Ownership Arrangements Research Articles

Land-use and land-cover change and its environmental implications in a tropical highland watershed, Ethiopia

This study analysed long-term land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) in a highland watershed covering an area of about 154 km2 in the Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia. Two sets of panchromatic aerial photographs (1957 and 1982) and a Landsat TM image (2001) were the main input data from which three land-use and land-cover maps were produced by employing geographical information systems/remote sensing techniques. These data were complemented by some socio-economic data that were generated by using household survey, key-informant interview and group discussion methods. The results show that in regard to land-use and land-cover, the major change has been the reduction of areas under natural vegetation cover and expansion of open grassland, cultivated areas and settlements. Over the four and a half decades considered, areas of forest and dense tree cover and shrub grassland decreased by 64 and 6%, respectively. Forest and dense tree cover experienced the greatest change; from accounting for ∼9% of the total area of the watershed in 1957 to only ∼3% in 2001. In general, much of the de-vegetation occurred between 1982 and 2001. Cropland and rural settlement showed a small but consistent increase between 1957 and 2001. Riparian vegetation decreased during the first period, but increased almost to the same level during the second period by gaining land from the other land-use and land-cover types. The observed LUCCs were driven by a combination of proximate and underlying causes. These include increasing demographic pressure and associated demands on environmental resources, widespread rural poverty and inadequate management of common property resources owing to poorly defined ownership arrangements. There is a need for short-term and long-term strategies to ensure sustainable land management and agricultural development in the watershed.

Policy schemes, operational strategies and system integration of residential co-generation fuel cells

This study presents a holistic approach for the commercialisation of fuel cells for stationary applications. We focus our analyses on microCHP based on SOFC units fired with natural gas. We analyse the interaction of operational strategies under different ownership arrangements, required support levels and system integration aspects. The operational strategies, support mechanisms and ownership arrangements have been identified through actor analysis involving experts from Denmark, France and Portugal. With regard to operational strategies, the actor analyses led us to distinguishing between a heat-driven strategy, with and without time-differentiated tariffs, and an electricity price driven strategy for the operation as a virtual power plant. The corresponding support schemes identified cover feed-in tariffs, net metering and feed-in premiums. Additionally, the interplay of the microCHP units with the national energy systems has been analysed. Our main findings are that net metering would be an appropriate tool to support FC based microCHP in Denmark, whereas a price premium would be the preferable tool in France and Portugal.

Por que as empresas brasileiras adotam estruturas piramidais de controle

Pyramidal ownership structures are widespread among Brazilian companies, and represent a way of deviation from the “one share, one vote” principle. The literature about the incidence and consequences of this mechanism is extensive; however, only recently the motivations have been studied. Among the motivations, there are: financing advantages, the implicit insurance offered by the chance of cash flow transfers between companies, fiscal advantages and the moral risk. This paper investigates these motivations analyzing the ownership structure of 271 Brazilian companies traded in the stock exchange in 2004 and 257 in 2006. Cash flow and control rights are observed until the ultimate owner. The data shows an evolution of structures toward a less concentrated and lower mismatch between cash flow and voting rights. Motivations are analyzed through economic and financial variables using multiple linear regressions and logit models. Financing advantages emerge as a relevant reason. Pyramids also leverage the mismatch between cash flow and voting rights exacerbating the moral risk problem. However, there is a positive relationship between pyramidal structures characteristics and dividend payout, and negative with cash availability. These lessen the risk of expropriation since the cash flow available to the discretion of controlling managers is lower. Some interviews with board directors, auditors and lawyers were done to explore other possible reasons. As relevant reasons were cited: the reputation of the controlling shareholder; partnership reorganization for fiscal, business separation and family members ownership arrangements; the construction of better profit distribution alternatives.

Changes to the ownership and control of East Asian corporations between 1996 and 2008: The primacy of politics

We investigate changes to the ownership and control of East Asia's largest companies in 1996 and 2008. Newly compiled data for 1386 publicly traded companies at the end of 2008 are supplemented with existing data on 1,606 publicly traded companies at the end of 1996. Two main findings stand out. First, where status quo political arrangements persist, preexisting ownership arrangements go unchanged or become more entrenched. Where major political changes occurred, corporate ownership would undergo substantial changes. Second, the state has become increasingly important as an owner of domestic firms as well as foreign firms.

