Evolving Learning: The Changing Effect of Internet Access on Political Knowledge and Engagement (1998–2012)

This study addresses the changing role of Internet usage on the political knowledge and participation gap between individuals of low and high socioeconomic status (SES). Analysis of data collected by the Pew Research Center's Biennial Media Consumption Studies (1998–2012) shows that the percentage of the population that accidentally encounters political information online has risen dramatically. Results show that accidental exposure and SES are positively related to political knowledge, and that accidental exposure reduces the SES knowledge gap. Moreover, accidental exposure appears to be mitigating the SES voting gap at an increasing rate over time.     

Cajoling or coercing: would electoral engineering resolve the young citizen–state disconnect?

The relationships between citizens and their states are undergoing significant stresses across advanced liberal democracies. In Britain, this disconnect is particularly evident amongst young citizens. This article considers whether different electoral engineering methods – designed either to cajole or compel youth to vote – might arrest the decline in their political engagement. Data collected in 2011 from a national survey of 1025 British 18-year-olds and from focus groups involving 86 young people reveal that many young people claim that they would be more likely to vote in future elections if such electoral reforms were implemented. However, it is questionable whether or not such increased electoral participation would mean that they would feel truly connected to the democratic process. In particular, forcing young people to vote through the introduction of compulsory voting may actually serve to reinforce deepening resentments, rather than engage them in a positive manner.     

Differences in registering and voting between native-born and naturalized Americans

Relatively little is known about the differences in voting behavior between immigrantsand native-born Americans, primarily due to a lack of good quality data on the national level. Using data from the Voting and Registration Supplement to the November 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS), we examine whether variables known to affect electoral participation among the citizen population are also important among naturalized citizens. We find that naturalized citizens are less likely to register and to vote than native-born citizens, net of other factors. Citizens born abroad in Europe, Latin America, and Asia are less likely to register and those born abroad in Europe and Asia are less likely to vote than those born in the U.S. Among naturalized citizens, region of origin does not remain a major explanatory variable once time in the U.S. is considered.     

法律环境、金字塔结构与家族企业的“掏空”行为

我国家族上市公司的最终控制人多数采用金字塔结构实现对上市公司的超额控制,现金流量权和控制权的分离程度较为严重。以2002-2004年家族上市公司为研究样本,论文实证考察了家族上市公司所处地区的法律环境及金字塔结构与"掏空"行为之间的关系。研究结果表明,控制性家族"掏空"上市公司的概率与其拥有的现金流量权显著负相关,与现金流量权和控制权的分离程度正相关;同时,较高的法治水平能够有效地遏制控制性家族的"掏空"行为。因此,建立一个有效的股东权利保护机制,同时完善家族上市公司的现金流量权和控制权结构,对于推进公司治理具有重要意义。     

试析证券行业慢走规则的法律责任

近年来，证券行业违规举牌的现象层出不穷，中小投资者的利益难以得到切实保护，上市公司也因此常常暴露在被野蛮入侵的风险之下。《证券法》第86条、《上市公司收购管理办法》第13条、第14条虽然对慢走规则进行了规定，但由于我国目前关于慢走规则法律责任方面的立法存在缺失，导致该规定形同虚设，违规举牌行为屡禁不止，明确慢走规则的法律责任迫在眉睫。当前，我国立法领域可以借鉴域外国家的相关立法，通过对投资者违规增持的股份在一定期限内限制表决权、对违规者按照违规持有股份的一定比例处以罚款、对目标公司通过诉讼途径获取赔偿予以规范化等措施，进一步明确慢走规则的法律责任，在一定程度上保护中小股东的利益。     

Imagining class: A study into material social class position,subjective identification,and voting behavior across Europe

The traditional approach to class voting has largely ignored the question whether material class positions coincide with subjective class identification. Following Sosnaud et al. (2013), this study evaluates party preferences when Europeans’ material and subjective social class do not coincide. Seminal studies on voting behavior have suggested that members of lower classes are more likely to vote for the economic left and cultural right and that higher classes demonstrate the opposite pattern. Yet, these studies have on the one hand overlooked the possibility that there is a mismatch between the material class people can be classified in and the class they think they are part of, and on the other hand the consequences of this discordant class identification on voting behavior. Analyzing the 2009 wave of the European Elections Study, we find that the majority of the Europeans discordantly identify with the middle class, whereas only a minority of the lower and higher classes concordantly identify with their material social class. Further, material class only seems to predict economic voting behavior when it coincides with subjective class; for instance, individuals who have an inflated class identification are more likely to vote for the economic left, even when they materially can be classified as middle or high class. We conclude this paper with a discussion on scholarly debates concerning class and politics.     

The generalized Poisson-binomial distribution and the computation of its distribution function

The Poisson-binomial distribution is useful in many applied problems in engineering, actuarial science and data mining. The Poisson-binomial distribution models the distribution of the sum of independent but non-identically distributed random indicators whose success probabilities vary. In this paper, we extend the Poisson-binomial distribution to a generalized Poisson-binomial (GPB) distribution. The GPB distribution corresponds to the case where the random indicators are replaced by two-point random variables, which can take two arbitrary values instead of 0 and 1 as in the case of random indicators. The GPB distribution has found applications in many areas such as voting theory, actuarial science, warranty prediction and probability theory. As the GPB distribution has not been studied in detail so far, we introduce this distribution first and then derive its theoretical properties. We develop an efficient algorithm for the computation of its distribution function, using the fast Fourier transform. We test the accuracy of the developed algorithm by comparing it with enumeration-based exact method and the results from the binomial distribution. We also study the computational time of the algorithm under various parameter settings. Finally, we discuss the factors affecting the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm and illustrate the use of the software package.     

家族控制、两权分离与债务期限结构选择——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

本文利用我国2002-2008年家族控制上市公司数据,在控制相关变量下,从债务代理成本视角经验检查在中国债权人法律保护较弱的背景中,终极控制股东(家族)是否影响公司债务期限结构。本文提供的经验证据表明,终极控制股东显著影响公司债务期限结构。具体而言:(1)终极控制股东的控制权越大,公司具有显著低的长期债务水平;(2)终极控制股东的控制权与现金流量权分离度与公司债务期限显著负相关;(3)终极控制股东在上市公司中指派高管与公司债务期限显著负相关。     

公司累计投票制的性质、价值及其实现——基于对《公司法》第106条的分析

累积投票制作为一种投票机制,其在立法上的确立有助于提高中小股东选出代表其利益的董事或监事的可能性,从而有效制衡控股股东的滥权行为.但这仅仅是一种可能性的提高,并不意味着必然选出代表中小股东利益之董事和监事.而要实现该制度的价值和可能性的提高,有待于完善股东参与机制,引导股权适度分散,吸引股东积极参与选举管理者的投票,从而提高中小股东选出代表自己利益的管理者的可能性,实现中小股东对控股股东在公司治理层面的制衡.     

and R control charts based on weighted variance with left-right tail-weighted ratio for skewed distributions

The study proposed the average and range control charts by considering the generalized lambda distribution, the percentile-based method, and the weighted variance with left-right tail-weighted ratio for skewed populations. When the underlying distribution is Weibull, Burr, gamma, lognormal, or inverse Gaussian, the proposed control charts have Type I risks, which are closer to 0.27% of the normal distribution, and they do not rapidly vary with sample sizes and the shape of a distribution. Type II risks of the proposed control charts are closer to those of the exact charts than to those of the skewness correction and weighted variance charts.