Debt Management and the Use of Leasing Finance in UK Corporate Financing Strategies

This paper reports an extensive industrial survey of UK companies' current attitudes towards debt and lease financing. It attempts to establish why and when financial managers resort to leasing and how it is incorporated into their overall debt strategy. It seeks answers to such questions as how management evaluates corporate debt capacity; what reliance they place on rules-of-thumb balance sheet ratios, how debt financing decisions are made, and how leasing contracts are evaluated in practice. Ce papier est le compte-rendu d'une étude industrielle approfondie examinant les attitudes courantes que les sociétés adoptent en matière d'endettement et de financement par leasing. Nous essayons de savoir pourquoi et quand les agents de gestion ont recours aux leasings et enfin comment ces derniers viennent s'intégrer dans la politique globale d'endettement de ces sociétés. Nous cherchons les résponses à de telles questions, à savoir: comment les agents de gestion déterminent la capacité d'endettement de leur société; quelle confiance ils accordent au rapport approximatif établi entre les éléments comparables de l'actif et du passif du bilan; comment on détermine la valeur des contrats de gérance dans la pratique. Diese Abhandlung berichtet uber einen umfassenden industriellen Überbück von den gegenwärtigen Attituden der britischen Kapitalgesellschaften gegenüber Fremdfinanzierung und Leasing. Sie versucht festzustellen, warurn und wann die Unternehmensfinanzfachleute Gebrauch von Leasing machen und wie es in ihre Gesamtfremdfinanzierungsstrategie integriert wird. Sie sucht Antworten auf Fragen, z.B. wie das Management die Fremdfinanzierungskraft bewertet, welche Bedeutung den Bilanzfaustregelquoten angerechnet wird, wie Fremdfinanzierungsentscheidungen getroffen werden und wie Leasingverträge in der Praxis bewertet werden.     

中国农村劳动力非农就业的性别差异

中国农村劳动力的非农就业对促进农村经济发展,缩小城乡差距无疑具有积极的意义,同时非农就业的性别差异更是一个值得经济学家和社会学家关注的课题。本文运用微观数据,用Probit模型来研究中国农村劳动力就业的性别差异、影响农村劳动力非农就业选择的影响因素,以及各因素对不同性别农村劳动力非农就业的不同影响。     

Reciprocated community support and small town - small business success

This paper presents an empirical test of the significance of reciprocated community support, in contrast with traditional economic factors and unilateral support, in the success of small businesses in small towns. The central hypothesis is that entrepreneurs who make non-market contributions to their community and whose community supports them, are more likely to consider their businesses to be successful. Logistic regression is used to analyse survey data from over 800 small businesses in 30 small towns of the state of Iowa (USA). The authors found that the interaction effect of an entrepreneur's service to the community, reciprocated by community support of the business, is the single most significant determinant of business success among dozens of indicators and characteristics of the respondent, the business, and the small towns in the sample. In addition, it was found that business people who feel successful expect to expand. These findings are relevant to rural development. The expansion of existing businesses is an important component of regional job growth.     

Real Effects of Accounting Rules: Evidence from Multinational Firms’ Investment Location and Profit Repatriation Decisions

We analyze survey responses from nearly 600 tax executives to better understand corporate decisions about real investment location and profit repatriation. Our evidence indicates that avoiding financial accounting income tax expense is as important as avoiding cash income taxes when corporations decide where to locate operations and whether to repatriate foreign earnings. This result is important in light of the recent research about whether financial accounting affects investment and in light of the decades of research on foreign investment that examines the role of cash income taxes but heretofore has not investigated the importance of financial reporting effects. Our analysis suggests that financial reporting is an important factor to be considered in the policy debates focused on bringing investment to the United States.     

CASELOAD IMPACTS OF WELFARE REFORM

A welfare reform demonstration program designed to reduce Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recidivism through increased employment and training services resulted in significantly higher short-term caseload growth. Demonstration sites attracted proportionally more households onto assistance early in the demonstration than did comparison sites. These entrants tended to have more extensive previous employment histories. This result suggests that the demonstration attracted individuals who previously qualified for AFDC but did not apply for benefits and/or individuals who reduced their employment to qualify for AFDC. Exits from AFDC also were delayed under the demonstration, suggesting that the more intensive services provided through the demonstration required more time to complete. Finally, certain groups—nonwhites and those with language problems, for example—apparently avoided the demonstration by not migrating into demonstration sites or by migrating out of demonstration sites. These results have important implications for the likely costs of state welfare reform efforts under the Family Support Act of 1988 .