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Decyzje zarządzających przedsiębiorstwem w kontekście kształtowania struktury kapitału różnią się w zależności od etapu rozwoju, na którym znajduje się określony podmiot. Liczne badania potwierdziły, że cykl życia przedsiębiorstwa determinuje wybór źródeł finansowania przez zarządzających przedsiębiorstwem, a co za tym idzie wpływa na kształt struktury kapitału. Celem tego opracowania jest identyfikacja przyszłych kierunków badań nad znaczeniem teorii cyklu życia przedsiębiorstwa w kształtowaniu struktury kapitału. Zostały wyciągnięte wnioski na podstawie wstępnego przeglądu literatury w zakresie teorii cyklu życia przedsiębiorstwa.

The fetal origins hypothesis suggests that health and nutrition shocks in utero are causally related to health deficits in old age. It has received considerable empirical support, both within epidemiology and economics but so far it has not been integrated into a life cycle theory of human aging and longevity. The present study shows that the health deficit model, based on the frailty index developed in gerontology, generates shock amplification consistent with the hypothesis. In order to discuss human health over the life cycle from conception to death, we develop a theory of ontogenetic growth and health in utero and during childhood, unify it with the health deficit model of adult aging, and discuss the transmission of early-life shocks to late-life health deficit accumulation.

Анотація. Зважаючи на сучасні умови переходу в дистанційний режим роботи, підприємствам важливо мати низку інструментів, які дозволять оцінити готовність об’єктів бізнесу до віддаленої роботи з усіма можливими контрагентами. Таким чином, перед підприємствами постає питання забезпечення безпеки діджиталізації. Присвячено дослідженню відмінностей між сутністю понять «інформаційна безпека» і «безпека діджиталізації», а також аналізу рівня безпеки діджиталізації підприємств. Запропоновано методику оцінювання рівня безпеки діджиталізації підприємства з позицій теорії життєвого циклу, що дозволяє виявити ознаки настання «інформаційного спаду» в його діяльності. Методологія дослідження передбачає проведення інтегрального аналізу основних аспектів функціонування підприємства на різних етапах його життєвого циклу за допомогою показника, що враховує ступінь спрацювання комп’ютерного забезпечення, рівень адміністративних витрат і витрат на збут. Виявлення умов настання «інформаційного спаду» і визначення рівня безпеки діджиталізації проводилось експертними методами. Експертами виступали спеціалісти з питань стратегічного розвитку підприємств. Зокрема, експерти виокремили такі рівні безпеки діджиталізації, як «нормальний», «допустимий» і «критичний». Методика була апробована на матеріалах провідних підприємств гірничорудної галузі Криворізького регіону України. Отримані результати характеризують умови виявлення характерних ознак «інформаційного спаду» в діяльності підприємств на таких етапах їхніх життєвих циклів, як «Становлення», «Малолітство», «Дитинство», «Ріст», «Стабільність» і «Спад». Запропонований підхід дозволить удосконалити процеси автоматизації управління та підвищити ефективність упровадження процесів діджиталізації в діяльність виробничих підприємств. Ключові слова: безпека діджиталізації, теорія життєвого циклу, інформаційний спад, метод експертних оцінок, гірничорудні підприємства, ефективність діяльності підприємства. Формул: 1; рис.: 0; табл.: 3; бібл.: 28.

The study aims to empirically explore the dependence of savings behavior on demographic changes in the context of the life cycle hypothesis (LCH) in a sample of 18 European transition and post transition countries. The empirical methodology is based on a multifactor modeling approach. The research estimates heterogeneous panel data models by employing three different heterogeneous coefficient estimators: mean group (MG) estimator, common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimator, and augmented mean group (AMG) estimator. The findings demonstrate that the LCH is confirmed in the case of European post-transition countries and rejected as inappropriate in European transition countries due to inconsistency of regression coefficients (age dependency, unemployment rate, urbanization, and health expenditure). The models and their findings presented in this study can be used in policymaking to predict dynamic interactions and variations among selected demographic variables in the determination of savings behavior.

