The management of timber and related industries in Sweden

Timber is a major raw material in Sweden and legislation mostly concerned with the continued viability of the industry has been enacted. Interesting organisation structures to deal with varying circumstances have evolved.     

Investment and the Swedish economy

The causes of the high rate of investment in the Swedish economy are discussed with particular emphasis on the relevance of restructuring; however, restructuring may be more difficult in future. The source of funds and the function of the Investment Bank are described and the debate on the scale of future investment is summarised.     

Conspiracy to corrupt public morals and the ‘unlawful’ status of homosexuality in Britain after 1967

The common law offence of conspiracy to corrupt public morals has a long though controversial history in English law. It was a charge mainly employed against obscenity, procuring prostitution, keeping a disorderly house, public indecency and public mischief. These could be interpreted by the courts as facets of a single offence known as conspiracy to corrupt public morals. The charge was used intermittently in the twentieth century, mainly against the arrangement of prostitution and ‘disorderly houses’ used by homosexual men. It was applied again in 1960 in the Ladies Directory case and was subsequently used against gay men who advertised for friends and partners in the underground magazine International Times (IT). The prosecution of IT was based on the legal principle that certain forms of ‘outrageously immoral’ conduct were in themselves corrupting of public morals, whether such conduct was legal or not. This principle placed male homosexuality in the legal category of ‘unlawful’ or ‘wrongful’ acts. In that sense, even after the decriminalization of homosexuality between men in 1967, it still had an uncertain legal status. Conspiracy to corrupt public morals cast a shadow over early attempts to create a gay civil society that was partly based on magazines and personal advertising. For conservative critics of the 1967 Act, conspiracy charges had the useful effect of curtailing public expressions of homosexuality.     

Subjective probability in forecasting

Practical examples of the use of subjective probability in forecasting are rare in the literature, yet in long term forecasting there is a large subjective element in choosing between alternatives. The paper indicates the background to the preparation of such a forecast in the whisky industry and discusses the benefits to be derived from a quantitative assessment with due emphasis on the recognition of the subjective nature of the quantification.     

The financial crisis,investor activists and corporate strategy: will this mean shareholders in the boardroom?

The concept of stakeholder engagement is gaining increasing attention in the mainstream media and may feature as part of a corporation’s strategy for corporate social responsibility. Not only are boards considering how they might engage with key stakeholders, but stakeholders are also pursuing greater participation in the strategic decisions of companies in which they invest. While this is an emerging concept in companies governed by unitary boards, as in North America, the issue of stakeholder engagement in various forms is also entering debate in other countries around the world. In general, however, the idea of shareholder or stakeholder representation on the boards of most UK and Commonwealth companies is anathema. Forces now influencing the development of strategies for stakeholder engagement and the rise of active investors include changing corporate governance rules which give investors more power in the election of directors, the increasing role of pension plans and hedge fund investment groups which have produced investors who keep a close eye on company performance and value, and a sluggish or turbulent stock market as a result of the financial crisis initiated by the credit crunch in the sub-prime mortgage markets. In this paper the phenomenon of stakeholder representation is examined and results of a recent survey conducted among a large sample of New Zealand directors are presented. The findings suggest that these traditionally oriented boards are increasingly inwardly focused and are without an agenda for building and managing shareholder and stakeholder relations. Accordingly, such boards are unlikely to regard stakeholder engagement as a serious strategic issue and are thus also likely to miss significant opportunities in the changed business environment to benefit from stakeholder support.     

The malthusian theory in pre-civil War America

Abstract Malthusian pessimism was singled out as the most vulnerable expression of the dominant, classical school of economics. Boston idealists, who saw the Malthusian concept as 'a curb to all reform', searched for a rebuttal in the study of institutional economics. The Pennsylvania protectionists, centred about Henry C. Carey, attacked the Malthusian concept as a barrier to the proposed 'American system' which was designed to increase population densities by promoting industrial growth. The fusion of these two schools of thought with the Free Soil elements in the Republican party brought about what many at the time considered a decisive defeat of the Malthusian philosophy in America. Clearly this was not so, for Malthus was never more popular than in post-Civil War America. Why this was so is the subject of this paper. There are various possibilities: The growing influence of Spencer, Mill and Darwin was certainly a factor, and four years of civil bloodshed appear to have reconciled many to the tragic view of life found in the Malthusian concept. Also, the wagefund doctrine was widely accepted during this period of industrial growth. Whatever the reasons, Malthus again proved his curious vitality after being buried by his enemies.