The impact of governance reform on performance and transparency

This study examines the influence of Mexico’s efforts to improve corporate governance on firm performance and transparency. We utilize compliance data from the Code of ‘Best’ Corporate Practices, disclosed annually by public firms in Mexico, as a measure of corporate governance strength. We document a significant increase in compliance over 2000–2004 indicating Mexican companies view non-compliance as costly. However, we find no association between the governance index and firm performance, nor is there a relation with transparency. Instead, we find firms with greater compliance resort to the more costly mechanism of making dividend payments (higher propensity to pay and greater yield) to reduce agency conflicts. We conclude these associations are the direct result of the institutional features of the Mexican business environment, which is characterized by concentrated ownership of insiders, interlocked boards of directors, a lack of insider trading enforcement, and generally poor protection of minority investors. Our results show that monitoring mechanisms alone are not enough to fundamentally change economic behavior.     

Effects of information about invasive species on risk perception and seafood demand by gender and race

In this paper we consider the effects of negative and positive risk information on perceived seafood risks and seafood consumption by gender and race. The data is from a Mid-Atlantic survey of coastal seafood consumers. We elicit risk perceptions in three risk scenarios with a dichotomous choice with a follow-up question format. We elicit continuous revealed and stated preference seafood consumption in nine risk and price scenarios. Analysis in four gender and race categories indicates that demographic groups respond to the positive and negative information in different ways. Communication of risk information as risk mitigation policy is a challenge.     

Hurricane Katrina as an Experiment in Housing Mobility and Neighborhood Effects: Were the Relocated Poor Black Evacuees Better-Off?

Hurricane Katrina induced hundreds of thousands of New Orleans citizens to evacuate and relocate to different neighborhoods. Some of these evacuees moved to neighborhoods with poverty rates lower than the one they left in New Orleans. With survey data on a small sample of black Katrina evacuees who registered for absentee voter ballots, this paper explores whether or not there were improvements in the welfare of black evacuees—neighborhood effects—as a result of moving to neighborhoods with a lower poverty rate. With data from a small sample of relocated Katrina evacuees, we provide matching estimates of the short-run treatment effect of different types of changes in neighborhood poverty on five different measures of individual welfare. Treatment parameter estimates reveal—conditional upon the change in origin to destination neighborhood poverty rate—positive neighborhood effects mostly for black evacuees who did not move from high poverty to low poverty neighborhoods, but could have. Our results suggest that at least in the short-run, antipoverty policies based on housing mobility and changing the poverty characteristics of neighborhoods are not necessarily effective in improving the welfare of poor black households.     

INNOVATION AND COMPETITION IN GENERATION AND RETAIL POWER MARKETS

There has been considerable merger activity in EU energy markets in recent years. It could be argued that competition authorities should be required to take into account potential innovation effects of mergers. In the UK, regulators are now trying to achieve multiple objectives within the current framework. There is a danger that if markets are expected to deliver mutually incompatible objectives they will be unable to achieve any of them.     

Relief During the Great Depression in Australia and America

I compare and contrast relief efforts by governments in response to the extraordinary unemployment of the Great Depression in the US and Australia. The effectiveness of relief spending in America at the local level is discussed using recent studies estimating the relationship between relief spending and various demographic measures. I develop a new panel data set for the Australian states from 1929 through 1939. Increased income in manufacturing and rural production were associated with lower infant mortality rates and death rates and higher fertility rates. In contrast to the US experience, however, higher per capita relief spending was associated with lower birth rates.     

Earnings Conference Call Content and Stock Price: The Case of REITs

Using computer based content analysis, we quantify the linguistic tone of quarterly earnings conference calls for publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). After controlling for the earnings announcement, we examine the relation between conference call tone and the contemporaneous stock price reaction. We find that the tone of the conference call dialogue has significant explanatory power for the abnormal returns at and immediately following quarterly earnings announcements. The question and answer portion of the conference calls dominates prepared managerial introductory remarks in explanatory significance. Furthermore, an overall positive tone in the conference call discussion between management and analysts is found to nearly offset the damaging effects of a negative earnings surprise.     

商品房销售明码标价问题的思考

在商品房销售中推行明码标价,常常遭遇"上有政策、下有对策",个别商品房没有明码标价、部分商品房标价内容不全、有些商品房明码标价不实,并存在商品房标价外搭车收费和标价中的欺诈行为。为此,必须完善商品房明码标价制度、构建商品房价格公开平台、对商品房进行科学核价、加大违法行为的惩戒力度、提高明码标价政策执行力,让商品房销售明码标价政策惠及广大购房者。     

The ‘New Political Economy’ and British Economic Policy for India*

Abstract . James Mill, as a high official of the East India Company, had the opportunity after 1819 to establish economic policy for India. In fact, James Mill's Utilitarian philosophy of government and his advocacy of Ricardian rent theory as the basis for revenue policies in India set the pattern for the development of modern India. Both James and John Stuart Mill (who succeeded his father with the company) defended the company against its critics, such as J. R. McCulloch and Richard Jones, who argued that the revenue policy was inhibiting economic development. Modern Indian institutions are an amalgamation of Benthamism, Fabian Socialism, and Brahminism.