Properties of time-series estimates of degree of leverage measures

Empirical studies suggest that time-series regression estimates of the degrees of operating and financial leverage have a tendency to produce measures less than one. According to ex ante theory, these measures should be greater than one for firms operating above the breakeven point. There have also been suggestions that the biases in these estimates may be attributable to an underlying increase in unit sales. This work presents evidence that these counter-intuitive measures are produced by changes in the firm's operating parameters (unit price, variable cost, fixed cost and interest payments). It further suggests that attempts to control for the underlying change in unit sales substantially increase the volatility of predicted estimates.     

The unauthorised chapter of the Dearing Report

Lord Dearing focuses on the globalisation of higher education, and the potential role for UK institutions within this movement. The trend is of increasing global competition, but for a growing market. Issues raised include the role of private-sector institutions in this market, the maintaining of high standards, the importance of life-long learning and the place of information and communications technology. Lord Dearing concludes with recommendations as to how government and institutions themselves could respond to the challenges and opportunities that globalisation brings.     

Can European Union survive?

The Treaty of Rome promised European economic integration through free trade in goods, services and capital. Instead, Brussels has imposed ever-increasing regulation, which must weaken adaptation to global competition.     

Price formation in commodity markets

This paper develops a theory-consistent market model for storable commodities and illustrates its characterization of the data-generating process for a set of major traded commodities. The dynamics of the system incorporate recent advances in modelling techniques. Cointegrated variables in the demand functions are represented by the error correction mechanism (ECM), and expected prices in the stock demand relationship are generated by a rational expectations process. The outside-sample performance of the model is tested against the pure time-series model used to formulate expected prices, and is shown to have a smaller mean square error than that of the time-series model. Thus the model provides comparatively efficient forecasts and, unlike models constructed in their reduced form, permits consideration of key behavioural relationships in commodity markets.     

what's wrong with electricity privatisation

Was the privatisation of the British electricity industry misconceived from the start? Rodney Lord, of Privatisation International, out-lines the errors of judgement that led to the current state of quasi competition.     

Government Policy: The Next Ten Steps Proposals by a radical

The Thatcher Government is coming under Increasing criticism from disillusioned supporters for failing to roll back the state. Lord (Jo) Grimond and David Howell outline ten next steps to revitalise the Government's intentions.     

Implementing a divergent response? The UK approach to bribery in international and domestic contexts

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses UK domestic bribery. The authors argue that in both domestic and international contexts, cases are not numerically significant but that changes in how the UK government approaches bribery in the international context means that, where once domestic bribery was addressed more rigorously than bribery in the international context, this imbalance may be being steadily reversed. The paper concludes by setting out the implications that this identifiable divergence may have for the effective policing of bribery in the domestic context. The paper makes an empirical and theoretical contribution to the literature on corruption in the UK.     

Cultural influences on cross-border vacationing

This study investigates the impact of cultural variables on cross-border vacationing in the Western New York-Southern Ontario region in North America and the Hong Kong-Shenzhen area in Asia. A survey of 635 cross-border vacationers in the two regions indicates that economic, quality, and service variables and the affective pleasure of vacationing in a foreign environment exert effects on vacationers' perceptions, behavior, and satisfaction predicted on the basis of the levels of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation prevalent in those border regions.