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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]

The article is the second part of a paper concerning the social role of business enterprise in Great Britain from an American perspective. It states that Great Britain has a greater reliance than the U.S. on publicly-owned businesses which have been the focus of public policy debate concerning the business's social role. It mentions that Great Britain has a tradition of government involvement in its society and economy, and its social structure has created an informal elite consensus concerning limitations on the social role for businesses. It examines the emergence of the issue of social responsibility in businesses in Great Britain, as well as the role nationalization plays concerning social responsibility issues.

While advanced computing technology, and particularly the use of artificial intelligence in the form of expert systems, could not necessarily be said to be common in the US financial planning domain, it is certainly not unheard of. This situation is significantly different from that found in the comparable UK domain. This paper is based on a project to look at the use of computing technology to support the role of the personal financial adviser in the UK--a domain in which little published research work has been undertaken. It briefly describes the current UK marketplace and details the construction of a small hybrid-based expert system, built to support the selection of personal pension plans, to illustrate the inherent value in developing such technology in this domain. The paper discusses the benefits of using hybrid representational techniques as opposed to single representations in creating an expert system in a financial planning domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is a psychoanalytic reading of recent electoral events in Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the help of the Lacanian theory of the decline of the father and the concepts of jouissance and the sinthome. The case of Greece, where the radicalization of people's electoral and political choices took place in the framework of an unprecedented crisis, is studied emphatically, to highlight the different characters of this phenomenon's two main strands. The first, represented by the incumbent prime minister of the radical left in a coalition with a party of the populist right, is compared with a sinthomatic solution. The second, viewed in the atrocities of the neo‐Nazi party Golden Dawn, is described as the choice for pure violence. With regards to similar cases, such as Brexit Britain or Trump's America, psychoanalysis can highlight the significance of contingency, which could allow the emergence of such solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Non‐motor symptoms (NMS) are integral to Parkinson's disease (PD) and have a detrimental effect on patients and their caregivers. Clinical quantification has been aided by the development of comprehensive assessments such as the Non‐Motor Symptoms Questionnaire (NMSQuest) and Scale (NMSS). The NMSS has been widely used in clinical studies and trials; however, since its validation in 2007, our understanding of NMS has changed substantially. With the support of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (IPMDS), after a detailed peer review an initiative to develop an updated version of NMSS, the MDS‐NMS was launched in 2015. Objective: This paper encapsulates the data from the pre‐validation phases carried out under the auspices of the IPMDS Non‐Motor PD Study Group. Methods: Item selection and wording (formatted as a rater‐based tool) were based on the NMSS, literature review, and expert consensus. Neurologists, PD patients, and healthy controls were included in the cognitive pretesting and administration of the preliminary version of the MDS‐NMS. Primary data on acceptability and reliability were obtained. Results: The pilot study, carried out in English in the United Kingdom and the United States, demonstrated that the preliminary version of the MDS‐NMS was comprehensive, understandable, and appropriate. Data quality was excellent; moderate floor effect was present in patients for most MDS‐MNS domains, with some components showing weak internal consistency. The results led to additional instrument modifications. Conclusion: Qualitative and quantitative research results have led to an updated NMSS, the definitive version of the MDS‐NMS, which is currently being validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of proportionality has been central to the retributive revival in penal theory, and underlies desert theory's normative and practical commitment to limiting punishment. Theories of punishment combining desert-based and consequentialist considerations also appeal to proportionality as a limiting condition. In this paper we argue that these claims are founded on an exaggerated idea of what proportionality can offer, and in particular fail properly to consider the institutional conditions needed to foster robust limits on the state's power to punish. The idea that appeals to proportionality as an abstract ideal can help to limit punishment is, we argue, a chimera: what has been thought of as proportionality is not a naturally existing relationship, but a product of political and social construction, cultural meaning-making, and institution-building. Drawing on evolutionary psychology and comparative political economy, we argue that philosophers and social scientists need to work together to understand how the appeal of the idea of proportionality can best be realised through substantive institutional frameworks under particular conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments in the UK and many other countries have long sought to promote the diversity of their higher education institutions. However, diversity is hard to define, harder to measure and even more difficult to compare between countries. Most empirical analyses of the diversity of higher education systems use categorical variables, which shape the extent of diversity found. This study examines continuous variables of institutions' enrolment size and proportions of postgraduate, fulltime and international students to find the extent of variation amongst doctoral granting and all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. The study finds that there is less variety amongst all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom than in Australia, which in turn has much less variety than the United States. The paper argues that the extent of government involvement in higher education is not so important for institutional variety as the form that it takes. More tentatively, the paper suggests that the more limited the range of institutions for which government funding is available the stronger government involvement is needed to have variety among the limited range of institutions for which government financial support is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the efficiency of the coal-fired steam-generated electricity in Great Britain, the U.S. and France in 1970. The authors selected this industry for close examination because it had experienced rapid technological progress, its output is homogeneous and the data available are comparatively good. They found that the average level and rate of growth of fuel productivity in Great Britain industry were less than in France and in the U.S. The authors were careful to state, however, that technological backwardness was not the only interpretation of this result. They were aware that partial productivity measures could be very misleading because the contribution of other inputs, particularly capital, is ignored. Furthermore, this paper shows that the percentage increase in output in Great Britain from 1949-63 was higher than that in France and in the U.S., while the percentage increase in capital, measured by generating capacity, was much lower than in France or the US. This difference could be interpreted as implying that the productivity of capital in Great Britain industry was rising relatively to that in France and in the U.S. and thus that the industry in Great Britain was technologically forward. However, there are other interpretations, because capital productivity is also a partial measure of productivity. Thus, this paper suggests that there is a need a measure of productivity which reflects the simultaneous influence of all inputs and output and a production function provides such a measure. This article also estimates production functions for this industry.

