Political connection heterogeneity and firm value in Vietnam

The observation of firms’ political connections (PCs) in both types of ascribed and acquired PCs has raised the question of their benefits to firms’ operation. Based on 1,365 Vietnamese listed firm-year observations from 2010 to 2014, we find that although firms with both ascribed and acquired PCs have lower firm value (FV) than firms without any PCs, firms with acquired PCs exhibit better FV than those with ascribed PCs. The paper also reveals that concentrated ownership (CO) has a mediation impact on the association between acquired PCs and FV while it can help firms with acquired PCs in improving FV

Influence of socioeconomic inertia and uncertainty on optimal CO2-emission abatement

Following the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change [1], countries will negotiate in Kyoto this December an agreement to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Here we examine optimal CO2 policies, given long-term constraints on atmospheric concentrations. Our analysis highlights the interplay of uncertainty and socioeconomic inertia. We find that the ‘integrated assessment' models so far applied under-represent inertia, and we show that higher adjustment costs make it optimal to spread the effort across generations and increase the costs of deferring abatement. Balancing the costs of early action against the potentially higher costs of a more rapid forced subsequent transition, we show that early attention to the carbon content of new and replacement investments reduces the exposure of both the environmental and the economic systems to the risks of costly and unpleasant surprises. If there is a significant probability of having to stay below a doubling of atmospheric CO2-equivalent, deferring abatement may prove costly.