We use the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the link between product market competition and internal governance mechanisms. Consistent with the notion that ...competition plays an important role in aligning incentives within the firm, SOX has led to a larger improvement in the operation of firms in concentrated industries than in nonconcentrated industries. Furthermore, within concentrated industries, the effect is especially pronounced among firms with weaker governance mechanisms prior to SOX. We corroborate these findings using two additional regulatory changes in the United States and abroad. Overall, our results indicate that corporate governance is more important when firms face less product market competition.
This paper was accepted by Itay Goldstein, finance
.
We measure the effects of firm policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. Non-Whites are less likely to be hired by high-wage firms, explaining about 20 percent of the racial wage gap for both ...genders. Firm-specific pay premiums for non-Whites are also compressed relative to Whites, contributing another 5 percent for that gap. A counterfactual analysis reveals that about two-thirds of the underrepresentation of non-Whites at higher-wage firms is explained by race-neutral skill-based sorting. Non-skill-based sorting and differential wage setting are largest for college-educated workers, suggesting that the allocative costs of discriminatory hiring and pay policies may be relatively large in Brazil.
Streets in Korea rarely go quiet without first having a public
demonstration and Korean citizens are known as seasoned protestors,
charting the course of national politics. Between the Streets and
...the Assembly explores how protest movements have become the
prominent mode of democratic politics in Korea, in contrast to
political parties in the National Assembly that have lagged behind
in partisan representation and accountability. To unpack this
political dynamic, this book closely follows three groups of
democracy activists who were born in their resistance to military
dictatorships but who pursued different methods of democratic
representation in postauthoritarian Korea (1987-2020). One group
stayed in civil society and organized powerful protests outside
formal institutions; another group chose to join existing parties
with the aim of reforming legislative politics; and the third group
was devoted to forming separate progressive parties to be the agent
of transformative agenda. By analyzing the interactive evolution of
these three modes of democratic representation, Yoonkyung Lee finds
that social movement organizations have been more effective than
activist-turned politicians in centrist or progressive parties in
creating coordination infrastructures for collective action.
Through the practice of organizing national solidarity networks,
innovating the methods of mass street demonstrations, and drawing
professional expertise to formulate policy alternatives, Korean
civic groups have built the capacity to directly shape and alter
the course of national politics, unlike activist-turned politicians
who remained divided with no common political programs. This study
asserts that social movement organizations and political parties
develop variable capacities for democratic representation,
depending on coevolutionary interactions with each other. The
experience of Korean democracy shows social movement groups can be
a powerful agent of national politics against the scholarly
assumption that views civic associations as narrowly focused,
transient organizations. Between the Streets and the Assembly
suggests a different possibility of political process, one in which
civic groups and participatory citizens, not political parties, are
the primary drivers of democratic politics.
The prognostic value of the nutritional risk screening 2002 (NRS 2002) scale in metastatic gastric cancer remains unclear. We aimed to explore the role of NRS 2002 in metastatic gastric cancer.
In ...this study, 1664 metastatic gastric cancer patients at our institution between 2000 and 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. The characteristics and clinical outcomes of the included patients were analyzed.
Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed that the regrouping NRS 2002 scale (≤ 3 vs. > 3) provided a similar risk stratification predicting 2-year overall survival (OS) (area under the curves AUCs: 0.563 vs. 0.564, P > 0.05) but a better stratification predicting the risk of complications of palliative surgery (AUCs: 0.563 vs. 0.522, P = 0.050) than the original NRS 2002 scale (< 3 vs. ≥ 3). Patients with NRS 2002 > 3 tended to have higher postoperative morbidity (13.3% vs. 8.5%, P = 0.027) and mortality (5.3% vs. 2.0%, P = 0.013) and shorter progression-free survival (PFS) (median PFS: 6.70 vs. 7.70 months, P = 0.002) and overall survival (OS) (median OS: 9.03 vs. 12.63 months, P < 0.001) than those with NRS 2002 ≤ 3. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that the regrouping NRS 2002 scale was the independent prognostic factor for PFS (hazard ratio HR: 1.16, P = 0.028) and OS (HR: 1.29, P < 0.001).
