Corporate Lobbying and Firm Performance

Corporate lobbying activities are designed to influence legislators, regulators and courts, presumably to encourage favorable policies and/or outcomes. In dollar terms, corporate lobbying expenditures are typically one or even two orders of magnitude larger than spending by Political Action Committees (PAC), and, unlike PAC donations, lobbying amounts are direct corporate expenditures. We use data made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to examine this more pervasive form of corporate political activity. We find that, on average, lobbying is positively related to accounting and market measures of financial performance. These results are robust across a number of empirical specifications. We also report market performance evidence using a portfolio approach. We find that portfolios of firms with the highest lobbying intensities significantly outperform their benchmarks in the three years following portfolio formation.     

论我国的代位权制度

代位权制度是我国新合同法律制度中确立的一种新的债权保障制度。本文就我国合同法律制度中代位权的概念与实质、代位权的行使要件、代位权的行使、代位权行使的效力进行分析和研究，同时，在此基础上指出新合同法律制度中代位权制度的漏洞和不足，并提出了补漏的立法建议。     

Water pricing with household surveys: A study of acceptability and willingness to pay in Chongqing,China

In determining domestic water prices, policy makers frequently need to use demand-side information rather than only rely on supply-side data as previously did, and household surveys are often conducted to collect information on the demand side. This paper presents a multiple bounded discrete choice (MBDC) survey model for collecting information about acceptability of different water prices by different types of households and estimating households' willingness to pay for water service improvement. The results obtained from MBDC surveys can be directly utilized in the development of water pricing and subsidy policies. An empirical MBDC study is conducted in Chongqing, China, where domestic water service quality was seriously inadequate, but financial resources were insufficient to improve the service quality. With a survey of 1500 households in five suburban districts in Chongqing Municipality, this study shows that a significant increase in water price is economically feasible as long as the poorest households are properly subsidized. The analysis also indicates that the order in which hypothetical prices are presented to the respondents with the MBDC method can systematically affect the answers and should be taken into account when designing such survey instruments.     

如何节约在城市绿化管理中的财务支出

论述建设节约型园林的含义解释和主要措施,从三个环节分析了我国城市因林绿化工程节约措施,对开展节约型园林绿化活动有积极的指导作用.     

首届奥帆城市市长暨国际帆船运动高峰论坛主讲摘录

两年前的8月,北京向世界奉献了气势恢宏、精彩难忘的奥运盛会,青岛向世界展现了千帆竞发、万众欢腾的激情画卷.     

泊里红席

“炕上没有席,脸上没有皮”。往胶南市泊里镇一带,几乎家家户户都有在炕上铺红席的习俗,无论娶媳妇还是过年,泊里红席在当地常常是亲戚朋友间互相赠送的高档礼品。实际上,泊里红席的编织和使用,已经在当地有上千年的传承历史。     

别样的元宵节

正月十五元宵节是中国最传统的节日之一,家人亲友相聚一堂热热闹闹地包饺子、吃汤圆、放鞭炮、祈求家人平安幸福……许许多多的中国家庭都以同样隆重而传统的形式度过这一天。然而,对于青岛的一些家庭而言,由于克利伯帆船队员的到来,他们的元宵节和往年大不一样。