Showing papers on "Restructuring published in 2015"

Behavioral CEOs: The Role of Managerial Overconfidence

Abstract: In this paper, we provide a theoretical and empirical framework that allows us to synthesize and assess the burgeoning literature on CEO overconfidence. We also provide novel empirical evidence that overconfidence matters for corporate investment decisions in a framework that explicitly addresses the endogeneity of firms' financing constraints.

The U.S. Electricity Industry After 20 Years of Restructuring

Abstract: Prior to the 1990s, most electricity customers in the US were served by regulated, vertically-integrated, monopoly utilities that handled electricity generation, transmission, local distribution and billing/collections Regulators set retail electricity prices to allow the utility to recover its prudently incurred costs, a process known as cost-of-service regulation During the 1990s, this model was disrupted in many states by "electricity restructuring," a term used to describe legal changes that allowed both non-utility generators to sell electricity to utilities — displacing the utility generation function — and/or "retail service providers" to buy electricity from generators and sell to end-use customers — displacing the utility procurement and billing functions We review the original economic arguments for electricity restructuring, the potential winners and losers from these changes, and what has actually happened in the subsequent years We argue that the greatest political motivation for restructuring was rent shifting, not efficiency improvements, and that this explanation is supported by observed waxing and waning of political enthusiasm for electricity reform While electricity restructuring has brought significant efficiency improvements in generation, it has generally been viewed as a disappointment because the price-reduction promises made by some advocates were based on politically-unsustainable rent transfers In reality, the electricity rate changes since restructuring have been driven more by exogenous factors — such as generation technology advances and natural gas price fluctuations — than by the effects of restructuring We argue that a similar dynamic underpins the current political momentum behind distributed generation (primarily rooftop solar PV) which remains costly from a societal viewpoint, but privately economic due to the rent transfers it enables

The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism

Abstract: The financial and economic collapse that began in the United States in 2008 and spread to the rest of the world continues to burden the global economy. David Kotz, who was one of the few academic economists to predict it, argues that the ongoing economic crisis is not simply the aftermath of financial panic and an unusually severe recession but instead is a structural crisis of neoliberal, or free-market, capitalism. Consequently, continuing stagnation cannot be resolved by policy measures alone. It requires major institutional restructuring. Kotz analyzes the reasons for the rise of free-market ideas, policies, and institutions beginning around 1980. He shows how the neoliberal capitalism that resulted was able to produce a series of long although tepid economic expansions, punctuated by relatively brief recessions, as well as a low rate of inflation. This created the impression of a "Great Moderation." However, the very same factors that promoted long expansions and low inflation-growing inequality, an increasingly risk-seeking financial sector, and a series of large asset bubbles-were not only objectionable in themselves but also put the economy on an unsustainable trajectory. Kotz interprets the current push for austerity as an attempt to deepen and preserve neoliberal capitalism. However, both economic theory and history suggest that neither austerity measures nor other policy adjustments can bring another period of stable economic expansion. Kotz considers several possible directions of economic restructuring, concluding that significant economic change is likely in the years ahead.

Do Private Equity-owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

Abstract: We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity, profitability and stock market value). Private Equityowned firms are significantly better managed than government, family and privately owned firms. Although they are also better managed on average than publicly listed firms with dispersed owners, this difference is not statistically significant. Looking at management practices in detail we find that Private Equity-owned firms have strong people management practices (hiring, firing, pay and promotions) but even stronger operations management practices (lean manufacturing, continuous improvement and monitoring). This suggests that Private Equity ownership is associated with broad based operational improvement in management rather than just stronger performance incentives. Finally, looking at changes in management practices over time, it appears that Private Equity targets poorly managed firms and these firms improve their management practices at a faster rate than other ownership types.

The liquidation of government debt

Abstract: High public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring. But debt is also reduced through financial repression (FR) , a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or below-market real interest rates. After World War II, capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt, limiting tax-base erosion. FR is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation. For the advanced economies, real interest rates were negative half of the time during 1945–80. Average annual interest expense savings for a 12-country sample range from about 1% to 5% of GDP for the full 1945–80 period. We suggest that, once again, FR may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies.

Planning for growth

Abstract: This paper examines the progress being made in Europe to restore economic growth. It draws on monetary policy theory and economic data. Evidence shows that improvements are being gradually made; but further efforts are required in terms of restructuring to maintain a sound footing.

