Using local injury surveillance for community-based injury prevention: an analysis of Scandinavian WHO Safe Community and Canadian Safe Community Foundation programmes

In Finland, the Finnish Association for Swimming Instruction and Life Saving (SUH) and Statistics Finland (SF) both provide nationwide data on unintentional drowning. The SUH database relies on rapid reporting from a newspaper clipping service and additional local police information, whereas the SF database relies on the later release of the death certificate information, which is based on extensive medico-legal investigation. The aim of the study was to explore the main differences between the SUH and SF databases for drowning and to evaluate the capacity of the former to characterize drowning events in Finland from 1998 to 2000. Computerized files of death certificates tabulated by SF were linked with the SUH database by deterministic methods. SF and SUH databases allowed the identification of 704 and 567 unintentional drownings, respectively, giving an unintentional drowning rate of 4.5 and 3.6/100?000 per year. Of the 704 drownings described by SF, 418 (59.4%) were also found in the SUH database. The SUH database markedly underreported drowning fatalities in certain settings, such as bath, ditch and swimming pool drownings; fall- and land-traffic-related drownings; and drownings occurring in South Finland. The narrative text of SUH drownings contributed limited information to characterize the drowning events. It was concluded that the newspaper-based SUH data provide more timely data on individual drownings but are not representative of all drownings. Conversely, the SF vital statistics data are more accurate but may take up to 2 years to become available. Both SUH and SF data provide little detailed information on drowning events. A multidisciplinary national surveillance system for drowning is necessary to provide more accurate and timely drowning data, analyse risk factors and design follow-up studies for developing and monitoring prevention strategies.     

Injuries in preschool children: the hypothetical protector effect of minor injuries and risk factors for minor and medically attended injuries

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between minor and medically attended injuries and to analyse the influence of child-related factors and family-related factors in injuries of preschool children. Individual interviews were conducted with 335 parents of 1- to 5-year-old children. Parents informed about the child and the family variables and reported the child's history of injuries in the last year. The frequencies of minor injuries and medically attended injuries were not correlated. The risk factors for both kinds of injuries include the number of siblings and the size of the family. Minor injuries were more frequent in older than in younger children. Medically attended injuries were more frequent in boys than in girls. The risk factors that influence minor and medically attended injuries are different, suggesting that the strategies to prevent and reduce injuries need to take that difference into consideration.     

Instability in the dividend policy of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) corporations: evidence from an emerging market

Dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in emerging markets is significantly different from the widely accepted dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in developed markets. This study provides evidence from the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), an emerging European stock market, and analyses empirically whether the ISE corporations follow stable cash dividend policies in a regulatory environment that imposed mandatory dividend policies. Unlike the empirical results supporting the stable dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in developed markets, the empirical results show that the ISE corporations follow unstable cash dividend policies and the main factor that determines the amount of cash dividends is the earnings of the corporation in that year.     

韩国船舶工业摆脱危机重振旗鼓的举措(上)

韩国是受亚洲金融危机影响最大的国家之一,其船舶工业受到沉重打击,一度陷入严重危机.1997年冬,首先大东船厂和青丘船厂随所属集团发生财务危机而申请破产;12月6日,汉拿集团宣布破产,作为其核心企业的汉拿重工也随之申请破产.其余大型造船重工业公司,如现代重工、三星重工和大宇重工等,也受本集团财务困难影响,陷入危机境地.     

Credit risk and bank margins in structured financial products: Evidence from the German secondary market for discount certificates

This study analyzes bank margins in the German secondary market for exchange‐traded structured financial products, with particular emphasis on the influence of banks' credit risk. A structural model allowing for the incorporation of correlation effects between market and credit risk is applied to compare quoted and fair theoretical prices. For discount certificates, as the most popular type of structured financial products in Germany, an empirical study is conducted. Compared to earlier studies, total margins are found to be rather low, whereas the portion that draws back to credit risk appears to be a material part of the total margin. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28: 376–397, 2008     

Trends in international business thought and literature: Traversing the path to insolvency: Lessons from an international alliance in management education

In 1988 the Madrid Business School (MBS) was created through a cooperative agreement between a small entrepreneurial firm in Madrid, Spain, and a large public institution of higher education in the United States. By mid-1994 MBS was financially insolvent and had closed. Discussion of this case focuses on two questions: first, could the American partner have taken any actions to increase the likelihood of MBS as a viable institution? Second, what constitutes a strategic approach to international cooperative agreements? Both issues offer lessons for entering into and participating in international cooperative agreements in higher education.     

Desire for Visual Aesthetics (DVA) in the Store Environment: Concept and Measurement

The article describes the development, purification, and validation of a reliable self-report scale designed to measure the Desire for Visual Aesthetics (DVA) in the store environment. There is limited literature on the subject and a measurement scale has eluded both academicians and practitioners that could help measure the need for aesthetics in the retailing environment and help marketers decide on the level and type of aesthetics for the different segments in the target market/s and also the different type of retail stores. We used 3 focus groups, 8 individual interviews, and 891 surveys to develop, purify, and validate the 9-item Likert type scale. We also provide evidence for dimensionality, reliability, and validity. The scale could be used by academicians and practitioners alike, and could replace single items to measure the concept.     

