Transparency of ownership and control in Germany

We first analyze legal provisions relating to corporate transparency in Germany. We show that despite the new securities trading law (WpHG) of 1995, the practical efficacy of disclosure regulation is very low. On the one hand, the formation of business groups involving less regulated legal forms as intermediate layers can substantially reduce transparency. On the other hand, the implementation of the law is not practical and not very effective. We illustrate these arguments using several examples of WpHG filings. To illustrate the importance of transparency, we show next that German capital markets are dominated by few large firms accounting for most of the market’s capitalization and trading volume. Moreover, the concentration of control is very high. First, 85% of all officially listed AGs have a dominant shareholder (controlling more than 25% of the voting rights). Second, few large blockholders control several deciding voting blocks in listed corporations, while the majority controls only one block

Mitigating the water footprint of export cut flowers from the Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya

Kenya’s cut-flower industry has been praised as an economic success as it\ud contributed an annual average of US$141 million foreign exchange (7$ 352 million in 2005 alone. The industry also provides employment, income and infrastructure such as schools and hospitals for a large population around Lake Naivasha. On the other hand, the commercial farms have been blamed for causing a drop in the lake level, polluting the lake and for possibly affecting the lake’s biodiversity. The objective of this study is to quantify the water footprint within the Lake Naivasha Basin related to cut flowers and analyse the possibility to mitigate this footprint by involving cut-flower traders, retailers and consumers overseas. The water footprint of one rose flower is estimated to be 7–13 litres. The total virtual water export related to export of cut flowers from the Lake Naivasha Basin was 16 Mm3/yr during the period 1996–2005 (22 % green water; 45 % blue water; 33 % grey water). Our findings show that, although the decline in the lake level can be attributed mainly to the commercial farms around the lake, both the commercial farms and the smallholder farms in the upper catchment are responsible for the lake pollution due to nutrient load. The observed decline in the lake level and deterioration of the lake’s biodiversity calls for sustainable management of the basin through pricing water at its full cost and other regulatory measures. Pricing water at full marginal cost is important, but the conditions in Kenya are unlikely to result in serious steps to full-cost pricing, since many farmers resist even modest water price increases and government is lacking means of enforcement. We propose an alternative in this study that can be implemented with a focus on sustainable water use in flower farming around Lake Naivasha alone. The proposal involves a water-sustainability agreement between major agents along the cut-flower supply chain and includes a premium to the final product at the retailer end of the supply chain. Such a ‘water sustainability premium’ will raise awareness among flower consumers and—when channelled back to the farmers—facilitate the flower farms to install the necessary equipment and implement the right measures to use water in a sustainable manner. The collected premiums will generate a fund that can be used for financing measures to reduce the water footprint and to improve watershed managemen

Shareholding Cascades: The Separation of Ownership and Control in Belgium

This paper analyses the control of Belgian listed companies. The analysis reveals that control of listed companies in Belgium is highly concentrated. Business groups, holding companies, and voting pacts, play an important role in bringing about this concentration. The main characteristics of the Belgian corporate ownership and equity market can be summarised as follows : (i) few - merely 140 - Belgian companies are listed on the Brussels stock exchange, (ii) there is a high degree of ownership concentration with an average largest direct shareholding of 45%, (iii)holding companies and families, and to a lesser extent industrial companies, are the main investor categories whose share stakes are concentrated into powerful control blocks through business group structures and voting pacts, (iv) control is levered by pyramidal and complex ownership structures and (v) there is a market for share stakes.Ownership;control;corporate governance

Corporate Governance and Control

Corporate governance is concerned with the resolution of collective action problems among dispersed investors and the reconciliation of conflicts of interest between various corporate claimholders. In this survey we review the theoretical and empirical research on the main mechanisms of corporate control, discuss the main legal and regulatory institutions in different countries, and examine the comparative corporate governance literature. A fundamental dilemma of corporate governance emerges from this overview: regulation of large shareholder intervention may provide better protection to small shareholders; but such regulations may increase managerial discretion and scope for abuse.

Runoff modelling in glacierized Central Asian catchments for present-day and future climate

A conceptual precipitation–runoff model was applied in five glacierized catchments in Central Asia. The model, which was first developed and applied in the Alps, works on a daily time step and yields good results in the more continental climate of the Tien Shan mountains for present-day climate conditions. Runoff scenarios for different climates (doubling of CO2) and glacierization conditions predict an increased flood risk as a first stage and a more complex picture after a complete glacier loss: a higher discharge during spring due to an earlier and more intense snowmelt is followed by a water deficiency in hot and dry summer periods. This unfavourable seasonal redistribution of the water supply has dramatic consequences for the Central Asian lowlands, which depend to a high degree on the glacier melt water for irrigation and already nowadays suffer from water shortages

Charles Simeon: evangelical or churchman? Simeon’s contribution to the baptismal controversy in the early nineteenth century