Hegemonic accounts of urban homelessness, focusing on attempts to restrict homeless people's presence in public space, stress the punitive nature of current homelessness policy. In contrast, in this paper we explore the 'messy middle ground' of the UK homeless services system. Examining Stacey Murphy's (2009) ( Antipode 41(2):305-325) arguments regarding a shift to a 'post-revanchist' era in San Francisco, we chart the apparent similarities between developments in San Francisco and changes to the management of street homelessness bought in to effect by the New Labour government in the UK, and assess the extent to which such developments might be read as holding in tension more obviously punitive and supportive trends usually viewed as necessarily oppositional. In the final part of the paper we present a re-reading of recent changes to the management of street homelessness in the UK through a postsecular lens. We suggest that this lens provides the possibility for a much more optimistic reading of homeless services and of the grammars of homelessness and urban (in)justice more broadly, and make the case for an alternative mode of academic attentiveness open to sometimes subtle and smaller-scale yet nonetheless important examples of different ways of understanding and doing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents comments on the research paper by Joseph Aschheim entitled "Supplementary Security-Reserve Requirements Reconsidered." Presented are comments on how the volume of bank deposits is regulated in Great Britain. The author states that Aschheim's analysis is "limited to supplementary security-reserve requirements with the objective of insulating bank-held government debt, in whole or in part, from the impact of restrictive monetary policies on the private credit market." Comments on the liquidity ratio in Great Britain are also provided.

The concept of recovery has been an influence on addicted individuals for many decades. But only in the past 15 years has the concept had a purchase in the world of public policy. In the USA, federal and state officials have promulgated policies intended to foster 'recovery-oriented systems of care' and have ratified recovery-supportive laws and regulations. Though of more recent vintage and therefore less developed, recovery policy initiatives are also being implemented in the UK. The present paper describes recovery-oriented policy in both countries and highlights key evaluations of the recovery-oriented interventions. [Humphreys K, Lembke A. Recovery-oriented policy and care systems in the UK and USA. Drug Alcohol Rev 2014;33:13-18] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While nurses can and do behave as intentional political agents, claims that nurses collectively do (empiric), should (normative) or must (regulatory) act to advance political objectives lack credibility. This paper challenges the coherence and legitimacy of political demands placed upon nurses. It is not suggested that nurses ought not to contribute to political discourse and activity. That would be foolish. However, the idea that nursing can own or exhibit a general political will is discarded. It is suggested that to protect and advance political discussion, to aid explanatory adequacy and clarity, the form in which nursing associates itself with political claims merits critical appraisal. Thus significant numbers of nurses probably reject or disagree with many of the political claims that attach to them - claims often made on their behalf. More specifically, the individual beliefs and goals of nurses can be in conflict with the political pronouncements of nursing scholars and organizations (group agents). It is proposed that nurses need not share substantive normative beliefs/goals and, if this proposal holds, group descriptors such as 'nurses' and 'nursing' cannot meaningfully or easily attach to political claims. Shared value theory is linked to the fallacy of composition and the concept of collective ascription error is introduced to explore the implausibility of using group descriptors such as 'nurses' and 'nursing' to refer to the beliefs/goals of all nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim A systematic review of treatment guidelines for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) was performed to assess recommendations for monoclonal antibody therapy in these guidelines. Method Relevant papers were identified through electronic searches of MEDLINE, MEDLINE In Process, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library; through manual searches of reference lists; and by searching the Internet. Results A total of 57 relevant guidelines were identified, 32 through electronic database searches and 25 through the website searches. The majority of guidelines were published between 2004 and 2010. The country publishing the most guidelines was the USA (12), followed by the UK (10), Canada (eight), France (eight), Germany (three), Australia (two), Spain (two) and Italy (one). In addition, eight European and three international guidelines were identified. As monoclonal antibody therapy for mCRC was not introduced until 2004, no firm recommendations for monoclonal antibody therapy were made in guidelines published between 2004 and 2006. Recommendations for monoclonal antibody therapy first appeared in 2007 and evolved as more data became available. The most recent international, European and US guidelines recommend combination chemotherapy with the addition of a monoclonal antibody for the first-line treatment of mCRC. Second-line treatment depends on the first-line regimen used. For chemoresistant mCRC, cetuximab or panitumumab are recommended as monotherapy in patients with wild-type KRAS tumours. Conclusion The study indicates that recent treatment guidelines have recognized the role of monoclonal antibodies in the management of mCRC, and that treatment guidelines should be updated in a timely manner to reflect the most recently available data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business education constitutes a significant part of offerings at modern universities. It started to emerge on both sides of the Atlantic around 1900, despite considerable resistance from professors of established