How does ownership structure affect capital structure and firm value?:Recent evidence from East Asia

The present paper examines the effects of ownership structures on capital structure and firm valuation. It argues that the effects of separation of control from cash flow rights on capital structure and firm value also depend on the separation of control from management as well as on legal rules and enforcement defining investors' protection. We obtain firm-level panel data (three stage least squares, 3SLS) estimates from four of the East Asian countries worst affected by the last crisis. There is evidence that the general wisdom that higher control than cash flow rights may lower firm value may be reversed among owner-managed family firms in the sample countries. © 2007 The Authors Journal compilation © 2007 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Evaluation of research in efficiency and productivity:a survey and analysis of the first 30 years of scholarly literature in DEA

Since the original Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) study by Charnes et al. [Measuring the efficiency of decision-making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978;2(6):429–44], there has been rapid and continuous growth in the field. As a result, a considerable amount of published research has appeared, with a significant portion focused on DEA applications of efficiency and productivity in both public and private sector activities. While several bibliographic collections have been reported, a comprehensive listing and analysis of DEA research covering its first 30 years of history is not available. This paper thus presents an extensive, if not nearly complete, listing of DEA research covering theoretical developments as well as “real-world” applications from inception to the year 2007. A listing of the most utilized/relevant journals, a keyword analysis, and selected statistics are presented.

Integrated analytic hierarchy process and its applications:a literature review

Due to its wide applicability and ease of use, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been studied extensively for the last 20 years. Recently, it is observed that the focus has been confined to the applications of the integrated AHPs rather than the stand-alone AHP. The five tools that commonly combined with the AHP include mathematical programming, quality function deployment (QFD), meta-heuristics, SWOT analysis, and data envelopment analysis (DEA). This paper reviews the literature of the applications of the integrated AHPs. Related articles appearing in the international journals from 1997 to 2006 are gathered and analyzed so that the following three questions can be answered: (i) which type of the integrated AHPs was paid most attention to? (ii) which area the integrated AHPs were prevalently applied to? (iii) is there any inadequacy of the approaches? Based on the inadequacy, if any, some improvements and possible future work are recommended. This research not only provides evidence that the integrated AHPs are better than the stand-alone AHP, but also aids the researchers and decision makers in applying the integrated AHPs effectively.

Multi-criteria decision making approaches for supplier evaluation and selection:a literature review

Supplier evaluation and selection problem has been studied extensively. Various decision making approaches have been proposed to tackle the problem. In contemporary supply chain management, the performance of potential suppliers is evaluated against multiple criteria rather than considering a single factor-cost. This paper reviews the literature of the multi-criteria decision making approaches for supplier evaluation and selection. Related articles appearing in the international journals from 2000 to 2008 are gathered and analyzed so that the following three questions can be answered: (i) Which approaches were prevalently applied? (ii) Which evaluating criteria were paid more attention to? (iii) Is there any inadequacy of the approaches? Based on the inadequacy, if any, some improvements and possible future work are recommended. This research not only provides evidence that the multi-criteria decision making approaches are better than the traditional cost-based approach, but also aids the researchers and decision makers in applying the approaches effectively.

Transforming the eastern neighbourhood: the security implications of European Union Activity in Ukraine 2000-2006

This thesis examines the external activities of the European Union conducted in the wider Europe against the backdrop of eastern enlargement. It focuses on the technical aspects of EU diplomacy, using qualitative research methodology to study the programmes and initiatives launched since the year 2000 in the countries lying along the Union’s new border to the east. Drawing on evidence from Ukraine, it hypothesises that the EU is an agent of transformation in the eastern neighbourhood and that this transformation has important implications for the regional order in the post-Soviet space. The thesis constitutes an investigation into the transformational activities engaged by the EU in Ukraine conducted with an eye to their strategic implications. It documents and analyses three instances of EU intervention in Ukraine’s internal processes that relate to management of cross-border traffic in the Ukrainian-Russian borderland, restructuring of the country’s energy sector, and conduct of its contentious presidential election in 2004. It is argued that while these interventions have explicitly sought to advance the Union’s security with respect to certain twenty-first century transnational threats, they have at the same time served to confer important strategic advantages on the EU that include giving the bloc greater knowledge and control over developments in Ukraine and that contribute to the dismantling of infrastructural, institutional and other ties between Kiev and the other Soviet successor states, notably Russia. The effect of the European Union’s actions in the region, whether intended or not, has thus been to undermine any competing regional initiatives that cut across its own functions, and thereby to assert itself as the primary integration project in Europe. By showing how technical interventions in the politics, economics and administration of Ukraine can yield important geopolitical dividends, this thesis demonstrates that, in the context of EU external relations, high and low politics are interlinked.

