The ubiquitous tourist brochure explorations in its intended and unintended use

The format and content of tourist attraction brochures are examined. Emphasis is on their function in encouraging tourists to establish authentic “traveler-like” personal contact with the local people and area. The Old Order Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is the setting studied. Findings indicate that brochures advertising staged tourist attractions implicity encourage tourists to move away from contact with the indigenous population and culture. Attractions are presented as convenient, efficient, and authentic means of “sampling” the region. Questions are raised about the probable consequences for a local area and its people, should large numbers of tourists choose to seek our direct and “authentic” contact with the indigenous community. It may be the staged attractions, while often the object of intellectual critique, protect the community from the pressures of mass tourism.     

Performing 'Performance'—A Comedy in Five Acts

The public service in the United Kingdom is awash with performance data. From the ubiquitous league tables for schools, local authorities and police services, through key performance indicators for civil service agencies right up to Government-level Public Service Agreements, the number of published performance data sets probably now reaches five figures annually. The author discusses some of the aspects of being what are probably the most 'performance-reported' public services in the world.     

Impacts de l'ouverture à la concurrence sur la R&D dans le secteur électrique

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of the opening of the competitive arena in regulated markets on the nature and intensity of innovation. The cases of the electricity sectors in the USA and England & Wales are taken as examples. The present condition and the evolution of R&D programmes and institutions in the American and English electric sectors are analysed. We show that the current regulatory reforms lead to significant cuts in R&D programmes, especially those focusing on new technological fields.     

Majority and Minority Ownership of Publicly-Traded Firms: A Test of the Value of Control Using Market Multiples

Publicly-traded companies that are controlled by other publicly-traded companies provide a unique setting in which to test whether the market values of majority and minority ownership interests are proportionate to their ownership percentages. Test results indicate that the value of subsidiary net assets and net income are greater to majority shareholders than to minority shareholders. However, comparison of asset and income valuation with a sample of diffusely-held firms indicates that this valuation asymmetry is not due to a wealth transfer from the minority to the majority owners but to a discounting of the portion of the subsidiary owned by the minority shareholders.