Special Payments Research Articles

Education Equity in Special Education Transfer Payments to Low-income Groups

Under the “Chinese-style” decentralization system, transfer payments have not only become the major source of funding for most local governments to provide public services, but also become important policy tools for higher levels of government. Education transfer payment is an important institutional arrangement to narrow the educational investment gap and promote education equity. Therefore, the establishment of a standardized special transfer payment system for compulsory education is the guarantee for promoting education fairness for low-income groups. The Gini coefficient of education not only reflects the role of education in promoting economic growth and social development, but also an important indicator of the fairness of education. The Gini coefficient of education in various provinces in China shows that there is a clear gap between our country and the developed countries in education. There is also a serious gap between high-income and low-income groups. This paper uses the non-recursive structural equation method as the background to reform the rural compulsory education funding guarantee mechanism. It combines the Gini coefficient of education and the data of 423 counties in five provinces in central China in 2017. The results show that the embedding of prize excellence mechanism in the system of compulsory education transfer payment can inspire the government to shift resources toward basic education. In this way, a fair and efficient special transfer payment system can be established to ensure the fairness of education for low-income groups.

Implementation of UTAUT and D&M Models for Success Assessment of Cashless System

This study discusses the success of applying the Cashless System using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology (UTAUT) model and the DeLone & McLean (D & M) model to assess human factors and technological factors in behavioral intention and influence them on individual performance. This study was designed to discuss the application of technology after the Cashless System was implemented for two years. The Cashless system is a special non-cash payment system for premium payment and insurance claims systems that used agents as payment agreements. Cashless systems are implemented based on the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Bank of Indonesia Regulations (PBI) regulations concerning payment system services and consumer protection payment system services. The research location was chosen at AJB Bumiputera 1912 in Bali Province which was the first insurance company and invited in Indonesia. The research sample used purposive sampling with the criteria of all active users using the Cashless System, which is as many as 45 people. Data collection used a questionnaire distributed to 15 offices of AJB Bumiputera 1912 in Bali Province. Data analysis used Partial Least Square (PLS) with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The test results used the UTAUT model show that the performance of expectations, social influences apply positively to behavioral intentions of using the Cashless System. Expectations of effort were not applied to behavioral intentions of using the Cashless System. The test results used the D & M model that shows the information quality, the information systems quality, service quality that had positive effect on behavioral intention of using Cashless System. The intention of behavior of using the Cashless System has positive effect on individual performance. Keywords: UTAUT, Delone & McLean, Cashless System DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-12-16 Publication date :June 30 th 2019

Bandwagon effect: Special dividend payments

The objective of this study is to determine whether there is a bandwagon effect of special dividends in United States industries. Specifically, we investigate whether the predictions of the information-signalling hypothesis or the agency theory account for the special dividend behaviour at the industry-level. Out of a broad sample of publicly listed firms in the US market, our results show that rival firms in concentrated industries follow other firms' special dividend announcements. The intra-industry effects of special dividend events indicate positive contagion effects on a rival firm's abnormal returns. Our findings lend credence to the information-signalling hypothesis, rather than to agency theory. This is because special dividends act as signals to convey information to the market on the sustainability of growing industry-wide earnings. The propensity to follow occurs because of industry homogeneity: comparable firms aim to validate the industry signal.

Peering Behind the Veil: Trends in Types of Contracts Between Private Health Plans and Hospitals

Contracting between private health plans and hospitals has been described as “chaos behind a veil of secrecy.” Contract types — e.g. discounted charges versus per diems — profoundly influence providers’ incentives and health plan spending, but remain largely hidden. We develop a novel algorithm that classifies inpatient claims as one of three contract types — discounted charges, fixed rates, or per diems — and apply it to the 2009-2014 Colorado All Payer Claims Database. Of $1.9 billion in payments by private health plans for inpatient care in Colorado, $1.1 billion could be classified, and, of classifiable payments, 42% were fixed rates, 41% were discounted charges, and 16% were per diems. From 2009 to 2014, the share of private payments classified as fixed rates increased sharply in Colorado, from 11% to 43%, while discounted charges declined from 69% to 29%. We also describe the distribution of contract types across types of hospitals and clinical conditions, and payers. To test the validity of our algorithm, we apply it to Colorado Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) claims (2014 only), and Colorado Medicaid FFS claims (2009-2014)–both — both of those programs are known primarily to pay for hospital inpatient care using fixed rates. Reassuringly, our algorithm classifies more than three quarters of both Medicare and Medicaid FFS payments as fixed rates, and exceptions to the fixed-rate classification align with known special payment provisions.