Translation practices at the European Central Bank with reference to metaphors

The European Union institutions represent a complex setting and a specific case of institutional translation. The European Central Bank (ECB) is a particular context as the documents translated belong to the field of economics and, thus, contain many specialised terms and neologisms that pose challenges to translators. This study aims to investigate the translation practices at the ECB, and to analyse their effects on the translated texts. In order to illustrate the way texts are translated at the ECB, the thesis will focus on metaphorical expressions and the conceptual metaphors by which they are sanctioned. Metaphor is often associated with literature and less with specialised texts. However, according to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory, our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature and metaphors are pervasive elements of thought and speech. The corpus compiled comprises economic documents translated at the ECB, mainly from English into Romanian. Using corpus analysis, the most salient metaphorical expressions were identified in the source and target texts and explained with reference to the main conceptual metaphors. Translation strategies are discussed on the basis of a comparison of the source and target texts. The text-based analysis is complemented by questionnaires distributed to translators, which give insights into the institution’s translation practices. As translation is an institutional process, translators have to follow certain guidelines and practices; these are discussed with reference to translators’ agency. A gap was identified in the field of institutional translation. The translation process in the EU institutions has been insufficiently explored, especially regarding the new languages of the European Union. By combining the analysis of the institutional practices, the texts produced in the institution and the translators’ work (by the questionnaires distributed to translators), this thesis intends to bring a contribution to institutional translation and metaphor translation, particularly regarding a new EU language, Romanian.

Real options and demographic decisions:empirical evidence from East and West Germany

Iyer and Velu (2006) have convincingly argued that contemporary analyses of fertility behaviour fail to explain why a woman (or a couple) will choose to postpone childbirth, and in particular to consider the role of uncertainty in this regard. They have addressed this lacuna in the literature by using a real options approach to model fertility decisions by relating uncertainty experienced by individuals to the likelihood of childbirth. However, they did not present empirical evidence. Since the theory implies the existence of two offsetting effects of uncertainty on fertility decisions, a positive insurance effect and a negative option value effect, it is not easy to reject the theory on the basis of empirical analysis, when one of these effects offsets the other. We construct such a test for East (and also West) Germany during that country's reunification, which takes advantage of the fact that because of the country's strong welfare system, the insurance effect should be dominated by the option value effect, thereby suggesting that the net relationship should be negative. The results provide rather strong support for the real options link, especially for Eastern Germany.

A taxonomy and review of the fuzzy data envelopment analysis literature:two decades in the making

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a methodology for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of decision making units (DMUs) that use multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs. Crisp input and output data are fundamentally indispensable in conventional DEA. However, the observed values of the input and output data in real-world problems are sometimes imprecise or vague. Many researchers have proposed various fuzzy methods for dealing with the imprecise and ambiguous data in DEA. In this study, we provide a taxonomy and review of the fuzzy DEA methods. We present a classification scheme with four primary categories, namely, the tolerance approach, the a-level based approach, the fuzzy ranking approach and the possibility approach. We discuss each classification scheme and group the fuzzy DEA papers published in the literature over the past 20 years. To the best of our knowledge, this paper appears to be the only review and complete source of references on fuzzy DEA. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attitudes towards and perceptions of entrepreneurs in Central Eastern Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, and East-Germany)

This paper explores attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurs in three Central Eastern European (CEE) countries undergoing transition from planned to market-based economic systems. Entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) play a critical role in this transformation process. Study one examines whether governments and general public are perceived as supportive of entrepreneurs. Such perceptions might eventually increase the number of entrepreneurs as it would be seen as a legitimate career choice (cf. Etzioni, 1987). Study two explores whether the concept ‘entrepreneur’ is interpreted in the same way in the three cultures using a student sample. Cross-cultural aspects and support measures for entrepreneurship are discussed.

The Ecumenical movement and the making of the European Community

The European Community has largely been considered a predominantly secular project, bringing together the economic and political realms, while failing to mobilise the public voice and imagination of churchmen and the faithful. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, this is the first study to assess the political history of religious dialogue in the European Community. It challenges the widespread perception that churches started to engage with European institutions only after the 1979 elections to the European Parliament, by detailing close relations between churchmen and high-ranking officials in European institutions, immediately after the 1950 Schuman Declaration. Lucian N. Leustean demonstrates that Cold War divisions between East and West, and the very nature of the ecumenical movement, had a direct impact on the ways in which churches approached the European Community. He brings to light events and issues which have not previously been examined, such as the response of churches to the Schuman Plan, and the political mobilisation of church representations in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Leustean argues that the concept of a 'united Europe' has been impeded by competing national differences between religious and political institutions, having a long-standing legacy on the making of a fragmented European Community.