城市密集区FDI溢出效应及其增长影响:来自大长三角地区的证据(1991-2010)

利用1991-2010年大长三角地区25个城市面板数据,运用空间Durbin模型和极大似然估计方法,检验了FDI溢出与城市生产率间的基本关系,文章发现:首先,FDI对本地城市增长的正效应显著存在并随时间而增强,但其空间溢出显著为负;其次,空间作用在城市增长中扮演不可忽略的重要角色,而且长期而言空间依赖有增强趋势;第三,FDI的进入提高了地区城市间增长的条件收敛速度;第四,正的空间溢出效应在核心和外围区城市间都存在并随时间提高,但前者更为显著.上述结论对于该地区引进FDI和促进城市发展具有重要政策含义.     

Solving and Testing for Regressor-Error (in)Dependence When no Instrumental Variables are Available: With New Evidence for the Effect of Education on Income

This paper has two main contributions. Firstly, we introduce a new approach, the latent instrumental variables (LIV) method, to estimate regression coefficients consistently in a simple linear regression model where regressor-error correlations (endogeneity) are likely to be present. The LIV method utilizes a discrete latent variable model that accounts for dependencies between regressors and the error term. As a result, additional ‘valid’ observed instrumental variables are not required. Furthermore, we propose a specification test based on Hausman (1978) to test for these regressor-error correlations. A simulation study demonstrates that the LIV method yields consistent estimates and the proposed test-statistic has reasonable power over a wide range of regressor-error correlations and several distributions of the instruments. Secondly, the LIV method is used to re-visit the relationship between education and income based on previously published data. Data from three studies are re-analyzed. We examine the effect of education on income, where the variable ‘education’ is potentially endogenous due to omitted ‘ability’ or other causes. In all three applications, we find an upward bias in the OLS estimates of approximately 7%. Our conclusions agree closely with recent results obtained in studies with twins that find an upward bias in OLS of about 10% (Card, 1999). We also show that for each of the three datasets the classical IV estimates for the return to education point to biases in OLS that are not consistent in terms of size and magnitude. Our conclusion is that LIV estimates are preferable to the classical IV estimates in understanding the effects of education on income. JEL Classification: C12, C13, C21, J3, M3     

市场开放进程中的工业企业集聚与人口城市化--长三角地区人口城市化的动因探析(1984-2002)

在渐进的市场改革和开放进程中,长三角地区以城市人口不断增加为表现的人口城市化进程并没有遵循城市化进程的国际经验,即城市化主要来自工业化的推动,而主要由于工业企业集中、政府干预和市场促进等多种因素的相互作用,人口城市化发展的演进特征则是上述诸多因素共同作用的结果.确切地说,不断增加的工业生产活动并没有对长江三角洲地区的城市化进程发挥明显作用,特别是在城市化加速发展阶段,市场开放进程中不断向市区集聚的工业企业的集聚行为(而非工业化)在很大程度上促进了城市化的快速发展.考察和分析了不同阶段长三角人口城市化发展的不同特征和区域差异.     

市场开放进程中的工业企业集聚与人口城市化——长三角地区人口城市化的动因探析（1984—2002）

在渐进的市场改革和开放进程中,长三角地区以城市人口不断增加为表现的人口城市化进程并没有遵循城市化进程的国际经验,即城市化主要来自工业化的推动,而主要由于工业企业集中、政府干预和市场促进等多种因素的相互作用,人口城市化发展的演进特征则是上述诸多因素共同作用的结果。确切地说,不断增加的工业生产活动并没有对长江三角洲地区的城市化进程发挥明显作用,特别是在城市化加速发展阶段,市场开放进程中不断向市区集聚的工业企业的集聚行为(而非工业化)在很大程度上促进了城市化的快速发展。考察和分析了不同阶段长三角人口城市化发展的不同特征和区域差异。     

Carol Corrado,Jonathan Haskel,Javier Miranda,and Daniel Sichel (eds.): Measuring and accounting for innovation in the twenty-first century (NBER studies in income and wealth,volume 78)

Business Economics -     

Mutuality as a control for information asymmetry: A historical analysis of the claims experience of mutual and stock fire insurance companies in Sweden, 1889 to 1939

We test two competing arguments regarding the influence of organisational form on underwriting performance using data from the Swedish fire insurance industry for the years 1889 to 1939 – a period of both economic growth and stagnation. Since mutuality is a response to information asymmetry problems, mutual insurers are expected to report lower annual claims relative to premiums than stock insurance companies. However, an alternative view is that stock insurers seek to reduce information asymmetry problems by issuing non-participatory rights insurance contracts with high deductibles that induce risk-sharing between the insurer's shareholders and policyholders. This implies that stock insurers are likely to report lower annual claims than mutual insurers. Our results show that organisational form is an important determinant of the claims experience of Swedish fire insurers, suggesting that mutuality acts as an effective control for information asymmetries in the market.