The Resourceful Earth: optimism and confrontation

The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000, edited by Julian Simon and the late Herman Kahn, is a recent contribution to the continuing debate over ‘optimistic’ v ‘pessimistic’ futures and how projections about the future should be made. This article is concerned more with issues of methodology, fact and philosophy raised by The Resourceful Earth than with assessing its Tightness or wrongness. The intention of the article is to move beyond the debate not to perpetuate it.     

Beyond Neo-Malthusians and Cornucopians: comment on Chenoweth and Feitelson

In a recent paper in Futures, Chenoweth and Feitelson test of the validity of the projections of the Global 2000 Report to the President and The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000. This commentary critiques their approach, focusing on their comparison of the two studies' Year 2000 projections, and the pitfalls for near-term tests of long-term projections. Empirically, their paper does little to resolve the neo-Malthusian and Cornucopian debate. Nonetheless, given the past history of this acrimonious debate, their conclusions may undermine current efforts to balance global economic, social, and environmental concerns.     

Ultimate confusion: The economics of Julian Simon

This article argues that there are profound mistakes and exaggerations in Simon's influential and popular ideas. It discusses Simon's denial of resource finitude and his views that neither ecology nor entropy exists. Finally it looks at Simon's The Resourceful Earth as an attack on Global 2000.     

Reading history: comment on Chenoweth and Feitelson

While Chenoweth and Feitelson have done a service to the futures community by comparing the Global 2000 Report with The Resourceful Earth-two important books of the late 1970s/early 1980s—their comparison is flawed in three dimensions: (1) they treat the books as though they were intended to be accurate predictions of the future. Their intention, instead, was to influence public policy in certain, often contrasting, directions; (2) by using in 2000 the same data sources the two books used in the 1970s (rather than better data sources available now, but not then), the authors' comparative conclusions are often flawed; and (3) in spite of this, their own conclusions often do not seem to follow from the comparative data they present: using only the data the two authors present, The Resourceful Earth does not appear to have been more ‘accurate’ in ‘predicting’ the year 2000 than was the Global 2000 report.     

When governments forecast

This article looks at the forecasting industry as turning out products of more interest to museum curators than corporate executives, policymakers etc. It is generally skeptical of most attempts to divine the future —skepticism turning to deep concern when a particular forecast is used to justify government in making a decision better left to the discretion of free, rational citizens. The article looks at the problems of forecasting, the risks involved and, remarkably, how little the reputations of global forecasters seem to be affected by past statements. Finally, it discusses the effectiveness of a separate forecasting body, apart from government which would have power without responsibility. It considers The Resourceful Earth as a sound and cautious analysis, representing itself as a private effort by private individuals, which does not encourage unwarranted emphasis to its conclusions.     

1948 and not nineteen eighty-four

This article marks the return of I.F. Clarke to the pages of Futures. Those readers who have followed Futures since our first number in September 1968 will recall his long-running series on the development of futuristic fiction and the coming of modern forecasting techniques. He likes to be known as the oldest inhabitant of Futures so far. Professor Clarke was once described, with some accuracy, as ‘Mr Future’ by a Glasgow newspaper. The style recognized the work he has done in the investigation of the many ways in which our ideas about the future have evolved and have found expression in science fiction, imaginary wars, ideal states, Orwellian nightmares and in the proliferation of futurological studies that have swept the world since Ossip K. Flechtheim coined the term futurologist in 1943. This specially commissioned article on Orwell's true place in futures studies serves as an hors d'oeuvre to a new series in Futures by Professor Clarke: “An almanac of anticipations” will begin in the next issue.     

Testing Q theory with financing frictions

We develop a Q theory of investment under financing constraints. The firm invests and saves optimally facing convex costs of external equity, overhang from outstanding debt, and collateral constraints on new borrowing. Overhang and costs of external equity discourage investment. Conversely, firms anticipating collateral constraints experience a side benefit from investing as installed capital relaxes future constraints. Empirical tests support the model. Conditional on average Q, investment is lower for equity issuers and for firms with large debt overhang. The Kaplan and Zingales and the Whited and Wu indices are used as proxies for future collateral constraints. Consistent with the model, both indices enter investment regressions positively.     

Autoregressive Modeling of Earnings-Investment Causality

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the relationships between corporate earnings and investment. In particular, the study investigates whether knowledge of past investments improves the prediction of future earnings beyond predictions that are based on past earnings alone. Similarly, it investigates whether knowledge of past earnings improves the prediction of future investments beyond knowledge of past investments alone. This is the empirical definition of Granger causality. The empirical results show that the bivariate past series of earnings and investments is superior to the univariate series in predicting future investments but not in predicting future earnings.     