The Governance Model of Project Institutions and the Expansion of Local Government Debt

With the completion of tax-sharing system reform in 1994, the financial capacity and governance capacity of the central government have been rapidly improved. In order to encourage the local government to actively achieve the goal of promoting economical growth and maintaining people’s livelihood”, after 2002, the central government gradually came to allocate the transfer payment in the form of projects” downward. The special transfer payment allocated by the project application increased rapidly from 37.5 billion yuan in 1995 to 1894.1 billion yuan in 2014, with an average annual growth rate of 22.93%. The huge amount of the special transfer payment has strengthened the governing effect of the central government in relying on the top-down system and gradually formed a unique governance model of project institutions”. Project institutions establish the hierarchical governance mechanism between the central and local governments, which not only fully arouses the enthusiasm of local governments to carry out the campaign of project competition and develop regional economy, but also increases the debt financing needs of local governments. Actually, project institutions form a financial capital chain with the project as the carrier, the central special transfer as the guide, and the local supporting funds, bank loans and other funds extensively involved. By constructing the dynamic game model which reflects the relationship between central and local governments, we analyze the impact of project institutions on financing decisions of local governments. Then based on the special subsidy and local debt data of 278 cities, we test the expansion effect on the debt of project institutions and the mechanism. The research shows that project institutions significantly promote the expansion of local debts. The effect, on the one hand, comes from the increase of debt financing of public investment demands; on the other hand, comes from soft budget constraints of the special subsidy, which may induce local governments to carry on moral risk behaviors on debt financing, and the effect is more pronounced in poorer regions. The policy implications of this paper include the following: first, a transparent and scientific project application mechanism should be constructed; second, the central government should clearly define the inter-governmental authority and expenditure responsibility as soon as possible; third, the central government needs to tighten budgetary constraints on local governments, and makes its attitudes clear at local debts and reduce the expectations for aids. The potential contributions of this paper lie in two aspects: First, previous literature is mainly based on the perspective of central-local relations, which studies the causes of local government debts, generally emphasizes the influence of the decentralization governance model characterized by lumpism”. However, it ignores the possible debt expansion effect of project institutions, which is more characterized by centralism. Second, existing empirical literature mostly uses the data of provincial government debts or chengtou” debts to calculate the total amount of local government debts, but the main body of Chinese government debt issuance is the local government below the provincial level, the main source of debt funds is bank deposits, and the direction of investment of debts is mainly municipal infrastructure construction projects. Therefore, we select the sum of various types of long and short term debts of urban financing platforms and fixed assets investment of municipal public facilities construction from bank loans as the agent variable of local government debts, so as to make the empirical results more reliable.

The Experiences of Early Detection, Early Diagnosis and Early Treatment of Cancer in Rural Areas of China

Background: The cancers of the lung, liver, stomach, esophagus, colorectum and nasopharynx account for more than 70% of the causes of cancer death, making them the major cancer burdens in China. The early detection and treatment of cancers including lung, liver, stomach, esophagus, colorectum and nasopharynx was supported by the central government special financial transfer payment in the rural areas in 2006-2017. Aim: To improve the efficiency of early diagnosis and early treatment to reduce cancer mortality and incidence in the population in China. Methods: Cancer screening methods developed by Group of Expert Committee of Cancer Foundation of China were used, including digestive tract endoscopy for stomach and esophageal and colorectal cancer, LDCT for lung cancer, AFP and abdominal ultrasound for liver cancer, EB virus antibody detection and nasal endoscopy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Results: Among the cancers of lung, liver, stomach, esophagus, colorectum and nasopharynx, the screening high risk population were 55,363; 126,443; 103,3036; 1,425,642; 252,911; and 79,726 respectively; and the screening detection rates of precancerous lesions and cancer were 0.62%, 0.66%, 0.87%, 1.62%, 5.29% and 0.49% respectively; and the early diagnosis rates were 47.80%, 60.86%, 71.24%, 73.38%, 91.85% and 64.43% respectively; and the treatment rates were 83.28%, 90.33%, 87.94%, 82.91%, 94.04% and 95.88% respectively. Conclusion: The programs for early detection and early treatment of colorectal cancer and esophageal cancer demonstrated a promising benefit, which should be generalized to broad population implementation.

