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This paper examines the strategies and financial ratios of the largest U.S. and European banks. Why are bank profitability ratios in the U.S. and U.K. vastly superior to those in Germany and Switzerland? Is this related to accounting, tax, economic, or regulatory differences, uses of funds, or management quality?

Regulation and compliance professionals and students of regulation will find these books interesting and thought provoking. Although many a reader would be justifiably sceptical about a book with ‘The Future of…’ in its title Alan Gait's work contains so much valuable historical detail about US banking, insurance and securities regulation that it manages to avoid being just another journalistic work of financial punditry. It is an ambitious book and raises some very big questions in the introduction. Was regulation of financial markets and institutions called for in the 1930s? Was deregulation of financial markets and institutions called for in the 1970s and 1980s? Is reregulation of financial institutions called for in the 1990s? What changes in regulation and financial structure are likely to take place by the year 2000? It seeks to answer these and many (almost too many) other questions by casting a historical perspective on each of the three industries, examining issues like structural change, the impact of technology and the future of all of the major players within the financial services industry and asking what they bode for the future of regulation. For those prepared to read all 386 pages it is a mine of information and, to a lesser degree, insights providing an excellent overview of the past, present and possible future US regulatory scene. However, the book has been written with the busy professional in mind who may be interested only in one of the three industries covered and so it has been designed to be read as a handbook into which one can dip and read only, say, the banking chapters, this automatically detracts from the book's ability to provide a sustained and layered intellectual analysis of some of the big questions asked in the introduction and leaves the reader with the impression of a descriptive account. Subject to that caveat the reader who wishes to deepen their knowledge of the US regulatory scene will enjoy the historical chapter on securities and investment regulation 1940–79 and the chapter on deposit insurance and bank failures puts the Savings and Loans debacle into perspective. Part Four on future prospects for regulation lacks rigour and detail but a useful glossary of US financial terms appears at the end of the book as does an Appendix of major legislation affecting US depository institutions which could have been usefully extended to cover securities and insurance legislation too.

This paper aims to examine the post-merger changes in the credit risk profile of merging bank holding companies and tests whether there is an increase in credit risk after a merger due to changes in the mix of loans in the portfolio.

The authors use the expected variability of the credit risk of a loan portfolio based on the mix of loan types in the portfolio and the variability of the industry credit losses of each type following the standard Markowitz procedure for finding the standard deviation of an investment portfolio. The authors then test to see whether there has been a significant change in the expected variability (the credit risk profile) after a merger.

The authors find that there are significant differences in both the level and variability of loan charge-offs and non-performing loans (NPL) among the various loan categories. The authors also find significant changes in the mix of loan categories in the loan portfolio after a merger. In addition, the authors find that the expected variability in both the charge-off rate and the NPL rate rises significantly after a merger.

This is the first of two papers looking at post-merger changes in credit risk based simply on the changes in the mix of loan types; it does not consider the actual post-merger credit performance of the specific mergers. That will be addressed in a subsequent paper.

Financial analysts evaluating banking merger announcements may wish to include the impact of the likely shifts in loan mix and credit risk shown in this paper as they project the likely impact of the merger.

This paper addresses an aspect of bank mergers that has not been addressed in the literature, the impact of mergers on credit risk. The results are likely to be useful to investors, financial analysts and regulators.

The product‐mix decision has received considerable attention in management accounting and economics literatures. However, many studies in these literatures are contradicting, inconclusive and lack rigorous analysis of this complex decision. They seek to develop weights for the products in the product mix based on one objective, to maximize the firm’s profit ability. But before developing these weights, the studies must first rank these products, Ranking is a complex endeavor since it is often driven by a multitude of hierarchical financial and non‐financial goals and objectives. Ranking is also difficult due to the use of complex concepts such as time, uncertainty, cost and interdependencies between accounting systems and manufacturing systems and among the products of the product mix. These concepts are inherently fuzzy and coextensively applied often with a confluence of variables operating simultaneously. This paper applies an advanced mathematical model to account for the product mix decision. The model combines the powers of fuzzy‐set theory (Zadeh, 1965) and the analytic hierarchy process (Saaty, 1978). The fuzzy‐analytic‐hierarchical process (FAHP), developed by de Korvin and Kleyle (1999), is sufficiently powerful to account for the ambiguous variables and the web of prioritized strategies and goals of cost leadership, product differentiation, financial objectives of earnings, cash flows and market share and non financial goals such as tradition and owners’ convictions and philosophies underlying the ranking of the products in the product mix. By way of example, the paper applies the FAHP model to rank order four products subject to these strategies and goals.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

IN a recent Money programme on BBC TV Sir Monty Finniston was seen advocating the need for greater investment in industry as opposed to money being sent abroad to be invested either in Japanese industry or American real estate.

Explains the difference between defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pension plans in the US context and the options open to companies wishing to terminate overfunded DB plans. Summarizes previous research on stock market reaction to terminations and uses event study methodology on 1986‐1994 US data to explore the relationships between share prices and DB plan terminations with new DB or DC plans. Presents the results, which suggest that terminations tend to produce negative abnormal returns when replaced by another DB plan, but positive abnormal returns when replaced by a DC plan. Considers the reasons why, consistency with other research and the implications for public policy.

IT IS a great pity that Training for the Future, the consultative document issued by the Department of Employment on the first of last month, should have been overtaken by other urgent matters that have attracted wider public interest. This has foreshortened the time for general debate before sending comments to the Department by the end of May.