How broad-based is broad-based black economic empowerment?

Common perceptions about broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) have been that it is nothing more than a tool for the already affluent to access further wealth and has limited potential to address the economic exclusion of the most marginalised. An analysis was conducted of data on black economic empowerment (BEE) deals between 2004 and 2009. The findings demonstrate that although the elite continue to benefit from deals, broad-based beneficiaries, particularly employees and women, are also beginning to benefit to some extent. This suggests that empowerment policies have some potential to promote private sector involvement in addressing the state's social transformation agenda. However, a closer analysis of the BEE transactions shows that the BEE landscape is far more complex and nuanced than commonly thought. Further research is necessary to understand the real impacts of BEE on the ground.     

Can absence make a team grow stronger?

Some projects have such diverse requirements that they need a variety of specialists to work on them. But often the best-qualified specialists are scattered around the globe, perhaps at several companies. Remarkably, an extensive benchmarking study reveals, it isn't necessary to bring team members together to get their best work. In fact, they can be even more productive if they stay separated and do all their collaborating virtually. The scores of successful virtual teams the authors examined didn't have many of the psychological and practical obstacles that plagued their more traditional, face-to-face counterparts. Team members felt freer to contribute--especially outside their established areas of expertise. The fact that such groups could not assemble easily actually made their projects go faster, as people did not wait for meetings to make decisions, and individuals, in the comfort of their own offices, had full access to their files and the complementary knowledge of their local colleagues. Reaping those advantages, though, demanded shrewd management of a virtual team's work processes and social dynamics. Rather than depend on videoconferencing or e-mail, which could be unwieldy or exclusionary, successful virtual teams made extensive use of sophisticated online team rooms, where everyone could easily see the state of the work in progress, talk about the work in ongoing threaded discussions, and be reminded of decisions, rationales, and commitments. Differences were most effectively hashed out in tele-conferences, which team leaders also used to foster group identity and solidarity. When carefully managed in this way, the clash of perspectives led not to acrimony but, rather, to fundamental solutions, turning distance and diversity into competitive advantage.     

The impact of all-star analyst job changes on their coverage choices and investment banking deal flow

Using a sample of all-star analysts who switch investment banks, we examine (1) whether analyst behavior is influenced by banking relationships and (2) whether analyst behavior affects investment banking deal flow. Although the stock coverage decision depends on the relationship with the client firms, we find no evidence that analysts change their optimism or recommendation levels when joining a new firm. Investment banking deal flow is related to analyst reputation only for equity transactions. For debt and M&A transactions, analyst reputation does not matter. There is no evidence that issuing optimistic earnings forecasts or recommendations affects investment banking deal flow.     

Preferential Trading and Real Wages

Following the Stolper–Samuelson type of logic, the general impression is that freeing up trade, whether preferentially as in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or on a nondiscriminatory basis as in the Uruguay Round, must lower real wages in one set of countries and raise them in the other set of countries. An increase in the real wage in all countries as a result of freeing up of trade either relies on gains via an improvement in the terms of trade or requires special assumptions such as increasing returns, complete specialization or asymmetries in production technology. This paper shows that even within a standard three-country, three-good, small-union model, preferential trade liberalization can lead to increased real wages in both partner countries without necessarily relying on terms-of-trade improvements, increasing returns, complete specialization, or asymmetries in production technology.     

柔性版印刷中色序对呈色效果的影响

柔性版印刷是凸版印刷的一种，在美国及一些欧洲国家被广泛应用在包装及出版印刷产业。特别是包装印刷最重要的特点是其产品颜色丰富。传统印刷由CMYK四色油墨叠印，不同的色序可产生不同色域。因此，确定一种色序对获得最大的色域范围，更好地实现色彩再现及实地密度非常重要。     

The Innovative Performance Of The World'S Largest Firms: Some New Evidence ‡

Data on R & D expenditures and US patenting in the world's 660 largest, technologically active firms both show a linear relation between firm size and the volume of innovative activities, despite some inconsistencies between the two measures. Technological diversity increases with firm size, but relatively weakly, especially in R & D-intensive sectors. Sectoral variations in the comparative technological advantage of large firms based in Japan, the USA and W. Europe are better explained by variations in rivalry in their home market than by variations in their size.