Condumetric and Gravemetric Lab Report Sample

Condumetric and Gravemetric Lab Report Paper Another way to calculate the molar concentration of barium hydroxide would be to calculate the number of moles of the insoluble barium sulfate by gravimetric determination. Data Analysis: 1. 7. 6 ; 10-4 mol HASPS 2. 0. 076 M 3. 0. 008351 mol Bass 4. 0. 0835 M 5. Equivalence Point: 24% error, Gravimetric determination: 17% error. The gravimetric determination was more accurate because an exact amount of precipitate was formed. Conclusion: In this lab an attempt was made to determine the concentration of a solution by using the countercyclical determined equivalence point of the reaction between and HASPS and by gravimetric determination. The military using the equivalence point was determined to be 0. 076 M, with a percent error tot 24% (actual value was 0. 100 M). The military using gravimetric termination was 0. 0835, an error of 17%. One possible error is the presence tot bubbles in the burette. Bubbles would have caused the burette reading to be too high, resulting in a larger equivalence point. Another possible error deals with the colloidal nature of barium hydroxide due to its relatively low solubility. The colloidal barium hydroxide would make it more difficult for barium sulfate to precipitate out when reacting. Decreasing the amount of precipitate would make the military lower than the actual, and would also account for the error experienced in this lab. We will write a custom essay sample on Condumetric and Gravemetric Lab Report specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Condumetric and Gravemetric Lab Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Condumetric and Gravemetric Lab Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

Psychology Genetic essays

Psychology Genetic essays Interest is growing in the application of evolutionary and genetic behavioral ecological theory to problems of human lifetimes age specific fertility and mortality, population growth, and emerging population-environment interactions. An understanding of human evolution, particularly the effects of environmental constraints on age-specific fertility and mortality offers insights not only into our past, but into modern problems that are both large scale and urgent. Past theories have helped little to illuminate such issues as the transition to small family size. Evolutionary theory has attained the status of new paradigms for personality. Three challenges for the next generation of research are to integrate these disparate approaches to personality (particularly the trait and social-cognitive paradigms), to remedy the imbalance in the person-situation-behavior triad by conceptualizing the basic properties of situations and behaviors, and to add to personality psychology's thin inventory of basic facts concerning the relations between personality and behavior. In the past few years, three new basic paradigms for the study of personality have joined the four classics just considered. Two of thesethe social-cognitive and biological approachesgrew out of the behaviorist and trait paradigms, respectively. The thirdevolutionary psychologydeserves to be considered a new paradigm in its own right. The evolutionary approach to personality, by contrast, focuses on the possibility that behavioral patterns common to all peoplehuman nature itselfhas a biological foundation that can be illuminated by considering the evolutionary history of the human species. Evolutionary ideas became an important part of biology beginning. The modern field of evolutionary psychology can be said to have begun with the sociobiology. The key idea that during the environment of evolutionary adaptation humans with certain behavioral propensities was partic...

Sociology - Ubran Sociology & Crime and Criminology Research Proposal

Sociology - Ubran Sociology & Crime and Criminology - Research Proposal Example As part of examining the possible impact of implementing a diet program for police officers, the health benefits, identified positive work improvements, and social benefits of this program will be tackled in details. In relation to the implementation of a strict diet program for local police officers, the proposed research study is important in terms of improving the health and work performance of the local police officers. Because of the nature of work, the U.S. police officers live roughly 15 years less as compared to the average Americans (Tracy, 1993). This is possible due to the fact that approximately 50% of the local police officers are likely to develop a form of heart disease during their retirement age (Vonk, 2007). The problem with being overweight is highly associated with the risk of developing a long list of health problems including: (1) high blood pressure; (2) Type 2 diabetes or non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM); (3) high blood pressure; (4) atherosclerosis; (5) high cholesterol levels; (6) gallbladder disease; (7) atherosclerosis; (8) cerebral hemorrhage; (9) coronary heart diseases; (10) osteoarthritis; (11) sleep apnea; and (12) certain types of cancer. (Alberti et al., 2007; Nazario, 2007; Nanchahal et al., 2005; WHO, 2005; Ballington, 2002; American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Lau et al., 2000; Yuan et al., 1998) On top of the health consequences of being overweight, it also contributes to the slow physical movements can endanger the lives of the local police officers. The proposed research design includes the use of qualitative and quantitative research survey questionnaire which will be distributed to a group of police officers. To determine the best diet program which can be designed for the specific nutritional needs of the police officers, a one-on-one interview will be conducted with a qualified nutritionist. After requesting

