Generic Assessment Endpoints Are Needed for Ecological Risk Assessment

This article presents arguments for the development of generic assessment endpoints for ecological risk assessment. Generic assessment endpoints would be ecological entities and attributes that are assumed to be worthy of protection in most contexts. The existence of generic assessment endpoints would neither create a requirement that they be used in every assessment nor preclude the use of other assessment endpoints. They would simply be a starting point in the process of identifying the assessment endpoints for a particular assessment. They are needed to meet legal mandates, to provide a floor for environmental degradation, to provide some consistency in environmental regulation, as exemplars for site- or project-specific assessment endpoints, to allow development of methods and models, to give risk managers the courage to act, for screening and site-independent assessments, to support environmental monitoring, to facilitate communication, and to avoid paralysis by analysis. Generic assessment endpoints should include not only a list of entities and attributes, but also explanations of each endpoint, guidance on their use and interpretation, and measures and models that could be used to estimate them.     

机构投资者调研与企业投融资期限配置

以短期资金支持长期投资的期限错配现象普遍存在于企业中,成为影响企业持续发展的重要因素。基于2013—2020年中国深交所上市公司机构投资者调研等数据,对企业投融资及期限配置行为进行了实证检验。研究发现,在投资端,机构投资者调研改善了企业投资,激励管理层进行更多长期投资;在融资端,机构投资者调研部分缓解了融资约束问题,使企业获得了更多的短期借款,但仍然无法有效支持企业从银行获得更多长期借款。中介机制检验发现,机构投资者调研能够降低企业信息不对称,提高信息披露质量,从而使企业获得更多的短期借款来部分满足正常投资需求。进一步研究表明,在金融发展水平高的地区、国有企业以及有基金参与调研的企业中,机构投资者调研使企业的投融资期限配置更为合理。因此,政府部门需要进一步深化金融改革,加强对机构调研质量的监督,引导银行等金融机构增加和改善金融供给,从而提高金融对实体经济的服务能力。     

短期资本流动与货币危机

过去10年来,新兴市场频繁爆发货币危机,从1994年的墨西哥Tequila危机,到1997年始于泰国的亚洲危机,1998年的俄罗斯危机,1999年巴西危机,尽管每次危机的原因各不相同,但它们却有一个突出的共同点——危机前伴有大量的私人资本流入,危机时则迅速逆转。资本流动,尤其以银行为中介的短期资本流动表现出巨大的波动性,其与货币危机具有明显的相关关系:短期资本的比率越大,危机的可能性则越大。因此,如果过度依赖短期资本流动,通常会导致货币危机。     

Using the Biological Two-Stage Model to Assess Risk from Short-Term Exposures

Two assumptions used in risk assessment are investigated: (1) the assumption of fraction of lifetime dose rate assumes that the risk from a fractional lifetime exposure at a given dose rate is equal to the risk from full lifetime exposure at that same fraction of the given dose rate; (2) the assumption of fraction of lifetime risk assumes that the risk from a fractional lifetime exposure at a given dose rate is equal to that same fraction of the risk from full lifetime exposure at the same dose rate. These two assumptions are equivalent when risk is a linear function of dose. Thus both can be thought of as generalizations of the assumption that cancer risk is proportional to the total accumulated lifetime dose (or average daily dose), which is often made to assess the risk from short-term exposures. In this paper, the age-specific cumulative hazard functions are derived using the two-stage model developed by Moolgavkar, Venzon, and Knudson for situations when the exposure occurs during a single period or a single instant. The two assumptions described above are examined for three types of carcinogens, initiator, completer, and promoter, in the context of the model. For initiator and completer, these two assumptions are equivalent in the low-dose region; for a promoter, using the fraction of lifetime risk assumption is generally more conservative than that of the fraction of lifetime dose rate assumption. Tables are constructed to show that the use of either the fraction of lifetime dose rate assumption or the fraction lifetime risk assumption can both underestimate and overestimate the true risk for the three types of carcinogens.     

