法律翻译 | 《法与经济学杂志》第61卷第4期

译者 | 余安琪 浙江大学本科      

审稿 | 曾梓栩 中国外交学院大学本科

         张亦衡 杜克大学 J.D.

编辑 | 崔   雪 天津师范大学本科

         余卓妍 西安交通大学本科

责编 | 李   薇 浙江工商大学本科

《法与经济学杂志》第61卷第4期

The Journal of Law and Economics 

Volume 61, Number 4 | 2018

Can Lax Corporate Law Increase Shareholder Value? 

Evidence from Nevada

宽松的公司法能否增加股东价值？

来自内华达州的证据

Ofer Eldar

Recent scholarship argues that Nevada’s lax corporate law, which exempts managers from fiduciary duties and discourages takeovers, may harm shareholders’ wealth. I present evidence that Nevada corporate law does not harm shareholder value for firms that self-select into Nevada, particularly small firms with low levels of institutional shareholding and high levels of insider ownership, and it may in fact enhance the value of these firms. A possible explanation is that Nevada’s promanagerial laws reduce the likelihood of takeovers and litigation, thereby benefiting a segment of small firms for which the costs of corporate governance may outweigh the benefits.

最近有学者认为，内华达州宽松的公司法免除了经理人的受托责任并遏制了公司收购，这可能会损害股东利益。但我们提出的证据表明，内华达州的公司法并没有损害那些自我选择进入内华达州的公司的股东价值。尤其是对于机构持股比例低、内部人持股比例高的小公司，宽松的公司法反而事实上可能提升这些公司的价值。对此一种可能的解释是，内华达州的强管理型法律降低了收购和诉讼的可能性，从而有益于一部分公司治理成本可能大于收益的小公司。

Borrowers' Distress and Debt Relief: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

借款人的困境与债务减免： 

来自自然实验的证据

Saptarshi Mukherjee, Krishnamurthy Subramanian, and Prasanna Tantri

Using unique borrower-level data, we study the causal effect of debt relief on the loan performance of distressed and nondistressed borrowers. We employ a regression discontinuity design that exploits exogenous cutoff dates underlying the 2008 Indian debt waiver program to separate defaulters on loans into beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries of waivers. By identifying distress before the waiver program using exogenous borrower-level shocks, we examine performance on loans originated after the waiver program. Loan performance of nondistressed beneficiaries worsens, while that of distressed borrowers improves. While existing studies aggregate the effects of debt relief across distressed and nondistressed borrowers, we highlight crucial differences between them.

我们利用借款人层面的独特数据，研究了债务减免对困境借款人^[1]和非困境借款人贷款表现的因果效应。我们对2008 年印度债务豁免计划下作为外生因素的截止日期^[2]采用回归不连续设计（RD），将拖欠贷款的借款人分为豁免受益者和非受益者。通过利用借款人层面的外生冲击来辨明豁免计划实施前的（借款人）困境，我们考察了豁免计划实施后的贷款表现。研究发现，非困境借款人的贷款表现有所恶化，而困境借款人的贷款表现则有所改善。现有研究大多以困境借款人和非困境借款人的一体视角考察债务减免的影响，但我们强调了两者之间的重要差异。

（图片源于网络）

Third-Party Litigation Funding with Informative Signals: Equilibrium Characterization and the Effects of Admissibility

带有信息信号的第三方诉讼资金：

均衡特性与可接受性的影响

Ronen Avraham and Abraham L. Wickelgren

Litigation funders provide nonrecourse loans to plaintiffs who repay these loans if and only if they prevail. The loan’s interest rate reflects the funder’s information about the strength of the plaintiff’s case. We analyze a monopoly and a two-firm Bertrand model. Bertrand competition does not eliminate funders’ profits or inefficiency. Making the funding contract admissible evidence enables the funder to increase its chance of recovery by reducing the interest rate to signal to the court that the plaintiff has a strong case. Under monopoly, there is only a separating equilibrium without admissible funding. With admissible funding, there is either a pooling equilibrium or a separating equilibrium, but either increases the joint welfare of plaintiffs and funders. Under Bertrand competition, admissible funding increases joint welfare if courts can make adverse inferences from the absence of funding contracts. Plaintiffs are generally better off under admissibility if they discount the future sufficiently.

