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This chapter discusses the role of energy production in the global capitalist economy and its relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular focus on SDG 8 – ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’ – and SDG 12 – ‘Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’. It achieves this by first introducing the Club of Rome report the Limits to Growth which utilised a system dynamics computer model to simulate the interactions of five global economic subsystems (population, food production, industrial production, pollution and consumption of nonrenewable natural resources) (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens III, 1972), the results of which posed serious challenges for global sustainability, to better understand and contextualise unconventional (also referred to as ‘extreme’) and ‘renewable’ energy production as examples of the paradoxical nature of sustainable development in the global capitalist economy. Demonstrating that unconventional energy production methods are much less efficient, more carbon intensive, more environmentally destructive and just as unsustainable, and that renewable energy relies on the extraction of nonrenewable natural resources such as lithium that result in similar environmental and social issues, this chapter will interrogate this and ask the question – is the capitalist system in its current form capable of making ‘sustainable development something more than the oxymoron it appears?’.

Certificates of deposit (CDs) are uninsured deposits that have not been protected by the Japan Deposit Insurance Corporation (DIC) since the beginning of the issuance in May 1979. Thus, CDs should reflect exceedingly well banks’ failure probabilities and the risk perception of market participants among many types of depositors in Japan. Because of this, CDs issued by Japanese banks may enhance the market discipline of banking organizations. This is the first chapter to test the depositor discipline hypothesis using Japanese bank data from the financial year 1998 to the financial year 2003 . The chapter develops reduced-form models that describe how interest rates and the quantity of CDs may be related to banks’ financial measures. Among the Japanese CAMEL ratings, the chapter finds that CD interest rates are sensitive to the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and that CD quantities are sensitive to ROA. The chapter also insists that CD holders in Japan are sensitive to bank risks and exercise disciplinary power to impose market discipline that compliments regulatory discipline.

In this study, I investigate analysts’ ability to process public information for investors by examining price reactions to a sample of analysts’ recommendation revisions issued shortly after quarterly earnings announcements. I find that these recommendation revisions are used by investors to reassess the valuation implications of announced earnings. Confirmatory (contradictory) recommendation revisions that have the same (opposite) sign as prior earnings surprises can cause investors to revise their beliefs about the valuation implications of announced earnings upward (downward) and thus cause price reactions that are positively (negatively) associated with prior earnings surprises. In addition, I find that as the information complexity of earnings announcements gets higher, these recommendation revisions play a more important role in helping investors understand the valuation implications of announced earnings. Finally, I find that analysts’ ability to interpret the valuation implications of announced earnings for investors has remained at a similar level since the adoption of Regulation Fair Disclosure. Overall, this study provides additional evidence on how analysts help improve corporate information environment.

A sample of capital trials in North Carolina was analyzed to determine the impact on death sentencing of introducing mitigators related to diminished capacity on behalf of defendants. The results show that mitigators of this type were frequently submitted to the jury for consideration, and if accepted, the chances of a defendant being sentenced to death were diminished. However, when these mitigators were submitted but not accepted, the defendant's likelihood of receiving a death sentence was substantially escalated. These findings suggest a need for attorneys to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of presenting diminished capacity mitigators in capital trials, and if choosing to do so, the absolute necessity of convincing the jury of their validity.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the rationale for the public authorities’ direct interventions to realise benefits for the city and region of Glasgow acting as host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The methodology relies on an extensive literature review of the impact of large sporting and cultural events and of the evolution of the partnership approach to social and economic development and regeneration. One of the authors was critically involved in the construction of The Commonwealth Games legacy for Glasgow and so the chapter uses a participant researcher methodology.

The findings are consistent with the lessons from previous mega events as proposed following recent Olympic and Commonwealth Games and World Cups. The City Council was able to introduce a partnership approach which intervened to establish a viable legacy programme.

Research implications, as previous studies have argued, are of a need for evaluation of the legacy programme over a period of several years.

Practical implications follow from the success of the Glasgow Games which confirm the advantages of a partnership-based legacy programme being established early by the host city.

Social implications have been addressed over the short term by others and the longer term impacts of public sector interventions need to be analysed.

Originality/value of the chapter come from the description and assessment of the first legacy programme to be established before the event with wide stakeholder support.

Launched in 2011, the Women's Super League (WSL) has raised the media profile of women's football in England, benefitted from greater sponsorship investment and signalled, for the first time, a more co-ordinated effort by the Football Association (FA) to develop the game from grassroots to international level. However, whilst the FA's insistence that the WSL's future is best secured by clubs aligning themselves with male ‘parent’ clubs has led to more buy-in from English Premier League (EPL) clubs, some historically established women's clubs have been excluded from the highest echelons of the sport or even folded. Clubs' heavy reliance of volunteerism has been retained and salaries, even for internationally capped players, remain modest. There have been criticisms of player welfare (Taylor, 2018b), inadequate support for players' facing racist and sexist abuse (Gornall & Magowan, 2019), poor support for competition structuring (Wrack, 2018a) and a marketing strategy that is centred on heteronormative notions of family (Fielding-Lloyd, Woodhouse, & Sequerra, 2018). Popular discourses have heralded the professionalisation of women's football as evidence of significant progress in gender equality in the sport and as signposting an unequivocally positive future for the game. This chapter will critically assess the FA's conceptualisations of WSL as a neo-liberal project that has not consistently worked in the best interests of all players, clubs and fans and examine the FA's commitment to, and responsibility for, the development of the female game at elite club level.