Capital gains lock-in and governance choices

Differences in accrued gains and investors’ tax-sensitivity induce variation in a capital gains lock-in effect across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Exploiting this variation, we show this effect influences funds’ governance decisions: higher capital gains decrease the likelihood a fund exits prior to contentious votes and increase the likelihood a fund votes against management. Consistent with tax motivation, these findings are concentrated among funds with tax-sensitive investors. Further, high aggregate capital gains across funds holding a stock predict a higher likelihood management loses a vote and a lower likelihood a contentious vote is proposed.     

The impacts of governance and institutions on inbound tourism demand: evidence from a dynamic panel data study

This study explores the impact of governance and institutions on inbound tourism demand in Malaysia using a dynamic panel data approach for 45 tourism source countries over the period 2005–2015. The results show that institutions play a very important role in explaining the behaviour of inbound tourism demand. To obtain a better picture, we investigate the response of international tourists to disaggregated institutional quality. We find that international tourists are more concerned about political stability, governmental effectiveness, regulations, laws, and corruption than voice and accountability. Therefore, policymakers should focus on ways to improve institutional quality to significantly increase international tourist arrivals.     

水权配置视角下新型农业节水机制和路径研究

加快实施最严格水资源管理制度的重要目标是形成以节水为目标的新的社会运行机制和社会治理模式。农民在农业灌溉中自发形成的用水组织是这一变革中的重要社会力量。通过对农民用水协会特征的分析,认为在"水权配置"的视角下,发展与规范农民用水组织,变原有农业用水过程中的行政管控为社会治理,是建立农业"节水型"社会并支持其良好运行的重要保障,并就如何健全农民用水组织的内部治理结构、克服农民用水组织自身的消极因素提出了建议。     

Environmental Policy,Sustainable Development,Governance Mechanisms and Environmental Performance

We investigate the effects of environmental policy (Climate Change Act – CCA), sustainable development frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative – GRI; UN Global Compact – UNGC) and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on environmental performance (carbon reduction initiatives – CRIs; actual carbon performance – GHG emissions) of UK listed firms. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyse data consisting of 2245 UK firm‐year observations over the 2002–2014 period. First, we find that the CCA has a positive effect on CRIs, and this effect is stronger in better‐governed firms. Second, we find that the GRI‐based framework is positively associated with CRIs. Third, we find that firms with poor CG structures have lower actual carbon performance compared with their better‐governed counterparts. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms can symbolically conform to environmental policy (CCA) and sustainable development frameworks (GRI, UNGC) by engaging in CRIs without necessarily improving actual environmental performance (GHG emissions) substantively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

中华人民共和国成立70年来生态文明体制变迁的内在逻辑与实践启示

中华人民共和国成立以来,中国共产党带领中国人民不断探索实践生态文明建设。随着人民环境偏好的增强,中国的生态文明体制不断变迁以满足人民日益增长的美好生态环境需要。通过对中国环境管理机构、环境保护政策变迁历程的梳理,可以探析其变迁的内在逻辑和动力机制。中国的生态文明体制变迁始终坚持以人民为中心的发展思想,以适应人民群众环境偏好变化为逻辑起点,并不断通过体制改革来提高环境治理效率和改善环境治理效果。中华人民共和国成立以来生态文明体制的变迁为新时代生态文明建设奠定了基础、指明了方向,在未来建设美丽中国过程中要坚持以人民为中心的发展思想以满足人民环境偏好变化、完善生态文明制度建设为增强环境治理的效果和效率提供保障、以综合治理的思路构建中国特色社会主义生态文明建设的治理体系。     

The acerbity of the social: how to include the social in governmental risk assessments

This paper addresses the expansion of risk practices through a case study of a government led project in Sweden purposed to develop a method to include social events in mandatory risk practices. Social heterogeneity was to be transformed into straightforward causality in order to turn the social into a manageable object. In this regard, the project was quite successful. By inviting social scientists into the process, otherwise often marginalized within risk practice, causality and quantifiable risk factors could be established and the model became a rigorous and legitimate scientific model. Although experts were granted significant autonomy and became experts far beyond their own area of expertise, the success of the model lies rather in allowing experts authority within confined boundaries. Grand narratives and critical perspectives are disregarded as too abstract and if social scientists are to infuse aspects of social critique they must adapt to these circumstances: they must become instrumentalists.     

Citizens’ e-participation on agenda setting in local governance: Do individual social capital and e-participation management matter?

Although a growing body of literature has touted e-participation as a means of facilitating greater citizen participation in policy decision-making processes, little is known about the driving forces behind citizens’ use of e-participation. Based on a literature review of social capital and citizen participation, this study develops and tests a model proposing that three dimensions of social capital and three dimensions of citizen participation management should be positively associated with e-participation in agenda setting. Using data from a Korean e-participation survey conducted in 2009, we found that citizens tend to be more active e-participants when they have greater trust in government and are weakly tied to offline social groups. We also found that citizen participants’ perception of government responsiveness to their input can facilitate their e-participation. The study findings imply that local governments should pay more attention to the function of public trust in local government and provide quality feedback in response to citizen input. They should also be sensitive to how the social factors of e-participants can facilitate involvement in agenda setting.     

Media coverage and investment efficiency

We examine the effect of media coverage on firm-level investment efficiency. We find that media coverage reduces under-investment but increases over-investment. The negative effect of media coverage on under-investment is more pronounced in firms affected by greater information asymmetry and poorer corporate governance. The positive effect of media coverage on over-investment is driven by media-induced CEO overconfidence. Additional results show that both investment- and non-investment-related news coverage decrease under-investment, while non-investment-related news coverage is more influential in increasing over-investment. In general, higher news optimism is associated with less under-investment but more over-investment. Moreover, media coverage affects investment efficiency through its information dissemination rather than information creation function. Collectively, our results suggest that firms’ media visibility promotes more over-investment than under-investment.