Institutional context as a moderator of the relationship between board structure and acquirer returns

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the supervisory role of the board of directors in the context of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We focus our study on the European case, for which there is no previous exhaustive evidence on this topic. Using information on 985 mergers and acquisitions carried out over the period 2003–2016 by companies in the major European countries, we analyze the influence of supervisory capacity of the board (small size, higher proportion of outsiders and separated Chairperson-CEO positions) on acquirer returns, differentiating between Anglo-Saxon and continental European contexts. Our results confirm that the effectiveness of corporate governance practices depends strongly on their fit with the broader institutional context. Specifically, we find that a smaller size of the board of directors and the separation of the positions of Chairperson and CEO lead to higher acquirer returns in European Anglo-Saxon countries. By contrast, we do not find evidence that any proxy of supervisory capacity of the board significantly improves acquirer returns in the rest of countries.     

Assessing the effects of policies on China’s outward foreign direct investment

This paper discusses the determinants of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) with a special focus on the role of government policy. In particular, we investigate the types of policies that are most influential in promoting OFDI. Our main contribution is to analyse, for the first time, China’s OFDI policies by means of quantitative indicators. We refine policies definitions and distinguish between Regulation Policies, Service Policies, Promotion Policies and Supervision Policies, and we develop a methodology for collecting, screening and coding policies; then we create new indices to capture different types of policies. We find that Regulation Policies, Service Policies and the general attitude of the government have significant effects on China’s OFDI at the national level.     

异质机构持股、政府补贴与企业技术创新

机构投资者与政府补贴等优惠政策作为企业经营的重要资本来源和制度保障，势必对企业技术创新产生重要影响。以我国沪深两市战略性新兴上市企业2010-2015年面板数据为研究样本，对异质机构持股、政府补贴与企业技术创新的关系进行实证分析。结果发现：机构持股对企业技术创新没有显著影响，政府补贴可以促进机构持股对企业技术创新尤其是实质性技术创新产生显著正向影响；基金持股对企业技术创新存在显著负向影响，券商持股与QFII持股对企业技术创新分别存在不显著和显著正向影响；政府补贴能够降低基金持股对企业技术创新的负向影响，有效促进基金持股对企业技术创新的正向影响，并通过调节作用促进券商持股和QFII持股对企业技术创新产生更加显著的正向效应；政府补贴对基金持股与企业非实质性技术创新关系的正向调节作用更加显著，对券商持股和QFII持股与企业实质性技术创新关系的正向调节作用更加显著。     

Economics and underdetermination: a case study of urban land and housing economics

Underdetermination, associated with the Duhem–Quine thesis,is a familiar if under-researched theme in economics. In thelight of this, we examine the development of urban land andhousing economics. Through its Cartesian dualistic delineationof theory and data, the contemporary mainstream approach appearsunable to circumvent the problem of underdetermination. In effect,it employs the strong version of Duhem–Quine in its retentionof the assumption of a single, unitary competitive market (andassociated access–space trade-off). Conversely, we highlightthe affinity of Ely's (and the later Columbia School's) approachto pragmatists Dewey and Peirce, which provides a more fruitfulbasis for explanation.     

Goals versus institutions: the development of performance measurement in the Swedish university sector

This paper contrasts goal-directed and institutional approaches to the development of performance measurement (PM) in the Swedish university sector, which has been subject to increasing emphasis on management by objectives since the early 1990s. We adopt a macro perspective, focusing on recent changes in PM related to governmental control of universities and colleges and combine an extensive review of archival data with interviews in our empirical analysis. It is concluded that although the goal-directed model cannot be completely rejected as a heuristic informing recent changes in PM, a process-orientated institutional perspective considerably enriches the analysis by making it less static and more contextually informed. In particular, the latter perspective better explains the evolution of loose couplings between formally stated goals and performance indicators and between different systems for PM by directing attention to the complex interplay between conflicting constituent interests in the evolution of resource and cost allocation practices and quality control procedures. However, our empirical analysis also leads us to reconsider the conceptions of loose coupling as either a “given” feature of institutionalised organizations or an outcome of more pro-active resistance at the micro level prevailing in much earlier work in institutional theory.     

Decoupled earnings: An institutional perspective of the consequences of maximizing shareholder value

Recent accounting scandals have brought focus on the role of management in financial statement manipulation. This focus on micro-behavior does not capture the complexities of earnings management. Taking an institutional rather than agency theory approach, earnings management is posited as a decoupled behavior. A behavior that results from not only agency-based motivations of self-interests, but also regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy pressures. Conformity to the central logic of “maximizing shareholder value” found in the “US financial market” institutional field provides the context in which to explore earnings management as a decoupled behavior. Insights for earnings management include the blending of agency and institutional theory perspectives to gain a more complete understanding of the behavior and the positing of a continuum of earnings management conducive to this merger. Institutional theory benefits from exploring the nesting in multiple institutional fields.     

金融信用之法律制度支撑——一个法经济学视角的解读

金融活动的存在与正常运转有赖于良好的信用制度与法治环境,金融信用是金融业赖以生存的基础。良好的金融信用依靠多种因素的支持,法律制度的健全是关键。本文主要从法经济学的视角提出构建完善的金融信用法律制度体系,以此防范金融信用风险,保障国民经济的增长与发展,进而促进社会的安全与稳定。     

京福高速公路建设与三明区域经济发展

三明属福建内陆山区市,农业与旅游业资源丰富,工业基础好,但由于交通条件的制约,经济发展相对滞后。京福高速公路的开通,打破了三明高速公路的零记录,为三明高速公路网的形成奠定了基础,因此,大大提升了三明的区位优势,促使三明新区域经济布局的形成,为三明老工业基地重振雄风、新工业的兴起、农业与旅游业的发展创造了全新的机遇。     

合并会计的经济学思考

在合并会计的研究中引入现代经济学理论 ,可以使我们以开阔的理论视野 ,重新审视合并会计的理论和实务问题。本文在这方面进行尝试 ,以现代经济学为指导 ,重点讨论了合并会计的目的——原则和合并会计制度等问题。     

Capital market trading volume: an overview and some preliminary conclusions

This paper suggests an explanation for the heavy trading volumeobserved on the US capital markets, the world's largest. Heterodoxeconomic theory puts much of this volume down to speculation.Mainstream theory tends to support this thesis, either directlyor indirectly, by giving space to the idea that trading activityis for the most part exogenous to the functioning of the capitalmarkets. The central hypothesis of this paper is that the tradingvolumes observed are an endogenous feature of the capital markets,because they are to a great extent determined by the needs ofthe institutional investors who predominate on these markets.This endogeneity of trading is posited in connection with theemergence of a new ‘core–satellite’ paradigmin institutional investment, a development that essentiallymanifests the asset-management industry's transformation froma small industry serving a few wealthy clients to a mass industryserving large sections of the population.