Contracting and Reporting Conservatism around a Change in Fiduciary Duties*

We exploit an influential 1991 Delaware court ruling to examine simultaneously two types of conservatism that play important roles in resolving creditor–owner agency conflicts: contracting conservatism and reporting conservatism. The ruling expanded managerial fiduciary duties in favor of creditors for Delaware-incorporated firms in the vicinity of insolvency. In those firms, following the ruling, debt contracts are less likely to include conservative adjustments to accounting numbers used for covenant compliance (i.e., contracting conservatism decreases), while public financial reporting becomes more conservative (i.e., reporting conservatism increases). The decrease in contracting conservatism is concentrated in firms that exhibit a greater increase in reporting conservatism, suggesting that reporting conservatism is more cost-effective in resolving agency conflicts. In addition, the substitution effect is more pronounced in firms facing greater business uncertainty and firms with greater board independence.     

Who benefits from partial tax coordination?

In this paper, we investigate whether partial tax coordination is beneficial to countries within and outside a tax union, in which countries are supposed to compete in taxes and infrastructure. Our results demonstrate that a subgroup of countries agreeing on a common tax rate can harm both member and nonmember states. This is in contrast to the classical findings that partial tax harmonisation is Pareto improving. When a minimum tax rate is imposed within a tax union, we demonstrate that it does not necessarily improve the welfare of the member countries. Moreover, both the high‐tax and low‐tax countries can be worse off. This conclusion is at odds with the classical result that a high‐tax country benefits from the imposition of a lower tax bound.     

Using a dual-frame design to improve phone surveys on political attitudes: developing a weighting strategy for limited external information in Hong Kong

Quality & Quantity - In recent years, rapid increases in mobile phone ownership and decreases in landline users have led to potential biases in landline phone survey estimations. Mobile-only...     

A hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk

This study proposes a hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk. In contrast to the previous literature that debates which credit risk model is the best, we pool information from a diverse set of structural and reduced‐form models to produce a model combination based on credit risk prediction. Compared with each single model, the pooled strategies yield consistently lower average risk prediction errors over time. We also find that while the reduced‐form models contribute more in the pooled strategies for speculative‐grade names and longer maturities, the structural models have higher weights for shorter maturities and investment grade names.     

利用规划放线成果修测城市地形图

一种根据规划放线验线成果修测地形图的方法——内业修测法，它可以及时反映城市地形地物的变化，保持地形图的现势性，较之传统的修测方法省时、省力、经济。     

Contagion or Inductance? Crisis 1997 Reconsidered

We provide the simple example of a refinancing game with incomplete information, where the lack of transparency is both necessary and sufficient for the propagation of local financial distress across disjoint financial networks. JEL Classification Number: F4.
And the truth shall make you free. John 8: 32     

金属包装设计对购物决策的影响

在零售业高速发展的今天，各种各样的消费品挤满了商店、超市的货架，形形色色的产品包装让人目不暇接，如何使自己的产品在众多产品之中脱颖而出，仅仅吸引住消费者的目光是不够的，更主要的还是看产品的包装能否促成消费者的购买行为，这已经成为当今包装设计的主导思想。[编者按]     

《技术制图》新旧标准对照

以对照方法介绍了《技术制图》与《机械制图》中三个基础标准的适用范围、采标情况及基本内容。     

关于建立中小企业政策性银行的思考

中国政府已将中小企业发展列为施政重点,希望以此来刺激需求和创造更多的就业机会。但以民营企业为主的广大中小企业在获得金融服务和资金融通方面面临困难。本文从建立政策性银行的理论依据、国外经验借鉴等方面进行分析,论证了建立中小企业政策性银行的可行性,提出了设立实施的基本构想。     

关于邮政短信平台建设的探讨

为了有效地促进传统邮政业务的发展,开拓新的邮政业务领域,创造新的业务增长点,文章对发展邮政短信业务的相关问题作了分析,并结合安徽省的具体建设条件,对邮政短信平台建设的必要性、原则以及系统方案作了具体阐述。