A framework for journal assessment: The case of the Journal of Banking & Finance

We propose a citation-based framework for the assessment of journal influence and demonstrate its application with the Journal of Banking and Finance. The framework assesses the current position of the journal, its trends and the reasons behind the trends. The Journal of Banking and Finance is found to be one of the leading journals in the field of finance and its influence is increasing. In fact, it appears to be part of a group of leading journals that is separating itself from the other journals that are generally regarded as peers. Finally, the Journal of Banking and Finance is found to be the only leading finance journal with a high concentration of banking articles, making it a primary outlet for influential articles in this area.     

An other view of integral futures: De/reconstructing the IF brand

This paper points to some limitations of the narrow version of integral futures (IF) as represented in the recent special issue of Futures (2008, vol. 40, issue 2). I also propose several ways that the IF brand could be refreshed through a broader and deeper approach to integral futures by way of a scholarly engagement with other kindred discourses. The main focus of this paper is to open out beyond the “myth-of-the-given” in relation to the notion of integral and in this way broaden and deepen possibilities for integral futures.     

Energy futures: Diversity and the need for assessment

In energy policy and energy research, decisions have to be made about the technologies and infrastructures that may be used to provide and distribute energy in future times, some of which are very distant. Frequently, energy futures such as predictions of the energy demand or energy scenarios are used for decision-support in this field. The diversity of energy futures, however, threatens any possibility for orientation, could lead to disorientation instead of helping more rational decision-making and could be used for ideological purpose. In this paper, we investigate concepts and approaches for scrutinizing, comparing and assessing the various energy futures from an epistemological point of view. Following the analysis of the structure of (energy) futures we will conclude that comparisons and assessments of energy futures should be made through processes of scrutiny and assessment, looking into the ingredients which have been used in constructing the respective futures, and into the process of their composition. Providing much more insight into the cognitive and normative structure of energy futures is required for allowing a more transparent and deliberative societal debate about future energy systems.     

Reflections and projections: A decade of Intellectual Capital Accounting Research

The purpose of this paper is to review and critique the field of Intellectual Capital Accounting Research (ICAR). The literature indicates that an organisational and business revolution is in progress concerning the need to understand the value of knowledge resources and how to manage them. The paper explores the field of ICAR by examining a decade of published research since Petty and Guthrie's (2000) seminal paper on ICA, “Intellectual capital literature review: Measurement, reporting and management” as published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital.The paper has four specific contributions. The first contribution is to identify the field of scholarship associated with ICAR. The second is to provide a comprehensive picture of what has happened in the field of ICAR over the past decade. Third, it provides evidence as to how and why the field of ICAR is changing. Fourth, it highlights areas for future research and policy developments.From these four contributions our definition of Intellectual Capital Accounting (ICA) emerges. That is, ICA is an accounting, reporting and management technology of relevance to organisations to understand and manage knowledge resources. It can account and report on the size and development of knowledge resources such as employee competencies, customer relations, financial relationships and communication and information technologies. Additionally, the analysis highlights several interesting patterns and worrying trends in the field of ICAR.     

Auctions versus book-built IPOs in Japan: A comparison of aftermarket volatility

In a recent theoretical paper, Sherman [Sherman, A.E., 2005, Global trends in IPO methods: Book building versus auctions with endogenous entry, Journal of Financial Economics 78, 615–649.] proposes that: “If book building leads to greater expected underpricing relative to uniform price or discriminatory auctions, then it should also lead to less volatility in aftermarket trading…”. In this paper, we study a Japanese sample and find that book-built IPOs exhibit greater underpricing and higher aftermarket volatility compared to price-discriminatory auctions. Aftermarket volatility wanes with seasoning in both sub-samples, but the book-built volatility levels are persistently higher than those for auctions for as long as one year after the IPO issue date.     

11. Population forecasting

Forecasts of future trends in population are as central to the contemporary pessimism about the future as they were to that of certain classical economists at the beginning of the 19th century. Here earlier forecasts are examined to see how the methodology has changed and if past performance justifies the placing of much confidence in contemporary forecasts. The emphasis is upon British and American experience and upon total population sizes (rather than age or sex breakdowns). A concluding section raises the question of today's world population situation and the context of The Limits to Growth population considerations.     

