行政许可法打造法治政府

通过对新颁布的《行政许可法》的梳理和分析，认为《行政许可法》在有限政府、程序政府、责任政府等方面建立了许多具有突破意义的制度和新的规定，这些制度的建立和新的规定的实施，必将为我国建立法治化政府，进而建设社会主义的法治化国家，带来深远意义的影响。     

论违约责任的归责原则

违约责任的归责原则主要有严格责任原则和过错责任原则。违约责任的归责原则应当是二元论,即过 错责任与无过错责任并存,并有各自的调整范围和适用领域。     

浅析上市公司股利信息在价值投资中的应用

根据信号传递理论,股利政策传递了会计利润所不能传达的信息,股利政策能较为真实的反映一个公司的价值。文章通过对上市公司的分配方案的分析,揭示其利润分配的真实动因,解读管理者传递的公司内部信息,从而预测其未来发展前景,评价其投资价值。     

公共投资项目特许权经营面临的问题与对策分析

目前，我国大多数公共投资项目由政府投资建设厦经营管理，其结果是经营管理效率低下、建设资金短缺、融资难等问题日益突出，发展特许权经营已被公认为解决上述问题的有效模式。本文从法律、风险分担、政府监管等角度分析了在公共投资项目领域实施特许经营所面临的问题，并提出了有效实施特许经营模式的对策与建议。     

宁夏农业发展的生态问题与保护治理的投融资机制研究

宁夏农业的发展面临着严重的生态问题,其治理与保护的瓶颈之一就是资金不足。本文在分析了宁夏农地存在的生态问题和原有投资效果的基础下,结合生态保护和治理的特殊性,提出了新的融资模式和投资机制。融资模式可以采用基金会融资模式和准项目融资模式,以保证融资渠道的稳定长效。投资机制上应该考虑到生态退化程度不同的区域采用不同的投资途径以确保资金使用的有效。     

中外政府会计模式的比较及启示

政府实现其职能必须有充足的经济资源作保证,因此需要有相应的会计体系对政府履行其职能过程中所花费的成本与所取得的成效加以确认、计量、记录和报告.新公共管理活动的开展和政府公共受托责任的扩大对政府会计工作提出了更高的要求,西方多数国家都在进行政府会计改革,并已卓显成效.中国目前的预算会计并非政府会计,已不适应时代需要,必须重新构建一个富有中国特色的绩效政府会计体系.     

Do social factors influence investment behavior and performance? Evidence from mutual fund holdings

We study the economic significance of social dimensions in investment decisions by analyzing the holdings of U.S. equity mutual funds over the period 2004–2012. Using these holdings, we measure funds’ exposures to socially sensitive stocks in order to answer two questions. What explains cross-sectional variation in mutual funds’ exposure to controversial companies? Does exposure to controversial stocks drive fund returns? We find that exposures to socially sensitive stocks are weaker for funds that aim to attract socially conscious and institutional investor clientele, and they relate to local political and religious factors. The financial payoff associated with greater “sin” stock exposure is positive and statistically significant, but becomes non-significant with broader definitions of socially sensitive investments. Despite the positive relation between mutual fund return and sin stock exposure, the annualized risk-adjusted return spread between a portfolio of funds with highest sin stock exposure and its lowest-ranked counterpart is statistically not significant. The results suggest that fund managers do not tilt heavily towards controversial stocks because of social considerations and practical constraints.     

Altruism and egoism in investment decisions

We provide survey evidence that personal values have an impact on individual investment decisions, in particular preferences for socially responsible investing. Our findings show that there is a positive link between altruistic values and the relative importance of social responsibility. This effect is stronger when individuals believe that they can make a positive social or environmental impact with their investments, or when they feel morally obliged to invest responsibly. If altruistic individuals associate responsible investments with higher returns, it decreases their motivation to invest responsibly. Egoistic values are negatively associated with the decision to invest responsibly, unless individuals associate responsible investing with higher returns.     

Above and beyond? How businesses can drive sustainable development by promoting lasting pro-environmental behaviour change: An examination of the IKEA Live Lagom project

Current global changes require new business approaches driving sustainable development on all fronts. To date, most business approaches have focused on sustainable marketing and corporate social responsibility initiatives. In this field study, we examine IKEA's Live Lagom project, a 3-year behaviour change initiative that aimed to explore how to go above and beyond conventional approaches demonstrating how businesses could support sustainable development by supporting their customers' attempts to live more sustainable lifestyles. We examined the effectiveness of the project involving multifaceted behaviour change interventions, testing for behavioural changes both during and after the project period. In addition, we explored changes in participants' attitudes towards the company. Findings show that the extensive set of interventions led to changes in pro-environmental behaviours across all three participant groups with potentially positive impacts on the customer–company relationship. The article thus provides a call for further businesses to engage in similar behaviour change projects that would allow citizens to engage in more sustainable lifestyles and behaviours across contexts.     

Underperformance of Actively Managed Portfolios: Some Behavioral Insights

Abstract

Two glaring anomalies in investment management are apparent: (1) after fees, active portfolio managers do worse than market indices, and (2) clients continue to pay for services they don’t receive. The purpose of this paper is to offer explanations of these anomalies from a behavioral perspective. We explore some of the cognitive biases that perpetuate active management and subsequent underperformance, including herding, disposition, and endowment effects, as well as conservatism and status quo biases, overconfidence, and agency problems. Investors’ continued use of active managers despite persistent disappointing returns is attributed to being victims of framing effect, hot-hand fallacy, lack of knowledge as well as intimidation or insecurity, and status quo bias. We propose some ways that portfolio managers and investors could improve their decision making.