bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Exchange rate policy during transition to the European Monetary Union: The option of euroization
Authors: Coricelli Fabrizio
Published: March 2003

Countries of central eastern Europe which are candidates for accession to the European Union face fundamental challenges in the conduct of macroeconomic policies. These countries are characterized by growth rates faster than those of EU countries, along with large current account deficits and an equilibrium appreciation of the real exchange rate. In such a context, an early adoption of the euro may be beneficial to central eastern European countries, while the ERM‐II system and the Maastricht criterion on inflation may give rise to serious drawbacks for candidate countries.

JEL classification: F15, F41
Should Estonia euroize?
Authors: Sulling Anne
Published: March 2003

Estonia has been operating a currency board arrangement tied to the deutschemark, now the euro, since 1992. Optimal currency area considerations, policy orientation and the flexibility of prices and wages in Estonia support a case for monetary union with the eurozone. But the European Union requires Estonia to wait until EU accession and subsequent Eurosystem accession before it can adopt the euro. In the meanwhile, gains expected from euroization — lower and more stable interest rates, lower transactions costs in trade and increased transparency, all of which would promote trade, investments and economic growth — would be forgone. In this context, the paper raises the question, should Estonia go ahead and euroize now?

JEL classification: E42, E58, F33.
The World Price of Foreign Exchange Risk: Some Synthetic Comments
Authors: Solnik Bruno
Published: March 2003

International asset pricing requires to take into account currency risk. Equilibrium models of the international capital market show that risk premia should be associated with currency risks. This is supported by empirical evidence. This paper reviews the existing theoretical and empirical literature and discusses their practical implications.
Scrip Dividends: the Management's View
Authors: Lasfer M. Ameziane
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the motivation underlying the payment of scrip dividends through a questionnaire survey conducted among a sample of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange that offered their shareholders this option, and a control sample of firms that paid only cash dividends. The results show that the overwhelming majority of the respondents from both groups feel that the scrip dividend option is driven by the current and/or potential high irrecoverable advanced corporation tax but the proposition that this option is a substitute for external finance or a cut in cash dividends is strongly rejected. Managers feel that, although the scrip dividend option allows small shareholders to increase their holdings without incurring transaction costs, it is not intended to convey information that will lead to a rise in the share price. Furthermore, the results reveal that the decision between offering this option or paying only cash dividends is substantially affected by shareholders’ pressure, suggesting that firms in the UK are subject to direct shareholder monitoring.
Interest Rate Risk Management in Major Finnish Firms
Authors: Hakkarainen Antti , Kasanen Eero , Puttonen Vesa
Published: March 2003

The interest rate policies of Finnish firms appear risk aversive, but hedging decisions are influenced by market view. Managers find they can forecast trends in interest rate development, and employ the forecasts in the choice of debt and hedging instruments. The use of risk assessment methods and hedging instruments are related to firm size but not to leverage. Most frequently employed hedging instruments are interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements. The respondents find their firms' interest rate risk management is successful, but performance is seldom measured against an explicitly defined benchmark.
Forecasting the Correlation Structure of German Stock Returns: A Test of Firm‐Specific Factor Models
Authors: Steiner Manfred , Wallmeier Martin
Published: March 2003

This paper evaluates the performance of various factor models with firm‐specific variables in forecasting correlation matrices at the German stock market. We investigate forecasts of correlations for a comprehensive sample and a sample of blue chips and analyse the impact of stock market crashes on the forecasting accuracy. Our empirical results show that the multi‐factor models do not generally produce better forecasts than ‘naive’ models. Specifically, the traditional industry mean model significantly outperforms all other techniques in most of the time periods.
The Valuation of Interest Rate Digital Options and Range Notes Revisited
Authors: Navatte Patrick , Quittard‐Pinon François
Published: March 2003

The aim of this paper is to value interest rate structured products in a simpler and more intuitive way than Turnbull (1995). Considering some assumptions with respect to the evolution of the term structure of interest rates, the price of a European interest rate digital call option is given. Recall it is a contract designed to pay one dollar at maturity if a reference interest rate is above a prespecified level (the strike), and zero in all the others cases. Combining two options of this type enables us to value a European range digital option. Then using a one factor linear gaussian model and the new well‐known change of numeraire approach, a closed‐form formula is found to value range notes which pay at the end of each defined period, a sum equal to a prespecified interest rate times the number of days the reference interest rate lies inside a corridor.
A theoretical analysis of alternative approaches to financial regulation
Authors: Paris Francesco M.
Published: March 2003