The dual risk model with dividends taken at arrival

We consider the dual risk model with special dividend or tax payments: If an arriving gain finds the surplus above a barrier b or if it would bring the surplus above that level, a certain part of the gain is paid as dividends or taxes. We obtain expressions for the joint Laplace–Stieltjes transform of the time to ruin and the amount of dividends paid until ruin, and for the expected discounted dividend paid until ruin. We consider the case where the dividend paid from each gain is a general function of the gain. More explicit results are obtained when the dividend is a given percentage of the gain amount.

Provider payment to primary care physicians in China: background, challenges, and a reform framework.

Aim: To provide a framework for provider payment reform for primary care physicians in China. Background: Primary health care is central to health system reform and payment incentives have significant consequences for the equity and efficiency of it. Methods: This paper describes the special payments system for public primary health institutions and the subsequent internal salary remuneration to primary care physicians in China. Based on an analysis of the major challenges, we suggest a reform framework including the pattern of governance, and payments to primary health institutions and employed physicians. Findings: A mixed system of input-based and output-based payments to institutions would probably be appropriate under a long-term and relational contract with the government. It was also advised that internal remuneration is provided by a basic salary plus a bonus based on performance, and an extra-regional allowance. We hope that the results can be used to shift the passive budgeting of in-house staff within the public primary health institutions toward strategic purchasing.

Aktualne kierunki zmian we wspólnej polityce rolnej Unii Europejskiej

Celem opracowania jest przedstawienie ewolucji wspólnej polityki rolnej zwłaszcza zmian jakie zaszły w tej polityce w okresie ostatniego dziesięciolecia oraz form i rozmiarów wsparcia rolnictwa i obszarów wiejskich. Wykonano je przy wykorzystaniu raportów OECD, zwłaszcza raportu dotyczącego monitorowania i ewolucji wspólnej polityki rolnej z 2015 r. oraz literatury problemu. Wyróżniono trzy grupy czynników wpływających na zmiany we wspólnej polityce rolnej: czynniki związane z sytuacją w rolnictwie krajów członkowskich UE, relacje Unii Europejskiej z gospodarką światową oraz przebieg światowego kryzysu finansowego. W pracy przedstawiono zmiany, które zaszły w dwóch filarach: filarze I dotyczącym sfery rynkowo-produkcyjnej, w tym zwłaszcza płatności bezpośrednich i w filarze II, obejmującym wielokierunkowe oddziaływanie na rolnictwo i obszary wiejskie. Omówiono także płatności specyficzne i specjalne. Wśród instrumentów wspierania rolnictwa zwrócono uwagę zwłaszcza na instrumenty rynku wewnętrznego, oddziaływanie przez usługi jak i regulacje obrotów zagranicznych. Jedną z głównych konkluzji jest stwierdzenie, że okresowe zmiany celów i instrumentów wspólnej polityki rolnej nie naruszyły jej podstaw i potrzeby wsparcia rolnictwa.

A Gap of Chinese Education Finance and Transfer Payments Modes Based on Education Equalization

The majority of education expenditures are paid by local governments in China. On the one hand, owing to the performance evaluation system taking GDP as a standard, the education efforts of local governments are at a lower level; on the other hand, the differences in natural endowments and economic development among regions lead to the greater gap of education development level among regions. Firstly, this paper uses the 2012 data to estimate China's provincial education fiscal gap on the basis of the determination of the proportion of education resources in regions. The results show that, the gap of education finance concentrates in Central China and West China, but our present education transfer payments funds cannot make up for the gap of education finance in these regions. On the basis of this situation, it designs a set of conditional grant modes of education special transfer payments, and combines the constraints of local government fiscal decision-making behavior and the system of education special transfer payments together, in order to guarantee the education resources and make up for the local gap of education finance.

