Investing back homeReturn migration and business ownership in Albania1

This study uses data from the 2005 Albania Living Standards Measurement Study survey to assess the impact of past migration experience of Albanian households on non‐farm business ownership through instrumental variables regression techniques. Considering the differences in earning potentials and opportunities for skill acquisition in different destination countries, we differentiate the impact of past household migration experience by main migrant destinations. The study also explores the heterogeneity of impact based on the timing of migration. The empirical results indicate that past household migration experience exerts a positive impact on the probability of owning a non‐farm business. While one additional year in Greece increases the probability of household business ownership by roughly 6 percent, a similar experience in Italy or farther destinations raises the probability by over 25 percent. Although past household migration experience for the period of 1990–2000 is positively associated with the likelihood of owning a household enterprise, a similar association does not exist for the period of 2001–2004.     

Environmental Production Factors and Efficiency of Smallholder Agricultural Households: Using Non‐parametric Conditional Frontier Methods

External environmental factors play a significant role in the agricultural production of smallholder farmers. This is especially the case in developing countries where production is less technologically intensive. These factors are mainly exogenous and affect both the farmers’ input choices and the final output levels. However, previous studies of technical efficiency of smallholder agricultural production either ignore these factors or assume separability between environmental factors and input choice, which is often not the case in developing counties. Using data on smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, we relax this separability assumption and investigate the importance of external environmental factors in farmers’ performance and efficiency variation across regions. The empirical analysis is based on a non‐parametric conditional order‐m estimation method that relaxes some of the traditional strong assumptions in efficiency modeling and, more importantly, the separability between environmental factors and the choice of physical inputs. Using data from four major agricultural regions of Ethiopia, we show the extent that environmental factors contribute to the technical efficiency and the significance of environmental factors in farmers’ performance.     

Skew and heavy‐tail effects on firm performance

Research summary : Most strategic management studies adopt an average‐centered view that uses the central tendency to explain between‐group variation in performance (i.e., performance differences between business units, firms, industries, and countries). In this study, we explain within‐group variation using a variance‐centered view that focuses on the peripheral characteristics of performance distributions as defined by skew and heavy tails (i.e., variance and kurtosis). Drawing on performance feedback theory, we hypothesize that successful firms tend to develop a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect” in this study, and that heavy tails moderate this effect. Our analysis of the performance of a group of foreign affiliates provides general support for our hypotheses at both the firm and segment (industry and country) levels. Managerial summary : Managers of multi‐business firms use various approaches to improve the aggregate performance of their business units. Some expand the range of upper performance outliers (exploration) or reduce the range of lower outliers (downsizing); others improve the performance of current business units (exploitation). We find that firms with superior performance tend to have a balanced mix of the three approaches. We also find that segments (countries and industries) with higher mean performances provide environments that facilitate the entry of productive firms and the exit of unproductive firms and provide environments in which incumbents can further improve their performance by learning from others. We observe that successful firms and segments have a positive skew in their performance distributions, which we call a “positive skew effect.” Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating Input Standards for Non‐Point Pollution Control under Firm Heterogeneity

The efficacy and cost of input standards for reducing nitrate pollution from New Zealand dairy production are evaluated. In contrast to previous studies, firm heterogeneity is explicitly considered through the novel integration of efficient techniques for the calibration and decomposition of large optimisation models. Nitrogen fertiliser application should not be targeted by policy given its minor role in determining emissions. In contrast, livestock intensity is an appropriate base for regulation given its strong correlation with pollutant load. Abatement cost increases as stocking rate declines, but this can be offset at low levels of regulation through utilising slack feed resources to improve per‐cow milk production. Both uniform and differentiated input standards based on livestock intensity achieve substantial decreases in pollutant load at moderate cost. However, because of disparity in the slopes of abatement cost curves across firms, a differentiated policy is more cost‐effective at the levels of regulation required to achieve key societal goals for improved water quality.     