This paper studies alternative regulatory approaches within the framework of intermediaries’ capital requirements, one of the cornerstones of modern financial regulation. The basic assumptions are that the intermediary’s capital is valued as a down‐and‐out call option written on its own assets and that the optimal capital requirement is the one minimizing the total expected social costs. The analysis discusses the total expected costs’ function within three alternative regulatory contexts and allows for a comparison of alternative approaches formalized by a set of five fundamental propositions explaining the impact of the regulatory choice on critical aspects such as the intermediary’s capital size and riskiness, his/her assets’ choice, the competition among either different intermediaries or different functions and, last but not least, the intermediary’s operational structure.
The information content of implied volatility, skewness and kurtosis: empirical evidence from long‐term CAC 40 options
Authors: Navatte Patrick , Villa Christophe
Published: March 2003

Implied standard deviation is widely believed to be the best available forecast of the volatility of returns over the remaining contract life (Jorion, 1995). In this paper, we take this result two steps further to the higher moments of the distribution (skewness and kurtosis) based on a Gram–Charlier series expansion of the normal distribution (Corrado and Su, 1996) using long‐term CAC 40 option prices contract, named PXL. First, we found that implied first moments contain a substantial amount of information for future moments of CAC 40 returns although this amount decreases with respect to the moment’s order. Secondly, we found that the different shapes of the volatility smile are consistent with different distribution of the underlying returns. Based on these results, we also observed that including other implied moments significantly improves the out‐of‐sample pricing performance of the Black–Scholes, (1973) model.
The Emerging Role of the European Commission in Merger and Acquisition Monitoring: The Boeing–McDonnell Douglas Case
Authors: Aktas Nihat , De Bodt Eric , Levasseur Michel , Schmitt André
Published: March 2003

The object of this study is to evaluate the consequences of the application of the EEC Regulation 4064/89 to non–European companies. We focus on the Boeing–McDonnell Douglas merger case, one of the first non–European mergers considered by the Commission. The analysis of abnormal returns on the two securities shows that the threat of a ban of the merger by the Commission were not perceived as credible at first. But when Boeing decided to ask the support of the American government, just after the decision of the European Commission to extend its investigations to the long term exclusivity contracts, the role of the Commission emerged.
Planning Your Own Debt
Authors: Nielsen Søren , Poulsen Rolf
Published: March 2003

We model the Danish market for mortgage backed securities with a two‐factor interest rate model and use a stochastic programming approach to analyse how an individual home‐owner should initially compose and subsequently readjust his mortgage in an optimal way. Results show that the ‘rules of thumb’ used by financial institutions are reasonable, although best suited for more aggressive mortgagors, for whom the delivery option is of some value. More risk‐averse investors should also re‐adjust frequently, but use more diversified portfolios. Results are insensitive to whether a one‐ or two‐factor model is used, provided the former is suitably calibrated.
The Rule‐Following Considerations and Metaethics: Some False Moves
Authors: Lang Gerald
Published: March 2003

In a series of influential papers, John McDowell has argued that the rule‐following considerations explored in Wittgenstein’s later work provide support for a particularist form of moral objectivity. The article distinguishes three such arguments in McDowell’s writings, labelled the Anthropocentricism Argument, the Shapelessness Argument, and the Anti‐Humean Argument, respectively, and the author disputes the effectiveness of each of them. As far as these metaethical debates are concerned, the article concludes that the rule‐following considerations leave everything in their place.
The Treaty of Amsterdam: Challenges of Flexibility and Legitimacy
Authors: Shaw Jo
Published: March 2003

The paper reviews key aspects of the new constitutional framework for the European Union, once the Treaty of Amsterdam has been ratified, in the light of the core challenges of managing flexible integration in an enlarged Union and securing adequate legitimacy for the integration project. Reviewing briefly the general debates on flexibility, and its relationship to different constitutional and political futures for the Union which are suggested by those involved in the debates, the paper examines the principal provisions governing what is termed ‘closer cooperation’ within the new Union treaties. The emphasis is placed on the framework provisions of the TEU, and those in the First Pillar. It is noticeable that the Treaty takes a ‘non‐ideological’ approach to flexibility, eschewing direct support for those who interpret flexibility as meaning more or less integration in the future. It provides a framework for future cooperation which is likely to be too restrictive to be workable, except in very limited circumstances. However, particular instances of flexibility are provided in the Treaty, in the form of the opt‐outs from the new free movement title and the communitarisation of Schengen for the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, and some might even describe these as ‘pick‐and‐choose’. The paper concludes by reviewing the flexibility debate against the background of the ongoing legitimacy challenge for the Union, arguing that, as currently conceived, flexibility is more to do with balancing political interests than with securing or enhancing legitimacy.
Sex Equality Law After Kalanke and Marschall
Authors: Schiek Dagmar
Published: March 2003

