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Allyn Young′s lectures, as recorded by the young Nicholas Kaldor, survey the historical roots of the subject from Aristotle through to the modern neo‐classical writers. The focus throughout is on the conditions making for economic progress, with stress on the institutional developments that extend and are extended by the size of the market. Organisational changes that promote the division of labour and specialisation within and between firms and industries, and which promote competition and mobility, are seen as the vital factors in growth. In the absence of new markets, inventions as such play only a minor role. The economic system is an inter‐related whole, or a living “organon”. It is from this perspective that micro‐economic relations are analysed, and this helps expose certain fallacies of composition associated with the marginal productivity theory of production and distribution. Factors are paid not because they are productive but because they are scarce. Likewise he shows why Marshallian supply and demand schedules, based on the “one thing at a time” approach, cannot adequately describe the dynamic growth properties of the system. Supply and demand cannot be simply integrated to arrive at a picture of the whole economy. These notes are complemented by eleven articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which were published shortly after Young′s sudden death in 1929.

This paper aims to provide fresh empirical evidence on how Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy decisions from a benchmark monetary policy rule affect the profitability of US banking institutions.

It thereby provides a link between the literature on central bank monetary policy implementation through monetary rules and banks’ profitability. It uses a novel data set from 11,894 US banks, spanning the period 1990 to 2013.

The empirical findings show that deviations of FOMC monetary policy decisions from a number of benchmark linear and non-linear monetary (Taylor type) rules exert a negative and statistically significant impact on banks’ profitability.

The results are expected to have substantial implications for the capacity of banking institutions to more readily interpret monetary policy information and accordingly to reshape and hedge their lending behaviour. This would make the monetary policy decision process less noisy and, thus, enhance their capability to attach the correct weight to this information.

The case opens with Martha Stewart's 2005 release from prison following her conviction for obstructing an insider-trading investigation of her 2001 sale of personal stock. The scandal dealt a crippling blow to the powerful Martha Stewart brand and drove results at her namesake company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), deep into the red. But as owner of more than 90 percent of MSO's voting shares, Stewart continued to control the company throughout the scandal.

The company faced significant external challenges, including changing consumer preferences and mounting competition in all of its markets. Ad rates were under pressure as advertisers began fragmenting spending across multiple platforms, including the Internet and social media, where MSO was weak. New competitors were luring readers from MSO's flagship publication, Martha Stewart Living. And in its second biggest business, merchandising, retailing juggernauts such as Walmart and Target were crushing MSO's most important sales channel, Kmart. Internal challenges loomed even larger, with numerous failures of governance while the company attempted a turnaround.

This case can be used to teach either corporate governance or turnarounds.

Students will learn:

• How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

• The importance of independent directors and board committees

• How company bylaws affect corporate governance

• How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

• How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

• How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

How control of shareholder voting rights by a founding executive can undermine corporate governance

The importance of independent directors and board committees

How company bylaws affect corporate governance

How to recognize and respond to early signs of stagnation

How to avoid management actions that can make a crisis worse

How weaknesses in executive leadership can push a company into crisis and foster a culture that actively prevents strategic revitalization

This study examines the causal relationship between intellectual capital and asset quality of banks in Ghana.

Using annual data extracted from audited financial statements of 24 banks from 2006 to 2015, a ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans and advances is employed to estimate asset quality growths while the value-added intellectual coefficient by Pulic (2008, 2004) measures intellectual capital. The panel-corrected standard errors estimation technique is used to estimate panel regressions with asset quality as the dependent variable.

Asset quality of banks in Ghana is generally not affected by intellectual capital. However, when intellectual capital is divided into its components, the study indicates that there are significant positive relationships between asset quality and two components of intellectual capital. Thus, structural capital and human capital efficiencies positively affect the asset quality of banks.

The findings of the study implore managements of banks to increase structural and human capital investments and efficiencies to improve asset quality. Furthermore, the results have direct implications on developments in financial markets in emerging economies.

The study analyses the link between typical intellectual capital and asset quality of banks which is yet to be empirically examined in an emerging banking market.

Considers marketing information and channel relationship issues raised by the commercialization of EFTPoS systems. Discusses the role and experience of the retailer, banker and consumer, and their evolving relationship in the context of electronic payment systems. Drawing on previous analysis of information flow within channels, where a dyadic relationship has been described, considers the triadic relationship created through the use of electronic payment systems at the point of sale, and the impact that consequent access to information will have on the relationship between bankers and retailers.