In this paper, we analyze the wealth accumulation and saving behavior of the retired elderly in Italy using micro data from the “Survey of Italian Households’ Income and Wealth,” a panel survey of households conducted every two years by the Bank of Italy. We find that, on average, the retired elderly in Italy are decumulating their wealth (dissaving) but that their wealth decumulation rates are much slower than expected. Moreover, we also find that more than 40 percent of the retired elderly in Italy are continuing to accumulate wealth and that more than 80 percent are doing positive amounts of saving. Thus, the Wealth Decumulation Puzzle (the tendency of the retired elderly to decumulate their wealth more slowly than expected) appears to apply in the case of Italy, as it does in most other countries, before as well as after the Global Financial Crisis. Moreover, our regression analysis of the determinants of the wealth accumulation and saving behavior of the retired elderly in Italy suggests that the lower than expected wealth decumulation rates and dissaving of the retired elderly in Italy is due largely to intergenerational transfers (bequests and inter vivos transfers) and saving for precautionary purposes, especially the former. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

The aim of this paper is to specify the determinants from the real economy causing long-term disequilibrium in the trade balance. The analysis is carried out for all countries of the world for the period 1980-2016 (according to data availability) using panel and cross-sectional regression. We employ the absorption approach as the basic theoretical model. From the supply side of the economy, the main determinants are: export of primary resources, e.g. oil and gas, geographical factors and institutional quality of the economy. From the demand side of the economy, the trade balance is influenced mainly by the demographic structure of the population and its consumption, saving and investment habits in the context of life cycle hypothesis, marginal propensity to consume and the participation of the government sector in the economy (e.g. health care provision, social security, etc.).

Titel: Att spara eller inte spara? - En studie om universitetsstudenters sparande och vad som påverkar sparbeteendet Författare: Edvin Pettersson och Sandra Trinh Handledare: Camilla Strömbäck Bakgrund: Enligt livscykelhypotesen är det irrationellt för studenter att spara pengar. Däremot utifrån ett riskhanteringsperspektiv finns det anledningar till att spara vilket inte överensstämmer med livscykelhypotesen. Utöver denna diskrepans har tidigare forskning visat att det finns flera faktorer som kan påverka en individs sparande. Dock har tidigare forskning ofta varit kvantitativ och enbart fokuserat på hur en faktor påverkar sparande men inte om faktorerna påverkar varandra eller givit en bred bild över området. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka svenska universitetsstudenters sparande och behovet av det utifrån ett riskhanteringsperspektiv, samt identifiera, analysera och systematisera vilka faktorer som påverkar sparandet. Genomförande: För att besvara studiens syfte har en kvalitativ metod använts där semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med tio svenska universitetsstudenter. Utifrån tidigare forskning uppmärksammades fem faktorer som påverkar sparande. Dessa faktorer låg sedan till grund för intervjuguiden och analysmodellen som skapades. Slutsats: Utifrån ett riskhanteringsperspektiv är det rationellt för svenska universitetsstudenter att spara. Det har gjort att de kan hantera likviditetskriser samt bygga upp ett eget kapital för att kunna ta lån i framtiden. Mental bokföring och finansiell bildning har gjort det enklare för studenterna att hantera sina självkontrollsproblem vilket har möjliggjort att de kan spara. Title: To save or not to save? - A study about university students’ saving and what affects the saving behavior Authors: Edvin Pettersson and Sandra Trinh Supervisor: Camilla Strömbäck Background: According to the life cycle hypothesis, it is irrational for university students to save money. However, it might be necessary for university students to have a savings buffer to be able to manage liquidity risks and to afford more expensive purchases. Previous research has shown that there are several factors that affect a person’s saving behavior, but it has yet to investigate how different factors work together to affect the saving behavior. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine Swedish university students’ savings and the need for from a risk management perspective, as well as identify, analyze, and systematize which factors affect the saving behavior. Completion: To answer the research questions we have completed semi-structural interviews with ten Swedish university students. This study has used a qualitative method to be able to examine how students reflect on the needs to have savings and to identify if different factors work together to affect the university students’ saving behavior. From previous research we have identified five factors that affect a person’s saving behavior and these factors have been the basis for the creation of the interview guide and the model of analysis. Conclusion: From a risk management perspective it is rational for Swedish university students to save money to be able to manage their liquidity risks and build up their equity to enable loans in the future. Both mental accounting and financial literacy have been helpful for the students to practice self-control, which has made it possible for the students to save money.

