Important Channel Research Articles

Beefing IT up for your Investor? Engagement with Open Source Communities, Innovation and Startup Funding: Evidence from GitHub

We study the engagement of nascent firms with open source communities and its implications for innovation and attracting funding. To do so, we link data on 160,065 U.S. startups from Crunchbase to their activities on the open source software development platform GitHub. In a matched sample of firms with and without GitHub activities, difference-in-differences models reveal a substantial increase in the likelihood of being funded after early-stage startups engage with open source communities on GitHub. This relationship is weaker for firms that employ GitHub for internal development only. Startups developing novel technologies tend to benefit more from engaging with open source communities, unlike those in highly competitive environments. This heterogeneity highlights a potential trade-off between engaging with open source communities and appropriability. To provide insight regarding mechanisms, we classify startups' technology use-cases on GitHub using machine learning and exploit data on product launches. Our results from these additional analyses support the notion that one important channel potentially driving our findings is the access to external knowledge for technology development provided by open source communities. Engaging with these communities may thereby aid startups in innovating and creating a (minimum) viable product.

Convertible Bonds: A Supplementary Exit Path for Private Equity Funds

With the rapid development of China's economy, private equity funds have become an important force to help unlisted small and medium-sized startups quickly become bigger and stronger. As an important financing channel for enterprises, private equity funds can provide a large amount of financial support for target enterprises, and in all aspects of their investment operations, the choice of exit method is particularly important as the core link that directly affects returns. Therefore, this paper takes the case study as the research method, and selects SoftBank Group's gradual reduction of Alibaba shares through the issuance of convertible trust bonds as a case study, and studies the use of convertible bonds as a supplement to the IPO exit method of private equity funds. The study finds that convertible bonds, as a supplement to the IPO exit method, have more efficient, lower risk and low cost financing capabilities, effectively solve the problem of single exit path, improve the speed of private equity fund exit liquidation, and reduce the loss range while retaining the profit growth space.

Quantifying Altitudinal Mercury Accumulation in Biomonitors along Himalayan Valleys Using Mercury Isotopes.

The Himalayan valleys are important transport channels of atmospheric pollutants from South Asia to the Tibetan Plateau. This study aims to demonstrate the use of biomonitors (i.e., tree foliage, bark, mosses, and lichens) in the Himalayas to understand the sources and accumulation of mercury (Hg), including the transboundary atmospheric Hg transport across the Himalayas. Results showed that the significant variability in the physiological characteristics and nutrient uptake pathways, coupled with rapid changes in topography and climate-forced precipitation, led to significant differences in concentrations and isotopic compositions among biomonitor species. Δ199Hg values (-0.32 to -0.10‰) at the lower altitudes were slightly more positive than values at upper altitudes, likely reflecting signals of transboundary transport of anthropogenic Hg from South Asia. The isotope mixing model determined atmospheric Hg0 as the main source of Hg in most biomonitors (67 ± 13% to 88 ± 13%), except for Usnea longissimas (i.e., a unique type of lichen) with 61 ± 16% contribution of atmospheric Hg2+. Additionally, the morphological structure and epiphytic environment of U. longissimas facilitate aqueous Hg secondary reactions. Our results suggest that the Hg cycling in the Himalayan valleys could mix multiple impacts from montane environments and signals of transboundary transport of anthropogenic Hg from South Asia.

Model can be subtle: Two important mechanisms for Social Media Popularity Prediction

Social media popularity prediction is an important channel to explore content sharing and communication on social networks. It aims to capture informative cues by analyzing multi-type data (such as user profile, image, and text) to decide the popularity of a specified post. In this paper, we divide social network users into two categories (i.e., active and inactive users) and find a dilemma in existing models: If an active user publishes the low-popularity post, the model will habitually predict the high score. On the contrary, if an inactive user provides the high-popularity post, the model still gives the low score incorrectly. Therefore, how to make the model more subtle to users is important. Comparing to existing methods that directly leverage multi-modal features for regression training, this paper stresses more on two novel mechanisms. The first method aims to prevent the over-fitting on user IDs. We propose the attribute-sensitive interactive mechanism (M1) by incorporating explicit user-attribute and post-attribute interaction. It can analyze which type of features a user cares the most and weaken the model’s dependence on user IDs. The second method aims to strengthen the influence of post content. We propose the knowledge embedding mechanism (M2) to revise the popularity scores in existing models by fusing the statistical frequency over multi-type data. Note that both mechanisms are model-agnostic, which can be applicable in any popularity prediction model. Extensive experiments conducted on the Social Media Prediction Dataset further validate the effectiveness.

