bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A new fine‐grained matte pure tin for semiconductor lead‐frame applications
Authors: Whitlaw Keith , Crosby Jeff , Toben Mike 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo present a new tin plating process which provides deposits having a fine‐grained structure and stable crystal orientation with a combination of properties which are well suited for use as a lead‐free finish on semiconductor lead‐frames.Design/methodology/approachThe new process was designed to produce tin coatings with a deposit grain size ca 20 per cent that of a traditional matte pure tin finish to ensure that the deposit retains good solderability after steam ageing.FindingsThe enhanced solderability from the finer‐grained deposit has been demonstrated and other functionally important deposit properties have been confirmed. A stable single crystal orientation 〈220〉 indicates low whiskering propensity and measurements have confirmed the excellent whisker performance, even without specific whisker‐preventing countermeasures. The deposit has high ductility. Analytical methods are available for all key components to ensure optimum process control. The process has been tested in a continuous production environment for over 12 months with excellent results.Originality/valueThe novel process described in the paper provides tin deposits having a unique combination of properties and with production‐proven capability to be an ideal lead‐free solution as a solderable finish for electronic components.
Economic development and geopolitics: a tale of two regions
Authors: Salih Thamir M. 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss aspects of successful and unsuccessful development experiences in southeast and southwest corners of Asia.Design/methodology/approachIt provides historical background to practices, strategies and policies adopted by policymakers in both of these regions. It identifies factors that a successful development cannot do without.FindingsThe paper concludes that geopolitics can inspire and exploit religion and ethnicity to impede LDCs' development.Originality/valueExamines the process of development from a practical standpoint in two different areas in Asia: first, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea, and, second, Iraq, to identify factors that development cannot be successful without.
Towards a conceptual framework in unitary economics
Authors: Thampapillai Dodo J. , Öhlmer Bo , Tiong Lim Boon 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe object of this paper is to demonstrate that the promotion of altruistic behavior can in fact be regarded as an instrument of public policy.Design/methodology/approachThis objective is achieved by adapting the standard theory of consumer behavior in microeconomics to the context of an individual who is exposed to the pursuit of altruistic and self‐fulfilling egoistical goals.FindingsThe conceptualization permits the distinction between types of welfare benefits that emerge from the pursuit of these different goals and demonstrate the presence of a welfare benefit transformation frontier. The framework permits the evaluation of policy instruments such as tax incentives and legislations to promote altruistic behavior.Originality/valueThe paper combines concepts in behavioral economics with those in standard microeconomics to demonstrate policy measures that are usually not considered within policy circles.
Historical pattern of India's economic growth: salient features
Authors: Roy K.C. 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis paper aims to present a review of the main features of India's economic growth and human development during nearly 50 years of India's planned development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines all major aspects of India's growth such as growth in net total national product and per capita product, changes in the production and occupational structure resulting from growth, changes in government revenue, infrastructure and social services, in income distribution and in poverty.FindingsAlthough the growth was uneven and low up to 1980, the country recorded a reasonable and steady improvement in most aspects of growth. Nevertheless the effects of growth have not produced better results in poverty alleviation.Originality/valueReviews the main features of India's economic growth and human development.
Exposure to pesticides, ill‐health and averting behaviour: costs and determining the relationships
Authors: Wilson Clevo 
Published: January 2007

PurposeFarmers' exposure to pesticides is high in developing countries. As a result many farmers suffer from ill‐health, both short and long term. Deaths are not uncommon. Seeks to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachField survey data from Sri Lanka are used to estimate farmers' expenditure on defensive behaviour (DE) and to determine factors that influence DE. The avertive behaviour approach is used to estimate the costs. Tobit regression analysis is used to determine factors that influence DE.FindingsField survey data show that farmers' expenditures on DE are low. This is inversely related to high incidence of ill health among farmers using pesticides.Originality/valueThe results of this study are useful, not only for Sri Lanka, but also for many countries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America in reducing the current high levels of direct exposure to pesticides among farmers and farm workers using hand sprayers. Farmers' exposure to pesticides is a major occupational health hazard in these countries.
