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Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and local) and authors' mobility on the basis of co-authorship. Analysis: We analysed 300 randomly selected research papers in three different time periods and used the student's t-test to determine whether the paired two-sample differences observed were statistically significant or not. Results: International collaboration is more common than national and local collaboration. International, national and local authors' mobility and intra-national collaboration do not seriously affect the indicators of the principal levels of collaboration. International collaboration and authors' mobility are more relevant for authors publishing in European journals, whereas national and intra-national collaboration and national mobility are more important for authors publishing in US journals. Conclusions: We explain the observed differences and patterns in terms of the specific scope of each journal and the socio-economic and political situation in both geographic contexts (Europe and the USA). Our study provides a global picture of collaboration practices in astrophysics and its possible application to many other sciences and fields would undoubtedly help bring into focus the really big issues for overall research management and policy.

Purpose: There is a widely held belief that sustainable development (SD) policies are essential for universities to successfully engage in matters related to sustainability, and are an indicator of the extent to which they are active in this field. This paper aims to examine the evidence which currently exists to support this assumption. It surveys a sample of universities in Brazil, Germany, Greece, Portugal, South Africa and the UK and the USA to ascertain the extent to which universities that are active in the field of sustainable development have formal policies on sustainable development, and whether such policies are a pre-condition for successful sustainability efforts. Design/methodology/approach: The study involved 35 universities in seven countries (five universities respectively). A mixed-methods approach has been used, ranging from document analysis, website analysis, questionnaires and interviewing. Findings: Although only 60 per cent of the sampled universities had a policy that specifically addressed SD, this cannot be regarded as an indicator that the remaining 40 per cent are not engaged with substantial actions that address SD. Indeed, all of the universities in the sample, regardless of the existence of a SD formal policy, demonstrated engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in some form or another. This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Despite this, it is one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed. Research limitations/implications: This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Practical implications: The findings provide some valuable insights into the connections between SD policies on the one hand and the practice of sustainable development in higher education institutions on the other. Social implications: Universities with SD policies can contribute to models of economic growth consistent with sustainable development. Originality/value: The study is the one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

The present article explores the structure of and recent developments in research activities in the polar regions. Based on a bibliographic study of published papers indexed in the ISI Web of Science during the period 1981-2007, we have analyzed trends in publication, scientific disciplines and subdisciplines, coauthorship, and international collaboration within the field of polar research. We have uncovered several rather striking trends. Scientific output in terms of refereed publications has increased far more rapidly in polar research compared to science in general, quadrupling rather than doubling over the surveyed period. There is a nearly 1:1 ratio between papers covering the Arctic relative to the Antarctic, with the vast majority within either the geosciences (40%) or biology (33%). There has been particularly a steep rise in the number of climate-related papers. The U.S.A. is by far the largest contributor to polar research on both the Arctic and the Antarctic, followed by Canada, the U.K., Germany, Norway, and Russia. The number of coauthored papers has grown markedly, reflecting geopolitical shifts and changing national and international funding priorities during the period. We believe our publication-based survey reveals interesting developments in scientific activities and international cooperation in general, and in polar science strategies and priorities in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on contemporary press articles and applying a comparative methodology, this study examines the responses of important British and American quality papers to the unfolding of Nazi anti-Semitism from September 1930 until April 1933. Besides reconstructing and comparing the press coverage, the study seeks to explain the patterns beneath the journalistic perceptions and interpretations of Nazi anti-Semitism in the liberal democracies. During the final years of the Weimar Republic the papers reported fully and critically on Nazi anti-Semitism, yet they underestimated its radical nature. The extent of the assault on the Jews following Hitler's seizure of power therefore surprised British and American observers. Between 30 January 1933 and the anti-Jewish boycott of 1 April 1933 the journalists struggled to grasp the nature of Nazi anti-Semitism and the role of Hitler therein. Ultimately, their reading of events in Germany was preconditioned by their own liberal democratic outlook. Even if they reached differing conclusions, they were united in their conviction that Hitler and the Nazis would not dare to continue their anti-Semitic campaign in the face of adverse ‘world opinion’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher education efficiency evaluation model using the data envelopment analysis method has interested many researchers. This paper uses bibliometric analysis on publications extracted from the Scopus database to provide a comprehensive overview of research publications on the measurement of higher education efficiency based on data envelopment analysis: its growth rate, major collaboration networks, the most important and popular research topic. A total of 169 related publications were collected and analyzed from 1988 to 2021. The analysis results show that: Publications published every year have increased sharply in the last six years; The quality of publications is relatively high as publications tend to be published in journals with high-ranking indexes; Countries with the most influence in studies on this topic are: Italy, China, Spain, the USA, and the United Kingdom; Authors with the most influence in this research direction are Agasisti T., Abbott M., Doucouliagos C., Avkiran N.K., and Johnes J.; The research cooperation among countries and among affiliations is not strong. Finally, the paper has provided recommendations for future studies based on the findings.

