The determinants of top management pay

Agency theory argues that companies need to structure their top management pay so as to attract, retain, motivate, and reward senior executives. It is implicit in this literature that managers should be rewarded for performance and that company size should not be a significant determinant of compensation. Empirical evidence in many countries has concluded, however, that size is a major determinant of management remuneration and the pay-for-performance link is very weak. This study examines the determinants of senior executives’ remuneration and bonus payments in Hong Kong companies using recently available data. We examine both the level of pay and changes in pay. Corporate size is found to be a major explanator of remuneration levels and of changes in the pay of the CEO and executive directors. Accounting profitability is also a significant explanator of compensation. Performance, as measured by stock returns, has little or no statistically significant relationship with pay; in fact, some of the results show negative relationships. Some share ownership characteristics have influences on the levels of remuneration. In particular, share ownership by directors and share ownership by institutional investors moderate the compensation levels. In contrast, corporate governance variables have little association with change in pay. Overall, the results imply agency arguments that advocate pay-for-performance compensation schemes are not major factors in setting top management remuneration in Hong Kong.     

Universal supplier selection via multi-dimensional auction mechanisms for two-way competition in oligopoly market of supply chain

Allocation of the tasks in competitive market conditions at each echelon of the supply chain is an important activity in the supply chain. The task allocation problem, referred to as supply chain formation process, normally faces information asymmetry in the supply chain. The information asymmetry is caused by rational and intelligent players trying to maximize their own profit rather than opt for the supply chain profit as a whole. Thus, the process of allocating tasks in such situations becomes difficult and will result in externalities in the supply chain trades. These externalities can be internalized with present methodologies in the literature. In this paper, the major internalization methods in different contexts are considered. Lagrange relaxation and Vickery Clarke Groves (VCG) auction mechanism are explored in order to form a supply chain. This paper proposes the multi-stage auction mechanism analyzing two-way competitions, a Bertrand and Cournot competition where price per unit and quantity are the underlying two parameters in a utility analysis. To analyze the problem in real life, the industry example of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd. (IRCTC) procurement process has been taken which demonstrates the usability of the proposed framework.     

终身教育发展：财税激励及政策取向

为研究现行税收政策对我国终身教育发展的激励作用,采用文献法和比较分析法对现行税收政策扶持与促进终身教育发展进行定性研究,对现行税收激励政策在促进和鼓励终身教育发展中取得的积极作用以及存在的问题与不足进行评析。由此说明,财税政策对支持终身教育有促进与激励作用。同时,运用财税政策调控工具激励我国终身教育的持续发展,进而针对性提出支持我国终身教育发展的财税激励政策建议。     

Role of Random Capacity Risk and the Retailer in Decentralized Supply Chains with Competing Suppliers

This research considers a supply chain under the following conditions: (i) two heterogeneous suppliers are in competition, (ii) supply capacity is random and pricing is endogenous, (iii) consumer demand, with and without an intermediate retailer, is price dependent. Specifically, we examine how uncertainty in supply capacity affects optimal ordering and pricing decisions, supplier and retailer profits, and the incentives to reduce such uncertainty. When two suppliers sell through a monopolistic retailer, supply uncertainty not only affects the retailer's diversification strategy for replenishment, but also changes the suppliers’ wholesale price competition and the incentive for reducing capacity uncertainty. In this dual‐sourcing model, we show that the benefit of reducing capacity uncertainty depends on the cost heterogeneity between the suppliers. In addition, we show that a supplier does not necessarily benefit from capacity variability reduction. We contrast this incentive misalignment with findings from the single‐supplier case and a supplier‐duopoly case where both suppliers sell directly to market without the monopolistic retailer. In the latter single‐supplier and duopoly cases, we prove that the unreliable supplier always benefits from reducing capacity variability. These results highlight the role of the retailer's diversification strategy in distorting a supplier's incentive for reducing capacity uncertainty under supplier price competition.     

Price Incentives and Coordination in a Two‐Product Decentralized Supply Chain

We investigate pricing incentives for competing retailers who distribute two variants of a manufacturer's product in a decentralized supply chain. Under a two‐dimensional Hotelling model, we derive decentralized retailers' prices for the products, and distortions in pricing when compared to centrally optimal prices. We show that price distortions decrease as consumers' travel cost between retailers increases, due to less intense competition. However, price distortions do not change monotonically in consumers' switching cost between products within stores. To fix decentralized retailers' price distortions, we construct a two‐part pricing contract that coordinates the supply chain. We show that the coordinating contract is Pareto‐improving and analyze increase in the supply chain profit under coordination.     

不对称信息下第三方物流中的委托代理分析

第三方物流中物流服务外包方与物流服务提供商之间的关系是一种委托代理关系.本文运用委托代理理论,通过第三方物流中物流服务外包方与物流服务提供商之间委托代理关系的讨论,分析了非对称信息下第三方物流的委托代理问题及最优激励选择问题.并通过第三方物流最优激励拓展分析,进一步探讨了第三方物流最优激励合同的影响因素,提出了建立物流服务提供商最优激励的政策建议.     

经理人激励的细分: 隐藏行动、努力成本和风险厌恶

本文研究经理人隐藏行动、努力成本和风险厌恶态度对经理人激励的影响.本文的研究基于标准委托人-代理人模型,但放松其关于经理人行动不能影响企业风险的假定,而采用更接近现实的假定--企业风险至少部分内生于经理人的行动.通过研究,本文将经理人激励明确细分类为努力增进激励(βeffort激励)和追求风险激励(βrisk激励)两类.为实现βeffort激励,经理人报酬只需是企业业绩的线性函数即可;但为实现βrisk激励,经理人报酬应是企业业绩的凸函数.     

Participation in biodiversity conservation: Motivations and barriers of Australian landholders

Biodiversity conservation programs that appeal to landholders’ motivations and minimise their barriers to participation may result in both increased uptake rates and improved ecological outcomes. To understand their motivations and barriers to conserve biodiversity, qualitative interviews were conducted with 45 landholders who had participated in one of three different programs in Queensland, Australia. The results revealed that the landholders’ decisions to participate depended on the level of formal biodiversity protection offered by the program, potential changes to their property rights, personal benefits of participation, and the program objectives. Landholders’ motivations related to conservation, production, financial and experimental imperatives. Common barriers to participation were lost productivity, different interpretations of what constituted “conservation”, and limits to future development and land use options. Voluntary and economic policy instruments can be used to stimulate participation and overcome barriers, but must be applied with care to reduce the creation of perverse ecological outcomes, such as slippage and low additionality.     

论会展企业的风险管理

实施风险管理来减少风险给会展企业所带来的损失,是目前会展旅游管理研究的薄弱环节。文章在借鉴其它行业理论的基础上,建立了会展企业的风险模型,并对其风险识别、风险评估、风险防范进行了分析,提出了相关措施,期望能对会展企业的风险防范有一定的指导作用。     

Options Contracts with Overbooking in the Air Cargo Industry

In today's world economy, which is marked by intensified international trade, air cargo acts as a key facilitator. However, cargo airlines continue to struggle to be profitable because of very high asset costs and substantial demand uncertainty. To improve upon this situation, we propose an options contract. Our model captures the main features of cargo trade between an airline and a freight forwarder and allows us to derive an optimal reservation policy. We then go on to analyze the impact of overbooking on the profit of the cargo capacity provider. The model is subsequently applied to real‐life booking data provided by a major cargo carrier. This enables us to compare current contractual arrangements with the ones proven optimal in the model. A numerical study provides insights about the impact of overbooking on contract parameters and profitability. Managerial insights to be drawn conclude this study.