disciplines. In Europe, it was mainly established outside universities, as at Handelshochschulen in Germany, écoles de commerce in France and handelshögskolor in Scandinavia. The UK in contrast was much slower to take up business education. With the exception of the London School of Economics and Political Science, which turned more into an institution preparing graduates for civil service, and accounting education in Birmingham and Manchester, it was not until the mid-1960s that academic business education took off in the UK. This paper elaborates on the reasons for this development and shows how earlier traditions were challenged after the Robbins and Frank reports. As a result, five groups of top institutions for business education have been identified and labelled: (1) Front-runners, (2) Engineers, (3) Frankies, (4) Followers, and (5) Latecomers. The paper also demonstrates that the relatively late diffusion of business education has implied that UK business schools have been relatively less prominent in publishing in relation to US business schools. However, a comparison between two periods (1981-1992 and 2005-2009) of publishing in 15 top journals indicates that UK business scholars are gaining ground. At the same time most top references in the published UK papers have US authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BURRELL B and TRIP H. Nursing Inquiry 2011; : 174-183 In this paper we provide a post structural analysis of the theoretical shifts informing changes to service delivery over the past 150 years in relation to people with intellectual disability. We utilise the New Zealand experience of reform as it reflected global knowledge at any given period. Firstly, we address the historical modes of treatment and care, with reference to the eugenics movement, the concepts informing 'Prisons of protection' and moral treatment. Secondly the paper traces reforms commencing in the 1960s where changes from institutional care to community care were informed by humanistic ideals, a key driver being the concept of normalisation. Theorists offered competing discourses that formed the bases of arguments for the status quo whilst resistant voices advocated change. Covering such significant changes leads us to assess the state of de-institutionalisation' as it stands today and how it may be perceived in the future. We assert that Foucault's genealogical approach provides analytic tools to uncover the dynamics of changing attitudes and approaches to service delivery. In applying a Foucauldian lens to the trajectory of reforms concerning institutionalisation to de-institutionalisation we question whether a form of re-institutionalisation may be occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some insight into the asymmetric effects of stock market volatility transmission using weekly stock market return data (January 1992-June 2010) of four countries, namely, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States within a MGARCH (multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) framework. Our results indicate that negative shocks in each market play a more important role in increasing both volatility and covolatilities than positive shocks. In addition, as expected, we identified that all markets (particularly Australia and Singapore) exhibit significant positive mean and volatility spillovers from the US stock market returns, but not the other way around. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their apparently pervasive reach and relevance, the geographies of branded commodities and their branding have been unevenly recognised and under-researched. This paper presents a way of conceptualising and analysing brand and branding geographies. Focusing upon goods and services, the notion of geographical entanglements is developed to understand the spatial associations and connotations that unavoidably ensnare brands and branding. Second, it examines how such attachments shape and are shaped by brand and branding agents, including producers, circulators, consumers and regulators. Last, the placing of the geographical entanglements of brands and branding is developed as a means of lifting their 'mystical veils' and prompting reflections upon their politics and relationships to uneven development. Situating branding genealogies in geographical context, the empirical analysis comprises a socio-spatial biography of Newcastle Brown Ale (NBA). It explains how NBA's geographical entanglements have been (re)constructed in its contrasting survival in the UK and growth in the US. As a way of thinking about brand and branding geographies, the paper seeks to broaden the reach of economic geographies at their intersections with cultural economy approaches and to stimulate debate about their politics and alternatives to uneven development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the UK/US exchange rate forecasting performance of linear and nonlinear models based on monetary fundamentals, to a random walk (RW) model. Structural breaks are identified and taken into account. The exchange rate forecasting framework is also used for assessing the relative merits of the official Simple Sum and the weighted Divisia measures of money. Overall, there are four main findings. First, the majority of the models with fundamentals are able to beat the RW model in forecasting the UK/US exchange rate. Second, the most accurate forecasts of the UK/US exchange rate are obtained with a nonlinear model. Third, taking into account structural breaks reveals that the Divisia aggregate performs better than its Simple Sum counterpart. Finally, Divisia-based models provide more accurate forecasts than Simple Sum-based models provided they are constructed within a nonlinear framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of this paper was to increase international collaboration on end of life care (EoLC) in critical care. Objectives included highlighting key challenges for critical care nurses in EoLC through a transcribed interview between a clinician, an educationalist and a researcher who all hold an EoLC focus. Background: EoLC continues to hold high profile within international health care arenas, including critical care units. Whilst end of life care remains well