New Labour and Community Protests: the Case of the Govanhill Swimming Pool Campaign, Glasgow

Taking the case study of a community based protest against the closure of a swimming pool in Glasgow, this paper seeks to raise important critical questions about some of the key ideas informing New Labour's urban policy agenda: social capital and active community. It argues that normative notions of active citizenship seriously conflict with bottom-up community protests, highlighting in the process issues of power and inequality. Against claims that New Labour is promoting government through community, here we claim that in the context of this community protest, there was government against community.     

A Comparison of Cost of Equity Estimates of Local and Global CAPMs

Cost of equity estimates are compared for three pricing models: the traditional local CAPM, the single (market) factor global CAPM, and the two‐factor global CAPM, with both market and currency index factors. For 2989 US stocks, the average difference in the cost of equity estimates is about 48 basis points between the local CAPM and the single‐factor global CAPM, and is about 61 basis points between the two global models. For 70 developed‐market ADRs, the corresponding average differences are 76 and 47 basis points, respectively. For 48 emerging‐market ADRs, the corresponding average differences are 57 and 70 basis points.     

房地产股权投资信托当事人的利益均衡研究

简要介绍了房地产信托,对房地产股权投资型信托的委托人、受托人利受益人三方当事人的利益均衡进行分析讨论,建立了相应的数学模型,并通过将持股比例引入模型,使三方构成一个有机的整体,然后对模型进行比较详尽的分析研究,找出影响最优持股比例的因素并分析,得出一些有意义的结论。     

Managing Earnings with Intercorporate Investments

Abstract:  We explore to what extent firms deliberately manage their financial reports by exploiting the flexibility of generally accepted accounting principles. Using a sample of Oslo Stock Exchange-listed firms with 20–50% equity holdings in other firms, we find that firms with high financial leverage tend to maximize reported earnings from these investments through their choice between the cost method and the equity method, possibly in an attempt to reduce debt renegotiation costs or to avoid regulatory attention. In contrast, managers do not systematically bias reported earnings to extract private benefits or to signal revised expectations about future cash flows. Firms use different earnings management tools in a consistent way, as the earnings effect of the cost/equity choice is not offset by discretionary accruals.     

A Critique of the Legal and Philosophical Case for Rent Control

Rent control is an economic abomination. It diverts investments away from residential rent units, it leads to their deterioration, it is responsible for urban decay such as in the South Bronx, it does not help poor tenants, it is a horrendous means of income redistribution. Yet this economic regulation is beloved of intellectuals (hot beds of pro rent control sentiment are Berkeley, Ann Arbor and Cambridge) particularly in the legal and philosophical communities. The present article is dedicated to an exploration and rejection of the arguments in behalf of rent control which emanate from this source.     

Rural Population Growth, 1950–1990: The Roles of Human Capital, Industry Structure, and Government Policy

Human capital raises rural incomes, but this effect is swamped by higher returns to human capital in urban markets. This leads to "brain drain" from rural areas. Populations grow more rapidly in rural counties that have a diversified employment base. Farm population grows faster (or declines more slowly) in counties with relatively high farm income, and nonfarm populations grow faster in counties with relatively high nonfarm income. However, higher farm incomes lead to slower nonfarm population growth and vice versa. Rural county government services financed by local taxes or debt have neutral or negative effects on population growth.     

The New Characteristics of the International Capital Circulation and the Strategic Readjustment of China＇s Utilizing Foreign Capitals

This essay proposes the concrete view that China＇s strategy of utilizing foreign capitals to adjust again on the foundation of explaining new characteristics of international capital circulation, namely, expanding the foreign investments of the service trade, strengthening efforts to attract outside investment of the Midwest, attracting trans-corporation＇s investment, etc., Chinese enterprises actively move towards overseas investment and create the policy environment that can contribute to absorbing the foreign capitals as well as making national economy benefit from it.     

The Returns to Education: Microeconomics

In this paper we focus on education as a private decision to invest in "human capital" and the estimation of the rate of return to that private investment. While the literature is replete with studies that estimate the rate of return using regression methods where the estimated return is obtained as the coefficient on a years of education variable in a log wage equation that contains controls for work experience and other individual characteristics, the issue is surrounded with difficulties. We outline the theoretical arguments underpinning the empirical developments and show that the evidence on private returns to the individual is compelling. Despite some of these issues surrounding the estimation of the return to schooling, our evidence, based on estimates from a variety of datasets and specifications, is that there is an unambiguously positive effect on the earnings of an individual from participation in education. Moreover, the size of the effect seems large relative to the returns on other investments.     

Dividend reinvestment plans: An empirical analysis

This study examines the effect of initiating discount and no discount dividend reinvestment plans on shareholder wealth. The results show a negative response to DRP announcements, which is significantly smaller than that found in studies of new equity offerings. These results are consistent with the Scholes and Wolfson (1989) hypothesis that managers in need of equity capital use DRPs to mitigate the adverse stock price effects of new equity issue announcements. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in the price response of discount and no discount DRPs for industrial firms. This result is supportive of the signaling potential of discount DRPs. Supportive evidence is also found in the analysis of firm characteristics for industrial firms.     

国际资本流动的新特点与我国利用外资的基本思路

中国正式加入WTO，标志着中国对外开放进入了一个新的阶段，本文试图在分析国际资本流动的新特点的基础上，从完善市场经济制度和投资环境，引资方式创新，发挥利用外资对结构调整战略的配合作用，以及利用外资与宏观经济目标的相互协调等方面，提出中国利用外资的基本思路。