Civil aviation has a longstanding tradition of investigating accidents and reporting incidents, which contributes to making aviation one of the safest forms of transport.To make flying safer, independent investigation into accidents is essential as it the surest way of identifying the causes of an accident and answering the fundamental questions “What really happened?” and “What can be done to prevent similar incidents in the future?”.The obligation to investigate accidents is enshrined in the Chicago Convention of 1944. Recognizing the importance of accident investigation, the European Union adopted Council Directive 94/56/EC establishing the fundamental principles governing the investigation of civil aviation accidents and incidents and later on Directive 2003/42/EC on occurrence reporting. They both significantly contributed to harmonization of accident prevention.But with air traffic steadily increasing, accidents do happen despite the best efforts of regulators and industry. The organization of the air transport sector is much more complex now than it was a decade ago. Today there is significant divergence in the investigating capacity of the EU Member States compared to 1994. Furthermore nowadays investigating air accidents take new kinds of expertise and more resources than a decade ago. At the same time there is a new legal and institutional environment in Europe derived from the adoption of European aviation safety rules. Also the organizational set-up has changed substantially with the establishment of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is now responsible for certifying aircraft in the EU. The EU rules on investigating air accidents need to be updated to reflect the current realities of Europe's aviation market and the complexity of the global aviation industry.Accordingly, over the last few years the European Commission has been working on a Regulation on the investigation and prevention of accidents and incidents in civil aviation, with the intention of updating and replacing the existing Directive. With this new regulation the Commission aims to promote more efficient and independent inquiries into the causes of air accidents and also expects to strengthen the rights of the victims of air accidents.Today the end is in sight, once that the Commission and European Parliament have reached an agreement about the content and text of this new regulation. Reasons behind this new regulation are presented in this paper together with a detailed explanation of its main contents, an assessment of their impact and their expected benefits. 相似文献
This study presents an updated diagnosis of the SV ecosystem itself and offers an insight into the entrepreneurial mobility trends prospects and expectations of the growing number of start-ups launched by immigrant entrepreneurs arriving in SV. The purpose is to determine and rank the attributes most valued by investors when assessing projects and start-ups founded by immigrant entrepreneurs. The model of analysis composed by three hypotheses leads to a series of findings about the profile and expectations of the immigrant entrepreneurs, and reveals remarkable hints and key targets to be met by immigrant entrepreneurs in SV in order to successfully close investment rounds in a hypercompetitive environment. The study discloses the low impact of the founder’s profile as a driver of external investment. A key conclusion states that Venture Capitalists and Business Angels in the top-ranked entrepreneurial ecosystem are primarily led by factors linked to the competitive environment and the product development process, along with the traditional performance indicators: revenue and profitability.
In knowledge‐intensive industries, the workplace has become a key locus of learning. To perform effectively, knowledge workers must be able to take responsibility for their own developmental needs, and in particular, to regulate their own learning. This paper describes the construction and validation of an instrument (the Self‐Regulated Learning at Work Questionnaire) designed to provide a measure of self‐regulated learning (SRL) behaviour in the workplace. The instrument has been validated through a pilot study with a cohort of 170 knowledge workers from the finance industry. Results indicate that the five scales of the instrument are reliable and valid, testing a broad range of sub‐processes of SRL. The instrument can be used to identify knowledge workers who demonstrate different levels of SRL in workplace contexts for further exploration through qualitative studies and could also provide the basis of professional development tools designed to explore opportunities for self‐regulation of learning in the workplace. 相似文献
This paper examines the ex-dividend day behavior of stock prices in the Lisbon Stock Market over the period 1990–1998, extending
on international evidence and discussing the adequacy of competing theories, considering the Portuguese institutional environment.
We find that on the ex-day stock prices fall by less than the dividend, which is in line with the findings of several studies
based on US and non-US data. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) the rejection of a tax explanation for the stock
price drop, because it is inconsistent with the Portuguese tax regime; (2) considering the very small stock price tick and
the fact that dividends are always integer multiples of tick size, the discreteness hypothesis of Bali and Hite (Journal of
Financial Economics 47(2):127–159, 1998) is also ruled out as a possible explanation for ex-day price movements. We find no
evidence of tax related clientele effects. We propose that ex-day price behavior may be an anomaly, reflecting a less than
efficient market with low liquidity levels, price stickiness, and insipid arbitrage trading.
This paper identifies the determinants affecting the adolescent populations' decision regarding whether or not to consume
illegal drugs. The authors estimate a simultaneous Type II Tobit model for each sample substance, including marijuana, LSD,
amphetamines, cocaine, volatile substances, and heroine. The data are drawn from three Spanish Surveys on Drug Use in the
School Population conducted in 1994, 1996, and 1998. The results indicate that illegal drug use among Spanish adolescents
is clearly determined by economic variables. It is similarly determined by other sociodemographic variables, such as personal
habits, family environment, and the receipt of information regarding the negative consequences of drug use.
This paper was partially written while José Alberto Molina was Visiting Researcher at the Fundación de Estudios de Economía
Aplicada-FEDEA (Madrid, Spain), to which he would like to express his thanks for the hospitality and facilities provided.
The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful observations on an earlier version of this paper. Similarly,
Namkee Ahn, as well as various participants at the XIX Spanish Health Economics Meeting (Zaragoza, Spain) and at the 2001
Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (Washington DC), have all offered valuable comments and suggestions.
Finally, the authors would like to express their gratitude for the financial support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education-CICYT
and the European Commission (Project FEDER 2FD97-2057). The usual disclaimer applies. 相似文献
In this paper we will consider hypothesis-tests for the (fuzzy-valued) mean value of a fuzzy random variable in a population. For this purpose, we will make use of a generalized metric for fuzzy numbers, and we will develop an approach for normal fuzzy random variables, and two different approaches for the case of fuzzy random variables taking on a finite number of different values. A real-life example illustrates the use of the last two approaches. Finally, a comparison between the introduced techniques is developed by means of simulation studies leading to close inferential conclusions.Acknowledgements.The research in this paper has been partially supported by MCYT Grants BFM2002-01057 and BFM2001-3494. Their financial support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are sincerely grateful to their colleague Gil González-Rodríguez for all his comments and suggestions in connection with this paper; his scientific support has been very valuable. The authors want also thank the referees of the first version of the paper because of their useful hints to improve it. 相似文献
This paper provides evidence that high and rising corruption increases income inequality and poverty. An increase of one
standard deviation in corruption increases the Gini coefficient of income inequality by about 11 points and income growth
of the poor by about 5 percentage points per year. These findings are robust to use of different instruments for corruption
and other sensitivity analyses. The paper discusses several channels through which corruption may affect income inequality
and poverty. An important implication of these findings is that policies that reduce corruption will most likely reduce income
inequality and poverty as well.
Received: March 2, 2000 / Accepted: September 20, 2001 相似文献
This paper studies the determinants of income smoothing by management of loan-loss provisions in banks around the world. Using a panel database of 3221 bank-year observations from 40 countries and controlling for unobservable bank effects and for the endogeneity of explanatory variables, we find that bank income smoothing depends on investor protection, disclosure, regulation and supervision, financial structure, and financial development. Results suggest there is less bank income smoothing not only with the strength of investor protection, but also with the extent of accounting disclosure, restrictions on bank activities, and official and private supervision, while there is more income smoothing with market orientation and development of a country’s financial system. 相似文献