Do goodwill impairments affect audit opinions? Evidence from China

There has been a steady growth of goodwill impairments in the Chinese stock market since the adoption of the impairment approach in accounting. The influence of goodwill impairments on a firm’s financial position and profitability give reason to doubt its current and future performance. We examine whether auditors, as a crucial external monitor, identify the information risks of goodwill impairments and express their concerns about financial reporting quality in their audit opinions. Using a sample of firms listed on China’s A-share market from 2007 to 2017, we test the association between goodwill impairments and the type of audit opinion received in the same financial period. Our findings are as follows. First, the probability of receiving a modified opinion increases with the amount of goodwill impairments. Second, the positive association between goodwill impairments and modified audit opinions is driven primarily by earnings management risks. Third, this positive association is more salient when auditors are industry experts and there is no auditor–client mismatch. Fourth, auditors are more sensitive to the amount of goodwill impairments than to their mere existence. Overall, we document that auditors perceive goodwill impairments as a signal of information risks and communicate their concerns to investors to avoid litigation.     

国有风险资本与企业融资约束: 如愿以偿还是事与愿违?

我国国有风险资本是否实现了设立之初的目标,即是否纾解了企业融资困难呢?文章基于上市企业微观数据和手动采集的国有风险资本数据对此进行了系统研究.实证结果稳健地显示,国有风险资本可有效缓解企业后续融资约束,我国政府参与风险投资活动是有效的.进一步地,高持股比例、多联合投资、高政治层级的国有风险资本对受资助企业融资约束的缓解作用更强;且国有风险资本对经济欠发达、低制度质量环境下的企业、面临高环境不确定性和高竞争程度企业、民营企业、成长期与动荡期企业能产生更大的影响.机制检验表明,国有风险资本既能通过认证作用显著降低企业信息不对称程度,又能发挥政治关联的资源效应,包括显著促进银企关系和企业的商业信贷获取能力,并提升企业获得政府补贴的水平,从而减轻企业资金负担,缓解其融资约束.经济后果分析表明,国有风险资本能显著降低企业外部融资的股权资金成本和债务资金成本,帮助改善企业融资贵的难题,而且国有风险资本有助于企业在创新和经营方面的良性发展.但国有风险资本并未起到有效监督作用,不能缓解企业代理问题,尤其是会导致第一类代理成本的明显提高,而高管薪酬提升是其中的重要原因.据此,文章认为在未来的国有风险资本发展中,要把握"政府角色"介入的尺度,完善国有风险资本对企业的监督管理机制.同时适当兼顾各地区发展不平衡的情况,对中西部地区的国有风险资本发展提供适当且必要的帮助,以促进国有风险资本在新时期的长足发展.     

失败学习对企业绩效的影响机制研究

已有文献认为失败学习对企业绩效具有重要作用，但失败学习通过何种途径促进企业绩效提升的研究并不完善。基于失败学习理论，引入资源拼凑和机会识别作为中介变量，构建失败学习影响企业绩效的多路径模型，探索失败学习对企业绩效的驱动路径及内在机理。实证结果表明：失败学习对企业绩效具有显著积极作用，资源拼凑和机会识别分别在失败学习与企业绩效之间起中介作用，资源拼凑和机会识别在失败学习对企业绩效驱动过程中存在链式中介作用，战略柔性能够强化资源拼凑与企业绩效之间的关系，并正向调节资源拼凑的中介作用。研究结论拓展了失败学习对企业绩效的影响路径，对企业复苏和成长具有重要启示。     

Cost Analysis of Calcium in Store Brand versus National Brand Grocery Products

Objective: This study was to determine if calcium fortification yields a higher price per serving in grocery store products. Researchers compared store brand to national brand grocery products in relation to cost in order to examine if calcium values were similar between store brand and national brand products. Methods: A total of 112 store brand and 211 national brand grocery products were collected from three low (national chain store), middle and high priced (Virginia and North Carolina regional store) grocery venues. Products were compared using price and calcium percentage per serving. ANOVA was used to determine between store brand and national brand for price per serving and calcium content, and between grocery venues. Results: National brand fortified products had a significantly lower mean price per serving when compared to national brand non-fortified products (p = 0.0002). There was no statistical difference between store brand fortified and non-fortified products (p = 0.9256). Low priced store brand products had the lowest mean price per serving ($0.34 ±0.24). Conclusions: This study found store brand products have similar calcium content as national brand products. Product cost was lower at low priced store compared to middle and high priced stores.     

