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New Corporate Governance : Successful Board Management Tools
Martin Hilb presents an innovative and integrated approach to the theory and practice of corporate governance. Central to this approach is a set of instruments - developed and tested by the author - that can be used by boards to offer effective strategic direction and control to their organizations. The board instruments can be readily applied to the targeted selection, review, remuneration and development of board members, and for conducting board self-evaluations. This new approach to corporate governance is based on four guiding principles: keep it situational, keep it strategic, keep it integrated, and keep it controlled. Together, these principles form the basis of an integrated approach that addresses all key aspects of corporate governance. The main arguments in each section are supported by conceptual models, practical board tools or case studies, making the book ideally suited to board members, senior managers and post-graduate students.
Network Science, Nonlinear Science and Dynamic Game Theory Applied to the Study of Infrastructure Systems
Network Science, Nonlinear Science and Infrastructure Systems has been written by leading scholars in these areas. Its express purpose is to develop common theoretical underpinnings to better solve modern infrastructural problems. It is felt by many who work in these fields that many modern communication problems, ranging from transportation networks to telecommunications, Internet, supply chains, etc., are fundamentally infrastructure problems. Moreover, these infrastructure problems would benefit greatly from a confluence of theoretical and methodological work done with the areas of Network Science, Dynamical Systems and Nonlinear Science. This book is dedicated to the formulation of infrastructural tools that will better solve these types of infrastructural problems.
Net Neutrality or Net Neutering : Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated
The subject of this book – whether or not to extend traditional telecommunications regulation to high-speed or "broadband" access to the Internet – is perhaps the most important issue now facing the Federal Communications Commission. The issue is also very contentious, with influential economic interests as well as academics on both sides of the question. Content providers – Microsoft and Amazon, for instance – argue that broadband providers should be treated as common carriers, required to transmit all content in a nondiscriminatory way. The broadband providers – the telephone and cable companies – argue that no bottleneck monopoly exists to justify such regulation and that, if imposed, it would stifle development of the Internet.
Negotiations with Asymmetrical Distribution of Power : Conclusions from Dispute Resolution in Network Industries
In many ways, complex negotiations shape the business arena of regulated network markets. In general, negotiating partners are not equal with regard to their various sources and instruments of power. This book unfolds a differentiated and, at the same time, applicable framework for analyzing and managing negotiations. It creatively combines power and negotiations theories. In addition, it illustrates the findings in a very inspiring way by investigating negotiation episodes in network industries such as telecommunications and railways. Thus, this book is highly relevant for all those wanting to better understand the complex political processes and outcomes in regulated industries, but also for those bearing practical responsibility in regulatory and government affairs and wanting to improve their management performance.
National Tax Policy in Europe : To Be or Not to Be?
The book is dedicated to the question of how much room for national tax policy Member States of the European Union will find necessary and possible to maintain in the future. It focuses on the possibilities Member States have and the constraints they face, such as the need to enhance competitiveness and attractiveness to inward foreign direct investment, to finance social programmes and the limitations imposed by European and International Law. The research question is looked at from economic as well as from legal points of view. This comprehensive approach and the answers given will be of interest to scholars and policy makers alike and may guide the path for future tax developments in Europe.
Myths, Narratives and the Dilemma of Managerial Support : Organizational learning as an alternative?
Alexander Dreiling investigates which information should be provided to management in order to prepare managers to make better decisions and act accordingly. Based upon Argyris' and Schön's theory of organizational learning, managers are continuously supplied with information on the basis of whether and how well they have achieved their objectives. If they detect a mismatch of expectations and outcomes, they can in turn adjust their actions. The author first introduces the learning concept, before he turns to developing a method which can be used in order to create “paradigmatically different” managerial reporting environments. The three case studies reveal application scenarios as well as limits of the method.
Mutual Funds : Fifty Years of Research Findings
"This book presents an outstanding wealth of information on mutual funds in a remarkably readable format. It is probably the most comprehensive work currently available on funds. The book sheds light on the numerous issues surrounding mutual fund performance and pricing and is an important resource for any serious investor."
Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis :State of the Art Surveys
The handbook presents the most up-to-date discussions on well-established methodologies and theories in the field, while systematically surveying emerging fields in MCDA such as conjoint measurement, fuzzy preferences, fuzzy integrals, rough sets, etc. MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS is a valuable reference volume (more than 2000 references) for the field of decision analysis. It provides graduate students, researchers, and practitioners with a sweeping survey of MCDA theory, methodologies, and applications. It is a handbook that is particularly suitable for use in seminars in Decision Analysis, Decision Support, and Decision Theory.