An examination of the determinants of entrepreneurship at the regional level:the case of East Midlands region

Despite the importance of new firms to the economy, determinants of start-ups have mainly been examined at a country level and discussion of regional entrepreneurial activity has received less attention. Since there are significant variations in entrepreneurship rates across and within countries, such an investigation at a regional level would help in gaining an in depth understanding of the impact of the individual level resource endowments and neighbourhood characteristics on an individual’s decision to engage in entrepreneurial activity. The main aim of the thesis is to explore various theories of entrepreneurship and develop integrated frameworks for examining the determinants of entrepreneurial activity at a neighbourhood level in the East Midlands region in England. The specific objectives of the thesis are to examine how the individual level resources and the neighbourhood characteristics: (i) combine to influence an individual to engage in the different stages of the entrepreneurial process, (ii) influence natives and migrants to engage in start up activity and (iii) influence women and men to become self-employed and ambitious entrepreneurs. In terms of the methodology, the empirical analysis is based on two databases combined: 2006 to 2009 GEM East Midlands region and the English Index of Multiple Deprivation dataset. Based on the critical review of the literature on entrepreneurship the thesis develop theoretical frameworks which led to formulate hypotheses related to the differentiated impact of both individual and neighbourhood level factors on the propensity of an individual to be involved in entrepreneurial activity. The findings indicate that the determinants of entrepreneurial activity vary with human, financial and the local environment factors affecting the entrepreneurial process. Finally, the thesis calls for caution when developing and applying generic and specific policy measures aimed at promoting entry into entrepreneurship.

European Union and Commonwealth free movement:a historical-comparative perspective

Between 1948 and 1962, approximately 600 million Commonwealth citizens had the right to enter the UK. This number decreased throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as a series of Acts of Parliament altered the rights and definitions of Commonwealth citizens. To date, the European Union has extended the right to over 500 million citizens and residents of member-states to enter the UK. This new trend has been met with perceptions of threat to national cultural and economic resources. Reactions to Commonwealth immigration were similarly negative. This paper examines parallels between EU immigration today and Commonwealth immigration of the past. It argues that the fears expressed, both in the literature of the 1960s and 1970s and in contemporary society, reflect a fear of persons who are seen as ‘other’ but who must, by law, be defined as fellow-citizens and afforded the attendant rights. We argue that theorists of free and freer movement must acknowledge these local concerns in order to strengthen their theory and enable a more liberal treatment of immigration policy in the UK and beyond.

Aid allocation of the emerging Central and Eastern European donors

This paper examines the main characteristics of the (re-)emerging foreign aid policies of the Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), concentrating on the allocation of their aid resources. I adopt an econometric approach, similar to the ones used in the literature, for analysing the aid allocation of the OECD DAC donors. Using this approach, I examine the various factors that influence aid allocation of the Visegrád countries, using data for the years between 2001 and 2008. The most important conclusion is that the amount of aid a partner country gets from the four emerging donors is not influenced by the level of poverty or the previous performance of the recipients (measured by the level of economic growth or the quality of institutions). The main determining factor seems to be geographic proximity, as countries in the Western Balkans and the Post-Soviet region receive much more aid from the Visegrád countries than other recipients. Historical ties (pre-1989 development relations) and international obligations in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq are also found to be significant explanatory factors. This allocation is in line with the foreign political and economic interests of these new donors. Although there are clear similarities between the four donors, this paper also identifies some individual country characteristics.

State–society relations in a dynamic framework:the case of the Far East and Sub-Saharan Africa

According to the textbook approach, the developmental states of the Far East have been considered as strong and autonomous entities. Although their bureaucratic elites have remained isolated from direct pressures stemming from society, the state capacity has also been utilised in order to allocate resources in the interest of the whole society. Yet, society – by and large –has remained weak and subordinated to the state elite. On the other hand, the general perception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been just the opposite. The violent and permanent conflict amongst rent-seeking groups for influence and authority over resources has culminated in a situation where states have become extremely weak and fragmented, while society – depending on the capacity of competing groups for mobilising resources to organise themselves mostly on a regional or local level (resulting in local petty kingdoms) – has never had the chance to evolve as a strong player. State failure in the literature, therefore, – in the context of SSA – refers not just to a weak and captured state but also to a non-functioning, and sometimes even non-existent society, too. Recently, however, the driving forces of globalisation might have triggered serious changes in the above described status quo. Accordingly, our hypothesis is the following: globalisation, especially the dynamic changes of technology, capital and communication have made the simplistic “strong state–weak society” (in Asia) and “weak state–weak society” (in Africa) categorisation somewhat obsolete. While our comparative study has a strong emphasis on the empirical scrutiny of trying to uncover the dynamics of changes in state–society relations in the two chosen regions both qualitatively and quantitatively, it also aims at complementing the meaning and essence of the concepts and methodology of stateness, state capacity and state-society relations, the well-known building blocks of the seminal works of Evans (1995), Leftwich (1995), Migdal (1988) or Myrdal (1968).