Independent director cash compensation and earnings management

This study examines the impact of independent directors’ cash compensation on firms’ financial reporting quality using a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2002 to 2008. Unlike in the U.S. where most listed firms provide stock-related compensations to outside directors, Chinese listed companies compensate independent directors with cash only. This context offers a cleaner setting for examining the effects of independent director cash pay on earnings management. Our study documents a positive association between independent director cash compensation and the magnitude of earnings management. This suggests that compensating independent directors with higher cash pay compromises their independence and reduces their effectiveness in financial reporting oversight. Our results are robust to an array of sensitivity checks. These findings have important implications for both investors and policy makers by showing that independent directors’ cash compensation is also a significant determinant of financial reporting quality.     

Housing Preferences of Temporary Migrants in Urban China in the wake of Gradual Hukou Reform: A Case Study of Shenzhen

In the wake of the recent announcement by the State Council concerning the provision of public rental housing across China, and the gradual reform of China's household registration system (hukou), this article explores how potential adjustments in government housing policies (namely access to public rental housing) influence the housing preferences of temporary migrants who are currently residing inside the chengzhongcun (urban villages) of Shenzhen. The results indicate that dissatisfaction with rental cost and living conditions in these urban villages are the key reasons for migrants wishing to move into public rental housing if it is offered to them — and not the fact that they are treated differently within the hukou system. Public rental housing is welcomed in particular by newly arriving migrants who live outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and migrants who have decided to remain in Shenzhen for the foreseeable future. By contrast, dissatisfaction with urban villages is the sole contributor to housing preferences for those residing inside the SEZ.     

浅析北京四合院与中华文化之联系

北京四合院是中国民居的代表,同时也蕴含中华文化的博大精深,本文从多个方面阐述四合院的文化价值以及对四合院与中华文化互相影响进行探讨。     

大学计算机文化基础课程考核方式探究

本文通过笔者学校对大学计算机文化基础的改革,就本课程一体化教学模式下的考核方式进行研究,让学生在完成工作任务的过程中,学到相关的理论知识和实践技能,使学生具备适应工作岗位的职业素养,培养成为素质全面的技能型应用人才。     

高校公寓社区化管理背景下大学生思想政治教育路径研究——基于无锡科技职业学院的调查与分析

高校公寓不仅是学生休息生活的地方,更是学生交流思想、实行自我教育、自我管理和自我服务的重要场所。因此,对高校公寓社区化管理背景下的大学生思想政治教育途径研究就显得尤为重要。通过对无锡科技职业学院学生的调查,掌握学生对公寓社区的认知情况,分析学生对公寓社区大学生思想政治教育的一些意见,并提出了进一步加强和改进公寓社区化管理下的大学生思想政治教育的途径。     

The Joint Effects of Multiple Legal System Characteristics on Auditing Standards and Auditor Behavior

This paper derives the impacts of legal system characteristics and auditing standards on auditor behavior (audit quality), and analyzes the determination of optimal auditing standards under different legal regimes. Legal regimes are characterized by differences in the uncertainty concerning the outcome of legal proceedings (termed vagueness of legal systems) and differences in the average size of damage awards. Auditing standards as determined by standard setters can vary in both toughness and vagueness. Our analysis provides implications for the adoption of International Standards on Auditing (ISA). Countries, such as the United States, where auditor legal liability is significantly more onerous than the global norm are not likely to adopt ISA, since these standards may not induce auditors to provide the optimal level of audit quality. Conversely, the adoption of ISA by countries, such as China, where the legal system makes the recovery of damages from auditors quite difficult, is not by itself likely to result in a high level of audit quality. Furthermore, our model suggests that auditor rotation can help improve audit quality, but only in certain circumstances.     

想拿世界冠军的重庆"阿甘"

——你是啥子? ——冠军. ——啥子冠军? ——世界冠军. 每当马俊才在训练中坚持不住的时候,教练姜舟就会向他喊话. 三级智力残疾的马俊才今年18岁,在重庆市特殊教育学校读高二,是校田径队400米跑种子选手,也是教练姜舟心目中"阿甘"式的人物,坚韧、执着、善良、热心. 起初,学校打算培养马俊才做失明长跑运动员的陪跑员.姜舟在训练时,要求队员围绕操场按照一分钟跑一圈的节奏跑,谁知马俊才一跑就跑了半个小时,若不是姜舟喊停,他还没有停下来的打算.从此,"阿甘"这个名字在重庆市特殊教育学校不胫而走.     

Incentives to move up: Effects of pay gaps between levels on employee performance

Employees of a certain rank are motivated by the pay gap between them and the levels above (upward comparison), and the pay gap between them and the levels below (downward comparison). In some cases, employees face multiple upward comparisons such as immediate and subsequent upward comparisons. We hypothesise that upward comparison matters more than downward comparison, and in the case of multiple upward comparisons, the immediate one matters more than the subsequent ones. We also hypothesise that the pay gap effect resulting from the upward/downward comparison ought to be non‐linear in that performance increases with pay gap size at a decreasing rate. The results from two empirical studies, namely, a longitudinal field study and a laboratory experiment, largely support our hypotheses.     

Managerial Agency Costs of Socialistic Internal Capital Markets: Empirical Evidence from China

This study provides empirical evidence of managerial agency costs in socialistic internal capital markets. Listed Chinese companies are required to disclose the amount of resources that are reallocated to other firms of the parent company, which provides us with a direct measure of the socialistic subsidization of weak member firms by strong member firms within a business group. We hypothesize that in strong member firms, managerial compensation is less sensitive to firm performance because cross‐subsidization makes it difficult for group CEOs to hold the managers in strong firms accountable for their own firms' performance, and also increases the noise in performance measures. We also hypothesize that socialistic cross‐subsidization results in an increase in managerial agency costs of strong member firms due to the low pay‐performance sensitivity and low incentive to work hard. We document empirical results that are consistent with these two predictions.     

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...