Does it matter where assets are held and income is derived? Further evidence of differential value relevance from Quebec

In this paper, we build on recent studies documenting an economic discount on firms located in the Canadian province of Quebec that seems to be associated with the political risk generated by the Quebec separatist movement (e.g., Graham, Morrill, & Morrill, 2005). We use information on firms’ economic activity in the province of Quebec as collected and published by the Quebec business newspaper Les Affaires for the period 1990–2008. We find that variables proxying for extent of operations in Quebec are associated with market-to-book multiples on book value and earnings.     

Small business is big business

The number of small business start‐ups in the UK continues to increase. This article discusses the stages of business and marketing development that a small business can expect to encounter. Success in business depends upon a number of factors, these are described and discussed under the headings of individual qualities and key components.     

Teaching accounting as a language

This paper explores how a literary turn in accounting education can provide students with the tools to comprehend financial accounting statements. It argues that a key implication of the literary turn in accounting research is that we must, in our classrooms, take seriously the idea of accounting as a language. By exploring what distinguishes accounting from other languages, not only in its grammar and structure but also in the conditions of production of accounting texts, a literary perspective on accounting can empower students to take a critical perspective on accounting, instead of being passive consumers of accounting signs.     

Self-Execution,Capital Punishment,and the Economics of Murder: Analysis of U.K.Statistics Suggests that Suicide by Murder Suspects is Not Influenced by the Probability of Execution

During the period when capital punishment was regularly used in England and Wales, the risk of self-execution from suicide, when suspected of murder, greatly dominated the risk of death at the hands of the state. Over the period 1900–1949, even with four years' data missing, there were 1,540 suicides by those suspected of murder. Using econometric analysis it is found that there is no significant relationship between self-execution and state execution.     

The Comparative Economics of EU ‘Subsidiarity’: Lessons from development/regional economic debates

The term ‘substantive subsidiarity’ characterizes a radical position in the major debate in the European Union (EU) on how to structure territorially‐based power in a closely interlinked economy. A similar debate took place in the period between the 1950s and the early 1990s over the need for radical reform of spatial economic and power structures in Canada and less developed countries. The difficulty in constructing supporting arguments from economics for both these positions can be better understood by looking at the whole range of economic thought on spatial structures. A characterization of this range into three models reveals how economics generally supports centralizing tendencies. The assumptions required to make a case for stronger, more local authorities in the EU, Canada or less developed economies are shown to be restrictive. The article concludes that the case for substantive subsidiarity in the EU, which calls for radical decentralization to more local levels of government, claiming efficiency and equity gains, faces a similar challenge to that faced by earlier economists writing on less developed economies. L’expression ‘subsidiarité rélle’ définit une position radicale dans le grand débat qui anime l’Union Européenne sur la manière de structurer un pouvoir sur un territoire, dans une économie interdépendante. Entre les années 1950 et le début des années 1990, des discussions similaires se sont déroulées sur la nécessité de réformer profondément les structures spatiales du pouvoir et de l’économie au Canada et dans des pays sous‐développés. Dans les deux cas, on peut plus aisément appréhender la difficulté de trouver dans l’économie une source d’arguments favorables, si on observe l’éventail des pensées économiques sur les structures spatiales; en ramenant cette palette à trois modèles caractéristiques, on peut établir que l’économie penche généralement vers la centralisation. Par ailleurs, l’article démontre la nature restrictive des hypothèses permettant de dépeindre des autorités à la fois plus fortes et plus locales dans l’UE, au Canada ou dans des économies en développement. L’article conclut que la défense d’une subsidiarité réelle au sein de l’UE – appelant à une décentralisation radicale à des niveaux plus locaux de gouvernement, tout en revendiquant des gains d’efficacité et d’équité– est confrontée à un défi similaire à celui qu’ont rencontré les économistes passés quand ils écrivaient sur les économies en développement.     

International briefing 18: training and development in Vietnam

Vietnam provides a typical case of an emerging economy, which has attempted to develop the country and join the world economic mainstream with a highly agricultural base, large and young labour force, and a dynamically growing private sector. After a long period of quantitative growth, it is now focusing on achieving quality of development, with a view to balance economic growth and quality of life improvement for its population. Education has been chosen to be the key plank in the successful implementation of this strategy. This article reviews the general socio‐economic background of the country, the high need for skilled labour, the structure of its educational system, the pitfalls at the high education level, and its strategy to overhaul the whole system in order to ensure quality from the input phase of the development process.     

External Relationships and the Small Business: A Review of Small Business Alliance and Network Research*

In order to thrive, small businesses are often advised to develop relationships with external organizations that have the potential to assist business development, survival, and growth. A focus on the external relationships of the small business underlines the vital importance of external resources in moving a small business toward increased success and profitability. Covering the period from 1990 to 2002, this paper reviews the small business literature as it relates to the use of these external relationships (such as organizational partnerships, networks, and alliances). In response to both academic and practitioner demand for further research in this area, an exhaustive analysis of the relevant literature was conducted and three “meta” research questions representing the connections within this literature were formed. The resource‐based view of the firm, resource dependency theory, and punctuated equilibrium theory are proposed as useful starting points for exploring these research questions and can give direction for moving forward in this research area.     

The association between dividend payout and firm growth: Australian evidence

We report that whereas firms with high earnings distributions tend to have low‐to‐moderate growth (consistent with conventional theory), firms with low earnings distributions run the range between high and low performers. We interpret our findings for firm growth and payout policy in relation to the firm's location on the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix that combines high/low growth with high/low market share. Our findings suggest that the market has difficulty in distinguishing between these types of firms. A concern is that investor preferences as an outcome may be focussed on dividend‐paying firms at the expense of younger growing firms in need of retained earnings.     

A theory of return‐seeking firms

We introduce a theory of return‐seeking firms to study the differences between this and profit‐maximising models. A return‐seeking objective takes into account the opportunity cost of each additional resource input to a firm's production as being a potential capital input choice in an alternative project. We find that firm supply curves cease to exist in perfectly competitive markets, that supply curves may slope up as well as down, that economies of scale are necessary for any production to occur and that firms always produce on a decreasing portion of their cost curve.     

Interactive Mining of Strong Friends from Social Networks and Its Applications in E-Commerce

Social networks are generally made of individuals who are linked by some types of interdependencies such as friendship. Most individuals in social networks have many linkages in terms of friends, connections, and/or followers. Among these linkages, some of them are stronger than others. For instance, some friends may be acquaintances of an individual, whereas others may be friends who care about him or her (e.g., who frequently post on his or her wall). In this study, we integrate data mining with social computing to form a social network mining algorithm, which helps the individual distinguish these strong friends from a large number of friends in a specific portion of the social networks in which he or she is interested. Moreover, our mining algorithm allows the individual to interactively change his or her mining parameters. Furthermore, we discuss applications of our social mining algorithm to organizational computing and e-commerce