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Discusses and analyses Veblen′s views on corporate ownership and control and on the risk of a professional managerial class of engineers and experts. Veblen′s views are compared with those of Berle and Means and of J.K. Galbraith.

John E. Elliott has been a professor of economics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles since 1956 when he graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate in economics. In that position at USC, John has distinguished himself not only as a scholar and prolific writer but also as an outstanding teacher. He has received every teaching honour which USC has within its power to bestow. Moreover, John has distinguished himself for his contribution to the well‐being of the faculty and to the advancement of its efforts to preserve and extend the concept of academic freedom. John E. Elliott was born in the year 1931 and the essays which comprise this Festschriftare written in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. The numerous awards he has received for the high quality of his teaching, for his creativity and innovation in the dissemination of knowledge, his record of books published, articles contributed to scholarly journals and book reviews are to be found in his curriculum vitae printed at the end of this work.

John E. Elliott has been a professor of economics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles since 1956 when he graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate in economics. In that position at USC, John has distinguished himself not only as a scholar and prolific writer but also as an outstanding teacher. He has received every teaching honour which USC has within its power to bestow. Moreover, John has distinguished himself for his contribution to the wellbeing of the faculty and to the advancement of its efforts to preserve and extend the concept of academic freedom. John E. Elliott was born in the year 1931 and the essays which comprise this Festschrift are written in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. The numerous awards he has received for the high quality of his teaching, for his creativity and innovation in the dissemination of knowledge, his record of books published, articles contributed to scholarly journals, and book reviews, are to be found in his curriculum vitae printed at the end of this work.

Economists usually try to avoid making moral judgements, at least in their professional capacity. Positive economics is seen as a way of analysing economic problems, in as scientific a manner as is possible in human sciences. Economists are often reluctant to be prescriptive, most seeing their task as presenting information on the various options, but leaving the final choice, to the political decision taker. The view of many economists is that politicians can be held responsible for the morality of their actions when making decisions on economic matters, unlike unelected economic advisors, and therefore the latter should limit their role.

The obfuscation hypothesis suggests that under‐performing firms will tend to obscure the meaning of their corporate narratives by deliberately adopting a textual complexity, most readily apparent through poor readability and the use of unnecessarily difficult language. This paper seeks to add to the literature in the area by comparing the textual complexity of corporate narratives, notably the chairman's statement, of main board and second board companies on the Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange), with their financial performance, and also to examine the impact of company size, board membership and degree of statutory regulation on the readability of corporate narratives.

Following the existing literature this paper uses readability as a proxy for textual complexity, in addition to more direct measures, and seeks to examine relationships between textual complexity and various measures of financial performance.

The findings suggest that there are significant relationships between corporate language and financial performance, but that these are not consistent with the obfuscation hypothesis.

The findings are consistent with the suggestion that increased regulation and statutory monitoring of disclosures are associated with improved readability of narrative. They do not provide support for the obfuscation hypothesis.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between narrative disclosures and corporate performance based on Australian evidence. In particular it builds a model which discriminates between good and poor performing companies based on their corporate narratives.

A sample of Australian manufacturing companies is classified into two groups based on earnings per share (EPS) movement between 2008 and 2009. A content analysis of their discretionary narrative disclosures is used to classify and predict group membership.

This study finds that the word‐based variables based on discretionary disclosures are significantly correlated with corporate performance. Word‐based variables can successfully classify companies between “good” performers and “poor” performers with an accuracy of 86 percent.

The relatively small sample size, for Australian manufacturing companies, limits both the predictive ability of the model and its generalisability elsewhere.

The findings of the paper demonstrate that certain keywords, notably the use of “high/highest” and “dividends” are significantly and positively associated with superior performance.

The study builds a classification model for continuing Australian companies, whereas prior research focuses on UK and US companies and is based on a healthy/failed distinction.

In the preceding rules the individual biographical entry has been ignored, as it lends itself to more convenient treatment apart. Collective biography is, of course, in no way different from the ordinary book ; and the same is to be said of autobiography. Owing to the change of form in the individual biographical entry, due to the author yielding in importance to the biographee, it is usual to separate collective and individual biography in the catalogue, whether this is done on the shelves or not. Individual biography might be further separated in the catalogue into autobiographical and non‐auto‐biographical, though I cannot recall any instance where this has been carried out. In any case, it is important to distinguish in some clear way, between the subject name and the name of the author. Mere position is hardly enough ; there should be a distinction in the type. Whatever type has been employed in the other parts for author should be retained for author in the individual biograhical entry, and the subject name should be in a different type. If the author is printed in a black‐face type, as suggested in these rules, the best type for the subject name will be small capitals, as :—

Common Core State Standards Initiative mandates increased readings of informational texts within English Language Arts starting in elementary school. Accurate, age-appropriate, and engaging content is at the center of effective social studies teaching. Textbooks and children’s literature—both literary and informational—are prominent in elementary classrooms because of the esoteric nature of primary source material. Many research projects have investigated historical accuracy and representation within textbooks, but few have done so with children’s trade books. We examined children’s trade books centered on three historical figures frequently incorporated within elementary school curricula: Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller. Findings revealed various forms of historical misrepresentation and differing levels of historicity. Reporting such lacunae is important for those involved in curricular decisions. We believe children’s books, even those with historical omissions and misrepresentations, provide an unique opportunity for students to incorporate and scrutinize diverse perspectives as they actively assemble historical understandings. All secondary narratives, even historically representative children’s books, can benefit from primary source supplementation. We guide teachers interested in employing relevant and rich primary source material.

There is little evidence that treatment advances have improved the prognosis of heart failure in the community. One explanation is the failure of doctors to undertake necessary prescribing. Reports elsewhere how a modified Delphi approach, based on the RAND Health Services utilisation study method, was used to produce audit criteria for necessary prescribing for systolic heart failure in New Zealand (NZ) general practice. Reports experience of applying these criteria in late 1999 to the medical notes of a random sample of 70 patients with heart failure, as defined by a recorded diagnosis in 30 practices in central Auckland, NZ. Use of the audit criteria was feasible and appears valid, although the methods used to apply them need to be simplified to be of use as a practical means of promoting clinical governance. The small patient sample demands caution in interpreting the results. However, uncommon yet plausible findings, such as the high frequency of ACE inhibitor prescribing for heart failure, deserve further investigation.

In discussing the merits and demerits of infants' foods, it is impossible to avoid reference to the physiological problems connected with infantile digestion, because, of course, the whole question of suitability or otherwise turns upon the degree of digestibility of the preparations. Appearance and flavour, although of great importance in the case of adults generally, and invalids in particular, here play only a minor part.