In this paper we report and discuss estimates of life-cycle consumption profiles obtained using microdata for Portuguese households. The estimated profiles are much flatter than the profiles usually reported in the literature for other countries, namely the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. In addition, we also report estimates of cohort and business cycle effects on consumption. The estimated cohort effects are consistent with the post-war progress in median standards of living. However, there is a deceleration in the trend of consumption growth for more recent cohorts. The business cycle estimates suggest that the recent debt crisis has had a strong negative impact on household consumption., his research is financed by National Funds of the FCT – PortugueseFoundation for Science and Technology within the project UID/ECO/03182/2019.This paper benefited greatly from the comments of the Editor, the Co-Editor and two anonymous referees.

Integrated energy system (IES) is of great significance in the construction of the modern energy system. Reasonable planning is one of the important means to improve the economy of the IES and promote the consumption of renewable energy. However, the complex coupling characteristics between energy sources make it difficult to quantify the production efficiency of multi-energy heterogeneous resources uniformly in the economic benefit model during the planning cycle. Quantifying the production efficiency of the IES for planning is currently an urgent problem to be solved. This study proposes a planning method for the IES based on the life cycle and emergy theory. First, emergy theory is applied to quantify the production efficiency of the IES. A complete economic benefit model is established based on life cycle theory. Second, a bi-level planning model of the IES is established. The upper-level model aims at minimizing the whole life cycle cost of the IES to plan the capacity and location of the coupling equipment. The lower-level model aims at maximizing the emergy yield ratio of the IES to provide the operating data for the upper level. Finally, comparing experimental evaluations with traditional planning schemes considering annual average cost and energy quality coefficient, the method in this study reduces planning costs by 23.16% and increases the consumption rate of renewable energy by 4.26%. It can be seen that the planning method proposed in this study improves the planning economy and the level of renewable energy consumption of the IES.

Background: The dividend payout policy remains one of the key functional areas of corporate finance because it is through receipt of dividends that shareholders can share in the profits of their investments. Amongst the dividend payout theories that have been developed over the decades, the life-cycle hypothesis has received little attention in research. Aim: The aim of this study was to test the dividend life-cycle hypothesis in the South African contex. Motivation for the study: Justification for this study in the context of South Africa is that there is minimal research in this regard in emerging economies. South Africa presents a good platform for this research because it is amongst the highly regarded emerging markets and this has been confirmed by its representation in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries. Hence, results in this regard would shed some light in the form of a relative representation of overall emerging markets trend. Research approach/design and method: A panel data of 119 Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed sample companies were used to test the hypothesis during the period 2006–2015. A combination of basic and dynamic panel data estimators was used to analyse the data. Main findings: The study finds that the dividend life-cycle hypothesis is prevalent amongst South African companies. Specifically, it was observed that the considered companies pursuing growth projects paid less dividends. Furthermore, the growth companies have shown to be more aggressive in their pursuit for growth and hence are able to create more value for shareholders than value for companies. Managerial implications: Financial managers will be afforded with enhanced decision alternatives in respect of their fiduciary duties towards the shareholders in respect of maximising value. Conclusion: These results provide a mirror image of those of the developed markets and a good context for future research in the same area in an emerging economy setting.

