Dynamic responses of SO2 pollution to China's environmental inspections.

We evaluate the effect of rotating inspections carried out by China's central government in 2016 to 2017 in response to the country's air pollution crisis on the environmental performance of targeted cities and coal power plants. Using a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) design, we find that during one-month inspections concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) at coal power plants in targeted cities are on average lower by 25 to 52% compared to not-yet-inspected cities but revert by 54 to 62% on average once scrutiny ends. Following inspections, SO2 pollution increases more quickly at state-owned plants accountable to the central government, compared to state-owned plants accountable to the local (city or below) government. Our results suggest that for most plants SO2 concentration changes during inspections may have been due primarily to the operation of end-of-pipe SO2 removal devices, while following inspections local state-owned plants may have reduced output.

The effectiveness of China's regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions.

China has implemented an emission trading system (ETS) to reduce its ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rapid economic growth. With low carbon prices and infrequent allowance trading, whether China's ETS is an effective approach for climate mitigation has entered the center of the policy and research debate. Utilizing China's regional ETS pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of ETS on firm carbon emissions and economic outcomes by means of a matched difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique panel dataset of firm tax records in the manufacturing and public utility sectors during 2009 to 2015. We show unambiguous evidence that the regional ETS pilots are effective in reducing firm emissions, leading to a 16.7% reduction in total emissions and a 9.7% reduction in emission intensity. Regulated firms achieve emission abatement through conserving energy consumption and switching to low-carbon fuels. The economic consequences of the ETS are mixed. On one hand, the ETS has a negative impact on employment and capital input; on the other hand, the ETS incentivizes regulated firms to improve productivity. In the aggregate, the ETS does not exhibit statistically significant effects on output and export. We also find that the ETS displays notable heterogeneity across pilots. Mass-based allowance allocation rules, higher carbon prices, and active allowance trading contribute to more pronounced effects in emission abatement.

Development and validation of a prediction model for consistency of pituitary adenoma: the PiTCon score.

PURPOSE: Pituitary adenomas (PAs) usually have a soft consistency, facilitating gross total resection. However, 5-13% of PAs with fibrous consistency are challenging to remove entirely and are accompanied by greater morbimortality. This study aims to identify the clinical and radiological characteristics that correlate with PA fibrous consistency preoperatively. A simple scoring system has been proposed to predict incidence of fibrous PAs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Consecutive interventions (226) were analyzed, all performed through an endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal approach. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed. Hosmer-Lemeshow test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were assessed to evaluate the model. A point scoring system (PiTCon) was derived based on the multivariable regression model. Our study aimed to identify the clinical and radiological characteristics that correlate with fibrous tumor consistency preoperatively. RESULTS: The best diagnostic accuracy for predicting PA consistency consisted of five predictive factors: age, compressive symptoms, panhypopituitarism, craniocaudal extension of the PA in mm, and prior surgery. The multivariable model achieved good discrimination with an area under the curve (AUC) of the ROC curve being 0.82 and the 95% CI 0.76 to 0.88. Internal validation yielded an optimism-adjusted C-statistic of 0.80 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.86). A point scoring system (PiTCon score) was designed using the best predictive model. CONCLUSIONS: PA consistency can be estimated preoperatively regarding clinical and radiological characteristics. We propose a point-based scoring system (PiTCon score) that can better guide neurosurgeons in clinical decision-making and surgical risk assessment and help establish and describe patient prognosis.

Unintended environmental gains: How can a favorable business environment promote the low-carbon transition?

Given the increasing threat of economic downturns and global warming, the governments of developing countries urgently need effective measures that can both stimulate economic development and promote low-carbon transitions. As a widely accepted method for stimulating economic growth, the improvement of the business environment and its effect on economic activity have been fully discussed. However, little is known about whether and how the business environment affects the low-carbon transition. By leveraging city-level data from China, this paper exploits whether and through which channels a favorable business environment promotes a low-carbon transition. We find that improving the business environment has a positive impact on carbon efficiency. This relationship is verified to be robust through various alternative tests. Additionally, it is demonstrated that enhancing the business environment can increase carbon efficiency by promoting green technology progress and stimulating new firm entry. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of the business environment is pronounced for cities with intensive environmental regulation, sufficient environmentally targeted fiscal expenditure, and loose economic growth requirements. This paper reveals the unintentional environmental gains of business environment optimization and provides important insights into the low-carbon transition for developing economies.

