Do specialized board committees impact the transparency of corporate political disclosure? Evidence from S&P 500 companies

This study examines how the specific attributes of one type of voluntary corporate governance mechanism, a specialized political contribution committee, improves the transparency of corporate political disclosure (CPD). The results demonstrate that the existence of a committee that establishes and reviews key political activities and disclosure policies, particularly one composed entirely of outside directors, significantly enhances the transparency of corporate political disclosure, and reveal that an under-studied board committee, the political contribution committee, effectively improves CPD transparency. The results are consistent with agency theory and further support the more generalizable idea that specialized governance mechanisms (e.g., a political contribution committee) and fully independent committees lead to more transparent disclosure. Finally, the results suggest that the existence of a political contribution committee and committee independence are channels to improve CPD transparency. Public-policy makers and regulators seeking to enhance CPD transparency might consider implementing regulations that mandate or recommend these governance mechanisms as best practice.     

Annual report readability and corporate agency costs

Annual reports are the main sources of information for outside investors’ investment decisions and enable shareholders to supervise the management. Difficulties with the readability of these reports may therefore have serious consequences. Using 19,221 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2001 to 2015, we investigate the association between annual report readability and corporate agency costs, where readability is proxied by report file length and/or file size. We find that firms with better annual report readability experience lower agency costs, and the negative association between readability and agency costs is more pronounced in firms with higher external audit quality, internal control quality or analyst coverage. These results hold after several robustness checks. The positive effect of annual report readability is stronger in private firms than in state-owned enterprises, and becomes stronger after the implementation of new accounting standards in 2007. Readable annual reports can help in monitoring corporate insiders’ opportunistic behavior and thus reduce agency costs.     

"竞争"抑或"继承":农地产权如何影响农民生育性别偏好

"重男轻女"被视为乡土中国的重要传统之一.已有研究多聚焦于男女不平等的社会问题,但较少关注男女性别偏好所反映出的农民土地情结以及中国农村土地制度改革可能带来的乡土社会生育观念的变化.本研究表明,农民生育"重男"的性别偏好不仅是农村家庭传承中"继承"观的反映,也是农地产权不稳定或不安全时壮大地权博弈力量的需要.基于2016年中国劳动力动态调查数据的检验结果显示,农地调整和农地确权均会强化农民"重男轻女"的生育性别偏好.其中,农地调整会诱导农民对生育男孩数量上的偏好,生男孩成为"弱者的武器";农地确权并未激励农民在生育男孩数量上的"占优",而仅限于"有".前者表达产权争夺的"竞争性",后者表达产权排他的"继承性".文章强调,"重男轻女"观念隐含着不同的产权含义.     

Effects of cross-border capital flows on stock returns of dual-listed firms in mainland China and Hong Kong: Evidence from a natural experiment

This study analyses the effects of the Shanghai–Hong Kong Stock Market Connect policy on the price disparity between A-shares and H-shares of dual-listed companies (DLC). Using a difference-in-difference estimation method, we show that the policy decreases the relative twin cumulative abnormal returns of treated DLC by 3% and narrows the price gaps between A-shares and H-shares. We determine that the rising demand for H-shares, which are newly accessible by mainland investors, drives the price of H-shares up. By contrast, the price of A-shares remains unchanged. Further analysis reveals that cross-border capital flow is the main force of the policy.     

A Study on Firms with Negative Book Value of Equity

This paper studies the puzzling negative book equity phenomenon among US public firms. Our evidence suggests that negative book equity firms exhibit heterogeneous characteristics. We show that a great portion of these firms, while operating at excessive capital structure with leverage ratio over 100%, are financially and operationally healthy. These healthy negative book equity firms increase their debt primarily motived by a need for funds to fulfill investment demand. We also find that the off‐balance sheet intangible assets and quality of intangible assets play an important role in determining the true debt capacity of these firms.     

Does IFRS Adoption Increase the Accuracy of Chinese Analysts’ Forecasts?

This article investigates the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on the accuracy of Chinese analysts’ earnings forecasts. We find that after IFRS adoption, the accuracy of Chinese analysts’ forecasts decreases rather than increasing as they do in developed countries documented by the extant literature. Further investigation finds that this decrease is associated with a fair value measurement of financial assets held for trading. Our finding provides empirical evidence supporting the argument that the effectiveness of IFRS adoption could be negative in a developing country depending on its setting and fair value measurement brought about by IFRS could contribute to the negative effect in this setting.     

Entrepreneurship and industrial clusters: evidence from China industrial census

Small Business Economics - This article studies the synergy effect of entrepreneurship on China’s industrial cluster. We propose an extension to Duranton and Overman’s (The Review of...     

企业成功创新经历与未来创新绩效

结合组织学习和企业二元式创新理论，探讨成功创新经历对企业未来创新绩效的影响。以2000—2017年中国制造业上市企业专利数据为基础，研究发现，成功创新经历可以显著提高企业后续专利申请数量。但是依据创新实质和创新幅度将创新分为探索式创新与利用式创新后，发现企业后续专利申请主要体现在利用式创新方面，不利于企业探索式创新。间接影响因素检验表明，企业间合作研发程度越高，成功创新经历越能够显著提升其后续创新质量，但是路径依赖越强的企业，其后续创新质量越差。从新的视角推进企业成功创新经历研究，就当前关于成功创新经历对后续创新绩效的影响悖论给出解释机制，同时对企业增强创新能力、维持长期竞争优势具有重要启示作用。     

Prediction regions for interval-valued time series

We approximate probabilistic forecasts for interval-valued time series by offering alternative approaches. After fitting a possibly non-Gaussian bivariate vector autoregression (VAR) model to the center/log-range system, we transform prediction regions (analytical and bootstrap) for this system into regions for center/range and upper/lower bounds systems. Monte Carlo simulations show that bootstrap methods are preferred according to several new metrics. For daily S&P 500 low/high returns, we build joint conditional prediction regions of the return level and volatility. We illustrate the usefulness of obtaining bootstrap forecasts regions for low/high returns by developing a trading strategy and showing its profitability when compared to using point forecasts.     

Different forms of corporate philanthropy,different effects: A multilevel analysis

This study investigates how different types of corporate philanthropy impact employees' life satisfaction. Grounded in signaling theory, we explore and clarify the nuances among three types of corporate philanthropy values: the absolute value of corporate philanthropy, the value of a firm's corporate philanthropy relative to its past level, and the value of corporate philanthropy relative to the firm size. Results of multilevel analyses on a large scale sample with 218 firms and 2,261 employees at two time points reveal that: the absolute value of corporate philanthropy positively influences employees' life satisfaction; the value of a firm's corporate philanthropy relative to its past philanthropy negatively impacts employees’ life satisfaction; and the value of corporate philanthropy relative to the firm size positively affects employees' life satisfaction. The results indicate that the influences of corporate philanthropy on employees' life satisfaction vary depending on the evaluation benchmarks. Firms may benefit by taking their size and past philanthropy into consideration when making corporate philanthropy investment decisions.