Legal evolution of the concept of ‘home base’ for the purpose of determining labour and social security law applicable to European aircrew members

This paper has a dual aim: (1) to outline the legal evolution of the ‘home base’ concept and (2) to map the role of this concept in determining the law applicable (both employment law and social security law) to employment contracts of European aircrew members. An in-depth analysis of the relevant portions of (1) Reg. (EEC) No 3922/91, (2) Reg. (EU) No 465/2012, (3) Reg. (EU) No 83/2014, (4) EASA's 2014 Certification Specifications, and (5) the European Court of Justice's preliminary ruling on joined cases C-168/16 and C-169/16 is conducted.What emerges is that (1) the ‘home base’ definition, due to its subjectivity, has traditionally been susceptible to multiple interpretations and (2) due to regulatory ambiguity, the use of ‘home base’ to identify the labour laws applicable to airline workers has for a long time been inconsistent, ranging from one extreme (being considered a key element for this purpose) to the other (being assigned a secondary role). It was only in the last few years that some improvements were made, with Reg. (EU) No 465/2012 first and the European Court of Justice's 2017 preliminary ruling then, clarifying that the ‘home base’ concept must be assigned a central role in the determination of the law (both social security law and employment law) applicable to employment contracts in the aviation industry.     

School meals and pupil satisfaction. Evidence from Italian primary schools

This paper aims to analyse to what extent pupils value the characteristics of the state school foodservice and identify which variables affect the degree of pupils’ satisfaction with the quality of school meals. A representative sample of 33 state primary schools providing meals was extracted for the metropolitan city of Naples. Two questionnaires were distributed, one to the headteachers concerned and the other to 5th grade pupils (10–11 years old). Information about the catering companies was mainly sourced from the AIDA database. Pupil satisfaction was measured by two key variables: pleasantness of eating at school and food tastiness. Controlling for pupil, family, school, foodservice and catering company characteristics, the paper shows that the catering company size negatively impacts upon pupil satisfaction with the foodservice, whereas the estimated meal average production cost is positively associated with pupil satisfaction. The study could assist city boroughs in devising meal quality indicators to be taken into account in designing competitive tendering.     

Efficiency Determinants and Capacity Issues in Angolan Insurance Companies

This paper describes a variety of approaches used to assess the efficiency of a sample of major insurance companies in Angola between 2003 and 2012. Starting out with the bootstrapping technique, several data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimates were generated, allowing the use of confidence intervals and bias correction in central estimates to test for significant differences in efficiency levels and input‐decreasing/output‐increasing potentials. Previous studies have focused on the measurement and explanation of the factors affecting the performance rather than the prediction. The use of neural networks combined with DEA results as part of an attempt to produce a model for insurance companies’ performance with effective predictive ability is investigated. The findings indicate that older insurance companies with Portuguese origin tend to be more efficient. Results also suggest that opportunities for accommodating future demand appear to be scarce.     

Which commercial partners are important for the most recently admitted EU countries?

This paper describes the degree of trade integration inside the European Union (EU) after the fifth enlargement in 2004. To achieve this goal, we build a database of information on trade flows between the new EU countries (EU‐10) and 180 commercial partners in six different sectors from 1999 to 2011. Using the standard gravity model and estimating a difference‐in‐differences specification, we analyze how joining the EU affected the intensity and direction of the EU‐10's trade flows. Our results show that though trade exchanges between the EU‐10 and EU‐15 intensified after 2004, the impact of integration was much more significant to the EU‐10 group.     

Effects of hiring former employees of multinationals in the absorptive capacity of local firms

The attraction of foreign direct investment seeks, among other things, to increase the productivity of local companies through knowledge spillovers. However, the empirical evidence in this regard is contradictory. One influential factor is the absorptive capacity of the local companies. This article analyzes the effect of the presence of former employees of multinational corporations as employees of local companies, on the absorptive capacity of said companies. The study was done in Costa Rica, a country known for its successful strategy in the subject matter. The data come from a survey applied to 1167 companies by the Observatorio Costarricense de las Pymes in 2011. It was found that the hiring of former employees of multinational corporations by local companies has a positive effect on the index of absorptive capacity of companies in all productive sectors. Specifically, this hiring of former employees increases the index of absorptive capacity by nine percentage points, with differences by sector and the size of the company.     

上市公司内部审计独立性的现状分析

独立性是内部审计的灵魂,是决定内部审计职能能否得到充分发挥和内部审计目标能否实现的关键因素。目前,我国上市公司内部审计部门主要隶属于董事会、审计委员会和总经理,并且隶属于审计委员会已经成为主流态势,独立性较高。内部审计独立性因上市公司的财务状况、控制人性质、所处行业、所在地区不同呈现出较为明显的差异。     

The commercialisation of subsistence farms: Evidence from the new member states of the EU

For selected regions of five EU Member States (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia), this paper examines the determinants of the commercialisation of (semi)subsistence farms. While subsistence farming has become an important feature of the EU, there is a lack of evidence on its spatial distribution, importance and reasons for persistence. The analysis utilises cross-regional survey data and qualitative interviews. Results suggest the absence of a subsistence poverty trap driven by either farmer perceptions or transactions costs although capital endowment appears to play a significant part. On the other hand the degree of market engagement depends on access costs, which vary with location, households’ productive assets, specialisation, and risk propensity. Implications for land use policy are discussed.     

Critical success factors for the sustainability of Kaizen event human resource outcomes: An empirical study

Kaizen events have been widely reported to produce positive change in business results and human resource outcomes. However, sustaining or improving upon the results of a Kaizen event over time can be difficult for many organizations and has received limited empirical research attention to date. This paper identifies the factors that most strongly influence the sustainability of work area employee attitudes and commitment to Kaizen events based on a field study of 65 events in eight manufacturing organizations. The findings also present guidelines for organizations and areas for future research.     

O comportamento dos custos das empresas brasileiras listadas na BM&FBOVESPA entre 1994 e 2011 com ênfase nos sticky costs

By an accurate survey, this study aims to analyze how costs behave brazilian companies listed on the BM&FBOVESPA between years of 1994 and 2011. In order to do this, diverse economic and financial information available in the form of reports was gathered, but which has not yet gone through any statistical analysis, for a longitudinal analysis that includes a period of 18 years. The results are presented in two axes, in which the first one indicates costs behavioral tendencies and the second one analyzes their symmetry. The results showed that the Cost of Goods Sold (CPV, for Portuguese) presents a strong declining trend; Expenses Sales are directly related to the area (essential goods or monopoly, for example); Administrative Expenses have a slight declining trend. In relation to sticky costs, when performing an overview with the companies studied, the theory proposed by Anderson, Banker and Janakiraman (2003) is partially applied, since, for varying levels of revenue up to 10% the asymmetry is confirmed.     

An analytical approximation formula for European option pricing under a new stochastic volatility model with regime-switching

In this paper, an analytical approximation formula for pricing European options is obtained under a newly proposed hybrid model with the volatility of volatility in the Heston model following a Markov chain, the adoption of which is motivated by the empirical evidence of the existence of regime-switching in real markets. We first derive the coupled PDE (partial differential equation) system that governs the European option price, which is solved with the perturbation method. It should be noted that the newly derived formula is fast and easy to implement with only normal distribution function involved, and numerical experiments confirm that our formula could provide quite accurate option prices, especially for relatively short-tenor ones. Finally, empirical studies are carried out to show the superiority of our model based on S&P 500 returns and options with the time to expiry less than one month.