The walking dead: Are Zombie firms environmentally and socially responsible? A global perspective.

This study examines the association between zombie firms and their environmental and social performance. Using a global dataset of listed firms from 49 countries between 2002 and 2019, we find that zombie firms perform poorly on environmental and social responsibility fronts. This finding supports the argument that zombie firms are characterized by consistent losses and that their existence is risky without external support. Zombie firms, while struggling for survival, may not be able to undertake environmental and social activities that require huge investments, thus falling behind other firms. Further analysis highlights that eco-innovation, the presence of a sustainability committee, and industry nature (i.e., heavily polluting industries) mitigate the negative impact of firms' zombie status on their environmental and social performance. Moreover, a zombie firm's engagement in environmental and social activities improves its financial performance. Our main findings are robust to a battery of estimation techniques, alternative proxies, selection bias, and endogeneity issues.

Going green while getting lean: Decomposing carbon and green total factor productivity.

While research on carbon productivity is growing rapidly, the role of structural change in green transition remains unexplored due to the scarcity of firm-level emission data. This study addresses this gap by utilizing unique register-based greenhouse gas emission data from Finland's energy-intensive manufacturing firms for 2000-2019. Applying a structural change productivity decomposition, we break down the sector's carbon productivity and green total factor productivity into four components: contributions from non-switching continuing firms, industry-switching continuing firms, the effects of entry and exit, and resource allocation. The findings highlight the important role of structural change in the sector's productivity. Non-switching continuing firms emerged as the key drivers of both carbon and green total factor productivity growth. The contribution of entry and exit was negative during the financial crisis, while inefficient resource allocation significantly hindered productivity growth throughout the study period. These findings emphasize the importance of public subsidies targeted at environmentally efficient firms to enhance their competitiveness under challenging market conditions. Furthermore, the establishment of a stable yet positive carbon price would incentivize less-productive firms to adopt environmentally friendly technologies.

(In)Consistent Performance Feedback and the Locus of Search.

Despite the prevalence and importance of multiple goals for organizations, research on how organizations respond to performance on multiple goals continues to be limited and has examined only search intensity as the focal response, ignoring that search may occur in different locations. We extend the research on multiple goals by developing and testing novel theory on the relationship between performance feedback on multiple goals and the locus of search. Drawing upon the behavioral theory of the firm and using panel data from global pharmaceutical firms, we first show that when performance is below aspirations on a primary goal, a firm's propensity to engage in distal search increases along both the technological (i.e., familiar vs. unfamiliar search) and the organizational dimension (i.e., internal vs. external search). However, building on more recent literature that points to the need to consider multiple goals of unequal importance and, specifically, the self-enhancement perspective, we argue and find that performance on a secondary goal modifies this pattern, particularly when performance on a primary goal is unsatisfactory. Under feedback inconsistency, where performance on a primary goal is low but performance on a secondary goal is high, decision-makers decrease distal search to both unfamiliar technological areas and areas external to the organization. Our theory and findings highlight the importance of performance feedback regarding multiple goals in regulating the key locus of search choices and extend research on self-enhancement and learning from performance feedback.

The Making of Corporate Legal Concession Theory.

Professor Watson's The Making of the Modern Company traces the development of the modern corporate form back to the East India Company, disproving a common notion that company law originated solely with small, private companies. This review article argues three key implications of this excellent book. First, Watson focuses on the duality of the modern company-with state-provided and private features. This cuts through, and goes a long way to resolving, the ongoing historic debate as to the nature of the company. Second, the primary unit of study chosen-the modern company-reminds corporate lawyers of our role in studying this duality in a very crowded field. Third, despite eschewing 'concession theories' of company law (which hold that the company is merely a concession from the state), Watson demonstrates a role for the state in the modern company that is often overlooked.

The High Level of RANKL Improves IκB/p65/Cyclin D1 Expression and Decreases p-Stat5 Expression in Firm Udder of Dairy Goats.