In Marschall, the ECJ looked for the second time into the admissibility of positive action in German public services; a third reference on this issue is still pending. Despite the Court’s positive response to the ‘women’s quota’ in Marschall, its application in Germany remains controversial. This article tries to shed some light on the specific conditions under which women’s quotas were implemented in Germany and on the different approaches to anti‐discrimination, indirect discrimination law and structural discrimination, which underlie efforts to justify women’s quotas against equality standards derived from EC Law.
Understanding the New Forms of Governance: Mutually Interdependent, Reflexive, Destabilised and Competing Institutions
Authors: Sand Inger‐Johanne
Published: March 2003

Fundamental changes in the functions of law and politics, new forms of governance, and the bases of the legitimacy of contemporary EU institutions, herald the end of ‘state’ monopolies. The dynamics and relations of supranational and national institutions which we are now witnessing, represent qualitatively new patterns and clusters of communications, interaction and competition. The emerging EU constitutional framework is continually being interpreted and negotiated by numerous participating parties. Functional and mutual interdependence has replaced hierarchy as the primary institutional relationship, thus enhancing further the importance of the treaties and leading to an increased politicisation of law. Sovereignty has dissolved into multiple paths of procedures and combinations of institutions. Science and knowledge‐based discourses have generally invaded regulation, with the result that lawyers need to pay increasing attention to transparency, freedom of information, and the establishment of structures which are relatively autonomous from both state and market. The EU is best conceived of as consisting of mutually interdependent, reflexive, destabilised and competing institutions.
The Embedded Acquis Communautaire: Transmission Belt and Prism of New Governance
Authors: Wiener Antje
Published: March 2003

The European Union offers crucial insights into the gradual shift from a Weberian form of modern ‘government’ towards the institutionalisation of post‐Weberian ‘governance’. The article argues that the emerging ‘polity of polities’ context, not only threatens the constitutional basis of democratic rule but also raises the questions of what exactly the new institutions of governance beyond the nation‐state are, and what they imply for the functioning (rules of the game) and legitimacy (democratic processes) of the political order. In an effort to elaborate on these questions, the article develops two themes. First, it raises critical questions about the conceptual boundedness of ‘governance’ in the discussion of constitutional and policy studies within the field of European integration. Secondly, it advances a methodological access point for the study of the institutionalisation of governance in the Euro‐polity. It suggests situating the legal concept of acquis communautaire at the boundary of legal studies and politics. The concept is then applied to a case study of citizenship policy in the EU to demonstrate how the acquis communautaire–more precisely, the ‘embedded acquis communautaire’–facilitates methodological access to the study of the institutionalisation of governance beyond the state and despite states.
Beyond Constitutionalism: The Search for a European Political Imagination
Authors: Ward Ian
Published: March 2003

Two recent books, Joseph Weiler's The Constitution of Europe and Larry Siedentop's Democracy in Europe, seek to address one of the defining issues in contemporary European legal studies; the search for a European public philosophy. Both site their critiques within a particular jurisprudential tradition, the modernist; one that is bound up with anxieties about legitimacy and constitutionalism. This review article suggests that the ‘new’ Europe has been too easily distracted by the lures of constitutionalism, and more particularly by the temptations of Treaties. Public philosophies are not found in Treaty articles. Rather, a public philosophy is a state of mind, a product of the political imagination. And it is the absence of such an imagination which lies at the root of contemporary concerns regarding constitutionalism and legitimacy; the concerns which underpin Weiler's and Siedentop's books. A discussion of these books, in the first two parts of this article, is followed by a discussion of Godfried Wilhelm Leibniz's ‘universal’ jurisprudence. It is suggested that such a jurisprudence is better able to furnish a public philosophy for the ‘new’ Europe; just as, indeed, it was for the ‘old’ Europe. Moreover, such a jurisprudence is far more than a mere theory of laws and constitutions. Leibniz's jurisprudence requires that we think, not merely ‘beyond’ sovereignty, or even beyond democracy, but beyond constitutionalism.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights A Changed Political Opportunity Structure and its Normative Consequences
Authors: Engel Christoph
Published: March 2003

The European Community is about to enlarge its de facto constitution by a fundamental rights charter. It is intended to become legally binding, at least in the long run. If it is, it will profoundly change the political opportunity structure between the Community and its Member States, among the Member States, among the organs of the Community and in relation to outside political actors. When assessing the new opportunities, one has to keep in mind the weak democratic legitimation of European policy making and its multi‐level character. The article sketches the foreseeable effects and draws consequences from these insights for the dogmatics of the new fundamental rights, their relation to (other) primary Community law and to other fundamental rights codes. It ends with a view to open flanks that cannot be closed by the dogmatics of the freedoms themselves, but call for an appropriate design of the institutional framework.
‘Deliberative Supranationalism’—Two Defences
Authors: Joerges Christian
Published: March 2003

