Presenter: Lars-Erik Cederman (member of the German National Academy of Sciences)Discussant: Prof. Kurtuluş Gemici, Prof. Andre PythonVenue: Room 1127, Block A, Creative Building, West Zone, Zijingang CampusAbstract:Does the partitioning of states along ethnic lines reduce conflict? While theorists drawing on the “security dilemma” argue that partition prevents conflict recurrence by separating the parties, others dispute these findings. Advancing in four analytical steps, this work first reconceptualize partition as decreased cohabitation in dyads between transnationally defined ethnic groups. Based on a global dataset (1945-2017), we find that whereas complete partition reduces internal conflict, its incomplete application increases this risk. The second step adopts a nationalist logic and tests whether partition reduces conflict if it eliminates dyadic domination. Third, the analysis focuses on whether reduced domination makes civil conflict less likely, with or without border change. We show that power sharing can be at least as effective in reducing domination as partition. The fourth and final step investigates the various side effects of state splits on both civil and interstate conflict. Generally, we find that partition may fuel instability both within and outside the dyad.

Speaker: Prof. WU Kaishu (University of Waterloo)Host: Prof. WANG Wenming (Zhejiang University)Venue: A423, School of Management, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Environmental taxation aims to improve firms' environmental performance by increasing the cost of polluting. We find that highly polluting Chinese firms increase income tax avoidance to offset additional costs caused by China's Environmental Protection Tax Law. This effect is stronger for firms with greater financial constraints, firms in provinces with higher environmental tax rates and greater emphasis on environmental protection and firms with lower income tax avoidance prior to the law. Further, while the environmental tax on average improves polluting firms' environmental performance at the cost of their financial performance, these effects are muted for firms that increase income tax avoidance. Overall, our findings suggest that the role of environmental taxation in promoting environmental sustainability is undermined by firms' income tax avoicance. Our study provides important policy making implications by identifying an unintended consequence of environmental taxation and showing how different taxes interact with each other.

Speaker: Prof. HAN Weimin, Department of Mathematics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USAVenue: Room 105, Building 2, Haina Court, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Recently, studies of hemivariational inequalities have attracted much attention in the research communities. Hemivariational inequalities are generalizations of variational inequalities. Through the formulation of hemivariational inequalities, application problems involving nonmonotone, nonsmooth and multivalued constitutive laws, forces, and boundary conditions can be treated successfully.In this talk, we introduce models of hemivariational inequalities in fluid mechanics, and present recent and new results on well-posedness analysis and mixed finite element methods for the Stokes and Navier-Stokes hemivariational inequalities.Contact person: Prof. CHENG Xiaoliang, Prof. LIANG Kewei

Speaker: Prof. QIU Yang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)Profile of the speaker: Qiu Yang is a Ph.D. candidate in accountancy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on auditing, banking, and disclosure.Host: Prof. CHEN Jun (Zhejiang University)Venue: A423, School of Management, Zijingang CampusAbstract: This study reveals that the impact of bank financial misconduct on uninsured deposits of local peer banks that have not engaged in misconduct is contingent upon the economic conditions. In non-crisis periods, depositors respond to bank financial misconduct by reallocating deposits from misconduct bank branches to peer non-misconduct bank branches in the local market, leading to a decrease in the uninsured deposit spreads of the peer branches (local reallocation effect). In the crisis period, depositors withdraw from both misconduct bank branches and non-misconduct peer branches in the local deposit market, resulting in an increase in the uninsured deposit spreads of the peer non-misconduct branches (local contagion effect). Cross-sectional analyses show that depositors' financial sophistication and government guarantee play a role in the above two misconduct-triggered deposit market disciplines. The reallocation effect is more concentrated among financially sophisticated depositors and is amplified (attenuated) when peer (misconduct) banks have a lower default risk, or when they are more likely to receive government guarantees. In contrast, the local contagion effect is mitigated by government guarantees and social capital.

Speaker: Phoebe Zhou, European Head of Emerging Payments, Chair of HSBC China ConnectVenue: Room 359, ZIBS Building, Haining CampusLanguage: Bilingual

Speaker: Prof. Han Zuilhof (Wageningen University & Research)Inviter: Prof. HUANG Feihe (Zhejiang University)Venue: C100, Building 5, Haina Court, Zijingang Campus

Speaker: Shelley Xiuli Tong, Ph.D. (University of Hongkong)Venue: Conference Room 537, Building 3, Haina Court, Zijingang Campus

Speaker: Prof. JIN Yubo (Durham University)Venue: Room 203, Building 2, Haina Court, Zijingang CampusAbstract: The main problem concerned in this talk is the algebraicity of special L-values for automorphic forms on classical groups (Deligne's conjecture). After reviewing this problem, we will present an integral representation for L-functions by the doubling method. Using the integral representation and the Fourier expansion of Eisenstein series, we can prove the algebraicity result in the `holomorphic' case. We will also explain our future plan on studying this problem in full generality.

Speaker: Prof. SUN Chengzhu (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)Host: Prof. HUANG Ying (Zhejiang University)Venue: A423, School of Management, Zijingang CampusAbstract: This study examines whether improved environmental, social, and governance (ESG) transparency enhances firms’competitiveness for foreign government procurement contracts. Exploiting the staggered adoption of mandatory ESG disclosure requirements across countries, we find that, following the ESG disclosure mandate, firms in the treated countries are more likely to receive foreign governments’ procurement contracts and contracts with higher values than their counterparts in the control countries. This effect is more pronounced for green contracts, suppliers with enhanced ESG disclosure quality after the mandate, and purchasing governments exhibiting a higher degree of ESG consciousness. Moreover, the effect is stronger when suppliers face more intensive competition. Channel tests indicate that the ESG disclosure mandate affects global allocation of government procurements through two channels: increased ESG disclosure and improved ESG performance. Our findings shed light on the role of ESG transparency in contracting with foreign governments.