Search results

This study illustrates the economic and financial dynamics of the sector, analysing the evolution of the main ratios of profitability and financial structure of 1,559 Italian real estate companies divided into the three macro-regions: North, Centre and South, in the period 2011–2020. In this way, it is also possible to verify the responsiveness to the 2020 pandemic crisis.

The analysis uses descriptive statistics tools and the ANOVA method of analysis of variance, supplemented by the Tukey–Kramer test, to identify significant differences between the three Italian macro-regions.

The study shows the increase in profitability after the 2008 crisis, despite its reverberation in the years 2012–2013. The financial structure of companies improved almost everywhere. The pandemic had modest effects on performance.

In the future, other indices should be considered to gain a more comprehensive view. This is a quantitative study based on financial statements data that neglects other important economic and social factors.

Public policies could use this study for better interventions to support the sector. In addition, internal management can compare their company's performance with the industry average to identify possible improvements.

The research analyses an economic field that employs a large number of people, especially when considering the construction and real estate services covered by this analysis.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a quantitative analysis of industry dynamics, with comparative information that can be deduced from financial statements over the years.

Some time ago, a writer in these columns entered a plea for a series of reprints of notable books which had been allowed to drop entirely out of print, and certain lists of such works were printed. So far nothing seems to have come of this useful suggestion, and no publisher has had the enterprise to experiment with a few issues on the lines laid down. Instead, every British publisher is engaged in the old, old game of reprinting edition after edition of the same old classics, and venturing no further than the limits of this or that hundred “best books.” The result is that we find publishers tumbling over each other in their eagerness to produce editions of the same hackneyed classics, each slightly different from its fellow in some trifle of price, shape, size, binding or editorial annotation. The book‐shops are filled with these rival reprints, and gradually, because of a craze for over‐daintiness, their stocks are beginning to look more and more like those of the stationers who deal largely in pocket‐books and diaries. Dainty little editions of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Bunyan, and similar chestnuts, abound in every variety of limp leather and gilt‐edged prettiness, and all of them are warranted to survive about half‐a‐dozen readings before their dainty beauty fades, and they are ready for the waste‐paper basket. The leading idea of most of the publishers of these delicate editions seems to be that books are no longer intended to be kept on shelves, but should be carried about like watches or toothpicks. Waistcoat‐pocket dictionaries, fountain‐pen‐pocket editions of “Don Quixote,” and breeches‐pocket editions of the London Directory are all the rage, and people are urged to buy this or that dainty classic with binding designed by Blank, R.A., not because it is a good serviceable edition of a great literary classic, but because it forms such a pretty ornament for the pocket. The sixpenny reprint has been done to death, and now the shilling and two‐shilling net edition of the book possessed by everybody is beginning to go the same way. The literature of England is one of its chief treasures, and we are never weary of boasting of its power, extent, and variety. And our leading publishers, to prove the truth of the boast, keep on multiplying the same limited selection of books in the same way, while hundreds, equally good, are neglected. It never seems to occur to the diligent publishers who issue their trumpery little editions of Shakespeare, printed on thin paper, bound in limp leather, and edited to death by some learned scholar, whose notes smother the original text, that the masterpieces of some other author would come as an absolute novelty, and be hailed as a relief from the never‐ending stock classic. Public Libraries and students of literature are compelled to buy at a great comparative cost such of the older, out‐of‐print hooks as they may desire to possess, while in many cases they are unable to Vol. IV. No. 44, February, 1902.

IN sharp contrast to the general feeling and practice throughout the country is that of the East Ham Corporation which on the recommendation of its Service Committee, has placed its Public Library system in the control of its Education Committee as from November next. This is the first instance known to us of a county borough falling into the trap laid for it by the educationists in the Public Libraries Act of 1919. East Ham does not rank high in the list of municipalities, and it is, perhaps, unnecessary to fear that its example will have many serious imitators.

Compares Layard, Nickell and Jackman′s empirical model of UK unemployment with other time‐series econometric studies to assess whether the balance of evidence supports their analysis. Compares estimates of the effect on the UK NAIRU of factors such as benefits, union strength, mismatch, taxes, the exchange rate and hysteresis. Highlights and discusses differences of approach – e.g. to the exogeneity of the real exchange rate, the permanence of wedge effects and to hysteresis. Empirical results are found to be very sensitive to the precise way in which models are formulated and estimated. This suggests that any estimates of the level of the NAIRU are likely to be unreliable. Finds however, considerable empirical support for the kind of interactions between wages, prices and unemployment that Layard, Nickell and Jackman include in their model.

Describes and discusses a series of researches specifically designed for analysis by sequential techniques — these were aimed at investigating the relationship between price, and customer preference, for a consumer durable article. Defines sequential analysis as a technique concerned with a cumulative simple analysis of results as they are obtained. Documents that investigation of the technique found that, for some market research applications, it has advantages over the conventional technique of completion of field research, followed by full analysis of the data obtained. Uses a sequential analysis chart to add weight to this technique, and discusses results to two test market product candidates (X and Y). Follows up this research by stating sequential analysis is a simple, yet elegant, technique which appears to open new possibilities to market research personnel in many areas. Concludes that sequential analysis has been proved to offer a simple, reliable pricing framework in a situation of dichotomous choice.

LIBRARIANS in charge of small municipal collections are sometimes apt to forget, when enviously regarding some of the larger libraries, that, in many ways, a small library has advantages over its larger rivals, and may even carry out ideas and suggestions which are too laborious to be carried out on a very great scale. As an illustration, I wish to cite the experience of my own library at Bingley, and show how, by working out these suggestions, the membership has been raised from 700 to 1,600, and the annual issues from 24,000 to 54,000 volumes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of four policy options for the international community to help resolve conflicts involving black diamonds: foreign aid, a tax arms exports, a tax on blood diamond and a tax on diamond exports in general from the war zones.

A trade‐theoretic model of two open economies which are in conflict with each other was constructed. War efforts, which involve the use of soldiers and arms, are determined endogenously. The purpose of war is the capture of land containing a natural resource like diamond, but the costs are that lives are lost and production sacrificed. The capture of mining land helps to reinforce the war by using profits from the sale of the natural resource to purchase arms.

The paper identifies the role of the “protective” nature of arms, and of income effects of the policy instruments, on the results. For example, foreign aid is found, unambiguously, to increase war when the entire profit from the sale of blood diamond is used to buy arms. But, when the proportion of profits from blood diamond used to buy arms is chosen optimally, foreign aid increases war efforts when arms are significantly protective of soldiers' lives.

This paper helps to understand conflicts, the resolutions of which have serious social implications for the conflict‐torn areas of the world.

This paper provides the international community with an analysis of policy options for dealing with blood diamond. It shows, for example, that controlling supply of arms can be as effective as discouraging the consumption of blood diamond.