This paper attempts to trace the thought of an outstanding leader of the Anglican Evangelicals, Charles Simeon, concerning baptism. What makes Simeon's life and thought an interesting topic is the fact that his characteristic Evangelical manner is tempered by a strong allegiance to the Church of England and her creeds. Thus, the title of this book is justified: Could Simeon in actual fact reconcile his Evangelical beliefs with his reverence for the Church, a way of life thought by many contemporaries to be on the brink of hereticism with a clear confession to the Church? In order to ascertain the contribution of his thought, it is necessary to examine the Baptismal Controversy which raged at the time. As the Orthodox contended that the Evangelicals were basically Calvinistic, we especially need to take a closer look at the Calvinistic Controversy preceding the Controversy under discussion in order to ascertain the theological roots of the Evangelicals (Part A, chapter 1). A second chapter examines the Baptismal Controversy and important contributions of Orthodox and Evangelical proponents. Part B then sketches the life of Charles Simeon prior to analyzing Simeon's thought concerning baptism and regeneration in greater detail. It is found that Simeon belongs to the main group of Evangelicals. Like these, he propagates that regeneration may or may not be conveyed at baptism; further common points are the notion of "judgment of charity" (=charitable supposition) and of baptism as a change of state, a tide to blessings, the entrance into the covenant, an initiation rite into the Church, an appointed means of grace. Simeon however rejects both the Calvinistic and the Arminian doctrinal systems. A further point which distinguishes him is his absolute loyalty to the Church and her liturgy. Thus, Simeon unites both his Evangelical nature and his churchmanship in a unique manner

Christ and spirit: a study of Paul’s understanding of the relationship between Christ and spirit in the light of old testament and intertestamental developments

In a first section this paper traces the development of Wisdom and Spirit as two interrelated concepts in Job 28, Prov 1-9, Ben Sira, Wis and Sim. A second section looks at 2Cor 3(_1)-4(_6). Paul does not understand the cause for Moses veiling his face to be an effort on Moses' part to hide the fading of his glory. Rather, he sees the veil as a means for Moses to protect the Israelites from too great an exposure to God’s glory. His aim is to contrast the former inability to stand the glory of God with the Christian’s freedom. This freedom is due to the fact that Christ is experienced as the Spirit and not as letters written on stone. It was further discovered that Paul draws both on his experience at Damascus as also on traditions found in Philo, Pseudo-Philo and Pseudo-Jonathan. His affinity to Pseudo-Philo is particularly striking. It is evident that Pseudo-Philo has an Adam typology based on the contrast between the first Adam and Moses, the new Adam, which is akin to traditions found in Philo and Pseudo-Jonathan. This disproves the old theories about Paul drawing on an 'Urmensch-Erloser Mythos' from another angle (as does the section on Sir 24) and places Paul's thinking in this matter squarely into the Jewish traditions of his time. In a final section, it is first postulated that Paul can identify Christ both with Wisdom (1Cor 1 and 2) and with the Spirit (2Cor 3(_17)) because he is working with a concept similar to that found in Sim. 'For Paul, the Messiah is identified with Wisdom as well as with the Spirit. The two are just two sides of the same coin: the Messiah is identified with the Spirit, because he is experienced by the believer as the Spirit. He is also identified with Wisdom, because the Spirit is the Spirit of Wisdom. Thus for Paul the question of a figure of Wisdom finally becomes meaningless, as Wisdom is linked with Jesus Christ, and in the same manner that Wisdom is linked with the Son of Man in the Book of the Similitudes, namely as the Spirit of Wisdom which is poured onto the Son of Man and through him onto the elect' (p. 133). Secondly, Paul has enriched this concept through his use of the Adam typology found in Palestinian traditions of his time, giving it new meaning by substituting Christ for Moses as the new Adam

Cat on a Hot Streetcar Named Desire: Interrogations of Femaleness— Or, the Mad Heroine Coded as Homosexual— in Two Plays by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams utilizes heterosexual female protagonists with unstable identities in two of his major plays, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in order to covertly represent and explore themes of male homosexuality and desire, they are Blanche DuBois and Maggie Pollitt, respectively. He does this because he is writing for a largely conservative and heterosexual audience of which anyone who might be homosexual would likely be in the closet, this is clearly evocative of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s notion of the “Open Secret”. Through their involvement and presumably sexual partnerships with men of dubious heterosexuality, Blanche DuBois and Maggie Pollitt become aligned with homosexuals and associated with homosexuality. Williams employs elements such as Camp and subverted forms of the Patriarchal Gaze in order to further interrogate and trouble our sense of Blanche’s and Maggie’s femaleness

Trans-identity in Djuna Barnes’ \u3ci\u3eNightwood\u3c/i\u3e

In her novel Nightwood, Djuna Barnes presents the reader with Dr. Matthew O’Connor, a character whose identity is so complex that he arguably has no fixed identity. On the surface, he is a cross-dressing, homosexual gynecologist with no medical license. Neil Miller’s “Pioneers of Sexology,” provides contextualizing information about the prevailing ‘knowledge’ and attitudes regarding non-normative gender identities and sexualities around the time that Nightwood was written. Of particular interest is the notion of sexual inversion, or of the female soul residing in the male body. In her work, Marjorie Garber examines “vestimentary transgressions” and the erotic desire(s) and discomfort which these transgressions cause, suggesting that the transvestite is “a crisis of “category” itself.” Garber’s ideas aid in an analysis of the ways in which Dr. O’Connor defies categorization, as well as the ways in which other characters respond to his various transgressions. Finally, Esther Newton’s explanations of the sartorial and drag systems in “Selection From Mother Camp” provide additional ways for analyzing Dr. O’Connor and his speech, which may qualify him as a figure of Camp. This application of gender and queer theory to Barnes’ novel results in interpretations that are as fascinating as they are seemingly infinite