CEO power and annual report reading difficulty

We examine the impact of CEO power on reading difficulty of corporate annual reports. We find that CEO power is positively related to reading difficulty, implying that annual reports of corporations with powerful CEOs are difficult to read and understand. More importantly, we find that the relation between CEO power and reading difficulty is moderated by earnings performance or corporate governance. Additional findings suggest that this relation becomes stronger for firms with lower financial reporting quality or for CEOs with shorter tenure. Our study not only joins the debate on the consequences of powerful CEOs but also uncovers several factors that moderate the relation between CEO power and annual report reading difficulty.     

Dimensions of quality upgrading

The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies’ trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU‐15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE‐5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE‐5 show no evidence of entering a ‘low‐quality trap’ in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching‐up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low‐quality specialization may be applicable within the high‐tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group.     

Minimum Quality Standards under Asymmetric Duopoly with Endogenous Quality Ordering: A Note

In this note, we revisit minimum quality standards (MQS) under a vertically differentiated duopoly. We generalize the model in Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) by introducing asymmetry into the fixed cost of quality improvement and by explicitly taking into account the endogeneity of quality ordering. In the generalized model, we show that the results derived by Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) are largely robust.     

非国有经济发展对中国经济增长质量影响机理研究——来自VEC模型的新证据

转轨以来,中国非国有经济的发展促进了经济增长的数量扩张.这是因为,经济非国有化改革作为一种制度创新,是一种增量式改革.这种改革使得体制内利益在未受影响的条件下,实现了帕雷托式的增长.然而,非国有经济的发展并没有带来中国经济增长质量的同比改善.这是因为,中国民营企业发展一般都过分强调以利润为中心,忽略环境成本,并且由于融资困难等因素导致了其技术创新能力的弱化;其次,中国引进的外资不仅在技术和管理创新的扩散效应上没能达到预期效果,而且日益增加的加工贸易通过转移定价方式使中国经济不能充分享有出口增长带来的利润贡献.     

Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

非审计服务、盈余管理与审计质量——来自中国证券市场的经验证据

本文以2001～2004年A股上市公司为研究对象,在国内首次验证了会计师事务所向审计客户同时提供审计与非审计服务,是否会允许管理当局有较大的盈余操纵空间,以探讨非审计服务的提供是否会影响注册会计师独立审计的质量。实证研究结果显示:在我国,控制了其他影响因素后,非审计服务的提供与异常应计数正相关,但不具有统计显著性。这表明,在我国,没有证据显示,非审计服务会的提供会损害注册会计师审计独立性及审计质量。     

影响农村三种非农就业途径的主要因素研究--对天津市农村社会的实证分析

文章探讨了影响农村劳动力非农就业倾向的主要因素。研究结果表明,区位条件对农村劳动力非农就业倾向的影响,主要表现为近城地区以大量企业及相对发达的各种要素市场为第一优势,吸纳了更多劳动力进入本地企业就业。教育总体上是影响农村劳动力非农就业倾向的最重要因素。但其在近城地区的影响却位居第二。在远城地区教育对增大农村非农就业倾向的作用更为显著,而且受教育程度越高这种倾向就越显著。各种文化水平的影响都普遍促进了劳动者到外地企业就业,但对进入本地企业就业和家庭非农经营的促进却并不普遍,其中初中教育对农民在本地企业就业的作用更显著些;高中教育提高农民从事非农家庭经营的倾向最为明显。耕地数量抑制农户劳动力外出务工,但对其在本地企业就业和家庭非农经营的影响也不显著。乡镇企业的发展增大了农民进入本地企业的就业倾向,劳动者供养的非劳动人口数量对农民非农就业的正向影响不显著,农户拥有的非农业和农业生产性资产对农村非农就业的影响不大。因此,加快推进农村城镇化;加强边远农村地区的中等教育,特别是职业技能教育;大力发展乡企和私企;完善农村社会保障体系;构建农村劳动供求信息系统等,是促进农村劳动力加速向非农产业转移的重要途径。     

The long-run effects of the real exchange rate on employment and wages in Canadian manufacturing

ABSTRACT

The literature on real exchange rate effects on the labour market is dominated by short-run analysis showing that there is heterogeneity in the responses of firms or industries to a real exchange rate shock. Analysing data on Canadian manufacturing industries, I conclude that there is a common long-run equilibrium across all manufacturing industries controlling for their openness to trade after varying adjustments to a real exchange rate shock have taken place. This conclusion is important from the perspective of policy making because it helps to form expectations about the effects of a real exchange rate movement on the labour market. The results suggest that real appreciation leads to economically significant reductions in employment in manufacturing in the long run. Real wages decrease in industries that are highly engaged in international trade and somewhat increase in industries that are relatively closed to international trade. Both employment and real wages converge quickly to the long-run equilibrium.     

广西乡村──城市转型与协调发展研究

本文揭示了“八五”期间广西乡村──城市转型发展的特征及其地理动力机制．预测未来15—25年内乡村──城乡转型发展的趋势、提出了促进乡村──城市转型与协调发展的一些对策建议。