双雄早衰

什么力量,让新能源变老？两家迅猛崛起的明星公司,缘何以同样的速度坠入深渊？政府主导式的创新,能从这场代价昂贵的游戏中学到什么？     

POPULATION AND THE ECONOMY DURING THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION

The changes in population structure currently taking place in both developed and less‐developed nations are part of a very long‐term trend of demographic change that has yet to run its full course. The starting point of this trend is the complete rearrangement of demographic regimes characterised by significant declines in mortality coupled with widespread fertility control. This process started in a small group of European and non‐European societies during the nineteenth century and by the second half of the twentieth century had spread to much of the world. It has brought with it significant economic and social implications for societies affected which have differed by the timing of the transition but not in their basic thrust. Eventually the demographic transition promises to bring with it very rapid and widespread ageing and, within a few decades, world population decline. Some of the long‐term economic implications of this entire process are discussed in this article.     

Determinants of Capital Structure: United Kingdom Versus Continental European Countries

In this paper, we analyze how country‐specific differences influence capital structure indirectly through firm‐specific variables. We apply a system Generalized Method of Moments technique to a panel data sample of companies from five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) during the period 1998–2008. As the different financial systems of European economies (bank‐oriented or market‐oriented) may influence capital structure differently through firm‐specific variables, we first examine the determinants of capital structure for each country separately and we then analyze whether the observed differences between the United Kingdom and the continental European countries are relevant. The results show that there are substantial differences in the capital structure choices of firms across five major European countries. These differences are motivated by the type of financial systems of the countries (bank‐oriented and market‐oriented) and influence the capital structure indirectly through the firm‐specific variables. Overall, our results support the relevance of the differences in the capital structure choices of firms across five major European countries, and in particular, the singularity of the United Kingdom (a market‐oriented economy) as opposed to continental European countries (bank‐oriented economies).     

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz—Statistician,Economist and a European Intellectual

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868–1931) was a European statistician. His scientific work covered theoretical economics, stochastics, mathematical statistics and radiology; today, we would call him a cross‐disciplinary scientist. With his clear views on mathematical principles with their applications in these fields, he stood in conflict with the mainstream economic schools in Germany at the dawn of the 20th century. He had many prominent students (Gumbel, Leontief and Freudenberg among them), and he carved out the path of modern statistical thinking. He was a true European intellectual with a career path from St. Petersburg via Göttingen to Straßburg and finally the Berliner Universität, now Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin. He is known for the precise calibration of insurance claims applying the—at that time hardly known—Poisson distribution to Prussian horse kick and child suicide data. He proposed a simple solution to the Marxian transformation problem and wrote numerous articles and books on the mathematical treatment of statistical (including radiological physical) data. In this article, we sketch his life and work and point out the prominent role that he has in today's statistical thinking.     

The European Learning Community: Towards A Political Economy of Management Learning

Stephen Fox is a Lecturer and Teaching Director in the Department of Management Learning at the University of Lancaster. He is also the Business Administration subject coordinator for the ERASMUS programme described in the article published here. Writing as an ‘insider’, he uses this particular programme to examine critically the prospects for the emergence of ‘European Management’.     

一种基于欧式范数的第三方物流服务商评价方法

随着市场竞争的加剧,越来越多的企业开始关注物流成本的控制。而通过与第三方物流合作能够帮助企业提高物流效率和降低物流成本。因此,选择一个合适的第三方物流服务商对企业具有极为重要的影响。文中提出了一个基于欧式范数的第三方物流服务商评价方法,运用该方法能使企业更为方便快捷地对候选物流服务商进行评价,以帮助企业寻找到合适的合作伙伴。     

英孚：布局中国的辩证关系

染成黄绿色的头发一根一根地树立着,然而一身中规中矩的西服却非常笔挺,他就是英孚教育（English First）和中国区总裁比尔·费舍尔（Bill Fisher）。比尔长相酷似北欧人,但却是地地道道的美国人,比尔认为他对英孚的管理之道跟他的穿着打扮非常类似——中规中矩中坚持独立个性……     

Rationing, defective inputs and Bayesian updates under central planning

The enterprise manager anticipates that he will be rationed in his input markets and is required to meet an output target. In order to avoid a penalty for missing the output target, he can purchase the inputs at an earlier time, when rationing is not in effect, but then he must incur an inventory cost. The inputs themselves are defective with a known mean rate but unknown variability; the manager has a prior density over this parameter. He can solve the relevant expected-cost minimisation problem in three ways: (a) by simultaneously determining the optimal amounts to be ordered on the two dates, (b) by dynamic programming, and (c) by dynamic programming combined with Bayesian learning. The paper investigates the properties of the optimal solution under the three scenarios with respect to variations in the defective rate, the level of uncertainty and the relative costs of inventories and of missing the target.We are indebted to the National Science, Olin and Guggenheim Foundations and the National Council on Soviet and East European Research for support. We are also indebted to Gregory C. Chow, J.-S. Pischke, and two referees for several insightful comments.     