Sustainable development and environmental accounting: the challenge to the economics and accounting profession
Authors: Herath Gamini 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of natural resources accounting in sustainable development. Natural resource accounting is important because the welfare of a nation measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) has several weaknesses.Design/methodology/approachThis paper achieves this objective by identifying the present status, the constraints and the challenges for the economics and accounting professions.FindingsThe main weakness of GDP as a measure of development is that it does not take into account damages to environmental resources. However, the improvement of the concept to include environmental resource use is made difficult because of the difficulties of measuring environmental damage. The challenge to the economics and accounting profession is to ensure interdisciplinary collaboration, development of a framework to explicitly include the environment, development of credible valuation procedures for the environment, and inclusion of the various ethical positions advanced by various groups on the value of the environment.Practical implicationsSome headway has been made on these issues during the last decade but a major challenge still lies ahead in further improving these approaches so that sustainable development becomes an achievable goal.Originality/valueThis paper brings together diverse views and fusing them together providing a future path for research in environmental accounting to achieve sustainable development.
“The Captain”: the travelogues and twisted science of Thorstein Veblen
Authors: Giacomo Preparata Guido 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThorstein Veblen, though recognized as a “classic” author, has been since his death in 1929 virtually ignored by the public (academic and otherwise). In light of the fact that he may possibly have been the most important social scientist of the modern era, such neglect is a shame that needs to be erased. This article, a conceptual paper, aims to focus on the particular philosophical view that supports the whole edifice of Veblen's social frescoes.Design/methodology/approachThe article argues that the extraordinary tenor of Veblen's economic investigation stems from a semi‐hidden fascination of the author with “occult agencies,” that is, with the invisible realms of idolatry, devout belief, and national “genius.”FindingsVeblen, the article maintains, is the first modern, unconfessed, explorer of the spiritual world, whose uncharted domains he mapped for laying the foundations of economic analysis. A radical, unique turn in the history of thought, whose effects, however, have suffered the most profound incomprehension owing to a certain queerness of style: this strangeness was the tormented combination of Veblen's confessed atheism with his instinctive draw towards the praeternatural.Originality/valueThis fundamental question surrounding the inner mechanics of Veblen's beautiful political economy – the only social scientist Einstein would read – is presented coherently in this article for the first time.
Veblen and globalization: a comment on Wellington and Zandvakili
Authors: McCormick Ken 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to examine the claim made by Wellington and Zandvakili that Thorstein Veblen would be opposed to globalization.Design/methodology/approachThe approach of the paper is to examine what Veblen actually said in order to provide evidence from Veblen's own pen.FindingsVeblen forcefully argued that trade barriers are another form of business sabotage. Trade barriers increase business profits but harm the community as a whole. That is because trade barriers inhibit specialization, and specialization is required for technological progress. Trade barriers therefore impede progress from the standpoint of humanity as a whole.Practical implicationsNational boundaries impede technological development because they reduce specialization. Trade barriers make the problem worse, and therefore are harmful. Trade barriers help business at the expense of the general public.Originality/valueThe paper offers an argument for reducing trade barriers that is not derived from neoclassical economics. It should be of interest to anyone interested in the debate about globalization as well as those interested in Thorstein Veblen.
Russian attitudes toward paying taxes – before, during, and after the transition
Authors: Alm James , Martinez‐Vazque Jorge , Torgler Benno 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis paper examines citizens' attitudes toward paying taxes – what is sometimes termed their “tax morale” or the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes – focusing on the experience of individuals in the Russian Federation before, during, and after the transition from a planned socialist economy to a market‐based economy.Design/methodology/approachMicro‐level data for Russia from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey for the years 1991, 1995, and 1999 are used to estimate the determinants of individuals' attitudes toward paying taxes. The data also allow the examination of the evolution of tax morale in the regions of Russia.FindingsThe estimation results show decay in tax morale in the first four years of the transition, and a small recovery in 1999. Significant regional differences in tax morale are also found.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are consistent with the relevance of social norms in tax compliance, where the widespread perception of tax evasion and of a corrupt and inefficient state led initially to a decline of tax morale. The results also indicate that the restoration of a higher level of trust in the state, after some progress in the transition to a market economy, positively influenced tax morale.Practical implicationsThe results suggest, once tax morale is crowded out, it is difficult for government to raise tax morale very quickly back to previous levels. Doing so requires designing tax systems, tax administrations, and government structures that inspire trust and pride in governmental and legal institutions.Originality/valueA unique aspect of the analysis is the ability to study tax morale at the individual level before (1991), during (1995), and shortly after (1999) the Russian transition.
