The origins of cultural divergence: evidence from Vietnam

Journal of Economic Growth - Cultural norms diverge substantially across societies, often within the same country. We propose and investigate a self-domestication/selective migration hypothesis,...     

Information disclosure ratings and managerial short-termism: An empirical investigation of the Chinese stock market

Information asymmetry between managers and outside investors creates agency problems and impedes efficient capital allocation. Information disclosure is critical in alleviating information asymmetry in capital markets. This study investigates the effect of information asymmetry on managerial short-termism by examining information disclosure ratings (IDRs). Using real earnings management as a proxy for managerial short-termism, our analysis of a sample of Chinese A-share companies during 2001–2018 indicates that high IDRs mitigate managerial short-termism. The results also indicate that the effect of IDRs in reducing managerial short-termism is driven mainly by stock liquidity. This conclusion holds after consideration of endogeneity and application of two-stage least-squares and generalized method of moments methods, adjustment of the definition of IDRs, consideration of alternative proxies for managerial short-termism, and control for firm characteristics that might affect the extent of managerial short-termism. This study also examines the effects within three subsamples: companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange main board, small and medium enterprise board, and growth enterprise market board. IDRs substantially reduce managerial short-termism among firms listed on all three boards. These findings indicate that enterprises have corrected previous internal governance problems, and IDRs have helped to improve internal governance through stock liquidity. Therefore, external supervision also helps to reduce the agency problem of managerial short-termism.

     

Modern pandemic crises and default risk: Worldwide evidence

This article examines the relationship between modern health pandemic crises and financial stability. Specifically, it collects data on 250,223 firms in 43 countries (or regions) during five modern pandemic crises, SARS (2003), H1N1 (2009), MERS (2012), Ebola (2014), and Zika (2016), and finds that pandemic crises significantly increase the default risk of enterprises. Further analysis shows that formal and informal institutions acted as a “cushion” against the pandemic crisis. The earlier a country adopts IFRS, the more unimpeded access to information, and the more stable religious and ethnic relations within the country can reduce the negative impact of a pandemic on financial stability. This article addresses the hitherto inadequacy of COVID-related data. In addition, this article argues that governments should build sound state institutions to withstand macroeconomic shocks and highlights the heterogeneity of default risk for enterprises operating in countries with different institutions.     

Design and development of inventory knowledge discovery system

Inventory management (IM) performance is affected by the forecasting accuracy of both demand and supply. In this paper, an inventory knowledge discovery system (IKDS) is designed and developed to forecast and acquire knowledge among variables for demand forecasting. In IKDS, the TREes PArroting Networks (TREPAN) algorithm is used to extract knowledge from trained networks in the form of decision trees which can be used to understand previously unknown relationships between the input variables so as to improve the forecasting performance for IM. The experimental results show that the forecasting accuracy using TREPAN is superior to traditional methods like moving average and autoregressive integrated moving average. In addition, the knowledge extracted from IKDS is represented in a comprehensible way and can be used to facilitate human decision-making.     

The impact of mentoring quality on protégés' organization‐based self‐esteem and proactive behavior: The moderating role of traditionality

Based on self‐consistency theory, this study examined the relationship between mentoring quality as perceived by protégés and protégés' proactive behavior. It focused on the mediating role of organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) and the moderating role of traditionality. To examine these relationships, we administrated three‐wave surveys to 237 subordinate–supervisor dyads in a construction enterprise. The results of hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated that (a) mentoring quality and proactive behavior had a positive relationship; (b) OBSE mediated this relationship; and (c) traditionality strengthened both the relationship between mentoring quality and OBSE and the indirect effect of mentoring quality on proactive behavior via OBSE. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for research on mentoring and proactive behavior.     

Evaluating Industrial Relations Systems of OECD Countries from 1993 to 2005: A Two‐Dimensional Approach

This article uses both cross‐sectional and longitudinal methods to evaluate the national industrial relations systems of 30 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1993 to 2005. We adopt a pluralistic view of industrial relations that gives equal weight to efficiency and equity, along with a general systems model consisting of input, process and output. We rank each country in terms of a combined score of efficiency and equity. We find that the 30 OECD countries can be separated into three distinct groups (high on both equity and efficiency; high on efficiency but low on equity; moderate on equity and low on efficiency), and that these groups exhibit considerable stability over time.     

Do Conspicuous Consumers Pay Higher Housing Premiums? Spatial and Temporal Variation in the United States

This study is the first to examine the relationship between conspicuous demand and housing price dynamics. We hypothesize that conspicuous consumers would want high‐end homes to signal their wealth and this housing consumption behavior would induce greater deviations from fundamental house prices. We test this by using a unique dataset that matches the consumers’ appetite for nonhousing luxury goods from Google Insights for Search to housing premiums that they pay for high‐end houses in U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) during 2004–2011. The estimation results demonstrate that controlling for a wide range of MSA demographic and economic characteristics, conspicuous demand has a significant, positive relationship with housing premiums. This relationship varies spatially and temporally. Conspicuous demand has a stronger relationship with a price increase in high‐end homes in MSAs with a steady, higher housing premium than in MSAs with a volatile, lower premium during the boom period. In MSAs with a steady, higher housing premium, the relationship remains significant even during the bust period, potentially contributing to maintaining higher housing premiums.     

Location and competition in retail banking

We investigate the impact of banking deregulation during the 1990s on consumer welfare. We estimate a spatial model of consumer demand for retail bank deposits that explicitly accounts for consumer disutility from distance traveled. This is important given the substantial changes in banks' branch networks observed in the data. Our model indicates that cross-price elasticities between banks whose branches are close to consumers (‘close’ banks) are larger than those between ‘far’ banks and more than double the cross-price elasticity of ‘close’ banks with respect to ‘far’ banks. We distinguish between thrifts and other banks and find that within-thrift competitive effects are stronger than within-bank effects or those between thrifts and banks. We use our estimates to predict the effect of changes in market structure on consumer welfare following the branching deregulation of the Riegle–Neal Act of 1994. Our results indicate that the median household gained around $60 per year from the changes. Approximately two thirds of the gains come from within-market changes in market structure. The gains were greater in markets with high initial numbers of banks than elsewhere.     

Integrating the resource-based view and transaction cost economics in immigrant business performance

This paper presents a new integrated framework that integrates the resource-based view and transaction cost economics to explain the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship. We extend the existing literature on immigrant entrepreneurship by identifying different types of ethnic network resources and demonstrating how these resources interact with transaction costs in the context of Chinese immigrants. Thus, our study contributes to the literature by providing a theoretical framework which identifies mechanisms immigrant entrepreneurs use to strategically deploy resources to minimize costs and maximize performance outcomes.