The life-cycle hypothesis predicts that longer life expectancy should, ceteris paribus, lead to the accumu- lation of more wealth during working life to fund consumption in retirement. The prediction is tested by examining whether subjective survival probability (SSP)- a proxy measure of self-assessed life ex- pectancy - affects wealth holdings among the pre-retirement older population. SSP is instrumented to address measurement error and reverse causality. The findings suggest that a 1 percentage point increase in the self-assessed probability of reaching age 75 increases an individual's financial wealth by approximately EUR 3,400 and total wealth (including pension wealth) by approximately EUR 6,200.

This article provides an in‐depth, longitudinal analysis combining real‐time and retrospective data on a set of Mondragon's industrial cooperatives that are organized as international groups. We examine the life cycle of these international cooperative groups, which is expected to evolve differently to that of small‐ and medium‐sized cooperatives that operate exclusively on a local scale. The article is theoretically informed by the cooperative life cycle theory, as well as by recent insights from the degeneration and regeneration theses. Our analysis yields an intricate picture of the evolution of cooperatives faced with a ‘grow‐or‐die’ dichotomy. On the one hand, our findings reject the highly simplistic and deterministic view of the degeneration thesis by demonstrating that these cooperatives can mobilize resources to revitalize cooperative values and practices. On the other, we find that regeneration may not occur in a consistent, sequential fashion as the previous literature suggests, but rather degenerative and regenerative tendencies can occur simultaneously, even leading to long‐lasting, unresolvable situations. In light of this, the article asks future research to draw on power‐aware and politically informed approaches for further understanding of how cooperatives manage the tensions at each organizational stage of their life cycle, and of which organizational actors benefit, and how, from reversing some degenerative tendencies while maintaining others intact.

We estimate a micro-founded life-cycle consumption model for Saudi Arabia over the period 1970–2017 using error correction model procedures. Dynamic adjustments are significant, and both in...

The traditional life cycle hypothesis believes that the aging of population will not only drag down the level of social savings, but also adversely affect economic growth. However, the human capital factor may change the influence mechanism of population structure change. This study attempts to focus on a specific factor of improving healthy human capital (HHC), through endogenous treatment of fertility rate and survival rate, considering the aging expectation of rational man, to explore its effect de facto on savings rate and economic growth while using the inter-provincial panel data of China from 1996 to 2012 to verify the inherent logical relationship between the rapid improvement of HHC and the “high savings-high growth” model. The findings of this research are as follows: The improvement of HHC is an important factor to improve China’s savings rate and economic growth in corresponding period. It means that the improvement of HHC is enough to alter the mechanism of macro-impact of demographic changes, and therefore constitutes a crucial long-term regulation and control means outside the adjustment of birth policy. Among them, promoting public environmental governance, improving the social security system, strengthening individual expectations for health and driving the expected behavior of aging while achieving linkages with investment in educational human capital are worthy of attention.

This paper analyzes how the three lines of development, namely, the structure of dynamic recursive preferences, Pontryagin's maximum principle, and the permanent income-life cycle hypothesis, are interrelated in the context of consumer choice in continuous time. First, by introducing variational changes in consumption around two different points in time that are compensating to the lifetime utility or having canceling effects on asset accumulation, we define and compute the marginal rates of substitution and transformation and express the optimality condition in terms of the instantaneous time rates of change of these rates. This condition is then related to the Bohm-Bawerkian and Fisherian rates of time preference, which are defined, calculated, and shown to give an equivalent measure whether inclusive of the first order change of consumption or not. The Keynes-Ramsey rule of consumption is related to this optimality condition and is given a new interpretation. Second, we inquire into the preference basis of the permanent income-life cycle hypothesis and show explicitly that the proportionality of optimal consumption to wealth and permanent income follows from the homotheticity of recursive time preferences and a dynamic budget constraint, thereby confirming that the hypothesis, as originally conceived by Friedman and Modigliani-Brumberg, is a dynamic version of the static demand under homothetic preferences.

