Incentive Effects, Monitoring Mechanisms and the Market for Corporate Control: An Analysis of the Factors Affecting Public to Private Transactions in the UK

Abstract:   This paper investigates the factors that influence the decision to change the status of a publicly quoted company to that of a private company. We find that firms that go private are more likely to have higher CEO ownership and higher institutional ownership. In relation to their board structures, firms going private tend to have more duality but there is no statistical difference in the proportion of non‐executive directors. They do not show signs of having excess free cash flows but there is some evidence of lower growth opportunities. We do not find that firms going private experience a greater threat of hostile acquisition. The results are therefore consistent with incentive and monitoring explanations of going private. Calculation of the probability of going private shows that incentive effects are stronger than the monitoring effects.     

Inflation and productive activity in a multiple-matching model of money

This paper investigates the relationship between money growth, inflation, and productive activity in a dynamic general-equilibrium, multiple-matching framework where trade frictions are manifested by limited consumption variety. Productive activity and matching in the goods market are endogenized by a time allocation decision of work and search effort. We find that a high degree of complementarity between participation in the labor and goods markets creates a channel by which inflation can positively influence production and output. This feature arises when household preferences for consumption variety is sufficiently large and it can also lead to the multiplicity of monetary equilibria.     

Transnationale Öffentlichkeit in Europa: Forschungsstand und Perspektiven

Transnational public spheres are defined as spaces of thickened public, mediated political communication that extend beyond the national territory. Synthesizing the existing empirical literature, the emergence of transnational public spheres in Europe is assessed by looking at five potential driving forces of transnationalization: (1) transnational media in Europe, (2) different groups of actors as speakers in a Europeanized public sphere, (3) the Europeanization of national media debates, (4) the development of European media events, and (5) the emergence of Europeanized audiences and publics. Results show a recurring pattern of a multi-dimensional segmentation of the transnational public sphere. In conclusion, research perspectives are developed that focus on the transnationalization of public spheres as a multidimensional, long-term, structural and segmented process that is rooted in nationally circumscribed political discourse cultures.     

FORECASTING INVESTMENT NEEDS IN SOUTH AFRICA'S ELECTRICITY AND TELECOM SECTORS

The paper uses 52‐country panel‐data for the period 1980‐2002 to estimate demand for electricity and telecom services and, based on these estimates, project investment needs in South Africa through 2010 for two growth scenarios. Projections of average annual investment needs in electricity and telecom for the current growth scenario (3.6% per annum) are of the order of 0.2% and 0.75% of GDP, respectively. An alternative, accelerated growth scenario (6% per annum) implies an approximate doubling of investment needs in these sectors.     

VERTICAL INTEGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS: A COMPETITION ANALYSIS

This article develops an analytical framework that can be used to assess competition in South African telecommunications and, thereafter, applies this framework in an evaluation of vertical integration patterns in the telecommunications industry. It is shown that, despite recent regulatory reforms, substantial vertical competition concerns remain unaddressed in both fixed line and mobile telecommunications markets.     

The Impact of the Internet on Professional Relationships: The Case of Health Care

This paper considers the impact of the internet on professional services, specifically healthcare services which have been characterised as asymmetrical in information and power distribution. For complex professional services the internet is primarily an information resource offering perceived parity with professionals. Based on interviews with healthcare professionals and website managers, this paper considers how professionals perceive the internet to be changing patterns of professional–consumer interaction and the nature of professional–consumer relationships. Manifest at service encounter level and health policy level, professionals perceived the evolving parameters of the consumer role to be generating a requirement for a fundamental revision of models of service delivery and professional roles.     

Public sector purchasing of health services: A comparison with private sector purchasing

Recent research has highlighted the existence of important differences between public and private sector procurement practices. Drawing on established transactional and relational conceptual frameworks, this paper examines whether the differing environments confronting public and private sector organisations affects procurement practices. By focusing solely on occupational health services as an example of a complex business service, the research allows the influence of environmental factors, notably policy drivers, to be considered across both public and private sector settings while service specific factors remain largely constant. Utilising a combination of questionnaires and in-depth interviews the research suggests that policy drivers had a major bearing on procurement practices adopted in the public sector, resulting in a very different pattern of engagement with service providers from that prevailing in the private sector. Specifically whereas private sector organisations utilised a range of approaches, which can broadly be classified as relational in nature, public sector organisations almost exclusively relied on transactional-based approaches. The nature of these services suggests that relational based procurement constitutes the optimal approach to the acquisition of such services. However, for public sector organisations the perceived restrictions imposed by public policy on procurement practices resulted in the adoption of an approach which can be viewed as resulting in sub-optimal outcomes.