Where have China’s state monopolies gone?

If China’s economy is an example of “state-capitalism,” then its large, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could be expected to monopolize key sectors. But previous estimates of industrial concentration, using the Herfindahl—Hirschman Index (HHI), have suggested that the level of industrial concentration—and therefore the potential for the abuse of monopoly power—is very low. These studies have significantly underestimated HHI, since they do not consolidate subsidiary enterprises in Chinese survey data into larger business groups, or according to ultimate ownership. After making these adjustments, a measure of potential HHI shows that large state monopolies remain in oil and gas, electricity, tobacco and, potentially, automobiles. In particular, SOEs supervised by the central government are heavily invested in potentially concentrated industries. But aggregate profits of the state sector are driven more by the portfolio distribution of assets between resources, manufacturing and utilities, rather than industrial concentration within sectors.     

Examining the relationship between negative media coverage and corporate social responsibility

This study investigates the relationship between negative media coverage and corporate social responsibility (CSR). We suggest that CSR can compensate for the loss of legitimacy in a firm only when it receives negative media coverage of a given magnitude. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, the results suggest that in relation to CSR, negative media coverage has an inverted U-shaped curve. When we explore two industrial-level boundary conditions, we find that this nonlinear relationship is more pronounced in firms with higher industrial concentration and dynamism. The results are robust after controlling for endogeneity. This study contributes to CSR and communication literature by deepening our understanding of the nonlinear impact of negative media coverage on firms.     

供应链集中度与企业创新——基于中国制造业上市公司的实证研究

信息技术革命和国际垂直分工深刻地改变了全球制造业的生产格局和竞争基础,传统的企业间竞争正逐渐演化为供应链间的竞争。对2011-2018年A股制造业上市公司的实证分析发现：供应商集中度负向影响企业创新,但这一效应在市场地位较高的企业中得到弱化;客户集中度与企业创新则呈显著正相关,且在市场地位较高的企业中得到强化。研究还发现,融资约束缓解是供应链集中度影响企业创新活动的作用渠道。研究对于供应链与创新活动之间的关系做出了文献贡献,并对创新驱动发展战略下企业根据自身市场地位权变性地从事创新活动提供了实践指导。     

Concentration behavior of the penalized least squares estimator

Consider the standard nonparametric regression model and take as estimator the penalized least squares function. In this article, we study the trade‐off between closeness to the true function and complexity penalization of the estimator, where complexity is described by a seminorm on a class of functions. First, we present an exponential concentration inequality revealing the concentration behavior of the trade‐off of the penalized least squares estimator around a nonrandom quantity, where such quantity depends on the problem under consideration. Then, under some conditions and for the proper choice of the tuning parameter, we obtain bounds for this nonrandom quantity. We illustrate our results with some examples that include the smoothing splines estimator.     

我国集装箱港口体系演进规律研究

从集装箱港口数量、吞吐量、空间布局、市场集中度几个角度,利用赫芬达尔—赫希曼指数来分析1979—2011年我国集装箱港口体系及市场结构的演变,指出1979—1989年是快速分散阶段,为高度集中的寡占市场;1989—2009年是缓慢分散和缓慢集中相互更替的发展阶段,形成了中度集中的寡占市场;2010—2011年延续了分散的趋势,HHI值已经小于1 000,出现了形成非集中竞争市场的趋势。这要求港口企业随着竞争程度的不断增强,需要不断提升质量、建设软环境,提高竞争力,从粗放式发展向精细化、敏捷化发展。     

Network concentration and airport congestion in a post de-regulation context: A case study of Brazil 2000–2010

This paper empirically investigates the main drivers of airline network concentration in an air transport market subject to rapid growth. We consider the Brazilian air transport industry of the 2000s, in which network concentration rapidly increased and was followed by a period of massive flight delays and cancelations, which resulted in the “big blackout” of 2006–2007. We develop an econometric model of network concentration, accounting for demand, cost and competition variables that may affect the propensity of carriers to concentrate flights and passenger connections on a few airports of a network. The main focus of the paper is on the relation between networks leading to the problems of the blackout episode. We investigate the dynamic pattern of the evolution of concentration before and after the abnormal period of operations and find that concentration began to rise at least six quarters before, and persisted at a high level until two quarters after the blackout – and then plunged steeply toward the end of the decade. We believe that our analysis contributes to an improved understanding of the behavior of air transport systems subject to network concentration and congestion. With respect to methodology, we suggest and employ the use of alternative measures of network concentration to check the robustness and validity of our results.     

How do income and education affect health inequality: evidence from four developing countries

Using household survey data from four countries ? Albania, Nepal, Tajikistan and Tanzania ? this article calculates income-related inequality in health care utilization. We measure health disparity separately for generally and chronically ill individuals by constructing two models: one for the probability of a visit to a physician and another for the number of visits. Following model-based measurements, we decompose inequality into two major parts: one accounted for by identity-related factors and another by socioeconomic and other factors such as education, geography and distance to a clinic. We propose a new method to quantify the effect of changes in income and education on health disparity. One of our important findings suggests that health disparity is pro-rich in all our sample countries. The pro-rich disparity is prevalent among generally ill as well as chronically ill patients, in both visit probability and visit frequency models. Health inequality seems primarily driven by income differences followed by nonidentity factors. Further, the principle of equal treatment for equal need is not fulfilled in any of our countries. Among policy implications, increasing average income and education in a way that also reduces disparity in income and education, respectively, will substantially shrink inequality in health care utilization.     

中国商业银行市场集中度影响因素及趋势研究

中国商业银行市场集中度影响因素中,期初集中度、外资银行进入、并购、市场需求成长率与效率变量对集中度的影响为负,而产品差异度与集中度不相关。对趋势的分析表明中国商业银行市场集中度将会经历一个由下降到上升的过程,但是其持续的时间将取决于中国经济金融市场化的深度与速度。     

我国人身保险市场结构变化与预测分析

虽然保险业经受了本次金融危机的考验,但是保险业可能成为系统性风险传导链条上的一环,因此,保险监管机构需要转变审慎监管方式,建立适合保险业的宏观审慎监管框架。在这个背景下,对中国人身保险市场结构现状有一个较为清晰和准确的认识就显得十分必要。研究发现:从全国范围来说,我国寿险市场主体数量较少,人身险市场集中度过高,市场结构为寡头垄断,但各地区的人身险市场结构又各有特点,经济发达地区人身险保险市场结构已经过渡到垄断竞争阶段。根据成分数据预测结果分析,在"十二五"期间,我国人身险的市场集中度继续呈下降趋势。     

审计市场集中度对市场绩效的影响——基于2002-2012中国证券市场的实证分析

通过对我国证券审计市场集中度的变化过程进行分析,发现证券审计市场集中度的提升主要是由于准入政策调整所致,市场机制并没有起到显著作用。但政府对证券审计市场准入条件的及时调整有效地缓解了集中度徘徊不前的状况。通过实证检验,进一步明确了集中度的提升有利于提高审计市场绩效,可以在一定程上缓解证券审计市场收费偏低、质量不高的问题。据此,文章提出要依靠政策与市场机制进一步提高审计市场集中度,同时加强对会计师事务所的监管。