Impact mitigation or ecological restoration? Examining the environmental sustainability practices of multinational mining companies

This paper examines the environmental sustainability practices of multinational mining companies in addressing their impacts and promoting the sustainable development of local communities in Ghana. Although large-scale mining companies have embraced environmental sustainability, the drivers and the mechanisms for addressing their impacts throughout the mine life cycle is not fully understood because of the limited research in this area. The focus in this study involves an examination of the drivers for environmental sustainability in a weak and non-enabling institutional context and the mechanisms for addressing impacts on biodiversity, water quality and quantity, and ambient climate. The findings show that the environmental sustainability practices of multinational mining companies are determined by regulatory compliance and corporate environmental responsibility based on perceived ethical obligation. Additionally, we find gaps in mine closure planning and rehabilitation because of the limited requirement for biodiversity restoration in the domains of flora repopulation and active fauna reintroduction. This paper provides empirical and theoretical insights for academics and practitioners in industry and policymaking.     

Did the value premium survive the subprime credit crisis?

We provide evidence that value stocks significantly underperformed growth stocks during the subprime credit crisis, despite a positive value premium before the crisis. The reversal in the value premium concentrates in financially constrained firms, suggesting it was due to the adverse influence of the crisis rather than confounding effects. These findings are robust to alternative financial constraint proxies and asset pricing models. The observation that value stocks are vulnerable to losses during extreme downturns like the crisis is consistent with them being riskier than growth stocks. Our findings have implications for the academic debate on the underlying cause of the value premium and for investors on the profitability of value investing strategies.     

Constraints to cruising across cultures and time

Cruise tourism is permeating the global arena. With companies developing new ships/itineraries for the U.S. and China markets, understanding constraints to cruising for different cultures carries significant value for cruise tourism development. This study adopted longitudinal and cross-cultural approaches to validate constraint measures. Data were collected in the U.S. in 2008 and 2017 and in China in 2017, using the same set of constraint measures across different times and cultures. This multi-dimensional triangulation approach was deemed important for testing the robustness of a measurement scale and is believed to be the first of its type. Findings validate the cruising constraint instrument across time and cultures and provide theoretical and practical implications.     

Revisiting constraints to smallholder participation in high-value markets: A best-worst scaling approach

We show how policymakers in developing regions can generate richer insights from using the choice experiment method best-worst scaling (BWS) method when ranking policy priorities on an importance scale. More specifically, we adopt BWS to provide an update on constraints that limit the participation of Kenyan horticultural smallholder farmers in modern agricultural value chains. In addition to traditional constraints posed by input market failures and missing institutions, we considered constraints such as trust and familiarity with buyers shown by recent empirical studies to inform smallholders’ market choices. Ascertaining the relevance of these constraints highlights our contribution to the existing literature. We find that farmers consistently rate access to high-quality inputs as their main constraint followed by concerns about access to credit, the high cost of meeting food standards, missing cooperatives, and exploitative intermediaries. Respondents considered insufficient labor, small farmlands, and weak tenure rights as the least important constraints. Age, location, gender, household income, and education influence the relative importance various segments of smallholders place on these constraints. For example, constraints are economic rather than personal for low-income farmers. Counterintuitively, rural smallholders are less likely to perceive poor transportation network as a constraint. Smallholders’ distrust of buyers they interact with is informed by their location and income. In designing intervention initiatives, policies that focus on segments of smallholders are needed for improving smallholder participation in modern agricultural value chains.     

