Optimizing the credit term decisions in supply chain finance

We study a credit term determination problem in the context of a supplier-buyer supply chain. The supplier's credit term decision is simultaneously made with its production and inventory decisions, and most importantly, it is impacted by the buyer's order quantity. We present a new game-theoretic framework to model this problem, which captures the interaction between the supplier's credit term decision and the buyer's order decision in a multi-period setting. An exact method based on nonlinear programming is implemented to obtain the optimal solutions. We apply our methodologies on a real world case. The computational results show that our approach significantly outperforms the heuristics with fixed credit terms, and either a short or a long credit term can be sub-optimal for the supplier in profitability. Our work offers the first data-driven model and solution approach that assists purchasing and supply managers to make optimal dynamic credit term decision in conjunction with production, ordering and inventory decisions in a game-theoretic setting.     

Bank ownership and credit over the business cycle: Is lending by state banks less procyclical?

This paper finds that lending by state banks is less procyclical than lending by private banks, especially in countries with good governance. Lending by state banks in high income countries is even countercyclical. On the liability side, state banks expand their total liabilities and, in particular, their non-deposit liabilities relatively little during booms. Public banks also report loan non-performance more evenly over the business cycle. Overall our results suggest that state banks can play a useful role in stabilizing credit over the business cycle as well as during periods of financial instability. However, the track record of state banks in credit allocation remains quite poor, questioning the wisdom of using state banks as a short term countercyclical tool.     

谈地方高校图书馆馆员素质——以贺州学院图书馆为例

随着社会的不断进步,改革的步伐不断加快,信息时代的飞速发展,对地方高校图书馆馆员的综合素质要求越来越高。地方高校图书馆事业的发展与图书馆员的素质与能力密切相关,馆员素质的提高已刻不容缓。通过对地方高校图书馆馆员应具备的几个素质的阐述,并介绍了贺州学院图书馆提升馆员素质的方法。这样有利于地方高校图书馆工作有条不紊地开展,更好地为学校的教学和科研服务。     

Forecasting China's foreign exchange reserves using dynamic model averaging: The roles of macroeconomic fundamentals,financial stress and economic uncertainty

We develop models for examining possible predictors of growth of China's foreign exchange reserves that embrace Chinese and global trade, financial and risk (uncertainty) factors. Specifically, by comparing with other alternative models, we show that the dynamic model averaging (DMA) and dynamic model selection (DMS) models outperform not only linear models (such as random walk, recursive OLS-AR(1) models, recursive OLS with all predictive variables models) but also the Bayesian model averaging (BMA) model for examining possible predictors of growth of those reserves. The DMS is the best overall across all forecast horizons. While some predictors matter more than others over the forecast horizons, there are few that stand the test of time. The US–China interest rate differential has a superior predictive power among the 13 predictors considered, followed by the nominal effective exchange rate and the interest rate spread for most of the forecast horizons. The relative predictive prowess of the oil and copper prices alternates, depending on the commodity cycles. Policy implications are also provided.     

Philanthropic giving of China’s hotel firms: The roles of state ownership,corporate misconduct and executive remuneration

This study utilizes value enhancement theory, agency cost theory and crisis management theory to scrutinize the philanthropic giving (PG) of China’s listed hotel companies from 2003 to 2018. The results of dynamic panel regression tests reveal that state ownership (company character), corporate misconduct (crisis management determinant) and executive remuneration (agency cost determinant) are influential factors in hotel firms’ PG, but none of the value enhancement determinants can explain PG. Specifically, state ownership is negatively correlated with PG, reflecting low PG in government dominated hotel firms in China. PG is negatively associated with executive remuneration, indicating that hotel managers care more about self-interest than social responsibility. PG is also positively related to corporate misconduct, suggesting that hotel firms use philanthropy to manage a crisis. Finally, the lagged PG has a positive effect on PG, implying that PG is intended to avoid damage to social image and reputation of China’s hotel firms.     