Employee stock ownership plans and controlling shareholders’ over-appointing of directors

Using a large sample of Chinese non-financial listed firms from 2014 to 2021, we find that employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) significantly reduce controlling shareholders’ over-appointing of directors, and this finding is robust after addressing endogeneity concerns. We then provide evidence to show that reducing the risk of control transfer and controlling shareholders’ private benefits of control are important channels in which ESOPs affect controlling shareholders’ over-appointing of directors. Furthermore, we find that effect of ESOPs on controlling shareholders’ over-appointing of directors is less pronounced when firms with stronger corporate governance. We also demonstrate that the type of ownership, the source of funding, and the lock-up period of ESOPs can affect the effectiveness of ESOPs.

Can Internet Use Increase Rural Women’s Income? Evidence from Underdeveloped Areas of China

Although the widespread use of the Internet in rural areas provides new opportunities for economic growth, whether and how rural women benefit from it remains a question. Guided by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 and its targets, this study examines the impact of Internet use on rural women’s income by using survey data from 1384 rural households in underdeveloped areas of China. The results indicate that Internet use can significantly increase rural women’s income in underdeveloped areas. Additionally, the income effects of Internet use are heterogeneous across the different purposes of Internet use, income levels, individual characteristics, and family characteristics. Further analysis reveals that increasing labor input and enhancing capital endowment are two important channels through which Internet use increases rural women’s income. The results offer further empirical support for policymakers to utilize the Internet to increase rural women’s income and contribute to poverty alleviation in underdeveloped areas.

In pursuit of precise Ca II H&K chromospheric surface fluxes

The emission lines of the Ca II H&K doublet present one of the most important channels of radiative cooling for the chromospheres of cool stars. Although most other line emissions (Mg II h&k and numerous iron lines) populate the far-UV and require a very competitive space-born observing time, the Ca II H&K lines in the optical UV are easily accessible by ground-based spectroscopy with relatively cheap instrumentation, and the observational data are plentiful. At the same time, in order to include realistic mechanical and magnetic heating, advanced chromospheric models now require radiative cooling losses in absolute terms and therefore call for a precise surface flux scale, which could be provided by matching a photospheric Ca II H&K line profile computed by photospheric models. However, a major obstacle here is the significant ambiguity in parameter space in the face of a very sensitive dependence of cool stellar optical UV surface fluxes on the effective temperature. Consequently, we have developed a rigorous method by which precise physical parameters, most notably the effective temperature, are first determined by ISPEC tools working on high signal-to-noise spectra and based on a suitable line list and reference continuum. However, crosstalk and navigation of multiple local chi-square minima (best solutions) in parameter space must be considered. Only with the optimal set of parameters is a single PHOENIX model calculated, which defines the spectral surface flux scale in the Ca II H&K line region. In this paper, we discuss the results of the absolute measurements of Ca II K line fluxes for 32 representative cool stars and the accuracy of this approach. Finally, we show a comparison of the Ca II K chromospheric fluxes with line widths, and a relation of chromospheric flux with effective temperature and gravity following the logarithmic form log FCa II = α′ log g + β′ log Teff + C′.

COMMUNICATION CHANNELS EMPLOYED BY CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS IN GOMBE METROPOLIS NIGERIA

The research focused on the evaluation of communication channels employed by construction industry professionals in Gombe metropolis Nigeria. The following question was articulated for this paper: What are the various communication channels employed by construction industry professionals and several literatures were reviewed to arrive at the identified communication channels designed for data collection. The study used an accessible population of ten construction firms, sample frame and size of 100 and 80 respectively. A total of 80 questionnaires were distributed and 71 were retrieved. Convenience sampling method was used and data collected were presented in tables and were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23 version. The study found that a site review meetings is the most important channel of communication through which information can be passed across to professionals and inexperience in interpreting drawings and other technical aspects of construction work. The study recommends that site review meetings, general meetings and formal communication be employed as channels of communication when carrying out construction work. The study recommends that experienced professionals should always take the responsibility of interpreting drawings and the execution of other technical aspect of the construction work for the realization and delivery of quality projects.