Empirical research on the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has focused mainly on theoretical approaches related to hierarchical order and, to a lesser extent, on trade-off theory. However, the financial literature has recently revealed that the life-cycle stages of SMEs influence their financial choices, which may explain why business financing evolves over time. Thus, this paper used a panel data approach to study the impact of life cycle phases on the capital structure of 70 Tunisian industrial SMEs during the period from 2013 to 2016. We found that Tunisian SMEs tended to use debt more intensively in the short term, while long-term debt was rarely used. We also found that the life cycle theory is perfectly adapted to describe the financial behavior adopted by Tunisian SMEs, which tend to use debt (regardless of maturity) during the early life cycle phases. Once SMEs age and mature, other sources of funding take over (mainly self-financing and even an IPO).

The phenomenon of Crowd intelligence among college student groups has formed a Crowd intelligence network of college student edition through the Internet. The problem of network public opinion of college emergencies in the Crowd intelligence network has gradually become a hot topic for scholars to study. In view of this, this paper analyzes the challenges and existing problems of the network robustness of colleges in the Crowd intelligence network facing the network public opinion of emergencies. With the help of the life cycle theory in crisis management, the dissemination law of network public opinion of emergencies in colleges is studied, the development life cycle of network public opinion on emergencies in colleges is constructed by gestation period, outbreak period, diffusion period, repetition period, extinction period and long-tail period, and corresponding solutions are proposed for each period.

The life cycle hypothesis suggests that when the Baby Boomers retire, many are likely to sell their assets to finance their retirement, exerting downward pressure on house prices. This paper examines whether demographic transitions, particularly the increasing proportion of the population in the old age cohort due to the retirement of Baby Boomers, will precipitate a dramatic decline in real house prices in Australia. The study uses a structural vector autoregressive framework. This is an important improvement over the reduced-form regression strategies usually employed in the literature. Both the demographic and non-demographic variables used in the empirical analysis are treated as endogenous and reverse causality between the variables is taken into account. The population ageing dynamics are modelled using impulse response functions and, thus, an insight into the potential magnitude of demographic shocks, particularly retirement shocks, is obtained. A much longer time series from 1950 to 2014 is used in the empirical analysis. The findings reject the predictions that population ageing, or more specifically, changes in age structure particularly due to retiring Baby Boomers, will lead to pronounced downward pressure on real house price in Australia. The results suggest that macroeconomic shocks and house price specific shocks explain more of the variation in house prices than the shifts in the population age structure, suggesting that such factors could outweigh any effects of future demographic shifts on house prices. At present the principal residence is excluded in the means test calculation for the age pension. The rapidly increasing size of the retired population will impose an increasing fiscal burden due to age pension expenditure. The way in which housing is treated for age pension eligibility will affect choices on whether older households remain in current residence or face pressure on selling their houses to finance the retirement consumption. This will have an impact on releasing housing stock into the market, which is an important policy implication from this research.

This study is motivated by the high frequency of loss occurrence since late 1990s among Malaysian public listed firms, and the conflicting findings of the impact of the macroeconomic conditions and firm-specific attributes on different measures of earnings quality. In addition, this study examines the impact of firms’ specific attributes on earnings quality using a better established theory, known as the life-cycle hypothesis. The objectives of this study are; (1) to examine the relationship between firms’ loss condition on conservatism as an earnings quality measure as well as the moderation of macroeconomic condition on the relationship and (2) to examine the relationship between life-cycle stages and conditional conservatism. Samples for the study are companies listed on Bursa Malaysia from 1995 to 2010. Using the C_Score measure of conservatism as the dependent variable, firms with loss condition, have been found to be significantly more conservative than profit firms. In addition, macroeconomic condition, strengthen the relationship between loss and conservatism when the results indicate that loss firms undergoing economic crisis are significantly more conservative than loss firms under normal economic condition. Incorporating the firms’ life-cycle stages, the study found that growth firms signal fewer losses than mature firms, thus accepting the set hypothesis. Implication of this study is that ignorance of these issues could lead to significantly misleading interpretation of earnings quality.