组织遗忘、组织即兴与环境动态性视角下企业原始性创新构建路径

原始性创新是企业获得核心竞争力的关键，但当前对企业如何获得原始性创新的研究严重不足。为此，以我国环渤海经济带179家高技术企业为样本，从组织遗忘和即兴角度研究原始性创新形成问题，并进一步分析环境动态性在组织遗忘和原始性创新间的作用。结果发现：组织遗忘和组织即兴对原始性创新具有积极效应；组织即兴在组织遗忘和原始性创新间发挥着部分中介作用；环境动态性对组织遗忘和原始性创新的关系具有正向调节效应。     

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.     

Is bank staff interaction associated with customer saving behavior in banks?

Major changes are underway in the U.S. retail banking sector toward heavy investments in technology and fewer in personnel. Using the 2017 survey of household economics and decision‐making (SHED) (n = 11,359), we examine the relationship between saving behavior related to emergency, long‐term and periodic expenses and personal, technological, and hybrid bank account access methods. Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds of reporting various saving behaviors in relation to various banking access methods. Findings suggest that the personal access method is positively associated with savings behavior for periodic expenses for the general population, and negatively associated with emergency savings in people with lower education attainment. Technology is associated with all types of saving behavior, while the hybrid access method is associated only with saving for periodic expenses. As investments in self‐service technology increase, the importance of access methods to savings behavior must be considered.     

Semistatic hedging and pricing American floating strike lookback options

We price an American floating strike lookback option under the Black–Scholes model with a hypothetic static hedging portfolio (HSHP) composed of nontradable European options. Our approach is more efficient than the tree methods because recalculating the option prices is much quicker. Applying put–call duality to an HSHP yields a tradable semistatic hedging portfolio (SSHP). Numerical results indicate that an SSHP has better hedging performance than a delta-hedged portfolio. Finally, we investigate the model risk for SSHP under a stochastic volatility assumption and find that the model risk is related to the correlation between asset price and volatility.     

在校大学生志愿服务激励管理的影响因素分析 ——以北京世园会为例

在新的时代背景下,对于志愿服务的激励管理越来越重要,大学生作为新时代的青年更应该积极投身到志愿活动当中去,对于志愿服务过程中出现的问题进行解决,让志愿者在服务当中展现出更好的工作状态势在必行.通过影响北京世园会在校大学生志愿者们工作积极性的因素为切入点,发放问卷收集相关数据,运用文献法了解国内外研究现状,使用SPSS统计分析得出影响志愿者工作积极性的因素并提出具有建设性的对策建议,最终达到提升志愿者工作积极性的目的,让越来越多的人愿意投身到志愿服务当中去.     

Trade networks and economic fluctuations in Asian countries

The paper presents a new methodology, based on tensor decomposition, to map dynamic trade networks and to assess its strength in forecasting economic fluctuations at different periods of time in Asia. Using the monthly merchandise import and export data across 33 Asian economies, together with the US, EU and UK, we detect the community structure of the evolving network and we identify clusters and central nodes inside each of them. Our findings show that data are well represented by two communities, in which People's Republic of China and Japan play the major role. We then analyze the synchronisation between GDP growth and trade. Furthermore we apply our model to the prediction of economic fluctuations. Our findings show that the model leads to an increase in predictive accuracy, as higher order interactions between countries are taken into account.