Impact of Douyin Beauty Brand Live Streaming on Consumers’ Purchase Intentions

Nowadays, Douyin has become an important channel for promoting beauty brands, and how to enhance the influence of Douyin beauty live broadcast is still a topic that needs to be explored. In this context, this paper investigates what factors in the process of recommending goods in Douyin beauty live broadcast will impact consumers’ purchase intention. Through the questionnaire survey, regression analysis, and hypothesis testing, the model of the influence of Douyin beauty live broadcast on consumers’ purchase intention is derived. Finally, based on the conclusions drawn, suggestions are made to beauty bloggers and Douyin live broadcasting platforms to promote the development of the entire beauty industry chain and optimize the experience of each participant in it.

Analysis of the Positive Influence of Auditory Learning Style Preference on College Students English Listening Comprehension

Listening is an important channel for language input, and for college students, good English listening comprehension skills play a critical role in language acquisition. Due to individual differences, learners exhibit varying preferences in their listening-learning process. However, most previous research has focused on native and non-native English speakers, leaving a gap in research on Chinese native speakers. Additionally, most studies are comparative research on learning preferences, with few focusing on a single learning preference. Therefore, this study explores the positive effects of auditory learning preferences on Chinese native college students. Through a series of data collection, organization, and analysis, this study finds that auditory learning style is universal among college students. It can be seen from the survey data that although visual learning style is more common, more than 40% of students are still inclined to conduct auditory learning through lecture interviews or group discussion.In conclusion, students with auditory learning preferences tend to engage more in interactive learning. Furthermore, many students with auditory learning preferences also incorporate visual learning strategies to practice listening comprehension skills.

Occupational classes and inequality in educational expenditures: Reproduction of social hierarchy through school education

We examine the role of educational expenditure in reproducing social hierarchy by focusing on occupational segmentation in India. Studies show quality of schools vary by medium of instruction (English/vernacular) and type of management (private/government) in terms of skills they impart to students. While these skills improve the prospects for students’ future upward mobility, educational expenditures vary across school types, with ‘better’ quality schools being more expensive. Educational expenditure is an important channel that shapes the pattern of school participation, which, in turn, may affect patterns of future mobility for children belonging to households located in a hierarchical occupational structure. Using data on school education and household occupational structure for 2007-08 and 2017-18, we classify schools based on their medium-of-instruction and type-of-management, and rank household types in terms of their primary occupation. Given the high economic growth and expansion of schooling opportunities during this period, an improvement in participation of low-ranked household types in ‘better’ schools may be expected, which may improve their future mobility prospects. Using a logistic regression framework, we, however, find that the correspondence between hierarchies of school-types and occupations have largely sustained, crucially mediated by educational expenditures incurred by households. Further investigation shows inequality in educational expenditures between household types has strengthened over this period. A decomposition of educational expenditures across household types shows that while some of the difference in expenditures is explained by the household characteristics in terms of their caste, religion, and educational status, the major part is attributed to differential returns to these characteristics that households reap due to their social positions. Given the structural nature of some of these characteristics, the inequality is likely to continue, thereby sustaining the correspondence between school and occupation types, which, in turn, is likely to reproduce the pattern of occupational and social hierarchy in India.JELI21, I24, I25, Z13

The generation method of orthophoto expansion map of arched dome mural based on three-dimensional fine color model

