3,157 research outputs found
Ownership Concentration, Monitoring and Optimal Board Structure
The paper analyzes the optimal structure of board of directors in a firm with ownership concentrated in the hands of a large shareholder who sits on the board. We focus our attention on the choice between one-tier board who performs all tasks and two-tier board where the management board is in charge of project selection and the supervisory board is in charge of monitoring. We consider the case in which the large shareholder sits on (and controls) the supervisory board but not the management board. We show that a two-tier structure can limit the interference of large shareholders and can restore managerâs incentive to exert effort to become informed on new investment projects without reducing the large, shareholderâs incentive to monitor the manager. This results in higher expected profits in a two-tier board than in one-tier board and the difference in profits can be sufficiently high to induce large shareholders to prefer a two-tier board despite the fact that in this case the manager selects his preferred projects rather than the project preferred by large shareholders. The paper has interesting policy implications since it suggests that two-tier boards can be a valuable option in Continental Europe where ownership structure is concentrated. It also offers support to some recent corporate governance reforms, like the so-called Vietti reform in Italy, that have introduced the possibility to choose between one-tier and two-tier structure of boards for listed firms.Board of directors, Dual board, Corporate governance, Monitoring, Project Choice
Civil Society in the 'Visegrad Four': Data and Literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia
The first of three publications on the '25 Years After -- Mapping Civil Society in the VisegrĂĄd Four' project contains an overview of existing data and literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It looks at where and what kind of research on civil society has been and is being done, who is doing it and where the gaps are.To be consistent and comparable, the four country reports include the same core sections: relevant publications on civil society in the respective country; existing databases and other data sources; active centres of research, training, and policy studies. More than providing just a list, this report looks at how they can be evaluated in terms of scope, accurateness and depth. Finally, it considers the question of what the most crucial gaps in research and funding in the countries are.An academic volume is slated for the end of 2014. For other publications in English and German, see www.maecenata.eu
Research on nonlinear and quantum optics at the photonics and quantum information group of the University of Valladolid
We outline the main research lines in Nonlinear and Quantum Optics of the Group of Photonics and Quantum Information at the University of Valladolid. These works focus on Optical Solitons, Quantum Information using Photonic Technologies and the development of new materials for Nonlinar Optics. The investigations on optical solitons cover both temporal solitons in dispersion managed fiber links and nonparaxial spatial solitons as described by the Nonlinear Helmholtz Equation. Within the Quantum Information research lines of the group, the studies address new photonic schemes for quantum computation and the multiplexing of quantum data. The investigations of the group are, to a large extent, based on intensive and parallel computations. Some associated numerical techniques for the development of the activities described are briefly sketched
Minimal length scales for the existence of local temperature
We review a recent approach to determine the minimal spatial length scales on
which local temperature exists. After mentioning an experiment where such
considerations are of relevance, we first discuss the precise definition of the
existence of local temperature and its physical relevance. The approach to
calculate the length scales in question considers homogenous chains of
particles with nearest neighbor interactions. The entire chain is assumed to be
in a thermal equilibrium state and it is analyzed when such an equilibrium
state at the same time exists for a local part of it. The result yields
estimates for real materials, the liability of which is discussed in the
sequel. We finally consider a possibility to detect the existence or
non-existence of a local thermal state in experiment.Comment: review, 13 pages, 11 figure
Correlations in Bipartite Collaboration Networks
Collaboration networks are studied as an example of growing bipartite
networks. These have been previously observed to have structure such as
positive correlations between nearest-neighbour degrees. However, a detailed
understanding of the origin of this phenomenon and the growth dynamics is
lacking. Both of these are analyzed empirically and simulated using various
models. A new one is presented, incorporating empirically necessary ingredients
such as bipartiteness and sublinear preferential attachment. This, and a
recently proposed model of team assembly both agree roughly with some empirical
observations and fail in several others.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures, 2 table, submitted to JSTAT; manuscript
reorganized, figures and a table adde
- âŠ