debated, it still presents many challenges for everyday practitioners. Dialogue with international colleagues and disciplines may provide opportunity for further understanding of this complex and sensitive area. Conclusions: A key issues to arise from this venture of shared learning was that futility of treatment is problematic for all. This is further complicated in the USA where the concept of (family) autonomy strongly shapes EoLC decision making. Relevance to clinical practice: This paper demonstrates that there are opportunities for nurses within health care teams which could be addressed through education and professional development initiatives. Furthermore, knowledge from other disciplines can provide a useful lens through which to improve our understanding of EoLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploratory approaches for first-in-human clinical studies have evolved over the last few years and have stimulated the issuance of national regulatory guidances in some European countries as well as the United States. With the increasing implementation of these approaches and the recent preparation of a multiregional regulatory guidance (ICH M3 rev2), an exchange of experiences on the opportunities and challenges of exploratory clinical trials was desirable; thus, a workshop focusing on the use of this clinical approach was planned and conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, March 18–19, 2009 sponsored by the Portuguese Health Authority (INFARMED) and DIA. The structure of the workshop focused in three main areas. Regulatory representatives from Portugal, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States formally reviewed their experiences. This was followed by a discussion on issues from an ethics review perspective as well as an insight to the opportunities in the area of biologics. The industry perspective was presented by representatives from Merck, Pfizer, J&J, Novartis, Speedel, AstraZeneca, GSK, and Roche. Finally, through break out sessions, issues were identified to be addressed moving forward. It is the purpose of this paper to report on the outcome of this workshop. Clin Trans Sci 2010; Volume #: 1–4 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As environmental justice concerns become more widely embedded in environmental organizations and policymaking, and increasingly the focus of academic study, the gender dimension dissolves into an exclusive focus on race/ethnicity and class/income. While grassroots campaigning activities were often dominated by women, in the more institutionalized activities of organizations dominated by salaried professionals, gender inequality is neglected as a vector of environmental injustice, and addressing this inequality is not considered a strategy for redress. This paper explores some of the reasons why this may be so, which include a lack of visibility of gendered environmental injustice; professional campaigning organizations which are themselves gender blind; institutions at a range of scales which are still structured by gender (as well as class and race) inequalities; and an intellectual academy which continues to marginalize the study of gender—and women's—inequality. The authors draw on experience of environmental activism, participant observation, and other qualitative research into the gendering of environmental activity, to first explore the constructions of scale to see how this might limit a gender-fair approach to environmental justice. Following this, the practice of “gender mainstreaming” in environmental organizations and institutions will be examined, demonstrating how this is limited in scope and fails to impact on the gendering of environmental injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the Health Survey for England between 1991 and 2004 to examine the labour market impact of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). Consistent with previous evidence in the UK and the USA, this study finds no evidence of a positive employment effect of the introduction of the DDA. Sensitivity analysis, using the small firm exemption of the DDA, and controlling for changes in the composition of the disabled, is used to test the robustness of the main results. [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]

A growing empirical literature reports evidence of a decline in exchange rate passthrough to import prices in a number of industrial countries. Our paper complements this literature by examining passthrough from the other side of the transaction; that is, we assess the exchange rate sensitivity of export prices (denominated in the exporter's currency). We find that the prices charged on exports to the United States are more responsive to the exchange rate than are export prices to other destinations, which is consistent with results in the literature that import price passthrough in the US market is relatively low. In addition, the exchange rate sensitivity of export prices over time has been significantly affected by country- and region-specific factors, including the Asian financial crisis (for emerging Asia), deepening integration with the United States (for Canada), and the effects of the 1992 ERM crisis (for the United Kingdom). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the concept of conspicuous donation behaviour (CDB) through further conceptualisation and operationalisation of this construct. The paper reports on developing the CDB scale via a three-stage process, which includes five data collections using a total of 1311 respondents. The data analysis indicates that the resulting eight-item (two factor) CDB scale has face, content, convergent, discriminant and predictive validity and the CDB scale is reliable across samples. The CDB scale has the potential for significant usage in the development and testing of theory, as well as in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 40-plus year career notable for path-breaking work on capital structure and innovations in capital budgeting and valuation, MIT finance professor Stewart Myers has had a remarkable influence on both the theory and practice of corporate finance. In this article, two of his former students, a colleague, and a co-author offer a brief survey of Professor Myers's