Murals carry cultural significance and historical information, and are an important channel for understanding ancient social norms, artistic styles, and religious beliefs. At present, the digitization of murals is an important technical means for the protection of cultural heritage. Orthogonal images of murals play a vital role in high-precision recording, preservation, academic research, educational expansion, mural protection, digital exhibition and dissemination. At present, orthogonal images of murals are mostly realized by plane projection, but this method is not suitable for making orthogonal images of arched and dome-shaped murals. To address this problem, this paper proposes a method for generating orthogonal expansion images of arched and dome-shaped murals. This method combines a three-dimensional virtual space simulation model with an RTT virtual camera and adopts a spatial reference orthogonal ray scanning model. First, the detailed three-dimensional color model is fitted to the geometric reference of cylindrical and spherical objects to determine its parameters. Next, for the cylindrical murals on the arch, the orientation of the model is initialized using quaternions, and the viewport matrix is adjusted to obtain the required resolution. Then, the RTT camera is used to perform line orthogonal projection in the viewport, and the fringe projection image is generated by rotating around the cylinder axis according to the inversely calculated rotation angle. For the murals on the dome ceiling, this method is used to segment them according to a certain longitude, and the circumscribed cylinder of the fitted sphere is rotated to perform cylindrical orthogonal line scanning in the segmented area. These individual orthogonal line scan images are carefully spliced together to form a complete orthogonal unfolded image. Finally, a fringe projection image is generated with the central meridian of the unfolded part as the center line, and the fringe projection images are spliced together to obtain the final orthogonal unfolded image. Experiments show that compared with existing methods, this method can generate two-dimensional orthogonal unfolded images with high texture fidelity, minimal texture deformation, and uniform deformation distribution. This study provides a novel perspective on the orthogonal unfolding of quasi-cylindrical and quasi-spherical painted objects, and provides an accurate and diverse data basis for the digitization of murals.

The information externality of public firms’ employment in the municipal corporate bond market in China

This study focuses on the informativeness of the labour force in the municipal corporate bond (MCB) market in China. We aggregate the annual employment of public firms to the prefecture-city level and find that aggregate employment is positively associated with the scale of the MCB, while it is negatively associated with the issuing rate of the MCB. Further, we find that such information externality is conditional on the attributes of the employment characteristics, including the education, functional departments, and ownership nature. Mechanism analyses indicate that information accessibility, processing, dissemination, and efficacy are important channels through which aggregate employment exerts informativeness. The information externality is reinforced after an administration enhances the authenticity of employment information. This paper echoes previous studies of the macro value of aggregate firm-level information and enriches the literature in labour and finance by revealing that the labour dividend still exists and triggers the MCB issuance in China.

Vertical spillovers and the energy intensity of European industries

The prior literature has argued that inter-sectoral supply chain links provide an important channel for technology diffusion and productivity spillovers across industries, but whether such vertical spillovers influence industrial energy use has remained unexplored thus far. This study analyzes how the energy intensity of European industries is affected by vertical technology and energy productivity spillovers along the industrial supply chain. The analysis combines international input-output tables, energy use and patent data. Panel data from 2000 to 2014 for 27 industries in 29 countries is analyzed using panel fixed effects and instrumental variable estimation methods. The findings reveal that supply-use links channel significant vertical spillovers that promote a decline in energy intensity in downstream industries. These spillovers appear to be more strongly associated with overall energy intensity changes in upstream industries and, to some degree, with patented green innovations in upstream industries.

Port governance and sustainable development: The impact of port smartization on port carbon emission efficiency

Considering the growing volume of seaborne trade worldwide, most ports need smart policies to address high carbon emissions. As a major shipping nation, China is committed to reducing port carbon emissions. China recently introduced a series of smartization policies to accelerate the construction of smart ports, but their effectiveness in energy saving and emission reduction is unclear. Taking 39 major ports in China as research subjects, this study uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure carbon emissions and the generalized difference-in-differences method to deeply explore the impact of port smartization policies on port carbon emission efficiency. Results indicate that these policies have significantly improved the carbon emission efficiency of ports, a conclusion validated through multiple robustness tests. Heterogeneity analyses show that ports in coastal areas, and in cities with larger populations or moderate economic development, are more significantly affected by port smartization initiatives. Mechanism analysis suggests that the number of port berths, the length of wharves, and container throughput are important channels through which smart port policies influence carbon emission efficiency. This research enriches carbon emission efficiency literature, offers insights for developing countries on reducing emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, and provides a basis for China's smart port construction.