诉讼出资人向原告提供无追索权贷款，原告需要也只需要在胜诉后偿还。贷款利率反映了出资人掌握的原告胜诉可能性的信息。我们分析了垄断模式^[3]和双寡头伯特兰模式（two-firm Bertrand model）^[4]。伯特兰竞争不会消除出资人的利润或低效率。通过将出资合同作为可采纳的证据^[5]，出资人能通过降低利率向法院发出原告有充分（胜诉）可能性的信号，从而增加其获得赔偿的可能。在垄断模式下缺乏可接受的出资，只有分离的均衡^[6]。而在具有可接受的出资的情况下，要么存在池化的均衡^[7]，要么存在分离的均衡，但无论哪种都会增加原告和出资者的共同利益。在伯特兰竞争下，如果法院可以在缺乏出资合同的情况下做出不利推论（认为原告胜诉的可能性低），则原告在法庭上披露可采信的出资合同会增加共同利益。如果原告未来有足够的（抵押贷款）利率优惠，那么在出资被采信的情况下，原告地位一般也更加有利。

Shareholder Protection and the Cost of Capital

股东保护与资本成本

Joel F. Houston, Chen Lin, and Wensi Xie

Do shareholder protection laws affect the corporate cost of capital? To identify the causal impact of shareholder protection laws on firms’ implied cost of capital, we exploit the staggered adoption across 23 US states of universal-demand laws, which place significant obstacles to derivative lawsuits and thus undermine shareholders’ litigation rights. Using a sample of public US firms between 1985 and 2013, we find that weakened litigation rights for shareholders materially increase firms’ implied cost of capital. We further show that the curtailing of shareholders’ rights leads to a deterioration in information quality, increased risk-taking, and more severe insider expropriation, all of which contribute to heightened financing costs. Overall, our findings indicate that weakened litigation rights for shareholders lead them to face greater agency conflicts and higher market risk, which ultimately translates into higher required returns.

股东保护法会影响公司的资本成本^[8]吗？为了确定股东保护法对公司隐性资本成本的因果影响，我们利用了美国 23 个州不同的对普遍要求法（UD法/universal-demand laws）的适用情况：这些法律对衍生诉讼设置了重大阻碍，从而削弱了股东的诉讼权利。通过对1985年至2013年间美国上市公司进行抽样调查，我们发现，股东诉讼权的弱化大大增加了公司的隐性资本成本。我们进一步发现，股东权利的弱化会导致信息质量下降、风险承担增加、内部人侵占更加严重，这些都会导致融资成本上升。总之，我们的研究结果表明，股东诉讼权的弱化将导致更大的代理冲突和更高的市场风险，最终转化为更高的回报要求。

（图片源于网络）

Bounded Rationality and the Choice of Jury Selection Procedures

有限理性与陪审团遴选程序的选择

Martin Van der Linden

A peremptory-challenge procedure allows the parties to a jury trial to dismiss some prospective jurors without justification. Complex challenge procedures offer an unfair advantage to parties who are better able to strategize. I introduce a new measure of strategic complexity based on level-k thinking and use this measure to compare challenge procedures often used in practice. In applying this measure, I overturn some commonly held beliefs about which jury selection procedures are strategically simple.

异议程序允许陪审团审判的各方当事人在没有正当理由的情况下回避某些潜在陪审员。复杂的异议程序为更善用策略的当事人提供了不公优势。笔者引入了一种基于level-k思维的、新的策略复杂性衡量标准，并用这种标准来衡量实践中常用的异议程序。在运用这一衡量标准时，笔者推翻了关于哪些陪审员遴选程序在策略上更简单的一些普遍观点。

Enforcement Spillovers: 

Lessons from Strategic Interactions in Regulation and Product Markets

执法溢出效应： 

监管与产品市场战略互动的经验教训

Mary F. Evans, Scott M. Gilpatric, and Jay P. Shimshack

We explore enforcement spillovers, in which sanctions at one entity influence behavior at other entities. We model spillovers arising from a regulatory channel and from a channel not previously emphasized: product market interactions. Our model motivates empirical hypotheses, which we test using data from manufacturers subject to the Clean Water Act. We find that penalties create positive spillovers for other facilities facing the same regulatory authority, such that enforcement actions reduce pollution at facilities in the same regulatory jurisdiction. However, penalties generate negative spillovers for facilities in the same industry facing a different authority, such that enforcement actions increase pollution at facilities in the same industry but facing a different regulator. Reductions in pollution in a state issuing a fine are about 50 percent offset by increases in pollution in nearby states. Negative spillovers to entities outside of the jurisdiction can be thought of as enforcement leakage.

我们探讨了执法溢出效应（enforcement spillovers）——对一个实体的制裁会影响其他实体的行为。我们对来自监管环境（互动）渠道和以前未曾强调过的渠道（即产品市场互动^[9]）的溢出效应进行了建模。该模型激发了我们利用受《清洁水法》（CWA）管制的制造商的数据进行实证假设。我们发现，处罚会对面临相同监管者的其他设施产生正面溢出效应，也即执法行动会减少同一监管辖区内设施的污染量。然而，处罚会对不同一监管辖区内的同行业（其他）设施产生负面溢出效应，即执法行动会增加同行业但面临不同监管机构的设施的污染量。开罚单的州减少的约 50%污染会被附近州增加的污染抵消。对辖区外实体的负面溢出效应可视为一种执法渗漏。

（图片源于网络）

原文链接：

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jle/2018/61/4

注释