On the ‘Steady State’ Properties of Financial Ratios

This paper uses the methods of continuous time stochastic calculus to investigate the ‘steady state’ properties of financial ratios. Basing our analysis on previous work in the area, we show that, if a financial ratio can be characterised as a diffusion process which possesses an asymptotic equilibrium, then the Fokker-Kolmogorov-Planck forward equation may be used to ‘retrieve’ its probability density. The approach is ‘flexible’ enough to incorporate a wide variety of density functions, many of which have not been investigated in the literature. We demonstrate the procedures which may be used to derive both the cross-sectional and time series tests implied by these distributions. The paper also includes a section dealing with the methods which may be used for parameter estimation, once the underlying distribution has been determined.     

Purpose, development and use of injury indicators

Injury indicators can be used to give policy makers an estimate of the scale of injuries and their long-term effects. They can help compare injury levels in different areas and countries and can be used to help measure the effectiveness of interventions. Work on severity related indicators is promising. However there are no perfect indicators to date as many are hampered with difficulties in case definition and under reporting. For example, mortality rates are affected by improvements in care even if the incidence of an injury remains the same, the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) takes 10-20 minutes to code and so is not used in health service databases, surveys have problems with recall bias, definition of injury and response rates. If we accept that we need to make the best out of imperfect indicators and imperfect data then we should use multiple sources of data and accept that no one indicator can be used universally but needs to be selected for the purpose. For example, one possible new indicator of the incidence of non-fatal injury might be fracture data in the emergency department. Fractures are painful and so nearly always end up with a hospital attendance. This might give a means to compare incidence of non-fatal injury in different areas and countries. In conclusion, we need injury indicators to progress in injury prevention. Imperfect indicators can be used for targeting and evaluating interventions as long as we know and adjust for their limitations.     

Modelling the Impact of Community Engagement on Local Democracy

English local authorities are expected to promote 'effective community engagement'. The ways in which they can do this are various, ranging from the provision of information to direct involvement in decision-making. This paper focuses on the impact of adopting different types of community engagement strategy on local democracy. Two principal types of community engagement strategy are identified: consumerist and participatory, and their potential for encouraging effective engagement is discussed, before their implications for local democracy are modelled. The paper argues that the relative priority accorded to different types of community engagement are likely to cause local democracy to evolve towards consumer, stakeholder, radical or citizen-centred democracy.     

The european motor industry

The removal of tariff barriers within the European Economic Community has presented manufacturing industry with the opportunity to plan for and to supply a greatly Increased home market. This paper Is directed at showing how the motor Industry, and especially certain firms within it, are In the vanguard of European integration.     

Family,Place and the Intergenerational Transmission of Union Membership

This article examines the importance of family, gender and place to the intergenerational transmission of trade union membership. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we show that union membership among parents influences the union joining behaviour of young workers. These effects are particularly apparent among daughters and where both parents are members of unions. The effects of parental membership are also stronger among those born in areas characterized by relatively high levels of union density. Parental effects are therefore important to our understanding of the persistence of regional variations in levels of trade union membership.     

A Binomial Basis for the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross Model of the Term Structure of Interest Rates

The technical demands of the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1985a and 1985b) papers are such that they can only be mastered by those who have a good understanding of some deep mathematics and statistical concepts, including the techniques of continuous time stochastic calculus and the measure theory upon which it is based, the Kuhn-Tucker theory surrounding non-linear optimisation techniques as well as variational methods founded on solutions of non-linear differential equations. Hence, our purpose here is to formalise both investor preferences and the supply side which underscores the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1985b) 'square root' model of the term structure of interest rates in terms of some simple binomial filtration processes, thereby avoiding most of the intricate technical detail contained in the original papers. These procedures not only allow for a more focused evaluation of the model's underlying strengths and weaknesses but also provide a framework for assessing some of the strategies which the model makes available for hedging exposure against adverse interest rate movements.     

When Crises Hit Home: How U.S. Higher Education Leaders Navigate Values During Uncertain Times

Journal of Business Ethics - Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this study investigates how U.S. higher education leaders have centered their crisis management on values and guiding ethical...     

Depreciation: A Stochastic Approach

This paper introduces a rationale for modelling physical depreciation under uncertainty and compares two variants of it. The first variant leads to a model, the 'gamma' model which has been discussed in the literature, while the second variant leads to a model, the 'binomial' model, which has not been investigated before. The binomial model is shown to approach a deterministic limit (the reducing balance method) as the depreciated asset becomes infinitely divisible. In contrast it has been demonstrated in the literature that the gamma model approaches a particular statistical distribution under these circumstances. The paper goes on to investigate the useful lives of assets under the two models, by reporting results on waiting times, none of which have appeared in the literature before.