The level of UK corporate debt directly affects financial stability in the United Kingdom because a significant amount of the exposure of the UK financial system is to UK corporates. Our paper provides a comparison of the determinants of corporate debt in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The comparison serves to benchmark our findings about the determinants of UK corporate debt. In addition, the UK financial sector is significantly exposed to the corporate sectors in the United States, Germany and France. The model assesses the contribution of investment, acquisitions, cash flows and market-to-book values to the determination of debt, and also the tendency of debt to revert to its optimum level. Debt was found to be positively related to the financing needs of the firm, and the optimum level of debt to be negatively related to the market-to-book ratio. This casts some light on the procyclicality of debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This rapid systematic review aims to examine emerging evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on educational institutions and assess the prevalence of e-learning changes in the sector. This paper reviews literature on learning, teaching, and assessment approaches adopted since the COVID-19 outbreak, and assesses the impact on the sector, staff, and students, summarizing findings from peer-reviewed articles. It categorizes these into five key themes: (1) digital learning; (2) e-learning challenges; (3) digital transition to emergency virtual assessment (EVA); (4) psychological impact of COVID-19; and (5) creating collaborative cultures. This represents the first systematic review of COVID-19's impact on education, clarifying current themes being investigated. The author suggests that the term 'emergency virtual assessment' (EVA) is now added for future research discussion. Finally, the paper identifies research gaps, including researching the impact on lesser developed countries, the psychological impact of transition, and the important role of leadership and leadership styles during the transition and handling of the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the special features of the governance structures of research universities in four western countries: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Conceptual framework was laid out as groundwork of the paper. Scholarly work of known authors in higher education governance was reviewed with major features of the governance of the research universities of these countries identified and discussed with reflection of the conceptual framework. It was found in common that major research universities have (1) governance structure with responsibilities of components specifically defined; (2) distinct separation of business affairs and academic work; (3) good collaboration among the entities of their governance structure; and (4) great respect for academic freedom and independence.

Human nutrition is a growing field with an increasing job market and high demand for university study, yet graduates report feeling underprepared for and unaware of potential job opportunities. This scoping review aimed to identify employment initiatives used in undergraduate programs to support an evidence-based approach to the development of future initiatives for human nutrition courses. The scoping review following PRISMA-ScR criteria was initially conducted in October 2018 and updated in April 2020. Search terms were selected to identify studies that reported on employability or work-readiness embedded within the course curriculum for undergraduate students. Fourteen papers met the eligibility criteria. Papers included were from Australia (9), United Kingdom (2), United States (1), New Zealand (1) and Germany (1). Papers described initiatives fitting broad categories of placements, project-based industry collaboration, practice-based eLearning, mentoring and building graduate attributes. Placements were the most common type of initiative and project-based industry collaboration demonstrated the highest levels of student and employer satisfaction. The success of initiatives was often attributed to incorporating diverse approaches to real-world, problem-solving skills. Mentoring and eLearning were used to promote employability soft skills, while industry-based placements provided students with practical experience. Placement in specific workplace settings should be representative of the diverse job options for nutrition graduates. Human nutrition degrees should consider incorporating strategies that develop soft skills and project-based skills while exposing students to diverse workplace settings within industry.