The Institutional Framework for Shared Consumption: Deemphasizing Taxation in the Theory of Public Finance

Expositions of the theory of public finance mostly presume that taxation is the primary instrument for generating revenues. This presumption, however, is neither historically accurate nor theoretically necessary. Taxation is a feature of a particular arrangement of ownership which is capable of variation. This paper explores some of that variation in a manner that puts taxation into the background of a theory of public finance while bringing the social organization of shared consumption into the foreground. For instance, cities are corporate bodies which can be organized under diverse institutional arrangements, only a subset of which will give scope to taxation rather than pricing through contract. In this respect, there is a deep similarity between cities and such entities as hotels and malls regarding the types of services they supply, along with a difference in structures of ownership and forms of revenue.

Humanistic leadership: Lessons from Latin America

We review the psychological, sociological and historical explanations underlying leadership styles in Latin America. A fundamentally paternalistic style relies on social bonds based on reciprocity and stresses workers’ expectations. Transformations in leadership styles in Latin America require consideration of alternative theoretical approaches such as stakeholder management and cultural hybridism, beyond cross-cultural frameworks. Viewing employees as key stakeholders implies a legitimate concern for workers beyond the employment relationship. From a hybridism perspective, diversity is a critical concept that applies to organizational ownership arrangements, management practices, cultural backgrounds, and socio economic contextual changes surrounding leadership styles.

Making Room for Smallholder Cooperatives in Tanzanian Tea Production: Can Fairtrade Do That?

The objective of this article is to examine the different ways that smallholders are brought into Fairtrade certification schemes in the Tanzanian tea industry. We examine the different ownership relations of processing factories and the perceived benefits of these different arrangements. We use descriptive qualitative analysis based on qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted between 2008 and 2010 to identify the significance between factory ownership organization and Fairtrade certification. We find that there is a movement toward innovation in the organizational strategies, which includes new ownership arrangements of processing factories and outgrower contracts that have been associated with certified Fairtrade production. We also suggest that organizational innovation is significant for obtaining scheme success yet perceived benefits of and increased information about Fairtrade production is independent from ownership shares in processing.

Competitor collaboration and product distinctiveness

Competitors often collaborate by sharing a part of value-creating activities such as technology development, product design, and distribution, which are important elements for creating product distinctiveness. Competitor collaborations have recently been regarded as crucial issues by antitrust authorities. Although collaboration between competitors reduces their product distinctiveness, it may increase the distinctiveness between their products and a non-collaborator's product. Also, intensified competition between collaborators lowers their prices and imposes downward pressure on non-collaborator's pricing strategy. We demonstrated that the interaction between these effects yields rich antitrust implications for competitor collaborations and a new perspective on welfare consequences of partial ownership arrangements.

Public Finance Without Taxation: Alternative Institutional Frameworks for Municipal Corporations

Expositions of the theory of public finance mostly presume that taxation will be the primary instrument for generating revenues. While this presumption is historically accurate, it does not so much reflect historical necessity as it reflects a combination of power and ideology. Cities are corporate bodies which can be organized under diverse institutional arrangements, only a subset of which will give scope to taxation rather than pricing through contract. For instance, there is a deep similarity between cities and such entities as hotels and malls with respect to the types of services they supply, along with a difference in structures of ownership and forms of revenue. Taxation is thus a feature of a particular arrangement of ownership that is potentially subject to variation; taxation is not something that is inherent in the provision of public goods because hotels and malls both illustrate the supply of public goods through contractual processes.

