基金在中国上市公司中发挥治理作用了吗——基于影响高管非自愿变更与业绩之间敏感性的分析

基金作为重要的机构投资者在改善公司治理方面被寄予厚望,但是对基金能否在中国上市公司的治理中发挥积极作用则鲜有研究。本文首次按照基金监督对象的不同,将基金的监督作用分为"监督高管"和"监督大股东",从基金公司的治理状况出发检验在上市公司高管非自愿性变更决策中基金参与上市公司治理的途径。实证结果表明,在基金公司治理状况比较差的条件下,基金会与上市公司高管"合谋";而当基金公司治理状况比较好的条件下,基金公司在上市公司高管非自愿性变更决策中能够发挥"监督大股东"的治理作用;没有发现基金公司"监督高管"的证据。"监督大股东"假说的提出,既丰富了基金参与公司治理的理论,也是首次从企业微观决策层面发现基金在中国上市公司中发挥积极治理作用。     

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN INNOVATION AND COMPETITION

Innovation is typically a trial‐and‐error process. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead‐end findings. Time and resources are wasted on projects that other firms have already found to be fruitless. We offer a simple model with two firms and two research lines to study this prevalent problem. We characterize the equilibrium in a decentralized environment that necessarily entails significant efficiency losses due to wasteful dead‐end replication and an information externality that leads to an early abandonment of the risky project. We show that different types of firms follow different innovation strategies and create different kinds of welfare losses. In an extension of the core model, we also study a centralized mechanism whereby firms are incentivized to disclose their actions and share their private information in a timely manner. (JEL: O31, D92)     

A study of DEA models without explicit inputs

In performance evaluations, data without explicit inputs (such as index data, pure output data) are widely used. To directly use such data, this paper presents a study on building DEA models without explicit inputs, so-called DEA-WEI models, which are applicable to the evaluation applications where inputs are not directly considered. We provide an axiom foundation of these kinds of models, and further discuss how to incorporate value judgments of decision makers into these DEA-WEI models. Several such models are derived. Finally, applications of the DEA-WEI models are presented.     

Psychometric and Demographic Predictors of the Perceived Risk of Terrorist Threats and the Willingness to Pay for Terrorism Risk Management Programs

A 2009 national telephone survey of 924 U.S. adults assessed perceptions of terrorism and homeland security issues. Respondents rated severity of effects, level of understanding, number affected, and likelihood of four terrorist threats: poisoned water supply; explosion of a small nuclear device in a major U.S. city; an airplane attack similar to 9/11; and explosion of a bomb in a building, train, subway, or highway. Respondents rated perceived risk and willingness to pay (WTP) for dealing with each threat. Demographic, attitudinal, and party affiliation data were collected. Respondents rated bomb as highest in perceived risk but gave the highest WTP ratings to nuclear device. For both perceived risk and WTP, psychometric variables were far stronger predictors than were demographic ones. OLS regression analyses using both types of variables to predict perceived risk found only two significant demographic predictors for any threat—Democrat (a negative predictor for bomb) and white male (a significant positive predictor for airline attack). In contrast, among psychometric variables, severity, number affected, and likelihood were predictors of all four threats and level of understanding was a predictor for one. For WTP, education was a negative predictor for three threats; no other demographic variables were significant predictors for any threat. Among psychometric variables, perceived risk and number affected were positive predictors of WTP for all four threats; severity and likelihood were predictors for three; level of understanding was a significant predictor for two.     

Application of Bayesian Networks in Quantitative Risk Assessment of Subsea Blowout Preventer Operations

This article proposes a methodology for the application of Bayesian networks in conducting quantitative risk assessment of operations in offshore oil and gas industry. The method involves translating a flow chart of operations into the Bayesian network directly. The proposed methodology consists of five steps. First, the flow chart is translated into a Bayesian network. Second, the influencing factors of the network nodes are classified. Third, the Bayesian network for each factor is established. Fourth, the entire Bayesian network model is established. Lastly, the Bayesian network model is analyzed. Subsequently, five categories of influencing factors, namely, human, hardware, software, mechanical, and hydraulic, are modeled and then added to the main Bayesian network. The methodology is demonstrated through the evaluation of a case study that shows the probability of failure on demand in closing subsea ram blowout preventer operations. The results show that mechanical and hydraulic factors have the most important effects on operation safety. Software and hardware factors have almost no influence, whereas human factors are in between. The results of the sensitivity analysis agree with the findings of the quantitative analysis. The three‐axiom‐based analysis partially validates the correctness and rationality of the proposed Bayesian network model.     

环境保护的宏观经济成本分析

本文讨论了环境经济成本问题,提出环境治理成本和环境机会成本两组概念,并用投入占用产出方法研究了宏观经济环境机会成本核算。     

控股股东掏空动机与多元化的盈余波动效应

多元化经营是公司关注的重大发展问题,因此,多元化经营的动机及其经济后果也成为学者们研究的重点话题。本文从我国上市公司的多元化经营与盈余波动性之间的关系入手对这一问题进行研究,具体分析了公司多元化经营的程度对盈余波动性的影响及控股股东的掏空动机对多元化盈余波动效应的作用。研究发现,我国上市公司的多元化经营显著降低了公司的盈余波动性,多元化程度越高,盈余的波动性越低;但由控股股东代理问题而形成的掏空动机损害了多元化的盈余波动效应。本文的研究为多元化的经济后果增添了新的文献,同时也为上市公司监管提供了参考依据。     

上市公司创新型人才评价研究

创新型人才是上市公司最为稀缺的人力资本和核心竞争力的集中体现,创新型人才的评价直接影响其潜能、效能的发挥。本文在创新型人才研究文献综述的基础上,以安徽省上市公司为例,通过问卷调查和因子分析,构建创新型人才评价的指标体系,对上市公司创新型人才评价进行实证研究。研究结果表明:创新型人才的知识、能力、素质、创新成果与个人绩效呈现显著正相关。本文提出:要进一步完善创新型人才选用培养机制、评价机制和激励机制等政策建议,使上市公司创新型人才的评价更具科学性、系统性和可操作性,促进上市公司健康快速发展。     

An object-oriented methodology for solving the RCPSPs with heuristics and metaheuristics

Because various heuristics and metaheuristics have been proposed to solve the well known NP-hard, resourceconstrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP), it is currently difficult to compare the computational efficiency of these heuristics implemented on different computers where, in addition, the computer codes may have been written in different computer languages. This problem is solved when all relevant heuristics can be applied within the framework of a single computer program. By use of the object-oriented programming (OOP) methodology, we developed a general software framework for the heuristics and metaheuristics for solving the RCPSP. Currently this includes six heuristics and two metaheuristics. The framework of the software allows a more advanced user to append more effective heuristics and play around with several parameters of these metaheuristics with a bare minimum of coding effort.     

C2C环境下卖家差异化策略对销量的影响——基于两阶段决策的买家购物决策分析

C2C环境下激烈的竞争促使卖家通过差异化策略来弱化价格竞争以提高销量。考虑到C2C买家的搜索成本,本文以买家两阶段决策过程为基础建立买家效用函数,分析卖家差异化策略对销量的影响,并利用从淘宝收集的同质产品的面板数据进行实证研究。研究结果表明,卖家的被搜索成本、信用、上个月的销量对本月销量有显著的影响,而提供的服务和收到的评分无显著影响。通过考察销量的Gini系数和卖家服务的差异化水平,我们发现卖家之间的竞争异常激烈,而淘宝提供的差异化渠道却非常有限,卖家只能在信用和被搜索成本上进行差异化。最后,本文依据研究结果对C2C环境中的卖家和平台提出了建议。