The Role of the Independent Director: Evidence from a Survey of Independent Directors in Australia

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a survey of independent directors on a range of issues relating to the execution of their role including the independent directors' perceptions relating to board effectiveness, board interactions, information sources, and performance and evaluation. A survey was forwarded to independent directors of the top 200 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed companies. The paper aims to provide the perceptions of independent directors themselves and so contribute to the literature through a better understanding of the nature of the work performed by Australian company independent directors and the environment in which it occurs. Findings suggest that the fundamental role of the independent director has not changed as a result of the corporate governance reforms.     

Monopoly Manacles the Capital Market

The 'political' purpose of privatisation has been said to be to raise finance to offset government borrowing and to facilitate tax reduction. Cento Veljanovski, of University College, London, argues that the essential aim is rather to change from state monopoly to private competition, butthat the maintenance of monopoly inhibits this market process.     

Deregulating the Securities and Investments Board

Will the Financial Services Act improve consumer protection for investors? Cento Veljanovski and Joanna Gray argue that the SIB's rules are unnecessarily onerous and that a far simpler and inexpensive system would be compatible with the Act and protect investors adequately.     

Regulatory options for cable TV in the UK

In this article the alternative methods of regulating the cable TV industry are compared in terms of efficiency and consumer welfare. The effectiveness of each regulatory option in limiting any market power that cable operators may be able to exercise is considered in a framework which recognizes that both the market and government regulations are imperfect, costly and often do not operate in the public interest.     

A case study of pricing strategies in European airline markets: The London – Amsterdam route

Published fares London–Amsterdam are used to examine the pricing practices of low-cost and legacy carriers when operating in a large and crowded market. We investigate two strategies of market segmentation involving the time before departure the ticket has been bought, inter-temporal segmentation, and the duration of the stay, implicit segmentation. We find inter-temporal price discrimination emerges as an important strategy for all pricing but the two legacy carriers involved, British Airways and KLM, differ in their use of stay restrictions; British Airways does not assign a specific role to the duration of stay, while KLM make use of such rules extensively in price setting.     

Broadcasting-Auctions, Competition and Policy

How efficient is the Government at regulating the radio spectrum? Dr Cento Velianovski argues that its current system of TV franchises should be replaced by auctions.     

privatisation in eastern europe

What are the prospects for privatisation in Eastern Europe? Cento Veljanovski, director of Lexecon Ltd, outlines the difficulties in the way of privatisation. East European countries want capitalism without capital and capitalists.