European Management Education: the Prospects For Unification

Mark Easterby-Smith is Head of the Department of Management Learning at Lancaster University. In his article he takes a detailed look at the similarities and differences in management education in France and the UK. He also describes the pattern in Spain, Holland, Italy and Germany. His central purpose is to assess how far the trend towards European integration at the political and economic levels can, and should, be matched in management education. the article neatly complements Peter Lawrence's in that it focuses on institutional arrangements whereas Lawrence concentrates on cultural aspects. Easterby-Smith considers the strategies being pursued by institutions to increase their European exposure through changes to course content and student and faculty exchanges as well as other measures. He contends that while there are strong arguments for increased integration, there is aslo a case for retaining diversity.     

A model for identifying and ranking dangerous accident locations: a case study in Flanders

These days, road safety has become a major concern in most modern societies. In this respect, the determination of road locations that are more dangerous than others (black spots or also called sites with promise) can help in better scheduling road safety policies. The present paper proposes a multivariate model to identify and rank sites according to their total expected cost to the society. Bayesian estimation of the model via a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach is discussed in this paper. To illustrate the proposed model, accident data from 23,184 accident locations in Flanders (Belgium) are used and a cost function proposed by the European Transport Safety Council is adopted to illustrate the model. It is shown in the paper that the model produces insightful results that can help policy makers in prioritizing road infrastructure investments.     

The Productivity Slowdown, Sectoral Reallocations and the Growth of Atypical Employment Arrangements

This paper explores the recent shifts in employment arrangements away from long-term employment contracts and internal labor markets towards outside contracting of labor in OECD countries. It examines the driving forces behind this phenomenon, focusing on the relationship with another important trend of the last few decades, namely the labor productivity slowdown. A comparison of U.S. and European institutional arrangements shows how very different labor markets have recently displayed similar patterns in the use of contracted out labor. This paper explains these similarities and reconciles them with very different patterns in hiring, firing, and quitting behavior observed in the two regions.     

Management Learning Grounded On Value-Based Stakeholder Expectations

Thorbjörn Meyer is Senior Researcher at the Copenhagen Business School and formerly a CEO and Chief Consultant of a Scandinavian management consulting company. His article throws light on some of the specific innovations occurring in management learning methods in Continental Europe. In particular, Meyer reveals the details of a method he has pioneered and used over a number of years in several European countries.     

The emerging market crisis and stock market linkages: further evidence

This study examines the long‐run price relationship and the dynamic price transmission among the USA, Germany, and four major Eastern European emerging stock markets, with particular attention to the impact of the 1998 Russian financial crisis. The results show that both the long‐run price relationship and the dynamic price transmission were strengthened among these markets after the crisis. The influence of Germany became noticeable on all the Eastern European markets only after the crisis but not before the crisis. We also conduct a rolling generalized VAR analysis to confirm the robustness of the main findings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The UK and European Monetary Union: Why we should not stand aside

Ahead of next year's IGC David Currie considers the case for European monetary Union. He argues overall that EMU is desirable, though political arguments dominate the economic ones, which are finely balanced. he also argues that the UK should participate if other member states proceed to EMU, because of the dangers of marginalisation in Europe and of reduced attractiveness as a location for inward investment.     

Legal update

This update contains developments on United Kingdom charity law, as it pertains to fundraising and other marketing strategies. Later issues of the journal will consider United States and European law. If readers have any particular questions on charity law, please write to the Editor at the Publisher's offices, so that he can answer questions which are of general interest to readers.     