This paper examines the effect of both de jure and de facto measures of financial integration on bank profitability in five regional economic communities of Africa.

Using panel data from 405 banks operating in 47 African countries across five regional economic communities over 2007–2014, the study constructs a composite measure of bank profitability. The study then employs the dynamic two-step system GMM estimation technique to test the effect of both de jure and de facto measures of financial integration on bank profitability in Africa and across five sub-regional markets.

Overall, the results support a positive relationship between financial integration and overall bank profitability in Africa, except for the Arab Maghreb Union and Southern Africa Development Community.

The findings of this study suggest that increased financial integration in Africa directly improves bank’s overall profitability and the variations among the sub-regional markets inform tailored policy initiatives.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study on Africa to employ a composite measure of bank profitability to assess its determinants. It is also the first to include both de facto and de jure financial integration measures in a single study. This is also the first largest comparative study on bank profitability in Africa.

The degree and impact of competitiveness in the banking sector is of great importance as this has great impact on the financial system and the wider economy. A question of interest here is, does competition in the commercial banking sector boost or hamper economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that competitiveness in commercial banking is linked to economic growth.

The authors use the Boone (2008) indicator to estimate competitiveness of banking markets in ten frontier countries in Africa from 2005 to 2012. This model measures banking competitiveness by assessing the relationship between relative marginal costs and relative market share. Through a panel data model, the authors examine the effect banking sector competitiveness has on economic growth.

The results of Boone (2008) indicator suggest that, to a greater extent, banks in the countries studied have a competitive banking sector. The results of the panel data estimation support the hypothesis that banking sector competition impacts positively on economic growth.

The paper recommends for more policy geared towards enhancing bank competition. This is because competitive banking system will allocate resources more efficiently to improve economic growth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to test the link between bank competition and economic growth in a cross-section of Frontier African countries.

Describes the efforts made since 1979 by China to reform its financial system to support its emerging market economy; and the associated problems. Cites research evidence that the reforms have been inadequate and analyses 1986‐2000 national statistics to calculate three macro‐indicators of financial crisis, three measures of government permeability and some other ratios for the Chinese financial system. Identifies many weaknesses, concludes that it remains vulnerable to crisis and points out the potential dangers inherent in plans to allow foreign banks to engage in local currency businesses within the next five years.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is a link between retrospective and prospective sensemaking by analyzing metaphors of past and potential future changes.

The article draws on interview data from employees, team managers and middle managers at an IT department of a Nordic bank.

The study found that organizational members' sensemaking of changes in the past were characterized by trivializing metaphors. In contrast, future-oriented sensemaking of potential changes were characterized by emotionally charged metaphors of uncertainty, war and the End, indicating that the organizational members anticipating a gloomier future.

These findings might be limited to the organizational context of an IT department of a bank with IT professionals having an urge for control and sharing a history of a financial sector changing dramatically the last decade.

This article contributes to the emerging field of future-oriented sensemaking by showing what characterize past and future-oriented sensemaking of changes at a bank. Further, the paper contributes with an empirical study unpacking how organizational members anticipate an undesired future which might not be grounded in retrospective sensemaking.

This paper aims to focus on the absence of a direct criterion for the ideal level of net working capital (NWC) for which Acikgoz (2014) theoretically demonstrates that this NWC can be treated in a manner that allows the assessment of repayments. The study presents and discusses a new multiplier (i.e. the afa coefficient), defined as the ratio of cash equivalents ratio to NWC, measured as the percentage of short-term liabilities (Acikgoz, 2014). In other words, the study explores whether NWC could be an indicator of the ratios of corporate short-term bank credit to STL and of bank credit to total assets.

Sectoral panel regressions are used in the case of Turkey, spanning the period 1996-2013, on data obtained from the Central Bank of Turkey. Through second-generation panel unit root tests for cross-section dependence and panel cointegration methodologies, the results illustrate the statistical significance of the CD statistics, indicating the presence of cross dependence, the presence of non-stationary variables and the presence of a long-run association for the variables under study.

The findings document that a transformed variable of NWC is more substantive than the explicatory quality of the current ratio and may potentially be used in the prediction of bank credit in corporate liabilities.

The afa coefficient shows the ratio of liquid assets to NWC as a percentage of STL. The results illustrate that this coefficient plays a significant role for corporate bank credit usage in the case of the Turkish sectoral analysis.