The Sins of Banking Regulation in the USA

The US banking system has been prone to failure, primarily because it has been mis-regulated. Banks have been restrained from diversifying and from serving their customers effectively by restrictions on branching and on products offered. But competition has been good for bank customers.     

Impact of R&D and Technology Diffusion on Productivity Growth: Empirical Evidence for 10 OECD Countries

This paper examines the empirical evidence on the impact of performed R&D and of R&D embodied in intermediate and capital goods on productivity performance in 10 major OECD countries over the last two decades. To quantify intersectoral and international technology flows, industry-level embodied R&D variables were constructed from an input–output (IO) R&D embodiment model. The productivity variables used are discrete Divisia growth indexes of total factor productivity (TFP), which were estimated from an IO growth accounting model. The results from pooled regressions indicate that the rates of return of the R&D variables were positively significant and increasing in the 1980s. In particular, embodied R&D is an important source for TFP growth in services, indicating very high social returns of the flows of capital-embodied technology into this sector. Moreover, the information and communi-cation technology (ICT) cluster of industries played a major role in the generation and cquisition of new technologies at the international level.     

Valuation Effects of Short Sale Constraints: the Case of Corporate Takeovers

We examine the relation between the degree of short sale constraints for acquiring firms' equity and post takeover stock performance. We find that negative long‐run abnormal returns appear to decline (in economic and statistical terms) as the extent and persistence of institutional block‐holder ownership increase, after accounting for the size, book‐to‐market and method of payment effects. In the spirit of Miller (1977) , such evidence implies that the degree of short sale constraints serves as an important determinant of acquiring firms' short‐run overpricing. It appears that the presence of concentrated institutional presence mitigates and in most cases eliminates, through effective arbitrage, any short‐run overpricing that may be responsible for the long‐run underperformance of acquirers, preserving in this way efficiency in the takeover markets.     

A better approach by management in drug testing

Discussed here are a number of drug abuse and drug testing issues. This article presents an overview of current developments in the area of drug testing in the workplace. There is an analysis of legislation, federal and state court decisions, and key legal arguments. These decisions and arguments are discussed in the context of employee rights and responsibilities. Also presented are the legal and ethical aspects of drug testing in the workplace. The authors make a case for a rehabilitative rather than a punitive approach to employee drug abuse.     

Tax Reform and Organizational Forms for Holding Investment Real Estate: Corporation vs. Partnership

Following the ERTA of 1981, partnership ownership of real estate dominated corporate ownership. This study concludes that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 provides incentive for holding real estate investments that produce sizable tax losses and/or that are eligible for large tax credits in corporate rather than partnership form. Perpetuity cash flow models are employed initially to identify key tax and cash flow variables favorable to each organizational form. The perpetuity assumption is then relaxed to consider a more representative real estate investment. A sensitivity analysis examines the extent to which the base case results are dependent on the assumed values of selected model parameters.     

Improved use of fisheries resources : Alleviating malnutrition in Southern Africa

The author reviews the potential for improved use of fisheries resources in nine southern African countries. These countries have serious problems of malnutrition and the author concludes that fisheries resources could make a substantially greater contribution to nutrition. Supply, processing and distribution of fisheries products are reviewed, and the benefits of improved kapenta and aquaculture production are discussed.