The Effect of Country‐Level Investor Protection on the Voluntary Assurance of Sustainability Reports

Over the last several years, sustainable (or socially responsible) investing has experienced rapid growth around the world reflecting an increasing awareness by investors of social, environmental, ethical, and corporate governance issues. This heightened awareness among investors has resulted in a demand for sustainability reporting and a corresponding increase in demand for assurance of sustainability information to enhance its credibility. Using an investor‐based view, we examine the impact of country‐level investor protection on reporting companies’ voluntary sustainability assurance decisions. We find that both the decision to obtain voluntary sustainability report assurance and the decision to obtain higher quality assurance are more likely for firms domiciled in countries that have weaker investor protection. Our results indicate that managers in low investor protection countries use voluntary sustainability assurance as a substitute monitoring mechanism.     

Stuck on gold: Real exchange rate volatility and the rise and fall of the gold standard, 1875-1939

Did the gold standard diminish macroeconomic volatility? Supporters thought so, critics thought not, and theory offers ambiguous messages. Hard regimes like the gold standard limit monetary shocks by tying policymakers' hands; but exchange-rate inflexibility compromises shock absorption in a world of real disturbances and nominal stickiness. A model shows how lack of flexibility affects the transmission of terms-of-trade shocks. Evidence from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century exposes a dramatic change. The classical gold standard did absorb shocks, but the interwar gold standard did not, supporting the view that the interwar gold standard was a poor regime choice.     

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE BSE SCARE

The economic aspects of the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in British cattle herds are investigated. On balance, a non-interventionist approach is most likely to be the least-cost method of dealing with the BSE problem, where costs include the risks of humans contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). There is no case for compensating farmers for the historic cost of building up infected herds.     

State competition in higher education: A race to the top,or a race to the bottom?

How does competition affect higher education? This paper explores this question for public and private universities. Theory indicates that competition can push higher education policy in one of two different directions. On the one hand, competition may increase spending. For states, this would occur if states treat higher education as developmental; for private universities this would occur if they view spending as a means to attract students and prestige. On the other hand, competition may decrease spending if states treat higher education spending as redistributive, and competition may decrease spending by private schools if lower spending enhances their ability to attract students with low tuition. To determine which of these perspectives is most valid, we examine higher education policy choices in the 1980s and 1990s. We find that states appear to act as if higher education funding is redistributive while private schools appear to compete more on the basis of tuition than spending. These results demonstrate the important effects competition and governance structure have on higher education.Received: August 2001, Accepted: May 2002, JEL Classification: I2, I22, H72, I3     

Programming for the Internet and Experiential Learning: a New Approach Incorporating a Constructed World

This paper reports on a novel approach taken by the author to the teaching of an Internet programming course targeted at final year diploma and second year degree students. The uniqueness of engineers and their identity is discussed, as is the self-constructed world and ways of knowing in which humankind operates. The novel approach to teaching a software-coding course, and this course’s underlying philosophies of learning, the approach taken in class-contact time, and the methods of interaction with the students are presented, along with the conventional structure, quantitative measures, outline, and assessment of the course. The effects and observations of approaches employed are discussed, and the quantitative outputs achieved are presented alongside the unquantifiable impressions, comments and positive feedback.     

郭俊的书画

郭俊，中国书画研究会副会长，中国工艺美术家协会会员，北京民族画院理事，重庆市美术家协会渝中区美协副主席。自幼酷爱书画。广求名师，师从四川美术学院杨富明教授，并得到著名画家苏葆桢、黄纯尧、水华、周北溪等先生的指教。作品继承传统，师法自然，风格别具，     

The technological gatekeeper

The present study identifies a two-step flow process of communication mediated by technological gatekeepers for scientific and technical fields characterized by dynamic information environments. Peer identification and a supervisory recognition of the phenomenon validate the gatekeeper finding. Certain characteristics of this study differ from previous research. The external communication needs of military in-house researchers are mitigated greatly by the infusion of technical information into the laboratory which is a part of the everyday activities of the organization. Gatekeepers are differentiated by topic and not the media monitored. Finally, the gatekeeper phenomenon is implicitly recognized, even though the development may be spontaneous; development that results because either the formal media leave a void in information needs or that engineers are not trained in the use of the formal information sources. In either case, the technological gatekeeper is a natural response to an information need.