Affinities and agreements among major Brazilian shareholders

We provide control and ownership percentages for the three largest shareholders and details about their identity types and participation in shareholder agreements in Brazilian listed companies. Investors must be aware that benefits from greater control dispersion may be offset by formal and informal agreements among the largest shareholders. The sample includes virtually all the listed companies (399) in 2007, agreements were investigated in all of them, and identity associations were mapped directly and indirectly for the three largest shareholders. The concentration of control rights remains very high in general, but is significantly lower in the most demanding listing segment. There is an immense similarity in identity types among the three largest shareholders of a company. Shareholder agreements are common either with or without a controlling shareholder and more frequent with greater control dispersion. The largest shareholder is a signatory in most agreements. The pervasive similarity in the type of the largest shareholders, in most cases a family, the ubiquity of shareholder agreements and the resilient control concentration levels cast doubts about the possible positive effects that more control dispersion and fewer non-voting shares might have had. Any gains from changes in ownership arrangements still need to be addressed.

Mergers and partial ownership

We compare the profitability of a merger between two firms in which one firm fully acquires another and the profitability of a partial ownership arrangement in which the acquiring firm, although owning less than 100% of the acquired firm, is nevertheless able to obtain corporate control over all pricing decisions. We find that joint profit can be higher in the latter case because it may result in a greater dampening of competition with respect to an outside competitor when the partial ownership arrangement is publicly observable. We also derive comparative statics on the prices of the acquiring firm, the acquired firm, and the outside firm and use them to explain puzzling features of the pay-TV markets in Norway and Sweden.

Property rights and farm efficiency: evidence from Ukraine

This paper studies the effect of property rights regime on farm efficiency, using a high-quality representative sample from Ukraine’s agricultural sector. At the farm level, I find that a fully delineated and secure system of property rights leads to large positive gains in efficiency. In Ukraine, farms with a well-defined and enforced governance system have 20% higher level of productive efficiency and 9% higher level of technical efficiency as compared to farms with a contractual incompleteness. The ownership arrangement has profound effect on agricultural production in Ukraine.

How well do tree plantations comply with the twin targets of the Clean Development Mechanism? — The case of tree plantations in Tanzania

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol is supposed to provide both carbon mitigation and poverty reduction. This article reports from a model based study of market related carbon leakage and poverty reduction in the wake of a CDM tree-planting project in Tanzania. A tree plantation was incorporated in a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with income differentiated household segments. The study focused on sensitivity of carbon leakage and income distribution to different project ownerships and carbon premium allocations. It turned out that the project value in terms of carbon premium has clear shortcomings as indicator of induced GDP growth and poverty alleviation. The non-poor rural and urban households benefit considerably more than the poor households. However, rising household income in all domestic project ownership arrangements increases demand for food, raises use of fertilizer and crop yields. A carbon cycle module for agricultural land use was incorporated in the CGE model, showing an increased carbon sequestration in agricultural soil, representing a negative leakage through markets in the range of 60–120% of the certified emissions reductions as registered in the CDM tree plantation project.

Support schemes and ownership structures – the policy context for fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power

In recent years, fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power (mCHP) has received increasing attention due to its potential contribution to European energy policy goals, i.e., sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply. Besides technical advances, regulatory framework and ownership structures are of crucial importance in order to achieve greater diffusion of the technology in residential applications. This paper analyses the interplay of policy and ownership structures for the future deployment of mCHP. Furthermore, it regards the three country cases Denmark, France and Portugal. Firstly, the implications of different kinds of support schemes on investment risk and the diffusion of a technology are explained conceptually. Secondly, ownership arrangements are addressed. Then, a cross-country comparison on present support schemes for mCHP and competing technologies discusses the national implementation of European legislation in Denmark, France and Portugal. Finally, resulting implications for ownership arrangements on the choice of support scheme are explained. From a conceptual point of view, investment support, feed-in tariffs and price premiums are the most appropriate schemes for fuel cell mCHP. This can be used for improved analysis of operational strategies. The interaction of this plethora of elements necessitates careful balancing from a private- and socio-economic point of view.

Models of trust-sharing in Chinese private enterprises

This paper presents two related models of development patterns of Chinese private enterprises. They illustrate incentive-based reasons for ownership arrangements of private enterprises, and highlight how institutional foundations of trust, particularly government and family-based cultural values, play an important role in influencing the development of private enterprises. These models attempt to explain why government and family-based culture are crucial for the ownership structure and management of private enterprises. The main argument in the models is that the structure of family businesses can be viewed, in essence, as a form of trust-sharing ( Guanxi-sharing) arrangement within the firm. Furthermore, the increase in the prevalence of family businesses can be seen as a result of family trust replacing government trust in the firm's economic activities.

