Asymmetric risk perception and firm financing in the institutional envelope

This study investigates how asymmetric risk preferences and national institutions co-determine how firms are financed across countries. We include prospect theory into the discussion of uncertainty avoidance and the institutional envelope in IB, and argue that country-specific bias in the evaluation of downside risks and upside potentials explain variation in how otherwise similar firms raise funds. Exploiting a unique dataset on risk preferences, we show that risk perception in general, and asymmetric risk preferences as predicted by prospect theory in particular, affect corporate capital structure. We also show that the national institutional envelope constrains these effects and discuss implications for international business research beyond capital structure. We test our predictions on a panel of 10,355 firm-year observations.     

From structural to transition effects: Institutional dynamism as a deterrent to long-term investments by MNEs

The effect of institutional change on foreign direct investment is often conceptualized through the lens of an improving or deteriorating level of institutional quality that alters transaction costs. However, in the context of comprehensive government intervention in the past decades, this perspective ignores the potential uncertainties and costs associated with the process of institutional change. We propose that institutional change causes structural changes in transaction costs as well as accompanying transition effects due to uncertainty and learning costs. The extent of such transition effects is linked to the process characteristics of institutional change, e.g., institutional dynamism. In this paper, we examine the effects of institutional dynamism on foreign direct investment in long-term capital commitments and hypothesize a negative relationship between institutional dynamism and FDI, and a moderating effect of institutional dynamism on the relationship between institutional quality and FDI. Using investment data by US MNEs aggregated on the host country level, we find support for our hypotheses with some qualifications. We derive implications for the middle-income trap discussion as well as the ongoing fast-paced transition towards a sustainable global economy that is bound to shift attention from differences in the level of institutional quality towards differences in transition processes.     

论戏曲现代戏的改革与发展

长期以来,戏曲现代戏所赖以生存的,不是艺术优势,而是题材优势。在反映现实生活方面,其优势无可取代。然而,至今我们的戏曲现代戏仍然在探索、在实验,从理论到实践,从创作观念到艺术技巧等,并没有实质性的突破。     

新企业所得税法的立法精神制度创新和实施问题

《中华人民共和国企业所得税法》(以下简称“新企业所得税法”)按照科学发展观和建立现代法人税制的要求,以统一法律、公平税负、完善税制、促进发展为立法精神和指导思想,在纳税主体制度、税率制度、税基制度、税收优惠制度、反避税制度、征收管理制度等方面进行了多项制度创新。其颁布实施必将为各类企业的发展提供统一、公平、规范的税收法治环境,促进我国市场经济体制走向成熟,推动中国经济又好又快发展。     

浅谈公安高职高专院校英语教学的改革方向

当前英语教学改革在各高校正如火如荼地进行，而公安高职高专院校的英语教学改革却易于被人们所忽视。本文对公安高职高专院校英语课程的设置、英语教学目标的确定和英语教学模式的采用作了尝试性探索，特别是对“学习者自主性”教学方法在公安高职高专院校的应用进行阐述，提出了一些建设性意见。     

Residents’ support for red tourism in China: The moderating effect of central government

This study proposes and tests a model that incorporates two competing theories of political trust, institutional trust and cultural trust, to examine community support for “red tourism” development. Using data gathered from residents living in close proximity to Jinggangshan Scenic Area in China, this study examines the influence of authoritarian values, particularly as they relate to level of residents’ power, their level of trust in government, and their effects on support for “red tourism.” Findings suggest that trust in central government moderates the relationship between trust in local government and support. Future studies should utilize the institutional trust framework to assess residents’ trust in the local government and the cultural trust framework to assess trust in the central government.     

Has Adoption of IFRS Increased Non–North American Institutional Investment in the Canadian Stock Markets?

We investigate whether non–North American (non‐NA) institutional investment in firms listed on the Canadian stock markets increased between the pre‐ and post‐IFRS adoption periods relative to such investment in firms listed on the U.S. stock markets. Prior to IFRS adoption, Canada had high‐quality financial reporting standards that were similar to the U.S. standards. As consequences of IFRS adoption, Canadian financial statements became more comparable with European and other IFRS country financial statements and less comparable with neighboring U.S. financial statements. Thus, a question of interest is whether the enhanced comparability with non‐NA companies was beneficial in terms of attracting non‐NA investment to Canadian companies versus U.S. companies. We find that there was no significant change in non‐NA institutional investment in Canadian firms relative to U.S. firms for the very largest (fifth quintile) and for smaller (first, second, and third quintiles) Canadian companies. However, intermediate‐sized Canadian companies in the fourth size quintile lost non‐NA institutional investment relative to their U.S. peer companies, suggesting that non‐NA investors cared more about comparability with U.S. peer companies than non‐NA peer companies for companies in this size quintile.     

Which institutional investor types are the most informed?

We examine the informativeness of quarterly disclosed portfolio holdings across four institutional investor types: hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds and private banking firms. Overweight positions outperform underweight positions only for hedge funds. By decomposing holdings and stock returns, we find that hedge funds are superior to other institutional investors both at picking industries and stocks and that they are better at forecasting long‐term as well as short‐term returns. Furthermore, our results show that hedge funds, mutual funds and pension funds are able to successfully time the market. The outperformance of hedge funds is not explained by a liquidity premium.     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

Adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards by Greek non-listed companies: The role of coercive and hegemonic pressures

In this paper, we examine the motivations for preparers in Greek non-listed companies to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Previous literature has focused on listed companies and assessed the effect of IFRS on market efficiency to justify its adoption. Using data from a cross-sectional survey and from interviews with senior managers, our analysis indicates that the motivations to adopt IFRS in Greece are not primarily related to the technical competence of the standards. We draw insights from literature on institutional theory and hegemony based on the Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Gramsci, and show that the decision to comply with IFRS can also be motivated by coercive and hegemonic pressures, which are exerted by powerful institutional constituents as they interact with organisations’ strategic interests at the international and national level. The adoption of IFRS is driven predominantly by the pressures exerted by parent companies on their subsidiaries and by the legal requirements of the state, but also through borrowing and debt-contracting requirements as enforced by civil society actors, such as financial institutions. This mobilisation of power plays a pivotal role in supporting the establishment of IFRS among non-listed companies.