Evaluating the statistical significance of de facto accounting harmonization: a study of European global players

Two different forces are involved in the international harmonization of accounting: institutional endeavours to harmonize accounting internationally by developing common accounting rules and reporting standards, and spontaneous efforts by ‘global players’ to adopt accounting methods that will improve communication with users in other countries. These two developments are proceeding side by side, generally reinforcing one another but occasionally moving independently. This paper is primarily concerned with the process of harmonization of financial accounting within the European Union. The hypothesis we want to test is that, in spite of the obstacles to the harmonization of regulations in the European Union, there has been greater conformity in recent years in the accounting practices of companies which operate on the international stage. If so, the implications for the harmonization strategies of the international bodies are important. In this study, we first carry out a critical analysis of previous research on accounting harmonization, summarizing the methods used in empirical studies of de facto harmonization and the results obtained. We note that the major deficiency in the index-based methods of measuring harmonization is that no test of significance has been included in prior research. In this paper, we propose a bootstrapping test of the C index as a way of measuring the significance of the change in its value. We consider a sample of eighty-five ‘global players’ from thirteen countries and we analyse their financial statements with regard to four accounting issues (deferred taxation, goodwill, leasing and foreign currency translation), providing estimates of the significance of de facto accounting harmonization for the periods from 1991–2 to 1996–7.     

Valuing lookback options with barrier

In this paper, we introduce a new class of exotic options, termed lookback-barrier options, which literally combine lookback and barrier options by incorporating an activating barrier condition into the European lookback payoff. A prototype of lookback-barrier option was first proposed by Bermin (1998), where he intended to reduce the expensive cost of lookback option by considering lookback options with barrier. However, despite his novel trial, it has not attracted much attention yet. Thus, in this paper, we revisit the idea and extend the horizon of lookback-barrier option in order to enhance the marketability and applicability to equity-linked investments. Devising a variety of payoffs, this paper develops a complete valuation framework which allows for closed-form pricing formulas under the Black–Scholes model. Our closed-form pricing formulas provide a substantial advantage over the method of Monte Carlo simulation, because the extrema appearing in both of the lookback payoff and barrier condition would require a large number of simulations for exact calculation. Complexities involved in the derivation process would be resolved by the Esscher transform and the reflection principle of the Brownian motion. We illustrate our results with numerical examples.     

A profile of European accounting research: evidence from leading research journals

This paper attempts both to advance understanding about the research profile of accounting in Europe and to evaluate the role of The European Accounting Review in the dissemination of Europe-based accounting research. Empirical evidence supporting this investigation was gathered from all the papers published in thirteen top accounting journals during the period 1992 to 1997. Our results show that (i) a vast majority of European contributions to well-regarded journals are authored by scholars affiliated to British higher education organizations. Therefore, the overwhelming dominance of British accounting academics over Europe-based accounting research posits considerable doubts on the extent to which it is correct to form the notion of European accounting research. Our results suggest that such a notion is strongly shaped by one constituency of the European setting, that is, by researchers affiliated to British higher education institutions. (ii) The European Accounting Review has played a significant role in the diffusion of Europe-based accounting research. The journal constitutes the sole venue providing international visibility to scholars of eleven continental European countries. Moreover, The European Accounting Review has published a significant proportion of contributions from scholars of the other fifteen European countries. (iii) There exists limited mobility of non-English written accounting research across European countries. Lastly, the paper posits some suggestions for further work in this area.     

Inter- and intra-industry linkages as a determinant of FDI in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper uses an unpublished dataset on disaggregated foreign direct investment (FDI) in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), and is rooted in new economic geography literature. A 10% increase in access to suppliers based in the FDI recipient country or access to the EU15 market for intermediate goods increases FDI by about 2% in Central European countries and by 1% in Eastern European countries. We argue that Central (core) European countries specialise in upstream industries and re-export goods toward FDI-origin countries, while Eastern (periphery) European countries are also involved in this production chain, but to a lesser extent.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . The progressive democratic social philosophy of a 19th century American economist, Henrys George , has had a far-reaching effect on some European intellectual and political leaders. Not all adopted his practical proposal, the single land value tax as a substitute for other taxes. But the British Liberal party , a section of the British Labor party and Danish smallholders did. George's ideas were absorbed into the long standing European land reform tradition and he became the initiator and theoretical founder of the modern movement there, as Heinrich Erman , the German legal scholar, held. It is a mistake to say that the French Physiocrats anticipated George; their produit net was a tax on output, not highest potential use and was aimed to achieve stability , not development. Europeans see George and Georgism the same as Americans but in a different context, that of Natural rights.