Information Disclosure to Employees and Rational Expectations: a Game-Theoretical Perspective: a Comment

In this comment we identify the key features of the Frantz and Walker (1997) game theoretic model that drive the non-disclosure equilibrium result in their paper. We argue that, although technically correct, their model fails to capture certain aspects of real-world wage bargaining that will be important in determining optimal disclosure strategies in practice. However, Frantz and Walker's paper illustrates the potential of analytical techniques to contribute to the employee disclosure debate.     

The impact on stock prices of deferral and elimination of internal control audit requirement for small firms

This paper examines the cumulative market reaction to the events related to deferral of internal control audit requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and its elimination under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for nonaccelerated filers (small firms). We document that small firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns around these events; and the differences between the cumulative abnormal returns for small firms and the two control groups (accelerated and large accelerated filers) were negative and significant at the 1% level. These results support the notion that market participants value the reliability of financial information irrespective of the firm size. Within the small firms, we find no firm characteristic significantly explains the market reaction to the events considered. That is, all small firms lost market value in reaction to the events that delayed and eliminated their internal control audit requirement.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

A critical appraisal of the reporting quality of published randomized controlled trials in the fall injuries

To evaluate the quality of reporting in published randomized controlled trials (RTCs) in the field of fall injuries. The 188 RTCs published between 2001 and 2011, indexed in EMBASE and Medline databases were extracted through searching by appropriate keywords and EMTree classification terms. The evaluation trustworthiness was assured through parallel evaluations of two experts in epidemiology and biostatistics. About 40%–75% of papers had problems in reporting random allocation method, allocation concealment, random allocation implementation, blinding and similarity among groups, intention to treat and balancing benefits and harms. Moreover, at least 10% of papers inappropriately/not reported the design, protocol violations, sample size justification, subgroup/adjusted analyses, presenting flow diagram, drop outs, recruitment time, baseline data, suitable effect size on outcome, ancillary analyses, limitations and generalizability. Considering the shortcomings found and due to the importance of the RCTs for fall injury prevention programmes, their reporting quality should be improved.     

The Challenge of Humanistic Economics

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Compare Program in 2003 to increase transparency between healthcare providers and consumers. Implemented in 2005, this transparency consists of hospitals' collecting and making publicly available a set of hospital quality score measures. The CMS induced participation by financially penalizing hospitals that did not publicly report a specific subset of these measures (called “starter” measures). Three years into the program, the penalty for non-reporting both the starter measures and other (“non-starter”) measures was increased. I use a difference-in-differences methodology to analyze the effect of the increased CMS penalty on the likelihood that a hospital publicly reported its starter and non-starter measure scores. I find that the penalty had an economically and statistically insignificant effect on the probability that a hospital publicly reported its starter scores, but a statistically significant 8.0 percent effect (p-value<0.01) on whether it reported its non-starter scores. These findings are robust to a series of alternative empirical specifications.     

少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系构建研究——以凤凰为例

关注游客对民俗旅游产品的体验需求,有利于做好游客的体验管理,提升游客的体验质量,实现少数民族地区民俗旅游产品的可持续发展。以体验经济为时代背景,从游客体验角度出发,在梳理旅游体验质量影响要素的基础上,提出少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系的理论模型假设;通过随机抽样的调查方式,采用因子分析和方差分析方法,构建了少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系,包括产品体验、环境体验、管理体验和个人能力4个主要素;并在此基础上,提出了凤凰民俗旅游产品游客体验管理对策,即打造核心体验产品、构筑完美体验环境、加强全面体验管理和高度挑战个人能力。     

内部控制缺陷披露对资本成本的影响研究——基于沪深两市A股的经验数据

文章选取我国A股上市公司2011--2012年披露的年报及相关信息为样本数据,建立多元回归分析模型分别对沪深两市178家样本上市公司2012年的权益资本成本和债务资本成本进行检验。研究结果显示：披露内部控制缺陷的样本公司存在较高的资本成本,缺陷的披露与权益资本成本和债务资本成本呈现显著正相关,权益资本成本对缺陷信息的披露敏感度更高。对控制变量回归分析,发现股权投资者更有动力积极获取公司经营管理信息,而债权投资者更关注财务指标信息。总体来看,我国资本市场对内部控制缺陷信息的披露作出了较为稳定的资本成本定价,内部控制缺陷的披露对资本市场来说具有重要价值。     

合作社生猪质量供给困境与治理研究——基于集体行动理论的视角

专业合作社成员在空间分布上呈现出明显的地缘性特征,使得合作社对生猪质量控制具有天然的优势,但仍无法避免成员“搭便车”的困境。文章以奥尔森的集体行动理论为指导,设计了选择性激励、允许成员异质性以及强制措施等治理机制,并通过对金诚众和合作社的案例分析,提出扶持合作社进行生猪品牌建设,提高生猪抽检比例,加强猪肉产品的认证管理等政策建议。     

上市公司社会责任信息披露：问题与对策

企业社会责任是企业与社会经济发展到一定历史阶段的产物。从长期来看,企业积极履行社会责任可以提高生产效率,增强企业凝聚力,有助于帮助企业避免风险,促进企业的持续发展。在国际大环境的推动下,我国越来越重视企业的社会责任。目前,在年报中披露企业社会责任信息已成为上市公司一项基本信息披露职责。本文分析了我国上市公司社会责任信息披露存在的问题、剖析问题的原因,并针对性提出改进建议。     

科技特派员制度对农民科学素质提升的实践与思考

农民在我国的人口构成中占据相当大比例,提高他们的科学素养,对于改善其生活质量、实现全面小康生活目标至关重要,同时也关系着我国新农村的建设与发展。文章通过阐述广西科技特派员工作发展状况,强调了科技特派员制度是提高农民科学素养的有效途径,并提出进一步利用农村科技特派员提升农民科学素质的思路。