In our study, we have examined the housing mobility patterns of Hungarian integration groups – defined on the basis of the Centre for Social Sciences’ 2015 Social Integration Survey – based on a segment of the housing paths, i.e. the characteristics of current and previous housing. As a starting point, we present the main determinants of housing mobility, then some relevant characteristics of the Hungarian housing system. Using the data of the Centre’s 2015 Social Integration Survey, we explore the connection between social integration and the typical patterns of the housing path segments. Our results, in harmony with the life cycle theory of housing mobility, confirm the decisive role of demographic factors, especially age and marital status. At the same time the results suggest that, in addition to the socio-demographic variables, social position has an impact on housing paths, including mobility within the rental sector and the prospects of exit to the homeownership sector. Groups in radically divergent social positions follow different housing paths: while the rental sector typically does not appear in the housing path of people belonging to the ’well-connected, politically active’ social integration group, the proportion of people moving within the rental sector is above average among individuals in the ’nonintegrated excluded’ and ’poorly integrated’ social integration groups.

This paper aims to measure the retirement wealth adequacy among population in Malaysia based on 7743 samples from Household Expenditure and Income Survey (HEIS) 2014. The determinants of retirement wealth adequacy are also examined using the OLS regression. The HEIS2014 contains information on household income and expenditure data, together with socio-economic and demographic characteristics of each household head such as age, education level and occupational group. The retirement wealth adequacy is projected using a wealth-need ratio, which is equal to the projected wealth (or income) accumulated in working years divided by the projected total needs (or consumptions) in retirement years. A wealth-need ratio of equal or larger than one indicates that an individual’s retirement wealth is adequate. Based on life cycle hypothesis which states that retirees should retire with a maintained lifestyle, a 70% replacement ratio is used in this study to project the total consumptions throughout retirement years. We also project the total consumptions by implementing different replacement ratios for different salary classes in Malaysia to take into account heterogeneity of consumptions among households. The results show that all households (or 100%) have wealth-need ratio of one or more if we use 70% replacement ratio. However, the percentage of households who have wealth-need ratio of equal or larger than one reduces to 88% when we use different replacement ratios for different income classes. The results from the wealth-need ratio indicates that the following demographic and socio-economic groups have higher percentage of adequate retirement wealth; age 30-35, single (not married), work in management field, degree education, live in region 4 (Pulau Pinang, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya), and work in private sectors.

In this paper I unify the economic theories of addiction and health deficit accumulation and develop a life cycle theory in which individuals take into account the fact that the consumption of addictive goods reduces their health and longevity. I distinguish two types of addiction: sophisticated and naive. Individuals with sophisticated addiction perfectly control their addiction. Individuals with naive addiction, though otherwise rational and forward looking, fail to fully understand how their addiction develops. I argue that the life cycle consumption pattern predicted for naive addiction is more suitable for motivating empirically observable patterns of addictive goods consumption. I take the case of smoking as unhealthy behavior, calibrate the model with U.S. data, and apply it in order to investigate the life cycle patterns of smoking and quitting smoking and the socioeconomic gradients of unhealthy consumption and longevity.

Nearly every industry classification is experiencing slow growth and increasing concentration. Seldom do researchers have an opportunity to observe an emerging industry segment with as much promise as the smart home ecosystem, an exponentially growing industry. The study presents a novel approach using industry life cycle model and a coopetition framework to understand the process of the ecosystem development. Building on recent literature suggesting companies that purposefully match strategy to life cycle stage, the paper describes the strategic motivations and critical factors involved in the competition-based evolution of smart home ecosystems from early to growth phases, leading to a decision among the largest competitors to engage in coopetition. Following life cycle theory, in a mature phase, we forecast companies will attempt to differentiate by leveraging their brands, services, and bundles to drive differentiation. The standardization discussed in industry life cycle research is complemented by using the collaboration model required for complex and highly integrated systems. We provide four propositions and discussion of implications for future research and practice.

