The effect of public involvement on firm inefficiency: evidence using Japanese private firms

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of public involvement on firm inefficiency. Public involvement is defined as the actions taken by governments to control firm management, as expressed in regulation and public ownership. We make the following three contributions. First, we show public involvement is an important determinant of the inefficiency of private firms. Although public involvement has been shown to influence firm behavior in public or regulated sectors, existing studies in the private sector tend to ignore its effects. Second, we analyze firm inefficiency rather than firm performance by focusing on cost factors. Previous work tends to use performance measures such as return on assets or return on equity rather than inefficiency measures to judge a firm’s management level. Performance measures are problematic, however, in that they are affected by not only cost factors but also demand factors. Therefore, we must separate these factors when we analyze a firm’s management. Third, we use a stochastic cost frontier model for the estimation. Although this is a suitable approach for estimating firm inefficiency, it is rarely used for private firms. Our results suggest that public ownership increases firm inefficiency while regulation decreases firm inefficiency. It is also clear that the effect of public ownership is not significant in the manufacturing industry, while it is strongly significant in the nonmanufacturing industry. This shows the importance of studying the effect of public involvement in the private sector.     

Exploratory data analysis for counts using the empirical probability generating function 1

We present a graphical method based on the empirical probability generating function for preliminary statistical analysis of distributions for counts. The method is especially useful in fitting a Poisson model, or for identifying alternative models as well as possible outlying observations from general discrete distributions.     

Estimating the case fatality rate using a constant cure-death hazard ratio

The case fatality rate is an important indicator of the severity of a disease, and unbiased and accurate estimates of it during an outbreak are important in the study of epidemic diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In this paper, estimation methods are developed using a constant cure-death hazard ratio. A semiparametric model is presented, in which the cure-death hazard ratio is a parameter of interest, and a profile likelihood-based technique is proposed for estimating the case fatality rate. An extensive simulation was carried out to investigate the performance of this technique for small and medium sample sizes, using both summary and individual data. The results show that the performance depends on the model validity but is not heavily dependent on the sample size. The method was applied to summary SARS data obtained from Hong Kong and Singapore.     

A model of regression lines through a common point: estimation of the focal point in wind-blown sand phenomena

This paper discusses a model in which the regression lines will be passing through a common point. This point exists as a focal point in the wind-blown sand phenomena. The model of regression lines will be called ‘the focal point regression model’. The focal point will move according to the conditions of the experiments or the measurement site, so it must be estimated together with regression coefficients. The existence of the focal point is mathematically proved in the research field of coastal engineering, but its physical meaning and exact estimation method have not been established. Considering the experimental and/or measurement conditions, five models, that is, common or different error variance(s), passing through or not the centroid and Bayes-like approach are proposed. Moreover, the formulae of direct computation for a focal point under some conditions are given for engineering purpose. The models are applied to the wind-blown sand data, and behaviors of the models are verified by numerical experiments.     

建立亚洲人权保障机制的尝试

通过介绍建立人权保障机制的开端、有关“路线图”的提案、工作进展、移民劳动者权利的保护、国内人权委员会的合作、东盟宪章的通过等内容,论述了东盟人权保护机制的现有进展情况．在此基础上,还介绍了南亚地区合作联盟的人权条约与社会宪章等内容,最终对东北亚人权保障机制的建设提出了展望。     

论中国的“日本词”研究

文章对中国学者关于日本词的研究作了系统评述。论文共分三部分。第一部分论夏承焘先生对日本词的关注与评述;第二部分论中国词学家对日本词的评价;第三部分对中国的三部涉及日本词的选本即《域外词选》、《日本词选》、《日本三家词笺注》分别作了论述。     

汉文《地球说略》在日本的出版与传播

美国传教士在中国传教期间翻译编著了一些宗教书籍和科普书籍,对中国人认识世界提供了一定的基本理论和基本知识。这些汉文西洋科学译书传入日本后,便以和刻本方式翻刻或译述传播开来,在日本普及了科学知识。《地球说略》作为世界地理学的入门书籍曾被日本人广泛地阅读,成为深受欢迎的地理书籍和介绍西洋情况的书籍。     

Managerial incentive, organizational slack, and performance: empirical analysis of Japanese firms’ behavior

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how organizational slack is created and how it affects a firm’s performance. To address these questions, we construct three equations: managerial incentive function, organizational slack formation function and performance function, and we apply 3SLS simultaneously to these functions by using the data sets of 2,791 Japanese firms from the years 2001 and 2006. From the empirical analysis of these Japanese firms, we obtain the following results: a firm’s performance declines as organizational slack increases; organizational slack is affected by annual change rate of revenues but not by managerial incentive; managerial incentive decreases as a firm’s performance improves while it increases as the structure of corporate governance is strengthened.