Multinational Enterprises, Foreign Direct Investment and Growth in Africa : South African Perspectives
How can Africa, the world’s most lagging region, benefit from globalisation and achieve sustained economic growth? Africa needs greater investment by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to improve competitiveness and generate more growth through positive spill-over effects. Despite the fact that Africa’s returns on investment averaged 29% since 1990, Africa has gained merely 1% of global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows. The challenge for African countries is how to be a more desirable destination for FDI. The study integrates three currents of economic research, namely from the literature on (endogenous) economic growth, convergence and regional integration, the explanations for Africa’s poor growth and the growing understanding of the role of MNEs in a global economy. The empirical side of the book is based on an econometric study of the determinants of FDI in Africa as well as a detailed firm-level survey conducted in 2000.
Multidisciplinary Scheduling : Theory and Applications ; 1st International Conference, MISTA '03 Nottingham, UK, 13-15 August 2003. Selected Papers
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCHEDULING: Theory and Applications is a volume of nineteen reviewed papers that were selected from the sixty-seven papers presented during the First Multidisciplinary International Conference of Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA). This is the initial volume of MISTA—the primary forum on interdisciplinary research on scheduling. Each paper in the volume has been rigorously reviewed and carefully copyedited to ensure the volume's readability. The book contains leading edge papers on the fundamentals of scheduling, multi-criteria objective scheduling, personnel scheduling, scheduling in space, scheduling the Internet, machine scheduling, bin packing, educational timetabling, sports scheduling, transport scheduling, aircraft scheduling, and heuristic and meta-heuristic scheduling
Multidisciplinary Economics : The Birth of a New Economics Faculty in the Netherlands
Multidisciplinary economics deliberately uses the insights and approaches of other disciplines and examines what consequences their contributions have for existing economic methods, theories and solutions to economic problems. Multidisciplinary economists should be at home in their own discipline and meet the high international standards of economic teaching and research that the discipline has developed. At the same time they should be able to recognise the limits of economics and be willing to open up new horizons by following new, discipline-transcending paths on which new insights into the analysis and solutions of economic problems can be found in collaboration with representatives of other disciplines. As a result of this search, economic methods and theories may have to be adjusted in such a way that they take insights from other disciplines into account. They may even have to be replaced by methods and theories that have been developed by other disciplines.
Multidimensional Screening
The book brings into a focus all necessary mathematical knowledge necessary to understand the economics of multidimensional results screening and applies them straightaway to economic models. The first part of this book contains a review of vector calculus, the theory of partial differential equations, and the theory of generalized convexity. These techniques are extensively used in multidimensional screening models. Part II is devoted to the economics of sceening models. It starts with a detailed discussion of economics and mathematics of unidimensional screening problems and three approaches to their solution: direct, dual, and Hamiltonian. It uses the Hamiltonian approach to unify all known results, which were previously obtained using different arguments. Then the major difficulties with direct and dual approach in the multidimensional context are discussed and the Hamiltonian approach is used to provide the most complete characterization of the solution known in the literature.
Multidimensional Poverty Measurement : Concepts and Applications
Conceptualization and measurement of poverty have traditionally relied on purely economic approaches, with income or consumption as the only indicator. Multidimensional approaches have increasingly been used to understand poverty, but have yet to be fully operationalized. This book uses factor analysis and structural equations modeling to develop a multidimensional framework that integrates capability and social inclusion as additional poverty indicators. The empirical relevance of this methodological contribution is demonstrated through its application in the United States and Nepal. The proposed approach not only helps to identify different categories of the poor, but also to more accurately target resources and policies of poverty alleviation. The book will therefore be an important reference for professionals in development agencies as well as for poverty and policy researchers.
Multicriteria Scheduling : Theory, Models and Algorithms
Scheduling and multicriteria optimisation theory have been subject, separately, to numerous studies. Since the last twenty years, multicriteria scheduling problems have been subject to a growing interest. However, a gap between multicriteria scheduling approaches and multicriteria optimisation field exits. This book is an attempt to collect the elementary of multicriteria optimisation theory and the basic models and algorithms of multicriteria scheduling. It is composed of numerous illustrations, algorithms and examples which may help the reader in understanding the presented concepts. This book covers general concepts such as Pareto optimality, complexity theory, and general method for multicriteria optimisation, as well as dedicated scheduling problems and algorithms: just-in-time scheduling, flexibility and robustness, single machine problems, parallel machine problems, shop problems, etc.
