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...     

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     

《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。     

Fragmentation, Engel's Law, and Learning

This paper outlines the conditions under which trade is beneficial for a developing country's growth. A developing country suffers from two disadvantages: low income and a comparative disadvantage in the production of modern manufactured goods—goods which allow a high rate of human capital accumulation through learning by doing. Low income together with Engel's law imply that developing countries consume and produce very few modern goods in autarky and hence grow slowly. With international fragmentation of production, a developing country may find comparative advantage in the production of some stages of modern goods despite an absence of comparative advantage in the production of modern goods under “100% local content.” More resources can then be allocated to the modern goods sector leading to greater learning externalities and hence growth under free trade than in autarky.     

The mean-variance investment problem in a constrained financial market

This paper extends the mean-variance analysis and the two-fund separation theorem to a market with some constraints, such as, the incompleteness, prohibition of short-selling, and partial information, with stochastic interest rate, and with stochastic volatility for risky assets. By maximizing a quadratic utility of terminal wealth, we show that the efficient frontier for the problem is a straight line in the mean-standard-deviation diagram. The quadratic utility function exhibits mean-variance efficiency. Our results apply to portfolios of claims in a single period, multiperiod, and continuous time.     

Estimating the Impact of Transgenic Bt Cotton on West and Central Africa: A General Equilibrium Approach

West and Central Africa (WCA)’s cotton sector is experiencing rising production costs and lower yields, reversing decades of growth. Declining input use, soil fertility and inefficient chemical pest controls are contributing factors. We evaluate the potential impact of Bt cotton on WCA using a multiregion general equilibrium model and multicountry estimates of Bt-induced productivity. We find that Bt cotton raises growers’ returns, land value and welfare. Released labor from cotton is shifted to food crops hence reducing labor shortage constraints. Overall, results indicate that potential gross benefits from Bt cotton are substantial for WCA cotton sector, and that the economic costs of nonadoption are equally significant.     

浅论加入WTO后深圳利用外资对策的调整

一、加入WTO后深圳投资环境的变化。改革开放之初，由于市场不完备，只能选择经济转轨较容易的地区对外开放，并指定一定的税收政策以补偿市场不完备对投资者带来的不便。深圳特区作为改革开放的排头兵，享有很多独有的和先发的优势。加入WTO后我国利用外资的形势发生了很大的变化，就投资环境而言，根据最惠国待遇原则和国民待遇原则，我们将对所有外商投资企业和内资企业实行一致的无差别的优惠、特权和豁免等政策。随着部分对外资限制措施的取消和国民待遇原则的落实，将使外商投资企业获得更加公平的竞争环境。2003年3月2日起，外资进入进出口领域的限制得以放宽。外商可以设立合资公司进行进出口业务的地区由原来仅有的上海浦东地区和深圳经济特区的两地6家试点扩展至全国。由此可见深圳不可能再享有特殊优惠政策。进入21世纪之后，新一轮创业浪潮前所未有，年轻的深圳正进入不同于以往的发展阶段，最大的不同之处是：随着我国加入世贸组织和全国改革的总体推进，深圳享有的政策优势将不复存在。全国的改革呈现千帆竞发、万马奔腾的景象，特别是长江三角洲和环渤海湾城市发展势头强劲，发展空间广阔，具有很大的后发优势，西部大开发的全面展开。这些都是深圳利用外资形势所发生的引人注目的变化。深圳已经被历史的浪潮推上了一个新的、较高的起点上，在这样的形势面前，深圳犹如逆水行舟，不进则退，稍有懈怠，就会落后。