Bouncing Back from Extreme Weather Events: Some Preliminary Findings on Resilience Barriers Facing Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much‐debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non‐linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Asymmetric information consolidation and price discovery: Inferring bad news from insider sales

Due to the paucity of sources of negative firm‐specific information, US capital markets have more difficulty identifying and incorporating bad news into stock prices than they do good news. Even though insider selling is a potentially important proxy for undisclosed bad news, researchers have difficulty ex ante identifying information‐based sales due to an inability to separate liquidity‐motivated from information‐based insider trades. We hypothesize that when insiders in multiple firms sell shares of one firm in which they are insiders and at the same time buy shares of other insider portfolio firms, the sale is more likely to be information‐based, since the proceeds are reinvested. Conversely, when an insider sells one firm without purchasing others or sells multiple insider firms the sale is likely liquidity‐motivated. We find that insider sales identified as information‐based using this algorithm are followed by significant negative abnormal returns. Information‐based sales are also more likely to be associated with delistings, earnings declines and earnings restatements. Analysts are also more likely to revise their earnings forecasts downwards for these firms. It is thus possible to ex ante identify insider sales with information content. Our results will be of interest to investors and also to regulators designing insider trading rules.     

A conceptual model and research agenda for bidding,planning and delivering Major sport events that lever human rights

In this conceptual article, the authors propose a framework for how progressive human rights outcomes may be obtained in the context of bidding, planning and implementing major sport events (MSEs) through the implementation of four pathways, including good governance, the democratic participation of stakeholders, the formalisation of human rights agendas and the deployment of sensitive urban development. The authors argue that there is a need for adherence to internationally recognised standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights if rhetorical statements from MSE awarding bodies and host organisers are to be accountable to a wider set of actors. If researchers and practitioners want to address some of the critical issues related to human rights and MSEs, it is imperative that key actors working in the rights sphere are involved in shaping the research agenda and monitoring its implementation. Academics need to take a proactive approach aimed at achieving both theoretically grounded and practically relevant solutions, with engagement occurring over an extended period of time. This approach, avowedly political and concerned with genuine action, is a key way in which MSE stakeholders can be held to account for their actions in regard to human rights.     

IDEF3方法在集装箱码头仿真中的应用

针对Witness仿真过程中经常出现的问题，提出了一种优化仿真设计的建模方法，井结合集装箱码头物流的实际情况进行了说明。建立了集装箱入港物流的模型框架，达到了码头仿真单元的可重构性，大大提高了仿真的速度，并有效地避免了仿真过程中一些难以发现的问题。     

基于递归对角神经网络自适应均衡算法的研究

阐述了神经网络自适应均衡算法的基本原理,提出了一种基于递归对角神经网络的自适应均衡算法,推导了算法的迭代公式,进行了计算机仿真。结果表明,随着传输信号信噪比的增加,稳态剩余误差减小,误码率降低。     

审计报告改革对权益资本成本的影响研究

传统审计报告的模式化披露无法满足投资者价值信息获取需求,“审计期望差距”问题日益严重。基于2016年12月颁布的新审计报告准则,选取A+H股上市公司为研究对象,考察审计报告改革对上市公司权益资本成本的影响。结果表明,审计报告改革会显著降低权益资本成本。进一步发现,关键审计事项披露数目越多,权益资本成本越低;审计报告改革降低权益资本成本的效应在信息不对称程度高、内部控制水平低、媒体环境差以及代理冲突高的公司中更为明显。这不仅为审计报告改革的经济后果提供了证据,而且对于提高投资者决策效率以及维护资本市场秩序也具有一定的现实意义。     

论会计事项的认定与会计确认

符合确认标准的会计事项是会计确认的对象,会计确认是会计事项进入财务会计系统的第一道关口,两者关系十分密切,本文对会计事项作了科学界定,并针对不同事项的认定说明其对会计确认对象、观点和时间的影响,为科学合理地确认会计事项提供了理论指导。     

The Delphi method, impeachment and terrorism: Accuracies of short-range forecasts for volatile world events

Two experiments examined the effects of iterated polling and feedback on prediction accuracy for volatile world events using the Delphi paradigm. In both experiments, participants predicted rapidly changing geopolitical events. The first experiment occurred during the litigation surrounding the Clinton/Lewinsky affair in 1998. Results indicated that feedback improved individual and group accuracy for predictions of whether an event would occur. These types of predictions derived from group consensus were approximately 90% accurate, which was significantly higher than the average individual participant's accuracy. Neither polling nor feedback had much effect on time course predictions. The second experiment occurred during the American military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. In Experiment 2, participants were polled three times to determine if increasing the number of iterated polls would improve Delphi accuracy. The results showed that accuracy improved from the first to the second poll but not from the second to the third. The groups predicted whether these scenarios would occur with approximately 75% accuracy, which was significantly higher than the accuracy of any individual participant. Once again, the Delphi procedure did not enhance time course predictions in Experiment 2.     

疫情危机与商业银行数字化对策研究

疫情危机的发生导致社会经济链条断裂,供应链流通受阻,并不断向上下游和其他节点传导,引爆诸多潜在的风险点,对社会经济产生巨大负面影响。本文以商业银行为例,研究疫情危机对商业银行的影响和管理危机的对策。研究表明,疫情危机的发生既是对社会经济秩序的一种破坏,同时也会在应对危机过程中催生出一些新的行业、产业或经营模式的变化。面对疫情危机,数字化不仅仅是商业银行应对危机的有效手段,更是商业银行转型升级的新方向。全面推进数字化对于其他行业应对疫情危机同样具有示范和借鉴意义。     

Combining multiple probability predictions using a simple logit model

This paper begins by presenting a simple model of the way in which experts estimate probabilities. The model is then used to construct a likelihood-based aggregation formula for combining multiple probability forecasts. The resulting aggregator has a simple analytical form that depends on a single, easily-interpretable parameter. This makes it computationally simple, attractive for further development, and robust against overfitting. Based on a large-scale dataset in which over 1300 experts tried to predict 69 geopolitical events, our aggregator is found to be superior to several widely-used aggregation algorithms.