公司法如何面对家庭秩序———以一个家族公司的裁判为例

主流公司法理论强调公司的经济属性,突出章程、正式治理以及程序规则在公司治理中的 作用。但是,具有亲属关系的股东控制的家族公司具有明显的关系与伦理维度,存在不同于普通公司 的治理机制与目标。家族公司的本质属性是关系嵌入性,亲属关系在家族公司中具有工具与目的双 重价值。家族公司的关系治理延续了家庭成员间的互动模式,受到家庭成员间社会规范的约束。在 典型的家族公司中,家族股东之间在权力与利益的分配上遵循利他主义、信任与互惠规范,这些规范 抑制了契约式谈判,维系了家族股东的强人合性,降低了交易成本,但会产生事后背信的风险。在解 释家族公司个案的事实与行为时,法官面临家族逻辑与公司逻辑之间的紧张对立,需特别分析案件发 生的背景与当事人的身份关系。在处理家族股东之间的内部利益纠纷时,应该充分考量信任与互惠 规范的法律价值,保护当事人的合理期待,以抑制事后的机会主义。基于索源公司案中家庭成员间的 特殊期待与信任,直接适用公司法上的默认规则会破坏家庭成员的共识,应该适用诚实信用原则填补 漏洞,以实现家族公司个案的正义,也体现公司法对信任等社会规范的尊重。     

A principal-agent model of altruistic redistribution,with some implications for fiscal federalism

Economists may have taken an unduly limited view of the role that subnational governments (states, counties, cities) ought to play in the redistribution of income. When information is incomplete, subnational redistribution may reduce agency costs. A principal-agent model is proposed, in which taxpayers want to redistribute only to the deserving poor, where deservingness is defined in terms of an unobservable, effort, and an imperfectly observed stochastic shock. In the resulting equilibria, the taxpayer’s optimal benefit strategies are shown to be inconsistent with uniformity of benefit in a large country.     

Social norms and gift behavior: Theory and evidence from Romania

In many developing and transitional countries with limited public income redistribution, inter-household transfers in general, and gifts in particular, are sizable and very important. We use unique Romanian survey data that enables us to isolate pure gifts from other private transfers. We explicitly focus on the importance of community-wide social norms, and find that they indeed play a major role for both the occurrence and the values of gifts. More exactly, our results suggest that the overall predominant gift motive among Romanian households is a norm of reciprocity. Moreover, this norm seems to be dominating for gifts to middle- and high-income households. Even though poor households receive to the same extent, norms of both impure altruism and reciprocity tend to be important. Hence, although the poor may not reciprocate gifts to the same extent as the rich, they still receive, since there is a social norm to give, especially to the poor.     

Evolutionary stability of altruism and envy in Tullock contests

This paper considers Tullock contests with altruistic and envious individuals as players. Altruism (envy) is beheld as another motivation for low (high) dissipation rates in contests. A pure population of altruists has higher payoffs than a purely envious population, but the altruist has a lower payoff if he is confronted with an envious individual. In an evolutionary approach in which the population share of the type with the higher material payoff rises, it can be shown that there is a possibility of either envy or altruism becoming extinct. Furthermore, we find an advantage of envy in such a manner that very altruistic individuals always die out, but very envious ones only do so under certain conditions. I am grateful to Alexander Haupt, two anonymous referees, and the editor for constructive comments on this paper.     

On fair allocations

This paper examines the effects of fairness on economic behavior and allocations, where fairness is defined as the absence of envy among consumers. We use the benefit function to investigate the welfare cost of fairness. We show how fairness generates a form of altruism, captured by a “fair expenditure” function that depends on the distribution of welfare. We define the most efficient fair allocations and explore the implications of fairness for economic behavior, pricing and redistribution policies.     

The widow’s offering: Inheritance, family structure, and the charitable gifts of women

Researchers and commentators have compared men and women’s charitable giving patterns and have concluded that one sex was more generous than the other. Most research based on modern data has found women to be more philanthropic than men. In this article, I compare charitable donations of unmarried men and women in a sample of wills from 17th Century England. I find that men are more likely to make donations than women and make larger average donations. This difference in giving can be explained by differences in wealth and family structure and should not be ascribed to differences in charitable impulses.     

Parent–child co-residence and bequest motives in China

In this paper, I discuss the actual conditions and the determinants of co-residence between older parents and their children in China, especially the impact of bequest motives on parent–child co-residence, using micro data from the “Survey of Living Preferences and Satisfaction,” conducted at Osaka University. More specifically, I use three subsamples of older respondents (those who live in urban areas, those who live in rural areas, and the pooled sample of both) to analyze the impact of bequest motives and other factors on the probability of parent–child co-residence. The results are as follows: bequest motives are strong in China, with more than 60% of respondents having a bequest motive, and the parent–child co-residence rate is also high (about 60%). Turning to the determinants of parent–child co-residence, children of urban parents are more likely to live with their older parents if their parents have a bequest motive, own their own homes, and live in an area where housing prices are high, a result which is consistent with both the selfish life-cycle and altruism models. Children are more likely to live with their older parents if their parents have a bequest motive in both the rural and combined samples, which implies that children are selfishly motivated and that the selfish life-cycle model applies in China.     

由“寝室的悲剧“看利他行为的可能

本文由“公地悲剧”这一故事,联系身边事例,对大学生寝室卫生状况进行调查,通过分析利他行为给个人和集体带来的好处,论证了长期条件下,利他行为的可能性。     

Examining the role of receptivity to green communication,altruism and openness to change on young consumers’ intention to purchase green apparel: A multi-analytical approach

The current study aims to examine the impact of receptivity to green communication, altruism and openness to change on young consumers' purchase intention towards green apparel in India. Using a two stage approach, the research model is assessed with data collected through an online survey from a sample of 549 young consumers. In the first step, structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to determine the linear relationship among factors in the theoretical model. In the second step, artificial neural network (ANN) analysis is used to determine the predictive accuracy of the significant factors obtained from the SEM. The results from the SEM analysis reveal that receptivity to green communication, altruism and openness to change, along with the three predictors of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) significantly affect consumers’ purchase intention towards green apparel. Further, there is an indirect effect of altruism and openness to change on purchase intention through attitude supporting the value-attitude-behavior cognitive hierarchy (VABH). Besides, perceived behavioral control is found to mediate the impact of openness to change on intention to purchase green apparel. The root mean square of error (RMSE) values obtained from the ANN analysis suggest that the models show good predictive accuracy. The study contributes to the existing literature by confirming the applicability of the TPB and the VABH as well as suggesting a robust predictive framework by using ANN for green apparel purchase intention.