Downward wage rigidity and asymmetric effects of monetary policy

This paper provides industry-level evidence on the presence of downward real wage rigidity and asymmetric effects of monetary policy in the US labor market. Focusing on industry-level data from 1975q1 to 2020q4, we find strong heterogeneity in the trade-off between wage rigidity and employment. Specifically, we show that service-sector industries show downward-flexible wages and muted employment losses in response to monetary contractions. On the other hand, we find that a trade-off between wage rigidity and employment exists only weakly in the manufacturing sector. We examine this in the context of unionization and trade integration policies of recent decades and show that factors such as low unionization or high exposure to import competition weakens the wage-employment link. Among these, high exposure to trade seems to be the more important channel for manufacturing industries.

Chinese Audiences' Perceptions of Social Reality in the Comedy Film Successor

Abstract: Comedy films continue to thrive in Chinas film market, and the genre is breaking out of its original form with innovative reforms. In addition, the market for realistic films is further expanding in China. The film Successor, which was released in mainland China this summer, became a hot topic during its release. This paper examines Chinese audiences reactions to social realities reflected in Successor through the survey. The audience is the most important factor in determining the success of a film, so it is extremely important to pay attention to the audiences comments and reactions to a film. Comedy films are the audiences favorite genre and realism is a popular theme at the moment, combining the two produces a surprising effect. Social media is an important channel for film distributors to promote their films, but some issues are discussed more negatively on the internet. The film, as a relatively pure vehicle, can better reflect the real situation.

Shadow Banking, Stock Market Volatility, and Stock-Money Market Correlation: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT The study on the relationship between shadow banking (SB) and stock market volatility is scarce. Based on sample data from January 2006 to May 2024, this paper dives deep to clarify whether and how China’s SB brings uncertainties to China’s stock market and the impact of SB on the stock-money market correlation. The novelty of this paper is that we connect low-frequency SB with high-frequency financial market information under the framework of mixed-frequency data analysis. Our findings indicate that the expansion of SB could directly enhance China’s stock market volatility. There exists a persistent correlation between China’s stock and money markets in the long run. Furthermore, the rapid development of SB also strengthens the stock-money market correlation in the long run. Since SB could reduce the controllability of China’s monetary policy and increase China’s money market uncertainties, we believe that China’s money market may serve as an important channel for SB to spread risks to the stock market volatility by pushing the two markets to move more closely. We shed new light on the literature regarding the relationship between SB and stock market. This paper makes the first attempt to identify the role of SB in driving the dynamics of stock-money market correlation.

Fintech development, corporate tax avoidance and firm value

We examine the relationship between fintech development and tax avoidance, as well as investigate whether this relationship has an impact on firm value. Using the data from Chinese A-listed firms, we provide evidence that fintech development increases tax avoidance, which facilitates firm value. Moreover, we find that fintech raises after-tax income and future cash flow by facilitating firms to avoid tax. Fintech development is negatively associated with tax risk and positively related to the effectiveness of firms in capitalizing on tax preferences. We further determine that the positive effects of fintech are more pronounced among firms with low internal information quality, weak internal control, and more geographically dispersed operations. Digital transformation, cash flow uncertainty, and regional economic development are the important potential channels through which fintech development influences tax avoidance. Our results are robust to alternative measures and endogeneity issues.

Analyzing Multimodal Construction of China’s Image Based on the Illustrated Articles in The Economist

The shaping of national image is a two-way process, including “self-shaping” and “shaping by others”. Magazines are one of the important channels for disseminating information. Taking The Economist’s China-related reports in 2023 as a case, this article focuses on 195 reports on politics and diplomacy as well as economy, conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses of the visual images from the perspective of visual grammar, and further exploring the multimodal construction of China's image in The Economist. The research shows that the images in The Economist fully realize the representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning. In terms of the representational meaning, narrative representation is the major process. Images that reflect the reactional process, action process and symbolic process are used more frequently. In terms of the interactive meaning, “offer” images, long shot images and images with horizontal perspective appear more frequently. In addition, information value, salience, and framing are interrelated to achieve the compositional meaning. The political and diplomatic image of China constructed by The Economist is that China is a country with increasing power, which is authoritarian internally and threatening externally. In terms of economy, China is portrayed as a country with a fast growing economy which can withstand the global economic crisis, but its economic prospects are not optimistic, and the “China threat theory” still exists.