The Impact of Public Expenditure and International Trade on Agricultural Productivity in China

The “industry nurturing agriculture” reforms and World Trade Organization accession led to dramatic growth in public expenditure and international trade in China’s agricultural sector. This article aims to estimate the effects of public expenditure and trade on agricultural productivity in China for 2004–2015. A semi-parametric production function with shape constraints is introduced to derive more accurate productivity before the productivity determinants are analyzed with an emphasis on public expenditure and trade. The empirical result shows that public expenditure and exports can effectively improve agricultural productivity, while imports have no significant effects. Policy implications are discussed in the context of supply-side reforms.     

Change within purchasing and supply management organisations – Assessing the claims from maturity models

It is a wide-held assumption that professional development and change within purchasing and supply management (PSM) organisations can be explained and guided by a maturity model. In this paper the guidance which the maturity model concept offers to understand a PSM organisation's performance is assessed. The methodology is based on the outcomes of a literature review of PSM maturity models, development of an organisational change framework and the learning from three qualitative case studies. An alternative understanding of the development of the PSM organisation is offered through an organisational change framework, composing 1) movement transitions, 2) scalability of change, 3) acceptability of change, and 4) the substantive element of change. The research found that extant PSM maturity models are too rigid for PSM managers to apply, and although maturity models are commonly accepted in PSM literature, in practice, they may produce the opposite effect of what is promised. The PSM maturity models suggest that their application will lead to increased status and influence of PSM within the organisation; expectations that may not be met. PSM organisations’ change processes are subjected to a range of situational and contextual power relations which must be considered in order to advance the specific PSM organisation roles and responsibilities.     

我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空分布及影响因素研究

深入分析我国“一带一路”沿线地区风险投资时空格局及影响因素，有助于促进创新创业与企业发展、提高区域科技创新水平。运用空间分析方法和空间计量模型，对2003-2018年我国“一带一路”沿线139个城市风险投资的时空分布特征及影响因素进行分析，结果表明：①沿线地区的风险投资发展具有不均衡性，呈现为沿海高、西部低的分异格局；②风险投资的全局自相关系数均为正，呈现出明显的空间集聚特征；③风险投资机构数、国家高新区数量、风险投资退出、政府引导基金发展、财政科技支出对区域风险投资具有显著促进作用，环境污染对风险投资有一定抑制作用。随着ESG投资理念逐渐获得认可，沿线地区可以通过提升绿色发展水平促进风险投资发展。     

Is it U.S. GAAP or IFRS? Understanding how R&D costs affect ratio analysis

While financial reporting standards under U.S. GAAP and IFRS are fundamentally similar, differences do exist that may affect our analysis of company financial statements. This is particularly true when comparing a U.S. company following U.S. GAAP to a firm that uses IFRS. To illustrate, we compare research and development (R&D) accounting methods under both sets of standards and illustrate how they affect the analysis of financial results of firms in a specific industry—automotive manufacturers. Our results provide insight into settings in which differences in R&D accounting may have the greatest impact on financial analysis.     

Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

新发展阶段中国水资源安全保障战略对策

进入新发展阶段，中国水资源安全保障需要以“节水优先、空间均衡、系统治理、两手发力”治水思路为指导，厘清问题、研判趋势、优化对策，支撑新阶段水利高质量发展。本文在全面分析我国水资源安全保障存在的突出问题与面临形势基础上，阐述了新发展阶段中国水资源安全保障的基本思路与战略路径，从保证资源安全、构建国家水网、强化供水保障、建设美丽河湖、改善水环境质量等方面提出了战略对策和需要进一步回答的重大问题，以期为完善新发展阶段中国水资源安全保障战略，全面提高国家水资源安全保障能力提供有力支撑。     

Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: An Empirical Revisit of West German Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products and Brands from Former East Germany

More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes of Alte Länder consumers toward products/brands from the Neue Länder. It is shown that factors such as consumer ethnocentrism, product judgment, willingness to buy, and economic animosity continue to influence consumer behavior and as such our study offers potential explanation for the failure of Neue Länder products/brands in the western regions of Germany.     

Industry risk transmission channels and the spillover effects of specific determinants in China’s stock market: A spatial econometrics approach

This paper uses a spatial econometrics approach to study the industry risks in China’s stock market. We comprehensively consider the real linkage and information risk transmission channels and analyze the risk spillovers of specific determinants. Our empirical results show the following: 1) The real linkage channel and information channel are both effective transmission channels for driving spillover effects, and the information channel is of the utmost importance. 2) The spillover effects of specific determinants exist and are persistent. The superposition of spillover effects may lead to extreme risk. 3) The transmission channels and spillover effects are asymmetric in different regimes.     

China and international market integration: Evidence from the law of one price in the Middle East and Africa

We model market integration in the Middle East and Africa by analyzing price dispersion and testing the law of one price (LOP) on highly-comparable actual local retail prices of 135 goods and services across 23 countries in the region over the period of 1990–2016. Second-generation panel estimators are applied to four price benchmarks: Regional average, South Africa, China, and US prices. Cross-regional price dispersion diminishes considerably over time up to 2008, particularly for non-tradeables around China price. The test of LOP indicates the percentage of convergent prices is highest in China price benchmark, followed by US, South Africa, and regional average benchmarks. Direct estimation of the convergence speed confirms this order. Overall, the results show evidence of increasing market integration in Middle East and Africa but it appears to be driven by global forces and, especially, the rise of China as a new economic power. The results show that some emerging market economies, such as China, can step up and promote integration while traditional economic powerhouses, such as the USA and UK, disengage from international economic relations.