Life in a Master Planned Estate—Community and Lifestyle or Conflict and Liability?

Master planned estates (MPEs) in Australia and internationally are increasingly promoted as offering both enhanced lifestyles and closer communities. Resort-style facilities and environmental enhancements are often included in these estates and are promoted in marketing material to evoke an image of an affluent lifestyle in promotion. Such assets are sometimes placed into collective private ownership using a joint legal entity known in Victoria as an owners corporation. This brings with it a range of legal obligations and requires ongoing management. This article explores the promotional images invoked by developers and compares them with the reality of life in one Melbourne MPE with privatised community assets. A disjuncture is shown between the promoted harmonious community in the MPE and the reality of managing complex and sometimes inadequate assets. The authors argue that this ownership arrangement should be avoided where possible due to the long-term ramifications of this kind of development decision.

Growing Together? Land Rights and the Northern Territory Intervention

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term coalition comes from the Latin coalescere or ‘coalesce’, meaning “come or bring together to form one mass or whole”. Coalesce refers to the unity affirmed as something grows: co – “together”, alesce – “to grow up”. While coalition is commonly associated with formalised alliances and political strategy in the name of self-interest and common goals, this paper will draw as well on the broader etymological understanding of coalition as “growing together” in order to discuss the Australian government’s recent changes to land rights legislation, the 2007 Emergency Intervention into the Northern Territory, and its decision to use Indigenous land in the Northern Territory as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

Quality assurance: is the jury still out?

In this lecture, the author identifies six themes in UK (predominantly English) and European practice which have permeated his 19 years in quality assurance: the vagueness of the term ‘quality assurance’; its uncertain purposes in the early years; the critical importance of its ownership and financing; the increasing tendency for quality assurance to be seen as a proxy organ of external power and control over autonomous higher education institutions; the rise and growing importance of developments in Europe; and the uncertain future direction of quality assurance. He examines changes in the purposes informally ascribed to the process and concludes that there has been a shift first from, and then back towards, accountability as the dominant purpose, and that this may displace enhancement as a key objective. The ownership and financing arrangements of the QAA limit its independence of action and possibly its effectiveness. They are also indicative of the government's desire to influence the direction of external quality assurance. In the European arena, the quality assurance aspects of the Bologna Process are described in terms of a jockeying for power over higher education between universities, governments and the European Commission. The lecture ends with some general observations about quality assurance.

‘Community Empowerment’ in the Context of the Glasgow Housing Stock Transfer

A key objective of the Glasgow housing stock transfer in 2003 was promoting community empowerment, community control and community ownership. The first-stage transfer was from Glasgow City Council to Glasgow Housing Association and it was assumed by many that transfer to local housing organisations (LHOs)—thus promoting community ownership—would follow. This paper assesses the nature of community empowerment in LHO management committees and is part of a wider programme of research on governance, participation and empowerment. The study found that, despite its construction and aims, stock transfer policy is not able to deliver a uniform policy outcome in terms of community empowerment. No unitary relationship between community empowerment and community ownership was observed: it is suggested that the opportunity and capability to make choices about preferred management/ ownership arrangements is more empowering than ownership per se.

Mergers and Partial Ownership

In this paper we compare the profitability of a merger to the profitability of a partial ownership arrangement and find that partial ownership arrangements can be more profitable for the acquiring and acquired firm because they can result in a greater dampening of competition. We also derive comparative statics on the prices of the acquiring firm, the acquired firm, and the outside firms. In a dual context, we show that a cross-majority owner may have incentives to sell a fraction of the shares in one of the firms he controls to a silent investor who is outside the industry. Aggregate ex post operating profit in the two firms controlled by the cross-majority shareholder then increases, such that both the cross-majority shareholder and the silent investor will be better off with than without the partial divestiture.