Multicultural Identities in a Europe of Regions. The case of Banat County

The county of Banat is situated in the western extremity of Romania, an area where several populations cohabit: Romanians, Germans, Magyars, Serbs, Croats, Jews, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Bohemians, Roma (Gypsies) and Turks. This region is also the site of confessional encounters between Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Calvinists, Jews and Muslims. The society that has developed in Banat from the 18th century onwards is the product of an exchange of opinions and material values. This study examines these phenomena historically and at present, as well as the resulting consequences for intercultur‐ally oriented education today. The paper focuses on the following topics: the past and the present of the multi‐ethnic, multi‐linguistic, and multi‐confessional configuration of the region, social intercourse between the majority and minorities and between minorities, the educational significance of interculturalism in Banat County and in Romania. The paper also suggests ways in which intercultural education might be promoted.     

TAX POLICY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1979–2007

This paper assesses the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality over around three decades, from 1979 to 2007. It applies a new method for decomposing changes in government redistribution into (1) a direct policy effect resulting from policy changes and (2) the effects of changing market incomes. Over the period as a whole, the tax policy changes increased income inequality by pushing up the income share of high‐income earners (the top 20%). (JEL H23, H31, H53, P16)     

A survey on multivariate chi-square distributions and their applications in testing multiple hypotheses

We are concerned with three different types of multivariate chi-square distributions. Their members play important roles as limiting distributions of vectors of test statistics in several applications of multiple hypotheses testing. We explain these applications and consider the computation of multiplicity-adjusted p-values under the respective global hypothesis. By means of numerical examples, we demonstrate how much gain in level exhaustion or, equivalently, power can be achieved with corresponding multivariate multiple tests compared with approaches which are only based on univariate marginal distributions and do not take the dependence structure among the test statistics into account. As a further contribution of independent value, we provide an overview of essentially all analytic formulas for computing multivariate chi-square probabilities of the considered types which are available up to present. These formulas were scattered in the previous literature and are presented here in a unified manner.     

The Role of Statistical Models in the Prediction of Tropical Cyclone Motion

Tropical cyclones (tropical storms, hurricanes, typhoons, etc.) occur over many of the earth's tropical marine areas. Responsibility for tracking and predicting the future course of these storms is assigned to one or more domestic or foreign meteorological services. These services routinely activate a number of statistical and dynamical prediction models as objective guidance preparatory to issuing official forecasts on these storms. In this article, the role of the statistical models in this process is examined.     

Computational and statistical efficiency of semiparametric gls estimators

In this note, we report a dramatic improvement in the computational efficiency of semiparametric generalized least squares(SGLS) estimation. Computation of SGLS estimates no longer presents serious problems with data sets of moderate size. We also correct a numerical error in the standard errors of the SGLS estimates reported in our recent paper in this journal (Horowitz and Neumann, 1987). The corrected standard errors of SGLS are comparable to those we reported for quantile estimates.     

Uncertainty, Contrariness and the Double-bind: Middle Managers' Reactions to Changing Contracts

This article describes the emerging changes in psychological contracts being experienced by British middle managers in relation to their employing organizations, the middle managers' negative reactions to these changes and organizational responses to such negativity. By analysing case studies of 16 organizations, a classification of changes to five elements of the psychological contract are identified: knowledge, motivation, goals and means, role behaviour and ethics. By analysing the semi-structured interviews of 37 middle managers, selected from a much larger database for their obvious negative reactions, a continuum of such reactions is considered: uncertainty, contrariness and double-bind. This consideration leads, then, to suggestions for further research.     

Bericht zur Tagung „Die Jurisprudenz zwischen Verrechtlichung und Rechtsferne der Alltagspraxis“

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Exit behaviour of investment companies: the choice of exit channel

For investment companies, selling a portfolio company represents a critical phase in the investment life cycle. The choice of exit channel (initial public offering, secondary buyout, or trade sale) is of particular importance. This paper analyses factors relevant to exit channel selection, deploying a sample of 1,435 European buyout exits between 1992 and 2010. We differentiate between factors which refer to characteristics of the selling investment company and characteristics of the transaction object. Our analysis yields evidence that the reputation of the selling investment company, syndicate size, quality of the transaction object, as well as partial exit are associated with exit channel type. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the economic context and conditions in the capital markets significantly influence the choice of exit channel.     

Living On Tortoise Time: Alternative Travel as the Pursuit of Lifestyle

This article is an enthnographic account of an alternative bus tour through the American Southwest with the Green Tortoise travel company. In a narrative reconstruction which integrates participant-observation fieldnotes and recollections from other tour participants, I describe and analyze how a leisure journey provides a context for experimenting with alternative forms of social organization. As a mode of alternative travel, the Green Tortoise tour self-consciously situates itself in opposition to the organizing structures typically associated with more conventional forms of mass tourism. The tour described here is modeled on an idealized image of community that emphasizes a notion of resistance to mass tourism through performance, symbol, and spectacle, and centers around the pursuit of lifestyle and identity.     

Managing business portfolios in German companies

This study analyzes the behavior of top managers in managing their firms' business portfolios. A review of the existing literature provides a conceptual framework for a research design combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. Data were collected through interviews with 35 top managers of well-known German business firms and the findings of this study translated into guidelines for managers. The results suggest that successful top managers should be concerned with the social relationships and management processes within the corporate office, as well as with their use of management concepts in managing the business portfolio.