accomplishments, along with an assessment of their relevance for the current financial environment. These contributions are seen as falling into three main categories: •Work on “debt overhang” and the financial “pecking order” that not only provided plausible explanations for much corporate financing behavior, but can also be used to shed light on recent developments, including the reluctance of highly leveraged U.S. financial institutions to raise equity and the recent “mandatory” infusions of capital by the U.S. Treasury. •Contributions to capital budgeting that complement and reinforce his research on capital structure. By providing a simple and intuitive way to capture the tax benefits of debt when capital structure changes over time, his adjusted present value (or APV) approach has not only become the standard in LBO and venture capital firms, but accomplishes in practice what theorists like M&M had urged finance practitioners to do some 30 years earlier: separate the real operating profitability of a company or project from the “second-order” effects of financing. And his real options valuation method, by recognizing the “option-like” character of many corporate assets, has provided not only a new way of valuing “growth” assets, but a method and, indeed, a language for bringing together the disciplines of corporate strategy and finance. •Starting with work on estimating fair rates of return for public utilities, he has gone on to develop a cost-of-capital and capital allocation framework for insurance companies, as well as a persuasive explanation for why the rate-setting process for railroads in the U.S. and U.K. has created problems for those industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to earlier reviews by the author of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education, and builds on a categorisation of professional staff identities as having bounded, cross-boundary and unbounded characteristics. Drawing on a study of 54 professional managers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, it describes a further category of blended professionals, who have mixed backgrounds and portfolios, comprising elements of both professional and academic activity. The paper goes on to introduce the concept of third space as an emergent territory between academic and professional domains, which is colonised primarily by less bounded forms of professional. The implications of these developments for institutions and for individuals are considered, and some international comparisons drawn. Finally, it is suggested that third space working may be indicative of future trends in professional identities, which may increasingly coalesce with those of academic colleagues who undertake project- and management-oriented roles, so that new forms of third space professional are likely to continue to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and compares, according to the New Public Management approach, the U.S. watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, in its ability to oversee and call to account the executive branch of government, and its U.K. counterpart, the National Audit Office. Results of this examination indicate that the Government Accountability Office is more effective than its U.K. counterpart. Its greater effectiveness is attributable to the fact that it derives its powers and legitimacy from a written constitution; in contrast, in the United Kingdom there is no equivalent document defining the relationship between the state and the citizenry. As a consequence, the powers, duties, and self-perception of the National Audit Office are significantly weaker and more mutable than those of the Government Accountability Office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explores the effectiveness of cigarette warning labels across two countries, one (the UK) with new and stricter legislation where text based labels have been made more prominent and one (the USA) with less stringent regulation, where labels are less visible. Using longitudinal data from the two counties, the research seeks to investigate the impact of the different types of warning labels on the information processing by consumers. This paper assesses the effectiveness of warning labels in terms of: consumer attention, elaboration, contemplation on quitting and behavioural compliance. This study provides a comprehensive examination of these key factors in a fixed causal sequence. Structural equation modelling was used to test this model based on longitudinal panel survey data from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey. Analysis of a sample of 901 US smokers and 1459 UK smokers yielded results in full support of all hypothesised relationships in the model proposed for both countries. Findings suggest that the new European lotion policy of more prominent warning labels has a direct effect on influencing behavioural compliance by smokers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses regression analysis to investigate the relationship between military expenditure and stock market performance for the United States and the United Kingdom. Specifically, the study applies the Bierens-Guo unit root procedures to ascertain the time series properties of the variables in the study. The standard OLS technique is employed to determine the influence of military expenditure on stock markets for the period 1914 through 2001. The results from the unit root tests indicate that the military expenditure, military personnel, stock market, and energy consumption series are level stationary. The results from the OLS equations suggest that military expenditure has significantly positive effect on stock market performance for the United States and the United Kingdom. The implication of this finding is that high-income class and people in power are less likely to oppose increases in military spending even though such expenditures are not in the best interest of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years many countries – including the UK – have seen a dramatic rise in the share of the working age population receiving sickness and disability benefits (hereafter disability benefits). This is despite health levels that are generally thought to be