This paper responds in its first sections to a series of articles in which Rainer Schmalz‐Bruns developed a concept of legitimate governance beyond the constitutional state, which he called ‘deliberative supranationalism’ and contrasted with what Jürgen Neyer and the present author had suggested under the same title. The Epilogue of the paper first comments on more recent critiques brought forward especially by contributors to this Special Issue of the ELJ and then on the programmatic rejection of comitology by the European Commission’s White Paper on Governance in the EU. Our querelles allemandes were not specifically Teutonic: while Schmalz‐Bruns presented his approach as a systematic elaboration of the theories of deliberative democracy, based, in particular, on recent contributions by Joshua Cohen, Michael Dorf, and Charles Sabel, Jürgen Neyer and I had offered an interpretation of institutional innovations and decision‐making practices as observed in the European market‐building project. This discussion has had precursors and follow‐ups in various contexts, among both lawyers and political scientists. This essay should hence be understood as a contribution to an ongoing debate.
Essential and Non‐essential Measures: Delegation of Powers in EU Securities Regulation
Authors: Avgerinos Yannis V.
Published: March 2003

This article examines the new regulatory process in the regulation of EU securities markets, as proposed by the Wise Men Committee and welcomed by the Council and the Parliament. The new structure involves inter alia the creation of a ‘comitology’ committee and recognises two layers of legislation: essential measures that will be enacted through the normal co‐decision process on the one hand, and more detailed technical and ‘non‐essential’ measures, which will be decided by the new committee and the Commission, on the other. It is believed that the new structure will respond to the need for speed, efficiency and flexibility in securities regulation. However, the starting point for discussion and the decisive question is how one can distinguish between these two levels of legislative measures. Although the Wise Men Committee does not give sufficient guidance on this issue, it is alleged that the success of the proposed regime will heavily depend on the clear definition and distinction between essential and non‐essential measures. The theoretical exercise of this article involves an analysis of the delegation issues arising from the proposal and the identification of some potentially useful guiding principles and criteria derived from primary and secondary Community legislation and case law as well as from inter‐institutional agreements. Its ultimate goal is a proposal for the adoption of common principles, criteria and dividing lines at EU level.
Informal Circles of Ministers: A Way Out of the EU's Institutional Dilemmas?
Authors: Puetter Uwe
Published: March 2003

This contribution argues that the particular relevance of informal circles of ministers lies in their ability to routinise and communise the process of the interpretation of constitutional norms at the intergovernmental level. The informal setting triggers a particular mode of interaction—deliberative intergovernmentalism. In the case of economic policy coordination among the euro–zone countries, which is analysed in this article, this interaction produces common standards for the assessment of the economic situation in the member states and guidelines on appropriate policy responses in particular budgetary and economic situations. In a situation, in which there is growing need for closer policy coordination but European Union member states are reluctant to transfer further decision–making competences to the supranational level, the mediation between diverging interpretations of the rather ‘thin’ formal constitutional norms governing the coordination process is crucial in order to ensure the overall stability of the coordination framework. Informal circles of ministers can therefore be a way out of the current institutional dilemmas arising from the attitude of national governments to move towards new areas of common engagement while being increasingly reluctant to transfer further formal decision–making competences to the supranational level.
Using the CARMEN’s framework to model and acquire knowledge
Authors: Ang James , Tong XueJun
Published: March 2003

The manner in which CARMEN (Constraints And Rules Management ENgine), an operational expert system generator developed as part of the ESPRIT project ITHACA, models and acquires knowledge is discussed. Central to CARMEN are three types of control entities (TASKs, MKSs and BKSs) which are used to describe problem‐solving at the knowledge‐use level. Modeling of domain knowledge is done both at the deep and surface levels. The Integrity Checking Task (or ICT) is used to illustrate the manner in which CARMEN works. We conclude the paper with a comparison of CARMEN with other approaches in knowledge modeling.
Intelligent Scheduling with GUESS (Generically Used Expert Scheduling System): Development and Testing Results
Authors: Liebowitz Jay , Krishnamurthy Vijaya , Rodens Ira , Houston Chapman , Baek Seung , Liebowitz A. , Zeide J. , Potter William J.
Published: March 2003

Scheduling is a prevalent function that is omnipresent throughout many industries and applications (Pinedo, 1995; Morton & Pentico, 1993; Zweben & Fox, 1994; Brown & Scherer, 1995). A great need exists for developing scheduling toolkits that can be generically applied to a number of different scheduling problems. To meet this need, more research is warranted for developing a state‐of‐the‐art generic constraint problem‐solver as related to scheduling. This paper discusses the development and testing of the Generically Used Expert Scheduling System (GUESS).
A Measurement Framework that Supports Evaluation of Knowledge Engineering Products
Authors: Juristo Natalia , Maté Luis , Tovar Edmundo
Published: March 2003

