Monitoring Socio-demographic Risk: A Cohort Analysis of Families Using Census Micro-Data

We apply cohort techniques to monitor four indicators of socio-demographic risk crucial to family wellbeing; namely, income, employment, education, and housing. The data were derived from New Zealand??s five-yearly Census for the period 1981?C2006. This allowed us to track birth cohorts of mothers (and their families) over six successive New Zealand censuses focusing on the main childrearing ages of 20?C59. This produced ten cohorts??termed ??open familial cohorts????ranging from mothers born in the period 1932?C1937 through to 1977?C1981. We present age, period and cohort analyses. Families in which the mother is in her early 20s were the most vulnerable, with the lowest incomes, the greatest risk of worklessnes, and the lowest levels of home ownership. Of particular interest is that those in the most recent cohorts??born since 1967??were worse off compared to earlier cohorts. The period from the mid-1980s to the mid-to-late 1990s was one of greatest ??socio-demographic risk??, with the lowest work, income and education prospects over the 25?years. The picture on generational profiles was mixed. Contrary to popular mythology the ??baby-boomer?? cohorts did not enjoy an unqualified advantage over others; indeed the most recent cohorts were doing well, with relatively high incomes, education and work levels. The analysis is successful in identifying age and period effects over a period of major social change, and in documenting cohort experiences for each indicator, thus demonstrating the potential of constructing cohorts from routinely-collected census micro-data for monitoring and policy purposes.     

Categorizing Mistaken False Positives in Regulation of Human and Environmental Health

One of the concerns often voiced by critics of the precautionary principle is that a widespread regulatory application of the principle will lead to a large number of false positives (i.e., over-regulation of minor risks and regulation of nonexisting risks). The present article proposes a general definition of a regulatory false positive, and seeks to identify case studies that can be considered authentic regulatory false positives. Through a comprehensive review of the science policy literature for proclaimed false positives and interviews with authorities on regulation and the precautionary principle we identified 88 cases. Following a detailed analysis of these cases, we found that few of the cases mentioned in the literature can be considered to be authentic false positives. As a result, we have developed a number of different categories for these cases of "mistaken false positives," including: real risks, "The jury is still out," nonregulated proclaimed risks, "Too narrow a definition of risk," and risk-risk tradeoffs. These categories are defined and examples are presented in order to illustrate their key characteristics. On the basis of our analysis, we were able to identify only four cases that could be defined as regulatory false positives in the light of today's knowledge and recognized uncertainty: the Southern Corn Leaf Blight, the Swine Flu, Saccharin, and Food Irradiation in relation to consumer health. We conclude that concerns about false positives do not represent a reasonable argument against future application of the precautionary principle.     

Validation of the subtle and overt psychological abuse scale: an examination of construct validity

The Subtle and Overt Scale of Psychological Abuse (Marshall, 1999a) is a measure designed to examine previously unevaluated forms of psychological abuse. The scale was originally divided into seven subscales (overt: dominance, indifference, monitoring and discrediting; subtle: undermining, discounting, isolating). A sample of 172 women was used to evaluate the construct validity of this measure. In other words, the internal structure of the measure, its relation to other measures of physical and psychological abuse, and its relationship to other psychological outcomes. Empirical and theoretical approaches were used to replicate and examine the dimensions of this scale. Results revealed that this scale represents a unidimensional construct that is highly correlated to other measures of psychological abuse. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Krisen in Familienunternehmen und Unternehmensfamilien Über parallele, interdependente Dynamiken in Familie und Unternehmen

How can the situation of a crisis in the two systems of family and business of a family business be understood and conceptualized? What does a business crisis mean for the members of the business family, especially for those who work there? What kind of mutual influences and irritations do these different, but closely linked social systems of a family business exert on each other? The article explores the field of crises in family business and business families and tries to answer these questions.After a first overview of some accepted concepts a general understanding of the term crisis for family and business in family businesses is developed. Based on the first results of a current research project conducted by the authors, the mutual influences of a business crisis and a family crisis on either family or business are looked at; especially the performance and role(s) of the business family in the crisis of their enterprise are analysed. Finally a model is developed, which serves to describe the parallel and interdependent dynamics of the crises in family and business of a family business.     

Shareholder Primacy and Deontology

This article argues that shareholder primacy cannot be defended on the grounds that there is something special about the position of shareholders that grounds a right to preferential treatment on part of management. The notions of property and contract, traditionally thought to ground such a right, are now widely recognized as incapable of playing that role. This leaves shareholder theorists with two options. They can either abandon the project of arguing for their view on broadly deontological grounds and try to advance consequentialist arguments instead or they can search for other morally relevant properties that could ground shareholder rights. The most sustained argument in the latter vein is Marcoux's attempt to show that the vulnerability of shareholders mandates that managers are their fiduciaries. I show that this argument leads to the unacceptable conclusion that it would be unethical for corporations to make incomplete contracts with nonshareholding stakeholders.     

Hidden Agendas in Beratungs-und Veränderungsprozessen

Consulting and organization development claim to boost the client organization’s efficiency — this official goal is frequently foiled by hidden agendas which are not officially communicated. Hidden functions of consulting are to prove to the management’s legitimacy, to explain the failure of change processes, to strengthen the initator’s position in internal power struggles or to relieve the system from conflict. On the consultants’ side there is a tension between professionalism on one side and the necessity to secure follow-up projects and to sell standard products on the other side. The authors present possible interpretations for such hidden agendas and illustrate them with case studies from their practical experience as consultants.     

Does shareholder protection affect the performance of analysts as a gatekeeper?

This paper investigates the effect of shareholder protection on analysts’ performance. The important corporate governance role analysts can play by monitoring management has largely been ignored in the literature. Using a newly constructed index, we are for the first time able to analyse how changes in shareholder protection over time affect analysts’ performance as a gatekeeper. We find that strengthened shareholder protection improves analysts’ performance as a gatekeeper, i.e. analysts’ ability to reduce information asymmetry improves with strengthened shareholder protection. However, we also find a substitution effect: Strengthened shareholder protection makes analysts’ services less valuable to investors, thereby leading to a reduction in the number of analysts following firms.