Ownership concentration and ownership identity are important corporate governance mechanisms. This paper seeks to understand how ownership concentration and identity affect firm performance in an important emerging economy-China. It hypothesizes that differences in firm performance are a result of various ownership structures and ownership identity. Using data of Chinese listed companies from 2007–2017, it tests those hypotheses and finds that ownership concentration has a positive effect in firm performance and corporate ownership leads to higher firm performance than financial ownership. The study shows that firms in China benefit more from foreign ownership than firms with only domestic ownership.

In economics, a demand curve is almost always downward-sloping, reflecting the willingness of consumers to purchase more of the commodity at lower price levels. In addition, the demand for seasonal products (such as fashion apparels, beverages etc.) or perishable goods (such as meat and seafood, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, pharmaceutical products, and chemicals) decreases over time. Hence, demand is a function of price and stock-age. With large business transactions, a seller usually demands a down payment (i.e., an advance payment) to ensure that the buyer is making a serious offer. Conversely, a buyer frequently requests to hold a fraction of total purchase cost until the business transaction is completed and satisfactory (i.e., a credit payment). As a result, a combination of advance, cash, and credit (ACC) payments is commonly used in business transactions. This paper develops a supplier–retailer–customer chain in which the retailer receives an upstream ACC payment from the supplier while in return offers a down-stream cash-credit (some in cash and the remainder in credit) payment to customers, the demand is influenced by the combined effect of selling price and stock age, and the deterioration rate is time-varying. The retailer must determine optimal unit price and replenishment time to maximize the present value of total profit, which is strictly concave in selling price and strictly pseudo-concave in replenishment time. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed, and several managerial insights are obtained. For instance, an increase in the fraction of advance payment forces the retailer to raise selling price.

To control the uniqueness risk in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects of transportation infrastructure, we design a simplified uniqueness contract model by incorporating the impact of the initial investment which is based on the Bertrand model. The nonlinear programming method is adopted to derive the optimal uniqueness contracts for incumbent private capital, the public, and the social welfare, respectively. The simulation results show that the achievement of the optimal uniqueness contract is essentially the result of a compromise between the private capital, the public, and social welfare. The extent to which such a contract reduces the probability of uniqueness risk mainly depends on the equilibrium relation between the interests of private capital and the public. The initial investment is not related to the government default when the contract does not take into account the interests of the private capital. Furthermore, the uniqueness contracts between private capital and the government are mainly for anticompetitive purpose in the PPP market of transportation infrastructure. Unless the contract terms focus on the improvement of social welfare, entering a uniqueness contract will cause social welfare losses.

Both behavioral biases and informational advantages can drive insider trades. The authors document that US corporate insiders anchor on the 52-week low (high) for stock purchases (sales). They then find that insider trades made when stock prices are far from their anchor levels are more informative, suggesting that when insiders trade against the anchoring bias, private information is providing the catalyst to overcome the bias. The authors further show that outside investors can reap sizeable abnormal returns by piggybacking on insiders who make these buy-high, sell-low trades. TOPICS:Exchanges/markets/clearinghouses, information providers/credit ratings Key Findings • Corporate insiders are subject to anchoring bias when they trade. They tend to buy (sell) more when the stock price is near its anchor—the 52-week low (high). • Private information can help insiders overcome the anchoring bias. When insiders buy high and sell low, their trades are informative. • Outside investors can piggyback these “buy high and sell low” trades and reap sizeable returns.