Financial crises and the asymmetric relation between returns on banks,risk factors,and other industry portfolio returns

We show that the relations between the returns on the banking industry, risk factors, and other industries often are asymmetric. Lagged banking industry returns seem to improve predictability but the positive impact of a 1‐month lag of the return on the banking portfolio is much higher in the lower part of the return distribution. However, after the Dodd‐Frank Act in 2010, the cross‐autocorrelation with banks is changed and becomes negative in the upper part of the distribution. Returns on banks also seem to lead returns on five risk factors. This relation, however, is not robust across the distribution.     

从“腾笼换鸟”分析东莞市经济产业转型

本文从东莞过去30年中经济产业发展历程出发,分析了东莞经济发展特点以及所面临的资源、市场等方面的挑战。分析了东莞经济产业转型的必然性和紧迫性。进而提出东莞市在未来经济产业转型过程中应当采取的措施。最后通过总体分析和思考,总结了政府作为、区域环境、企业自身三者的相互作用关系,提出三方力量相互配合的科学运作模式。     

《合同法》第308条在司法实践中的适用风险

本文从国别立法比较的角度解读《合同法》第308条规定,剖析该条规定在海运实践中因与《海商法》并存的法律选择、托运人作为唯一的权利主体以及变更解除合同行为属性等问题可能产生的法律预测功能丧失或者运作不正常导致的司法风险,提出完善立法、补充司法解释等观点,希望有益于《合同法》第308条适用风险的降低和化解。     

Environmental participation in the U.S. sulfur allowance auctions

The 1990 Clean Air Act established a sulfur emissions-trading program among utilities. This was the first large scale adoption of this type of emissions-trading program and the program’s success has attracted international attention. An interesting aspect of this program is that in addition to trades among the polluting firms and brokers or investors, individuals and groups have been participants, buying allowances to retire them and reduce sulfur emissions. This provides a relatively unique way to examine the “willingness to pay” for further reductions of sulfur emissions. I examine environmental participation in the sulfur allowances market, focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowance auctions which have been conducted annually since 1993. The existence of groups purchasing these allowances in order to retire them suggests that the overall cap on sulfur emissions may be higher than the optimal emissions level. The marginal benefits from the first ton of emissions reduction appear to be significantly larger than marginal abatement costs. Total spending to retire sulfur emissions allowances, while small in relation to the total market, is sizeable in terms of the alternate purchases these groups and individuals could have made.      

Mandatory CSR expenditure and firm performance

India has recently mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditure under section 135 of the Indian Companies Act 2013 – the first national jurisdiction to do so. In line with the “shareholder value maximization” concept, we document the positive impacts of CSR expenditure on firm performance measured by return on asset and cash flow from operations. Additionally, we find that, despite the regulatory requirement, mandated CSR legislation is a significant but not the sole determinant of actual CSR spending by firms; rather, firm-specific economic factors such as size, level of cash balance and cash flow from operations have a moderating effect. We also observe that CSR expenditure contributes to firm performance irrespective of the level of actual CSR expenditure relative to the level of mandatory CSR expenditure. Our findings potentially reconcile conflicting results presented in the literature and provide valuable information for governments and regulatory authorities that are considering the mandatory implementation of CSR expenditure.     

美国现金余额计划及其对我国的启示

混合型养老金计划是国际养老金计划发展的重要趋势,现金余额计划是美国养老金混合计划中发展较好、规模较大的一种私人养老金计划。该计划具有较低的养老金计划成本、资金筹措较具弹性、养老金给付享受政府担保、较好的激励机制、较强的透明度和携带性、为雇主和关键员工提供更高的福利保障、与其他计划搭配的计划组合效应等特定优势。美国2006年养老金保护法颁布实施后,该计划的年龄歧视、转换期的养老金蚀损、给付贴现则所导致的制度法律风险得以消除,使该计划具有较好的发展前景。美国现金余额计划对中国企业年金发展具有重要借鉴意义。     

Small firms,bigger changes: health insurance coverage take-up rates in small firms after the ACA

Measuring the impact of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) on employer-sponsored health insurance is essential in an era of constant changes to health policy. Using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Survey, we focus on firms with fewer than 50 employees in order to isolate the effect of the ACA on small firms. We utilize a differences‐in‐differences approach with a time fixed effect structure to provide analysis for a treatment group of small firms and a control group of large firms. After excluding firms with grandfathered plans, we find that the ACA provisions reduced health insurance coverage take-up rates in small firms by 1.96 to 2.67 percentage points (compared to large firms).     

中国公司在美上市的法律壁垒与对策研究——以《萨班斯·奥克斯利法案》的实施为视角

《萨班斯.奥克斯利法案》的生效,无疑对在美上市公司产生巨大影响。司法管辖权上的冲突、法律规定的不同、公司治理结构的差异,都将构成中国公司在美上市的障碍。因此,中国公司应进一步完善公司治理结构,以顺利在美上市融资。     

The Political Economy of Price Cap Regulation

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic substitutionof price cap regulation for rate-of-return regulationin the telecommunications industry. The 1996Telecommunications Act empowers state regulators toset the terms of competitive entry in local telephonemarkets. We investigate whether the form of regulationendogenously affects the regulator's behavior withrespect to competitive entry. The evidence revealsthat regulators in price cap jurisdictions tend to setmore liberal terms of entry in comparison withregulators in rate-of-return jurisdictions. Thissuggests that price cap regulation suffers fromincomplete contracting, undermining the potentiallysuperior incentive properties of this importantregulatory reform.     

A Brief Review of the Speech Act Theory

Speech act theory was proposed by J, L, Austin and has bee. developed by J. R. Searle. They believe that language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to do things , to perform acts. A speech act consists nf three apects： locutionary ach llJocutlonary act and perlocudonary act. This paper attempts to give a brief review of the speech act theory and then presents my personal opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of the theory.