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Capital investment decisions need to take account of the relevant cash flows which are incremental to each project. The tax effects of a project are clearly an example of relevant cash flows. However, the tax effects of one project may impact upon the tax effects of another. For example, one project may result in significant capital expenditure, which could change the firm's basic profits such that a different marginal tax rate may be applied. The marginal tax rate of a second project depends upon whether the first project is accepted. Thus capital investment decisions need to be made considering projects jointly. The importance of this has been highlighted by a number of authors, including Fawthrop (1971), Grundy and Burns (1979) and Rickwood and Groves (1979). Simulation models have been built by Hodgkinson (1989), whereas optimisation models have been developed by Berry and Dyson (1979), Pointon (1982) and Ashford, Berry and Dyson (1986).

In this paper we report on three research projects relating to investment in Europe.

Numerous simulations are made of whether the tax system (1984 UK corporate tax) should have a neutral effect on the investment decision or whether there are incentives or disincentives to invest.

This article reports on a programme of research into finance leasing, which has, in part, been financially supported by the Research Board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, whose support is much appreciated.

An empirical survey, of 136 respondents from UK quoted companies, was conducted with regard to the likely effects of UK corporation tax reform on share buy‐backs, capital investment and financing choices. Overall, 45 per cent expected ACT abolition to lead to an increase in share buy‐backs. Logistic regression analysis links this view to corporate liquidity. The abolition of advance corporation tax is, however, unlikely to have a significant impact upon UK and overseas capital investment, bond issues, bond redemptions, share issues, finance leasing and projected dividend levels. Capital investment and financing choices are likely to be invariant to the combined effects of a reduced corporate tax rate and a quarterly collection period.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence of target gearing behaviour in firms as well as the drivers of such behaviour.

The paper employs a triangulation approach across three methodological phases: a questionnaire survey, logistic regression modelling of firm data, and interviews with finance directors. The results are then discussed under the key themes of gearing optimality, valuation issues, external drivers, the finance life‐cycle, the impact of risk, and the relationship between gearing and corporate strategy.

The results reveal that the majority of firms engage in targeting, though targets are subject to fairly frequent revision as both external and internal drivers evolve. Important external drivers include macroeconomic variables and analysts' views, whereas important internal drivers include income gearing and profitability.

Given the range and variety of drivers, target gearing evidently represents a complex strategic decision for finance directors. The paper provides a benchmark perspective for finance directors when determining their firm's gearing strategy.

The innovation of the paper is the study of target gearing across three methods, the results of which are then triangulated to provide a deeper understanding of both the quantifiable and qualitative drivers of gearing. This provides a far broader insight into the real‐world determination of gearing strategy than a conventional empirical approach.

The aim of this paper is to investigate differences in capital structures across industries in Egypt paying particular attention to: corporate characteristics, such as liquidity, asset structure, growth, and size; fiscal characteristics, namely, the application of differential corporate tax rates; and stock market activity.

Comparisons are made between the four main industrial sectors: food, heavy industries, contracting and services. For each industry four aspects of capital structure are assessed. Firms are also classified according to whether their shares are actively traded on the Egyptian stock market. Multiple regressions are run to test a range of hypotheses. ANOVA and multiple comparison procedures are also employed.

Across Egyptian firms, higher business risks do not generally result in lower levels of long‐term capital structure. The contracting sector is significantly different from food, heavy industries and services in its determinants of its short‐term financing and interest ratios. The sector also has a higher level of debt, and so a hypothesised tax‐induced higher debt level for the services sector, which has the highest corporate tax rate, is rejected. Asset‐backing is particularly important in heavy industries, and in non‐actively traded firms. Size and growth are positively related to short‐term financing in heavy industries and services.

The value lies in the comprehensiveness of the study, covering both short‐ and long‐term capital structures across industries, both income measures and capital indebtedness, and distinctions according to whether the shares are actively traded or not.