Sales Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 8

Sales Management - Essay Example Sales force automation not only involves automation of various activities related to sales department of a company but also assists the management in carrying out sales analysis, market analysis, and employee performance analysis. Implementation of sales forces automation system in any company or organization is considered an important managerial decision but where it brings various advantages for the companies, it also leads to some disadvantages. Sales Force Automation helps the management of a company update the sales management processes in order to enjoy sheer sales success (Anderson 1996). The key activities carried out by the Sales Force Automation system include lead management, opportunity management, account management, contact management, activity management, and sales forecast analysis (Wilkinson 2010). Sales Force automation helps the companies automate different sales activities, which results in making the sales related processes more accurate and reliable as compared to traditional sales management. Sales Force Automation also helps the companies achieve market domination in any competitive market by increasing the productivity through automated sales processes. Some of the key advantages of implementing Sales Force Automation system in a company include identification of risks, elimination of wastes, decreased administrative costs, improved contract management, better order tracking system, and increased profits for the company. SFA system automates various sales processes such as order placement system, order processing system, and order tracking system. These automated systems result in making the sales department staff of a company more efficient. De Sousa (2010) asserts, â€Å"Sales management software enables sales teams to concentrate more on their sales activities as opposed to administrative tasks†. Companies should implement appropriate techniques such as supervisory feedback and

Save the world proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Save the world proposal - Essay Example In this proposal, the threats facing this animal will be looked at especially the species belonging to the giant panda. Extinction results into complete eradication of an animal species from the earth surface which has a number of consequences to the ecosystem. The proposal will finally analyze some of the possible ways of saving this species of panda from the imminent eradication and extinction (Gong & Reid 246). The giant panda belongs to the bear family and occupies large parts of china and other areas of New Zealand and Australia. It is an omnivore eating both bamboo leaves and soft tissues sections and small animals found within its habitat. Moreover, it is one of the major sources of tourism revenue in china and New Zealand and foreigners troop these countries to be with this friendly animal. Furthermore, it presents many opportunities for the country that makes it essential for the world life conservancy authorities and groups to develop mechanisms of protecting the animal (Ou yang et al 622). The giant panda is considered as one of the rare species of bear currently available that depends on bamboos and soft tissue plants to survive. Bamboo has however attracted a number of economic applications across different levels of economic activities in the world. As a result, bamboo cutting has significantly increased as people use them for economic purposes or clear the land for farming activities due to increased human population. This deprives the giant panda of its main source of food, thus leaving the animal with small animals as the only alternative source of food. Additionally, the giant panda is slow to reproduce which means that the animal has minimal number of offspring during its lifetime, further increasing its vulnerability to extinction (Entwistle & Dunstone 87). The giant panda should be saved from extinction considering the significant role it plays in reinforcing the efforts of conservation of the flora and fauna. It is considered as one of the most loved animal species not just in china but also in other parts of the country. The region where the giant panda is found is considered as the heartland of Chinese which makes it essential to ensure sustainability in the region. Encouraging sustainability in this region will not only protect the giant panda from extinction but also improve the lifelines of the people around the Yangtze Basin in China. This area acts as the heartland of economic activities in china, being home to both tourist activities, subsistence fisheries and a number of economic activities essential for the growth of the country (Li et al 48). The extinction of the giant panda has a number of ecological, economical and agricultural impacts not just to china but also to the rest of the world. In the event of this extinction, China will end up losing a symbol of its national pride and conservancy efforts. The rate of bamboo consumption in the country will increase tremendously as there will be no concern arisi ng from the existence of the giant panda. This will create significant ecological and agricultural implications to the areas where bamboo is widely grown (Entwistle & Dunstone 87). Despite the widespread concerns on animal and plant conservancy, the benefits achieved maybe are overshadowed by the challenges. Extinction to some scholars is created by natural forces as explained by Darwin theories in relations to the available natural resources. The continued

