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One of the most significant changes in monetary economics at the beginning of the twenty-first century has been the virtual disappearance of what was once a dominant focus, the role of money in monetary policy, and parallelly, the disappearance of the liquidity preference-money supply (LM) curve. Economists used to consider monetary policy with the help of the LM curve as part of the analytical framework which captures the demand for money. However, the workhorse model of modern monetary theory and policy, the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework, only comprises the dynamic investment-savings (IS) curve, the New Keynesian (NK) Phillips curve, and a monetary policy rule. The monetary policy rule is generally known as the Taylor rule. It relates the nominal interest rate to the output-gaps and inflation-gaps, but typically not to either the quantity or the growth rate of money. This change in the modern monetary model reflects how the central banks make monetary policy now. This study provides a detailed discussion on the role of money in monetary policy formulation in the context of the NK and the New Monetarist perspectives. The pros and cons of abandonment of money or the LM curve from monetary policy models have been discussed in detail.

This paper aims to study, by means of an empirical approach, how monetary policy might affect the distribution of individual income.

After describing the channels through which monetary policy could impinge on income distribution, the authors carry out a panel analysis of 62 countries that control their monetary policy for the period 1996–2015.

Using two possible proxy variables for monetary policy (the monetary aggregate M3 and the real interest rates), the results reveal a significant positive relationship between real interest rates and income inequality measured through the market Gini coefficient and polarization ratios. The findings suggest that central bankers should be more aware of the redistributive effects of monetary policy.

It should be mentioned the major challenge of data limitation in the empirical investigation on the relationship between monetary policies and inequalities.

The empirical evidence presented in this paper supports the premise that central bankers should not ignore the unintended redistributive consequences of their actions. In this regard, it is worth noting that if, in addition to price stability, central banks are also responsible for financial stability; the rationale behind central bank independence needs to be reconsidered.

An outstanding feature of the paper is its sample size and the variety of countries included in the sample, which includes countries from all continents and with very different levels of economic development. Also, unlike papers based on forecasting modeling – e.g. Vector autoregression (VAR) or Structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models, the study follows an explanatory approach, including not only monetary variables, but also a series of regressors that may have a meaningful and significant impact on inequality, according to a wide literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of selected macroeconomic variables in influencing the movement of net asset value (NAV) of the Islamic unit trust funds (UTFs) in Malaysia. In efforts to arrive at more enriching findings, the UTFs are further categorised into equity, bond, balanced, fixed, mixed, money market and feeder funds.

The study adopts the vector autoregression framework (Johansen and Juselius (1990), cointegration test and vector error correction model to analyse the relationship between the macroeconomic variables and the NAVs of the various type of funds.

The study shows that there is a significant long-run equilibrium relationship between the macroeconomic variables and the NAV of all Islamic UTFs in Malaysia. Despite of this, the findings show that different funds have different responses to the movements of the macroeconomic variables.

The results of the study are of significant importance to the various stakeholders in the Islamic UTF industry. Investors benefit in terms of getting the inputs on their investment decisions as to whether to buy, hold or sell fund units within their investment portfolio in the long run, along with building their optimal portfolio diversification investment strategy, especially in reallocating their assets distribution between the various types of funds in the UTFs industry. For the policy-makers, the findings of the study may assist them in evaluating the suitability of the existing economic policies as to whether they positively or negatively contribute to the development of the Islamic UTFs.

This paper fulfils the need to understand how unit-holders can strategise and diversify their portfolio investments in the Malaysian Islamic UTFs industry based on detailed understanding and knowledge derived from rational and scientific inputs.

Is the average M&A adventure just an executive ego trip? Is it management folly, or can it be done so that it reliably produces growth? A model presented here may help executives who are engaged in making acquisitions and making them work navigate the shoals of mergers and acquisitions more successfully.

This paper aims to present a numerical investigation on the fire performance of a single plate shear connection in a steel-framed composite floor. Large-scale fire experiments show that the tensile membrane action of the concrete slab enhances the fire performance of composite floors. The enhancement in the performance is contributed to large slab deflections. However, these deflections cause significant rotations and tensile force in the single plate connection.

