Alternative Forms of Mixing Banking with Commerce: Evidence from American History

Much of the discussion about banking and commerce in America has failed to make several crucial distinctions and has not accounted for many arrangements that have promoted the mixing of these activities. We investigate the history of banking and commerce in the United States, looking both at bank control of commercial firms and commercial firms' control of banks. We trace how these controls have changed with shifting definitions of "bank" and changing methods of "control." Despite the regulations prohibiting some arrangements that promote financial control, we find evidence of extensive linkages between banking and commerce in the United States. These linkages usually build on devices that are very close substitutes to the arrangements prohibited by law. Altogether, our findings question the often made claim that traditionally banking in the United States has been separated from commerce. Furthermore, given that research on Japan and Germany has shown that the mixing of banking and commerce matters for a variety of issues, our evidence also raises some questions on similar research in the United States which makes the simplifying assumption that these industries are separated.     

Regulation Fair Disclosure and Earnings Information: Market, Analyst, and Corporate Responses

With the adoption of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), market behavior around earnings releases displays no significant change in return volatility (after controlling for decimalization of stock trading) but significant increases in trading volume due to difference in opinion. Analyst forecast dispersion increases, and increases in other measures of disagreement and difference of opinion suggest greater difficulty in forming forecasts beyond the current quarter. Corporations increase the quantity of voluntary disclosures, but only for current quarter earnings. Thus, Reg FD seems to increase the quantity of information available to the public while imposing greater demands on investment professionals.     

Analysing the factors influencing clean technology adoption: a study of the Spanish pulp and paper industry

Technological change has a relevant role to play in the transition towards a sustainable industry. However, slow diffusion of clean technologies can be observed in OECD countries. The analysis of the determinants and barriers to clean technology adoption should be a main goal of economists and social scientists. This paper shows that three sets of interrelated factors prevent but also stimulate the widespread adoption and diffusion of clean technology: these are factors external and internal to the firm, conditions of the potential adopters and characteristics of the environmental technology. These factors are included in the so‐called ‘triangular model’, which is further applied to the analysis of clean technology adoption in the pulp and paper industry in Spain. The empirical study shows that clean technology adoption decisions are the result of an interaction between these factors, often involving contradictory signals for the potential adopter. The paper closes with some public policy recommendations for the effective and efficient promotion of clean technology diffusion. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

语言与文化的关系及了解文化的策略

语言是学习文化的主要工具,人在学习和运用语言的过程中获得整个文化;文化知识影响到语言学习者的各个学习阶段,对学习者变得越来越重要.文化教学的策略是创造一个真实的教室环境等.     

仓库物资装卸最优性方案的选择

军队后方仓库是军用物资装备的储备基地，是军队物流系统的一个重要环节。如何利用现有条件，提高日常乃至战时仓库的收发、存储能力和工作效率，是提高军队后勤保障能力的一个重要课题。本文对仓库物资装卸中的几个主要技术经济指标进行探讨分析。     

论制度支持下的我国港口投融资模式转变

文章着重从制度方面分析了我国港口投融资的法律及相关政策，通过回顾《中华人民共和国港口法》颁布前后我国港口投融资相关法律的发展历程和具体实践，梳理了现阶段我国港口投融资的宏观法律环境。文章通过分析，对建立政府在投融资制度中的角色转换以及促进投融资模式的转变提出了建议。     

Is your vision consistent?: A method for checking, based on scenario concepts

Common sense tells us that the future is an essential element in any strategy. In addition, there is a good deal of literature on scenario planning, which is an important tool in considering the future in terms of strategy. However, in many organizations there is serious resistance to the development of scenarios, and they are not broadly implemented by companies. But even organizations that do not rely heavily on the development of scenarios do, in fact, construct visions to guide their strategies. But it might be asked, what happens when this vision is not consistent with the future? To address this problem, the present article proposes a method for checking the content and consistency of an organization's vision of the future, no matter how it was conceived. The proposed method is grounded on theoretical concepts from the field of future studies, which are described in this article. This study was motivated by the search for developing new ways of improving and using scenario techniques as a method for making strategic decisions. The method was then tested on a company in the field of information technology in order to check its operational feasibility. The test showed that the proposed method is, in fact, operationally feasible and was capable of analyzing the vision of the company being studied, indicating both its shortcomings and points of inconsistency.