This paper uses panel data regression models, to empirically examine the determinants of health expenditure in six countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany over a ten year period. Empirical findings emphasize the role of various demographic and economic variables on health expenditures including income level, fertility level, mortality rate, population above age 65 (or old-age dependency), and rural population. The regression results for North America and Europe found the fixed effect- model and the random- effect model are favorable over the pooled model. This paper contributes to the existing literature both in terms of the sample studied as well as variable considered. The results reveal that per capita income and the percent of population over age 65; these factors have significant effects on total health expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses a longitudinal dataset on legal protection of shareholders over a 36 year period, 1970–2005, for four advanced countries, the UK, France, Germany and the USA. It examines two aspects of the legal origin hypothesis—whether shareholder protection is higher in the common law countries (UK and USA) than in the civil law countries (France and Germany) and whether shareholder protection matters for stock market development in the short and long runs. It also examines the ‘causation’ issue and the ‘endogeneity’ problem—whether greater shareholder protection leads to stock market development or whether stock market development leads to changes in law. The paper casts serious doubt on the validity of the basic theses of the Anglo Saxon legal and developmental model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper intends to explore the impact of Information technology (IT) development on the legal concept of `signatures'. To what extent and in which way does it impact on the legal concept of `signatures'? This paper attempts to examine this issue from an international and comparative perspective. It was found that IT development has different levels of impact on the legal concept of `signatures' in different jurisdictions. In the Common Law system such as the UK and the US, it does not change the legal concept of `signatures'. However, it does put the legal concept on such an important position. On the contrary, IT development changes the legal concept of `signatures' in the Civil Law system such as Germany and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of European Social Policy is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We define international technological specialisation (ITS) as the technological performance of a country in a specific technology relative to its overall international technological performance. This paper uses patent applications and patent citations at the European Patent Office for five countries (US, UK, Italy, France, Germany) from 1989 to 1994 for 135 technological classes in three industrial sectors (Chemicals, Electronics and Machinery). It shows that ITS is significantly persistent and is affected by the direction of cross-sectoral knowledge spillovers within countries. In addition, the paper shows that the concentration of innovative activities, the emergence of new innovators and technological co-operation positively affect ITS. Some differences across sectors emerge. Keywords: Technological specialization; Knowledge spillover; Market structure [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries have been shown to be competitive in specific industries. This paper contends that this industrial specialization can be understood in terms of an affinity between national 'models of capitalism' and the characteristics of industrial task environments. Put differently, industry-specific competitiveness is conceived to arise out of a fit between patterns of national business systems and patterns of industrial task environments. Specifically, the paper will propose a relationship between the communitarian or individualistic nature of national business systems and the organization-specificity of knowledge in an industry. More communitarian business systems are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a high organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that rely more on the long-term accumulation of organization-specific knowledge within tightly-knit corporate communities. More individualistic business systems, on the other hand, are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a low organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that thrive more on the speedy dissemination or reallocation of company-unspecific knowledge through a constant reconfiguration of social relationships. The paper will offer some illustrations of these proposed relationships in terms of the competitive profiles of the United States, Japan, Germany and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess rates of traversing barriers to care to access optimal clinical outcomes in people with migraine internationally. Background: People in need of medical care for migraine should consult a health care professional knowledgeable in migraine management, obtain an accurate diagnosis, and receive an individualized treatment plan, which includes scientific society guideline-recommended treatments where appropriate. Methods: The Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes-International (CaMEO-I) Study was a cross-sectional, web-based survey conducted from July 2021 through March 2022 in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (US). Respondents who met modified International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition, criteria for migraine and had Migraine Disability Assessment Scale (MIDAS) scores of ≥ 6 (i.e., mild, moderate, or severe disability) were deemed to need medical care and were included in this analysis. Minimally effective treatment required that participants were currently consulting a health care professional for headache (barrier 1), reported an accurate diagnosis (barrier 2), and reported use of minimally appropriate pharmacologic treatment (barrier 3; based on American Headache Society 2021 Consensus Statement recommendations). Proportions of respondents who successfully traversed each barrier were calculated, and chi-square tests were used to assess overall difference among countries. Results: Among 14,492 respondents with migraine, 8,330 had MIDAS scores of ≥ 6, were deemed in need of medical care, and were included in this analysis. Current headache consultation was reported by 35.1% (2926/8330) of respondents. Compared with the US, consultation rates and diagnosis rates were statistically significantly lower in all other countries except France where they were statistically significantly higher. Total appropriate treatment rates were also statistically significantly lower in all other countries compared with the US except France, which did not differ from the US. All 3 barriers were traversed by only 11.5% (955/8330) of respondents, with differences among countries (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Of people with migraine in need of medical care for migraine, less than 15% traverse all 3 barriers to care. Although rates of consultation, diagnosis, and treatment differed among countries, improvements are needed in all countries studied to reduce the global burden of migraine. Trial registration: NA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The emergence of COVID-19 resulted in a substantial loss of education because of global school closures. Face masks are a potential measure to restrain the COVID-19 spread; therefore, this paper evaluated the effectiveness of face masks in reducing COVID-19 incidence in school settings. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted by searching the literature in the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register and the World Health Organization COVID-19 global literature. Data were summarized in tabular forms, and the findings were presented as narrative synthesis. RESULTS: A total of 15,709 records were retrieved. The screening and selection led to the inclusion of 12 observational and 2 quasi-experimental studies. Nine studies were conducted in different states, counties, or districts of the United States, and the remaining 5 were reported from Germany, Finland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The results of 10 out of 14 studies favored mask use in reducing school COVID-19 incidence. Three studies found no link between mask use and COVID-19 incidences, whereas 1 quasi-experimental study noted a higher COVID-19 incidence with mask use in students aged 6-11 years than no use of mask among preschool children aged 3-5 years. CONCLUSION: Mask mandates may lessen the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases in school settings during a pandemic; more well-designed studies are warranted to clarify further the evidence regarding mask use in school settings.

