Dividend Taxes and Income Shifting

In this paper, we analyze whether a dividend tax cut for owner‐managers of closely held corporations encourages income shifting, income generation, or both. We use rich Swedish administrative micro data from 2000 to 2011 comprising detailed firm‐ and individual‐level information. We find robust evidence of extensive income shifting across tax bases in response to the 2006 Swedish dividend tax cut. Owner‐managers of closely held corporations reclassify earned income as dividend income but do not increase total income. The response is more pronounced for owner‐managers with tax incentives and with easier access to income shifting through a high ownership share.     

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz—Statistician,Economist and a European Intellectual

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868–1931) was a European statistician. His scientific work covered theoretical economics, stochastics, mathematical statistics and radiology; today, we would call him a cross‐disciplinary scientist. With his clear views on mathematical principles with their applications in these fields, he stood in conflict with the mainstream economic schools in Germany at the dawn of the 20th century. He had many prominent students (Gumbel, Leontief and Freudenberg among them), and he carved out the path of modern statistical thinking. He was a true European intellectual with a career path from St. Petersburg via Göttingen to Straßburg and finally the Berliner Universität, now Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin. He is known for the precise calibration of insurance claims applying the—at that time hardly known—Poisson distribution to Prussian horse kick and child suicide data. He proposed a simple solution to the Marxian transformation problem and wrote numerous articles and books on the mathematical treatment of statistical (including radiological physical) data. In this article, we sketch his life and work and point out the prominent role that he has in today's statistical thinking.     

Tourism and representation: a scale for measuring gendered portrayals

This paper analyses the nature of the images of women and men represented in tourism marketing and discusses the wider socio-cultural impact of such imagery. It begins by briefly discussing the gendered nature of tourism experiences and then reviews work on tourism, gender and representation. The paper's substantive contribution to tourism gender research, however, is its adaptation and development of a content analysis technique which facilitates the quantitative analysis of gender representations. A case study of a range of UK tour operators' brochures is presented which confirms that tourism representation relies heavily on the use of women as sexualized product adornments. The value and limitations of the content analysis research tool are discussed, as is its further applicability as a measurement of representations in tourism marketing.     

Policy evaluation in leisure services — The Northern Ireland case

This paper discusses the socio-cultural processes that shape homosexual leisure space, specifically examining the experiences of lesbians. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the emergent body of tourism research focusing on gendered and sexualized leisure. Its primary contribution to gender tourism research, however, is to provide further support for the conceptualization of leisure processes and spaces as both heterosexist and androcentric. The paper thus begins by briefly discussing the socio-cultural construction of gay space and the powerful dynamics that underpin its emotional geography. It then briefly discusses the study's methodological approach before presenting and discussing the findings of the research conducted with lesbians in Manchester's gay village - one of the UK's first and most successful gay and lesbian quarters. The paper reveals how sexuality and gender combine to constrain women's consumption of public leisure space and suggests that, whilst homosexual spaces have emotional and psychological importance as empowering places in a heterosexual world, in the case of the Manchester gay village, this homosexual space does not empower lesbians because of the homo-patriarchic power dialectics characterizing its socio-cultural construction. The women interviewed in the study do have territorial ambitions in the village - their own space is important to them, it confirms their place in the village and it supports the development of social networks for lesbians in a hostile, hetero-patriarchic world. Yet, it emerges that lesbian space is an exceptionally difficult homosexual space to claim since the more powerful and more established gay male community in that area does not particularly welcome women.     

The (mis)measurement of M&A performance—A systematic narrative literature review

This paper seeks to further the understanding of the variety of meanings M&A scholars attach to the label “M&A performance” by providing an alternative way to interpret the claimed inconsistency of M&A research findings. While many scholars contend that the problem stems from the multiplicity of M&A performance measures, we believe the problem rests in trying to compare different measures as if they were measuring the same feature of the organization. Through our narrative review of empirical research we analyze factors shaping the M&A – as well as the organizational – performance measurement process. The conclusion is that it is not possible to talk about M&A performance as if it was a universal construct.