Dividend policy and investment: Theory and evidence from US panel data

This paper examines the importance of dividend policy and liquidity constraints in the context of the firm's investment behaviour. While early financial literature has argued that dividend policy should be independent of firm investment decisions, recent studies indicate that linkages are probable in a world of imperfect capital markets. This study develops an alternative Q specification which incorporates the actual dividend payment of the firm in order to test the hypothesis of independence. Empirical results suggest that after controlling for the firm's dividend payment, liquidity constraints remain an important determinant of firm investment behavior.     

Technology Education in Ontario: Evolution, Achievements, Critiques and Challenges. Part 1: The Context

This article, in seven sections, describes the evolution of technological education in the Canadian province of Ontario. The first section clarifies the meanings of the terms technology and technological education. The second outlines significant events in the history of technical education in the province. The third examines some of the societal factors that have created a climate for change during the past two decades, while the fourth describes the broader context of recent curriculum developments. The fifth reports on the introduction in 1995 of The Common Curriculum and the publication of Broad-based Technological Education. The sixth provides a few case studies illustrating the variety of ways in which technology education is currently implemented. The seventh section offers an evaluation and critique of some aspects of provincial curriculum policy and practice. The article is published in two parts. Part 1, in this issue, contains the first five sections, which describe the current curriculum offerings and their evolution. Part 2, containing the remaining two sections and all references, will be published in the next issue. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Quality choice: Does it matter which workers own and manage the cooperative firm?

The information age and the spread of information technology has implications for organizational structure. Accordingly, the age-old issues of product and service quality are put into a new perspective. It is this new perspective that compels analysis and contrast of the joint quality and output choices of a labor-managed (LM) firm with those of its entrepreneurial (PM) twin. It is shown that the LM firm's behavior regarding quality and quantity depends on which workers own and manage the firm and on the way that marginal profit with respect to output is influenced by quality. Similarly, the effects of increases in either fixed costs or demand depend on who owns and manages the LM firm and on the relationship between marginal profit and quality. Thus, whether a cooperative will outperform or underperform its PM counterpart depends on the particulars of the situation. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at seminars at Academia Sinica in Taipei and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors are grateful to the participants in those seminars and most especially to Professors C. C. Mai, Eden Yu, and Dr. Li Tianyou, as well as to an anonymous referee for their comments and helpful suggestions. The authors are responsible for the final version.     

An Evaluation of Bani (Dambo) Systems as a Smallholder Irrigation Development Strategy in Zimbabwe

There is little disagreement among experts that to increase agricultural production in sub‐Saharan Africa, especially in the semiarid areas, in view of the fact that these areas receive limited rainfall and face frequent droughts and have only 15% of their irrigation potential developed and utilized, irrigation development is critical. Due to high costs of infrastructure development of conventional irrigation systems and the prevalence of general pessimism based on the current low level of performance of the already existing projects in terms of financial, managerial and environmental objectives, it is imperative to evauate smallholder irrigation systems under farmer management as an alternative and/or complementary irrigation development strategy. This paper compares and evaluates the socio‐economic characteristics and the technical efficiency of the Bani system to the formal systems and makes recommendations for its development. Les experts conviennent généralement qu'il faut irriguer pour accroître la production agricole dans l'Afrique sub‐saharienne, surtout dans les régions semi‐arides où il pleut relativement peu, où la sécheresse sévit fréquemment et où les possibilités d'irrigation n'ont été développées qu'à quinze pour cent. Face au coût d'infrastructure élevé des systèmes d'irrigation classiques et au pessimisme général qu'engendre la piètre performance des projets existants quant à la réalisation des objectifs financiers, administratifs et environnementaux, il est impérieux d'évaluer l'utilité des petits systèmes d'irrigation exploités par les cultivateurs comme solution de rechange ou solution complémentaire à la stratégie actuelle de développement de l'irrigation. L'article que voici compare et évalue les paramètres socioéconomiques et l'efficacité technique du système Bani aux systèmes officiels en formulant des recommandations sur son extension.     

Trends in international business thought and literature: Traversing the path to insolvency: Lessons from an international alliance in management education

In 1988 the Madrid Business School (MBS) was created through a cooperative agreement between a small entrepreneurial firm in Madrid, Spain, and a large public institution of higher education in the United States. By mid-1994 MBS was financially insolvent and had closed. Discussion of this case focuses on two questions: first, could the American partner have taken any actions to increase the likelihood of MBS as a viable institution? Second, what constitutes a strategic approach to international cooperative agreements? Both issues offer lessons for entering into and participating in international cooperative agreements in higher education.     

Investment in Human Capital in Team Members Who Are Involved in Collective Decision Making

This paper studies an investment policy which improves the ability of team members to decide correctly. We specify sufficient conditions on the learning function such that the best policy of investment in human capital is to invest first in the least competent person. Despite the fact that team members who are endowed with more human capital contribute more to the probability that the whole team would decide correctly, the liberal policy is still optimal under these conditions. Moreover, within the dichotomous model of collective decision‐making, we show that these conditions are not so stringent.     

Banking in a new world order

September 11, 2001 is the defining date of a new world order. Like all individuals and commercial activities in the U.S., American banks and other domestic financial institutions were affected by the events of the terrorist attacks and by the subsequent responses of the American government and business community. Some of the effects of the attacks were immediate and fleeting. Others, however, were likely to have altered the environment of the financial services industry, particularly banking, in the U.S. for the foreseeable future. This paper is an initial consideration of these more lasting effects.     

Dietary guidelines – a self-assessment

Abstract: Men and women were asked to rate food choices by the dietary guideline messages and by nutrient analysis as a pilot to study a contemporary audience who were not main food preparers.