企业集团人力资本投资决策的理论与实践

企业集团是一种不同于一般企业的组织形式,其人力资本投资与一般企业相比有不同的特征和影响因素。企业集团人力资本投资决策的正确与否,直接关系到企业集团的生存与发展。如何寻求正确的决策方法和途径呢？本文提出运用基于模糊集理论的人力资本投资决策模型,并进行了实际应用分析。     

完善我国外商投资立法的思考--以TRIMs协议为视角

我国现行的外商投资立法与世界贸易组织规则还存在一定的冲突.面对入世后的新形势,我国应当以合理运用WTO规则,实现权利与义务的平衡和统一为准则,调整和修改现行外商投资法的内容,尽快制定出符合我国市场经济要求的、与WTO规则相衔接的完备的规则体系.     

论上市公司股东持股变动信息披露法律管制的限度--以证券公开原则与信托法上的保密义务的冲突为例

信托公司以委托人交付的信托财产大量投资于某一只股票时,证券界一直要求信托公司无条件披露委托人名单,从而与信托法规定的保密义务发生了冲突.实际上,信息披露管制的界限应当以"防范不公正金融交易"为限度,而委托人也不得为非法目的而利用保密义务来规避其应承担的信息披露义务.法律界应当充分注意到信托财产投资运用控制权的多样性,区分积极信托、消极信托等不同的类型分别规定信息披露的方法.     

美国“其他保险条款”诉讼：现状与未来

其他保险条款诉讼是一个已经困扰了美国法院近四分之三个世纪的极其复杂的法律问题。美国各州在司法上对该问题的解决方式也存在差异。文章通过对美国有关其他保险条款冲突典型判例的分析,试图寻找美国法院在长期的判例实践中所形成的一些相对比较成熟的解决其他保险条款冲突问题的判例规则及其未来在解决该问题上所遵循的价值理念和解决思路,以此希望能为我国将来保险立法的进一步完善和对解决我国目前既无法可依又无章可循的其他保险条款诉讼提供可资借鉴的法律原则和价值理念。     

Towards contextualising stakeholder relationship indicators for corporate–community relationships

Abstract

In circumstances that are substantially different from the norm, new ways of thinking about those alternative contexts are necessary. In the context of corporate governance and corporate social investment (CSI) the relationship between corporate donors and community organisations is regarded as important, but the indicators used to describe this relationship need revisiting. The argument in this article is that context-specific indicators are needed to bring the true nature of the corporate–community relationship to the fore. In addition, a suggestion is made that such indicators be both rigorous and relevant in describing the relationship. In an interpretative, qualitative exploration of data from individual interviews it was revealed that well-known relationship indicators were inadequate to describe the relationship between corporate donors and community organisations accurately. The article could serve as the first step in reviewing stakeholder relationship indicators from organisational communication research and adapting these indicators to a specific context.     

Federal Institutions and Multinational Investors: Federalism,Government Credibility,and Foreign Direct Investment

Political risk is an important factor in the decision to invest abroad. While the investment potential might be lucrative, there is always the risk that the host government will expropriate the profits and assets of the foreign investor. Political institutions, however, can serve as constraints on the actions of political actors in the host country. We argue that federal structures lower political risk. Joint-reputational accountability in overlapping political jurisdictions increases the likelihood that investment contracts will be honored. Empirical analyses of cross-sectional time-series data for 115 countries, from 1975–1995, are used to study how political institutions affect foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. After controlling for the effect of relevant economic and political variables, we find that both democratic and federal institutions help attract FDI, although the additive effect of democracy and federalism is small. This is not surprising; democratic systems already have low political risk; they do not need the additional credibility that the federal system provides to attract FDI. In contrast, we expect that federal structures significantly improve the trustworthiness of less democratic states. Empirically, we find that less democratic countries with federal political systems attract some of the highest levels of FDI.     

Looking Beyond the National Level: Foreign Direct Investment Attraction in U.S. States

International relations scholars need to look beyond the national level because U.S. states and governors are increasingly important actors in world politics. One way to look at their international activities is by examining the ways in which U.S. states seek to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), just one research puzzle at the nexus of international relations and U.S. state politics, two fields that rarely talk to one another. After pointing out the gaps within theories from international relations and international political economy, this paper describes the evolving global roles of both U.S. states and governors and shows how U.S. states attract FDI through the use of their international offices and governor-led overseas missions. Empirical findings indicate that U.S. states' international offices and a higher level of economic interdependence help states attract FDI, and the paper argues that extension of institutional approaches from IPE may be valuable for future research about the international capabilities of subnational governments and their leaders.     

Domestic Institutions,Capacity Limitations,and Compliance Costs: Host Country Determinants of Investment Treaty Arbitrations, 1987–2007

The number of investment treaty arbitrations has exploded in recent years. However, the distribution of known arbitral claims varies among states. Some states have had multiple claims brought against them, while others appear not to have experienced any. This article represents the first study to seek causal explanations for this variation. My principal hypothesis is that a country's institutional capacity for protecting investor rights should be negatively correlated with the number of treaty-based arbitral claims brought against it. A panel analysis suggests that, after controlling for other determinants, countries with greater institutional capacity experience fewer disputes than those with lower capacity. This finding reveals an important truth about investment treaties: while they may be designed to help developing countries compensate for domestic-level institutional deficiencies in order to attract more foreign investment, it is precisely those countries with the weakest institutions for which the costs of treaty compliance are likely to be the highest.     

Credibility and Flexibility: Political Institutions,Governance, and Foreign Direct Investment

This article argues that the relationship between political institutions and foreign direct investment is both nonlinear and conditional upon status quo policies. The empirical analysis demonstrates an inverted U-shaped relationship between political institutions and foreign direct investment in developing countries, with four veto players being the most attractive institutional arrangement. Countries with too few or too many veto players are not favored because of either high policy uncertainty or high policy rigidity. In addition, the benefits and costs of credibility and flexibility vary in good times and hard times. The benefits of maintaining status quo tend to outweigh the costs in countries with good initial regulatory environment. The costs of maintaining status quo tend to outweigh the benefits when countries are more vulnerable to exogenous shocks.     

A D19S433 primer binding site mutation and the frequency in Japanese of the silent allele it causes

Short tandem repeat studies are powerful tools for parentage analysis and for identification of missing persons, victims of murder, and victims of mass fatalities when reference samples are unavailable. The primer in the Identifiler kit failed to amplify an allele at the D19S433 locus, producing a silent ("null") allele. The causal mutation is a base change (G>A) 32 nucleotides downstream from the 3' end of the AAGG repeats. The silent alleles are problematical in parentage analysis because when transmitted, they can cause a parent-child inconsistency that is unrelated to Mendelian genetics. The inconsistency is sometimes termed an "apparent opposite homozygosity" and it produces false evidence of nonparentage. Alternative primers were designed to amplify the D19S433 locus alleles and they detect the silent allele. Frequencies of the (no longer) silent allele were determined to be 0.0114 in 176 people from Shizuoka (Honshu) and 0.0128 in 156 people from Okinawa.