Udder traits, influencing udder health and function, are positively correlated with lactation performance. Among them, breast texture influences heritability and impacts on the milk yield of cattle; however, there is a lack of systematic research on its underlying mechanism in dairy goats in particular. Here, we showed the structure of firm udders with developed connective tissue and smaller acini per lobule during lactation and confirmed that there were lower serum levels of estradiol (E2) and progesterone (PROG), and higher mammary expression of estrogen nuclear receptor (ER) α and progesterone receptor (PR), in dairy goats with firm udders. The results of transcriptome sequencing of the mammary gland revealed that the downstream pathway of PR, the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) ligand (RANKL) signal, participated in the formation of firm mammary glands. During the culture of goat mammary epithelial cells (GMECs), high RANKL level additions promote the Inhibitor kappaB (IκB)/p65/Cyclin D1 expression related to cell proliferation and decrease the phosphorylated signal transduction and transcription activator 5 (Stat5) expression related to milk-protein synthesis of GMECs, which is consistent with electron microscope results showing that there are fewer lactoprotein particles in the acinar cavity of a firm mammary. Furthermore, co-culturing with adipocyte-like cells for 7 d is beneficial for the acinar structure formation of GMECs, while there is a slightly negative effect of high RANKL level on it. In conclusion, the results of this study revealed the structure of firm udders structure and confirmed the serum hormone levels and their receptor expression in the mammary glands of dairy goats with firm udders. The underlying mechanism leading to firm udders and a decrease in milk yield were explored preliminarily, which provided an important foundation for the prevention and amelioration of firm udders and improving udder health and milk yield.

The influence of carbon risk on firm value: Evidence from the European Union Emission Trading Scheme.

This paper examines the impact of carbon risk induced through carbon price uncertainty in cap-and-trade policies on the value of covered firms. Specifically, the study explores the effects of policy adjustments made at the start of the third phase of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which aimed to address an oversupply of carbon allowances. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that the resulting increase in policy-induced carbon risk led to value discounts for firms with insufficient carbon allowances to offset their emissions, even when carbon prices themselves remained low. The findings highlight the importance of carbon risk exposure and the resulting carbon risk channel that influences firm value in a cap-and-trade scheme.

Changes in environmental performance with firm relocation and its influencing mechanism: An evidence of chemical industry in jiangsu, China.

A micro firm relocation perspective plays important roles in deepening the understanding and knowledge on the environmental effects of industrial transfer and related mechanisms, however, such research and cases are currently scarce. Based on the building of both the database of firm relocation information and a conceptual framework of changes in environmental performance with firm relocation (ΔEP), involving factors of firm heterogeneity and changes in both locational conditions and whole-process pollution treatment paths, chemical firms in Jiangsu Province were selected to explore their ΔEP and related influencing mechanisms by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test of two paired samples and a binary logistic regression model in this study, respectively. Results showed that during 1998-2014, chemical firm relocation experienced a fluctuating growth trend with a continuous surge in inter-city relocation, accompanied by a deterioration in the environmental performance (EP) with a significant reduction of pollution removal intensity (p < 0.01) after firm relocation. Most firms relocated from Southern Jiangsu (72.5%) to places adjoining Jiangsu Province (58.5%), along the river and the coast (63.4%), and in the third- and fourth-tier cities (73.5%), respectively. As for these factors, the low development level of transfer-out (DTOR) and transfer-in region (DTIR) both resulted in the downgrading EP with firm relocation, but the inter-city relocation style (RS) and strict environmental regulation (ER) were the opposite. The benefits for upgrading EP after relocation conferred by the promotion of source-process treatment were limited by RS, DTOR, and DTIR. Among firms relocated to low DTIRs, the higher the firm competitiveness in terms of capital, technology, and environmental awareness, the greater the upgrading EP probability. When firms transferred to regions with stricter ER, the likelihood of improving EP increased more for those firms with weak competency. In a word, in order to prevent the pollution haven effect, superior governments should shrink regional differences in ER policies, whereas local governments in transfer-in regions should provide targeted and essential support in funding and technology according to the firm heterogeneity and fully consider actual conditions to make environmental measures in the future.

The effect of state capital injection on firms' pollution emissions: Evidence from China.