The present study indicated that the NRS 2002 scale (regrouping scale) was an independent prognostic factor to predict the morbidity, mortality and survival outcomes for metastatic gastric cancer.
Restorative justice is regarded in modern criminal justice systems as one approach to address inadequacies in the conventional justice model. New Zealand has become a leader in implementing ...legislatively mandated restorative procedures. This reputation is due in part to a handful of supportive statutes: the Sentencing Act 2002, the Victims' Rights Act 2002, the Parole Act 2002, the Corrections Act 2004 and subsequent amendments to those acts. In this article, I evaluate the practices bolstered by these acts and how effectively they operate, accounting for how legislative design may contribute to achievements and shortcomings in New Zealand's restorative justice programmes. I supplement the results by comparing New Zealand's efforts to those in Vermont, a U.S. state similarly well-regarded for its restorative policies. The evaluation of each jurisdiction's restorative justice programme is based on metrics for restorative success from Bazemore and Schiff (2005. Juvenile justice reform and restorative justice: building theory and policy from practice. Cullompton: Willan Publishing). I employ qualitative and quantitative data, surveying existing evaluations of restorative justice in New Zealand and Vermont, collecting longitudinal statistics, and conducting interviews with restorative justice practitioners. Overall, this analysis reveals that the design of restorative justice programmes requires negotiation; it is difficult to balance the dimensions of effective restorative justice with the needs of modern justice systems.
China's rapid economic development has not translated automatically into political development, with many of its institutions still in need of major reform. In the post-Mao era, despite the ...decentralization of local government with significant administrative and fiscal authority, China's government and policy-making processes have retained much of the inefficiency and corruption characteristic of the earlier period.
This book analyzes the implementation of government and policy-making reform in China, focusing in particular on the reform programmes instituted since the early 1990s. It considers all the important areas of reform, including the enhancement of policy-making capacity, reform of taxation and fund transfer policies, tightening of financial control, civil service reform and market deregulation. Bill K.P Chou assesses the course of policy reform in each of these areas, considers how successful reforms have been, and outlines what remains to be done. In particular, he explores the impact on the reform process of China's entry into the WTO in 2001, demonstrating that the process of reform in China has been one of continuous conflict between the agenda of political elites in central government, and the priorities of local leaders, with local agents often distorting, delaying or ignoring the policies emanating from the central government.
Despite the dominant narrative of the repression of civil society in China, Civil Society under Authoritarianism: The China Model argues that interactions between local officials and civil society ...facilitate a learning process, whereby each actor learns about the intentions and work processes of the other. Over the past two decades, often facilitated by foreign donors and problems within the general social framework, these interactions generated a process in which officials learned the benefits and disadvantages of civil society. Civil society supports local officials' efforts to provide social services and improve public policies, yet it also engages in protest and other activities that challenge social stability and development. This duality motivates local officials in China to construct a 'social management' system - known as consultative authoritarianism - to encourage the beneficial aspects and discourage the dangerous ones.
The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the ...issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Postsocialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China.
Images of the Kuiper Belt object (126719) 2002 CC249 obtained in 2016 and 2017 using the 6.5 m Magellan-Baade Telescope and the 4.3 m Discovery Channel Telescope are presented. A light curve with a ...periodicity of 11.87 0.01 hr and a peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.79 0.04 mag is reported. This high amplitude double-peaked light curve can be due to a single elongated body, but it is best explained by a contact binary system from its U-/V-shaped light curve. We present a simple full-width-at-half-maximum test that can be used to determine if an object is likely a contact binary or an elongated object based on its light curve. Considering that 2002 CC249 is in hydrostatic equilibrium, a system with a mass ratio qmin = 0.6, and a density min = 1 g cm−3, or less plausible a system with qmax = 1, and max = 5 g cm−3 can interpret the light curve. Assuming a single Jacobi ellipsoid in hydrostatic equilibrium and an equatorial view, we estimate ≥ 0.34 g cm−3, and a/b = 2.07. Finally, we report a new color study showing that 2002 CC249 displays an ultra red surface characteristic of a dynamically Cold Classical trans-Neptunian object.
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