The effect of investor sentiment and the structure of shareholder ownership on corporate investment

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relations amongst investor sentiment, the structure of shareholder ownership and corporate investment.Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a theoretical model, proposes hypotheses based on the predictions of the model and conducts empirical tests. The primary method is panel regression with fixed effects. The sample covers the US data for the period between 1980 and 2018.Findings This paper finds that firms with a higher proportion of retail investors invest more than otherwise similar firms. In the low-sentiment periods, the financially constrained firms invest less than the non-financially constraint firms. The positive effect of residual retail ownership on the investment level is higher for firms with a higher idiosyncratic risk.Practical implications The results suggest that larger share ownership of the relatively informed institutional investors may serve as a mechanism that could reduce the degree of overinvestment caused by higher investor sentiment and the over-optimistic of the relatively uninformed investors.Originality/value This paper provides an incremental theoretical and empirical contribution to the relations amongst investor sentiment, corporate investment and the structure of shareholder ownership.

The two faces of power-sharing

Lijphart’s claim that power-sharing spurs democratization in divided societies has strongly influenced ‘institutional engineering’ and is widely accepted among scholars despite the fact that empirical tests of its merits remain rare. This article revisits the democratic effect of power-sharing, arguing that it has two antagonist faces. On the positive side, it provides guarantees of inclusion to political elites, allowing them to commit to democratic rules. On the negative side, it also has an illiberal face, entailing limits on competition and individual rights. In this article, these contrary characteristics are traced back to two institutional types of power-sharing: a more flexible and open, liberal, type and a more rigid, corporate one. Using a novel dataset on power-sharing rules for 138 multi-ethnic countries and the period from 1945 to 2016, their respective democratic merits are tested. Conforming to theoretical expectations, the findings indicate that only liberal forms of power-sharing exhibit strong positive effects on democracy while corporate forms exert mixed or even negative ones. These findings are robust to a series of alternate model specifications and operationalizations as well as to instrumental variable approaches. In conclusion, the article indicates only a partial democratic effect of power-sharing, limited to its liberal subtype.

How Will Foreign Trade Affect Green Economic Efficiency in Sub-developed Region? An Empirical Research Based on the Data From Central China

Foreign trade in sub-developed regions may lead to serious environmental problems. Impact of foreign trade in sub-developed regions on green economic efficiency and its possible impact channels are qualitatively analyzed, empirical tests are conducted based on the data of 80 Prefecture-level cities in Central China. Results show that: 1. Foreign trade of Central China will have a significant direct negative impact on green economic efficiency, which is not conducive to green growth. 2. Expanding the scale of foreign trade in Central China will stimulate industries agglomerate to big cities and promote the level of industrial specialization within the region, which will have indirect negative impacts on green economic efficiency. 3. Foreign trade in Central China will improve the policy environment for industrial development, then have an indirect positive impact on green economic efficiency, whereas its impact on technological innovation is not significant. 4. Impact of foreign trade in different cities in Central China on green economic efficiency are heterogeneous from the perspective of spatial heterogeneity and from the perspective of city characteristic heterogeneity, and when environmental regulation exceeds a certain threshold, the negative impact of foreign trade on green economic efficiency will turn to positive. Policy implications are proposed.

Can the dual-rating regulation improve the rating quality of Chinese corporate bonds?

We developed a dual-reputational rating shopping model to introduce public and institutional reputations. Investor’s and regulator’s penalty rates are described as public and institutional reputations, respectively. We achieved the available conditions of single-rating and dual-rating regulations to prevent rating inflation in this model. To examine the regulatory effects of different types of regulations on Chinese corporate bond ratings, we utilize panel ordered logit models. Theoretical analysis and empirical tests show that, when the reputation effect is low, the single-rating regulation is better at improving rating quality, and when the reputation effect is high, the dual-rating regulation induces rating agencies to provide more accurate ratings. Compared to the regulatory effects of the single-rating and the multi-rating regulations, the dual-rating regulation most effectively improves the rating quality of corporate bonds and prevents rating inflation.

EU Membership Eligibility in Statistical and Comparative Perspective

This chapter offers various empirical tests of competing arguments regarding the factors that shape a regional community’s decision-making on the membership eligibility of non-member states. It introduces a new dataset of 48 cases where the EU made a decision on the membership eligibility of a non-member state between 1957 and 2017. It then tests the explanatory power of the various theories introduced in the previous chapter using three, complementary analytical methods—cross tabulation, logistic regression, and qualitative comparative analysis. All three methods support the conclusion that membership norms have a more consistent impact on EU decision-making than familiar explanatory factors such as the commercial and security interests of member states.

Detection of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement Presence in Asphalt Mixtures Using a Method of Successive Asphalt Binder Extraction

The work deals with the detection of presence of RAP (reclaimed asphalt pavement) in asphalt mixtures. Information about the presence of RAP in an asphalt layer can be technically advantageous, for example, when planning further recycling of the layer. The method described in the paper can also be used to verify the success of a treatment of an aged binder in RAP, which is dosed in the production of new asphalt mixtures. The asphalt binder was obtained by a method of successive extraction from asphalt mixtures with different RAP content. Basic empirical tests of the asphalt binder (needle penetration and softening point) were chosen to detect the presence of RAP. The complex shear modulus G* was further determined on the extracted binders using a dynamic shear rheometer (DSR).

Linked supergenes underlie split sex ratio and social organization in an ant

Sexually reproducing organisms usually invest equally in male and female offspring. Deviations from this pattern have led researchers to new discoveries in the study of parent–offspring conflict, genomic conflict, and cooperative breeding. Some social insect species exhibit the unusual population-level pattern of split sex ratio, wherein some colonies specialize in the production of future queens and others specialize in the production of males. Theoretical work predicted that worker control of sex ratio and variation in relatedness asymmetry among colonies would cause each colony to specialize in the production of one sex. While some empirical tests supported theoretical predictions, others deviated from them, leaving many questions about how split sex ratio emerges. One factor yet to be investigated is whether colony sex ratio may be influenced by the genotypes of queens or workers. Here, we sequence the genomes of 138 Formica glacialis workers from 34 male-producing and 34 gyne-producing colonies to determine whether split sex ratio is under genetic control. We identify a supergene spanning 5.5 Mbp that is closely associated with sex allocation in this system. Strikingly, this supergene is adjacent to another supergene spanning 5 Mbp that is associated with variation in colony queen number. We identify a similar pattern in a second related species, Formica podzolica. The discovery that split sex ratio is determined, at least in part, by a supergene in two species opens future research on the evolutionary drivers of split sex ratio.

A theoretical analysis on a peace culture model in the workplace

This study aims to develop a theoretical approach to define the culture of peace and its dimensions in the workplace based on De-Rivera’s peace culture dimensions at the international level. This study offers an organizational model in the workplace and it needs empirical tests in further studies. This paper is an attempt to develop a theoretical framework for peace culture in the workplace. Peace culture will be analyzed in four underlying dimensions: liberal development, violent inequality, state use of violent means, and nurturance. This study transfers De Rivera’s peace culture dimensions into the organizational level, and it is assumed that peace culture in the workplace could be a remedy for a harmonious and peaceful workplace. Peace culture in the workplace is also expected to be a beneficial factor to employees’ behavior, job performances, and organizational commitment as well as work outcomes. In a conclusion, it is expected that this study fills the gap in the literature and will have a leading role for further studies