MERGERS, CONSOLIDATIONS, ACQUISITIONS: EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES

Reorganization has been promoted as a means to strengthen the position of cooperatives within the agricultural economy. The purpose of this study is to determine if agricultural cooperatives that reorganized through merger, acquisition, or consolidation have improved their financial performance. Although the research suggests reorganization may not be beneficial to the strongest cooperative in either the short or longer run, at least 33% of the observed reorganizations can be classified as unqualified successes. The data include 53 cooperatives involved in 24 reorganizations.Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Parliament membership during the single-party system in Turkey (1925-1945)

The official legitimization of the single-party regime in Turkey lay with Parliament, which, as a representative of the people, controlled the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. However, the parliamentary period after 1925 was highlighted by a lack of freedom of speech, with scope for political discussion limited. This paper aims to establish the role of MPs during this period. At the head of the single-party system, the President was free to choose every party member for Parliament. This meant competition was very restricted, be it in the form of short-lived opposition parties or independent candidates. During the selection process, some social classes, for example high-ranking officer and bureaucrats were privileged. These two groups were the most common in Parliament. On the other hand, local ties were sometimes respected by the regime: rural notables with close relations with party headquarters were easily elected, and remained in Parliament. A MPs’ chance of re-election was significant if he performed his duty with loyalty to the party. The author underlines a stabilization of political personnel throughout this period

Early days : the European parliament, codecision and the European union legislative process post-Maastricht

Since the European Parliament's first vote on a Council common position submitted under the co-decision procedure in January 1994 the practice of co-decision has been scrutinized carefully within Parliament and the other European Union (EU) institutions. However, such scrutiny has produced differing interpretations. This article seeks to assess these respective claims by analysing the first thirty-two legislative proposals processed under co-decision, and so to make an initial assessment of the legislative impact of the European Parliament under the new procedure. Under co-decision Parliament is a more equal partner in the EU's legislative process, and now has a rightful place alongside Council in several important policy areas - despite the weighting of the procedure towards Council. Certainly, informal inter-institutional linkages have expanded as a result of co-decision and, whatever their qualitative effect, there has been an undeniable quantitative increase in the interactions between Parliament and Council. The net result of the dialogue between Parliament and Council is the confirmation of an increasingly bipartite bargaining process and this, in turn, has placed the Commission in a considerably more ambiguous, and weaker, position than in the co-operation or consultation procedures

FINANCING OF GROWTH IN AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES

Sources and uses of funds in agricultural cooperatives are examined and compared to the aggregate of nonfinancial corporations for the period 1973-1987. Cooperatives are observed to finance nearly half their growth with equity. The equity financing proportion of cooperatives is statistically indistinguishable from the national average of nonfinancial corporations in the years 1973-1983 and is consistently higher than the national average since 1984. This finding contradicts the hypothesis of equity shortage in cooperatives.Agribusiness,

The Parliamentary Library of Montenegro: Coming out from the Past

This paper presents a short historical overview of Montenegrin parliamentarism and activities in connection with the Library of the Parliament of Montenegro since its establishment in 1953. An emphasis is placed on the need to bring this library up-to-date and to turn it into a modern parliamentary library. The status of the library within its parent organization, the Parliament of Montenegro, is analyzed, as well as the library collections (acquisition policy and organization), user profile, use and nonuse of sources and services, and staffing. Finally, the inevitability of structural changes in the Library of the Parliament of Montenegro???s activity is discussed along with its goal to step into the twenty-first century.published or submitted for publicatio

Electing a parliament

We present a model where a society elects a parliament by voting for candidates belonging to two parties. The electoral rule determines the seats distribution between the two parties. We analyze two electoral rules, multidistrict majority and single-district proportional. In this framework, the policy outcome is simply a function of the number of seats parties take in the election. We prove that in both systems there is a unique pure strategy perfect equilibrium outcome. Finally, we compare the outcomes in the two systems

Coercion Gone Wrong: Colonial Response to the Boston Port Act

On March 25, 1774, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, closing Boston Harbor to commerce. The act was meant to force Boston into paying for tea dumped into the harbor four months earlier during the Boston Tea Party. Parliament believed that the colonies would not support Boston and it would be only a short time before Boston acquiesced and paid for the tea, reestablishing British authority in the colonies.1 They could not have been more wrong. The thirteen colonies were deeply disturbed by the Boston Port Act, and came together in a way that shocked Parliament. Rather than separating Boston from the rest of the colonies, the Boston Port Act ignited all of the colonies into anti-British actions

Foreign aid, women in parliament and corruption: empirical evidence from the 2000s

Using data for the 2000s, this paper explores the impact of foreign aid and the percentage of women in parliament on corruption. In doing so, it combines the aid – corruption literature with the literature that addresses the impact of gender on corruption. We also inquire if aid is more effective in countries with a larger participation of women in parliament. We find that neither aid nor the percentage of women in parliament affects perceived corruption in a significant way. Moreover, the impact of aid on corruption does not seem to be affected by the share of women in parliament.On the other hand,a long-established democracy is consistently found to be significant in affecting corruption.Our results are robust to various specifications, alternative measures of corruption and use of estimation techniques.Foreign aid, women in parliament, corruption

The 43rd Parliament: traits and trends

Drawing on the statistical tables featured in the 32nd edition of the Parliamentary Handbook, this paper examines the biographical details of the senators and members of Australia\u27s 43rd Parliament.IntroductionIn recent years, academics and media commentators have documented the rise of a professional political class and the apparent shrinking gene pool in parliament, where members of Parliament often have ‘more in common with each other than with many of their constituents’. This Research Paper examines the biographical details of the senators and members of the 43rd Parliament, and draws on the statistical tables featured in the 32nd edition of the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia. The paper focuses on the age, qualifications, previous employment and length of parliamentary service, and compares these characteristics with previous parliaments. A similar examination of the 41st Parliament was published in 2006