Tantra as episteme: A pedagogy of the future

In the face of the contemporary university's failure to escape from economic rationality and therefore create environments conducive to positive futures an alternative model of university is proposed. This is based on an episteme rooted in Tantra, a world view that allows for a multi-layering of discourse to occur in order to greatly extend the university's mandate as a cultural catalyst for future generations. It is argured that Tantra, which is situated in a resurgent indigenous consciousness, is both ancient and modern possessing as it does the deep wisdoms of this episteme while being energised with a liberatory ethic aimed at physical, social and spiritual emancipation from exploitative ideologies.     

Industrial behaviour patterns: A new dimension for planners

The analysis of industrial behaviour patterns and the factors which control them is an excellent tool for forecasting and planning. The paper presents the behaviour pattern which the high (new) technology industries such as the aerospace, chemical, computer, electronic, instrument, nuclear, and advanced material and transportation industries, have been following for the past 25 years. The petrochemical industry is used as an example.     

Economics and the Arts: A Review of Seven Years*

Contributions to the literature on the economics of the arts are reviewed covering the period 1975 to date. It is argued that although the work surveyed is uneven in quality and incomplete in its coverage, it has made sufficient impact to establish the economics of the arts as a significant area in the development of economic theory and analysis. The paper assesses the importance and relevance of work carried out in four broad areas of study: the role of government in arts markets; the operations of funding agencies; the production of arts goods and services; and consumer behaviour and demand for private consumption in the arts.     

The marketing concept in perspective

A re-evaluation of the marketing concept appears to be in the making. The focus of research designed to facilitate this re-evaluation is likely to be of considerable importance to the future development of marketing theory. Research designed to better define the role and scope of the marketing concept seems to offer the most promise. Such research would be an aid to determining where the marketing concept should fit into a comprehensive theory of marketing. Limitations of the marketing concept are well documented in the literature suggesting a need for a broader framework of marketing theory. It seems imperative that academicians accept the responsibility for developing a more comprehensive general theory of marketing, one relevant to both the micro and macro aspects of a functioning system. Such flexibility seems to be a minimal requirement.     

The Impact of Federal Interest Rate Regulations on the Small Saver: Further Evidence

This paper provides further evidence on the distributional impact of interest rate ceilings on the small saver. Cross-section data from the 1977 Consumer Credit Survey was used to estimate the implicit losses imposed on different income classes by government regulations. Our findings generally support earlier studies which found the implicit burden to be regressive among income classes. However, the degree of regressivity showed a marked decrease since 1970. These results may be explained by portfolio adjustments of households and financial innovations in response to deposit rate ceilings and accelerating inflation during the 1970s.     

Wealth data quality in the National Income Dynamics Study Wave 2

This paper examines the quality of data on household assets, liabilities and net worth in the South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Wave 2. The NIDS is the first nationally representative survey on household wealth in South Africa. The cross-sectionally weighted data are found to be fit for use in terms of the univariate distributions of net worth, assets and liabilities, but population totals are probably underestimated due to the presence of missing wealth data in Phase 2 of Wave 2 that is not taken into account in the weights. When compared with national accounts estimates of household net worth, there is an apparent inversion of the estimated totals of financial assets versus non-financial assets. Further research is required into why this is so. We find that the NIDS wealth module is a suitable instrument for the analysis of household wealth.     

Labor force migration, non-labor force migration, and non-employment reasons for migration

This paper documents the extent and nature of non-employment factors in migration. The labor force status of over 18 million recent interstate migrants in the United States and stated reasons for moving reported in several surveys in the U.S. are examined. Labor force migrants are heterogeneous in terms of the relationships between acquisition of employment and the migration decision, and in terms of the influence of decision makers outside of the migrant household including firms and the government. Numerically important categories of migrants not traditionally captured in migration models exist, including the elderly, the military, and movers from abroad. Whereas non-employment reasons are secondary to employment reasons for a majority of labor force migrants, non-employment factors are singularly important or operate in combination with employment factors for the majority of all migrants. The heterogeneity of migrant types and migration reasons needs to be better captured in migration models.     

Innovation timing games: a general framework with applications

We offer a new algorithm for analyzing innovation timing games. Its main advantage over the traditional approach is that it applies to problems that had previously been intractable. We use the algorithm to examine two classical innovation problems. We find that the competition takes the form of a waiting game with a second-mover advantage either for any level of R&D costs (process innovation) or for high R&D costs (product innovation). Moreover, both models predict that the second-mover advantage is monotonically increasing in the costs of R&D.     

Acquisitions of family owned firms: boon or bust?

Using a hand-collected dataset, we examine the acquisitions of 307 family owned targets for the period 1984–2000 to study the conflicting roles of entrenchment and alignment of interests in these firms. We find that bidders experience the strongest announcement market reaction at the medium levels of family ownership. However, bidder returns are negatively impacted when acquiring a public target family firm, even controlling for the percent owned by the family. We also find that overall firms that acquire family owned targets experience significant large negative returns in the long run. However, the long run results are also sensitive to the ownership structure of the family firm target with medium levels resulting in insignificant returns in the long run.