德国地方政府公共管理改革新方向--"新的掌舵模式"

德国公共行政一直在进行理性化的现代化运动。地方政府从1990年代开始的“新的掌舵模式”改革只是它的一个继续，但也表明了公共管理改革的新方向。这种模式的核心是：详细的产品描述；建立在特定产品和预算基础上的内部管理合同；灵活的、基于产品基础上的预算；成本核算一般仍以商业化的核算模式作为基础；对结果和相关成本的稽查和评估；内部服务的市场化试验；赋予公民更多的参与权以及电子政府等。     

销售电价：交叉补贴、国际比较与改革

本文分析了我国现行的销售电价体系中居民电价与商业电价,以及居民电价与工业电价的相对比值,并与其他国家的情况进行比较,发现在我国存在着非常明显的工业电价和商业电价对居民用电电价的补贴。这显然不符合效率原则,为此提出了我国的销售电价体系的改革方向应该是进一步向效率原则回归的政策建议。     

Does context matter for sustainability disclosure? Institutional factors in Southeast Asia

Corporate sustainability is a dynamic, socially constructed concept. Relatedly, to understand the variations in the disclosure of corporate sustainability activities across countries, we need to inherently explore their underlying sociopolitical contexts. At present our understanding in this regard, is deficient. We respond to this extant research gap by adopting a multi‐country approach to investigate the relationship between countries' institutional environments and firms' sustainability disclosure (SD) practices, across six countries in the Southeast Asian region. Our findings reflect a common focus of Southeast Asian firms on community and human resources (HRs) related disclosures. Nevertheless, nuanced differences in their overall SD levels confirm the influence of differing legal, normative, and sociocultural systems in engendering greater disclosure and transparency at a national level. By quantifying the institutional environment and identifying external influencing factors, our study provides a useful framework grounded in neo‐institutional theory to widen the existing understanding of how institutional pressures can be measured and compared across different contexts.     

Being Innovative While Being Green: An Experimental Inquiry into How Consumers Respond to Eco‐Innovative Product Designs

Eco‐innovations are an effective way for companies to strategically align themselves with customers’ growing environmental concerns. Despite their crucial role, scant research has focused on eco‐innovative product designs. Drawing from the sustainability and innovation literature, this article proposes that in the design of an eco‐innovation, its degree of innovativeness, level of eco‐friendliness, and detachability significantly affect consumers' adoption intentions. This article develops various conceptual models tested through three independent online experiments with U.S. consumers. The findings support the hypotheses and provide useful insights into the underlying mechanisms of how and why consumers respond to eco‐innovative product designs across various high‐tech product categories. Specifically, the results show (1) a positive effect of innovativeness degrees of eco‐innovative attributes on consumers' perceptions of product eco‐friendliness and on their adoption intentions as well as a significant moderating role of consumers' need for cognition (Study 1); (2) a positive influence of eco‐friendliness levels of eco‐innovative attributes on consumer adoption intentions in the case of high‐complexity products but not for low‐complexity products, emphasizing the need to adopt different approaches when developing eco‐innovations to ensure favorable consumer reactions (Study 2); and (3) a significant impact of the detachability of eco‐innovative attributes on consumers' perceptions of trade‐offs between environmental benefits and product functionality and on their intentions to adopt eco‐innovations (Study 3). These findings add to existing theoretical knowledge, provide actionable managerial implications, and identify fruitful avenues for future research.     

Social media bots and stock markets

This study examines the link between information spread by social media bots and stock trading. Based on a large sample of tweets mentioning 55 companies in the FTSE 100 composites, we find significant relations between bot tweets and stock returns, volatility, and trading volume at both daily and intraday levels. These results are also confirmed by an event study of stock response following abnormal increases in the volume of tweets. The findings are robust to various specifications, including controlling for traditional news channel, alternative measures of volatility, information flows in pretrading hours, and different measures of sentiment.     

基于风险维度的货币政策传导非对称性研究

现有文献货币政策传导非对称性的研究主要集中于产出维度,文章从风险维度研究不同货币环境下货币政策对微观企业风险传导的非对称性,结果表明:宽松货币环境强化了货币政策风险传导的微观效应,而紧缩货币环境削弱了货币政策风险传导的微观效应。虽然存款准备金率对企业的风险传导效应小于利率,但是在不同货币环境下存款准备金率对企业风险传导的非对称性却强于利率。因此央行在制定货币政策时须根据不同货币环境下微观主体对货币政策的风险敏感度的差异选择合理的货币政策工具及其组合搭配,以免企业在宽松货币环境下的过度风险承担。     

Applying the dissonance‐minimising format to value cultural heritage in developing countries*

We adapt the dissonance‐minimising (DM) format proposed by Blamey et al. [Land Economics, 75 (1999) 126] in a dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey to estimate the economic benefits of preserving a cultural heritage site in Vietnam. We find that the DM format can be successfully applied to avoid biases because of yea‐saying in a developing country context.     

A Note on a Conversation with Geoff Harcourt

In this note Geoff Harcourt offers his views, via a face to face interview, on a wide range of issues relating to the discipline of economics. He recalls his time as a student at University of Melbourne, his choice of doctoral study and experiences at University of Cambridge, his original intellectual influences and affiliation, and his contributions to economics. He also discusses how economics have evolved over the years, comments on the current status of economic teaching, research and policy advice in Australia, and makes some recommendations to early career researchers. The note also includes a brief bio sketch of Professor Harcourt.