The Determinants of REIT CEO Compensation

Executive compensation has garnered much attention in the last decade from both academicians and practitioners. We examine the relationship between increase in CEO compensation, industry-specific performance measures, and stock return for the years 1993–1999 in the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry. We find evidence that compensation evaluation is related to stock returns, and to changes in Real Estate Investment and Funds from Operation for the years 1997, 1998, and 1999. Furthermore, we document a negative relation between CEO raise and age. We find no link between compensation and earnings per share, whether the REIT is self-managed, or type of property in which the REIT specializes.     

A Dynamic Model of the Firm: Structural Explanations of Key Empirical Findings

We derive a dynamic model of the firm in the spirit of the trade‐off theory of capital structure that explains firm behavior in terms of firm characteristics. We show our model is consistent with many important findings about the cross‐section of firms, including the negative relations between profitability and leverage, and between dividends and investment‐cash flow sensitivities. The model also explains the existence of zero‐debt firms and their observed characteristics. These results have been used to challenge the trade‐off theory and the assumption of perfect capital markets. We revisit these critiques and provide structural explanations for the regularities we replicate.     

火山岩基质储层应力敏感性实验研究

目前,储层应力敏感性评价主要建立在常规应力敏感性实验的基础上,也有部分学者开展了变孔隙压力的应力敏感性评价实验,所得结论和常规实验有较大的出入,但并没有给出合理的解释。为了深入研究这一问题,笔者设计了一组变围压的常规应力敏感性和变孔隙压力的高压应力敏感性评价对比实验,并对实验结果进行了详细的对比分析研究。结果表明,Terzaghi有效应力理论用于致密火山岩基质储层有一定的局限性,采用本体有效应力理论计算较为合适。如果采用本体有效应力分析该组对比实验,两种实验方法所得结果具有较高的一致性。实验结果表明,地层衰竭开发过程中,岩石骨架所受应力的变化范围很小,由于应力改变而引起的岩心渗透率变化很小,可以忽略不计。     

高管持股、研发投资与企业绩效的关系研究

选取高新技术上市公司作为研究对象,运用回归分析,以及Clogg差异检验公式,在考察研发投资与高管持股对企业绩效存在滞后影响基础上,针对研发投资对滞后一期企业绩效的中介效应进行研究。实证结果表明,企业研发投资与高管持股对企业绩效都具有显著的滞后影响,且在滞后一期的影响最大;进一步的研究发现,企业研发投资对企业绩效存在滞后影响的同时对企业绩效具有显著的中介效应。     

上市家族企业价值与第二大股东身份关系的实证研究

以2011年629家中国上市家族企业的横截面数据为样本,检验了第二大股东身份对企业价值的影响。研究发现家族企业第二大股东身份会影响企业价值,这种影响依赖于家族企业执行控制权的方式,并且当其他大股东更具有竞争力的时候,第二大股东身份对企业价值的影响会显著增强。     

Accounting for heterogeneity and dynamics in the loyalty-price sensitivity relationship

Marketers have been interested in the relationship between brand loyalty and price sensitivity for many years and have examined whether loyalty reduces consumer price sensitivity. The results, to date, indicate that loyalty does indeed raise the price that consumers are willing to pay for a brand. Other than this broad finding, however, there has been little research in the literature regarding whether and how this relationship varies across consumers and product categories and, within consumers, over time. This is the issue that we investigate in this paper. Specifically, we examine whether the price sensitivity-loyalty relationship is heterogeneous and dynamic. We propose an approach wherein the price sensitivity parameter of a brand choice model is specified as a function of loyalty with three parameters. The first parameter of this function represents the maximum possible reduction in price sensitivity due to loyalty. The second parameter affects the type and shape of the relationship between price sensitivity and loyalty. In particular, depending on the value of this parameter, the relationship could be non-existent, follow a concave shape, indicating decreasing response to increases in loyalty, or be S-shaped to capture the case of increasing response initially followed by decreasing response subsequently. Finally, the third parameter captures the rate at which price sensitivity falls as loyalty increases.We use the proposed approach to investigate the relationship in four frequently purchased categories. In each category, we select a sample of households and calibrate the model on the choices of all the households in the sample. We next employ an Empirical Bayes approach to obtain household-level estimates of all the parameters. These parameters are then used to assign each household in each category to a no response or concave or S-shaped response groups. Within each of these three groups, we assign each household to one of four different response level and rate segments, that is, high response-high rate, high response-low rate, low response-high rate, and low response-low rate. Each of these segments differs in the response level, that is, the maximum reduction in price sensitivity as loyalty reaches a maximum—and the response rate, that is, how quickly price sensitivity falls with increases in loyalty.Following the assignment of each household to a segment in each category, we pool the households across all four categories and calibrate a membership function. This function explains households’ membership in different segments in terms of product category characteristics, household demographics, the household’s responses to price, display, and feature promotions and the evolution of loyalty of the household.Our findings suggest that the nature of the loyalty-price sensitivity relationship does vary across consumers as well as over time. Specifically, the concave response is more likely than the S-shaped response or the absence of a response. We find that the S-shaped response is not related to responsiveness to in-store promotions. It is, however, associated with a slower growth in loyalty to a brand as it is purchased. The concave response, on the other hand, is associated with responsiveness to feature promotions but is unrelated to how loyalty to brands evolves with their purchases.We also find that demographic characteristics are related to the behavior of the concave and S-shaped responses. Specifically, for the S-shaped response, household demographics are related to both the maximum level of the curve as well as its rate of growth. In particular, the curve grows faster with age and its maximum increases with the weekly working hours of the household. In the case of the concave response, high income and more working hours raise the maximum level that the curve achieves. Its rate of growth, however, is unaffected by demographics.We also provide several managerial implications for loyalty and promotional programs based on our findings. Specifically, our first finding—that the loyalty-price sensitivity relationship is dynamic—suggests that, rather than having promotional programs, where the value of the price promotion is fixed and some consumers are targeted with the promotion while others are not, managers should have an entire schedule of price promotions with each level of promotions targeting consumers at a different loyalty level.Our second finding that the nature of the loyalty-price sensitivity relationship is heterogeneous across consumers suggests that designing loyalty programs on the basis of crude classifications such as loyals and non-loyals is not appropriate. Instead, households that are identified as loyal, need to be further divided based on how the loyalty affects their price sensitivity. Promotional programs should then be based on the specific type of relationship that a household exhibits.The third finding that the reductions in price sensitivity to loyalty can exhibit an S-shaped or a concave pattern also has an interesting managerial implication. Specifically, given the differences between the two patterns in how long it might take a consumer to reach a point where s(he) is willing to purchase a brand due to loyalty rather than due to a price promotion, and hence be a profitable customer, it may be preferable for managers to invest more in consumers who exhibit a concave rather than an S-shaped response.Finally, our result that different categories may exhibit different patterns of the relationship between price sensitivity and loyalty implies that each category needs to be analyzed by itself for what the nature of the loyalty-price sensitivity relationship is likely to be so that the most appropriate program for that category can be developed.     