In this paper, we stress the importance of considering evaluation from an overall viewpoint in order to product higher quality Knowledge‐based Systems (KBS), that is, measuring attributes of products generated throughout the entire system life cycle rather than the final system alone. A framework for measuring typical products obtained during the development phases is proposed here. This measurement framework includes the definition of the products and the definition of attributes that characterize these products. The attributes are ordered as a multilevel hierarchy. The aim of the measurement framework proposed is to facilitate the application of measurement plans to KBS, using associated metrics. When building this environment, we sought to unify other work in the field of KBS evaluation.
A connectionist production system which can perform both modus ponens and modus tollens simultaneously
Authors: Asogawa Minoru
Published: March 2003

Modus ponens is used in forward inference and backward inference, where the truth of the conclusion is inferred from the truth of the premise. In modus tollens, the falseness of the premise is inferred from the falseness of the conclusion. Although modus ponens is used in general connectionist production systems, modus tollens is rarely used, except in Quinlan’s proposed INFERNO system and in the system proposed by Thornber. A connectionist production system called ConnPS that can perform both modus ponens and modus tollens simultaneously is described. Compared to the INFERNO system, one of the advantages of ConnPS is its supervised learning ability. The rules and examples given as external knowledge are often erroneous and incomplete. In ConnPS, these rules can be refined by using the supervised learning. Both positive and negative examples are presented to ConnPS, onto which the external rules and observations are mapped. Moreover, ConnPS’s implementations of implications, conjunctions, disjunctions and negation are intuitively consistent with Boolean logic.
A knowledge‐based system for preventive maintenance
Authors: Fonseca Daniel J.
Published: March 2003

This paper presents the development of a knowledge‐based system for the evaluation of industrial equipment in terms of preventive maintenance criticality. A deterministic rating methodology based on the principles of reliability centered maintenance constitutes the logic of the analytical model of the system. The final output generated by the expert system consists of a listing of the pieces of equipment that should receive special consideration for maintenance purposes, along with a description of the possible failure modes arranged by machine component. The system was developed and delivered on an IBM‐compatible personal computer through an object‐oriented computer shell.
Method fragments
Authors: Rugg Gordon , McGeorge Peter , Maiden Neil
Published: March 2003

The traditional unit of analysis in knowledge acquisition and requirements acquisition is the method, e.g. the interview, the repertory grid etc. There are practical and theoretical difficulties with this division. A more useful concept is the method fragment, described in this paper. The method fragment is a discrete component of a method which can be used in one or more methods. The discreteness of method fragments makes it much easier to describe their strengths and weaknesses than is the case with methods, enabling the elicitor to put together a customized method to suit a particular elicitation need. In this paper we outline the concept of method fragments using worked examples, discuss issues raised and make recommendations for further work.
Knowledge Issues Raised in Modelling Trust in a Public Key Infrastructure
Authors: Basden A. , Ball E. , Chadwick D.W.
Published: March 2003

The paper describes a knowledge‐based system for modelling trust in the certification authority (CA) of a public key infrastructure. It was built using a graphical knowledge‐based system toolkit, Istar, that allows the knowledge builder to easily model the important relationships between concepts of the domain. The knowledge base was initially built using published work and was subsequently extended by knowledge obtained from leading public key infrastructure experts. The first prototype system computes the trust in a CA by asking the user a series of questions about the CA's Certification Practice Statement. Examples of its use with two well‐known public CAs is discussed.

An important issue raised and discussed in this paper is how to map symbols in the knowledge base to the knowledge level of human trust and beliefs, for such an ill‐defined area of knowledge as trust, and four main mappings have been identified. Another issue that emerged relates to the use of questionnaires during knowledge acquisition. The expert system is currently available online via the Istar knowledge server, and future work is discussed.
Integrating E‐Business XML Business Forms and Rule‐Based Agent Technologies
Authors: Sedbrook Tod
Published: March 2003

This study investigates the role of extensible mark‐up language (XML) business forms and agent‐based computing to support negotiation, management and implementation of inter‐organization business processes. We explore recently proposed standards for representing artificial agent exchanges through rule‐based inference. An XML representational syntax for standard business forms is developed and applied to augment rule‐based agents. A prototype investigates ways to combine knowledge‐based agents and business forms to assist business and customers in Web‐based conference registration. The implementation helps guide customer decisions and the combination of business forms and rules promotes understandability, testability and adaptability of the registration system.
Executive Agencies within the Scotland Territorial Programme
Authors: Heald David , Geaughan Neal
Published: March 2003

