在全球共同抗击新冠肺炎疫情的关键时刻，香樟经济学圈在全国各地常规学术活动改为线上形式。第7期香樟经济学(杭州)“云Seminar”通过腾讯会议软件于2020年9月21日成功举行，浙江工商大学经济学院谢杰教授、浙江大学经济学院叶兵副教授、上海财经大学公共经济与管理学院张牧扬副教授、中央财经大学经济学院张川川副教授共同担任本期“云Seminar”点评人，浙江财经大学文雁兵副教授担任主持人。

浙江农林大学经济管理学院薛增鑫研究生报告了《新农保对农村留守儿童认知能力的影响》，新农保作为新形势下解决农村居民养老问题的惠民工程，改善了农村老年人的福利状况，但对其在教育领域的溢出效应探讨较少。该文从人力资本角度出发，利用中国家庭动态跟踪调查（CFPS）2014年和2016年的面板数据，分析新农保溢出效应对农村留守儿童认知能力的影响后发现，老年人领取新农保后通过增加隔代照料时间进而提高留守儿童的认知能力；进一步进行异质性分析发现，老年人的教育期望越高，新农保对留守儿童认知能力的提升作用越明显，并且新农保对初中阶段留守儿童认知能力的影响显著大于小学生。该文研究表明，新农保不仅直接提高了农村参保老年人的福利水平，而且带来了明显的溢出效应，对促进农村留守儿童人力资本形成，缩小城乡差距具有重大现实意义。

厦门大学经济学院/王亚南经济研究院倪骁然助理教授报告了《A Tale of Two “Skewness”: Professional Epidemic Experience, ProbabilityWeighting, and Stock Price Crash Risk》。Under probability weighting, entrepreneurs’skewness preference, thetendency to seek right-skewed and avoid left-skewed risks, can affect thenegative skewness of stock prices. Based on the evidence after the outbreak ofSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome(SARS), which is caused by the same family ofviruses as COVID-19, we show that firms managed by CEOs who previouslyexperienced the outbreak of SARS during their tenure of high executives havelower stock price crash risk measured by negative skewness. Among those firms,this effect especially matters for CEOs that actually experienced prominentoperating distress or stock price crashes during the outbreak of SARS. In addition,firms managed by CEOs with professional epidemic experience tend to disclose badnews in a timelier manner, and have lower discretionary accruals. Our overallevidence indicates that entrepreneurs with imprinted professional epidemic experiencemay overweight the probability of extreme tail events. As a result, theyintentionally avoid stock price crashes through preventing the formation andaccumulation of bad news.

上海财经大学财经研究所李兴博士报告了《Can Political Uncertainty Improve EnvironmentalTotal Factor Productivity? Evidence from China》。This paper provides the first study exploring the role of politicaluncertainty on Chinese Environmental Total Factor Productivity (ETFP) by using285 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2016. We utilize the latest overallMalmquist index calculation method proposed by Afsharian and Ahn (2014) andfind that China’s ETFP shows a rising volatility after a more accuratecalculation. The estimated results show that political uncertainty caused byofficial turnover can significantly improve ETFP, which is robust throughoutseveral methods including instrumental variable. Specifically, politicaluncertainty can increase ETFP by about 0.45%. In addition, we findtechnological progress is a potential mechanism, where official turnover canincrease the number of patents and the proportion of government spending onscience and technology.

本期“云Seminar”的3篇报告论文分别对新农保对农村留守儿童认知能力的影响、具有流行病经历的高管对股价暴跌风险的影响、政治不确定性对中国环境全要素生产率的影响三个有趣问题进行了富有启发性研究和精彩报告，具有重要的现实意义。4位点评人主要从研究价值、文献整理、边际贡献、估计方法、指标选取、机制分析、实证检验等多方面对每一篇论文都进行了深度点评，更是提出了极富价值的修改建议，整个会议过程高效、有序，深受与会者好评。期待学界同仁积极关注和参加浙江香樟经济学圈的相关学术活动。