In this paper the dynamic relationship between short term interest rates and inflation is analyzed for five countries (U.S.A., UK, France, Germany and Switzerland), covering the period 1974-1980. The framework of analysis is the bivariate autoregressive representation of the interest and the inflation rate, which allows to test the traditional approach (interest rate as distributed lag of inflation) as well as the novel approach of Fama (the inflation rate as function of the one period lagged interest rate). In general, the hypotheses of both approaches are rejected by the data. An analysis of the variability of the real interest rate suggests that it contributes strongly to the variation of the nominal interest rate and that the nominal interest rate and inflation help to predict the ex ante real interest rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful fixed exchange rate regimes impose policy disciplines that are likely to lead to conformity in the business cycles of the participating countries. This conjecture is borne out in the present paper by the evidence that the business cycle affiliation of ERM member countries has shifted from the United States to Germany since the formation of the ERM. This effect is bolstered by growing links in trade and finance between the European countries. The United Kingdom is conspicuous among these in that its business cycle affiliation did not change in the period of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Quality of life is included in the economic evaluation of health services by measuring the preference for health states, i.e. health state utilities. However, most intervention studies include a disease-specific, not a utility, instrument. Consequently, there has been increasing use of statistical mapping algorithms which permit utilities to be estimated from a disease-specific instrument. The present paper provides such algorithms between the MacNew Heart Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (MacNew) instrument and six multi-attribute utility (MAU) instruments, the Euroqol (EQ-5D), the Short Form 6D (SF-6D), the Health Utilities Index (HUI) 3, the Quality of Wellbeing (QWB), the 15D (15 Dimension) and the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL-8D). Methods: Heart disease patients and members of the healthy public were recruited from six countries. Non-parametric rank tests were used to compare subgroup utilities and MacNew scores. Mapping algorithms were estimated using three separate statistical techniques. Results: Mapping algorithms achieved a high degree of precision. Based on the mean absolute error and the intra class correlation the preferred mapping is MacNew into SF-6D or 15D. Using the R squared statistic the preferred mapping is MacNew into AQoL-8D. Implications for research: The algorithms reported in this paper enable MacNew data to be mapped into utilities predicted from any of six instruments. This permits studies which have included the MacNew to be used in cost utility analyses which, in turn, allows the comparison of services with interventions across the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

This is a conceptual paper that examines the origin and development of universities and their current role in global society. There has been an unprecedented and exponential growth of technology and artificial intelligence capabilities over the past ten years which is challenging current working practices and affecting all areas of society. The paper examines how this role may change to match the new demands placed on them by a digitally enabled society that has greater leisure time. The design of the paper is first to detail some of the changes in work practices that are taking place and how these will impact on society. It then offers several ways in which universities could modify their role to respond to these emerging challenges. This could include new courses, new organisational structures and new pedagogical practices. The paper provides a platform for discussion and debate around the strategic vision and direction of travel for higher education.