International audience; This paper develops a pseudo-panel approach to examine household electricity demand behavior through the household life cycle and its response to income variations to help strengthen the energy policy-making process. Our empirical methodology is based on three rich independent microdata surveys (the National Housing Surveys), which are representative of the French housing sector. The resulted sample covers the 2006-2016 period. Using within estimations, this paper finds striking evidence that the income elasticity of French residential electricity demand is 0.22, averaged over our four cohorts of generations. In light of other works, our estimate stands in the lower range. The empirical results also show that residential electricity consumption follows an inverted U-shaped distribution as a function of the age of the household's head. Most notably, it appears that households at the mid-point of their life cycle are relatively the largest consumers of electricity. This outcome has important implications for policy-making. Any public policy aimed at reducing household energy consumption should consider this differentiation in consumption according to the position of households over the life cycle, and therefore target as priority households at the highest level of consumption.

India is on the edge of a demographic revolution with a rapidly rising working-age population. For the first time in this study, we investigate the role of the rising working-age population on per capita small savings in post offices and banks net of socio-economic characteristics using state-level panel data compiled from multiple sources for the period 2001-2018. Our comprehensive econometric assessment with multiple robustness checks provide three key findings: (1) Per capita private savings is increasing because of India’s growing working-age population, thus the ‘economic life cycle hypothesis’ is supported. (2) The demographic factors contribute around one-fourth of the per capita private savings inequality across Indian states. (3) The demographic window of economic opportunity for India can yield maximum benefits in terms of private savings when accompanied by favourable socio-economic policies on education, health, gender equity, and economic growth.

Technological innovation should be given full play, and R&D by agricultural companies should be given guidance. Because, for the purpose of increasing listed agriculture companies’ value, promoting the industry’s development, saving energy and resources in advanced agriculture productivity, such actions are of great significance. This paper takes agriculture companies listed in China’s A-shares from 2015 to 2019 as research samples, and makes empirical research on the influence of technological innovation on the value of agriculture companies in different life cycle stages. It is found that technological innovation does not significantly increase the companies’ value in their start-up and decline stages, while the situation becomes the opposite way in growth and maturity stages.

In recent years, earthquake disasters occur frequently in China and the world, forming many Earthquake Memorial Site. However, the number of tourists has quite difference in different site, so how to improve the number of tourists becomes very important. Based on Tourism Area Life Cycle Theory(TALC), we discuss the influencing factors of the number of tourists in Earthquake Memorial Site, so as to enrich the research of TALC and Dark Tourism and to provide management recommendations for the site. Taking Wenchuan Special Tourist Area and Beichuan Qiangcheng Tourist Area as examples, the annual tourist reception volume from 2013 to 2018 is selected as the research data, the life cycle curves of the two scenic spots are fitted by trinomial model, and the influencing factors of tourist amount of earthquake site tourist attractions are deeply discussed by analyzing and comparing the trend characteristics of the curves.

Objective: In the light of the firm’s life cycle theory, the present teaching case aims to present the trajectory covered by Kodak – a giant in the photographic market during practically the entire 20th century –, seeking to relate the business characteristics arising from the changes that occurred overtime with each stage of an firm’s life cycle. Method: The data for the construction of the historical context of the Kodak company was taken from several sources of traditional media, giving priority to the company’s own website, digital newspapers of high international impact as well as national electronic magazines. Relevance/originality: This teaching case offers a debate about the firm’s life cycle theory, through the analysis of the trajectory of a real company, in an international context, allowing the identification of business characteristics that can raise the life cycle current organization. Theoretical/methodological contributions: A triangulation is also sought between the firm’s life cycle theory, the characteristics of the Kodak company and the various changes that have taken place in view of the various decisions taken towards restructuring the company., Objetivo: À luz da Teoria dos Ciclos de Vida da Firma, o presente caso de ensino se propõe a apresentar a trajetória percorrida pela Kodak – gigante do mercado fotográfico durante praticamente todo o século XX –, buscando relacionar as características empresariais oriundas das mudanças ocorridas ao longo do tempo com cada um dos estágios do ciclo de vida de uma organização.Método: Os dados para construção do contexto histórico da empresa Kodak foram retirados de diversas fontes da mídia tradicional, priorizando-se o próprio sítio eletrônico da empresa, jornais digitais de alto impacto internacional assim como revistas eletrônicas nacionais. Relevância/originalidade: Este caso de ensino oferece um debate acerca da Teoria dos Ciclos de Vida da Firma, por meio da análise da trajetória de uma empresa real, em um contexto internacional, permitindo a identificação de características empresariais que podem suscitar o ciclo de vida atual de uma organização. Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: Busca-se ainda uma triangulação entre a Teoria dos Ciclos de Vida da Firma, as características da empresa Kodak e as diversas mudanças ocorridas diante das diversas decisões tomadas no sentido de restruturação da empresa.