World cities under conditions of financialized globalization Towards an augmented world city hypothesis

Abstract: This paper interrogates the enduring yet changing role of world cities as centers of capitalist ‘command and control’ amidst deepening uneven development. By incorporating financialization processes in Friedmann’s (1986) world city hypothesis, we hypothesize that the world city archipelago remains an obligatory passage point for the relatively assured realization of capital. The advanced producer services complex appropriates superprofits as producers of co-constitutive knowledge on operational and financial firm restructuring, the creation of new circuits of value, and capital switching. Geographically, beyond the international financial center shortlist, the wider world city archipelago inserts finance capital (logics) in contemporary economies and societies.

Performance and Productivity in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract: Designed for course adoption as well as professional use, the revised edition of this accessible text provides a balanced assessment and overview of state-of-the-art organizational and performance productivity strategies. Public and nonprofit organizations face demands for increased productivity and responsiveness, and this practical guide offers strategies based on current research and scholarship that respond to these challenges. The book's comprehensive coverage includes: rationale for productivity and performance improvement; evolution of productivity improvement; the quality paradigm; customer service; information technology; traditional approaches to productivity improvement; re-engineering and restructuring; partnering and privatization; psychological contracts; and community based strategies. In addition to updating the examples of the first edition, this new edition also highlights the growing use of enterprise funds, partnership models of privatization, and web-based service delivery. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary and all-new application exercises.

Organisational (Un)Learning of Public Research Labs in Turbulent Context

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the underlying mechanisms of organisational learning within public research labs. Results of individual cognitive maps and congregate map, based on a critical case study, show inertia in the organisational learning with negative effects on strategic change and scientific performances of the public research institution. Some main causes of this organisational (un)learning are the effects of friction on the intra-organisational communication among researchers and scientific groups driven by hasty restructuring, high bureaucratisation of public bodies, low coordination and incentives of public servants. Some management implications of learning organisation are discussed.

The Ownership and Trading of Debt Claims in Chapter 11 Restructurings

Abstract: Using a novel data set that covers individual debt claims against 136 bankrupt US companies and includes information on a subset of claims transfers, we provide new empirical insight regarding how a firm’s debt ownership relates to bankruptcy outcomes. Firms with higher debt concentration at the start of the case are more likely to file prearranged bankruptcy plans, to move quickly through the restructuring process, and to emerge successfully as independent going concerns. Moreover, higher ownership concentration within a debt class is associated with higher recovery rates to that class. Trading of claims during bankruptcy concentrates ownership further, but this trading is not associated with subsequent improvements in bankruptcy outcomes and could, at the margin, increase the likelihood of liquidation.

Consuming urban living in ‘villages in the city’: Studentification in Guangzhou, China

Abstract: Against the backdrop of higher education expansion, studentification refers to a particular type of urban sociospatial restructuring resulting from university students’ concentration in certain res...

Rightsizing as Spatial Austerity in the American Rust Belt

Abstract: ‘Rightsizing’ is a planning paradigm currently being applied to shrinking cities in North America and Europe. The central idea is to avoid the trap of growth-oriented planning by restructuring the urban landscape around mixed-income, mixed-use clusters. By replacing the current sprawling inefficiency, proponents argue, environmental, equity, and infrastructure efficiency goals can be achieved. Some have worried however, that rightsizing is merely a newly packaged version of urban renewal. I argue that both framings are misplaced. Through a careful consideration of rightsizing plans in five US cities—Detroit, Flint, Rochester, Saginaw, and Youngstown—I argue that austerity urbanism is the more apt way to characterize actualized versions of the idea. Actualized rightsizing lacks the utopian modernism and Keynesian interventionism of urban renewal, and the progressive equity-oriented environmentalism idealized by its proponents.

The U.S. Electricity Industry after 20 Years of Restructuring

Abstract: Electricity restructuring in the 1990s ended the era of vertically integrated monopolies in many states, allowing nonutility generators to sell electricity to utilities and, in fewer states, allowing retail service providers to buy electricity from generators and sell to end-use customers. We review the economic arguments for restructuring and the resulting effects in subsequent years. We argue that the greatest political motivation for restructuring was rent shifting, not efficiency improvements. Although electricity restructuring has brought efficiency improvements, it has generally been viewed as a disappointment because the price-reduction promises made by some advocates were based on politically unsustainable rent transfers. In reality, electricity rate changes since restructuring have been driven more by exogenous factors, such as generation technology advances and natural gas price fluctuations, than by restructuring. We argue that a similar dynamic underpins the current political momentum behind d...

The Contemporary Caribbean

Abstract: This text focuses on the contemporary economic, social, geographical, environmental and political realities of the Caribbean region. Historical aspects of the Caribbean, such as slavery, the plantation system and plantocracy are explored in order to explain the contemporary nature of, and challenges faced by, the Caribbean. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with: the foundations of the Caribbean, rural and urban bases of the contemporary Caribbean, and global restructuring and the Caribbean: industry, tourism and politics.

