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Governments in the US and the UK since the Second World War have taken a keen interest in competition policy. The Thatcher Government in the UK is no exception, and, indeed, a policy of deregulation of the nationalised industries has been instituted, whilst further legislation aimed at reducing the concentration of British industry is likely in the future. In such a political climate merger activity remains an important focus of concern. In this article the authors investigate the relative corporate profitability of growth by merger, including horizontal, vertical and diversifying acquisitions, as compared with that achieved by the internal acquisition of assets, and report on the results of their empirical analysis conducted from data on 52 UK public companies.

The controversy as to whether or not advertising impairs the efficient functioning of markets because it acts as a “barrier” to new firms wishing to enter a market has once again attracted the interest of the UK competition authorities. Looks at the advertising and barrier to entry issue as seen in a number of Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigations. Concludes that the conventional negative view of advertising needs to be tempered by the positive role played by advertising in facilitating actual entry, and suggests that insofar as there are a number of other factors which may inhibit market entry it is necessary to look at this issue “in the round” rather than from one narrow perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to help demonstrate the extent to which socio‐cultural and market‐oriented incentives jointly contribute to corporate control outcomes that prevail in the UK football industry.

Illustrative case studies informed by analysis of financial performance data, discussion with key informants, review of official documents.

The paper finds long term performance outcomes were influenced in substantive ways by actions led by shareholder groups pursuing largely non‐market‐oriented objectives.

Industry‐specific empirical work that analyses how the interplay between voice and exit strategies influences corporate control outcomes is limited. This paper focuses on two UK cases and therefore would benefit expansion to further UK cases and comparative analyses to non‐UK situations.

The outcomes suggest that the market for corporate control in this particular industry context requires specific attention to actions driven by largely non‐market‐driven incentives.

Previous papers have not provided detailed empirical‐based evidence about how socio‐cultural concerns have influenced corporate control outcomes in the case studies provided.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

UP AT BOSTON SPA they've decided to try to change the colloquial abbreviation used for ‘The British Library, Lending Division’ from the current ‘BLL’—which Donald Urquhart promoted because it tied up with the former NLL—since they find that ‘outsiders, and even on occasion insiders’, writes Press Officer Denys Parsons, think it means ‘British Lending Library’.

Since the concept of provision aimed to attract particular groups from the community to use libraries began, library staff at all levels have discussed whether these materials should have a separate section of their own or be integrated with other items in the main classification sequence.

ONE of the highlights of British production in recent years has been the enormous advances made in aircraft design and production and the consequent lead given us in the market for commercial airliners. This has been achieved despite the fact that up to 75 per cent of the total cost of an airliner may be spent on labour.

Cool has been studied mostly in consumer samples drawn from Western countries. This study was inspired by paucity of literature on “cool” in an Indian context. There is certainty that “cool” adds value and bestows desirability but there is uncertainty about what “cool” means. Since “cool” is a cultural phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to explore its meaning in the Indian context.

The data were obtained on an open-ended questionnaire followed by depth probes on a sample of young consumers. The obtained scripts were coded and classified into semantic categories based on the grounded theory.

The study found that cool is indicated by seven facets, including being oneself, living life to the fullest, sense of humor and socially networked, and calm disposition. Unlike Western notions, in India, cool is not being deviant and hedonistic. The cultural and religious imprints are palpable in what is construed as cool in India.

Transplanting the Western notions of cool for brand building is likely to be a risky proposition. It may not resonate with the inner cords of the Indian youth. The implication of this study is that it reveals possible ways in which cool can be incorporated in brand identity.

Cool is valued because it bestows distinction in subtle ways. Brands can gain traction among consumers by incorporating cool symbolism in their identity.

This study expands the understanding of cool in the context of an emerging market. This is one of the first studies to have probed the concept of “cool” in India.

One of the most significant events that took place during the period under review was the recent symposium on economics bibliography held in July 1975 under the auspices of the International Economics Association. It met at the famous Institut fur Weltwirtschaft, University of Kiel, West Germany. The theme of the symposium was the “Organization and Retrieval of Economic Knowledge.” The papers presented there covered recent trends in data and bibliographic organization, the emerging library characteristics of many specific economic subfields, the emerging solutions to the library cost problem and the boundaries of methodologies of economics. At its conclusion the Symposium issued a statement identifying some concerns about the future of economics libraries and data retrieval. Pending the forthcoming publication of the entire transcript, interested readers may find a summary of the symposium in the Journal of Economic Literature (December 1975: 1320–1321). While it is not entirely appropriate for this survey, I would be remiss if I did not mention another significant occasion: the bicentennial of the publication of the great Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in honor of which the Clardendon Press has issued a special reprint.

WHAT WITH the new LA Record apparently determined at least to set off down the runway—layouts and plans are due to be unveiled at SPEX 75, the day after this issue of NLW appears—we thought we'd better stir ourselves from summer somnolence and do a little gentle tinkering with NLW to reawaken your interest, and to show the LA that we, too, can move with the times, ha‐ha, even if not very far.