Theories of Merger and Takeover Waves

Theories of Merger and Takeover Waves Merger Wave The American economy experienced two great takeover waves in the postwar period, first in the 1960s and the second in the 1980s. Both waves had a deep affect on the structure of corporate America. The main trend in the 60s was diversification and conglomeration. In contrast the 1980s takeover reversed the previous process and brought US corporations back to specialization. In this respects, the last thirty years were a roundtrip for corporate America. This paper is an overview of the salient features of the two takeover waves. 1.1 The 1960s Conglomerate Merger Wave The merger wave of the 1960s was the major since the turn of the century (Stigler, 1968). A typical characteristic of the 1960s transaction was a friendly acquisition, frequently for stock, of a smaller private or public firm which was outside the acquiring firms main line of business. During this period unrelated diversification was widespread among the large companies. Rumelt (1974) has reported that the fraction of single business companies in the Fortune 500 decreased from 22.8% in 1959 to 14.8% in 1969. Further, the portion of conglomerates with no dominant businesses increased to 18.7% from 7.3%. There was also a considerable move to diversification among companies that retained their core business. The driving force behind the 1960s wave was high valuations of company stocks and large corporate cash flows. However the management was unwilling to pay out the high cash flows as dividends, and on the other hand able to issue equity at attractive terms therefore, turned their atte ntion to acquisitions (Donaldsoni. 1984).Dividends were considered as a complete waste, and acquisitions as a very attractive way to conserve corporate wealth. There are two sets of arguments used to explain why companies diversify. The first set argues that firms diversify to increase shareholder wealth. A number of authors have discussed different aspects of diversification that can potentially raise shareholder wealth. Williamson (1970), suggest that firms diversify to beat imperfections in external capital markets. Through diversification, managers create internal capital markets, which are less prone to asymmetric information problems. Lewellen (1971), argues that conglomerates can carry on higher levels of debt since corporate diversification reduces earnings variability. if conglomerate firms are more valuable than companies operating in a single industry If the tax shields of debt increase. Shleifer and Vishny (1992), state that conglomerates may have a higher debt capacity since they can sell assets in those industries that suffer the least from liquidity problems in bad states of the world. Finally, Teece (1980) argues that divers ification leads to economics of scale. The second set of arguments states diversification as a product of the agency problems between shareholder and managers. Amihud and Lev (1981) argue that managers follow a diversification strategy to protect the value of their human capital. However, Jensen (1986) suggests that companies diversify to increase the private benefits of managers. Similarly, Shleifer and Vishny (1989) suggest that managers diversify because they are better at managing assets in other industries. Thus, diversifying will make skills more indispensable to the firm. 1.2 The 1980s Merger Wave Form a longer historical perspective, Golbe and White (1988) presented time series evidence of U.S. takeover activity from the late 1800s to the mid-1980s. Their findings have suggested that takeover activity above 2 to 3 percent of GDP is unusual. However, the greatest level of merger activity occurred around 1980s, at roughly 10 percent of GNP. By this measure, takeover activity in the 1980s is historically high. The size of the average target in the 1980s had increased extremely from the modest level of the 60s. By 1989 28%, of Fortune 500 companies were acquired and many transactions, particularly the large ones, were hostile. Further the medium of exchange in takeovers was cash rather than stock, they were characterized by heavy use of leverage. Firms were purchased by other firms by leveraged takeovers by borrowing rather than by issuing new stock or using solely cash on hand. Other firms restructured themselves, borrowing to repurchase their own shares. The 80s was also characterized by latest forms of control changes, which included bustup takeovers. Bustup takeovers involved the sell off of a substantial fraction of the targets assets to other firms. (Bhagat, Shleifer, and Vishny, 1990; Kaplan, 1997). 2 Merger Motives The following sections will explain the motive behind the two merger waves. 2.1 Managerial Motives Agency theory predicts that unless managers are strictly monitored by large block of shareholders they will certainly act out of self-interest. Amihud and Lev (1981) have provided proof that unless closely monitored by large block shareholders managers will attempt to reduce their employment risk through diversification. Lane et al.