政府采购政策的理论性定位

制定和具体落实政府采购政策,是当前政府采购如何实现其社会职能的一项重要内容。本文对政府采购政策定位,可执行程序和标准,保障措施做了理论方向性的研究和探讨。     

The Effect of Ethical Fund Portfolio Inclusion on Executive Compensation

This paper divides firms in the Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) into two groups based on inclusion in or exclusion from the Domini Social Index (DSI). Inclusion in the DSI is interpreted as a positive indicator of ethical status. Using data for the 1992–2003 period, I provide evidence that chief executive officer (CEO) compensation, other executive compensation, and director compensation tend to be lower in DSI firms than in other firms in the S&P 500. This applies to the unconditional group averages (and medians) and is particularly striking given that DSI firms as a group had better financial performance than the other firms. This finding is also true in a regression framework that controls for other influences on compensation, including firm size and financial performance. In a regression context, the estimated discount for CEOs of DSI firms is approximately 12% for both current compensation (salary and bonuses) and total compensation (including the value of options). These results are consistent with the expectation that some senior executives require a “compensating differential” to accept positions in firms with less attractive ethical status. It is also consistent with the expectation that some firms with positive ethical status might use more restraint in setting executive compensation.James Brander is the Asia-Pacific Professor of International Business in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. An economist, his research areas include international trade, industrial organization and finance. He is a former editor of the Canadian Journal of Economics and has published widely, including the textbook “Government Policy Toward Business”.     

Romer revisited: long-term changes in the cyclical sensitivity of unemployment

In this paper we employ microeconomic evidence on the unemployment experiences of American males to evaluate the sensitivity of unemployment to business cycle fluctuations in the late nineteenth century as compared to the mid-twentieth century. Our results indicate a substantial decline in the value of the Okun coefficient (from −0.65 to −0.32) between the 1890s and the 1960s. These findings challenge Christina Romer’s interpretation that the measured decline in cyclical volatility of unemployment over the twentieth century was created by improvements in the statistical record. Rather, it was changes in the underlying dynamics of the labor market over the cycle, most notably the transition to procyclical productivity patterns and the shift from an added to a discouraged worker effect among secondary workers, which may be summarized as the development of modern labor market behavior, that account for the declining cyclical sensitivity of employment and the drop in the cyclical volatility of unemployment over the century.

Do credit unions have distinct objectives? Evidence from executive compensation structures

Credit unions compete directly with commercial banks in markets for consumer financial services yet receive an exemption from federal corporate income tax. Commercial banks claim that credit unions are no different than banks and that the credit union tax exemption represents an unfair competitive advantage. Credit unions counter that while they offer similar products and services, they differ from commercial banks in terms of structure and mission, given their not-for-profit, cooperative status. In this paper, we test for substantive differences in the objective functions of commercial banks and nonprofit credit unions by comparing CEO compensation structures. Drawing on the relevant principal–agent literature, we provide several arguments to support the hypotheses that credit union boards of directors establish lower-powered incentive contracts with their CEOs relative to similarly sized commercial banks, and offer lower total compensation. We find that credit union CEOs receive approximately 250% less performance-based compensation relative to CEOs of similarly sized community banks. Bank CEOs also earn approximately 15% to 20% more total compensation on average. The results are generally robust to controlling for CEO- and board-level characteristics, local economic conditions, and institution-level indicators of size, growth, complexity, liquidity and risk. The findings suggest important differences in incentive structures and objectives between banks and credit unions.