This article supplements the cross‐sectional survey literature by focusing upon a subset of executive agencies which, though highly disparate on many dimensions, share the experience of being part of the command of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Agencies operating within the context of territorial management face markedly different operating environments. In particular, centralised financial control by the territorial department is an essential continuing feature of the public expenditure control system. The characteristics of those activities which have been agencified in Scotland are closely examined, followed by an evaluation of the implications for internal management, external accountability, the reform of the parliamentary system of Supply, and the extension of accruals accounting across central government.
Management Information Needs and Perceptions in Smaller Charities: An Exploratory Study
Authors: Harrow Jenny , Palmer Paul , Vincent Jeremy
Published: March 2003

This article explores the extent and nature of management information needs of trustees, as perceived by selected trustees of smaller charities. It links these perceptions to questions concerning charity performance, drawing on assumptions in the literature (often implicit) that the quality of management information can be gauged. Also, that there is a corresponding link between meeting management information needs and improving organisational performance. The research methodology comprised a general pilot study and trustee survey, followed by accounts analysis and in‐depth interviews in selected charities. From this, vignettes of trustees' perceptions were drawn up and case study accounts of three charities' approach to trusteeship, management information handling strategies, and self‐assessment of performance were developed. The study discovered the existence of an ‘expectations gap’between what charity trustees are supposed to do and what they can actually achieve.
The Financial Accountability of Australia's Medicare System: A Generational Accounting Analysis
Authors: Klumpes Paul J. M.
Published: March 2003

The financial sustainability of publicly funded health care systems is sensitive to the demographics of ageing populations, which have a significant bearing on their financial management, accountability and reporting of their financial performance. This paper examines historical and current trends in demographic structure of Australia's population that are likely to impact on the financial management and accountability practices affecting Australia'suniversal public health care system (‘Medicare’). The pay‐as‐you‐go financed funding status of Medicare as represented under both currently required, cash‐based accounting principles and proposed accrual‐based accounting principles are criticised for not recognising the obligations of the Australian government under Medicare. An alternative system of generational accounting is proposed that projects the financial management costs of Medicare. Data are taken from both historical trends in expenditure and ageing as well as projected demographics. The analysis implies that there is significant intergenerational‐inequity in the funding of Medicare, which is not recognised under accrual‐based accounting principles that are now being used to evaluate the financial accountability and performance of government entities.
Towards a Semiology of the Periodic Review of UK Regulated Utilities
Authors: Cooper Stuart , Crowther David , Carter Chris
Published: March 2003

This note explores the regulatory process of UK privatised utilities through the periodic review of prices. It provides a brief history of the privatisation programme in the UK and the theoretical arguments for the price‐cap regulation that has been used. It argues that regulatory process appears to involve a covert dialogue and exchange of information between the regulator and regulated and also a second separate review process that consists of an overt dialogue. Using a semiotic analysis the authors suggest that the unfolding of each of these overt reviews follows a very similar pattern that is constantly being re‐enacted. It is concluded that further research is required into the relative importance of the two separate review processes in the setting of the price‐cap.
Towards the Harmonisation of Local Accounting Systems in the International Context
Authors: Brusca Isabel , Condor Vincente
Published: March 2003

In recent years efforts to modernise and regulate public accounting systems have been carried out in most countries, driven essentially by the interest in establishing a Public Accounting capable of satisfying the required needs for attaining efficient management of public resources, as well as for demonstrating accountability to stakeholders. In this paper we aim to analyse the degree of local government accounting harmonisation, demonstrating in a general way that their accounting systems show very little homogenisation, accounting diversity being, in fact, one of their principal characteristics. In this context, we refer to the benefits and problems involved in reducing the differences between accounting systems and in increasing the comparability of financial reporting.
Women Readers as Agents of Social Change among Eastern European Jews in the Late Nineteenth Century
Authors: Parush Iris
Published: March 2003

This article draws on autobiographies and memoirs, polemical articles from the contemporary press, and bellestristic literature to illuminate the growth of a female reading public in nineteenth‐century Eastern European Jewish society. The exclusion of women from religious study and the emphasis on women’s responsibility for managing family businesses which characterized traditional Jewish culture created conditions that permitted some women to receive a secular education. Reading canonic literature in European languages and non‐canonic literature in Yiddish, some women became catalysts of socio‐cultural change toward the modernization, Europeanization and secularization of Jewish society.
The Allure of the Nile: Jane Franklin’s Voyage to the Second Cataract, 1834
Authors: Russell Penny
Published: March 2003

