ICT Statistics at the New Millennium—Developing Official Statistics—Measuring the Diffusion of ICT and its Impact

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.     

Leaving state sector employment in Russia

I analyse the reallocation of labour and human capital from the state sector to the non‐state sector and non‐employment in Russia. I use a nationally representative household dataset, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to study sectoral mobility in early transition using summary measures of mobility and multivariate discrete choice models. The results show that sectoral mobility varies between different skill groups, and in particular that those with university education, with supervisory responsibility and in white‐collar occupations are less likely to leave state jobs for both non‐state employment and non‐employment. The results suggest that in the early stages of transition in Russia mismatch of skills across state/non‐state employment was significant and that non‐state employment consisted mostly of low skill, ‘bad’ jobs.     

Hedging,Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations Framework

We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage.     

Analysis on the internal mechanism forming the capital operation venture of nation-owned enterprises

According to the Capital of Karl Marx, capital aims at realizing the value maintenance and increment during the process of its cycle and turnover. Without the conditions of capital＇s cycle and turnover, it will break off. This will furthermore bring an obstacle to the value maintenance and increment of capital, which is the root of capital operation venture and is also the internal mechanism forming the capital operation venture of nation-owned enterprises.     

Replacement Investment: Optimal Economic Life Under Uncertainty

Replacement investment is essentially a regenerative optimal stopping problem; that is, the key decision concerns when to terminate the life of existing plant – and hence when to start over again. This paper examines this optimisation problem within a continuous time framework and studies the qualitative and quantitative impact of uncertainty on the timing of new investment (and the criteria that should be used for terminating the life of existing plant).     

How Issue Size, Risk, and Complexity are Influencing External Financing Costs: German IPOs Analyzed from an Economies of Scale Perspective

This paper is focused on the cost of raising capital in Germany. A cross-sectional analysis of flotation cost data for 117 IPOs over the years 1993–1998 is presented. We find average flotation costs to be 7.77 percent of gross proceeds, while underwriting fees average 5.01 percent. Our results extend the literature in two important directions. First, contrary to the conventional economies of scale view we find marginal spreads to be rather constant in gross proceeds and to be higher for more risky and more complex offerings. Fixed costs amount to 5 to 9 percent of underwriting fees. Second, by applying a principal component analysis we find issue size, an issuer risk factor, and an offering method complexity factor to have an economicaly meaningful impact on underwriting fees.     

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.     

FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE LONG‐TERM SURVIVAL OF MICRO,SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN ETHIOPIA

There is an increasing recognition of the potential importance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) for employment, income and poverty reduction in Ethiopia. Although the MSME sector contributes significantly to the national economy, the high failure rate among well established small businesses and enterprises is a matter of major concern. A random sample of 500 small businesses and enterprises selected from five major cities in Ethiopia were followed up for 6 years in order to assess the impact of influential factors that affect the long‐term survival and viability of small enterprises. Hazard ratios estimated from the Cox Proportional Hazards Model were used to quantify the impact of key predictors of survival. Businesses that ceased operation were characterised by inadequate finance (61%), low level of education (55%), poor managerial skills (54%), shortage of technical skills (49%), and inability to convert part of their profit to investment (46%). The study shows that participation in social capital and networking (iqqub schemes) was critically helpful for long‐term survival. Businesses that did not participate in iqqub schemes regularly were found to be 3.25 times more likely to fail in comparison with businesses that did. Results of the study have implications that could be used for developing policy initiatives that are aimed at fostering long‐term growth in small businesses and enterprises.     

基于模糊综合评价的职业经理人力资本价值评估模型

文章在分析我国职业经理人力资本价值评估研究现状的基础上,以职业经理激励约束为导向,建立了职业经理综合素质测评体系,构建了职业经理人力资本价值评估模型,最后结合实例验证了模型的有效性。     

现代企业财务风险的测定和防范

在市场竞争环境下，现代企业面临的各种风险不断增多，财务风险作为企业特有的风险日益突出，是企业利用融资财务杠杆的直接后果，企业必须重视财务风险的测定和防范，以增强企业财务实力。