The new German statutory minimum wage in comparative perspective: Employment effects and other adjustment channels

Germany was one of only seven EU member states without a statutory minimum wage before its new legislation took effect in January 2015. We explore the consequences for wage structure, employment and companies. The new wage floor brought significant increases for low-paid employees, with limited observable negative employment effects thus far. To explain these benign outcomes, we refer to institutionalist and behavioural theories and discuss a number of other adjustment channels for companies. Preliminary evidence suggests that companies in sectors highly affected have responded by reducing working hours and/or increasing work intensity and prices. Some have cut special payments and non-wage benefits, reduced labour turnover and attempted to absorb higher wages by hiring more qualified staff. Non-compliance may also constitute an adjustment channel.

Inter-firm Mobility and the Growth of Compensation Components

Although most middle managers in Germany continue to follow traditional career paths within their firms, there are alternative job opportunities other than staying with one employer for their whole career. Using data from a unique dataset of managers in the German chemical sector, we find that managerial employees benefit from higher-than-average increases in fixed salary payments when changing firms, but that these mobile employees suffer with regard to variable payments, such as cash bonus and other payments (e. g. stocks options or special payments). Thus, job movers have to trade off variable payments for higher fixed salaries when changing firms. This paper also shows that job movers differ considerably in terms of both increased fixed salaries and decreased bonus payments. Initial fixed salary premiums are much more pronounced if managers switch to a larger firm or to the same functional area or line of business. Notably, job movers suffer from reduced bonus payments, especially in overall economic and/or industry-specific peak times. Our study adds to the discussion on negative monetary consequences of inter-firm mobility.

Диагностирование инсайдерской торговли на российском фондовом рынке перед важными корпоративными событиями

Владислав Владимирович Петров - Научно-Исследовательский институт "Высшая школа экономики".
 Электронная почта: petrovv41091@gmail.com
 В статье представлены результаты исследования инсайдерской торговли в периоды, предшествующие важным корпоративным событиям на российском фондовом рынке в 2005–2015 годах. Исследование базируется на анализе накопленной избыточной доходности (ACAR) и избыточного объема торгов (AAV) вокруг новостного события. В рамках исследования были проанализированы выборки объявлений о сделках M&A, SPO, выплате специальных дивидендов и делистинге акций на предмет наличия признаков инсайдерской торговли вокруг даты анонсирования события.
 Было установлено наличие признаков инсайдерской торговли перед анонсированием сделок M&A, объявлений о выплате специальных дивидендов и о делистинге акций. Так, за несколько дней до события наблюдались положительные (отрицательные в случае объявлений о делистинге акций) значения ACAR и AAV, которые росли по мере приближения дня анонсирования события и достигали своего максимума за день до события. Признаков масштабной инсайдерской торговли при объявлениях о дополнительном размещении акций обнаружено не было.
 Сравнение масштабов инсайдерской торговли на фондовом рынке России и США показало превышение масштабов инсайдерской торговли на российском фондовом рынке в два раза. Кроме того, было выявлено, что ужесточение законодательства Российской Федерации в сфере противодействия инсайдерской торговле в 2010–2013 годах не дало желаемого результата и масштабы инсайдерской торговли на российском фондовом снизились незначительно.

Can Poverty be Alleviated in China?

The 2000s witnessed the third poverty alleviation wave in China. Compared with its predecessors, the third wave distinguished itself by new interventions and redefined standards for the National Poor Counties. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the new program using a data set consisting of 1,411 of China's western and central counties from 2000 to 2010. It combines the propensity score matching method with the difference‐in‐differences approach, which helps to avoid selection bias and track the policy impact on variables of interest at each time point. It is found that the non‐western local governments tended to manipulate data on income and output growth to maintain the special transfer payments disbursed exclusively to the National Poor Counties. It is also shown that the program failed to improve the infrastructure and sanitary conditions in general.

