Mr. Market's Mind: Finance's Hard Problem

The market as a mind is the implicit premise in any discussion on whether the market is rational or not. Still, its implications, in terms of ontology and epistemology, are hardly understood. In particular, this paper defines the market's version of the mind-body problem and labels it as finance's “hard” problem. Its denial by modern finance causes this dominant paradigm to fail in dealing with reality in general and to produce incomplete investment knowledge in particular. Finally, as part of facing up to this problem, this paper offers a glimpse at a practical approach which may enrich investment research.     

Islamist terrorism and the status of women

We investigate the effect of Islamist terrorist activity on women's legal position in society, using data for 171 countries between 1970 and 2016. To identify causal effects, we exploit the prevalence of Islamist terrorism in neighboring countries as an exogenous source of variation, arguing that regional terrorism affects local terrorism through contagion effects. We show that increased activity by Islamist terrorist groups is linked to lower legal status of women. By contrast, we find that neither Islam per se nor other types of terrorism have comparable effects. This reinforces the notion that Islamist terrorism is singularly interested and effective in weakening women's rights. Our results are consistent with a rational-economic model of terrorism, where Islamist terrorists purposefully use violence to maximize political utility, while governments make concessions that constrain the role of women because the costs of compliance are lower than the harm from continued Islamist terrorism.     

预测与对策:未来中国房地产价格走势分析——以成都市为例

全球金融危机对中国房地产价格影响很大,通过对一系列影响因素的分析,发现这一时期人们的心理预期是所有影响因素中最为敏感的因素,能严重影响中国房地产价格。研究表明,四川省成都市的房地产价格走势与全国房地产价格走势接近,因而能够以该城市的房地产价格作为研究样本,在各种心理预期量化的基础上,预测出未来三年中国房地产价格并提出了相应的政策建议。     

税务管理现代化国际比较及对我国的启示

随着中国经济的快速增长,提高税务管理水平,实现税务管理现代化日益受到关注。本文分析了澳大利亚、美国和日本等先进国家的税务管理特点,论述了世界各个国家税务管理的改革趋势。在此基础上提出了我国税务管理存在的问题,分析国外税务管理给我国带来的启示及我国税务管理现代化的具体举措。     

Assessing market dominance

We propose a new measure to assess market dominance. Contrary to concentration measures such as the Herfindahl–Hirschman index that characterizes the concentration of an industry, our dominance measure suggests an approach that classifies when an individual firm has a dominant position. In our measure, the criterion for dominance is relaxed as the intensity of existing competition increases or as entry barriers are lowered. We apply the dominance measure to a number of well-known competition cases.     

The objective of a privately owned firm under imperfect competition

This paper proposes a model of imperfect competition among privately owned firms that act in the best interest of their shareholders. The existence of a solution for the model is proved under weaker conditions than the ones generally used in the literature. In particular, the results did not require the existence of a continuous equilibrium price selection or concavity assumptions on the profit function.      

The Impact of Institutions and Exchange Rate Volatility on China’s Outward FDI

Over the past decade, China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has rapidly increased. However, its characteristics are not sufficiently studied. In this article, we explore the host country’s determinants of China’s OFDI, with a focus on institutional quality, exchange rate volatility, and natural resources by performing an econometric analysis for the period 2003–2013 for a sample of 49 countries. Our results reveal that China’s OFDI is invested in countries with relatively poor institutional quality and abundant natural resources. Exchange rate variability has a dampening effect on China’s OFDI and that the appreciation of the Chinese renminbi enhances OFDI flows.     

旅行社产品质量网络评价系统设计研究

依据绩效感知服务质量度量模型(SERVPERF)以旅游者的旅游知觉为标准对旅行社产品进行评价。评价系统将旅行社产品细化并以旅游产品消费过程为基础,以官方机构为主体,运用网络认证码为保障确保结果的真实性。旨在为旅行社产品质量评价、监督提供可行、可靠的网络评价系统。通过评价使旅游信息更加对称,并对旅行社产品质量改进起到督促作用,对实现旅游企业间的良性竞争具有重要的现实意义。     

县域经济增长中结构红利的测度及决定 ——基于中国1 820个县面板数据的实证分析

产业结构升级是经济增长的源泉之一。本文基于中国1 820个县的面板数据,采用Translog生产函数估计要素弹性,进而测度县域经济增长中的结构红利,同时构建空间误差计量模型对结构红利的影响因素进行检验。研究结果表明2002-2010年间,结构红利占县域GDP总值的444%,对县域GDP增长的贡献达到了2435%。劳均资本、劳均土地等变量对结构红利有显著影响,本文还发现,在东部、中部、西部三个地区,财政支出占GDP的比重对结构红利都有显著的负向影响。     

CEO任期、CEO权力集中度与中国制造企业自主创新能力——基于中国制造业上市公司2006—2017年的经验证据

本文以中国制造业上市公司2006—2017年数据为研究对象,以CEO权力集中度为调节变量探讨了CEO任期与中国制造企业自主创新能力之间的关系,研究发现:①长期意义上CEO任期越长,越有利于自主创新能力提升;②CEO权力集中度越高,越有利于自主创新能力提升;③CEO权力集中度与CEO任期有"伴随效应",能够扩张CEO任期对自主创新能力的正向效应,正所谓"用人不疑,疑人不用";④在当前,国有制造企业更应注重CEO任期对自主创新能力的积极作用,应考虑增加国企CEO任期;而民营制造企业要注重公司治理结构中CEO权力集中度。结论具有稳健性。