Birth, growth, and decline processes in organizations have been studied in the leadership literature for many years. An important perspective applied in this research has been the life cycle perspective. In the church growth literature, traces of the same research can be seen in some growth barriers studies. Using research within the church conducted in different kinds of organizations is not trivial. In this article, I apply a narrative synthesis approach to review the literature and discuss factors that influence growth processes, the strictness of the life cycles, challenges in the transitions between phases, and how these challenging transitions can be addressed for growth to continue in local churches. I argue that the life cycle perspective is relevant in a church context. I propose that many of the same challenges that other organizations meet also have to be handled in churches to prevent growth from slowing down or stop. I also suggest several organizational means to increase churches’ chance to pass challenging transitions and maintain further growth.

In this paper, we analyze the wealth accumulation and saving behavior of the retired elderly in Italy using micro data from the "Survey of Italian Households' Income and Wealth," a panel survey of households conducted every two years by the Bank of Italy. We find that, on average, the retired elderly in Italy are decumulating their wealth (dissaving) but that their wealth decumulation rates are much slower than expected. Moreover, we also find that more than 40 percent of the retired elderly in Italy are continuing to accumulate wealth and that more than 80 percent are doing positive amounts of saving. Thus, the Wealth Decumulation Puzzle (the tendency of the retired elderly to decumulate their wealth more slowly than expected) appears to apply in the case of Italy, as it does in most other countries, before as well as after the Global Financial Crisis. Moreover, our regression analysis of the determinants of the wealth accumulation and saving behavior of the retired elderly in Italy suggests that the lower than expected wealth decumulation rates and dissaving of the retired elderly in Italy is due largely to intergenerational transfers (bequests and inter vivos transfers) and saving for precautionary purposes, especially the former.

Individual investment decision-making theory revolves around the logical choices an investor is expected to make to achieve the maximum return on investments. The investor life cycle theory is often used as a guideline to determine how investors will invest based on their predicted life cycle phase. However, the question remains whether lifecycle investing is still relevant today. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse how demographic factors influence investment product selection for South African banking clients using Big Data. The analysis found that the investment patterns of South African investors strongly contradict the foundational literature of the investor life cycle. South African investors are skewed more towards low-risk investment options like cash, across all age ranges, only investing in higher-risk instruments much later than what the investor life cycle theory suggests. Female investors are especially risk-averse, however, the effect becomes less prominent as income level rises. The risk-averse investment style seen in the findings for all South African investors can be explained by the slow economic growth experienced in South Africa, with investors having less disposable income to invest.

This article attempts to understand the reward and punishment mechanisms of the flexible retirement system in China. The life-cycle model is applied in the pay-as-you-go pension system with flexible retirement policy to establish the numerical model of optimal retirement age under the consideration of prolonged life span. The effect of penalty rate for early retirement and incentive rate for delayed retirement on optimal retirement age is studied. Numerical experiments show that appropriate delayed retirement incentive rate incentivises a delayed retirement decision for maximising the total lifetime utility. The optimal retirement age is raised by prolonging lifespan, and the flexible retirement system is an effective means to implement delayed retirement policy.