Multicriteria Optimization
Decision makers in many areas, from industry to engineering and the social sector, face an increasing need to consider multiple, conflicting objectives in their decision processes. In many cases these real world decision problems can be formulated as multicriteria mathematical optimization models. The solution of such models requires appropriate techniques to compute so called efficient, or Pareto optimal, or compromise solutions that - unlike traditional mathematical programming methods - take the contradictory nature of the criteria into account. This book provides the necessary mathematical foundation of multicriteria optimization to solve nonlinear, linear and combinatorial problems with multiple criteria. Motivational examples illustrate the use of multicriteria optimization in practice. Numerous illustrations and exercises as well as an extensive bibliography are provided.
Monetary Policy and the German Unemployment Problem in Macroeconomic Models : Theory and Evidence
Having the high unemployment in Germany in mind, this book discusses how macroeconomic theory has evolved over the past forty years. It shows that in recent years a convergence has taken place, with modern models embodying a Keynesian transmission mechanism, monetarist policy implication, and modeling techniques inspired by new classical economics and real business cycle theory. It also probes in which direction models may be extended from here. Empirically, the book uses different econometric techniques to investigate the relevance and implications of different macroeconomic theories for German data. A key question this book investigates is the role of demand and supply side conditions for the increase in the German unemployment rate. On a policy level, the book relates the implications of the different theories to the ongoing debate on the appropriate roles of demand and supply side policies for curing the German unemployment problem.
Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stabilization in Latin America
Latin America is a very important region of the globe, which has been buffeted by successive waves of economic instability within the last decades. These waves have caused several episodes of hyperinflation or near hyperinflation, and several currency and financial crises, which, in certain moments, have even spilled over and affected other emerging markets. This has resulted in huge costs in terms of lost potential growth, and, as is inevitable, the markets most affected by this have been the least capable of defending themselves. In a region plagued by still considerable rates of social exclusion, with some of the highest rates of income concentration in the whole globe, the human costs of these crises have been very substantial. Starting in the early 1990s, the slow implementation of reforms, plus the resumption of more sustained growth—to a substantial degree linked to the increase in commodity prices, especially since the early 2000s—seems to have resulted in a more stable situation. Initially, in early reformers like Chile, later in the larger economies of the region, like Brazil and Mexico, a consensus— embraced by both sides of the political spectrum—towards integration in global markets, both in their trade and financial components, floating exchange rates, independent monetary authorities, and sustainable fiscal policies has emerged.
Monetary and Wage Policies in the Euro Area
This book studies the interactions between monetary and wage policies in the euro area. It carefully discusses the process of policy competition and the structure of policy cooperation. As to policy competition, the focus is on competition between the European central bank, the American central bank, the German labour union, and the French labour union. As to policy cooperation, the focus is on the same institutions. These are higher-dimensional issues. The policy targets are price stability and full employment. The policy decisions are taken sequentially or simultaneously. Monetary and wage policies have spillover effects. Special features of this book are numerical simulations of policy competition and numerical solutions to policy cooperation.
Monetary and Fiscal Policies in the Euro Area
This book studies the interactions between monetary and fiscal poUcies in the euro area. It carefully discusses the process of policy competition and the structure of policy cooperation. As to policy competition, the focus is on competition between the European central bank, the American central bank, the German government, and the French government. As to policy cooperation, the focus is on the same institutions. These are higher-dimensional issues. The pohcy targets are price stability and full employment. The policy makers follow co- turkey or gradualist strategies. The policy decisions are taken sequentially or simultaneously. Monetary and fiscal policies have spillover effects. Special features of this book are numerical simulations of policy competition and numerical solutions to policy cooperation. The present book is part of a larger research project on European Monetary Union, see the references at the back of the book. Some parts of this project were presented at the World Congress of the International Economic Association. Other parts were presented at the International Conference on Macroeconomic Analysis, at the International Institute of Public Finance, at the Macro Study Group of the German Economic Association, at the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association, at the Gottingen Workshop on International Economics, at the Halle Workshop on Monetary Economics, at the Research Seminar on Macroeconomics in Freiburg, and at the Passau Workshop on International Economics.
Modern Econometric Analysis : Surveys on Recent Developments
The importance of empirical economics and econometric methods has greatly in creased during the last 20 years due to the availability of better data and the improved performance of computers. In an information-driven society such as ours we need quickly to obtain complete and convincing statistical results. This is only possible if the appropriate econometric methods are applied. Traditional econometric analysis concentrates on classical methods which are far from suitable for handling actual economic problems.