When Jane, Lady Franklin, set off on a voyage up the Nile as far as the Second Cataract, she abandoned many of the prescriptions of genteel feminine behaviour. Yet she dreaded social condemnation, and shrank from being thought ‘masculine’. Her diary of the voyage represents her complex negotiation of two alternative identities, as authoritative, imperialist traveller and as self‐conscious, vulnerable lady. These identities were irreconcilable, and the possibility of an alternative was constantly defeated both by Jane Franklin’s cultural prejudices and by her debilitating awareness of herself as object, susceptible to criticism and dependent on admiration.
Whose Body? Recent Historiography Relating to Women, Health and the Medical Profession
Authors: Davies Megan J.
Published: March 2003

Mitchinson, Wendy The Nature of Their Bodies: Women and Their Doctors in Victorian Canada

Vertinsky, Patricia A. The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Exercise, and Doctors in the Late Nineteenth Century

Borst, Charlotte, G. Catching Babies: The Professionalization of Childbirth, 1870–1920

Apple, Rima, D. (ed.) Women, Health and Medicine in America: A Historical Handbook

Rothman, Sheila Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History
Gendered Religions
Authors: Clark Gillian
Published: March 2003

Brooten, Bernadette Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism

Cooper, Kate The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity

Sawyer, Deborah F. Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries
Down to Now: Memory, Narrative, and Women's Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta, Georgia
Authors: Nasstrom Kathryn L.
Published: March 2003

This paper is a case study of African‐American women’s leadership. It documents women’s involvement in a voter registration drive in 1946 and traces the develop‐ment of an ‘official history’ of that event that emerged in the ensuing decades. This narrative shifted emphasis from the organising leadership that both women and men exhibited to a form of leadership – success in electoral politics – that pertained almost exclusively to men. Concluding remarks address the relevance of memory and narrative for writing the history of women’s leadership.
Picturing Feminism, Selling Liberalism: The Case of the Disappearing Holbein
Authors: Bailkin Jordanna
Published: March 2003

Responding to recent scholarly and activist discussions of the public museum as a site of anti‐feminism, this article examines the historical development of ‘feminist museology’ in Britain. Focusing on the mystery and controversies surrounding an anonymous woman’s gift of Hans Holbein’s Christina of Denmark to the National Gallery in 1909, this study investigates the dynamic of art, gender, and citizenship during the prewar Liberal crisis. The Holbein debates marked an important shift in the institutional status of feminism and the gendered parameters of cultural property, and offer a new perspective on our own practices of heritage and patrimony.
Female Petitioners in the Papal Penitentiary
Authors: Schmugge Ludwig
Published: March 2003

Historians do not consider the Vatican Archives to be of major interest to gender studies, especially as regards the history of women. In general this is quite true; not so, however, for the registers of the papal Penitentiary, the central office of the medieval Church for licences, dispensations and absolutions for lay people, clerics, monks and nuns alike. Drawing on the tens of thousands of supplications submitted to, and registered by, the Penitentiary, this article discusses cases concerning female petitioners, such as illegitimate birth, runaway nuns, forced entry into religious orders, matrimonial dispensations, forced marriages etc.
Class, Place, and Gender: Contested Industrial and Domestic Space in Kohler, Wisconsin, USA, 1920–1960
Authors: Oberdeck Kathryn J.
Published: March 2003

The Kohler company, a family‐owned plumbing manufactory in Wisconsin, USA, known for the ‘garden industrial village’ erected for its workers during the 1910s, managed class relations through a gendered spatial arrangement of its model town. In the 1930s and 1950s, unionists striking at the plant responded by articulating their class alliances within and outside the town in spatial terms that revised the meaning of the place. In the process, the Kohler unions also necessarily refigured domestic space in ways that challenged the company's mapping of domesticity in the 1930s, but they drew back from such challenges in the 1950s.
‘A Man among Men’: Gender, Identity and Power in South Africa's Marashea Gangs
Authors: Kynoch Gary
Published: March 2003

This article explores gender and power relations in a South African criminal society through an examination of the legend surrounding a prominent leader. Tseule Tsilo achieved a degree of notoriety in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Tsilo's legend lives on in the lore of the Marashea, the criminal organisation to which he belonged. However, rather than being embraced by the entire Marashea, Tsilo is a hero only to men. The legend was created, and is sustained, by men and for men, a discursive development that mirrors the gendered nature of power within the Marashea.
Eliza’s Babes: Poetry ‘Proceeding from Divinity’ in Seventeenth–Century England
Authors: Longfellow Erica
Published: March 2003