Back to the futures: Retrospecting the prospects of smart grid technology

This paper analyzes a ten-year long technology debate, which dealt with the so-called advanced electricity meters in Norway (1998–2008). The debate circled around one central question: should the implementation of this technology be forced through with regulations or should the market decide on pace and character of implementation? In 2008 it was decided that it was best to regulate the implementation. Throughout these 10 years, the debate largely concerned how the future would look with or without regulation. This paper is inspired by “the sociology of expectation”, which assumes that futures are performative. This means that when the future is evoked or imagined, it influences present action and navigation. With this in mind, the paper analyzes future visions and expectations as they were formulated in the technology debate, and traces the role of these futures in the policy debate and for the policy outcome. The paper identifies two modes of future performativity: translative and transformative futures. Translative futures are often mobilized as spokespersons for desired technology or policy trajectories. Here, they work as (a) stagestting devices: sparking debate, enrolling new actors in the debate and generating interest. Further, they work as (b) regulative tools: establishing the need for political decisions, either to realize the content of future visions, or to avoid the contents of alternative futures. Transformative futures do more subtle and gradual work, shifting the practical, symbolic and cognitive meaning of “what” the technology in question might become in the future. As an example, the significance of the advanced electricity meters discussed in this paper changed from being a device filling the knowledge gaps of electricity consumers, to being a central hub in households delivering a range of potential services and being available for a number of different users. In this paper, I describe the gradual shift in understanding of what advanced electricity meters could be as a virtual domestication trajectory.     

The Impact of the Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Diagnosis-Related Groups

Abstract

The outpatient prospective payment system for the Medicare program became effective Aug. 1, 2000, as mandated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. This outpatient program complements Medicare’s inpatient prospective payment system, which was introduced in 1983. A survey of the literature over the past 20 years is undertaken to review the effects of the inpatient prospective payment system and diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) on inpatient hospital utilization, expenditures, and outcomes. The level of the DRG payment has been questioned, as well as the process of adjusting the payment levels from one year to the next. In addition, past research has speculated that the DRG classification may not be sensitive to severity and is subject to coding ambiguities. These conclusions can be used as input to future research on the new outpatient program, as well as updating research on the inpatient program.     

Through bubbles and crises: An analysis of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Journal of Financial Services Marketing</Emphasis> from 2000 to 2012

This article presents an analysis of all publications of the Journal of Financial Services Marketing (JFSM), from 2000 until the end of 2012. The objectives of this study were: (i) to compare the subjects covered by the journal with industry trends, and identify opportunities for future research, and (ii) to assess the journal’s development over time and its influence in the field of financial services marketing. Data for this content analysis was collected manually from the publisher’s Website and from each paper, and a grounded theory approach was used to group the papers into clusters based on emerging themes. The study indicates that JFSM has been successful in covering the industry’s most important trends, including mobile banking, relationship management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and service quality. A number of gaps were identified, in particular regarding mobile banking services and the impact of new online business models (for example, PayPal, crowdfunding, Bitcoin). These findings should assist JFSM’s editorial board to determine its future direction, and offer readers insight into industry trends and the journal’s role in covering them.     

Prediction of Operating Cash Flows: Further Evidence from Australia

This paper examines empirically the relative abilities of current operating cash flows (hereafter OCF) and earnings in predicting future operating cash flows in Australia. It extends prior Australian research on cash flow prediction ( Percy and Stokes 1992 ; Clinch, Sidhu and Sing 2002 ; Farshadfar, Ng and Brimble 2009 ) by examining future cash flow predictions for one‐, two‐ and three‐year‐ahead forecast horizons; incorporating additional contextual variables likely to affect the predictive association between current cash flows or earnings and future cash flows; and comparing cross‐sectional versus time series‐based prediction models to ascertain the relative superiority of one approach over the other. Regression results reveal that the cash flow‐based models are more accurate in predicting future operating cash flows than earnings‐based models. This result, however, is moderated by firm‐specific contextual factors like firm size, negative versus positive cash flow pattern, cash flow variability and firm operating cycle. Finally, a comparison between cross‐sectional and time series approaches reveals that the cross‐sectional model outperforms the time series model for both the operating cash flows and earnings models in most of the forecast years.     

Productivity and efficiency analysis of Shinkin banks: Evidence from bootstrap and Bayesian approaches

This paper analyzes the productivity and efficiency of Shinkin banks and the various prefectures in Japan, over the period from 2000 to 2006. We obtain estimates of efficiency growth and productivity growth, using the bootstrapped Malmquist index, and estimates of efficiency using the Bayesian distance frontier approach. We confirm that the efficiency growth and productivity growth of Shinkin banks did not improve significantly over the period of this study. In addition, we show that the efficiency of Shinkin banks is homogenous, with little variation across the banks analyzed. Methodologically, we also prove that a failure to impose theoretical regularity on the distance function could lead to false conclusions about the average efficiency or efficiency ranking of Shinkin banks. The study also includes an analysis of the correlates of productivity and efficiency growth, and provides efficiency and productivity estimates of the prefectures in which the banks are located.     

25 years and counting of corporate finance: What have we learned and where are we going?

This Special Issue pays tribute to the Journal of Corporate Finance (JCF) and its cutting-edge research. We do this by taking stock of the trends of research published in the Journal over the last 25 years, reviewing areas being researched currently, and offering some insight into fruitful areas of corporate finance research going forward. To that end, the Special Issue includes a blend of articles that represent the past, present, and future of corporate finance research. In particular, we highlight areas of corporate finance research that may be promising and offer insights on the potential of JCF going forward.