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IT CAN STILL BE SAID, after forty‐eight years have passed, that ‘little has yet been written of the history of school libraries, for indeed the history is still in the making’. Progress in the provision of library services to schools has been slow and piece‐meal until recently, and Alec Ellis's contribution to the history of public library services to children in England and Wales is not yet complete. One must search inter alia to find other contributions to the history of this subject for the period since the First World War. To look at the past is not for the purpose of decrying the present in the manner of the ‘Black Papers’ on education, but to measure the extent and direction of change.

THE POPULARITY of Hamewith and its author was quite phenomenal in the north‐east of Scotland. It is a significant mark of the affection in which the author was held by the community at large that he was soon popularly known as ‘Hamewith’ himself, in the same way as a farmer in that airt comes to be known by the name of his place. Hamewith was first published by Wyllie & Son, Aberdeen, in 1900. By 1909 a new and more elaborate edition was called for, with an introductiion by Andrew Lang, then Scotland's leading littérateur, and published by Constable in London. By 1912, when he was entertained to an official public dinner in Aberdeen, Charles Murray, who had emigrated to South Africa in 1888 at the age of 24, was then Secretary for Public Works in the Union of South Africa. It is important to note that Murray spent practically the whole of his working life (1888–1924) in South Africa, and wrote practically all his verse in exile. He is by no means the only Scottish writer to have seen his native land more clearly from a distance. One thinks, for example, of Stevenson in Samoa, Grassic Gibbon in Welwyn Garden City, and George Douglas Brown in London.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

This article examines the macroeconomic impact of a consumption‐based value‐added tax (VAT) using simulations of a large‐scale model. The VAT is imposed as a structural reform of the tax code rather than as a revenue‐raising device, i.e., the revenues from the VAT are offset by compensatory reductions elsewhere. Three basic scenarios are examined, in which 1) the VAT is offset by individual rate reductions, 2) abolition of the corporate profits tax in conjunction with a small individual rate cut, and 3) an investment tax credit with the balance of the revenues offset by a personal rate cut. Additionally, this paper examines the effects of the microeconomic incidence of the VAT, i.e., whether it is fully passed through to output prices or shifted back onto profits. The finding is that the VAT in general raises the long‐term level of output, but at the cost of initial output losses, which are in evidence even when the associated rise in the price level is accommodated by a corresponding shift in monetary policy. In addition to changes in the intertemporal distribution of growth, there are significant changes in the composition of GNP, which shifts away from consumption, toward business fixed investment and net exports. These changes are particularly pronounced when the VAT is fully passed through. When the tax is partially shifted back, the gains in investment and trade are less marked, while business profits are reduced, and the long‐term increase in output is smaller.

This paper synthesizes existing experimental research in the area of investor perceptions and offers directions for future research. Investor-related experimental research has grown substantially, especially in the last decade, as it has made valuable contributions in establishing causal links, examining underlying process measures, and examining areas with little available data. Within this review, I examine 121 papers and identify three broad categories that affect investor perceptions: information format, investor features, and disclosure credibility. Information format describes how investors are influenced by information salience, information labeling, reporting and accounting complexity, financial statement recognition, explanatory disclosures, and proposed disclosure changes. Investor features describes investors’ use of heuristics, investor preferences, and the effect of investor experience. Disclosure credibility is influenced by external and internal assurance, management credibility, disclosure characteristics, and management incentives. Using this framework, I summarize the existing research and identify areas that would benefit from additional research.

This study investigates the relationship between the Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) overconfidence and financial reporting complexity in Iran, a context characterized by weak corporate governance and heightened managerial discretion.

The sample consists of 1,445 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2021. CEO overconfidence (CEOOC) is evaluated using an investment-based index, specifically capital expenditures. Financial reporting complexity (Complexity) is measured through textual features, particularly three readability measures (Fog, SMOG and ARI) extracted from annual financial statements. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is employed to test the research hypothesis.

Results suggest that CEOOC is positively related to Complexity, leading to reduced readability. Additionally, robustness analyses demonstrate that the relationship between CEOOC and Complexity is more distinct and significant for firms with lower profitability than those with higher profitability. This implies that overconfident CEOs in underperforming firms tend to increase complexity. Also, firms with better financial performance present a more positive tone in their annual financial statements, reflecting their superior performance. The findings remain robust to alternative measures of CEOOC and Complexity and are consistent after accounting for endogeneity issues using firm fixed-effects, propensity score matching (PSM), entropy balancing approach and instrumental variables method.

This study adds to the literature by delving into the effect of CEOs' overconfidence on financial reporting complexity, a facet not thoroughly investigated in prior studies. The paper pioneers the use of textual analysis techniques on Persian texts, marking a unique approach in financial reporting and a first for the Persian language. However, due to the inherent challenges of text mining and feature extraction, the results should be approached with caution.

The insights from this study can guide investors in understanding the potential repercussions of CEOOC on financial reporting complexity. This will assist them in making informed investment decisions and monitoring the financial reporting practices of their invested companies. Policymakers and regulators can also reference this research when formulating policies to enhance financial reporting quality and ensure capital market transparency. The innovative application of textual analysis in this study might spur further research in other languages and contexts.

This research stands as the inaugural study to explore the relationship between CEOs' overconfidence and financial reporting complexity in both developed and developing capital markets. It thereby broadens the extant literature to include diverse capital market environments.

PUBLIC RELATION IS STILL clouded in mystique in the eyes of many managements—a concept they do not understand fully and which therefore frightens or baffles them to varying degrees.

The introduction of roller‐milling rendered it possible to utilise any variety of wheat, since the grain in this process is not subjected to severe attrition, and pulverisation of the bran is avoided as far as possible. In roller‐milling the wheat grain is reduced to flour in gradual stages (gradual reduction process), during which the offal is continually removed by sifting and by the use of air currents. In this way a more complete removal of branny and other undesired particles can be effected, and a greater yield of highly refined flour can be obtained than in stone‐milling.

The adoption of DRG coding may be seen as a central feature of the mechanisms of the health reforms in New Zealand. This paper presents a story of the use of DRG coding by describing the experience of one major health provider. The conventional literature portrays casemix accounting and medical coding systems as rational techniques for the collection and provision of information for management and contracting decisions/negotiations. Presents a different perspective on the implications and effects of the adoption of DRG technology, in particular the part played by DRG coding technology as a part of a casemix system is explicated from an actor network theory perspective. Medical coding and the DRG methodology will be argued to represent “black boxes”. Such technological “knowledge objects” provide strong points in the networks which are so important to the processes of change in contemporary organisations.