slowly improving. This paper describes the time path of UK disability benefit rolls and explores the existing UK literature together with literature from the USA in search of potential explanations for it. Since the early 1990s, despite a number of detailed descriptive studies, surprisingly little attention has been paid to quantifying the importance of the different factors believed to be driving the UK benefit roll growth. This is all the more surprising given the continued growth and the level of policy attention recently and currently devoted to disability benefits in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poor productivity performance of the UK and the EU when compared with the US has been a major driver of policy reforms over the past decade. This paper considers what the evidence suggests about why we have lagged behind the US, considering among other factors the importance of globalisation and outsourcing, the role for public policy intervention and what the key drivers of growth are likely to be for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the performance of US equity funds (locals) versus UK equity funds (foreigners) also investing in the US equity market. Based on informational disadvantages one would expect the UK funds to under-perform the US funds, especially in the research-intensive small company market. After controlling for tax treatment, fund objectives, investment style and time-variation in betas, we do not find evidence for this. In the small company segment we even find a slight out-performance for UK funds compared to US funds. Finally we observe a home bias in the UK portfolios, which is partly attributable to UK funds investing in cross-listed stocks in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Body Mass Index (BMI, kg/m2), most men in nations such as the UK and USA are reportedly overweight or obese. This is authoritatively defined as a massive and growing problem. Drawing from embodied sociology, critical obesity literature and qualitative data generated during an Economic and Social Research Council funded project on masculinities and weight-related issues, this paper offers a critical realist contribution to the obesity debate. Rather than endorsing the institutionalised war on fat, and correcting so-called ‘laymen’ who dismiss medicalised weight-for-height recommendations, the following presents and honours men's justificatory accounts for levels of body mass that medicine labels too heavy (implicitly or explicitly too fat). Men's critical understandings, which are connected to their displays of moral worth, are considered under three headings: the compatibility of heaviness, healthiness and physical fitness; looking and feeling ill at a supposedly ‘healthy’ BMI; and resisting irrational standardisation. By empirically ‘bringing in’ men's meanings, sensibilities and culturally informed aesthetics, this paper casts a different light on medicalised measures that support potentially corrosive obesity epidemic psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in unionization that have occurred over the last decade or so using individual level micro data on many countries, with particular emphasis on the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. I document an empirical regularity not hitherto identified, namely the probability of being unionized follows an inverted U-shaped pattern in age, maximizing in the mid- to late 40s in 34 of the 38 countries I study. I consider the question of why union membership seems to follow a similar inverted U-shape pattern in age across countries with such diverse industrial relations systems. I find evidence that this arises in part because of cohort effects, but even when cohort effects are removed a U-shape remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates earnings functions for two samples of U.K. and U.S. academic economists. Despite significant differences in compensation schemes, a comparably specified human capital earnings model does a good job explaining earnings variations for academic economists in both countries. Our estimates suggest that rewards for research are more immediate and direct in the United States. Because of the national salary scale, the payoffs to experience and seniority are greater and the payoffs to research are lower in the United Kingdom than in the United States. After adjusting for productivity and demographic factors, we find that U.S. economists are paid approximately 40% more than otherwise equivalent economists in the United Kingdom. Simulating career age-earnings profiles for both markets, we find that the earnings gap widens with experience for relatively productive research economists and may even narrow with age for relatively less productive research economists. Nevertheless, the cumulative lifetime earnings foregone are substantial for research and nonresearch economists in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational discrimination and segregation along gendered lines continue to be seen as problematic throughout the UK and the USA. Women continue to be attracted to occupations that are considered to be women's work, such as clerical, secretarial and personal service work, and inequalities persist even when women enter traditional male domains such as management. Work psychology's chief, though indirect, contribution to this field has been through personnel selection research, where methods aimed at helping organizations to make more fair and unbiased selection decisions have been carefully examined. Our aim in this paper is to argue that, on their own, such methods can make very little difference to the position of women (and other minorities) in work organizations. The processes that are fundamental to organizational attraction and adjustment cannot, we contend, be understood adequately through reductionist approaches that treat organizational and individual characteristics as context independent realities. Drawing on critical management research and using the specific example of police work, we argue that work roles and work identities can be more fruitfully understood as social constructions that, when deconstructed, illuminate more powerfully how processes that lead to the relative subordination of