Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment and Growth

Around the world, large corporations usually have controlling owners, who are usually very wealthy families. Outside the U.S. and the U.K., pyramidal control structures, cross shareholding and super voting rights are common. Using these devices, a family can control corporations without making a commensurate capital investment. In many countries, such families end up controlling considerable proportions of their countries'' economies. Three points emerge. First, at the firm level, these ownership structures vest dominant control rights with families who often have little real capital invested creating agency and entrenchment problem simultaneously. In addition, controlling shareholders can divert corporate resources for private benefits using transactions within the pyramidal group. The result is a poor utilization of resources. At the economy level, extensive control of corporate assets by a few families distorts capital allocation and reduces the rate of innovation. The result is an economy-wide misallocation of resources, and slower economic growth. Second, political influence is plausibly related to what one controls, rather than what one owns. The controlling owners of pyramids thus have greatly amplified political influence relative to their actual wealth. They appear to influence the development of both public policy, such as property rights protection and enforcement, and institutions like capital markets. We denote this phenomenon economic entrenchment. Third, we conceive of a relationship between the distribution of corporate control and institutional development that generates and preserves economic entrenchment as one equilibrium; but not the only one. Based on the literature, we identify key determinants of economic entrenchment. We also identify many gaps where further work exploring the political economy importance of the distribution of corporate control is needed.

Engineering a DNA damage response without DNA damage

DNA damage response signaling has been achieved experimentally in the absence of double-strand DNA breaks

USING ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOKS TO ENCOURAGE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN FIRST YEAR CHEMISTRY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

There have been major disruptions to all parts of life due to COVID 19, including learning and teaching at universities. For universities, material for lectures, tutorials/workshops and laboratories that were originally taught as face-to-face activities were shifted online. For lecturers, this meant re-thinking the design of learning activities and assessment. For students, this meant changing the way that they studied, particularly when faced with reduced peer interaction and face-to-face contact with teaching staff. Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) are currently being used in many undergraduate courses to help students develop record-keeping and data management skills. ELNs have also been an efficient way for delivering online laboratory content to students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two first year chemistry unit coordinators at Curtin University took advantage of this functionality. Additionally, students were encouraged to use the built-in communication tools in the chosen ELN, LabArchives, to get help and interact with teaching staff and peers. This presentation will outline the changes made in a very short time frame to two first year chemistry units when all classes moved to online formats. Student experiences will be described, as well as the experience of teaching staff – both lecturers and sessional staff. One outcome we know is that students adapted to online learning much quicker because of the ELN, and were able to get feedback and respond to it during the semester. Any changes made that were well received will be used in future semesters. REFERENCE Tyrrell, K. A. (2015). Researchers embrace and reap benefits of Electronic Lab Notebooks. Retrieved June 18, 2020 from https://news.wisc.edu/researchers-embrace-and-reap-benefits-of-electronic-lab-notebooks

A Remark on The Global Dynamics of Competitive Systems on Ordered Banach Spaces

A well-known result in [Hsu-Smith-Waltman, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (1996)] states that in a competitive semiflow defined on , the product of two cones in respective Banach spaces, if and are the global attractors in and respectively, then one of the following three outcomes is possible for the two competitors: either there is at least one coexistence steady state, or one of attracts all trajectories initiating in the order interval . However, it was demonstrated by an example that in some cases neither nor is globally asymptotically stable if we broaden our scope to all of . In this paper, we give two sufficient conditions that guarantee, in the absence of coexistence steady states, the global asymptotic stability of one of or among all trajectories in . Namely, one of or is (i) linearly unstable, or (ii) linearly neutrally stable but zero is a simple eigenvalue. Our results complement the counterexample mentioned in the above paper as well as applications that frequently arise in practice

A Remark on The Global Dynamics of Competitive Systems on Ordered Banach Spaces

A well-known result in [Hsu-Smith-Waltman, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (1996)] states that in a competitive semiflow defined on , the product of two cones in respective Banach spaces, if and are the global attractors in and respectively, then one of the following three outcomes is possible for the two competitors: either there is at least one coexistence steady state, or one of attracts all trajectories initiating in the order interval . However, it was demonstrated by an example that in some cases neither nor is globally asymptotically stable if we broaden our scope to all of . In this paper, we give two sufficient conditions that guarantee, in the absence of coexistence steady states, the global asymptotic stability of one of or among all trajectories in . Namely, one of or is (i) linearly unstable, or (ii) linearly neutrally stable but zero is a simple eigenvalue. Our results complement the counterexample mentioned in the above paper as well as applications that frequently arise in practice

Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment and Growth

Around the world, large corporations usually have controlling owners, who are usually very wealthy families. Outside the U.S. and the U.K., pyramidal control structures, cross shareholding and super voting rights are common. Using these devices, a family can control corporations without making a commensurate capital investment. In many countries, such families end up controlling considerable proportions of their countries’ economies. Three points emerge. First, at the firm level, these ownership structures vest dominant control rights with families who often have little real capital invested creating agency and entrenchment problem simultaneously. In addition, controlling shareholders can divert corporate resources for private benefits using transactions within the pyramidal group. The result is a poor utilization of resources. At the economy level, extensive control of corporate assets by a few families distorts capital allocation and reduces the rate of innovation. The result is an economy-wide misallocation of resources, and slower economic growth. Second, political influence is plausibly related to what one controls, rather than what one owns. The controlling owners of pyramids thus have greatly amplified political influence relative to their actual wealth. They appear to influence the development of both public policy, such as property rights protection and enforcement, and institutions like capital markets. We denote this phenomenon economic entrenchment. Third, we conceive of a relationship between the distribution of corporate control and institutional development that generates and preserves economic entrenchment as one equilibrium; but not the only one. Based on the literature, we identify key determinants of economic entrenchment. We also identify many gaps where further work exploring the political economy importance of the distribution of corporate control is needed

Development of a Fuzzy Fire Risk Evaluation Model for Building Construction Sites in Hong Kong

Earlier research works on fire risk evaluation indicated that an objective,reliable, comprehensive, and practical fire risk evaluation model is essentialfor mitigating fire occurrence in building construction sites. Nevertheless,real empirical studies in this research area are quite limited. This journalpaper gives an account of the second stage of a research study aiming atdeveloping a fuzzy fire risk evaluation model for building construction sitesin Hong Kong. The empirical research findings showed that the overall firerisk level of building construction sites is 3.6427, which can be interpretedas “moderate risk”. Also, the survey respondents perceived that “Restrictionsfor On-Site Personnel” is the most vital fire risk factor; with “Storage ofFlammable Liquids or Dangerous Goods” being the second; and “Attitudeof Main Contractor” the third. The proposed fuzzy fire risk evaluationmodel for building construction sites can be used to assess the overall firerisk level for a building construction site, and to identify improvementareas needed. Although the fuzzy fire risk evaluation model was developeddomestically in Hong Kong, the research could be reproduced in othernations to develop similar models for international comparisons. Suchan extension would provide a deeper understanding of the fire riskmanagement on building construction sites

Developing a Holistic Fire Risk Assessment Framework for Building Construction Sites in Hong Kong

Amongst all types of construction accidents, industrial practitioners tend to pay less attention to the prevention of fires at construction sites.  Although fires may not occur frequently on construction sites, statistics show that when they do, the consequences are very serious; involving fatalities, injuries, serious project delays and financial loss.  There are many reasons why fires occur on sites, but a simple lack of awareness of the risks of fire is a major contributor.  Fire risk assessment is not commonly performed on sites.  Hence, it is believed that an appropriate assessment method for evaluating potential fire risk is required in order to improve the awareness of fire risk on construction sites.  This paper reports on the key findings of a research project which aims to develop a comprehensive, objective, reliable, and practical fire risk assessment framework for building construction sites based in Hong Kong.  A comprehensive list of those factors (or conditions) which may constitute a fire risk was compiled using desktop research and structured face-to-face interviews with experienced site personnel.  This list of factors was then used to develop a questionnaire survey form and the Reliability Interval Method (RIM) was used to analyse the survey results and determine the relative importance and rankings of the various fire risk factors at a broad level and risk sub-factors at a detailed level.  It was found that the fire risk factor of “Fire Services Equipment and Installations” has the greatest impact on construction site fire safety, with “Means of Escape in Case of Fire” being the second, and “Attitude of Main Contractor towards Fire Safety” being the third.  In fact, it is the main contractor who plays the pivotal role in maintaining construction site fire safety, which is in line with the high ranking given to the fire risk factor of “Attitude of Main Contractor towards Fire Safety”.  The proposed fire risk assessment framework can be used to develop a useful checklist for assessing the overall level of fire risk for a construction site, and to identify any areas needing improvement.  Although the fire risk assessment framework was developed locally in Hong Kong, the research methodology could be replicated in other countries to produce similar frameworks for international comparison.  Such an extension would aid the understanding of the management of fire risk on construction sites and help discover differences between countries