Arab socialism in Egypt

The characteristic feature of ‘Arab socialism’, as practised in Egypt, is public ownership of the modern sectors, including finance and trade. Efficiency, in these sectors, and perhaps in agriculture, however, has suffered. Despite some improvement in distribution, following confiscation of larger businesses and rural estates, Egyptian society cannot be considered egalitarian. Egypt's system of agrarian co-operatives is perhaps the only feature of Arab socialism worth imitating.     

Ghana's agricultural food policy: Operation feed yourself

Prompted by food shortages, the newly ensconced Ghanaian military regime in 1972 initiated ‘Operation Feed Yourself’, a national programme directed at increased production of food crops. The authors attempt to determine how effective Operation Feed Yourself has been in attaining its goals. The bureaucracy which was set in place to implement the programme is assessed. Building on personal interviews conducted in Ghana with persons responsible for and affected by it, the authors discuss the successes and shortcomings of Operation Feed Yourself and suggest areas in which improvement might be made.     

Another trip to the mall: a segmentation study of customers based on their activities

In this exploratory study, a segmentation analysis of a shopping mall's customers is conducted according to the activities they performed during their visit, based on a methodology developed by Bloch et al. (J. Retailing 70 (1994) 23). This methodology is extended with measures of perceptions, emotions, and motivations. Activity-based clusters, obtained with the Variable Neighborhood Search metaheuristic applied to the P-median problem. (Hansen and Mladenovi , 1997) proved to be significantly different along many psychographic dimensions (including atmospheric perceptions), and demographic variables. This profiling methodology successfully synthesizes many segmentation approaches that were used separately in previous studies. This results in a complete and distinct profile of each group that may be a useful tool for retail strategists.     

Project valuation in the pharmaceutical industry: a comparison of least‐squares Monte Carlo real option valuation and conventional approaches

Least‐squares Monte Carlo simulation (LSM) is a promising new technique for valuing real options that has received little or no attention in the pharmaceutical industry. This study demonstrates that LSM can handle complex valuation situations with multiple uncertainties and compounded American‐type options. The limited application of real option valuation (ROV) in the pharmaceutical industry is remarkable, given the importance of accurate project valuation in an industry that requires large investments in high‐risk projects with long pay‐back periods, which is furthermore suffering from ever‐increasing development costs and shrinking profit margins. The LSM model developed in this study is constructed as an extension of a discounted cash flow model that should be familiar to economists active in the pharmaceutical industry. A number of pharmaceutical projects have been evaluated using LSM ROV, binominal real option valuation and expected net present value techniques. The different results yielded by these methods are explained in terms of differences in risking assumptions and ability to capture the value of flexibility. The analysis provides a framework to introduce the basic concepts of real option pricing to a non‐specialist audience. The LSM model illustrates the potential for real‐life commercial assessment as the versatility of the technique allows for an easy customisation to specific business problems.     

Program equity issues in schooling: The testimony of technology teachers

Assimilation into society via academic achievement is a premise and practice that is universal in schools and school systems. Drawing on the testimonies of technological education teachers and the sociology of knowledge literature, this narrative inquiry research sets the stage for a critical analysis of our reliance on knowledge versus experience in western education policy and planning. A crisp and constructive analysis of the premises school systems take for granted becomes possible, a case for transcending limited ways of thinking about knowledge and experience is made.

Cointegration and common trends on the West German labour market

In this paper we analyze the West German labour market by means of a cointegrated structural VAR model. We find sensible stable long-run relationships that are interpreted as a labour demand, a wage setting and a goods market equilibrium. In order to study the dynamic behaviour of the model we identify two common trends that push unemployment. We find that goods market shocks have only transitory impacts on unemployment. In the long run, it is almost equally determined by technology and labour supply factors. However, transitory shocks have major importance in the shorter run since adjustment processes are rather sluggish. First version received: Sept. 1998/Final version accepted: Feb. 2000     

Columbia Law School Roundtable on The Future Of Capitalism

In this discussion that took place at Columbia Law School's Millstein Center last October (and thus well before the appearance of the coronavirus), two distinguished English academics, a Pulitzer Prize‐winning journalist, and the executive chairman of a large American investment house discussed the role of corporations in addressing the crises that periodically beset the capitalist system. Sir Paul Collier opened with the comment that, although capitalism had shown itself to be the only effective system for mass human improvement in the past 10,000 years, it was now experiencing its “third serious derailment.” In each of the first two—the first in Northern England in the 1840s and the second during the Great Depression of the 1930s—capitalism was preserved in significant part by the “moral load‐bearing” performed by private companies and citizens. For capitalism to survive this third derailment, the public and private sectors must join forces to address what Collier to sees as the most formidable economic challenge: finding ways to transport urban jobs and capabilities to rural areas still reeling from two major blows—the first, a century ago to agriculture, and the second, for the past two or three decades, to large‐scale manufacturing. Collier's Oxford colleague Colin Mayer follows by calling on public companies to formulate and state a corporate social purpose that goes beyond maximizing their own long‐run shareholder values. And to encourage and support such a practice, Mayer urges the large universal owners that own large stakes in all the world's large listed companies not only to support and applaud such statements, but to find ways to ensure that companies are living up to them. Alan Schwartz, Executive Chairman of Guggenheim Partners, responds by noting that capitalism has been forced to make major adjustments throughout its history. And consistent with Collier's observations, Schwartz argues that the global economic order should have been preparing for the past 30 or 40 years for its biggest challenge: creating a global economy dynamic enough to provide jobs for some two or three billion new unskilled workers spawned by the globalization of the world economy. The American private sector, after having lost much of its efficiency and value in the 1970s, has since used continuous restructuring to produce enormous productivity gains and value. And although generally supportive of the thinking behind the Business Roundtable's recent statement, Schwartz deplores the confusion that continues to surround the message. Those corporate leaders now endorsing the pursuit of social goals are by no means asking their shareholders to accept below‐market returns on investment. In well‐run companies focused on long‐run efficiency and value, there is no inherent conflict between the interests of shareholders and the long‐run interests of other major stakeholders. In such companies, customers, employees, suppliers, and local communities all end up better served.     

Bubbles and Crises: The Role of House Prices and Credit

This paper utilizes quarterly panel data for 20 OECD countries over the period 1975:Q1–2014:Q2 to explore the importance of house prices and credit in affecting the likelihood of a financial crisis. Estimating a set of multivariate logit models, we find that booms in credit to both households and non‐financial enterprises are important to account for when evaluating the stability of the financial system. In addition, we find that global housing market developments have predictive power for domestic financial stability. Finally, econometric measures of bubble‐like behavior in housing and credit markets enter with positive and highly significant coefficients. Specifically, we find that the probability of a crisis increases markedly when bubble‐like behavior in house prices coincides with high household leverage. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The European Central Bank’s Ethical Rules

Intereconomics - The study analyses the private securities transactions at the US Federal Reserve that have been made public since late 2021 and are worthy of criticism. It is shown by way of...