The author discusses the rise of regional research collaboration which is changing the balance of science worldwide. The author states that collaboration is a good practice, in which knowledge is better transferred and co-authored writings are cited more frequently. The author also mentions co-authorship as a valid alternative for collaboration that reflects tangible engagement between countries such as Germany and Great Britain as well as China and the U.S.

Provides an overview of the topics discussed in the October 2004 issue of "Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs." Evaluation of the Turkish diaspora community in the U.S.; Examination of the Turkish-Muslim diaspora in Great Britain; Presentation of the essay exploring the situation of the Turks in Germany who are claiming a particular Islamic identity.

Interactions in the healthcare system today involve an important new set of actors: evaluative health platforms (EHPs). These platforms are not neutral intermediaries, but active moderators of how patients express opinions, choose providers, and consume health-related information. This paper adds to our understanding of the varied and evolving commercial interests of EHPs and the implications these have for patient voice. We analyze 71 platforms in the USA, UK, and Germany and identify five ideal types: subscribers, analyzers, advertisers, regulators, and scammers. Each platform type enacts a unique competitive strategy through an evaluative infrastructure which constrains but also generates possibilities for patient voice. Based on our typology, we develop three contributions. First, we nuance universalizing claims about the consequences of platform capitalism by specifying the diverse strategies underpinning competition between EHPs in different countries, and showing how each strategy leads evaluative infrastructures to develop in ways that impact patient voice. Second, we show how patients can navigate the challenges of a complex EHP space by exercising their ability to choose between platforms. Finally, we outline the conditions platforms need to fulfil to become empowering. Overall, this study highlights the varied and complex relationship between platform business models and user voice, which exists not only in healthcare, but also in many other fields. • Typology of evaluative health platforms (EHPs) in the US, the UK, and Germany. • EHP business models and content moderation techniques vary considerably. • EHPs have a wide range of implications for patient voice. • More transparency and competition can help platforms increase patient empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical fertility transition is the process by which much of Europe and North America went from high to low fertility in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This transformation is central to recent accounts of long-run economic growth. Prior to the transition, women bore as many as eight children each, and the elasticity of fertility with respect to incomes was positive. Today, many women have no children at all, and the elasticity of fertility with respect to incomes is zero or even negative. This paper discusses the large literature on the historical fertility transition, focusing on what we do and do not know about the process. I stress some possible misunderstandings of the demographic literature, and discuss an agenda for future work. (JEL I12, J13, N30) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper seeks to compare different national PR histories in order to unfold the degree of abstract reflection in PR history writing. It aims to provide some suggestions for a future PR historiography, based on this comparison. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares British, German, and US American PR historiography. The study is based on a comparison of 36 PR histories. A triple matrix of theoretization is used in order to differentiate the histories. Findings – Within the comparison American PR historiography accounts for 24 public relations history approaches, whereas Great Britain (1) and Germany (11) offer fewer histories. However, this richness in quantity does not lead to theoretical diversification. Owing to the paradigmatic obligation to a progressivist understanding, American PR historiography actually entails only one theoretic approach, while its German equivalent includes three different theoretic approaches and British PR historiography – being at its start – at least contains one explicitly non-progressivist, methodologically well-informed, fact-oriented example. Paradoxically, the prevailing American PR historiography, on the one hand, conceptualizes PR as a modern phenomenon but, on the other hand, claims even ancient beginnings. Research limitations/implications – The corpus of analysis contains only studies that attempt to supply an encompassing overview of (national) PR history. Practical implications – Public relations managers may use these findings to achieve a more nuanced