A finite element model is constructed, which consists of a secondary steel beam, concrete slab and shear connection components. The interaction between the connection components such as bolts and single plate is defined by contact surfaces. The analysis is conducted in two uncoupled phases: thermal analysis by creating fire boundaries on the composite floor model with convective and radiative heat transfer, and mechanical analysis by considering thermal expansion and changes in the material stiffness and strength due to temperature.

The thermo-mechanical analysis of the composite floor finite element model shows that the structure survives the 2-h Standard fire, but the connection fails by bolt shear and buckling of the connection plate.

This paper investigates the fire performance of a shear connection in a steel-framed concrete slab. Previous work generally focused on the concrete slab behavior only. The originality of the research is that the connection is considered as part of a sub-assembly and is subjected to forces due to concrete and steel beam interaction.

This paper aims to focus on participation in the workplace and examines the relative importance of different dimensions of job control in relation to subjective well-being and organizational commitment. These dimensions are job autonomy (within a given job), functional support (from supervisor and colleagues) and organizational level decision latitude (shop-floor consultancy on process improvements, division of labor, workmates, targets, etc.). Interaction with work intensity is looked at as well.

Measurements and data were taken from the European Working Conditions Survey, 2010. The paper focusses on salaried employees only. The sample was further limited to employees in workplaces consisting of at least 50 workers. There are 2,048 employees in the final sample, from Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the UK. In this paper, the focus is not on differences between countries, and adding more countries would have introduced too many country characteristics as intermediate variables.

In the regression analyses, functional support and organizational level decision latitude showed stronger relations with the outcome variables than job autonomy. There was no relation between work intensity and the outcome variables. Two-way interactions were found for job autonomy and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being and for functional support and organizational level decision latitude on organizational commitment. A three-way interaction, of all job control variables combined, was found on organizational commitment, with the presence of all types of job control showing the highest organizational commitment level. No such three-way interaction was found for subjective well-being. There was an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and functional support, as well as an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being: high work intensity and low functional support or low organizational level decision latitude seemed to associate with low well-being. No interaction was found for any dimension of job control being high and high work intensity.

Although this study has all the limitations of a cross-sectional survey, the results are more or less in accordance with existing theories. This indicates that organizational level decision latitude matters. Differentiation of job control dimensions in research models is recommended, and so is workplace innovation for healthy and productive jobs.

Most theoretical models for empirical research are limited to control at task level (e.g. the Job Demand-Control-Support model of Karasek and Theorell. The paper aims at nuancing and extending current job control models by distinguishing three dimensions/levels of job control, referring to sociotechnical systems design theory (De Sitter) and action regulation theory (Hacker) and reciprocity (Akerlof). The policy relevance regards the consequences for work and organization design.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how standardized advanced planning systems (APS) can be used for solving planning problems at tactical and strategic levels, and to identify the perceived effects of using APS.

Multiple case studies involving three cases using APS software for strategic network planning and master production scheduling are conducted. Comparative analysis explores how the planning situation, the model design and use of the APS impact the perceived planning effects.

Findings show how APS support cost‐optimized strategic network design in one case and how efficiency, capacity utilization and delivery service problems were decreased in two cases using APS in global master planning processes. The cases show how APS supports cross‐functional integration and supply chain commitment to a common plan. Research directions are suggested about the feasibility of APS in situations with various planning complexities, how design of the optimization model creates complexity and affects the planning process, data gathering requirements when using APS, the role and design of the planning organization, and how to achieve positive planning effects, such as finding global optimum and single plan commitment.

The approach is descriptive and explorative. Only three cases are studied.

The findings present experiences of APS usage and identify issues to consider when using APS and potential benefits to gain from usage.

The practical use of APS is low and the knowledge about how it impacts supply chain planning and performance is unexplored. The findings of this paper fill some of these gaps.

Study of soil‐structure interaction effect in framed structures necessitates proper physical modelling of the structure, foundation and the soil mass. At the same time, the stress—strain model used for the constitutive relationship of the soil mass must also be realistic. In the present study, a hyperbolic stress—strain model has been used to consider the soil non‐linearity. The interactive behaviour of a five storey, two bay plane frame has been studied in detail and the results are compared with those obtained from a conventional and a linear interactive analysis.