The main aims of this paper are: first, to investigate how decisions are currently made within the Egyptian public sector environment; and, second, to determine whether the decision making can be significantly improved through the use of credit scoring models. A subsidiary aim is to analyze the impact of different proportions of sub‐samples of accepted credit applicants on both efficient decision making and the optimal choice of credit scoring techniques.

Following an investigative phase to identify relevant variables in the sector, the research proceeds to an evaluative phase, in which an analysis is undertaken of real data sets (comprising 1,262 applicants), provided by the commercial public sector banks in Egypt. Two types of neural nets are used, and correspondingly two types of conventional techniques are applied. The use of two evaluative measures/criteria: average correct classification (ACC) rate and estimated misclassification cost (EMC) under different misclassification cost (MC) ratios are investigated.

The currently used approach is based on personal judgement. Statistical scoring techniques are shown to provide more efficient classification results than the currently used judgemental techniques. Furthermore, neural net models give better ACC rates, but the optimal choice of techniques depends on the MC ratio. The probabilistic neural net (PNN) is preferred for a lower cost ratio, whilst the multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) is the preferred choice for a higher ratio. Thus, there is a role for MDA as well as neural nets. There is evidence of statistically significant differences between advanced scoring models and conventional models.

Future research could investigate the use of further evaluative measures, such as the area under the ROC curve and GINI coefficient techniques and more statistical techniques, such as genetic and fuzzy programming. The plan is to enlarge the data set.

There is a huge financial benefit from applying these scoring models to Egyptian public sector banks, for at present only judgemental techniques are being applied in credit evaluation processes. Hence, these techniques can be introduced to support the bank credit decision makers.

Thie paper reveals a set of key variables culturally relevant to the Egyptian environment, and provides an evaluation of personal loans in the Egyptian public sector banking environment, in which (to the best of the author's knowledge) no other authors have studied the use of sophisticated statistical credit scoring techniques.

This paper explored the new features of emerging stock markets, in order to point out the most associated indicators of increasing stock return volatility, which may lead to instability of emerging markets. The study covers a sample of five geographical areas of emerging economies, including Mexico, Korea, South Africa, Turkey, and Malaysia. It used the backward multiple‐regression technique to examine the relationship between monthly changes of stock price indices as dependent variable and the associated predicting local as well as international variables, which represent possible causes of increasing price volatility and initiating crises in emerging stock markets. The study covered monthly data for a period of forty‐eight months from January 1997 to December 2000. The study revealed that stock trading volume and currency exchange rate respectively represent the highest positive correlation to the emerging stock price changes; thus represent the most predicting variables of increasing price volatility. International stock price index, deposit interest rate, and bond trading volume were moderate predicting variables for emerging stock price volatility. While changes in inflation rate showed the least positive correlation to stock price volatility, thus represents the least predicting variable.

This paper aims to describe the content and import of a conference held in partnership between Staffordshire University and The National Spirituality and Mental Health Forum on the importance of considering life in the context of human mortality, and the meaning and purpose of our lives. It was one of a series of conferences on the theme of health and multi‐belief systems; other conferences were on mental health and civic regeneration. A fourth conference is planned for 2012 on dementia and beliefs.

The conference and its format, including case studies is placed within the intense debate concerning the meaning of life in the context of death and what might be beyond “the grave”. With this conversation, and the issue of assisted dying becoming more prevalent, it was felt important to bring into the paper not just philosophical writings but examples from novels and “popular culture” which highlight the intensity of the dialogue.

Considering the perspectives of a variety of major belief systems assists in relating to and caring for the increasing diversity of older people and their carers when the ultimate challenge of dying is being faced.

As the discourse around assisted dying, belief systems and dignity come more to the fore, staff in health and social care will need time to discuss what are crucial issues for those they serve.

As religion and other belief systems come back into focus, partly through equalities legislation and increased demographic diversity, the Staffordshire University/National Spirituality and Mental Health Forum conference series has been an innovative way of meeting this renewed need.