critical understanding of the history of their occupation, and thereby reflect on its current state, which may lead to intensified ethical endeavours. Originality/value – The paper presents a pioneer systematic comparison of the three national PR histories, which may lead to enhanced national and general PR historiography. Another value is the establishment of a theoretically informed comparative measuring instrument, which (in future) can also be applied in order to compare and improve other national PR historiographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of continuing mixed results in the literature, this paper re-examines the German Dominance Hypothesis (GDH) and considers whether the UK should join the Eurozone. For this purpose, short-term interest rate relationships between the UK, Germany, the Eurozone and the USA, for the period January 1982 to June 2007, are studied. The policy implication of a loss of monetary autonomy for the UK in favour of Germany or the European Central Bank (ECB) would give support to the UK joining the EMU as an economic response. From the early 1980s the Bundesbank's responsibility was to use money growth targets to keep average inflation rate down in the long run. This long run objective suggests that an appropriate methodology for testing the GDH is to test whether the German stochastic trend is a driving stochastic trend. In other words we determine whether a permanent shock to the German interest rate has a permanent effect on the UK interest rate. To this end the structural shocks in a VECM are identified by imposing long-run restrictions of the type developed in King et al. (1991). We apply the same techniques to testing whether the UK has suffered a loss of monetary autonomy in favour of the ECB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a standardized dataset, this paper compares the differences in income mobility among four countries—Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Germany—during the 1990s and early 2000s. The results suggest that, in general, there exist diverse levels of income mobility across the four countries. Although the precise magnitudes of the differences are sensitive to the measurement method used, incomes in Britain are by far the most mobile. Our findings also reveal country-specific driving forces that underlie income mobility. The stabilizing effects of government transfers are most pronounced in Canada. In Germany, it is the progressive tax system that offsets earnings variations and results in smaller changes in longitudinal incomes. Moreover, we also discover that demographic factors provided only limited explanation of differences in income mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Praxis (16618157) is the property of Aerzteverlag medinfo AG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper finds empirical support for a Taylor (1993) type interest rate determination rule. The model is solved analytically, estimated and used for simulation, impulse response analyses and forecasting with quarterly time series data for the UK and annual time series data for Germany, France, Japan, the UK and the US. The results confirm that such rules implicitly exists during the period of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "big trade-off," described by Arthur Okun some thirty years ago, is back again: equality or efficiency, or to put it differently, modern highly developed economies and societies have to choose between the Scylla of income inequality and the Charybdis of unemployment. Furthermore, it looks like the continental European economies—foremost Germany and France—sided with more egalitarian ends accepting higher unemployment while the liberal economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom chose higher inequality for lower unemployment. In this paper it is argued that the trade-off is not a supply-side necessity to maintain work effort in a situation of incomplete contracts, but is a politico-economic issue of particular interest groups seeking rents. However, unlike in Mancur Olson's seminal approach, it is not the trade unions that are forming distributional coalitions on the labor market, but rather the meritocracy which is happy to use Keynesian-type demand management to advance their material interests by pursuing a "meritocratically optimal rate of unemployment" (MORU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of investment-relevant pension fund regulations and accounting rules on contribution and investment strategies within the context of asset-liability model (ALM). It focuses particularly on the situation and regulations in Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Netherlands, and the U.S. The ALM model reveals that the regulations could affect the funding costs through the choice of investment strategy. Moreover, it is noted that the regulations of strict funding may impel the sponsors to make up funding shortfalls in bad economic times and lead them to invest more.

