学术论文

研究审视了司法管辖区中的企业所得税和其他政策对企业作出总部选址决策的影响。透过研究美国州份中的企业所得税随时间和不同州份之间所产生的变化，我们发现当企业总部所在州份的企业所得税税率每提高一个百分点，企业把总部迁出该州的可能性会增加16.8%；反之，当企业总部所在州份的企业所得税税率每降低一个百分点，企业把总部搬迁的可能性则会降低 9.1%。我们的研究利用美国分摊制度中独特的税收政策特征，有力地证明税收加强上述的影响。我们的研究亦显示，各州份所得税的特点会影响企业总部的最终选址。透过展示州份所得税政策如果影响企业决策，以及其对企业及国家所带来的重大经济后果，我们希望此研究能为企业决策方面作出贡献。

目前的研究大多专注于企业行政人员的职业相关资历。然而，他们的工余活动其实也能带来启示。以首席执行官驾驶私人飞机这项高风险嗜好作为新的考量因素，此研究借银行贷款合同的情况探讨信贷利益相关者就首席执行官的高风险嗜好对企业评价的影响。研究利用于1993年至2010年，就多个行业的美国大型上市机构首席执行官所获得的数据，发现以驾驶私人飞机为嗜好的首席执行官所领导的企业在申请银行贷款时，无论是要取得担保、订立更多契约，还是获得银团贷款，往往都会产生更高的贷款成本。这主要是因为银行认为此等企业的违约风险较高，而首席执行官在企业扮演越重要的角色，及/或他在决策方面有更大的控制权时，情况尤甚。配合实地采访和实验，我们的研究结果对于使用不同设计的内生变量检查（如Heckman 两阶段模型、倾向性评分匹配法、双重差分模型，以及干扰变量的影响阈值等）的稳健性相当重要。

There is often considerable anxiety and conflicting advice concerning the benefits of presenting/being evaluated first. We thus investigate how expert evaluators vary in their evaluations of entrepreneurial proposals based upon the order in which they are evaluated. Our research setting is a premiere innovation fund competition in Beijing, China, where the prize money at stake is economically meaningful, and evaluators are quasi-randomly assigned to evaluate written grant proposals without the possibility of peer influence. This enables us to credibly recover a causal position effect. We also theorize and test how heterogeneity in evaluators’ prior (context-specific) judging experience moderates position effects. Overall, we find that a proposal evaluated first requires total assets in the top 10th percentile to merely equal the evaluation of a proposal in the bottom 10th percentile that is not evaluated first. Firm and evaluator fixed-effects models yield consistent findings. We consider evaluation design elements that may mollify these position effects in the discussion section.

拥有相同人际网络的公司倾向有相类似的管治常规。在同群效应下，相似的管治常规在公司与公司之间互相传播；而在选择效应下，拥有同类偏好的公司会选择加入与其有连结的群组。而要将同群效应和选择效应分开是有困难的。研究用普遍需求法于美国不同州份分段实施的情况，分析有聘请连锁董事的公司，找出及估计同群效应对管治措施的因果关系。我们在一些公司采用反收购条款的个案中，发现同群效应的存在。透过观察普遍需求法对连锁董事的管治所造成的影响，较能解释这些效应。

透过被动方式管理的指数基金现时持有美国近三成的股权基金资产，这股趋势令人联想到其对企业的管治和监察所带来的影响。我们最新的研究发现，与主动型基金相比，指数基金在监察上较为逊色：(1) 他们普遍不会否决企业管理层所提出具争议性的政策；(2) 缺乏证据证明他们会主动地公开或私下与企业管理层协调互动；(3) 他们对其投资组合内公司的董事独立性和薪酬绩效敏感性贡献较少。总而言之，指数基金的崛起降低了受益所有人与企业管理层之间的利益一致性，并把企业的控制权由投资者手中转移到企业管理层。

We decompose the decrease (1970s-2000) and subsequent recovery (2000-2018) in the fraction of dividend-paying firms. Changes in firm characteristics and proclivity to pay (probability of paying dividends conditional on characteristics) each drive half of the dividend disappearance. A higher proclivity drives 82% of the dividend reappearance. The remaining 18% is driven by a single characteristic: reduced earnings volatility. Changing characteristics are associated with low-profitability, high-earnings-volatility firms. Changing proclivity is associated with stable, profitable firms. Rather than dividend initiations or omissions, newly listed and delisted firms drive trends. Finally, the magnitude and duration of disappearing total payout is substantially smaller than that of dividends, indicating some substitution between dividends and repurchases.

Measures of US government policy approval are strongly related to persistent fluctuations in the dollar value. Contemporaneous correlations between approval ratings and the dollar approach 50% against advanced economy currencies. High approval ratings further forecast a decline in the dollar risk premium several years ahead and are associated with a persistent increase in economic growth and a reduction in economic volatility. We provide an illustrative model to interpret our empirical evidence. In the model, policy valuations (approvals) are forward-looking and increase at times of high expected policy-related growth and low policy-related uncertainty, which are times of a strong dollar and low dollar risk premium.

How can fragility be averted in open-end mutual funds? In recent years, markets have observed an innovation that changed the way open-end funds are priced. Alternative pricing rules (known as swing pricing) adjust funds’ net asset values to pass on funds’ trading costs to transacting shareholders. Using unique data on investor-level transactions in U.K. corporate bond funds, we show that swing pricing eliminates the first-mover advantage arising from the traditional pricing rule and significantly reduces outflows during market stress. Swing pricing also reduces concavity in the flow-performance relationship and dilution in fund performance.

我们透过分析舌蝇于前殖民地时期在不同地域的生存条件差异，来研究流行病对现代金融发展的影响。在非洲，舌蝇传播一种对人类有害且导致牲畜死亡的流行病。利用新的地理参考数据，我们发现历史上位于较容易受到流行病影响的地区的公司和家庭，现今获得外源融资的机会较小。通过探索这些渠道，我们发现历史上虫害成灾地区的居民较难信任他人和金融机构、共享资讯，以及学习和采用新的金融科技。