Goods and persons, reasons and responsibilities
Authors: Gasper Des 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present exploration of themes that interconnect six studies in environmentally and socially sustainable human development.Design/methodology/approachThe article presents an overview of the papers included in this special issue.FindingsAs humanity threatens to undermine its habitat, a social economics returns to core concepts and themes that became expunged from neoclassical economics: serious examination of persons, seen as more than given points of desire; a broadened perspective on types of good, including a non‐neoclassical conception of public goods as publicly deliberated priority goods that are not well managed through free markets and “common goods” as shared bases vital for everyone; study of what commodities and goods do to and for people; a central role for public reasoning about which are public priority goods, rather than using only a technical definition of a public good; an acceptance of notions of ethical responsibility and responsibilities concerning the provision and maintenance of public priority goods determined through public reasoning; and attention to institutional formats for such deliberation. Amongst the greatest of public priority “goods” are the concepts of common good and responsibility.Research limitations/ImplicationsThe findings reinforce the agenda of socio‐economics for central attention to the mutual conditioning of economy, society, polity, and environment, including analysis of the sociocultural formation of economic actors and of ideas of “common good”.Originality/valueCross‐fertilization of theorization with cases from Costa Rica, Kenya, Nepal, Thailand, Rwanda, sub‐Saharan Africa and global arenas.
Public goods, global public goods and the common good
Authors: Deneulin Séverine , Townsend Nicholas 
Published: January 2007

PurposePublic economics has recently introduced the concept of global public goods as a new category of public goods whose provision is central for promoting the well‐being of individuals in today's globalized world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which introducing this new concept in international development is helpful for understanding human well‐being enhancement.Design/methodology/approachThe paper considers some implications of the concept of the common good for international development.FindingsThe concept of global public goods could be more effective if the conception of well‐being it assumes is broadened beyond the individual level. “Living well” or the “good life” does not dwell in individual lives only, but also in the lives of the communities which human beings form. A successful provision of global public goods depends on this recognition that the “good life” of the communities that people form is a constitutive component of the “good life” of individual human beings.Originality/valueThe paper suggests that the rediscovery of the concept of the common good, and identification of how to nurture it, constitute one of the major tasks for development theory and policy.
Destabilising identity structures
Authors: Ballet Jérôme , Mahieu François‐Régis , Radja Katia 
Published: January 2007

PurposeTo analyze the impact of policy on people's identities, and the conflicts which can result from this.Design/methodology/approachThe case of the Rwanda genocide is used to examine identity disturbances related to policies.FindingsIdentity adjustments generated by policies can have devastating effects such as genocide. This raises the issue of national decision makers' responsibilities as well as those of the international institutions advocating and enforcing such policies.Research limitations/implicationsThis study implies that we need to consider the impacts of policies on people's identities and to extend such empirical research.Practical implicationsThe issue of institutions' responsibilities must be discussed, for both national and international institutions; and a precautionary principle in decision making must be set for expert advisors.Originality/valueThe paper addresses the links between economic policies and their effects on individual identity, an area which has not yet been examined in economic studies.
Mean‐variance analysis with REITs in mixed asset portfolios
Authors: Waggle Doug , Moon Gisung 
Published: January 2007

PurposeAims to test to determine whether the selection of the historical return time interval (monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual) used for calculating real estate investment trust (REIT) returns has a significant effect on optimal portfolio allocations.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mean‐variance utility function, optimal allocations to portfolios of stocks, bonds, bills, and REITs across different levels of assumed investor risk aversion are calculated. The average historical returns, standard deviations, and correlations (assuming different time intervals) of the various asset classes are used as mean‐variance inputs. Results are also compared using more recent data, since 1988, with, data from the full REIT history, which goes back to 1972.FindingsUsing the more recent REIT datarather than the full dataset results in optimal allocations to REITs that are considerably higher. Likewise, using monthly and quarterly returns tends to understate the variability of REITs and leads to higher portfolio allocations.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are based on the limited historical return data that are currently available for REITs. The results of future time periods may not prove to be consistent with the findings.Practical implicationsNumerous research papers arbitrarily decide to employ monthly or quarterly returns in their analyses to increase the number of REIT observations they have available. These shorter interval returns are generally annualized. This paper addresses the consequences of those decisions.Originality/valueIt has been shown that the decision to use return estimation intervals shorter than a year does have dramatic consequences on the results obtained and, therefore, must be carefully considered and justified.
