An Equilibrium Approach to the Aggregation of Beliefs

This paper presents a new answer to the old question of how to aggregate individual beliefs. We construct a model which allows agents to take arbitrage opportunities against the aggregated belief by making contingent claims against the states, and the aggregator (market maker) regulates the probability of states. When all claims from the agents are mutually covered for every realization of the state, an aggregation of individual beliefs is thus obtained. We prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium aggregation, and also show that the aggregate belief lies in the convex hull of individual beliefs. This model allows us to address some important problems such as how individual agent’s attitude toward risk and wealth endowment affect the outcome of the aggregation process, and whether the aggregate belief satisfies the well-known properties like equal treatment.     

The Benefits of Visibility Improvement: New Evidence from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

This article examines the impact of a specific aspect of air quality—visibility, or the ability to clearly see distant objects—on housing values. Our analysis is based on a data set constructed by matching residential housing sales data from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area for the period 1980 through 1995 with visibility and other air pollution data and other characteristics. We find that visibility differences are capitalized into housing values, producing a measurable hedonic price gradient. The time-series design facilitates an estimate of the demand for visibility that we use to calculate the benefits of changes in visual range.     

节能环保产业科技支撑体系研究--论山西省生态文明建设的保障措施

十八大报告和新党章将生态文明建设与经济建设、政治建设、文化建设、社会建设并列,还放在了突出地位、摆在中国特色社会主义事业总体布局的高度上,事关我党执政的可持续性.山西省做为一个能源与重化工省份,因经济偏重,造成了一些环境污染、生态欠账的问题,“十二五”期间,“高能耗、高排放”给经济增长带来的污染压力还将持续增加;为了保障山西省生态文明建设落到实处、解决过去经济发展中所造成了一些环境污染、生态欠账的问题,实现绿色发展、可持续发展,必须实施创新驱动发展战略.因此,山西省要建立生态文明建设中节能环保科技的支撑体系,全面提升山西省节能环保产业的发展水平和速度,建成美丽山西.     

官员排名赛与环境政策执行——基于环境约束性指标绩效的实证研究

以从2006年开始实行的环境约束性指标为研究对象,结合晋升锦标赛和弱排名激励理论,提出了官员排名赛理论,认为约束性指标制度的建立为地方政府提供了环境绩效排名的平台,由此推动了地方政府环境政策执行力度。利用2006—2015年中国省际环境数据,采用动态面板数据估计方法,实证检验了各省环境绩效排名对其未来环境政策执行力度的影响。实证结果表明,环境绩效排名落后的省份在未来1~3年显著提高了节能和减排的政策执行力度。     

数字时代企业环境审计模式创新——基于环保政策响应机制的研究

企业规避环保责任的机会主义行为导致政府环保政策成效不显著。基于利益相关者理论构建环保政策利益相关者模型,并从环保权力、责任和信息三个角度分析企业的环保政策响应机制。研究发现：由于消费者缺位以及信息不对称等因素的影响,企业的环保政策响应水平较弱。政府应将环保政策施加于消费者,通过消费者来约束企业的行为;审计主体应当转变现有的审计模式,运用数字技术,与消费者合作共同完成审计监督的工作。基于此,提出一种基于消费者需求引导的综合环保政策及新型企业环境审计模式,建议政府应重视数字技术对产业的改造升级,充分考虑消费者的因素来制定环保政策并加大对企业污染数据实时监控的普及。     

The impact of undergraduate personal finance education on individual financial literacy,attitudes and intentions

Financial literacy education features prominently among the policy options available to improve personal financial decision‐making. Notwithstanding calls to expand delivery of financial literacy units at university level, such offerings are relatively rare with little evaluation. We provide an evaluation of the impact on financial literacy, financial attitudes and financial behaviour intentions of a semester unit in personal finance delivered to undergraduates at an Australian university, carefully controlling for confounding effects in the analysis. We report increases in objective and subjective financial literacy and an additional gender effect. Contrary to previous speculation, we do not find overconfidence as an associated outcome.     

武陵源世界自然遗产地生态旅游者细分研究——基于环境态度与环境行为视角

以国内外知名生态旅游地之一的武陵源世界自然遗产地生态旅游者为研究对象,通过抽样调查,应用描述性统计、信度分析、因素分析、集群分析等方式,以生态旅游者的环境态度与环境行为视角来分析生态旅游者类群特征。研究表明,在以旅游者环境态度与环境行为构建的两维坐标系中,可以将武陵源世界自然遗产地生态旅游者分为友好型、破坏型、真正型、伪生态、可持续和偶尔型等6类;生态旅游者在环境意识、环境责任、参与状态、参与程度、环境解说、居民利益和行为表现上均有差异;武陵源世界自然遗产地的旅游市场仍然是一般生态观光为主,生态旅游为辅的格局。     

Attitudes to pay systems:an exploratory study within and across cultures

The present study investigates employees’preferences for criteria that are used in pay systems, namely, performance, cost of living, tenure, educational qualification, collective bargaining, skill, market rate, responsibility and special demands. The study also explored variation and similarities of employees’preferences for the criteria across four countries, namely Australia (N = 162), Indonesia (N = 100), Malaysia (N = 129) and Hong Kong (N = 39). The results indicate that the respondents prefer multiple criteria to determine their pay. Preferences for length of service and educational attainment were found to be significantly different across countries, particularly between Australian and Asian samples (Indonesian and Malaysia). This variation is, in part, attributed to cultural differences. Other variables, such as age, educational qualification, position, and industry sector, have been found to be significant correlates of preference for pay systems. Implications for reward management have been discussed.     

The heterogeneous relationship between board social ties and corporate environmental responsibility in an emerging economy

Firms in emerging economies are faced with multiple, incompatible institutional forces in their environmental activities. Which of these forces will be dominant and instantiated within an organization is partly determined by the social relationships that a firm maintains with external actors. This paper investigates the relationship between board social ties and the level of environmental responsibility undertaken by firms in China, an emerging economy, by categorizing board social ties into three types in terms of the three isomorphic forces in the institutional field (coercive, normative and mimetic). Drawing on institutional and agency theories, using a sample of listed firms in environmentally sensitive industries, and a generalized least squares regression method, the results provide empirical evidence that ties that are linked to coercive and normative forces (i.e., political organizations and universities) are related to a higher level of environmental responsibility; however, those that are linked to mimetic forces (i.e., industrial peers) have a negative association with environmental responsibility, which is mitigated by CEO power. These findings suggest that the heterogeneous effects of board social ties on environmental responsibilities experienced by firms in a context of environmentalism are at an early stage.     

Bouncing Back from Extreme Weather Events: Some Preliminary Findings on Resilience Barriers Facing Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much‐debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non‐linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment