An Analysis of the Determinants of the Changes in China’s Foreign Exchange Reserves’ Nominal and Real Rates of Return

We use decomposition and regression to examine the reasons for the changes in nominal and real rates of return of China’s foreign exchange reserves between 2002 and 2009. The results show that the US financial market risk premium is the most important determinant of changes in the nominal rate of return, while the US dollar exchange rate and the bulk commodity price are the two key determinants of changes in the real rate of return. From empirically based research, one may conclude that the loose monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve increases China’s foreign exchange reserves’ nominal rate of return but decreases the real rate of return and that the European debt crisis has an uncertain impact on China’s foreign exchange reserves’ nominal rate of return but may well raise the real rate of return.     

COI Policies: Tax Dollars Should Not Be Used to Fund U.S. Institutions Not Making the Grade

Over two billion dollars was awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in research funding from 2010 to March 2012 to institutions receiving a grade of “C,” “D,” or “F” on their conflict of interest policies, as determined by the American Medical Student Association's scorecard on conflict of interest policies. More institutional oversight is needed with regard to assuring conflict of interest policies at U.S. research institutions are adequate. As stewards of public funds, HHS should require a minimum standard which institutional conflict of interest policies should meet, beyond current regulatory requirements, before granting funding.     

Moral Disengagement in the Corporate World

We analyze mechanisms of moral disengagement used to eliminate moral consequences by industries whose products or production practices are harmful to human health. Moral disengagement removes the restraint of self-censure from harmful practices. Moral self-sanctions can be selectively disengaged from harmful activities by investing them with socially worthy purposes, sanitizing and exonerating them, displacing and diffusing responsibility, minimizing or disputing harmful consequences, making advantageous comparisons, and disparaging and blaming critics and victims. Internal industry documents and public statements related to the research activities of these industries were coded for modes of moral disengagement by the tobacco, lead, vinyl chloride (VC), and silicosis-producing industries. All but one of the modes of moral disengagement were used by each of these industries. We present possible safeguards designed to protect the integrity of research.     

An Analysis of Toxicology and Medical Journal Conflict-of-Interest Polices

Basic science and medical journals are increasingly requiring authors to disclose financial interests they have in the subject matter of contributed articles and letters. A comparison of journal conflict-of-interest (COI) policies can provide insight into published reports of low compliance rates and inconsistencies in disclosures by the same author found in different journals. The objective of this article is to compare the criteria, specificity, and scope of COI polices in toxicology and medical journals. We studied the COI policies of 47 toxicology and 180 medical journals catalogued in Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory for criteria of competing interests, types of submissions covered, monetary or time thresholds for reporting, and penalties for violations. Indicators were constructed for rating policy specificity, author discretion, and policy scope.

Written COI policies were found in 87% if the toxicology and 84% of the medical journals; 15% and 28% of the toxicology and medical journals, respectively, were explicit about the type of content covered by the policy; 20% and 29%, respectively, included a monetary threshold for reporting purposes; the level of author discretion for reporting COIs was found to be high in 46% of the toxicology and 41% of the medical journals respectively. The level of specificity for more than 75% of the written journal COI policies for both fields was minimal or practically nil, and the scope of more than 80% of the policies was minimal to narrow. Lack of specificity, high author discretion, and restricted scope were found to be prevalent among COI policies of toxicology and medical journals.     

国外农业金融机构的发展与启示

建设社会主义新农村需要加大对农业项目的资金投入,解决农民贷款难的问题。文章着重研究了国外农业信贷机构的发展历程与现状,详细阐述了他们在发展中遇到问题后不同的解决方案和效果,在理论和案例的综合分析下,力求为中国农村发展所面临的资金约束寻求一种新的思路,以促进我国农村信贷市场的繁荣与发展。     

“公共利益”之界定

"公共利益"是当代各国宪法和法律中常见的概念,我国宪法第二十条和第二十二条修正案分别规定了:"国家为了公共利益的需要,可以依照法律规定对土地实行征收或者征用并给予补偿。"公民的合法的私有财产不受侵犯。"国家依照法律规定保护公民的私有财产权和继承权。"国家为了公共利益的需要,可以依照法律规定对公民的私有财产实行征收或者征用并给予补偿。"但我国宪法和相关法律并没有对"公共利益"作出解释;理论界至今也没有完整而权威的界定,甚至在国际公法学界也找不到精准的诠释,造成实践中"公共利益"的滥用。通过综述各种有代表性的研究成果,可以找出其中共性的结论,为描述我国宪法条文中的"公共利益"含义,以及限制其随意使用提供借鉴和佐证具有重要意义。     

股东的异质性对传统公司治理理论的挑战

公司治理日益成为全球市场经济国家共同面对的问题,在西方发达国家逐渐成为企业理论的一个核心问题。以管理者理论和代理理论为代表的传统公司治理理论虽然成果显著,但却存在一个主要的缺陷：忽略了股东的异质性。传统公司治理理论只关注了所有者和经营者之间存在的利益冲突,而忽略了所有者之间可能的利益冲突。与此相适应,传统公司治理理论只注重对经营者机会主义行为或道德风险行为的研究,而舍弃了对所有者机会主义行为的研究。而在我国的上市公司,因股东异质性导致的股东之间利益冲突表现得非常突出。股东的异质性为不同股东之间的利益冲突提供了分析的平台。     

The contribution of media consumption to civic participation

A national UK survey (N = 1017) examined the association between media consumption and three indicators of civic participation - likelihood of voting, interest in politics, and actions taken in response to a public issue of concern to the respondent. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the variance explained by media use variables after first controlling for demographic, social and political predictors of each indicator of participation. Media use significantly added to explaining variance in civic participation as follows. In accounting for voting, demographic and political/social factors mattered, but so too did some media habits (listening to the radio and engagement with the news). Interest in politics was accounted for by political/social factors and by media use, especially higher news engagement and lower media trust. However, taking action on an issue of concern was accounted for only by political/social factors, with the exception that slightly fewer actions were taken by those who watched more television. These findings provided little support for the media malaise thesis, and instead were interpreted as providing qualified support for the cognitive/motivational theory of news as a means of engaging the public.     

Hidden Consumer Loans: An Analysis of Implicit Interest Rates on Bounced Checks

Payday lending attracts attention for its high interest rates, but bounce protection loans are much more expensive. Bounce protection is a program where consumers overdraft—write checks in excess of the checking account balance—and the bank pays the check allowing the account balance to be negative. For this service/loan, banks charge the standard non-sufficient funds (NSF) fee. When the amount borrowed is low and the time outstanding is short, the effective interest rate paid on this loan can be quite high. Using a unique data set we were able to quantify how high the interest rate is. We found that the median implicit interest paid by consumers is over 4,000%.