Existing research on state capital injection (SCI) has not yet explored its environmental effects. Using Chinese firm level data and the difference-in-difference estimator, we estimated the effect of SCI on firms' sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. The results show that the SCI reduced firms' SO2 emissions significantly but have no effect on SO2 emissions intensity. Moreover, robustness tests show that SCI also reduced the emissions of industrial exhaust and chemical oxygen demand but not their emissions intensity. Further analysis reveals that the abatement effects of SCI are at the expense of capacity utilization reduction and then the sacrifice of economic output, thus failing to achieve a win-win situation for both pollution abatement and economic benefits. Firms accepting SCI do not significantly increase their use of pollution treatment technologies, either source control technologies or end-of-pipe treatment technologies. The reason may be that after accepting SCI, firms are required to take on more environmental social responsibility and are under higher pressure of pollution abatement. However, their managers may be more inclined to respond to environmental regulation and pollution control through non-market-based approaches rather than through technological innovation. In addition, heterogeneity analysis shows the pollution abatement effect of SCI only exists in small or lower administrative hierarchy firms. This study has shed some lights on the reform of the environmental regulatory system and the environmental performance management of state-owned enterprises.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and financial outcomes: Analyzing the impact of ESG on financial performance.

BACKGROUND: Environmental Social Governance (ESG) investment had entered a phase of rapid development in the past few decades as most nations had put forward "carbon neutral" initiatives. ESG would receive more attention from the industry and academia in a global environment full of uncertainties. Companies benefit from the sharing of ESG data by improving their brand image, which attracts funding, lowers financing costs, and increases valuation. PURPOSE: To explore how ESG drives corporate financial performance. Also, the research examines the interrelation of ESG presentation and corporate presentation. DESIGN: /methodology/approach: Over an interval of 10 years (2011-2020) using a sample of 3332 listed organizations worldwide. The theory of the research is on the basis of stakeholder and transmitting signal theory and multiple regression and categorized regression were applied with STATA 16.0 software. RESULTS: The study utilizes a large dataset of 24,076 valid observations, providing robust statistical power for the analysis. The study findings proved that ESG performance is positively interrelated with corporate performance (p < 0.01). According to the findings of the study, at 1% of the level related to significance (p < 0.01), the regression coefficient for ESG is considerably positive. Thus, the influence of ESG rating on corporate performance is significant for large-scale companies and insignificant for small-scale companies. The results demonstrate that the positive impact of ESG rating on corporate financial performance is more pronounced in the high risk case than in the low risk case (p < 0.01). The results highlight the importance of ESG performance in today's world. Overall, the study gives precious perception about the interrelation between ESG and corporate financial performance (CFP). POLICY IMPLICATIONS: The researchers believe that the results of this study are beneficial to companies and governments in the development of environmentally conscious industries since they demonstrate corporate success through ESG. More realistically, the ESG can boost corporate firm performance by enabling businesses to maintain sustainability, establish a solid reputation, win the trust of stakeholders, and contribute to solving national sustainable development issues. Additionally, the researchers believe that the results of this study can boost management effectiveness, which in turn can help firms succeed. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: In the context of environmentally sensitive industries, this study findings provide empirical insights to the association between the corporate firms success and ESG performance. In addition, the findings provide insights to the business organizations development and the significance of ESG integration in the business organizations.

How attributions of coproduction motives shape customer relationships over time.

Despite the proliferation of coproduction concepts in various B2C contexts, knowledge on how coproduction shapes customer relationships is still surprisingly limited, as prior studies find mixed results and are bound to a short-term perspective. The present study addresses these limitations by providing first insights into the underlying psychological processes that explain differences in the short- and long-term relationship consequences of positive and negative coproduction perceptions. Drawing from the multiple inference model, this research shows how customers' ambivalent attributions of a firm's coproduction motives (i.e., firm-serving and customer-serving) affect customer satisfaction, willingness to pay, and spending behavior over time. The results of a latent growth analysis based on a longitudinal field study (n1 = 12,662; six waves) show that coproduction can harm customer relationships in the long-run, as the detrimental effects of firm-serving motive attributions are temporally more persistent than the favorable but ephemeral effects of customer-serving motive attributions. An additional experiment (n2 = 931) and field study (n3 = 360) confirm the generalizability of the key findings and provide new managerial insights into how firm-specific characteristics of a coproduction concept (i.e., coproduction intensity, design freedom, monetary savings) influence customer attributions different coproduction motives and thereby shape customer relationships over time. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00910-6.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Corporate Liquidity: The Role of SOEs' Trade Credit Response.