This article examines the poetry and prose meditations in the anonymous 1652 volume Eliza’s Babes: or The Virgins–offering. The article begins by reconsidering Liam Semler’s recent assertion that Eliza was a Parliamentarian and religiously radical, arguing instead that she was a centrist, loyalist Protestant. The article then examines the handbooks to devotion and meditation from this loyalist tradition that helped define Eliza’s understanding of public and private and how these concepts were gendered. In keeping with writers such as Joseph Hall and Daniel Featly, Eliza views her private devotion as on a continuum which leads to public worship, or ‘thanks’ as she terms it. Eliza uses this paradigm of public and private to justify both the printing of her poems and her very unusual theology of marriage, in which she considers Christ her only true husband. The final section of the article considers whether Eliza’s understanding of public and private offers her more ‘freedom’ than other women writers, and concludes that any judgement of her freedom must be carefully calibrated to the religious and political contexts of her book.
Fani Popova–Mutafova
Authors: Daskalova Krassimira
Published: March 2003

The article explores the life and professional activities of Fanny Popova–Mutafova – the most prominent of the few writers of historical fiction in Bulgaria and one of the most prolific and published Bulgarian women authors of the interwar period. Her life spanned two epochs – the ‘bourgeois’ epoch prior to World War II, and that of the communist regime. While she was celebrated as one of the best and most productive writers and intellectuals in Bulgaria before 1944, the communist regime pronounced her ‘a people’s enemy’, held her responsible for ‘Great–Bulgarian chauvinism and fascism’, banned and destroyed her books and ruined her life. The story of her life is embedded in several decades of Bulgarian intellectual life and, besides giving an idea of a woman writer’s existence there at that time, reveals wider sociopolitical and ideological contexts in which various discourses affecting Bulgarian women were articulated.
The Crafting of Care: Rationality, Gender and Social Relations in Educational Decision‐Making
Authors: Marks Deborah
Published: March 2003

This article examines discourses on care and the way they operate within four education case conferences. It examines the multiple subject positions afforded to participants in the meetings, and the constitutive aspects of language associated with discourses on care. The paper covers the following domains. Firstly, caring is explored as a specific form of gendered activity within dominant constructions of the family and organizations in contemporary Western (white, heterosexual) society. Secondly, caring is examined as a relationship and a discursive category rather than as an individual attribute. The implications this has for the participants’ identities and roles in the context of the education case conferences are explored. Thirdly, some examples of the way caring operates in specific case conferences are discussed. I conclude by suggesting that caring is employed by women professionals in the meetings discussed, as a way of mystifying differences. In some instances, it seems to function as a coping rhetorical strategy (see Davis 1994), which places a burden of responsibility onto women professionals and may project failure onto mothers and pupils within the meetings.
Capital Market Integration in Euroland: The Role of Banks
Authors: Buch Claudia M.
Published: March 2003

The introduction of the euro marks a milestone in the process of European financial market integration. This paper analyzes the implications of the euro for cross-border banking activities. A portfolio model is used which captures the role of banks as providers of informational and of risk-diversification services. By eliminating exchange rate risks, the euro enhances the incentives of banks to expand within Euroland. Yet, while the currency bias in bank portfolios will be eliminated, the home bias will remain. Implications of market integration for the risk-taking and the monitoring of banks are not clear-cut.
How the P* Model Rationalizes Monetary Targeting: A Comment on Svensson
Authors: Seitz Franz , Tödter Karl-Heinz
Published: March 2003

In this comment, we answer the question posed in Svensson's (2000) paper `Does the P* Model Provide any Rationale for Monetary Targeting?' - in contrast to him - in the affirmative. We argue that a strategy of monetary targeting can be rationalized within the P* framework. Furthermore, we demonstrate that money growth targeting is a special form of inflation forecast targeting based on a `limited' information set. In contrast to `full information' inflation forecast targeting, monetary growth targeting is likely to be more robust under changing conditions of the real world.
Monetary Policy and Forecasts for Real GDP Growth: An Empirical Investigation for the Federal Republic of Germany
Authors: Kirchgaässner Gebhard , Savioz Marcel
Published: March 2003

Using quarterly data for the Federal Republic of Germany, we generate four-quarter-ahead forecasts for real GDP growth. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, other monetary indicators like real M1 or short-run interest rates clearly outperform forecasts which are based on interest rate spreads. This holds for within as well as for ex-post predictions. The same holds for the development after 1992. Moreover, it is shown that simple forecasts based on M1 or on short-run interest rates outperform the common biannual GNP forecasts of the group of German economic research institutes.
Accident Law: Efficiency May Require an Inefficient Standard
Authors: Goerke Laszlo
Published: March 2003

In a world with risk-neutral agents in which accidents occur with a positive probability, liability rules will only induce efficient behaviour if these rules impose the full (marginal) costs of an action on the parties. However, institutional restrictions or bilateral activity choices can prevent the full internalization of costs. A mechanism is proposed which guarantees an efficient outcome: monetary fines which are not related to the occurrence of an accident. Such a mechanism requires individuals to violate the standard of care in order to trigger the fine payments. Hence, efficiency requires an excessive standard.