A Bayesian adaptive design for biosimilar trials with time-to-event endpoint

A biosimilar drug is a biological product that is highly similar to and at the same time has no clinically meaningful difference from licensed product in terms of safety, purity, and potency. Biosimilar study design is essential to demonstrate the equivalence between biosimilar drug and reference product. However, existing designs and assessment methods are primarily based on binary and continuous endpoints. We propose a Bayesian adaptive design for biosimilarity trials with time-to-event endpoint. The features of the proposed design are twofold. First, we employ the calibrated power prior to precisely borrow relevant information from historical data for the reference drug. Second, we propose a two-stage procedure using the Bayesian biosimilarity index (BBI) to allow early stop and improve the efficiency. Extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the operating characteristics of the proposed method in contrast with some naive method. Sensitivity analysis and extension with respect to the assumptions are presented.     

A Legal Structure for Limiting the Agency Cost of Stock Rights Transfer

The unilateral disposition of stock rights’ voting rights detracts from the welfare of the other shareholders. Contractual arrangements restricting or prohibiting the transfer of stock rights under the capital majority rule may infringe upon shareholders’ right of withdrawal, further weakening stock market constraints on senior management and indirectly raising the agency cost of management abuse of power for private ends. In creating a legal structure for stock rights transfer, we need to find an appropriate balance between freedom of contract, capital majority rule and reduction of agency costs. Judges should determine that the transfer of voting rights is invalid in order to ensure that voting rights match residual claim rights and maintain the constraints on senior management represented by shareholder voting rights. The general prohibition of stock rights transfer in the articles of association blocks shareholders’ right of withdrawal; this is not conducive to restraining potential abuses of power on the part of senior management and should be made invalid. Judges must differentiate between long- and short-term contracts and the initial and revised clauses of the articles of association in order to distinguish between the efficacy of different arrangements limiting transfer of stock rights as laid down in the articles of association.     

资产价格波动、人民币汇率升值与短期国际资本流动风险防范——基于随机风险溢价KFG理论模型的修正

自2006年以来,我国的资产泡沫严重,研究发现资产价格上涨预期是诱发短期国际资本流动冲击的一个重要因素,严重时会产生金融市场危机风险。基于这样的背景,通过引入资产价格波动变量,修正了Flood引入随机风险溢价的KFG理论模型,分析中国短期国际资本流动触发机制,探究资产价格波动对短期国际资本流动的作用机制。并以此为基础分析中国现有宏观政策对短期国际资本流动风险的作用和政策效果,提出减少投机性国际短期资本流动合理化的政策建议。     

魔法数字7：米勒法则的行为经济学分析:

米勒(1956)提出,人脑同时只能处理7±2个信息团,这一发现被称为米勒法则。虽然学者们对于米勒法则所指的魔法数字究竟是多少仍有争议,但人脑具有短期存储与信息处理限制这一事实已被学者们所公认。根据这一法则,人们在进行偏好排序时有同时处理项目数量的约束,这一约束对消费者进行商品束的偏好排序有着重要影响。本文通过一个两阶段实验证明,超过人脑处理能力限制的偏好排序是不稳定的。由于人脑处理信息能力的限制,消费者只能对有限的数种商品进行排序。这也是许多行为经济学研究所发现但并未合理解释的现象背后的原因。米勒法则在行为经济学上还应有更大的发展和应用。     

基于区间数灰理论的短期经济增长波动研究

多属性区间数排序及决策普遍存在于工程系统及社会经济系统之中,它是决策理论与方法研究的一个重要内容。以往的经济增长波动研究多局限于长周期经济增长波动研究,研究方法多采用统计学相关知识。本文将多属性区间数排序及灰关联度理论结合在一起,通过对基于GDP增长的多属性影响因素来构建多属性波动区间数,并采用灰关联度相关计算算法,应用于国民经济增长的短期波动质量监测,最后通过实证分析来证明这一方法在实践中的价值与意义。     

我国农民工工伤保险立法疑难问题研究——以矿山行业为例

矿山行业是高危行业,然而该行业农民工工伤保险参保率畸低。对农民工工伤保险进行专门立法,是实现法律正义,维持法律秩序的必然要求。在监督方面,应规定监督主体的单一性;在举报制度上,应增设悬赏激励制度,并制订严格的保密措施;针对短期农民工,应规定当月汇报办理工伤保险制度;制定便利的工伤保险异地转移制度等。