Multinationals: Too Many or Too Few?— The Proximity–concentration Trade-off

The paper builds an analytically tractable model that illustrates the “proximity–concentration trade-off” involved in horizontal multinationals. For low trade costs, firms are single-plant firms, for intermediate costs, some are single-plant firms whereas others are multinationals, for large trade costs, firms are multinationals. Because of the modeling strategy, the model is suited for a welfare analysis of multinationals. It shows that too many firms choose to concentrate their production in only one location. Also, for some transport costs, a reduction in transport costs worsens welfare.

Wall of cash: The investment-cash flow sensitivity when capital becomes abundant

In the mid 2000s the oil and gas industry was hit by what might be best described as a ‘wall of cash’ as oil prices successively reached new record levels and access to external financing improved greatly. In this article we investigate what this sudden abundance of liquidity implied for the investment-cash flow relationship, the interpretation of which continues to generate controversy in the literature. For financially constrained firms we find that the investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases in the abundance period (2005–2008), suggesting that the financing constraints became less binding in this period. For financially unconstrained firms the investment-cash flow sensitivity instead increases over time, suggesting that this relationship is driven by agency problems related to free cash flow. Our paper is the first in the investment-cash flow literature to bring evidence from a natural experiment in which there was an unexpected, exogenous, substantial, and persistent decrease in the cost of external financing.     

What explains the value premium? The case of adjustment costs,operating leverage and financial leverage

This paper empirically examines and compares the different theoretical predictions on how adjustment costs, operating and financial leverage influence the value premium. Consistent with Ozdagli (2012), financial leverage plays a dominant role, supported by adjustment costs (which represent the degree of investment irreversibility). Specifically, the observed value premium is driven by the financial leverage differences between value and growth firms, partially neutralized by investment irreversibility. The relation between the value premium and investment irreversibility is contrary to the intuition in Zhang (2005) and Cooper (2006). Operating leverage does not significantly influence the value premium.     

Foreign Direct Investment in the Enlarged EU: Do Taxes Matter and to What Extent?

Foreign direct investment is of increasing importance in the European Union. This paper estimates the effect of taxes on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and on three sub-components of these flows for the countries of the enlarged European Union. The model in the spirit of gravity equations robustly explains FDI flows between the 25 member states. Sample selection needs to be addressed in the estimation. We show that the different subcomponents of FDI should and indeed do react differently to taxes. After controlling for unobserved country characteristics and common time effects, the top statutory corporate tax rate of both, source and host country, turn insignificant for total FDI and investment into equity. However, high source country taxes clearly increase the probability of firms to re-invest profits abroad and lower the percentage of debt financed FDI. This might reflect profit re-allocation to avoid taxes. Market size factors have the expected signs.

我国热气商品成本价格现状及监审对策研究

城市供热包括热电公司向城镇居民提供热水、热气以及向城市有关部门提供蒸汽。我国城市集中供应蒸汽的数量近5年中平均每年以3.1%速度在下降,而同期集中供应热水总量平均每年以9.4%的速度在增长。而热气生产单位由于热气价格由政府控制,已大大低于其成本,出现亏损。亏损还来源于生产热气的原料煤价格上涨过快、热气输送管道(线)维修、维护费用升高等。政府为了保护城市居民的切身利益,往往采取一定方式对热气生产单位进行暗补。对热气商品成本进行监审既要政策法规制度进行,更重要的是对热气商品进行市场化改革,变暗补为明补,并在政策上予以引导。     

银行业务地域特征和银行机构集聚

由于交通成本和信息成本的存在,银行业务呈现出一定的地域特征。不同的地域特征使得各个地区适合集聚的银行业务也存在差异。地方政府应该根据经济发展水平、金融业务资源禀赋、地理环境和金融生态环境等因素的实际情况,选择合适的政策措施,促进银行业务和银行机构的集聚。     

A theoretical framework of electronic word-of-mouth against the backdrop of social networking websites

This study proposed and tested a theoretical framework that explains electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) against the backdrop of social networking websites (SNWs), which have gained substantial popularity among travelers. In particular, a United States (US) nationwide online survey was conducted and nine hypotheses were tested. The findings suggest that willingness to share knowledge and switching costs are positively related to eWOM communication. In addition, customer value (utilitarian) has positive relationships with willingness to share knowledge, perceived security, and switching cost, while customer value (hedonic) has positive relationships with willingness to share knowledge and switching costs. Last but not least, the findings indicate that perceived security does negatively impact eWOM. In light of the major findings, the article sets forth strategic implications for travel-related social networking websites.     

浅谈经济利润对企业绩效的评价

在现实生活中,企业的经营目标是多元化的,而利润是最具有代表性的,它对企业经营绩效和决策的评价有着重要影响。本文从经济学的角度比较会计利润和经济利润对企业经营绩效和决策的评价。     

Associated consistency and equal allocation of nonseparable costs

Summary. We modified the definition of associated game with respect to Hamiache (2001) to characterize the equal allocation of nonseparable costs (EANS) by means of Pareto Optimality(PO), Translation Covariance (TC), Symmetry (SYM), Associated Consistency(AC) and Continuity(CONT).Received: 8 April 2004, Revised: 9 May 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: C71.The author is indebted to Clement Wen for many helpful comments and he is also very grateful to a referee who proposed several helpful comments to improve the paper.     

在互联网金融环境下对中小企业融资的研究

本文通过了解中小企业融资难的现状,分析了互联网金融的特点及优势,研究其适宜于解决中小企业融资的特征,指出了互联网金融可以作用于中小企业融资的地方。对这两个问题的结合进行了全面而深入的研究和探讨,给出了在互联网环境下解决中小企业融资难的相关对策,希望这个交叉领域做出贡献。