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The purpose of this paper is to test whether the policies of China’s financial restraint have an inhibitory effect on the consumption of residents.

This study used the principal component analysis for constructing a financial restraint index and also used empirical methodology.

The authors found that financial restraint policies create rent opportunities for banking sector and production sector, which further creates the rent opportunities for the household sector. Such transfer of rent and redistribution will have an inhibitory effect on residents’ consumption. The financial restraint policies directly and indirectly inhibit the growth of residents’ income; and in theory, the purpose of financial restraint policy is to promote economic growth, thus promoting residents’ consumption. Thus, the financial restraint policies impacting the residents’ consumption are non-linear and test the threshold effect of financial restraints on the residents’ consumption of China.

This paper’s theoretical contribution includes: increasing the connotation of financial restraint in the policies of stock market and foreign exchange controls, and further developing the financial restraint theory; and exploring the inhibitory effect on the consumption of residents from the perspective of financial restraints to enrich the connotation of the consumption theory.

The findings in this study can help the financial authorities to gradually relax the financial restraint policies to encourage residents’ consumption.

This paper addresses the interaction relationship between debt financing and ownership structure towards firms’ value in Malaysia. Two issues are addressed in this study. The study examines whether managers and controlling large shareholders pursue rent-seeking objective through excessive leverage in a firm. Second, the paper examines whether financial restraint policy is effective in enhancing corporate governance. The sample of the study covers a small economy – Malaysia where rent-seeking opportunities prevail. A total 256 manufacturing firms are examined. The hypotheses are set to examine whether rent seeking prevails in firms with high intangible asset and less competitive industries. The findings show that first, financial restraint policy is only effective when managerial equity interest is relatively low. Managers with a higher equity interest hinder the positive effects driven by financial restraint policy. Second, at a higher threshold of equity interest, the use of excessive leverage by managers leads to a lower firm value, confirming the presence of rent-seeking motive. The presence of the largest shareholder as directors also follows the same conjecture despite at a lower magnitude. Both findings could not be refuted in less competitive industries. Other findings from this paper conclude that a high industrial concentration industry increases firms’ value in this economy. Financial institutions can also exert corporate governance on firms in less competitive industries. It is, however, the agency problem mitigates the positive effects brought forth by financial rent in this emerging economy.

What are the conditions that influence the decision of a patentee to start a new venture? Does the possession of a patent make the individual more likely to engage in the entrepreneurial process? Does the possibility of a provisional monopoly limit the danger and the uncertainty in the decision‐making for commercial exploitation of an idea? Literature has given some light on the decision of individual patentees to establish a new venture but either these studies examine a specific group of patentees or cover national patentees’ population without distinguishing between individual and firm patentees. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to literature which aims at the detection of factors affecting the decision of individual patentees to start a new business using data from a national survey on the population of individual patentees in a less technologically developed country.

This paper uses the responses of 434 individuals‐inventors, residents of Greece, from a broader survey conducted by the Greek Organization for Industrial Property in March 2007. Applying the collected data into a logit model, the paper addresses the questions raised in the literature about the source of knowledge, opportunities perception, and the past business experience on the decision of a patentee to start a new business venture.

The findings of the paper show that financial restraints strongly affect the decision of a patentee to start‐up a new venture. The collaboration with a higher education and research institution does not lead to an invention‐patent with technological opportunity content and this reflects the particularities of Greek academia while the opposite is the perception for the knowledge coming from market (incumbent firms). Finally, the new entrepreneur is more likely to decide to start a new venture in order to exploit commercially its patent rather than the patentee with past entrepreneurial experience. This finding contradicts the previous findings for the US and the authors believe that it may be a consequence of the Greek commercial and financial law and national culture idiosyncrasies.

The originality of the paper is due to the fact that for first time data from a survey of the patentees population is used. In addition, this is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, study for a less technologically advanced country. The findings of this paper have significant policy implications since it provides useful inputs for the design of the entrepreneurship policy.

This study aims to provide time series evidence of the economic growth pattern of Greece and explain the hidden impact of its financial liberalization process since 1960, in terms of the links between trade and gross domestic output.

Using time series data covering the period 1960‐2009, the author estimates a vector error correction model (VECM) in order to analyze the long‐run equilibrium features of proxies for openness and growth in Greece. The author further tests the relationship between financial development and economic growth using the Granger causality hypothesis.

Results from regression estimates find the error correction term (ECT) to be −0.20 for the sampled data. This suggests that there is long‐run convergence among financial development, trade openness and domestic output in Greece. This convergence is expected within an average of five cumulative years. Furthermore, the Granger causality test shows that there is a causal relationship between financial development and economic growth, but that financial development has no causal impact on trade in the case of Greece, which is theoretically unexpected.

The findings from this study are confined to a short sample observation of 50 years, and also to the proxies the study uses to measure openness and economic growth. Alternative measures of openness could be applied to larger sample data for future investigation on this topic.

The author concludes that the financing of economic growth in Greece has not been productive in the industry sector, and that this might have caused the debt crisis of 2009. However, financial development remains the link between trade and growth. When the financial sector is progressive, domestic output increases, and this increase creates production surplus which can be exported.

