How do middle-aged children allocate time and money transfers to their older parents in Europe?

This paper analyses the determinants of financial and time transfers from adult children to their older parents using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). It is the first survey containing rich comparable interdisciplinary information about individuals aged 50+ from ten European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The first part of the paper highlights the differences in the provision of upward private intergenerational transfers (in terms of both time and money) across the ten European countries. The second part describes the different determinants in the decision to provide time or money transfers to parents and evaluates whether these two types of assistance are substitutes or complements. Results highlight the existence of a substitution between time and money in relation to geographical distance and the existence of a weak substitution regarding the employment status of the middle-aged children.

Do Islamic banks shift from mark-up to equity financing when their contracting environments are improved?

Islamic banks should share their profits and losses with their customers through equity financing but most of their assets are mark-up financing, which resembles loans. Theoretically, one of the reasons is Islamic banks operate in poor contracting environments where equity financing is very risky. Using fixed-effects models, we examine whether better contracting environments induce Islamic banks to shift from mark-up to equity financing. We find no evidence that contracting environments do, which means debt-like instruments will continue dominating Islamic banks’ assets in the near future.     

How should firms carry out technological diversification to improve their performance? An analysis of patenting of Korean firms

This research aims to analyze how a firm's technological diversification strategies influence its financial performances, in terms of ‘technological diversification’ in broad technology sectors and ‘technological concentration’ on its own core technology, especially in the case of Korean large firms. The data used in the analysis were panel data encompassing the years between 1990 and 2006, which linked Korean firms’ patent information registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office to the financial data of those firms collected from Korea Investors Service, Inc. (Kis-Value). For the estimation of the panel data, a fixed effect model, which considers the individual firms’ own effect on the financial performance, was used. Tobin's q was used as a dependent variable representing firm performance, while ‘broad technology diversity’ and ‘core technology diversity’ were used as the focal explanatory variables. The results show that a firm seeking to have more technological assets should invest in a broad technological diversification strategy in its search for new business opportunities; it should likewise concentrate on the core technology in order to maintain its financial performance.     

‘Marxism Gone Mad’: Tugan-Baranovsky on crises,their possibility and their periodicity

Abstract

Tugan-Baranovsky's theory of crises has two components: a theory of markets, defining the condition under which expanded reproduction can take place, and a theory of crises proper, explaining how any rupture of equilibrium is amplified and extended to the whole system and gives rise to periodical fluctuations. The former, based on the Marxian schemes of reproduction, is logically preliminary to the latter, which relies on the accumulation and depletion of loanable funds. In spite of Tugan's insistence on this nexus, academic commentators have ignored Tugan's theory of markets, while Marxist critics have focused exclusively on this aspect and charged Tugan with upholding Say's Law. While this reading is not entirely justified, there is indeed a deep difference between Tugan's and Marx's interpretation of crises. While Marx considers crises as the necessary corrective to the systematic and necessary breaches of equilibrium, Tugan sees equilibrium as the norm and crises a deviation from it, albeit recurring and periodical.     

Predicting IJVs＇ effectiveness based on their autonomy levels and the characteristics of their parent companies

Separate research streams have identified relationships between IJV autonomy and IJV effectiveness, and between functional/dysfunctional parent-company differentiation and IJV effectiveness. This study attempts to integrate these two literature streams by examining how these two sets of independent variables interact in terms of predicting IJV effectiveness. Results partially support our hypotheses that the autonomy-effectiveness relationship is less positive with greater functional differentiation and more positive with greater dysfunctional differentiation. The results provide strong support for our hypotheses that activities closer to the local operating environment will influence these relationships such that autonomy becomes more important to effectiveness when an activity has strong local ties.     

Are your employees minding their behavior?

Self-managed, "tailored" behavioral change programs cross both wellness and disease management issues and can impact the bottom line on health care costs of both employer and employee. For example, a back pain program can help change employee behavior to prevent the incidence and upflow of a condition to more severe and debilitating situations.     

Guide to Authors

Aims and scope With the tenet of concerning ecology and serv-ing economy, aimed at constructing a harmonioussociety of man and nature, Ecological Economy fo-cuses on the sustainable development of economyand the ecological environment, and puts attentionon theories, methods and technical innovations