Impact of inflated perceptions of financial literacy on financial decision making

We examine whether inflated perceptions of financial literacy affect financial decision making. Gaps between objective financial literacy and self-reported (perceived) financial literacy (blind spots) predict 19 financial behaviors better than age, gender, income, ethnicity, marital status, self-employment status, and general education levels. Only two predictors, perceived financial literacy and financial education, carried similar levels of predictive power on financial behaviors. Those with inflated perceptions of financial literacy are more likely to miss mortgage payments, receive a collection call, use informal debt, and have poor banking behavior. Those without blind spots make better financial decisions. The differences between those with and without blind spots are more pronounced among individuals with higher education and income.     

Does employee welfare affect corporate debt maturity?

This study examines the effect of employee well-being on the corporate debt maturity structure of U.S. firms. It hypothesizes that a firm's degree of commitment to employee welfare affects its debt maturity structure. Using a sample of 19,347 firm-year observations over the period 1991–2014, we find evidence that firms with higher employee welfare scores prefer long-term debt over short-term debt. This relationship is more pronounced for firms operating in human-capital-intensive industries and firms with lower labor union-membership rate. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and insensitive to the use of alternative regression methods, variable measurements, and sample compositions. This paper provides novel evidence on the role of employment policies and practices in explaining variations in debt maturity.     

Model averaging procedure for varying-coefficient partially linear models with missing responses

This paper is concerned with model averaging procedure for varying-coefficient partially linear models with missing responses. The profile least-squares estimation process and inverse probability weighted method are employed to estimate regression coefficients of the partially restricted models, in which the propensity score is estimated by the covariate balancing propensity score method. The estimators of the linear parameters are shown to be asymptotically normal. Then we develop the focused information criterion, formulate the frequentist model averaging estimators and construct the corresponding confidence intervals. Some simulation studies are conducted to examine the finite sample performance of the proposed methods. We find that the covariate balancing propensity score improves the performance of the inverse probability weighted estimator. We also demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model averaging estimators over those of existing strategies in terms of mean squared error and coverage probability. Finally, our approach is further applied to a real data example.     

0-3岁幼儿音乐肢体能力分析与对策

0-3岁幼儿能力的发展在人的一生中非常的重要，人的运动神经是非常的复杂，目前部分早教机构由于对幼儿音乐肢体能力特点认识的欠缺导致幼儿律动课程的设计远离幼儿律动的“最近发展区”,笔者通过近四个月的调研搜集数据，分析了0-3幼儿肢体能力的特点，并提出了三点研究策略，以求为今后0-3幼儿音乐肢体能力发展尽微薄之力。     

An agency approach to debt maturity of unlisted and listed firms in the European setting

This study analyses the debt maturity of two groups of companies – unlisted and listed – throughout the period 2005–2013. The research takes an agency costs approach to explore the determinants of firms' debt maturity structure for a set of five countries, chosen for being representative of the European Union (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom). Agency costs, as well as institutional and macroeconomic factors, turn out to be decisive in explaining firms’ financial policies regarding debt maturity, during the economic crisis that started in 2007–2008. Our findings indicate that contracting costs had a greater impact on unlisted firms during the post-crisis subperiod than on their listed counterparts. Additionally, the economic effect of this has been estimated, corroborating the overall findings of the study.     

China’s development of a multi‐tier pension system

China has made a number of major changes to its pension system in the period 2014–2020, and is in the process of establishing a multi‐tier old‐age pension system, consisting of programmes provided by the government, voluntary programmes provided by enterprises, and voluntary programmes established by individuals. Policy objectives are to reduce the fragmentation in its pension system; deal with population ageing; and diversify risks by involving the government, enterprises as well as individuals. This article shows that while China has a complex system for urban workers, the coverage provided by its multi‐tier system is uneven, with the second and third tiers being in the early stages of development.     

重庆三峡库区3-6岁幼儿体质现状及影响因素

幼儿阶段是人体快速生长发育的阶段，也是形成良好体质的基础阶段，特别是3-6岁幼儿的体质状况与我国未来国民体质强弱有密切关系。但是，我国3-6岁幼儿体质现状并不乐观，出现这一问题的原因涉及环境、政策、家庭、幼教等多个因素，解决幼儿体质问题显得尤为迫切。本文将从国内外3-6岁幼儿体质研究概况出发，对重庆三峡库区幼儿体质现状作初步探析，并分析影响三峡库区3-6岁幼儿体质的因素，希望能提供一定帮助。     

Self-control and financial risk taking

We report two studies investigating the role of self-control in risky financial decision-making, operationalized as incentivized lottery task decisions. Study 1 (N = 529) investigated the link between propensity to take financial risks and trait self-control. Study 2 (N = 321) examined whether reflecting on one’s prior successes and failures in exercising self-control has an impact on subsequent risky financial decision-making. Study 1 identified a negative link between self-control and financial risk-taking, and Study 2 found that reflecting on self-control successes lowered people’s propensity to take financial risks, while reflecting on self-control failures made people more prone to take financial risks.     

SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE BOARDROOM

This paper provides evidence that social networks strongly affect board composition and are detrimental to corporate governance. Our empirical investigation relies on a large data set of executives and outside directors of French public firms. This data source is a matched employer–employee data set that provides detailed information on directors/CEOs as well as information about the firm employing them. We find a strong and robust correlation between the CEO's network and that of his directors. Networks of former high‐ranking civil servants are the most active in shaping board composition. Our identification strategy takes into account not only firm and directors’ fixed effects but also the matching of firms and director in terms of one observable and one unobservable characteristic. Turning to the direct effects of such network activity, we find that firms in which these networks are most active pay their CEOs more, are less likely to replace a CEO who underperforms, and engage in less value‐creating acquisitions. These findings suggest that social networks are active in the boardroom and have detrimental effects on firms’ governance.     

SEPARATING MORAL HAZARD FROM ADVERSE SELECTION AND LEARNING IN AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE

The identification of information problems in different markets is a challenging issue in the economic literature. In this paper, we study the identification of moral hazard from adverse selection and learning about risk within the context of a multi‐period dynamic model. We extend the model of Abbring, Chiappori, and Pinquet (2003, Journal of the European Economic Association, 1, 767–820) to include learning about risk and insurance coverage choice over time. We derive testable empirical implications for panel data. We then perform tests using longitudinal data from France during the period 1995–1997. We find evidence of moral hazard among a sub‐group of policyholders with less driving experience (less than 15 years). Policyholders with fewer than five years of experience have a combination of learning about risk and moral hazard, whereas no residual information problem is found for policyholders with more than 15 years of experience.