This paper is of value to the academic audience and policy advisers who are interested in the answer to the question “what went wrong with Greece?” The author uses econometric techniques to prove the inefficiencies of public spending in Greece and the accumulated effects of borrowing to finance growth.

The current study explores the ambiguity of accounting technique in the context of a historical study of the Canadian Indian Department under the direction of Deputy Superintendent D.C. Scott at the beginning of the 20th century. Starting from the work of Bauman and his commentators, we argue that modernity viewed as a set of practices and thought patterns, facilitates bureaucratic constructions of the “Indian problem” In turn, this cultural milieu and bureaucratic construction operated as an ideological circle, encouraging the use of accounting techniques of governance that permitted both the distancing of bureaucrats from indigenous peoples and the downplaying of other vantage points. However, as our analysis highlights, numerical re‐presentations also provided the tools and rhetorical spaces for challenges to government policy.

The purpose of this paper is to present an extensive household survey amongst four rural communities on Mt. Elgon Kenya. The area is the chosen area for the author’s overall PhD research. In order to offer the inhabitants of Mt. Elgon suitable housing support, the purpose of this paper is to assess the gap between existing housing capacities and compare those to desired housing capacities.

The research combined a survey method with an interview setting. The survey helps the interviewer to structure and register given answers. The interview allows the inhabitant to ask questions or make suggestions.

The research finds that the two communities with financial restraints are unable to articulate improved housing (within their existing capacities) without external help. For the two communities with less financial restraints, the research finds that they struggle to maintain, extend or replicate housing solutions without external help.

The size (200 households), type (purpose, design and approach) and locality of the research are uncommon frameworks to understand inhabitants’ needs toward their built environment. The value, therefore, not only lies in the design of the evaluation framework, but also in the findings that indicate that this is a successful way to conduct this type of research in a vulnerable context. Hopefully providing other researchers in the built environment with an applicable framework.

This paper aims to draw on the bank rent approach to evaluate the existing pattern of financing of Islamic banks and to propose a fairly new conceptualization of Islamic bank rent.

The bank rent theory is adopted to generate the theoretical underpinnings of the issue. After that, empirical evidence from the banking sector of Bangladesh is used to support the arguments.

Repeated transactions under murabaha are observed in the Islamic banking sector of Bangladesh. The asset-based financing gives the Bangladeshi Islamic banks relatively higher Islamic bank rent opportunity for protecting their “franchise value” as Shari’ah-compliant lenders, while responding to the periodic volatility in transaction costs of profit-and-loss sharing.

The bank rent approach suggests that the murabaha syndrome can be ironically justifiable. On the other hand, the current profit-and-loss sharing risk provides an idea of the difficulty in assuming the participatory financing with higher credit risk in practice. Islamic scholars and the regulatory authority need to design an appropriate financial architecture which can create different levels of rent opportunities for Islamic banks to avail the benefit from the variety of Islamic financing as declared by Islamic Shari’ah.

This paper introduces a fairly new concept of “Islamic bank rent” to make sense of the murabaha syndrome. This approach also contributes to clarifying the unique risk and cost to be compensated with the spreads that Islamic banks are expected to earn. To draw empirical evidence, as far as it could be ascertained, the data of both Islamic banks and conventional banks with Islamic banking windows/branches are used for the first time.

A clarion call to all librarians to lobby the governing body of their local schools, particularly secondaries, for better library provision is the theme. Notes a poverty of spirit in schools brought about by the 1988 Education Act and details the effect Local Management of Schools (LMS) has had on both schools and Schools Library Services (SLS). Emphasizes that financial control of schools has passed from Local Education Authorities directly to schools and that decisions concerning library provision now lie with governors. This offers each community the opportunity to lobby the governing body to improve or safeguard existing library provision. The financial restraints inherent in LMS have increased the need for schools to attract the support and patronage of business and industry and through inter‐library co‐operation all librarians in a community can help to raise the profile of libraries and offer schools access to valuable marketing expertise. Highlights that co‐operation between business and industry is desirable due to the introduction of National Vocational Qualifications which may start in secondary schools and continue throughout life. Concludes that, unless schools are persuaded to invest capital in libraries, the resulting fall in standards could be catastrophic.

Describes the model budget for university libraries, which has been devised by the Wissenschaftsrat. Discusses the budgetary reality of academic libraries in Germany. Concludes by considering how to cope with the crisis of the supply of literature caused by financial restraints.

Discusses the process of international technology transfer. Defines technology transfer and traces its development through the growth of world trade. Analyses factors encouraging the growth of technology transfer – e.g. international relations conducive to trading – and barriers impeding it – e.g. financial restraints. Discusses ownership, control and licensing. Examines reasons why unrelated companies become licensors and licensees. Cites the example of Honda of Japan licensing the manufacture and marketing rights for a modified version of the Honda Ballade (Triumph Acclaim) to British Leyland. Outlines the attitudes of Brazil, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and Japan to technology transfer. Concludes that while technology transfer has flourished, there is still a long way to go in refining it.