Suchergebnisse

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record ; This paper analyzes the effect that the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision on Citizens United vs. FEC had on corporate political activism. The decision opened the door for corporate treasuries to engage in independent political spending. Politically connected firms have lower announcement returns at the ruling than non-connected firms. The estimates suggest that the value of a political connection decreases by $6.9 million. To evaluate the effect of Citizens United on corporate political activism, we explore the fact that Citizens United also lifts bans on independent political spending in states where such bans existed. After the ruling, firms headquartered in states where bans are lifted have fewer state-level connections relative to firms in other states. Overall, our evidence supports the hypothesis that independent political spending crowds out political connections. We do not find any significant crowding-out effects of independent political expenditures on lobbying activity, executive contributions, and political action committees (PAC) contributions. ; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology-FCT

This study empirically investigates the determinants and drivers of Hong Kong's inbound tourism using data from January 2019 to December 2020. Five of Hong Kong's major regional tourism source markets are selected: Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea. Our empirical results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant negative impacts on the tourism and aviation sectors in Hong Kong that are asymmetric in the source and destination countries. In addition, international travel control imposed by the Hong Kong government is often defined according to the pandemic situation in the tourism source countries, Hong Kong's inbound visitor volume is also significantly affected by the Hong Kong government's response to COVID-19 infection cases in the tourism origin markets. Our empirical results also suggest that the flying distance to Hong Kong and high tourism costs in Hong Kong reduced visitor arrival demand, whereas increased aviation services and tourism market potential contributed to tourism growth. These results suggest that the tourism industry and government agencies should cooperate to recover when the pandemic is under good control, so that Hong Kong will be regarded as a preferred and safe destination for travelers and visitors. Our study emphasizes the complementarity between pandemic control and tourism recovery. Pandemic control involves extra tests and quarantine requirements on passengers, more vigorous border control. These operational and associated financial requirements call for government support to the tourism and aviation sectors in the early stage of recovery to create a positive feedback loop. ; false

To explore the effect of tea polysaccharides on the gut microbiota and their short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) metabolic products, we used the faecal microbiota to simulate the gut microbiota in vitro, and cultured them to obtain a preculture solution. Ultrapure water, tea polysaccharides, and glucose were added to the precultured solution for anaerobic fermentation. Samples of each group were harvested at 0, 6, 12, and 24th hour during fermentation to test the contents of the SCFAs. In addition, high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing was performed to analyse the microbiota in the fermentation medium. Results showed that the faecal microbiota used tea polysaccharides to generate SCFAs. When compared with the fermentation group with the addition of ultrapure water, the group with the addition of tea polysaccharides increased the relative abundance of Firmicutes, and decreased the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes at the phylum level. The relative abundances of Butyricimonas, Roseburia, Eubacterium rectale group, Ruminococcus 1, Lachnospira, and Parasutterella increased significantly at the genus level. Based on the LEfSe analysis of key microbiota at the genus level, significant differences between the groups were observed. It was clear that tea polysaccharides selectively enriched the microbiota to produce SCFAs, and the correlation between the SCFAs and faecal microbiota was confirmed.