Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

The hedging effectiveness of constant and time-varying hedge ratios using three Pacific Basin stock futures

This paper investigates the hedging effectiveness of Australian, Hong Kong, and Japanese stock futures markets. The traditional hedge and the minimum variance hedge ratios are all constant whereas the bivariate GARCH hedge ratio is time varying. The effectiveness of the hedge ratio is compared by investigating the out-of-sample performance of the three ratios. The whole sample consists of weekly returns from January 1990 to December 2000. Two 1-year, out-of-sample periods are used: January 1999 to December 1999 and January 2000 to December 2000. Results show that the time-varying GARCH hedge ratio outperforms the constant ratios in most of the cases. This is true using both out-of-sample periods.     

中央政府与地方政府的政策博弈及其治理

本文描述了中央政府和地方政府政策博弈的凸现与加剧,认为这种政策博弈的制度性根源是市场取向的分权制以及以GDP为核心的政绩指标考核体系,制度性根源对政策博弈具有传导机制.这种政府博弈的积极影响促进了中央政府政策的更加合理、完善,而消极影响则是中央政府调控能力大打折扣、中央政府遭遇信任危机和扰乱市场秩序.治理途径则在于建立新型中央政府和地方政府关系,采取消除政策博弈的措施,即真正做到财权与事权的统一、建立居民的退出与呼吁机制、构建更加合理的政绩观与指标考评体系.     

环境景观设计中的城市记忆

我国国民经济的持续增长和城市化进程的加快,带来了城市建设的高速发展.但随之而来也产生了一系列问题.地方文化以及地域特色的逐渐丧失便属其中之一.作为城市设计重要组成部分的环境景观设计也面临着同样的问题.城市记忆的概念正是在这一特定的时期提出来的.在我国有关城市记忆方面的讨论和实践已经展开.城市记忆有利于改变目前的现状,有利于城市精神的塑造,有利于创造各具特色的城市风貌,有利于联系城市的过去与未来.     

上市公司股利分配理性化引导

本文认为,我国上市公司股利不分配股利的公司居多,且分配股利的以股票股利为主,现金股利的支付水平极低。这种非理性化股利政策对我国上市公司、投资者和资本市场均造成了极为不利的影响。为此,迫切需要尽快将上市公司的股利分配引导到理性状态。     

我国创业投资的回报率及其影响因素

基于1999年到2003年间我国56个本土创业投资退出项目的数据,本文对我国创业投资退出项目的投资回报率及其影响因素进行了实证研究。结果表明:(1)国有创业投资机构退出项目的平均投资回报率显著低于非国有创业投资机构;(2)创业投资机构的资本规模与回报率呈显著负相关关系;(3)上海、深圳两地创业投资机构退出项目的回报率显著高于其他地区;(4)本土创业投资机构的从业时间、投资规模、投资周期、退出方式均与回报率没有显著相关关系。本文在此基础上提出了相关的政策建议。     

Camouflaged Indicators of Earnings Management†

Abstract

We argue that, in response to increased scrutiny and greater attention to accruals versus sales, firms become more likely to engage in accrual conversion (AC) cash management aimed at aligning cash and accruals with earnings and sales (e.g. by factoring of receivables). In doing so, they reduce the statistical power of standard indicators of accrual-based earnings management – in effect, camouflaging their earnings management activity. This proposition is of interest because many influential papers on earnings management have utilized accrual-based indicators to reach their conclusions. Our results indicate that firms indeed became more likely to engage in AC cash management after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and that this tendency was particularly pronounced among firms with strong incentives (or enhanced ability) to perform and hide earnings management. In particular, our findings suggest that the post-SOX decrease in standard measurements of accrual-based earnings management, identified in prior research, is partially attributable to firms’ increased engagement in AC cash management activity.     

工作要求与创新工作行为关系的研究

员工创新工作行为是员工有效完成工作任务和目标,达到组织既定工作标准的有效途径,对组织的生存与发展具有重要作用。本文基于工作要求一工作控制模型与社会交换理论,探讨在中国情号下,工作要求、员工感知的组织支持与创新工作行为的关系。通过296个有效样本,研究结果表明：工作要求与创新工作行为显著正相关;员工感知的组织支持对工作要求与创新工作行为具有正向调节作用,在工作要求压力下,相对于感知到较低组织支持的员工,感知到较高组织支持的员工更容易产生创新工作行为,并基于中国本土文化的角度分析其内在原因。研究告诉企业领导者,提高工作要求可以提高员工创新工作行为,同时要提高员工对组织支持的感知,这样才可能使员工在面临高强度的工作要求时,更积极主动地开展创新工作行为,提高工作效率和工作绩效。     

Challenging the obsession with local level institutions in country ownership of climate change adaptation

Working with local level actors to enable country ownership is applauded within the multilateral climate finance landscape. However, are emerging adaptation interventions equitable by reflecting the priorities of local level vulnerable populations? This research sought to find out whether the engagement of local institutions in projects that seek to achieve country ownership enabled local level vulnerable groups to participate in and influence adaptation decision-making processes and outcomes, thereby enabling them to have a voice in local level adaptation. It used a case study of a Global Environmental Facility-managed coastal adaptation project in Tanzania, which sought to restore and protect mangroves to enable adaptation to sea level rise. Data was generated from 13 Focus Group Discussions and survey questionnaires administered to 629 individuals in three locations on the mainland of Tanzania and in Zanzibar. The findings indicate that community-based organizations were used to facilitate the implementation of project activities at the community level. However, participation spaces created in the project and facilitated by these local institutions were exclusionary and failed to enable vulnerable community groups to have a voice on mangrove restoration and protection. Use of these local institutions altered local level power relations and disempowered other pre-existing and (in)formal local resource management institutions. Community members questioned legitimacy of actions implemented by these local institutions. These findings suggest that working with local level stakeholders to generate country ownership does not automatically guarantee that actions will address the needs of local vulnerable groups. Multilateral climate finance institutions should acknowledge these risks and implement measures to address them.     

The electoral migration cycle

This paper proposes a new test of Tiebout sorting that relies on the exogenous time structure of recurrent local elections. The test is based on the idea that competitive elections represent periodic perturbations to the Tiebout equilibrium of local public good provision and allocation of households to communities, so that their schedule should affect the timing of households' sorting decisions. On the other hand, internal migration flows that have nothing to do with the demand for public goods over which localities vote recurrently ought to be orthogonal to the timing of elections in a reduced-form migration equation. I exploit the staggered schedule of mayoral elections in Italy to analyze migration, elections, and public budget data across several thousands of municipalities, and find evidence of a systematic influence of the electoral calendar on the timing of sorting decisions.