學術論文

日常生活中很多專家的服務屬於信任品。我們從多個角度研究專家如何在信任品市場建立起顧客的信任。當消費者預期自身有嚴重問題的機會不高，並且專家服務用於解決較嚴重問題才具經濟效益的情況下，單次交易將不會成交。而在重覆交易的環境中，消費者會通過拒絕接受專家的建議來監察他的誠實程度。在專家追求利潤最大化的情況下，雖然利潤會隨著專家注重信譽的程度而增加，但是達不到理論上的最高水準，這與體驗品市場的情況形成鮮明對比。當專家非常在乎自己的信譽時，會出現顧客拒絕解決嚴重問題的情況。當專家不夠重視自己的信譽時，他們會過度治療顧客的問題。兩種情況都不是最理想。

研究審視了司法管轄區中的企業所得稅和其他政策對企業作出總部選址決策的影響。透過研究美國州份中的企業所得稅隨時間和不同州份之間所產生的變化，我們發現當企業總部所在州份的企業所得稅稅率每提高一個百分點，企業把總部遷出該州的可能性會增加16.8%；反之，當企業總部所在州份的企業所得稅稅率每降低一個百分點，企業把總部搬遷的可能性則會降低 9.1%。我們的研究利用美國分攤制度中獨特的稅收政策特徵，有力地證明稅收加強上述的影響。我們的研究亦顯示，各州份所得稅的特點會影響企業總部的最終選址。透過展示州份所得稅政策如果影響企業決策，以及其對企業及國家所帶來的重大經濟後果，我們希望此研究能為企業決策方面作出貢獻。

目前的研究大多專注於企業行政人員的職業相關資歷。然而，他們的工餘活動其實也能帶來啟示。以首席執行官駕駛私人飛機這項高風險嗜好作為新的考量因素，此研究藉銀行貸款合同的情況探討信貸利益相關者就首席執行官的高風險嗜好對企業評價的影響。研究利用於1993年至2010年，就多個行業的美國大型上市機構首席執行官所獲得的數據，發現以駕駛私人飛機為嗜好的首席執行官所領導的企業在申請銀行貸款時，無論是要取得擔保、訂立更多契約，還是獲得銀團貸款，往往都會產生更高的貸款成本。這主要是因為銀行認為此等企業的違約風險較高，而首席執行官在企業扮演越重要的角色，及/或他在決策方面有更大的控制權時，情況尤甚。配合實地採訪和實驗，我們的研究結果對於使用不同設計的內生變量檢查（如Heckman 兩階段模型、傾向性評分匹配法、雙重差分模型，以及干擾變量的影響閾值等）的穩健性相當重要。

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.

擁有相同人際網絡的公司傾向有相類似的管治常規。在同群效應下，相似的管治常規在公司與公司之間互相傳播；而在選擇效應下，擁有同類偏好的公司會選擇加入與其有連結的群組。而要將同群效應和選擇效應分開是有困難的。研究用普遍需求法於美國不同州份分段實施的情況，分析有聘請連鎖董事的公司，找出及估計同群效應對管治措施的因果關係。我們在一些公司採用反收購條款的個案中，發現同群效應的存在。透過觀察普遍需求法對連鎖董事的管治所造成的影響，較能解釋這些效應。

透過被動方式管理的指數基金現時持有美國近三成的股權基金資產，這股趨勢令人聯想到其對企業的管治和監察所帶來的影響。我們最新的研究發現，與主動型基金相比，指數基金在監察上較為遜色：(1) 他們普遍不會否決企業管理層所提出具爭議性的政策；(2) 缺乏證據證明他們會主動地公開或私下與企業管理層協調互動；(3) 他們對其投資組合內公司的董事獨立性和薪酬績效敏感性貢獻較少。總而言之，指數基金的崛起降低了受益所有人與企業管理層之間的利益一致性，並把企業的控制權由投資者手中轉移到企業管理層。

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.