论ERP管理系统对财务会计和管理会计合二为一的影响

在以信息经济为代表的知识经济时代,核心竞争力的培育和ERP信息系统的出现对会计理论的发展产生了重大影响。把传统的会计理论分为财务会计和管理会计的界限是否依然清晰？会计是否会被完善的软件所取代？本文以会计理论发展的两个基本动力为出发点进行分析。通过对财务会计和管理会计分离的原因和当代社会经济环境进行研究,提出了会计理论发展新趋势,认为财务会计和管理会计的功能在ERP系统中能得到充分融合和发展。     

产权改革:谨防非效率资本支配的陷阱

不同资本-市场经济中的赢利能力是不同的,赢利能力较低的国有资本,而赢利能力强的是非公有资本,在执行同股同权的公司制企业中,应当防止形成非效率资本支配效率资本的局面,从而影响产权多元化改革之后经营机制的转变。为此,本提出,在国有企业进行产权多元化改革的过程中,应当坚持以效率资本为主导的原则,要正确理解提高国民经济控制力的要求,要解放思想,对非公有经济的地位、作用应当有一个全面深入的认识,让国有资本在公司制企业中搭其他类型资本的便车。     

Information led trade: The role of non‐marketed complementaries in preferences

Recent advances in the theoretical literature on international trade have shown considerable interest in the demand side of the general equilibrium. This paper supplements the literature by highlighting the role of non‐marketed complementaries. Individuals derive utility by consuming two marketed commodities and a non‐marketed commodity. The non‐marketed commodity affects the relative demands of the marketed commodities by acting as complement to one of the marketed commodities. Considering “information” as an exemplar of the non‐marketed commodity, this paper derives a number of insightful results that relate the volume and pattern of trade to the stock and flow of information.     

非国有股东治理与企业风险承担水平——来自国有企业混合所有制改革的经验证据

以A股国有上市企业为样本,考察非国有股东治理对企业风险承担水平的影响。研究发现,非国有股东治理能够显著提升国有企业的风险承担水平,这种影响在2013年底国有企业混合所有制改革强化之后更加明显,在地方国有企业和竞争性国有企业中更加突出。进一步研究发现,非国有股东治理对企业风险承担水平的影响机制在于提高高管薪酬和降低代理成本,提高股权混合制衡度和超额委派董事均能提高企业风险承担水平。研究结论从企业风险承担的视角证实了混合所有制改革的效果,为进一步推进混合所有制改革提供了经验证据和借鉴。     

The Effectiveness of Antidumping Measures: Some Evidence for Farmed Atlantic Salmon

Counterfactual simulations of a partial equilibrium model of the world salmon market suggest safeguard tariffs imposed by the European Commission on salmon imports from Norway, Chile, and the Faroe Islands would do more to punish producers in the named exporting countries than to reward United Kingdom producers. The reason is that export supply is less elastic than import demand on a bilateral basis, which means that most of the tariff's incidence is borne by the targeted producers rather than EU consumers. The incidence problem is exacerbated by the feed quota (now biomass limit) that Norway uses to limit its production. A marketing fee that expands market demand is shown to be less distortionary than its tariff equivalent, and thus may be preferred from a second‐best perspective.     

互联网支付发展与金融风险防范——基于支付经济学视角的研究

基于支付经济学的视角,从互联网支付系统、商业银行互联网支付、第三方互联网支付和非法定数字货币四条传导路径,研究了互联网支付发展与金融风险防范之间的关系。基于指数构建的两阶段实证结果表明,互联网支付对金融风险具有显著的正向效应,且不同传导路径间存在差异性。互联网支付在为金融市场和实体经济服务的同时,客观上也产生了相应的金融风险,并为金融风险传播提供了通道。为更好地防范金融风险,应优化支付结算机制设计、建立应对系统故障和流行病冲击等的压力测试框架,以及加强对非法定数字货币的金融风险监管。