Creditors’ and Shareholders’ Reporting Demands in Public Versus Private Firms: Evidence from Europe*

In this study we investigate whether the importance of accounting information in contracting and communication with shareholders and creditors affects earnings timeliness in publicly disclosed general‐purpose financial statements. To operationalize the relationship between timeliness demands and the importance of accounting information to shareholders and creditors, we compare the (asymmetry in) earnings timeliness of public firms with that of private firms. We attribute public versus private firm differences in timeliness to shareholders’ demands when a country’s institutions provide strong investor protection. Similarly, we attribute these differences to creditors’ demands when the institutions provide strong creditor protection. Our analysis of public and private firms in 13 Western European countries suggests that creditors and shareholders have different timeliness demands. In particular, we find that the public versus private firm difference in asymmetric timeliness is not associated with a country’s degree of investor protection but positively associated with a country’s degree of creditor protection. The results further suggest that shareholders demand symmetric rather than asymmetric timeliness. An important implication of our study is that general‐purpose financial statements are responsive to creditors’ reporting demands, which contrasts with the idea that these — primarily private — creditors would use special‐purpose reports.     

Large portfolio losses

This paper provide a large-deviations approximation of the tail distribution of total financial losses on a portfolio consisting of many positions. Applications include the total default losses on a bank portfolio, or the total claims against an insurer. The results may be useful in allocating exposure limits, and in allocating risk capital across different lines of business. Assuming that, for a given total loss, the distress caused by the loss is larger if the loss occurs within a smaller time period, we provide a large-deviations estimate of the likelihood that there will exist a sub-period of the future planning period during which a total loss of the critical severity occurs. Under conditions, this calculation is reduced to the calculation of the likelihood of the same sized loss over an initial time interval whose length is a property of the portfolio and the critical loss level.Received: March 2003Mathematics Subject Classification: 60F10, 91B28, 91B28JEL Classification: G21, G22, G33Amir Dembo is with the Department of Statistics, Stanford University. His research was partially supported by NSF grant #DMS-0072331. Jean-Dominique Deuschel is with the Department of Mathematics, Technische Universität, Berlin. His research was partially supported by DFG grant #663/2-3 and DFG FZT 86. Darrell Duffie is with the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. We are extremely grateful for research assistance by Nicolae Gârleanu and Gustavo Manso, for conversations with Michael Gordy, and for comments from Michael Stutzer, Peter Carr, David Heath, and David Siegmund.     

西藏民族文化旅游资源的保护性开发——基于产权经济理论和关联博弈理论双重视角

本文以巴泽尔产权经济模型为理论基础,分析了西藏民族文化旅游资源的特殊产权属性,指出西藏民族文化旅游资源在开发中受到破坏的制度经济学根源,并提出以关联博弈为基础健全社会声誉机制,规范利益博弈强势方的开发行为,基于产业发展的三大维度原则,构建西藏民族文化旅游资源的保护性开发体系。     

The international diversification-performance link in Spain: Does firm size really matter?

This study provides new insights into the link between international diversification and firm performance in a sample of large manufacturing firms and SMEs based in Spain for the 1994–2008 period. Specifically, the focus is on how the nature and shape of this relationship may vary over time with firm size. The results show the existence of a horizontal-S curve when the whole sample of firms is considered in the empirical analysis. However, major differences are found between SMEs and large firms, and even within the actual group of SMEs. Strong support is found in large firms for the existence of a horizontal-S curve. Within the group of SMEs, there are small firms with a linear and negative relationship, whereas medium-sized firms record a U-shaped form. These findings suggest that as the international diversification-performance link is size-dependent, future research should explicitly consider firm size in order to better understand the nature of this relationship.     

金字塔股权结构、股权制衡与终极股东侵占

上市公司终极股东行为深受金字塔股权结构形态和内部权力配置及结构的影响。我国上市公司的经验数据表明上市公司终极股东侵占行为选择与金字塔股权结构形态特征正相关,与两权分离程度负相关。金字塔股权结构的内部制衡机制不仅直接影响股东侵占行为,并能够强化金字塔基本形态的影响作用。为保护中小股东的权益不受侵占,应完善公司治理结构,规范信息披露制度,并加强对上市公司大股东的监管。     

中国上市公司非公允关联交易的根源及治理对策建议

中国上市公司关联交易频繁发生且交易金额巨大，非公允关联交易普遍存在，问题公司常常通过非公允关联交易解决其存在的问题。随着监管力度的加强，关联交易和非公允关联交易会有所减少，但短期内无法根除长年沉积的痼疾，尤其是在关联交易多样化和非公允关联交易隐形化的情况下更是如此。因此，深刻剖析非公允关联交易存在的根源及其找出治理对策是急需解决的重大课题。     

Escape dynamics: A continuous-time approximation

We extend a continuous-time approximation approach to the analysis of escape dynamics in economic models with constant gain adaptive learning. This approach is based on the application of the results of continuous-time version of large deviations theory to the linear diffusion approximation of the original discrete-time dynamics under learning. We characterize escape dynamics by analytically deriving the most probable escape point and mean escape time. The approximation is tested on the Phelps problem of a government controlling inflation while adaptively learning a misspecified Phillips curve, studied previously by Sargent (1999) and Cho et al. (2002) (henceforth, CWS), among others. We compare our results with simulations extended to very low values of the constant gain and show that, for the lowest gains, our approach approximates simulations relatively well. We express reservations regarding the applicability of any approach based on large deviations theory to characterizing escape dynamics for economically plausible values of constant gain in the model of CWS when escapes are not rare. We show that for these values of the gain it is possible to derive first passage times for learning dynamics reduced to one dimension without resort to large deviations theory. This procedure delivers mean escape time results that fit the simulations closely. We explain inapplicability of large deviations theory by insufficient averaging near the point of self-confirming equilibrium for relatively large gains which makes escapes relatively frequent, suggest the changes which might help approaches based on the theory to work better in this gain interval, and describe a simple heuristic method for determining the range of constant gain values for which large deviations theory could be applicable.     

美国银行关联交易监管演变考及借鉴

美国对银行业对外关联关系监管经历从“状态限制”到“行为限制”的发展过程,其理论基础是基于对银行独立市场判断能力的维护。我国应借鉴美国经验,加强对银行业关联交易的立法和外部监管,强化商业银行的内部控制;在监管中要兼顾效率和公平,加大对非公允关联交易的处罚力度,并赋予监管者一定的自由裁量权;不断修改、完善监管制度。     

上市公司同业竞争法律问题探讨

股份公司在上市的过程中,由于公司控股股东投资多元化,经常会遇到控股股东同时投资于相同或相近行业而产生同业竞争问题。同业竞争问题处理得当与否关系到股份公司能否顺利上市以及上市后的正常经营活动,是值得深入研究的课题。本文从法理上对同业竞争问题的法律性质进行定性分析,并结合目前我国上市公司对此问题的具体解决方案进行实证研究,最后得出在我国现有的法律框架内同业竞争问题解决的最佳方案,以期能为拟上市公司的实践提供理论支持。     

宁夏沿黄城市群建设的理论和实践探讨

构建与发展宁夏沿黄城市群是21世纪宁夏提高城市化水平的战略选择,需要理论上的探讨和实践中的摸索。从理论上而言,发挥城市群的组团效应是构建宁夏沿黄城市群的出发点,从实践中看,实施中心城市带动战略和建设内涵式大银川是构建宁夏沿黄城市群的立足点和着力点。