Why Ownership Matters?: Politicization and Entrepreneurship in the Restructuring of Enterprises in Central Europe

This paper, base on a study of mid-sized firms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, examines the sources of performance differences between state and privatized firms, particularly those that may be due to politicization and differences in the degree of entreprenurship. The paper presents empirical evidence that politicization of decision making is responsible for the observed inefficiencies in the cost behavior of state enterprises, but does not explain their inferior revenue performance, which is independent of the degree of state involvement.OWNERSHIP ; PRIVATIZATION ; HUMAN CAPITAL

Why Ownership Matters? Entrepreneurship and the Restructuring of Enterprises in Central Europe

This paper, based on a study of mid-sized firms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, seeks to explain the reasons behind the marked impact of ownership on firm performance which has been observed in a number of studies in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. Focusing in particular on the differential impact of ownership on revenue and cost performance, the paper argues that privatized firms controlled by outside investors are more entrepreneurial than those controlled by corporate insiders or the state. The paper provides evidence that all state and privatized firms in transition economies engage in similar types of restructuring, but that product restructuring by firms owned by outsider investors is significantly more effective (in terms of revenue generation) than that by firms with other types of ownership. The paper also examines the impact of managerial turnover on revenue performance, as well as differences among managers of firms with different types of ownership, and concludes that the more entrepreneurial behavior of outsider-owned firms is due primarily to incentive effects, rather than human capital effects, of privatization. More specifically, the authors argue that the success of outsider-owned firms is due to their greater readiness to accept risks (as evidenced by the higher variance of the revenues generated by restructuring) and a lesser need to defend, and account for, their managerial decisions.OWNERSHIP; PRIVATIZATION; POLITICIZATION; ENTREPRENEURSHIP; INCENTIVES; HUMAN CAPITAL

The Limits of Discipline: Ownership and Hard Budget Constraints in the Transition Economies

This paper argues that the imposition of financial discipline is not sufficient to remedy ownership and governance-related deficiencies of corporate performance. Using evidence from the postcommunist transition economies, the paper shows that a policy of hard budget constraints falters when state firms, because of inferior revenue performance and lesser willingness to meet payment obligations, continue to pose higher credit risk than privatized firms. The brunt of state firms' lower creditworthiness falls on state creditors. But the "softness" of these creditors is unavoidable if it prevents a demise of firms that are in principle capable of successful restructuring through ownership changes.OWNERSHIP; FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE; PERFORMANCE; TRANSITION.

Why metallic surfaces with grooves a few nanometers deep and wide may strongly absorb visible light

It is theoretically shown that nanometric silver lamellar gratings present very strong visible light absorption inside the grooves, leading to electric field intensities by several orders of magnitude larger than that of the impinging light. This effect, due to the excitation of long wave vector surface plasmon polaritons with particular small penetration depth in the metal, may explain the abnormal optical absorption observed a long time ago on almost flat Ag films. Surface enhanced Raman scattering in rough metallic films could also be due to the excitation of such plasmon polaritons in the grain boundaries or notches of the films.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Competing Ordered Phases in URu2Si2: Hydrostatic Pressure and Re-substitution

A persistent kink in the pressure dependence of the \hidden order" (HO) transition temperature of URu2-xRexSi2 is observed at a critical pressure Pc=15 kbar for 0 < x < 0.08. In URu2Si2, the kink at Pc is accompanied by the destruction of superconductivity; a change in the magnitude of a spin excitation gap, determined from electrical resistivity measurements; and a complete gapping of a portion of the Fermi surface (FS), inferred from a change in scattering and the competition between the HO state and superconductivity for FS fraction

A Framework for Simulating Turbine-Based Combined-Cycle Inlet Mode-Transition

A simulation framework based on the Memory-Mapped-Files technique was created to operate multiple numerical processes in locked time-steps and send I/O data synchronously across to one-another to simulate system-dynamics. This simulation scheme is currently used to study the complex interactions between inlet flow-dynamics, variable-geometry actuation mechanisms, and flow-controls in the transition from the supersonic to hypersonic conditions and vice-versa. A study of Mode-Transition Control for a high-speed inlet wind-tunnel model with this MMF-based framework is presented to illustrate this scheme and demonstrate its usefulness in simulating supersonic and hypersonic inlet dynamics and controls or other types of complex systems

Inelastic contribution of the resistivity in the hidden order in URu2Si2

In the hidden order of URu2Si2 the resistivity at very low temperature shows no T^2 behavior above the transition to superconductivity. However, when entering the antiferromagnetic phase, the Fermi liquid behavior is recovered. We discuss the change of the inelastic term when entering the AF phase with pressure considering the temperature dependence of the Grueneisen parameter at ambient pressure and the influence of superconductivity by an extrapolation of high field data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, SCES conference proceedin

Leitura em tempos de rede: booktubers e jovens leitores/as

As tecnologias digitais vêm desencadeando mudanças em várias dimensões da cultura contemporânea, entre as quais a dimensão da leitura e, mais especificamente, da leitura literária. Dentro desse novo cenário, verifica-se o deslocamento de funções historicamente legitimadas no campo, como as dos críticos literários e professores, que atuavam na recomendação de obras e leituras. É dentro deste contexto de transformações no universo da leitura literária que trazemos uma breve reflexão sobre o papel dos booktubers – jovens leitores que se convertem em comentadores de livros literários na plataforma Youtube – a partir de estudos de Bruns, Canclini, Lluch, Camacho e Ojeda sobre o tema. Como ilustração para o panorama brasileiro, efetuamos breve análise de dois canais de booktubers brasileiras – Caraminholas de Jotapluftz e Livros & Fuxicos – utilizando os vídeos e postagens das booktubers e postagens de seus seguidores. Apesar de serem bastante diferentes em seus estilos e conhecimentos literários e bibliográficos, as booktubers se aproximam pelo uso de um discurso informal marcado por um forte tom afetivo e emocional. Nesses canais, ocorre uma forte mescla entre a cultura literária e a cultura comercial e das mídias. Assim, as booktubers mantêm relações com editoras, autores, lojas virtuais e físicas, mas também promovem best-sellers e fazem referências frequentes aos filmes derivados dos livros ou a eventuais animações, constituindo-se como novas e importantes mediadoras de leitura