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There has been a loosening of the regulation governing the market for corporate control in the banking industry. Nearly every state in the U.S. has passed some form of interstate banking legislation that allows out‐of‐state banks to acquire local banks. Previous research has shown that the market reaction to this state legislation is both positive and significant for affected bank stocks. What is not clear from prior research is whether all banks are positively affected by the legislation or just banks that are likely acquisition targets. This study measures the impact on both subsequent buyer and target banks. Results indicate that the reaction is a general effect reflecting positive expectations for the industry. The buyer group sustains a significant five percent increase during the event window and the target group increase is over seven percent. The higher return for the target group may reflect an additional acquisition premium. However, the difference between the two groups is not significant. Tests utilizing market value as a proxy for acquisition attractiveness demonstrate that size does not impact the results.

Outlines previous research on the effects of bond rating changes on the share prices of US banks, noting opposing views on whether they contain new information. Examines revisions in analysts’ earnings forecasts for downgraded and non‐downgraded banks (separating regional banks from large money centres) to test the value of this information using 1981‐1991 data on 14 downgrades of money centre banks; and explains the methodology used. Shows that downgrades affected forecasts for the downgraded banks and other money centre banks but not for regional banks. Concludes that bond rating agencies assist market discipline by providing useful information on risk.

The State of Delaware recently passed a new banking law that allows banks and bank affiliates chartered in Delaware to sell and underwrite insurance nationwide. The new laws provide two potential benefits to banks; (1) increased profits from selling insurance and (2) reduced interest rate risk exposure from underwriting insurance. We find support for increased profit potential to banks from the law, but we fail to find a reduction in the interest rate risk exposure of the banks.

The pace of new regulation has been quite rapid in the United States during the past fifteen years. Consider the number of major pieces of legislation that have been passed during this time span and you immediately gain insight into this fast‐paced regulatory climate. It has been argued by some that oversight during the 1980s was lax and that regulations were much less enforced than in previous decades. This may be true in certain areas such as antitrust enforcement, but there can be no doubt that the total body of regulation has been expanding continuously.

An appreciation of the legal environment becomes more important with each passing year for anyone involved in corporate finance. A casual glance at the morning newspaper will usually provide a quick reminder of just how much the two areas are interrelated. The current debate in the United States concerning health care legislation may well result in a package that has a tremendous impact on many companies and industries. Tax issues have been in the news recently as well. There have been a number of significant changes in tax regulations during the past decade, including the legislation just passed by the U. S. Congress in 1993. Smoking continues to generate considerable controversy, and one result has been courtroom battles between tobacco companies and local governments over antismoking ordinances. During the last year, the DuPont Corporation has been defending itself in court over charges that one of its products caused substantial damage to farm crops. Guilty or not, the risk and expense from product liability is an enormous problem confronting almost all companies today. Texaco settled a lawsuit with Pennzoil in 1988 for $3 billion in damages stemming from a battle for the control of Getty Oil. Texaco won that battle, but suffered a very serious setback in the courtroom.

In the conventional positive neoclassical economics, the underlying behavioral assumptions concerning government activity clearly contrast with those usually admitted for other economic agents. While the latter are assumed to seek their own private interest, although accomplishing in that way a social function, governments are assumed to have as their main objective the maximization of social welfare. Hence, the assumption that economic policies are intended to stabilize economic activity follows as a consequence. The inconsistency of this asymmetry between the treatment of government and other agents was clearly stressed by Downs (1957):

This article attempts to provide an institutionalist analysis and diagnosis of the current crisis of orthodox economics. We shall, first, characterise the predominant opinion in economics—the neoclassical synthesis. Next, we examine the anomalies which are currently vexing orthodox opinion and their power to provoke a period of crisis and extraordinary science. In the final section, we diagnose the source of the anomalies of the neoclassical synthesis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Palestinian refugee families in Malaysia cope with the challenges they face during their transitional destination. These families have recently fled from conflict zones in various Arab countries and moved to Malaysia where they registered in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur, waiting for resettlement in a third country.

The paper utilizes the qualitative research approach, drawing descriptive analysis (thematic analysis technique) of data collected by semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 30 Palestinian families. For sample selection, the author used purposive sampling and employed the Snowball technique to select the families who have experienced refuge life for the second time. Then the sample was equally divided into three groups to include ten families moving from Iraq, Syria and the Gaza Strip. The interviews were conducted with the head of the families who varied in terms of gender and age composition. The study involved 9 female participants and 21 males. They are all Muslims and aged between 24 and 80 years old. In terms of educational background, all of the participants are literate with formal school education, diploma or tertiary education.

The study shows that refugee families adopt four main ways of coping commonly used to improve the quality of their life during their transition in Malaysia. They turn to religion and spirituality, keep in touch with relatives and friends in the diaspora and conflict zones, develop a positive image about their present situation by comparing it to worse living conditions of others living in conflict zones and plan to migrate to Europe to hold a European passport which will give them the opportunity to visit their original country, Palestine.

The paper tackles the Palestinian refugee family life and explores their real-life stories and experiences during transition in Malaysia. It provides them with an opportunity to speak up their suffering and reveal the various strategies they adopt to cope with life challenges. Besides, the result of the study will be a fruitful addition to the corpus of sociological knowledge as well as an important contribution to the families that stay in transition in different societies around the world.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Authenticity and sustainability seem to be unlinked concepts. While sustainability refers to the ability of ecosystems to endure and to flourish, authenticity refers to the ability of the human person to develop its “true” or real self. Some will say that nature as a complex, self-directed evolutionary bio-system remains indifferent to the subjectivity and self-interest of human beings. But the modern search for authenticity is one of the causes of the decreasing sustainability of our ecosystem.

The chapter first explores how the modern concepts of the self and the world have disconnected the human subject from nature. The Cartesian disconnection of human subject from nature made it possible not only to transform nature into a semi-mechanical system but also to consider the self as a rational and autonomous being. Hence, realizing the self and being authentic in the Cartesian context meant becoming independent from and master of nature.

The chapter presents the life and philosophy of Albert Schweitzer as a new experience-based foundation for ethics and found it in the principle of “Reverence for life” (Ehrfurcht vordem Leben) conceived as an unconditional and inclusive respect for life in all its manifestations. Schweitzer’s philosophy implies a new sense of authenticity no longer based on the modern ego-centric notion of autonomy but on the alter-centric notion of respect for life.