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Bing Xu ; Klagenfurt, Alpen-Adria-Univ., Dipl.-Arb., 2009 ; KB2009 07 ; (VLID)2410940

ABSTRACTWe examine policy‐related economic uncertainty effects on the availability of credit, non‐performing loans and loan loss provisions using a panel of 18 countries. We provide significant evidence that uncertainty reduces the availability of credit while leading to increases in banks' non‐performing loans and loan loss provisions, distorting sectoral stability. Our findings are economically meaningful.

Evaluating Production Efficiency in China examines production from engineering and statistics perspectives rather than from economics and mathematics perspectives. The authors present an observable benchmark as the criterion of the production efficiency to replace the unobservable production frontier surface. This book discusses several different computing technologies, controllable variable as a path of identification, changes in production efficiency by decision making on specific operating conditions, and optimal resource allocation. The book provides a channel to tap inside the success stories of China, exploiting the way of changes in production efficiency during China's development in the past 30 years. This book examines the concepts and realization of production efficiencies across all areas of the economy. Also the book provides the perspective of foreign direct investment (FDI) absorption to identify how Chinese economy changes in production efficiency.

AbstractWe relied on web crawlers and text analysis techniques to develop a new method for measuring the quality of sustainability report texts, and accordingly discussed the impact of chief executive officers' (CEOs') characteristics on the quality of sustainability report texts. We found that companies led by younger CEOs and CEOs with better‐educated, financial and overseas backgrounds provided higher quality sustainability reports, while companies led by female CEOs and CEOs with academic backgrounds provided poorer quality sustainability reports. We also unpacked the "black box" of sustainability report quality, grouping it into three aspects: comprehensiveness, objectivity and reliability. Further research found that CEO characteristics had a greater impact on the quality of sustainability reports in the sample of voluntary and non‐state‐owned enterprises. Our study has the potential to contribute to the selection of CEOs and the improvement of sustainability disclosure.

Promoting people's happiness is a vital goal of public policy, and air pollution, as the focus of public opinion, is an important influencing factor of residents' happiness. Although previous literature has explored the relationship between air pollution and happiness, the impact of pollution sensitivity on the relationship has so far received little attention. This paper uses the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey database (CLDS) to study the impact of air pollution on personal happiness and dissects the moderating effect of air pollution sensitivity from the stock and incremental perspectives. The results found that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between air pollution and residents' happiness, such that happiness increases and then decreases with increasing air pollution. The PM10 concentration at the turning point is 119.69 μg/m(3), which exceeds the national secondary standard limit (70 μg/m(3)) by 70.99% and is at the intermediate stage of mild pollution, exceeding the WHO recommended standard (20 μg/m(3)) by 498.45%, far higher than the international standard recommended level; (2) both air pollution stock sensitivity and incremental sensitivity have a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between air pollution and happiness, and pollution sensitivity exacerbates the negative effect of air pollution on residents' happiness by shifting the curve turning point to the left and steepening the curve shape; (3) in addition, the effect of air pollution on different groups is significantly heterogeneous, with lower-age and male groups more likely to have lower happiness due to air pollution; the positive moderating effect of pollution sensitivity is more significant in lower-age, female, and higher-income groups. Therefore, in order to enhance residents' happiness, the government should not only improve air quality, but also focus on helping residents establish an appropriate subjective perception of air quality.