Western sanctions—Only half the challenge to Russia’s economic union

Tensions over Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine and the Middle East have resulted in wide-ranging Western sanctions. An understanding the destabilizing regional and institutional effects of sanctions is, therefore, fundamental for policymakers on both sides. Data from 2007 to 2015 are used to analyze the effect of funding, bank ownership and credit quality across Russia’s wider Economic Union. Results enable systemic insights into an often opaque region during a period of crises and sanctions. Specifically we find that sanctions result in institutional illiquidity, limited capital market access and a rise in state funding coupled with bank take-overs by governments. Government Institutions exploit their access to state funding to increase market share but the positive effects are limited since there is clear evidence of ongoing poor credit management. An increase in loan loss provisions, lagged abnormal credit losses, suggest that until this second but significant ‘weak management’ effect is addressed, it will be difficult for institutions in the region to overcome the debilitating effects of sanctions.     

To each his own: Matching different entrepreneurial models to the academic scientist's individual needs

This paper presents a comparative case study of academic group leaders, active in three different scientific fields at a leading Swiss technical university. It examines the obstacles that prevent scientists from commercializing their technologies and how they can be reduced. Traditional models of technology transfer assume that scientists prefer either to 'go it alone' and become entrepreneurs (the inventor entrepreneur model) or to let go of their technologies to people interested in their commercialization (the surrogate entrepreneur model). The results of qualitative research suggest that these two models capture the extremes of a continuum populated by a variety of intermediate situations where scientists are unwilling completely to let go of their findings, but also do not want to become full time entrepreneurs. This results in considerable commercial potential that is unexploited. The Founding Angels approach might be a solution to this problem; it is designed for academics in these intermediate situations. The study contributes to the literature on university-industry technology transfer and should be useful for practitioners and scientists interested in maximizing the synergies between academia and industry.     

Perceived incentives to transdisciplinarity in a Japanese university research center

As a method of investigating complex socially relevant phenomena, transdisciplinary research (TDR) is gaining increasing centrality as a model of knowledge production. However, it is being discouraged by a scientific reward system based on disciplinary logic. The disincentive is even stronger for junior scholars who should be developing the capabilities necessary for achieving long-term scientific excellence.Building on theories of the coordination of scientific communities and using the case of a research center of Kyoto University investigating the boundary between cell and material sciences, we aim to disentangle the interplay between institutional incentives and intrinsic motivation in the prioritization of TDR over monodisciplinary research.We find that, despite strong interest in TDR among scientists and the center's mission to promote this orientation, only a minority of scientists prioritize this approach. Choice of research strategy is associated with its perceived benefits for idea generation, publication opportunities, intellectual effort required, the costs of team coordination, and satisfaction with organizational resources. Furthermore, the propensity to prioritize TDR drops among scientists beginning their careers.Therefore, we recommend the development of evaluation schemes grounded in activity-based measures and the granting of permanent positions to scientists pursuing TDR.     

Well-being effects of self-employment: A spatial inquiry

Our paper presents an empirical analysis of entrepreneurial well-being using a large-scale longitudinal household survey from the UK that tracks almost 50,000 individuals across seven waves over the period 2009–2017, as well as a number of exploratory case studies. We contribute to the existing literature by investigating how entrepreneurial well-being varies across locations along the urban-rural continuum, and across wealthy-deprived neighbourhoods. We use a Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) approach to compare the well-being outcomes of individuals who switch into self-employment from waged employment, and show that entrepreneurial well-being, in the form of job satisfaction, is significantly higher for those living in semi-urban locations, relative to those living in urban and rural locations. We argue that semi-urban locations provide an optimal combination of ease of doing business and quality of life. Our results also show that individuals in wealthy neighbourhoods who switch into self-employment experience higher job satisfaction than otherwise comparable individuals living in materially deprived neighbourhoods, although the latter experience greater levels of life satisfaction following the switch.     

成都理工大学教职工体育协会的现状研究

文章对成都理工大学6个教职工体育协会的建制、经费、场地设施、指导人员以及活动开展状况等方面进行了调查访谈,发现协会中仍然存在着协会成员固化、成员覆盖面小以及资金不足、场地匮乏等问题,并提出加大宣传力度,狠抓培训、扩大会员人数;扩展资金来源,寻求学校场地人力支持以及多层次创造活动交流平台等建议措施,以促进成都理工大学教职工体育协会的进一步发展。