Although state-owned enterprises are associated with less efficiency and lead to resource misallocation, they may have stabilizing effect in face of a crisis. Exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment, we study the role of firm ownership in trade credit provision and find robust evidence that SOEs increase their trade credit to downstream firms more than non-SOEs after the outbreak of the pandemic. Moreover, we explore the underlying mechanism and find that better financing ability and multitask of the SOEs contribute to greater trade credit during the pandemic, and the latter plays a more active role. Further analyses show that SOEs' advantage in trade credit extension is more pronounced in industries with higher external financial dependence and provinces with a higher level of government involvement, suggesting that SOEs might have greater comparative advantage in screening due to its involvements in local economy during crisis periods. Our paper provides new insights into the real effects of SOEs on the economy.

Firm behavior during an epidemic.

We derive a model in which firms operate in an epidemic environment and internalize infections among their employees in the workplace. The model is calibrated to fit the moments of the Covid-19 epidemic. We show that firms have incentives to fight against infections and can do so very effectively by increasing teleworking and rotating employees between on-site work, teleworking, and leave. The fight against infections in firms flattens the aggregate infections curve. Subsidies to teleworking reduce infections and save lives. Subsidies to sick leave reduce the cost of sick workers and raise workplace infections. Firms delay and weaken the fight against infections during economic downturns. We also consider the problem of a government that values output and lives. We show that the government prefers to severely restrict the epidemic by tolerating short-term output losses when it has a high valuation of life.

Firm Pay Policies and the Gender Earnings Gap: The Mediating Role of Marital and Family Status.

Using data from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database between 2001 and 2015, the authors examine the impact of firms' hiring and pay-setting policies on the gender earnings gap in Canada. Consistent with the existing literature and following Card, Cardoso, and Kline (2016), findings show that firm-specific premiums explain nearly one-quarter of the 26.8% average earnings gap between female and male workers. On average, firms' hiring practices, due to differences in the relative proportion of women hired at high-wage firms (known as sorting), and pay-setting policies, due to differences in pay by gender within similar firms, each explain approximately one-half of this firm effect. The compositional difference between the two channels varies substantially over a worker's life cycle, by parental and marital status, and across provinces.

Income inequality and entrepreneurship: Lessons from the 2020 COVID-19 recession.

We study entry into entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 recession of 2020 using new data from an extensive survey of more than 24,000 Spanish households, conducted between June and November 2020. We find that while the overall decline in the startup rate in 2020 was large, and of a similar magnitude as that during the Great Recession, the differential impact depending on ex ante income was starkly different. During 2020, the drop in firm entry was entirely concentrated among low- and medium-income households. We show that the entrepreneurship gap between these households and their high-income counterparts is not directly explained by social distancing, since it is mostly driven by the sectors not directly affected by lockdown measures, and it is larger among households that did not suffer a negative income shock during the pandemic. Our results instead indicate that high-income households performed relatively better during the COVID-19 recession because they had the means to exploit new business opportunities, thanks to their larger wealth and better access to external finance.

Organizational Labor Flow Networks and Career Forecasting.

The movement of employees within an organization is a research area of great relevance in a variety of fields such as economics, management science, and operations research, among others. In econophysics, however, only a few initial incursions have been made into this problem. In this paper, based on an approach inspired by the concept of labor flow networks which capture the movement of workers among firms of entire national economies, we construct empirically calibrated high-resolution networks of internal labor markets with nodes and links defined on the basis of different descriptions of job positions, such as operating units or occupational codes. The model is constructed and tested for a dataset from a large U.S. government organization. Using two versions of Markov processes, one without and another with limited memory, we show that our network descriptions of internal labor markets have strong predictive power. Among the most relevant findings, we observe that the organizational labor flow networks created by our method based on operational units possess a power law feature consistent with the distribution of firm sizes in an economy. This signals the surprising and important result that this regularity is pervasive across the landscape of economic entities. We expect our work to provide a novel approach to study careers and help connect the different disciplines that currently study them.

The role of political connections in bad times: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study investigates the relationship between political connections and firm financial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we found that politically connected enterprises paid more taxes, employed more employees, and suffered financial performance. This study enriches the literature on the impact of COVID-19 on enterprises and provides suggestions for regulators.