Small Capitalization Companies: What Does Financial Analysis Tell Us about Them?

The study considers a broad range of accounting information and ratios for a group of small and large companies from 1965 through 1980. It seeks to answer the following questions: Are the financial ratios of small companies significantly different from those of larger companies? Are these differences commensurate with relative stock market performance? What are the implications for investors who may wish to invest in small companies, either individually or through mutual funds specializing in the stock of small companies?     

The new EU countries and euro adoption

In the new member states of the EU which have not yet adopted the euro, previous adoption strategies have come under scrutiny. The spillovers and contagion from the global financial crisis revealed a new threat to the countries’ real convergence goal, namely considerable vulnerability to the transmission of financial instability to the real economy. This paper demonstrates the existence of extreme risks for real convergence and argues in favour of a new adoption strategy which does not announce a target date for the currency changeover and which allows for more flexible and countercyclical monetary, fiscal and wage policies.     

Should we reallocate patent fees to the universities?

In knowledge economies, patent agencies are often viewed as a relevant instrument of an efficient innovation policy. This paper brings a new support to that idea. We claim that these agencies should play an increasing role in the regulation of the relation between private R&D labs and public fundamental research units especially concerning the question of the appropriation of free usable research results. Since these two institutions work with opposite institutional arrangements (see P.S. Dasgupta and P.A. David. 1987. Information disclosure and the economics of science and technology. In Arrow and the accent of modern economic theory, ed. G.R. Feiwel, 519–42. New York: State University of New York Press), we essentially argue that there is, on the one hand, an over-appropriation of these results while, on the other hand, there is also an under-provision of free usable results issued from more fundamental research. We show how a public patent office can restore efficiency.