Privatizations around the world: economic or political determinants?

The article examines economic, political, and institutional determinants of privatization using a panel of 50 countries over the period of 1988–2006. Our sample includes developed, developing, and transition economies. Privatization activity is measured by the number of privatization deals as well as the revenue raised and analyzed using the negative binomial regression and Tobit regression respectively. Although more privatization activity is usually taking place in countries displaying satisfactory economic performance in some respect, the role of economic factors turns out to be limited. The results identify a number of political and institutional determinants but some effects are specific to a particular type of economy. For example, in developing countries, right‐wing governments are associated with privatizations while new, not necessarily right‐wing governments, are behind privatization in Eastern Europe. The role of financial development is also varied, with sound financial institutions related to successful privatization in developed and developing countries but not in transition economies.     

SARUM 76—A global modelling project

Potential world models and attitudes towards them are discussed, as the setting for development of a new model by the Systems Analysis Research Unit. The main features of this model are described and argument is presented for the choice of structure. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the two parameters having most influence on whether runs are “acceptable” or “not acceptable”, are population and level of trade barriers. No clear indication has emerged to support either the doom school or the technological optimists, nor is it obvious that there are practicable policies which yield unequivocal improvement. It is proposed that the generalised character and scope for development of the new model makes it useful for wider investigations of global problems.     

International Variations in the Connections Between Tax and Financial Reporting

This paper constructs a method for assessing the degree of connection between tax rules and practices and financial reporting rules and practices in a country. Five types of connection and disconnection are suggested, and 15 arenas of accounting are proposed for assessment on this basis. The method is applied to four countries, partly in order to test the claim of a clear distinction between Anglo-Saxon and continental European countries.     

Beyond Flows,Fluids and Networks: Social Theory and the Fetishism of the Global Informational Economy

In this paper we critically explore some of the arguments made by those social theorists who claim that we live in a new global economy defined by informational and technological flows, fluids and networks. By recourse to Marx's concept of fetishism we argue that these theorists often fetishise the very social changes in the global economy they are trying to describe. As a result, they articulate a ‘flat ontology’ of concrete and contingent relations that mistakenly claims to capture the most important dynamics of global capitalism. We reject this approach, preferring instead to see global capitalism as a dialectical flux between concrete and more abstract processes. These critical points are developed by drawing on Marxism to explore how these social theorists often reproduce unhelpful dualisms in social theory, how they fetishise technology, how some of their arguments run parallel to a management justification logic of the market world and finally how they present a limited explanation of global finance.     

物联网

<正>更多物品中被嵌入传感器,从而获得了通讯能力。由此构成的信息网络能够创造新的业务模式,改进业务流程,并降低成本和风险。这就是物联网带来的冲击。在大多数组织中,信息都是沿着熟悉的路径传播。专有的信息存储在数据库里,并在报告中对其进行分析,然后沿着管理链逐级上报。信息还可以源于外部——从公共来源收集信息,从互联网获取信息,或者从信     

Privatization in PolandWhat was the government trying to achieve?1

This article uses the sequencing of privatization to infer the objective pursued by the Polish government in the privatization of its large manufacturing firms in the second half of the 1990s. We construct a model of mixed oligopoly and use it to evaluate the privatization process; our analysis is based on the assumption that firms which furthered the government's objective function the most would be chosen to be privatized first. Based on the features of the firms that were chosen for early privatization, our empirical analysis suggests that welfare maximization was more important than the desire to maximize the revenues from privatization and the government's budget or to minimize employment losses.     

Organizing for peace operations

There have been two general approaches to organizing for peace operations: an ad hoc approach, in which entities independently intervene and operate on the basis of their unique expertise and interest; and a top?–?down approach, in which all entities are directed and controlled by a single authority. Using the UN experience in Afghanistan, we demonstrate how this view of the organizing problem is limited. Instead, we develop a typology that distinguishes among three systems for organizing peace operations-Command, Market and Community?–?on the basis of their differences on four analytic dimensions (agency, social attachment, social control and inter-organizational relations). Our analysis of the UN experience in Afghanistan demonstrates the utility of our framework for both theory and practice.