Demographic transition,education and economic growth in Tunisia

This paper provides empirical evidence supporting the interaction between fertility, education and economic growth through the underlying mechanism behind that correlation in accordance with Becker's theory. In consistency with the theory, the key explanatory variables in Tunisia's fertility model are real GDP per capita, infant mortality, contraceptive use ratio, and education. As opposed to most empirical works, the present study takes into consideration three educational levels, i.e., primary, secondary and higher. Also unlike most empirical research, this study attempts to analyse the impact of fertility transition on education and economic growth. To deal with too little or incomplete data, time series data for Tunisia are computed over 45 years. A multivariate cointegration analysis is carried out and shows that a long-term triangular relationship exists. A short dynamic run analysis based on the vector correction error model displays results in coherence with and close to those of the long term. Among our key results, education is found to trigger fertility transition both in the short and long run. In addition, education has relatively fostered economic growth but hardly boosted it through its dynamic interaction with fertility. Furthermore, the variance decomposition and the impulse function show that the fertility transition has produced a feedback effect on both education and economic growth.     

Corporate Insurance and Debt: The Case of China*

Finance theorists have long argued that corporate purchases of property insurance can reduce the probability and hence the expected costs of financial distress. And by so doing, the corporate use of insurance can reduce borrowing costs and/ or increase debt capacity, reduce the overall cost of capital, and increase firm value. This article attempts to apply this argument to the case of publicly traded companies in China, which provides a particularly interesting environment given the significant presence of both foreign direct investment and state shareholdings in its corporate sector. From their study of several hundred Chinese companies during the period 1997‐2003, the authors report the following conclusions: Companies with higher borrower costs tend to purchase more property insurance, which in turn has the effect of increasing their debt capacity. Smaller companies are more likely than larger firms both to insure their assets and to purchase more property insurance (as a percentage of assets), reflecting their greater vulnerability to financial shocks and larger potential benefit from insurers' real advisory services (such as loss prevention advice). Companies with more and larger growth opportunities are more likely to purchase insurance, reflecting their higher expected costs of financial distress (from possible underinvestment) than firms with limited growth opportunities. Companies with higher levels of state ownership tend to insure their assets to a greater extent, suggesting that the managers of such companies insure to protect their job security, particularly as the availability of state subsidies to the Chinese corporate sector has declined since market reforms were initiated in 1978.     

Designing and rolling-out a global style in process innovation

This paper discusses a consultancy project for a large multinational-manufacturing client. Style is explored as a concept originatirg in 'cultural' rather than economic disciplines. Three interpretations of culture are explored which have differing, complementary implications for managing style in technology-related organizational learning. The overall intenlion is not to identity and install a global 'best' style or a universal model of IT-related organizational culture. Rather it is to develop heuristics, which highlight what may require attention and handling in a practical situation, within a dialopue-based and learning-oriented approach to global-local strategy in complex production systems.