In this paper I identify whether budgets in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are punctuated and investigate the variation in budget punctuations over time. Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budgets in all four cases exhibit mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts. In order to explain variation in budget punctuations over time, I rely on two models: partisan control of government and partisan distance of the assembly. The two models are tested using national budgetary data across all government functions for the four countries from the mid-1960s to 1989. I find that greater distance in strength and ideology among parties leads to increases in the degree of punctuations in the German and the British cases, whereas there is some evidence for the partisan control model in the American cases. In the Danish cases, partisan distance reduces the degree of budget punctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a bivariate GARCH framework to examine the lead-lag relations and the conditional correlations between 10-year US government bond returns and their counterparts from the UK, Germany, and Japan. We find that while mean and volatility spillovers exist between the major international bond markets, they are much weaker than those between equity markets. The results also indicate that the correlations between the US and other major bond market returns are time varying and are driven by changing macroeconomic and market conditions. However, in contrast to the finding that the benefits of international diversification in equity markets evaporate during high-stress periods, we find that the benefits of diversification across major government bond markets do not decrease during periods of extremely high bond market volatility or following extremely negative US and foreign bond returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that governments of some otherwise enlightened states are increasingly fearful of acknowledging the restraints imposed on them by existing international law. They are also reluctant to enter into new commitments by way of international conventions that would expand the reach of international law. The paper asks whether these fears are based on a true understanding of international law or on some distorted view of it. It will draw comparisons and some contrasts between Australia and the United States in their reactions to a number of recent events as well as to some enduring situations of contemporary relevance. Had time (and the limits of my research) permitted, one might also have examined public attitudes toward international law in China, Japan, and Russia in this context, where similar fears appear to be entertained. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, also enlightened states, appear by contrast to belong to a group more dedicated to international law. As Robert Kagan has recently remarked, the experience of two world wars at close quarters, and the formation of the European Union, have made the European countries more dedicated to process, where the United States is more interested in results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

Purpose: Scholarly interest in interorganizational learning (IOL) has spiked in the past decade because of its potential to absorb, transfer and create valuable knowledge for enhanced innovative performance and sustained competitive advantage. However, only a handful of review studies exists on the topic. The evolution of IOL has not been studied explicitly and there is a lack of understanding of the field trends. To fill this gap, this paper aims to comprehensively review the literature on IOL and map its evolution and trends using bibliometric techniques. In particular, the authors use visualization of science mapping freeware to systematize the findings and interpret the results. Design/methodology/approach: The authors synthesize the findings using "evaluative bibliometric techniques" to identify the quality and quantity indicators of the IOL research and use "relational bibliometric techniques" to determine the structural indicators of the IOL field such as the intellectual foundations and emerging research themes of IOL research. Findings: Through an analysis of 208 journal publications obtained from the Scopus database, the authors determine the leading authors, countries, highly cited papers and their contributions to the IOL literature. By identifying the key hotspots, intellectual foundations and emerging trends of IOL, the authors provide promising avenues in IOL research. Originality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first to systematically review the IOL literature and provide future research directions.

The paper constructs estimates of labour productivity in three broad service sectors including distribution, transport and communication and financial and business services and for ten sub-sectors within these broad categories. It compares Great Britain with the U.S., Germany and France. These sectors are referred to as market services, cover most private service activities with the exception of personal services and domestic service. Defining market services as distribution, hotels and catering, transport and communications and financial and business services accounted for 34-43 percent of total employment in the four countries studied and 36-43 percent of GDP. For labour productivity in market services as a whole, France led Great Britain by 36 percent in 1993, Germany led Great Britain by 34 percent and the U.S. led Great Britain by 38 percent. There is a considerable difference between the ranking of countries in terms of living standards and in terms of productivity. The main reason is that there is a marked variation in the proportions of the population who work.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

Statistical data which may be useful to students of economic change are presented in this paper. It interprets long-run statistical series on the growth of educational employment in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, and provides information on the changes in the relative importance of employment in public schools to total governmental employment and to total employment over the long run. Finally, an analysis of the statistical record indicates that some potentially interesting interrelationships exist between the different proportions of school-age population attending public school, teacher-student ratios, and different ratios of school-age populations to total employment in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentoring is seen as one possible solution to support the individual development of competences in higher education. To allow this support for a large number of students, scalable technologies should be used and made available in a so called "Mentoring Workbench." In order to analyze the requirements for this "Mentoring Workbench," this paper, firstly, depicts seven mentoring roles, which can complement typical learning and teaching processes at universities. Based on an analysis of existing mentoring applications, the authors, secondly, work out to which extent these roles can be supported by existing technical solutions. As the market for mentoring software only covers part of the mentoring roles, the paper, thirdly, outlines further considerations on the technical support of the mentoring roles presented. Finally, we give an outlook on the first steps of technical implementation.