Income and substitution effects of fiscal policy on work effort

The focus of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the impact on work effort of changes in government purchases financed with lump‐sum taxes, in a neoclassical framework, with respect to four industrialised countries. Second, it reconsiders the expenditure–work effort relationship in a broader conceptual context that allows for distortionary taxation and a disaggregation of the income and substitution effects. Our findings are shown to cast doubt on the empirical plausibility of the prevailing (neoclassical and New Keynesian) models which seem to rely heavily on the lump‐sum tax notion, thus ignoring the substitution effects of distortionary taxation.     

中国股市波动与经济波动的传递性研究

基于1994~2004年度的月份数据,对股市波动与经济波动的关系进行研究。我们采用Schwert(1989)的12阶自回归模型对各经济变量序列的波动性进行估计,并进一步通过Granger因果检验和冲击反应函数考察各波动序列之间的内在关系。检验结果表明:在Granger因果检定中,股市波动并未受到总体经济波动的影响,说明股市在一定程度上反映了当前的经济信息;股市波动与经济波动的冲击反应函数则显示,股市波动与经济波动之间的影响大体在6~8个月以内传递完毕。     

欧盟REACH法令对中国化工产品出口的影响分析

欧盟REACH法令的实施将促进我国化学工业的发展,但在短期内会导致我国出口欧盟化工产品和进口化工产品成本上升,降低出口产品竞争力,部分产品甚至退出欧盟市场,其他国家可能纷纷效仿欧盟,引起连锁反应。应对该种技术性壁垒,我国政府和行业协会应加大宣传REACH法令的力度,加快国内相关立法,推进国内实验室的GLP认证工作。另外,化学品生产企业应提高自身产品质量,做好化学品注册的可行性分析和预注册工作。     

“营改增”影响地方政府税收努力研究

基于随机前沿分析法（SFA）测算2011-2015年我国地方政府税收努力程度,并运用双重差分法考察“营改增”对地方征税行为的影响。研究发现：“营改增”将地方税（营业税）变为共享税（增值税）,显著降低了地方政府税收努力程度;改革对税收努力的冲击受经济发展水平、转移支付额度和税收返还的影响,获取转移支付收入和税收返还越多的地区税收努力下降速度越快。后“营改增”时期,如何提高税收效率,缓解地方财政收入对转移支付和债务收入的依赖性,是理顺中央和地方财税关系,完善财税收入体系的重要问题。     

Responsiveness of Auditors to the Audit Risk Standards: Unique Evidence from Big 4 Audit Firms

We examine the effect of changes in audit risk standards on the conduct of financial statement audits in a European setting. We investigate this by analysing the audit hours and audit fees for clients of Big 4 audit firms in Finland in 1996 and 2010. Our results show that audit firms became more sensitive to clients’ business risk due to the introduction of the new audit risk standards, with more audit hours allocated to owner-managed companies in 2010 than in 1996, and fewer audit hours allocated to low-risk clients in 2010 than in 1996. Also, the labour mix in the audit team changed for owner-managed companies, with a greater work load carried by junior auditors in 2010 than in 1996. Regarding the price of audit, we find an increase in audit fees for clients with high business risk, while audit fees remained at roughly the same level for low-risk clients. These findings should be of interest to the auditing profession and those involved in the development of auditing regulations.     

“Success breeds success” or “Pride goes before a fall”?: Teams and individuals in multi-contest tournaments

We study the impact of progress feedback on players' performance in multi-contest team tournaments, in which team members' efforts are not directly substitutable. In particular, we employ a real-effort laboratory experiment to understand, in a best-of-three tournament, how players' strategic mindsets change when they compete on a team compared to when they compete individually. Our data corroborate the theoretical predictions for teams: Neither a lead nor a lag in the first component contest affects a team's performance in the subsequent contests. In individual tournaments, however, contrary to the theoretical prediction, we observe that leaders perform worse—but laggards perform better—after learning the outcome of the first contest. Our findings offer the first empirical evidence from a controlled laboratory of the impact of progress feedback between team and individual tournaments, and contribute new insights on team incentives.     

Noisy signaling in discrete time

This paper characterizes the equilibrium set of a dynamic noisy-signaling model in discrete time. A seller privately knows the quality of her asset. She can exert a costly effort to generate stochastic returns. Buyers stochastically arrive over time and, after observing the history of returns, they make price offers. In our model, the equilibrium behavior of the buyers is discontinuous: they only make acceptable (high) offers if the posterior about the quality is above a given threshold. As a result, the recursive nature of the model replicates the discontinuity, giving the equilibrium continuation payoff a complex self-replicating structure that may take the form of a devil’s staircase.     

加强政府回应渠道的建设与完善促进服务型政府建设

服务型政府作为公共管理研究的一个重点领域,其定义和评判标准学术界目前并没有完全统一,但对于服务型政府的根本目标和内容的认识是基本一致的。从政府的服务角度看,对政府服务效果评价的主体应该是接受政府服务的广大群众,而群众的评价又与政府面对公众诉求时回应的态度、效率及采用的方法和取得的结果有直接关系。所以提高政府的回应质量直接关系到群众对政府的满意度,本文将从加强政府回应渠道的建设与完善角度出发,探讨服务型政府建设问题。     

政府补贴下考虑企业环保努力的闭环供应链决策分析

在消费者具有环保意识的背景下，分析有无政府补贴时制造商环保努力对各节点企业价格、需求、利润等决策的影响，并进一步探讨补贴在各类最优策略中的作用。研究表明：环保努力能提高两类产品销售价格、扩大新产品需求，但对再制造品需求无影响；存在最优环保努力水平，使无政府补贴下制造商及系统整体利润最大；一定范围内补贴能遏制环保努力导致的再制造品销售价格上升，但对新产品价格无影响，且对零售商来说高补贴未必能带来高收益；消费者环保意识和制造商环保努力可以通过政府补贴影响产品需求和企业收益。     

Does the severity of a client’s negative environmental,social and governance reputation affect audit effort and audit quality?

In recent years, investors have begun to value companies’ reputations through their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. ESG risk can affect business processes and controls and can heighten financial risk and threaten a firm’s survival. This study examines whether and how the severity of media coverage of a firm’s negative ESG issues (tainted ESG reputation) is associated with audit effort and audit quality. I find that auditors manage the higher expected engagement risk conveyed by tainted ESG reputation by applying higher audit effort. Next, I observe that the increased effort is associated with auditors likely detecting and requiring adjustments for material misstatements and that tainted ESG reputation is associated with fewer misstatements (i.e., reduces poor audit quality). The association between tainted ESG reputation and audit quality is driven primarily by increased audit report lag, not by increased audit fees. Further, I find that tainted ESG reputation is positively associated with audit effort and reduces poor audit quality for up to three years. The results also show that the audit effort and audit quality effect vary across the three components of ESG.