women (and other groups) are both reproduced and challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cross-variety investigation of quotatives be like and go in apparent and real time. Distributional and attitudinal evidence points to a change in progress as the underlying process for the distribution of be like. However, there is also evidence of life-span change (Sankoff to appear). The patterning of go across age is much less clear-cut. It could be interpreted as age grading or as a change in progress. This paper discusses seemingly contradictory findings from U.S. and British English. It will be suggested that the distribution of go is due to unstable behaviour at both the individual and the community level. Furthermore, there is evidence that go has a latent presence in the linguistic repertoire and was picked up again after its frequency dipped due to the introduction of be like. This finding ties in with other reported cases of recycling of variables ( Dubois and Horvath 1999 ). [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]

Introduces the July 2005 issue of the "Scottish Journal of Political Economy". Use of the Annual Respondents Database in Great Britain; Objectives of the collection of papers presented in the journal; Use of linked data for United States manufacturing plants on performance, technology adoption and skill mix.

This paper argues that legality is hot enough and chat sound public affairs underpins the legitimacy of a political system. It examines the impact of lost legitimacy on Tony Blair, President Bush and America's foreign policy. The author draws historical comparisons between Britain in the Middle East in the 1920s and the USA's problems today and suggests that the fundamental problem is the lack of legitimacy in the region's politics. The paper concludes by asserting that the legitimacy of the EU political system will be endangered while public understanding of its institutions remains limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of new technology on relative demands for workers has been the subject of much research in economics. and others have studied the impact of computers on earnings in the US and elsewhere. Such studies have been criticised for ignoring the possibility of bias due to unobserved heterogeneity between computer users and non-users, resulting in computer users not being a random sub-sample of all workers. As well as looking at the effects of computers on earnings in the UK, this paper extends previous analyses by using a sample selection framework to deal with the bias problem. Results indicate not only that returns to computer use are positive but that it is important to correct for the sample selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Beacon Council Scheme as a distinct policy element within the UK government’s wide–ranging local government modernization agenda. The aim of the Beacon scheme is two–fold. First, reward for high performing councils and second, the achievement of substantial change by sharing ‘best practice’ from identified centres of excellence. The scheme presupposes an implicit theory of organizational change through learning. The Beacon Council Scheme is based on the assumption that the organizational preconditions exist which will facilitate learning, and through its application to practice, improve service delivery. The paper analyses the presumed and possible conditions which facilitate or impede interorganizational learning and service improvement through the scheme. The paper then examines empirical data from 59 local authority elected members and officers about their attitudes towards and motivation to take part in the Beacon scheme during the first year of its existence. The data indicate that there are differing motivations for participation in the scheme and that these reflect different learning needs. The experiences of local authority participants suggest that the formulators of the dissemination strategy at the heart of the scheme have not yet given sufficient consideration to the processes of interorganizational learning, the conditions that support such learning between authorities and the embedding of new understandings, practices and organizational cultures in the receiving authority. This suggests that the underlying theories of organizational learning and cultural change may be insufficiently developed to create and sustain the kind of transformational change that is intended by central government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the transmission mechanism of G-5 exchange rate changes within each market and across the three major markets: London, New York and Tokyo. It is found that the volatility in both the London and New York markets leads that of Tokyo. In addition, the New York market slightly leads the London market in its volatility. After the Euro monetary system crisis, the frequencies of both the volatility spillover effect from London to New York and mutual feedback phenomena have increased. Furthermore, the volatility spillover effects from both London and New York to Tokyo have been on the rise after the Asian financial debacle. Within the framework of the causality model, we find better forecasting performance in predicting G-5 exchange rates across the three markets. It outperforms the traditional ARMA model in terms of both in- and out-sample forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on interviews with 'manager-academics' (Pro-Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors and Heads of Department) in UK universities to examine their views on their preparation, training and support for their roles. Following a brief description of the ESRC-funded study, the paper describes manager-academics' reported career trajectories, motivations and initial experiences, and the training they received: their views both of training and of less formal learning are ambivalent and often hesitant. However, the interviews reveal processes and contexts that manager-academics consider beneficial to their own learning and development, and this analysis suggests both theoretical understanding and practical guidelines. Manager-academics' learning occurs through engagement in practice and through social interaction, and is