Analysis of business failures in France

In the present economic situation, business failures are a matter of major concern to government and business alike. The current period of slow growth in France, and the rigidity of its productive system make it more important than ever to act to insure the survival of its industrial fabric. This necessity has found recognition in the fact that the French Parliament is now discussing a Government bill designed to head off business failures by means of a series of early-warning signals. Under this bill, the company auditors' obligation is widened to include the duty to report to the company any factor liable to compromise the continued operation of that firm. The context within which the Banque de France's ‘Centrale de Bilans’¹ is currently pursuing its work favors the development of a discriminant function capable of detecting symptoms of business failure at the earliest possible opportunity. This work has been facilitated, and usefully guided, by Altman's pioneering research in this field since 1968, as well as by the work of Blum, Deakin, Edmister and Taffler, to rite just a few names from the Anglo-Saxon world. In France, the most recent research has been initiated by the CESA [Altman et al. (1974)] and pursued by Collongues, Sulzer, Conan and Holder, as well as by certain banks. But in this last case applications have remained strictly limited.     

Does the Commercialization of Voluntary Organizations ‘Crowd out’ Voluntary Work?

This article examines the relationship among voluntary labour supply and commercial income for Norwegian sport voluntary organizations. Empirical results using cross–sectional data on voluntary sport organizations in Norway and on their members show a decrease in voluntary work from an increase in commercial income. Voluntary work and commercial income appear as substitutable resources. Nevertheless, the results have to be differentiated according to the professional situation of the volunteers.
A crowding out effect between voluntary work and commercial resources is at play for non–professionally active individuals whereas professionally active individuals seem to be indifferent to the level of commercial resources in deciding whether to volunteer or not.     

The theorems of international trade under generalized uncertainty

A number of authors have extended the theorems of international trade to the case where the output of the various production processes (for pre-set inputs) is random. But they limited their analysis to a very special type of technological randomness known in the financial literature as ‘scalar uncertainty’. The purpose of the present paper is to extend the theorems to a much wider class of random neoclassical production functions. It is assumed that there exists a unified stock market worldwide.     

Neutrality of planning procedures

A planning procedure is said to be neutral if every Pareto optimum, which is preferred or indifferent by every agent to the initial situation, can be reached by the procedure. We give sufficient conditions which imply the neutrality property of a large class of dynamical systems which includes, in particular, a planning procedure defined by Drèze, de la Vallée Poussin and Malinvaud.     

Services Policy Reform and Economic Growth in Transition Economies

Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment, and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services policy reforms. We find that reforms in policies toward financial and infrastructure services, including telecommunications, power, and transport, are highly correlated with inward FDI. Controlling for regressors commonly used in the growth literature, we find that measures of services policy reform are statistically significant explanatory variables for the post-1990 economic performance of transition economies. These findings suggest services policies should be considered more generally in empirical analyses of economic growth. JEL no. F14, F43, O14, O40     

Subective poverty line definitions

Summary In this paper we will deal with definitions ofsubjective poverty lines. To measure a poverty threshold value in terms of household income, which separates the poor from the non-poor, we take into account the opinions of all people in society. Three subjective methods will be discussed and compared,viz., the Leyden Poverty Line (LPL), the Subjective Poverty Line (SPL) and the Centre for Social Policy Poverty Line (CSP). In the empirical part of the paper we compute the average poverty line and a few corresponding characteristics for each definition.     

Restructuring Japanese business through Kyosei: Capitalizing on international strategic alliances at the consumer level

Japan of the post-bubble era is the object of much reflection and speculation pertaining to risutora or restructuring of the economy. This study provides a novel, analytical perspective on the fundamental issues involved in the shift of momentum that characterizes Japanese business and economic restructuring. After examining the economic and corporate dimensions of the transitional forces that shape Japan's restructuring process, this study focuses on two powerful, yet often ignored, agents of change: the emergence of a new class of collaborative mandates, kyosei, and the rise of consumer power. The study further emphasizes the importance of planning and managing corporate-level restructuring activities with the interests of end users in mind, by empirically demonstrating the significance of strategic alliances, as a corporate restructuring option, on consumers. The results show that consumers' impression of alliances with Japanese firms have a strong effect on future attitudes toward each partnering brand. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.