Dynamics of central–local relations in China’s social welfare system

Central–local relations have been always regarded as one of fundamental institutional arrangements that determine rapid economic development in China. However, the dynamics of central–local relations in China’s social welfare system have not been paid much attention. I argue, in this article, that China has moved from decentralization to recentralization in enacting its social welfare system, to address increasingly more serious social unrest stemming from loosened control over public welfare provision on the part of the central government during the decentralizing market reform era. The process of recentralization is embodied in three major policy instruments: (1) reintroducing the binding targets as a tool by which they could control local governments once again; (2) scaling up the proportion of special transfer payments and initiated central-guided regional pilot projects; and (3) strengthening line management and encouraging local administrative power to concentrate in provincial governments. I empirically illustrate the recent recentralization processes in several social policy fields such as public health, pension insurance, and basic education.

Are firms with financial participation of employees better off in a crisis? Evidence from the IAB Establishment Panel Survey

mrev management revue , Seite 304 - 320

The Christmas effect—Special dividend announcements

This paper examines the Halloween effect in special dividend announcements. We find that firms are more likely to announce special dividends at the end of a year, especially in the months of November and December. There is a Halloween effect in the announcements, but more importantly, there is a Christmas effect in the propensity and abnormal returns of special dividends. This paper provides initial evidence on the Christmas effect of special dividend payments. It links monthly effects in stock returns and corporate events to explain the likelihood of the occurrence of special dividend announcements. The results of this paper shed light on why corporate events are more likely to occur in some periods, but less likely to occur in others.

SEPA Card Clearing as an open standard for card processing in the euro area

The establishment of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) for credit transfers and direct debits was finalised via Regulation (EU) 260/2012 of the European Parliament and the European Council. But without the card payment sector, the vision of a harmonised single payment market remains incomplete. A harmonised market for cards should provide a framework within which merchants in Europe can accept a variety of SEPA-compliant card brands and products, and choose from a variety of acquirers without being artificially constrained by legal, technical or procedural aspects associated with the respective card schemes. This paper focuses on SEPA Card Clearing (SCC), a project aimed at harmonisation, which is nearing completion in the acquirer-to-issuer domain. The aim of SCC is to create a new common ISO 20022 standard as an open standard (ie irrespective of a specific card scheme) for clearing and processing debit card and credit card based transactions between banks that takes into account the different market needs with respect to clearing and settling debit and credit card transactions, based on existing standards in different countries. Therefore, with SCC, a clear ‘unbundling’ of card schemes and processing can be achieved. This should support open and fair competition and, in so doing, lower the market entry barriers for new players. In technical terms, the SCC Framework is based on the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) scheme and its concomitant SDD-message standards and business processes. The SCC Framework is freely available for any market participant in Europe, and it enables the use of one clearing infrastructure for all relevant payment instruments in the SEPA, direct debits, credit transfers and cards. Lastly, SCC also supports innovation. The special payment message container in SCC could also be used for the processing of any other type of payments (ie payments via mobile phone or biometric data).

Germany’s Statutory Treatment of Special Payments in Transnational Cases

In the field of business taxation, the German and Austrian concepts of co-entrepreneurship (Mitunternehmerschaft) take special positions. Following these concepts, partnership profits are attributed to partner shares and, accordingly, the partners are taxed independently under the transparency or pass-through principle (Transparenzprinzip) based on their respective shares and the special payments they receive from the partnership. Special payments (Sondervergütungen), for instance, interest on a loan granted to the partnership by a partner, are treated as income from commercial business according to domestic law. Therefore, section 50d, paragraph 10, of the Income Tax Act (Einkommensteuergesetz [EStG]) determines that the special payments are treated as a business profit for treaty purposes. As a result, Germany waives the right to tax the partner as a German permanent establishment (PE). In transnational arrangements, the unique German system often results in conflicts of qualification. On this account, our paper points out the consequences resulting from the treatment of special payments. Based on case studies with inbound and outbound investments, we outline the current status of the German treatment of special payments in transnational dealings and summarize future prospects.

Special Dividend Distributions, Firm Characteristics, and Economic Conditions

We show that the firm’s decision to pay special dividends is related to its investment opportunities based on growth options that are available within the prevailing economic environment. Specifically, firms are more likely to pay special dividends when their investment opportunities are restricted by a weak economy. We also show that the share price response of special dividend payments is more favorable when the firm’s investment opportunities are restricted by a weak economy. Furthermore, the share price response to a special dividend distribution during a period in which a higher dividend tax is anticipated is more favorable when economic conditions are weak.