context-specific. Institutions can foster learning and good management by acknowledging these characteristics and promoting opportunities for self-critical reflection, peer feedback and collective articulation and sharing of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the paper "International Trade of Multinational Corporations and Its Responsiveness to Changes Aggregate Demand and Relative Prices," by David J. Goldsbrough that was published in the September 1981 issue of the periodical "Staff Papers." The author tests the hypothesis that intrafirm trade flows among MNCs and their affiliates are less responsive to demand and price changes than general international trade. Intrafirm trade is observed to compose a significant and apparently increasing portion of the world total. For example, exports by U.S. firms to foreign affiliates composed 19.1% of total U.S. manufactured goods exports in 1966 and 21.5% in 1970. If exports to minority-owned affiliates and third party-goods channeled through MNCs are included, the portion was about a quarter. No data on trade of foreign-controlled firms in the U.S. is available but it might increase the total to around 30%. In Great Britain, intrafirm trade of both home and foreign-controlled multinationals was 22% of exports in 1966 and 26% in 1970. On the import side, shipments from U. S. affiliates to their parents accounted for 16% of the U.S. manufactured goods total in 1970. For other major countries the portions were lower, notably in the Japanese case because of the small amount of foreign investment. In the U. S. case the transport equipment sector has the highest percentage because of the Canada-U. S. Automotive Products Trade Agreement.

The United States and Canada have been at the forefront of shale oil and gas development via hydraulic fracturing. Understanding public perceptions is important given the role that they may play in future policy decisions in both North America and other parts of the world where shale development is at a much earlier stage. We review 58 articles pertaining to perceptions, published between 2009 and 2015. Studies report mixed levels of awareness of shale operations, tending toward higher awareness in areas with existing development. While individuals tend to have negative associations with the term 'fracking,' views on shale development are mixed as to whether benefits outweigh risks or vice versa: perceived benefits tend to be economic (e.g., job creation and boosts to local economies) and risks more commonly environmental and/or social (e.g., impacts on water and increased traffic). Some papers point to ethical issues (e.g., inequitable risk/benefit distribution and procedural justice) and widespread distrust of responsible parties, stemming from perceived unfairness, heavy-handed corporate tactics, and lack of transparency. These findings point to the contested, political character of much of the debate about hydraulic fracturing, and raise questions of what constitutes 'acceptable' risk in this context. We compare these results with research emerging in the UK over the same period. Future research should focus on nuanced inquiry, a range of methodologies and explore perceptions in varied social and geographical contexts. Both this and future research hold the potential to enhance public debates and decisions about shale gas and oil development. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e450. doi: 10.1002/wcc.450 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governments of Britain, France, and the United States are seeking to promote renewed investment in nuclear power through metagovernance. Metagovernance describes the way governments can leverage state power and resources to shape the behavior of networked actors to advance policy goals. To metagovern, governments use a variety of policy tools but the factors shaping the design of these policy tools remains unclear. Grid-group cultural theory is used to show that the design of the policy tools used in metagovernance reflects both an underlying cultural bias within government and prevailing institutional circumstances. The paper demonstrates the utility of cultural theory in the study of metagovernance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A huge change has occurred in the way people obtain weather information in the last few years and a large percentage of the population now get weather forecasts on their mobile phones. There is currently a wide range of smartphone weather apps available: in 2014, iTunes App Store alone offered 5043 active applications in the weather category. The rapid penetration of new broadcasting technologies strongly affects the way weather forecasts are communicated to, and used by, people. Portability, permanent connectivity and geolocalization allow location-specific and time-sensitive weather forecasts to be provided. This paper explores the main features emerging in the 39 most popular weather apps in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy, and focuses on the implications in the communication of uncertainty. The results show that even if the advances in mobile communication technologies could, in principle, improve the effectiveness of weather communication enormously, the expectations created around weather forecasts appear to be inconsistent with current forecasting capabilities, particularly with their inherent uncertainties in space and time, as well as in the nature of the predicted weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, patients with personality disorders presenting complex needs frequently experience an unhelpful pattern of acute treatment followed by community care—with associated high cost implications for services. With UK mental health resources under severe pressure, this leaves commissioners with difficult decisions to make. Yet studies on cost‐effectiveness in respect of personality disorder treatment are scarce, particularly for treatments taking place outside of major teaching hospitals in the USA. This paper studies the benefits of an intensive, holistic approach and finds that the Network achieved substantial reductions in health care usage and expenditure in the short to medium term. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]