上海世博会河北巡展精彩纷呈

2008年4月10日,由世博集团上海现代国际展览公司全程协助上海世博会事务协调局新闻宣传部,负责设计制作的"走进世博会"大型展览于4月10日上午在石家庄市人民会堂隆重开幕。开幕式之后,上海世博会吉祥物"海宝"的大型塑像安放在石市人民会堂南门两侧,据了解这是"海宝"第一次走出上海,并且将永远留在河北。     

ANALYST BEHAVIOR SURROUNDING TENDER OFFER ANNOUNCEMENTS

We examine the usefulness and credibility of analyst recommendations by focusing on their behavior surrounding tender offer announcements. For our 1998–2001 sample, we find analysts did not identify takeover targets through their recommendations nor did they distinguish between wealth‐increasing and wealth‐decreasing tender offers. We find some evidence of conflicts of interest in analyst recommendations, but it is confined to the 1999–2000 dot‐com period. However, the long‐run performance following recommendations suggests that these conflicts have little ultimate cost to investors.     

House Prices, Fundamentals and Bubbles

Abstract:  This paper studies actual (real) house prices relative to fundamental (real) house values. Such a focus is warranted since housing constitutes a large fraction of most household portfolios, and its characteristics are such that, in contrast to what prevails in financial markets, arbitrage will be limited and hence correction toward 'true' value is likely to be a prolonged process. Using UK data and a time-varying present value approach, our results preclude the existence of an explosive rational bubble due to non-fundamental factors. We further find that intrinsic bubbles have an important role to play in determining actual house prices although price dynamics appear to impact, particularly in periods of strong deviation from fundamental value. Price dynamics are found to be driven by momentum behaviour.     

Economists' perceptions versus managers' decisions: an experiment in transaction-cost analysis

Are the perceptions of professional economists on transactioncosts consistent with make-or-buy decisions made within firms?The answer may have important implications for transaction costresearch. Data on firms' outsourcing during the new productdevelopment process are taken from a large-scale survey of UK,German and Irish manufacturing plants, and we test the consistencyof these outsourcing decisions with the predictions derivedfrom the transaction cost perceptions of a panel of economists.Little consistency is evident between actual outsourcing patternsand the predictions of the (Williamsonian) transactions costmodel derived from the panel of economists. There is, however,evidence of a systematic pattern to the differences, suggestingthat a competence or resource-based approach may be relevantto understanding firm outsourcing, and that firms are adoptinga strategic approach to managing their external relationships.     

Competence and trust guardians as key elements of building trust in east-west joint ventures in Russia

This paper summarises the author 's doctoral research on the development of interpersonal/interorganisational trust in relationships between expatriate and Russian staff working in east-west enterprises in Russia. There is strong evidence from a variety of researchers to suggest that in order for western businesses investing in Russia to succeed, the dif.cult process of building trust needs to be understood and managed since in the Russian business climate western standards and norms of ethical business have not yet been established. According to research.ndings, western investors doing business in Russia and the long-term, personal trust that characterises family and friend relationships more congenial and more productive than formal, arm's-length contacts and contracts. In such a context, it becomes important to identify what creates and destroys trust in the post-Soviet business environment. This paper describes the causal factors leading to trust or lack of trust in relationships within western-invested strategic alliances in Russia. The key relationship under consideration is the one between expatriate western staff and managers seconded to the venture on the one hand, and their local Russian staff, counterparts and superiors on the other.     

Mutual funds as monitors: Evidence from mutual fund voting

We address how mutual funds vote on shareholder proposals and identify factors that help determine support of wealth-increasing shareholder proposals. We examine 213,579 voting decisions made by 1799 mutual funds from 94 fund families for 1047 shareholder proposals voted on between July 2003 and June 2005. In an analysis of voting across funds within the same fund family, we find significant divergence in voting within families, emphasizing the importance of focusing on voting by individual funds. We also find that, in general, mutual funds vote more affirmatively for potentially wealth-increasing proposals and funds' voting approval rates for these beneficial resolutions are significantly higher than those of other investors. Our results suggest that funds tend to support proposals targeting firms with weaker governance. We also find that funds with lower turnover ratios and social funds are more likely to support shareholder proposals. Finally, fund voting approval rates significantly impact whether a proposal passes and whether one is implemented.     

Cognitive representations of the future: Survey results

This paper reports the results of a web-based survey concerning how people think about the future. Five hundred and seventy-two people from 24 countries completed the survey. The results indicate that when the respondents hear the word ‘future’, they think about a point in time 15 years into the future, on average, with a median response of 10 years. Respondents think less about the future than the present. On the other hand, they tend to worry more about the future than the present. Respondents’ ability to imagine the future goes ‘dark’ around 15-20 years into the future. Most of the respondents are optimistic about the near term, but become more pessimistic about the longer term. Respondents believe that humankind is not acting very responsibly with respect to a whole host of environmental and social issues but is acting responsibly with respect to technology. Almost half of the respondents would not wish to have been born in the future. Most of the other respondents would have preferred to have been born 50-500 years into the future. Approximately 45% of the sample believes that humankind will become extinct. The data suggest that Christians are more optimistic and less worried about the future and do not believe that we will become extinct. Males worry less but also think more about the future. There is a strong correlation between thinking about the future, clearly imagining the future, and being optimistic about the future. It is concluded that individuals have diverse and rich conceptions about the future but that they think less about the future than futurists might hope. Individuals’ considerations of the future are highly influenced by their identities and worldviews. Future research should focus on better unraveling these relationships and on understanding their implications for futures-oriented policy making.     

The future of bioregional planning in the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere region

This paper assesses the current status and future prospects for bioregional planning in the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere (SAMAB) region in the United States. The SAMAB region is one of the most biodiverse temperate regions in the world. The region's environment is threatened by development, air and water pollution, and invasive species. Numerous institutions in the region have some responsibility for protecting the region's environment, including the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, several states, hundreds of municipalities, and numerous active non-profit organizations. Twenty-seven people associated with bioregional planning were interviewed to gauge their opinions on the state of bioregional planning in the SAMAB region. Overall, the respondents do not believe that the totality of all those efforts comprises bioregional planning because the efforts are limited in scale and scope and somewhat uncoordinated. With respect to the future of the region, the respondents found it difficult to imagine the state of the region 50 and especially 200 years into the future. Additionally, almost all of their definitions of bioregional planning included a spatial dimension but none included a time dimension. Thus, one of our conclusions is that the future of bioregional planning in the region will be hampered by difficulties people responsible for environmental protection have in dealing with ‘the future’. Much effort needs to be expended to inculcate people in the region with the desire to anticipate problems long before they occur. Reactive responses, which characterize the majority of current efforts, are likely to be ‘too little, too late’.     

Have labour practices and human rights disclosures enhanced corporate accountability? The case of the GRI framework

This paper critically evaluates Transnational Corporations’ (TNCs) claimed adherence to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s ‘labour’ and ‘human rights’ reporting guidelines and examines how successful the GRI has been in enhancing comparability and transparency. We found limited evidence of TNCs discharging their accountability to their workforce and, rather, we found evidence to suggest that disclosure was motivated more by enhancing their legitimacy. TNCs failed to adhere to the guidelines, which meant that material information items were often missing, rendering comparability of information meaningless. Instead, TNCs reported large volumes of generic/anecdotal information without acknowledging the impediments they faced in practice.