Property and liability stockholder yields and accounting profits

The market rate of return and related risk of a group of 23 property-liability insurers are explored. The focus is on the return earned by the stockholders of these firms. Previous studies have only examined the accounting rate of return. This study compares the accounting rate of returns to stockholder yields. Several factors that effect the return earned by shareholders are reviewed.The average return on the property-liability stocks studies was 4.0 percentage points greater than the accounting rate of return (0.14 vs 0.10). This evidence suggests that studies based only on accounting rates of return under-estimate returns earned by property-liability shareholders. On a risk-return basis property-liability profits were found not to be significantly different from the general stock market. However, several individual firms had superior stockholder yields. The beta for the group of firms was 1.09.     

Tourists and pilgrims on their way to Santiago. Motives,Caminos and final destinations

This article proposes a theoretical and analytical approach to modern pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela; a cultural and experiential tourism route for the twenty-first century, founded upon the recovery (idealized) of the medieval way and leading to a Christian sanctuary (where the remains of Apostle Saint James the Great are held). The success of this route is based on the fact that the new tourist mixes pilgrimage motivations (displacement for religious or spiritual motivations) with tourist motivations, such as the search for various landscapes, the need to mentally unwind and to escape from the pressures of daily life. This work analyses the case of Santiago de Compostela and the evolution of the three elements that make up pilgrimage and lead us to understand the current position of the Camino, along with some of its weaknesses.     

红军长征沿线城市旅游竞争力及提升策略研究

依据红军长征沿线经过地区32个主要城市的实际发展状况,从城市旅游基础设施、城市旅游发展现状和城市旅游生态环境三个方面选取26个评价指标,运用SPSS19.0主成分分析和系统聚类分析方法测算各城市的旅游竞争力得分、排名和系统聚类分析树状图,对城市间旅游竞争力进行比较分析、分层分析。结果表明:长征沿线城市旅游竞争力整体呈现出东部优于西部,沿海优于内陆,地区中心城市优于边缘城市的特点;长征沿线主要城市旅游综合竞争力存在明显的区域增长极结构,重庆为一级增长极,杭州为二级增长极,昆明为三级增长极,表明沿线城市旅游发展差异明显;城市旅游竞争力中间水平及以上共有12个城市,其余20个城市旅游竞争力较弱。结合城市旅游发展不足,提出旅游竞争力提升策略。     

Industrial sales managers: Satisfaction and performance

This article examines some key variables that affect managerial satisfaction and performance. Some specific supervisory actions are suggested that may improve the field sales managerial satisfaction.     

Reliability and cross-validity of trade-off analysis in an industrial setting

More than 200 applications of trade-off analysis now have been completed. A review of the literature uncovers only four sources that evaluate the reliability or validity, or both, of trade-off analysis using the concept evaluation approach. Detailed evaluations of trade-off analysis based on trade-off grid data are unavailable. This paper reports reliability and cross-validity experience using this approach.     

Coal gasification: An economic evaluation

Political interest in developing the capability to produce gaseous fuel from coal in the United States has been cyclical in nature, depending primarily upon the security of the international market for oil and public attitudes toward nuclear power. Interest in coal gasification technology by private investors, however, depends primarily on the economic and technological considerations analyzed in this paper. A cost forecasting model is developed with the capability to take into account future economic and technological uncertainties associated with producing high BTU gas (a substitute for natural gas) from coal. The cost forecasting model incorporates probabilistic information on key economic and technological parameters subject to future uncertainty and simulates, by Monte Carlo methods, the costs which private investors would incur over the life of a commercial size coal gasification plant. The results suggest it is highly unlikely that the coal gasification process could produce high BTU gas more cheaply than the price at which natural gas is likely to be available.The cost forecasting model is also modified to compare the cost per kilowatt–hour of generated electricity when fueling a 1,000 Mw power plant with oil versus high BTU gas from coal. Again, based upon the costs to private investors, the simulation results indicate a very low probability that high BTU gas from coal would prove the least costly fuel for generating electricity.The implied economic infeasibility for private investment in coal gasification does not necessarily provide a basis for public policy to abandon the technology. Public policy recommendations must consider social costs as well as private costs. Possibly the greatest social cost associated with abandoning coal gasification is the risk of a significant energy supply interruption. A diversified national energy policy including coal gasification may in fact be less costly if relevant social costs are included in the calculations. Results from the cost forecasting model indicate the size and type of public subsidies that may be necessary to support a diversified energy industry which would include coal gasification.     

Imagination,Self‐Knowledge,and Poise: Jim March’s Lessons for Leadership

James G. March was a founding father of modern organization theory, and arguably its most eclectic scholar. His elegant writings, which were underpinned by a behavioural view of organizations, spanned ambiguity and choice, rationality and decision‐making, organizational change, organizational learning, and institutional theory, among others. In this editorial, we remember Jim March by reflecting on his lessons for leadership. It is structured into three parts, each portraying a key aspect of contemporary leadership: imagination, self‐knowledge, and poise. March believed that these qualities were essential to leadership, and he embodied them to the fullest.     

Three Decades After James Street’s “The Institutionalist Theory of Economic Development”: What Does Institutional Approach to Economic Development Mean Today?

James Street’s article, “The Institutionalist Theory of Economic Development,” (1987) is a masterpiece of institutionalist research on economic development. The thirty-year anniversary of its publishing is an invitation to review what the institutional approach to economic development means today. This article, therefore, aims to present a historical survey of works published in the Journal of Economic Issues (JEI) on economic development.     

Public credit and liquidity in James Steuart's Principles

Abstract

The aim of this article is to shed new light on the monetary and financial theory of James Steuart (1767) through his examination of the speculative bubbles of 1720: that is, the John Law System in France and the South Sea Bubble in England. In contrast to most contemporary writers – particularly David Hume and Adam Smith – Steuart had a balanced opinion about these two financial experiments. On the one hand, Steuart considered them worthwhile, since they were attempts at public debt restructuring by reducing its expense and increasing its liquidity. Moreover, according to Steuart, a well-managed public debt favours the liquidity of both banks and the financial market. These worked together for the growth of wealth. However, on the other hand, Steuart claimed that the failure of these experiments was due to: (i) a poor management of money; (ii) a violation of credit rules and its corollary, the weakness of banks; (iii) the adoption of contestable dividend and financial information policy. This article presents Steuart's proposals for creating the liquidity of both banks and the financial market via a well-managed public debt.     

The First Australian Book on Accounting: James Dimelow's

Accounting historians have shown considerable interest in the first printed books published on accounting (from 1494 onwards) in various countries. This paper provides a detailed study of the first Australian book, published in sets between 1871 and 1873. It examines the factors determining the date and place of such first authorship. James Dimelow's life and career in Britain and Australia are discussed and his books (which were published in Britain as well as Australia) are systematically described. These books are placed within the contexts of the economic and cultural environment of colonial Australia and the nineteenth-century British and Australian accounting literature. The differences between Dimelow's and John Scouller's books are explored and explained and possible influences of Dimelow on the later development of Australian accounting are proposed.