R&D, Agency Costs and Capital Structure: International Evidence

We examine the impact of R&D intensity and agency costs on the value of firms across 13 economies. We find that R&D adds value while high agency costs reduce value. R&D adds value, however, even when agency costs are high. We show that in those firms where agency costs are high and R&D intensity is high the debt control hypothesis is at work. In contrast to the stylised fact of high R&D firms having low levels of debt, these firms have higher levels of debR&D, Agency Costs, Capital Structure

Lines in the Sand on the Australian Political Beach

Spatial models of voting behaviour are the dominant paradigm in political science. Consistent with this approach, it will be the case that, ceteris paribus, voters should vote for the party nearest to them on the political spectrum. A key question is how we measure nearness or distance. We investigate this issue by estimating discrete choice models for voting outcomes using the 2001 Australian Election Study survey data. The evidence supports the proposition that it is perceived and not actual distance that performs best. Our findings also suggest that where a voter locates on the political spectrum is almost as good a predictor of their voting outcome as how close they are to the partiesSpatial Competition, Distance Measures, Discrete Choice

Off with their heads: Terrorism and electoral support for capital punishment in Australia

Recent terrorist attacks such as the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 have generated new interest in the debate on capital punishment. It has been suggested that support for the death penalty could be higher in the wake of terrorist activity. Using data from the Australian Election Study we investigate voters' attitudes towards capital punishment. Paradoxically, overall support for the death penalty at the 2001 Federal election was lower than at previous elections. In this paper we utilise both simultaneous binary probit and treatment effects models to model the determinants of those attitudes and to investigate the impact of terrorism on support for the death penalty at the 2001 Federal election. In particular, we address the question of whether voters who felt terrorism was an important issue had higher levels of support for the death penalty than voters who did not feel that terrorism was importantsimultaneous binary probit, treatment effects models

Perturbations of nuclear C*-algebras

Kadison and Kastler introduced a natural metric on the collection of all C*-subalgebras of the bounded operators on a separable Hilbert space. They conjectured that sufficiently close algebras are unitarily conjugate. We establish this conjecture when one algebra is separable and nuclear. We also consider one-sided versions of these notions, and we obtain embeddings from certain near inclusions involving separable nuclear C*-algebras. At the end of the paper we demonstrate how our methods lead to improved characterisations of some of the types of algebras that are of current interest in the classification programme.Comment: 45 page

Anthony Eden, Neville Chamberlain and the Cabinet Quest for Italy, 1937 to February 1938

Historians have not yet provided a detailed authenticated account of Anthony Eden's term as Foreign Secretary in the Chamberlain Cabinet and of his resignation. Written in the immediate aftermath of Eden's resignation, the Chatham House account reflects the mixture of confusion and speculation manifested by contemporary spectators caught largely unaware, despite rumours, by an event supposedly significant but the precise nature of that significance e1usive. By the time Churchill's version appears, with the aid of hindsight after the holocaust, a rift based on clear-cut policy alternatives is discerned. On one side there is Chamberlain and his ageing sycophants bedazzled by a quest for 'peace in their time', conceived as a mission, therefore unthwartable and increasingly representing a position of weakness; on the other Eden, with harsher principles for dealing with truculent dictators , a martyr to a more resolute cause. The rift is therefore inevitable, and significant in the chronicling of the 'disastrous' policy of appeasement, because it centres on different principles for the execution of foreign policy

Representations of mental health and arts participation in the national and local British press, 2007-2015

We analysed news articles published in national and local British newspapers between 2007 and 2015 to understand 1) how mental health and arts participation were framed and 2) how the relationships between participants in arts initiatives were conceptualised. Using corpus-assisted qualitative frame analysis, we identified frames of recovery, stigma and economy. The recovery frame, which emphasised that mental illness can be treated similarly to physical illness, positioned arts participation as a form of therapy that can complement or substitute medication. The stigma frame presented arts participation as a mechanism for challenging social conceptions that mentally ill individuals are incapable of productive work. The economy frame discussed the economic burden of mentally ill individuals and portrayed arts participation as facilitating their return to employment. Using thematic analysis, which paid attention to the representation of social actors, we found that service users were identified as the prime beneficiaries of arts initiatives and arts participation was conceptualised as a way to bring people with mental health issues together. We discuss these findings against existing research on media representations of mental health and the concept of ‘mutual recovery’ and suggest what wider concurrent developments in the areas of mental health and the media may account for the uncovered frames and themes

Predictors of Trauma Symptoms in Adults Living with HIV: The Role of Social Connectedness and Sexual Orientation

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has claimed over 740,000 lives in the United States since the 1980s, and further brought a host of mental health concerns, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), primarily brought on by the discrimination and stigma felt by people living with HIV (PLWHA). Social connectedness may serve as a buffer to the trauma often felt by PLWHA. However, rejection and discrimination can limit access to this needed support, especially for sexual minorities living with HIV. The present study (N = 396) examined relationships between social connectedness, trauma symptoms, and sexual orientation for PLWHA. Results showed that social connectedness was a significant predictor of trauma symptoms within the sample, while sexual orientation did not hold a significant relationship with these symptoms. Clinical implications for professional counselors are discussed

Equivalent circuit parameter extraction of low-capacitance high-damping PTs

Existing equivalent circuit extraction techniques are inaccurate for piezoelectric transformers (PTs) with low-input capacitance or high damping. A new method is presented, offering improved accuracy in both damping resistance and resonant frequency extraction compared with state-of-the-art methods. Effectiveness is evaluated on two sample PTs, with the proposed method achieving up to 84% decrease in error compared with previous methods