Power‐Sharing in Monetary Policy Committees: Evidence from the United Kingdom and Sweden

Committees may make better monetary policy decisions than individuals; however, the benefits of group decision making could be lost if committee members cede power to a chairman. We develop an econometric model to describe intracommittee power‐sharing across members. Estimation of the model permits us to classify monetary policy committees into the typology developed by Blinder ( 2004 , 2007 ). We estimate our model for the United Kingdom's Bank of England (BOE) and Sweden's Riksbank. Results for the BOE suggest that the Governor has little influence over other committee members, while those for the Riksbank indicate that the Governor is highly influential.     

选举提名方式与土地管理体制:村民对村领导行为及其绩效的评价

提名方式是选举的重要组成部分 ,农村民主选举的不同提名方式对村领导的行为及其绩效有不同的影响。对土地的投入是农村普遍的经济活动 ,与土地相关的活动对村民来说是至关重要的 ,村民对村领导决定的土地分配有着强烈的反响。从农村民主选举与土地管理体制的角度来研究选举提名方式是农村民主政治建设研究的一个新视角。     

审计委员会行为与基本特征相关性研究——基于2010年A股上市公司实证检验

本文使用2010年A股上市公司的数据,检验了审计委员会基本特征（财务专家、独立性、规模等）与审计委员会行为之间的关系。虽然审计委员会基本特征能够在一定程度上解释审计委员会的行为,但以这些基本特征作为审计委员会的代理变量仍然是值得推敲的。     

Do corporate governance mechanisms affect cash dividends? An empirical investigation of UK firms

The study examines whether corporate governance mechanisms and the compliance with good governance practice are related to cash dividends. In particular, the study assesses the effect of institutional ownership and board structure on the decision to pay cash dividends. A study on UK firms is interesting because firms are expected to voluntarily structure governance mechanisms based on their own needs. We find that institutional owners positively affect cash dividend payments, suggesting that UK institutions are effective in forcing firms to disgorge cash. There is limited evidence that independent directors affect the cash dividends. The results also show that firm specifics affect the cash dividends, namely, business risk, firm size, and leverage ratio. The results are consistent across several robustness checks.     

信息披露委员会的制度设计

目前我国上市公司治理结构中缺失信息披露委员会制度。本文首先分析了信息披露的成因,然后从信息披露的复杂性、解决信息披露存在问题的紧迫性和信息披露战略管理的要求,多个角度探讨了设置信息披露委员会的必要性和可行性,并对我国上市公司信息披露委员会的制度设计提出了初步的构想。     

Maximin choice of voting rules for committees

In the context of a probabilistic voting model with dichotomous choice, we investigate the consequences of choosing among voting rules according to the maximin criterion. A voting rule is the minimum number of voters who vote favorably on a change from the status quo required for it to be adopted. We characterize the voting rules that satisfy the maximin criterion as a function of the distribution of voters’ probabilities to favor change from the status quo. We prove that there are at most two maximin voting rules, at least one is Pareto efficient and is often different to the simple majority rule. If a committee is formed only by “conservative voters” (i.e. voters who are more likely to prefer the status quo to change) then the maximin criterion recommends voting rules that require no more voters supporting change than the simple majority rule. If there are only “radical voters”, then this criterion recommends voting rules that require no less than half of the total number of votes.Received: June 2003, Accepted: September 2004, JEL Classification: D71Salvador Barberá, Carmen Beviá, Mirko Cardinale, Wioletta Dziuda, Joan Esteban, Mahmut Erdem, Bernard Grofman, Matthew Jackson, Kai Konrad, Raul Lopez, Jordi Massó, Hugh Mullan, Shmuel Nitzan, Ana Pires do Prado, Elisabeth Schulte, Arnold Urken and two anonymous referees provided helpful comments. Finally, I also acknowledge financial support from Capes, Brazilian Ministry of Education and Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Project BEC2002-02130).     

发包方视角下的财务外包问题探讨

财务外包(Finance Outsourcing)是西方国家发展较快的一种财务管理模式。近年来,联合利华、微软、宝洁、强生等国际知名跨国公司将其部分或全部财务与会计业务外包给会计公司。然而,财务外包在我国企业中的实践进程却相当缓慢,专业机构少,业务能力较低,服务对象较为狭窄,其发展处于"瓶颈"阶段,许多企业(即发包方)尤其是大中型企业对财务外包持怀疑、观望态度。基于此,本文拟从发包方的角度探讨财务外包问题及其应对措施,以促进我国财务外包快速健康发展。