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This paper summarizes a study, undertaken by Arthur Andersen’s Intellectual Property Group in London, to consider the economic and financial issues, principally as they affect the valuation of intellectual property and its suitability as security. The study encompasses a review of available literature, interviews and discussions, and an analysis of the results of a questionnaire which was distributed to owners and managers of intellectual property. Views were canvassed across industries, of both borrowers and lenders, and also of lawyers and other advisers experienced in the transactions involving intellectual property.

The Editor and Publishers regret that the prolonged dispute in the printing trade made it impossible to produce the February issue of this journal punctually, and continues to hamper them in their work.

Innovation is a key driver of a firm’s ability to survive in the financial market. Previous studies typically consider a firm dead once its shares are delisted from the stock exchange. Despite its negative connotation, delisting may be a strategic decision and therefore be a positive outcome for the company. We study how a firm’s innovative activity, in terms of R&D investments and number of patents, shapes its survival profile, taking into account the heterogeneous nature of delistings. Using a sample of high-tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs) going public in Europe during 1998–2003, we find that more innovative firms, both in terms of patents and R&D investments, have a higher probability to be taken over. However, while firms with a rich portfolio of patents are less likely to voluntarily delist, higher R&D investments increase a firm’s likelihood of being delisted due to compliance failure.

Government appointed and sponsored committees of every description—select, ad hoc, advisory, inquiry—such a prominent feature of the public scene since the last War, are understandable, even acceptable, reflect the urgency of the times in which we live. In the gathering gloom of more recent twilight years, they have flourished inordinately, especially in the socio‐political field, where most of their researches have been conducted. Usually embellished with the name of the figure‐head chairman, almost always expensively financed, they have one thing in common—an enormous output of words, telling us much of what we already know. So much of it seems dull, meaningless jargon, reflecting attitudes rather than sound, general principles.

Fumes, grit, dust, dirt—all have long been recognized as occupational hazards, their seriousness depending on their nature and how they assail the human body, by ingestion, absorption, inhalation, the last being considered the most likely to cause permanent damage. It would not be an exaggeration to state that National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) provisions, now contained in the Social Security Act, 1975, with all the regulations made to implement the law, had their birth in compensating victims of lung disease from inhalation of dust. Over the years, the range of recognized dust disease, prescribed under regulations, has grown, but there are other recognized risks to human life and health from dusts of various kinds, produced not from the manufacturing, mining and quarrying, &c. industries; but from a number of areas where it can contaminate and constitute a hazard to vulnerable products and persons. An early intervention by legislation concerned exposed foods, e.g. uncovered meat on open shop fronts, to dust and in narrow streets, mud splashed from road surfaces. The composition of dust varies with its sources—external, atmospheric, seasonal or interior sources, uses and occupations, comings and goings, and in particular, the standards of cleaning and, where necessary, precautions to prevent dust accumulation. One area for long under constant scrutiny and a subject of considerable research is the interior of hospital wards, treatment rooms and operating theatres.

This is the first part of a detailed annotated chronology of significant events in the history of money in the context of social, economic, political and technological developments from the dawn of civilization until the closing years of the twentieth century. Starting with the origins of money and of banking the chronology moves on to the development of coinage in Asia Minor and its extension by the conquests of Alexander and later Rome before proceeding to the start of the long history of the pound sterling. The origins of paper money in China, the re‐emergence of banking in Europe, the financial effects of various wars and conflicts and the age of exploration, and subsequent developments up to the threshold of the industrial revolution are all covered.