REIT capital structure: is it market imposed?
Authors: Casey K. Michael , Sumner Glenna 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThis study sets out to focus on the identification of determinants of real estate limited partnership (REIT) capital structure from a market perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses ordinary least squares regression to test whether REIT capital structure is impacted by various market variables.FindingsThe findings indicate that investors do appear to be attracted to specific debt characteristics of REITs or, simply put, REIT capital structure is influenced by market factors. REIT debt levels appear to be directly influenced by the price‐to‐book ratio and are inversely related to the percentage of institutional ownership and price‐to‐cash flow. Forecast growth rates do not appear to significantly influence debt while the type of REIT (mortgage, retail, etc.) does appear to influence the level of debt.Research limitations/implicationsSmall sample size limits applicability of results, so further research with larger datasets is appropriate.Practical implicationsInvestors do appear to consider capital structure when purchasing REITs. REIT managers should consider this when determining whether to incur additional debt.Originality/valueThe determination of various market factors linked to REIT capital structure.
Dividend behaviour of Indian companies under monetary policy restrictions
Authors: Pandey I.M. 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe dividend payout behaviour of firms is a well‐studied subject in finance. In recent times, the influence of macro economic factors and understanding their implications far corporate financial decisions has assumed significant importance. The objective of this paper is to study the dividend payout behaviour of firms in India under monetary policy restrictions. Monetary policy restrictions are expected to affect the availability and cost of external fund relative to internal funds. The hypothesis is that during monetary policy restrictions the dividend payout policy changes and payouts reduce.Design/methodology/approachThe Lintner framework is extended to examine the impact of these restrictions on the dividend payout. Balanced panel data of 571 firms for years are used, from 1989 to 1997 together with, the GMM estimator, which is the most suitable methodology in a dynamic setting.FindingsThe results show that Indian firms have lower target ratios and higher adjustment factors. The finding suggests that the restricted monetary policies have a significant influence on the dividend payout behaviour of Indian firms; they cause about a 5‐6 per cent reduction in the payout ratios.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this paper suggest that macro‐economic policies do have an impact on corporate financing decisions. The future research should examine the impact of various other macro‐economic policies and its components on the corporate financing decisions of firms.Practical implicationsThe significance of the macro economic policy variables suggests that monetary policy restrictions do have an impact on the cost of raising funds, and the information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers increases, which forces companies to reduce their dividend payout.Orginality/valueTo one's knowledge this is the first study providing evidence of the restricted monetary policy constraining the dividend payout policies of firms in India.
Managerial opportunism and proportional corporate payout policies
Authors: Douglas Alan V. 
Published: January 2007

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative preference for dividends vs share repurchases based on managers’ personal wealth and control benefits.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents an analytical model of managerial preferences and information advantages, and analyses how the choice between dividends and repurchases relates to the manager's personal objectives in this setting. The approach specifies preferences consistent with the agency theory of economics.FindingsIt is found that, when managers can influence share price prior to a repurchase, due to their superior information, repurchases present an opportunity to increase managerial wealth relative to dividends. In addition, if managers can influence the post‐repurchase share price, due to an upward sloping supply curve for the company's stock, repurchases present an opportunity to protect the managers’ personal benefits of control. The ability to protect control depends on the toehold purchased by potential acquirers, and on the source of the upward‐sloping supply. Repurchases are less protective when toeholds are small and the supply curve reflects tax lock‐in effects.Practical implicationsThe results indicate that managerial concerns over their personal wealth or ability to maintain control of the firm can influence the method of corporate distributions. As such, market valuations and the market reaction to distribution announcements may reflect these managerial concerns. This could be an important determinant of investor stock choices.Originality/valueThe factors determining firms’ payout methods remains a topic of significant importance and debate. The method of analysis here is new, and the insights into managerial preferences, toeholds and payout decisions help to inform this debate.