Counting quality? The Czech performance-based research funding system

Abstract: After the fall of the Iron Curtain and a subsequent period of restructuring the research and innovation system, the Czech Republic has introduced a performance-based research funding system, commonly known as the Evaluation Methodology. The Evaluation Methodology is purely quantitative and focused solely on research outputs (publications, patents, prototypes, etc.) to determine the amount of institutional funding for research organizations. While aiming to depersonalize and depoliticize the allocation of institutional funding in the research system, improve research productivity, and safeguard accountability, we argue that the Evaluation Methodology has in fact become a negative example of a performance-based research funding system. Our analysis of the Evaluation Methodology shows that it has introduced considerable instability and unpredictability in the Czech research system, making strategic planning for research organizations difficult. The article contributes to a growing body of literature on research evaluation and performancebased research funding systems, discussing the impacts of introducing such systems in countries including the UK, Spain, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Australia, Poland, Italy, New Zealand, Flanders, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. The Czech case provides new insights in the interactions between politico-economic regimes and research policy, while also directing the attention of research policy scholars to significant developments in Central and Eastern European countries.

Formalization as Development in Land and Natural Resource Policy

Abstract: Responding to multiple problems affecting governance of natural resource access and trade, governments implement formalization processes, often driven by the interests of development agencies. In so doing, they interact with the contemporary political, social, and environmental contexts in which resources are extracted, produced, and traded. They also contend with histories of ownership, access rights, market configurations, and practices attached to resources and the lands in which they are located. As development policy, formalization frequently materializes as top-down restructuring based on current social and environmental norms. However, its adoption is often unsuccessful and entails risks including leakage, barriers to small or poor actors, elite capture, and negative effects on women or marginalized groups. The insights herein are informative to current processes of formalization associated with the European Union (EU) timber trade regime and other resource governance efforts. At the minimum, incor...

Europe Inc. : regional and global restructuring and the rise of corporate power

Abstract: Part 1 Background section on corporate Europe, the role of corporate lobby groups in European integration and shaping EU policies, corporate lobby groups and the Amsterdam Treaty case study the trans European transport network case study - the biotech industry lobby case study - the PR industry. Part 2 The EU and economic globalisation: the single market impact after 6 years the single currency structural adjustment in Europe the role of the EU and the European industrial lobby groups within the WTO the EU, European industry and the MAI transatlantic free trade TABD, NTM, NTEP etc. central and eastern Europe. Part 3 Corporate power versus democracy in Europe.

The Liquidation of Government Debt

Abstract: High public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring. But debt is also reduced through financial repression, a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or belowmarket real interest rates. After WWII, capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt, limiting tax-base erosion. Financial repression is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation. For the advanced economies, real interest rates were negative ½ of the time during 1945–1980. Average annual interest expense savings for a 12—country sample range from about 1 to 5 percent of GDP for the full 1945–1980 period. We suggest that, once again, financial repression may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies.

Formulating the SDGs: Reproducing or Reimagining State-Centered Development?

Abstract: Reformulation of the millennium development goals comes at a time when their realization is falling short. ‘Development as usual’ through global goal setting is in question in context of the recent conjunction of global food, energy, and financial crises. Given the evidence of problematic world-scale restructuring, it is puzzling that SDG visioning continues to assign principal responsibility to states for the post-2015 development agenda. We regard this as an epistemic blind spot that foregoes an opportunity to reorient planning to accommodate the global dimensions of these crises—and their possible solutions. In particular, we note that current forms of land enclosure, and migrant labor generation, are inadequately addressed by state-centric measures, especially with respect to the rights of land users and stateless workers. We offer recommendations for complementing and modifying nationally generated metrics with a more empowering agenda.

Territorial restructuring and resistance in Argentina

Abstract: This article argues that the logic of territory is particularly important for understanding the processes of capital accumulation and resistance in Latin America. The analysis focuses on Argentina, but draws on examples from throughout Latin America for a regional perspective and from the provinces of Jujuy, Cordoba and Santiago del Estero for subnational views. Section one describes the territorial restructuring of meaning, physical ‘places’ and politico-legal ‘spaces', as it plays out at multiple scales to facilitate the investment in and sale and export of natural resource commodities. I argue that land grabs contribute to this process but are not solely responsible for it. Section two explores the territorial logic of resistance. In what might be understood as territorial restructuring from below, rural communities are finding their own ways of restructuring places, legal spaces and the meaning of resistance from a peasant struggle for land reform to a peasant–indigenous alliance in defense of territo...