A New Perspective on Returns to Scale for Truckload Motor Carriers

Understanding how motor carriers' size affects their productivity (e.g., miles per power unit) is of fundamental importance to carrier managers, shippers, and investors, because the nature of this relationship should influence carriers' strategies with regard to growth. In the truckload (TL) sector, the prevailing assumption is that TL carriers face constant returns to scale such that productivity differs little between large and small carriers. While empirical findings from several studies conducted since deregulation are consistent with this assumption, we contend that the true relationship between carrier size and productivity is more nuanced and is contingent on carriers' level of technical efficiency. Specifically, we develop and test middle range theory that predicts increasing returns to scale for carriers with low technical efficiency, constant returns to scale for carriers with average technical efficiency, and decreasing returns to scale for carriers with high technical efficiency. We test our theory by estimating production functions using quantile regression for data collected from the U.S. Department of Transportation for 1,068 TL carriers. Results from our analyses corroborate our predictions. Our findings hold valuable implications for the logistics literature as well as TL carrier management, shippers, and other industry stakeholders.     

Factors affecting corporate environmental disclosure in emerging markets: The role of corporate governance structures

This study seeks to examine whether internal corporate governance (CG) mechanisms affect corporate environmental disclosure (CED) in emerging economies. Using a sample of 500 firm-year observations, this study distinctively applies a linear panel quantile regression (PQR) model to examine the CG–CED nexus in Jordan. This technique is supplemented with conducting a two-step dynamic generalised method of moment (GMM) model to overcome any potential occurrence of endogeneity problems. This study reports an increasing trend in CED practice among the sampled companies over the period of analysis, yet it is still at an early stage as compared with their developed counterparts. Furthermore, this study suggests that board size, board independence, CEO duality and foreign ownership have positive associations with CED. In contrast, managerial ownership, institutional ownership and ownership concentration are negatively associated with the disclosed amount of environmental information in the Jordanian context. Theoretically, board structures appeared to be more efficient than ownership structures in reducing agency conflicts by addressing the asymmetric gap of information and promoting the disclosure of environmental information. These findings add to the debate about whether ownership structures detrimental to CED in developing economies. Specifically, when it comes to spending money on CED, owners seemed to be more concerned about any reductions in their share of the pie and may, therefore, be less motivated to disclose their companies' environmental information. This paper provides managers, owners and policymakers with a set of context-specific recommendations related to the crucial need for a more concerted effort to integrate governance and environmental regulations in order to ensure sustainability in emerging markets.     

Marginal effects of public employment on unconditional distribution of wage income in China

This paper examines the marginal effects of an employment expansion in China’s public sector on the unconditional distribution of “wage income” using the unconditional quantile estimation suggested by Firpo et al. (2009). Empirical data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey is split into three sub-samples to eliminate the effects of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the subprime financial crisis in 2008 on our empirical results. To explore the marginal effects, the empirical unconditional distributions of wage income “before” and “after” an expansion of the public employment have been graphed and compared. It has been found that an expansion of China’s public employment reduces the dispersion of wage income and hence alleviates income inequality in China. Besides, an expansion of public employment makes the symmetrical unconditional distribution of wage income become leftward skewed. Given these findings, an expansion of the public employment caused by the strategy of “guojin mintui” could mitigate China’s income inequality.     

Panel quantile regressions for estimating and predicting the value-at-risk of commodities

Using a flexible panel quantile regression framework, we show how the future conditional quantiles of commodities returns depend on both ex post and ex ante uncertainty. Empirical analysis of the most liquid commodities covering main sectors, including energy, food, agriculture, and precious and industrial metals, reveal several important stylized facts. We document common patterns of the dependence between future quantile returns and ex post as well as ex ante volatilities. We further show that the conditional returns distribution is platykurtic. The approach can serve as a useful risk management tool for investors interested in commodity futures contracts.     

Quantile information share

This paper presents a new method to estimate Hasbrouck-type market information share in price discovery. The prevailing market information share is calculated on the basis of conditional mean. We propose a conditional quantile regression approach to obtain a new market information share measure, quantile information share, which varies across the combinations of different price quantiles. The method is illustrated with two data sets, one on the spot and futures markets in pricing S&P 500 equity index, and the other on price discovery for a cross-listed stock.     

银行竞争度对中小企业融资约束的影响研究 ——基于面板分位数模型

中小企业在我国经济发展中发挥着越来越重要的作用，但”融资难、融资贵、融资险” 问题一直制约其发展。2018 年的国务院会议以及2019 年的政府工作报告中多次强调了这个问题， 明确要求提高中小企业金融服务的可得性。针对这种现状，文章从银行竞争度视角出发，以2013- 2017 年新三板创新层中739 家企业为样本，通过构建面板分位数模型，研究银行竞争度对处在不 同分位（10、50、90）下中小企业融资约束的影响。结果表明：银行竞争度显著影响中小企业融 资约束，且对不同分位的中小企业影响不同，通过提高银行竞争度，融资约束越严重的中小企业 将受益越多。另外，上下游企业融资、短期融资比率以及宏观环境也是影响中小企业融资的重要 因素。文章在实证分析的基础上，从降低市场门槛、引入外资银行等几个方面提出建议，为化解 中小企业的融资困境提供依据。     

A Conversation with Roger Koenker

Roger William Koenker was born February 21, 1947. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1969 and obtained his PhD in Economics from University of Michigan in 1974 under the direction of Saul Hymans. He was Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign (UIUC) from 1974 to 1976, and a member of Technical Staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1976 to 1983 and returned to UIUC as Professor in 1983. He is currently a William B. McKinley Professor of Economics and Professor of Statistics at UIUC. He is best known for his seminal work on quantile regression, which has emerged as a powerful regression analysis tool across many disciplines. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Fellow of Econometric Society, and recipient of the 2010 Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation. The conversation covers part of Roger Koenker's career as an econometrician and statistician, starting from his college years.     

Asymmetric spillover effects between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets: evidence from quantile lagged regression

This article surveys the asymmetric spillover effects between the mainland China-based Shanghai Composite Index (SCI) and the Hong Kong based Hang Seng Index (HSI) using a quantile lagged regression model. Compared to previous studies, this article, based on data before and after the 2008 global financial crisis, presents a more detailed analysis, as we investigate the spillovers in terms of returns, volatilities and exchange rates between the renminbi (RMB) and the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) throughout the entire conditional return distribution, including the central quantiles, which are closely related to the normal circumstances, and the extreme quantiles, which correspond to the bear and bull markets. First, we find that the return spillovers from its lagged returns or from the other index not only vary across time but also depend on stock state. Second, while return volatility may boost the stock market in a bull market, it accelerates the decline in a bear market. Third, the depreciation of the RMB relative to the HKD does not significantly affect current returns for the HSI, while it negatively affects current returns for the SCI in a bad state after the crisis. The findings presented in this article will facilitate investors’ understanding of the two stock markets.