The impact of the global financial crisis on the cross-currency linkage of LIBOR–OIS spreads

This article examines the impact of global financial crisis on cross-currency linkage of the LIBOR–OIS spread, a financial stress measure in interbank markets. The impulse response analysis is conducted in a multivariate setting, adopting the bias-corrected bootstrap as a means of statistical inference. The overall evidence suggests that the crisis has substantially changed the nature of the cross-currency interactions in liquidity stress. Also global money markets have failed to contain stress in US dollar funding and the role of the Japanese yen as a liquidity source appears to be significant, while these two currencies drive the cross-currency system of liquidity stress.     

Changing Perspectives on the Factors of Production

Envy is a complex emotion that influences the behavior of envious and envied individuals. Because envy can imply ill will, discontent or dislike of the envied individual who possesses something that the envious individual desires, or aspiration to emulate the envied position, it can lead the envious individual to undertake costly efforts to reduce the gap between the envied situation and his own situation. The envious individual can seek either to damage or match the situation enjoyed by the envied individual. In return, the envied individual can adopt either envy-appeasing strategies or envy-arousing strategies. We argue that these costly envy-related behaviors impede or stimulate economic development.     

The market research contribution to new product failure and success

This paper examines the use made by management of market research data in the evaluation of new product development (NPD) projects. Stressing the need for a systematic approach to NPD the paper sets out four brief case histories, the products being Crocodillo, Paul Masson wine, the Prudential's Holburn UK Unit Trusts, and Golden Wonder's Preludes. These case histories illustrate both the value of a systematic approach to NPD by building up a market research programme and also the limitations of market research data which cannot alone be any guarantee of success.     

Common socio-economic cycle periods

We present a meta-analysis of cycle periods in historical socio-economic data found in the K-wave literature. The literature on stochastic and deterministic cycles in variables such as the consumer price index, employment, interest rates, commodity prices, GDP, war and hegemony is huge and scattered. However our meta-analysis reveals various commonalities. Our key finding is that there is a common set of cycle periods that is common across most socio-economic variables.     

Model-based auditing using REA

The recent financial crisis has renewed interest in the value of the owner-ordered auditing tradition that starts from society's long-term interest rather than management interest. This tradition uses a model-based auditing approach in which control requirements are derived in a principled way. A problem with this approach is that it has been proven hard to apply it in modern complex organizations. Making it feasible requires at least an adequate enterprise modeling approach. In this paper, it is shown that the REA ontology fulfills most of the requirements for such a model-based approach. The analysis also suggests some directions in which REA can be extended.     

Bank mergers and acquisitions in emerging markets: evidence from Asia and Latin America

Following a global wave of consolidation in the banking industry, this study analyses 132 mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involving banks in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America between 1998 and 2009. An event study measures the change in shareholder value for acquirers and targets; and a multivariate regression identifies the drivers of the change in shareholder value for acquirers. On average M&As create shareholder value for target firms, while acquirer firms do not lose shareholder value. Geographical diversification creates shareholder value for acquirers. Acquirer shareholders benefit from the acquisition of underperforming targets; from transactions settled by cash rather than exchange of equity; and from government-instigated M&A transactions.     

‘A dense mass of petty accountability’: Accounting in the service of cultural imperialism during the Irish Famine, 1846–1847

One response of the imperial government in London to the Irish Famine (1845–1849) was to initiate a scheme of public works underpinned by relief payments based on task work. This policy was informed by a determination to improve the ‘moral habits’ of the native Irish in relation to work. To support the data collection and control systems necessary to operate this intervention, the imperial government recruited a large number of accountants charged with introducing a vast accounting apparatus to Ireland. The institutionalisation of accounting that this facilitated laid the basis for interventions by the imperial power intended to ‘civilise’ the native Gaelic population as well as recalcitrant Anglo-Irish landlords. This intervention is considered within the context of concepts of governmentality and cultural imperialism.     

Should utopians have perfect bodies?

Is one who imagines a “perfect” (or vastly improved) society also obliged or inclined to imagine a “perfect” (or vastly improved) body as part of her project? If there is in fact a utopian tradition imagining perfect bodies, what new alternatives are conceivable? Should utopian writers pursue any or all of them? Attempts to provide an answer provide critics with perhaps their most penetrating objections to the utopian project since imagining and reproducing perfect bodies entails an intrusiveness even greater than political or economic perfection. But the very intimacy of the body as a site also offers insights into the utopian imagination. Just as certain practices are excised in utopias (private property or money, for instance) and certain ones enhanced (education), so too are utopian bodies, which can be imagined as liberated prisons or improved forms. The utopian body, itself a complex site, becomes the most vivid focus for imaging the nature of perfection itself. New bodies, dramatically enhanced ones such as cyborgs or dramatically reduced ones such as cyber bodies, offer an intense examination of what perfection means and what lengths are worth pursuing to achieve it.