《能源宪章条约》下可再生能源投资仲裁案及启示——以西班牙投资仲裁案为主线的考察

为了加速可再生能源产业的发展,多数国家都制定了相关激励措施以吸引跨国公司的投资。但是,随着政策的变化,相关的法律争端也随之产生。除了国际贸易争端以外,与可再生能源相关的投资争端也大量出现,其中以西班牙最为典型,所涉投资案件也最多。随着"一带一路"倡议的推进,我国投资者在海外可再生能源领域的投资会大幅增加。与此同时,我国能源领域对外开放的幅度正在加大,可再生能源领域的外资也会越来越多,但我国现有法律制度并不足以规范可再生能源的未来发展。本文分析西班牙相关法律政策变化及仲裁庭的裁决,以期对我国可再生能源法律政策的发展和完善,以及可再生能源领域的海外投资者保护提供启示,也为我国分析评估是否加入《能源宪章条约》提供借鉴。     

Innovative Credit Guarantee Schemes with equity-for-guarantee swaps

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) faces much more severe financial constraints compared to large mature companies and it is more vulnerable to market imperfection. To alleviate SMEs’ financial constraints, Public Credit Guarantee Schemes (CGSs) have been introduced and widely used around the world. Having provided a thorough analysis of the effectiveness of the traditional CGSs, we introduce an innovative financing contract, referred to as equity-for-guarantee swap (EGS), with the aim of reducing SMEs’ financial constraints in a more effective way. We show that EGS effectively alleviates SMEs’ severe financial constraints as it transfers the information asymmetry between lenders and SMEs to that between insurers and SMEs We investigate how asset prices vary across time under the EGS contract and analyze insurers’ risk exposure, i.e. value-at-risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES), of participating in the EGS contract. Consistent with pecking order theory, SMEs tend to use debt financing first dispite the benefit of a boosted growth rate from private equity financing in our model.     

Optimal regulation under imperfect enforcement: Permits,tickets, or both?

Economic activity is often regulated through both permits and tickets (subsequent inspections). We study the effectiveness of such policies where corruption and an underground economy make enforcement imperfect. In the theoretical model, asymmetric information justifies regulatory action which is enforced by corruptible bureaucrats. We find that regulation through permits alone is useless when corruption exists, while tickets still offer some benefit. Surprisingly, we also find that a system with both permits and tickets achieves welfare that is higher than that which can be achieved with only tickets—that combining the two mechanisms has an effect that is greater than the “sum of the parts.”     

BOT项目前期的政府监督问题及对策研究

政府监管是政府或政府指定的特设机构依据法律或法定授权对市场经济主体采取的一系列行政管理与监督的行为。BOT项目前期是由政府占据主导地位的，因此该阶段的政府监管更多的是对自身行为的监督。目前，该阶段存在立项规划欠缺前瞻性、招投标相关法律法规不健全、招投标存在不公平现象以及特许经营协议不完善的问题。必须充分考虑经济发展和城市规划的因素、完善BOT项目相关法律法规、规范招投标程序运作、强化政府监督的内部约束机制，以保障项目下一阶段的顺利进行。     

Capital Regulation with Two Banking Sectors: Cyclicality and Implementation

We present a capital regulation policy in a model in which banks can choose to be unregulated, by operating in the shadow banking sector, when the cost of being regulated (restriction on portfolio risk) exceeds the benefit (cheaper funding/insurance). We show that the welfare maximizing capital requirement policy can be procyclical: lower requirement during booms and higher requirement during recessions. Our policy specifies the level of capital requirement as a function of the observed relative size of the unregulated and regulated banking sectors. This specification achieves the optimal aggregate risk exposure by obtaining the right mix of the two sectors.     

公众效用约束视角下强化国家审计的治理逻辑及其制度供给

社会公众参与国家治理日益成为国家治理体系的重要组成部分。在政治经济学框架下将社会公众参与国家治理的过程与功能提炼为公众效用约束,并通过构建一个简洁的地方政府公共支出结构选择模型阐明公众效用约束机制。结合公众效用软约束下中国地方发展型政府行为的经济影响以及直接构建公众效用约束机制面临的问题,从理论上解释了中央政府强化国家审计的治理逻辑。中国特色社会主义国家审计制度供给可以从审计方法流程、审计业务体系、审计结果运用等方面进行完善,全面评估效用结果、深度契合效用目标与有效实施问责约束,实现公众效用约束机制的间接构造,成为公共权力治理的“内部—经常性激励约束机制”,从而可以更好地适应当前发展阶段和体制背景下国家治理的需要。