduction had a positive effect on employment through a fall in job destruction.     

Overreaction to Fearsome Risks

When risks threaten, cognitive mechanisms bias people toward action or inaction. Fearsome risks are highly available. The availability bias tells us that this leads people to overestimate their frequency. Therefore, they also overreact to curtail the likelihood or consequences of such risks. More generally, fear can paralyze efforts to think clearly about risks. We draw on a range of environmental risks to show the following: (1) Fear leads us to neglect probability of occurrence; (2) As fearsome environmental risks are usually imposed by others (as externalities), indignation stirs excess reaction; (3) We often misperceive or miscalculate such risks. Two experiments demonstrate probability neglect when fearsome risks arise: (a) willingness-to-pay to eliminate the cancer risk from arsenic in water (described in vivid terms) did not vary despite a 10-fold variation in risk; (b) the willingness-to-accept price for a painful but non dangerous electric shock did not vary between a 1 and 100% chance. Possible explanations relate to the role of the amygdala in impairing cognitive brain function. Government and the law, both made by mortals and both responding to public pressures, similarly neglect probabilities for fearsome risks. Examples relating to shark attacks, Love Canal, alar and terrorism are discussed.     

《太洋洲萧侯庙志》及其史料价值

在中国,海峡两岸同胞共同奉祀的水神妈祖娘娘可谓人尽皆知,且奉祀该神祇的大大小小祠宇则至今依然香火鼎盛。国内外学术界对妈祖信仰这一民间祭祀现象也甚为关注,研究成果可谓连篇累牍,兹不赘述。然而对于另外一位遍祀于内河湖泊的水神萧公,学术界则尚未能够给予足够的重视,相关研究成果更是寥寥无几。这固然是由于相关文献资料的缺失所造成。     

Voters prefer more qualified mayors,but does it matter for public finances? Evidence for Germany

This paper studies the importance of politicians’ qualification, in terms of education and experience, for fiscal outcomes. The analysis is based on a large panel for 2031 German municipalities for which we have collected information on municipal budgets as well as the election results and qualification levels of mayoral candidates. We principally use a regression discontinuity design focusing on close elections to estimate causal effects. We find that mayors with prior experience in office have a tendency to reduce the level of local public debt, lower total municipal expenditures and decrease the local taxes, even though these results are only significant in some specifications. In contrast, the education level of the mayor exerts no significant effects on the overall fiscal performance of the municipality. The results are partly surprising as both education and experience are shown to matter greatly in the electoral success of mayoral candidates.     

Migrate or not? The effects of regulation SHO on options trading activities

In this study, we investigate the effects of stock short-sale constraints on options trading by exploiting two US Securities and Exchange Commission rule changes under Regulation SHO: Rule 203 (locate and close-out requirements) and Rule 202T (temporary removal of short-sale price tests). We find that stock short selling activities decrease (increase) significantly after Rule 203 (Rule 202T) implementation, supporting the validity of Rule 203 (Rule 202T) as an exogenous increase (decrease) in short-sale constraints. Options volume increases significantly after Rule 203 went into effect and the result is more pronounced among firms with lower levels of institutional ownership and smaller options bid-ask spreads. Therefore, the evidence from Rule 203 suggests that investors may use options as substitutes for stock short sales when short selling is less feasible or more costly due to the locate and delivery requirements. In contrast, we find no significant change in the options trading volume of pilot stocks during the pilot program of Rule 202T. Overall, our results indicate that the impact of short-sale constraints on options trading varies with the types of constraints affected.