(1998) in this study have reexamined Amihud and Lev findings about agency theory Using a sample of 309 US firms that diversified between 1962 1970, from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Statistical Report on Mergers and Acquisitions (1976). This study falls in the third broad category[1] of agency studies. However this analysis only examines the strategic behaviors of managers when they are not under siege and are also not in a situation, in which their interests are clearly in conflict with those of shareholders. Specifically, firms without large block shareholders are expected to engage in more unrelated acquisitions and show higher levels of diversif ication than firms with large block shareholders (Jensen and Meckling (1976)) Using Multiple Regression, the study found no evidence for the standard agency theory predictions that management controlled firms are linked with strategically lower levels of diversification and lower levels of returns than are firms with large block shareholders. It was found that Ownership structure and diversification are largely independent constructs. Thus, managers may be are worthy of more trust and autonomy than what the agency theorists have prearranged for them. Rather than seeking to restrict managerial discretion through extreme oversight, a more balanced approach by principals is needed. Some safeguards are essential as conflicts of interests between managers and shareholders do arise in certain situations, therefore, the assumption that such conflicts dominate the day-to-day management is not realistic. Matsusaka,(1993) takes a deep look at the astonishingly high pre-merger profit rates of target companies during the conglomerate merger wave. The main goal of the study is to assess how important was managerial discipline as a takeover motive. The analysis uses an extensive data set of 806 manufacturing sector acquisitions that took place in 1968, 1971 and 1974. The sample was collected from New York Stock Exchange listing statements. Sample of 609 observations was taken from 1968, 117 from 1971, and 129 from 1974. The results did not differ in any vital way by year, so observations from the three periods were pooled. Because antitrust enforcement was strict in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was safely assumed that the sample mergers were not motivated to increase market power Ravenscraft and Scherer (1987). This allowed the investigation to focus on a narrow set of merger motives. Profitability[2] throughout the study was measured as a rate of return on assets. The theory identified two basic characteristics of mergers motivated to discipline target management. First it wsa observed that the target was underperforming its industry and the only reason to discipline the managers was that they were not maximizing profit. It could be because of incompetence that they were pursuing their own objectives. The second, the target company had publicly traded stock and the only posibility to discipline management was by electing an appropriate board of directors. In this situation a takeover was necessary to effect a change as the diffused stock ownership resulted in free-rider problems. Owners can remove bad managers of privately owned firms, as they are closely held. The problem occurs in large publicly traded firms with diffuse ownership. The statistical results revealed that both public and private targets had extremely high profit rates prior to acquisition compared to their size classes and industries. Therefore, takeovers were not motivated to discipline target managers during the conglomerate merger wave. The second finding of the study is that public targets were not as particularly profitable as private targets. It was also found that the largest public targets had the lowest profit rates. A credible interpretation of the evidence is that managerial discipline may have been significant for just a small set of acquisitions that involved large publicly-traded targets. Matsusaka (1993) leaves the bigger question unexplained. Why buyers time and again sought high profit targets during the merger wave. There is a simple clarification, that high quality assets are generally favored to low quality assets, as high quality assets are more expensive. In addition to explaining why firms seek high-profit targets, an asset complementarity theory implies that firms tend to divest their low-profit divisions Palmer and Barber (2001) have determined the factors that led large firms to participate in the1960s wave. The theoretical approach, of the study conceptualizes corporate elites (managers and directors) as actors. However it is assumed that these actors have interests which have arisen from positions held in organizational and institutional environments, and from multidimensional social class structure. Often Acquisitions are deviant and innovative ways by which corporate these elites can increase their status and wealth. Corporate elite diversify to the extent that their place in the class structure provides them with the capacity and interest to augment their wealth and status in this way. The authors have examined how the firms top directors and managers class position influenced its tendency to employ diversification in the 1 960s. More specifically the following arguments on social status[3] have been tested empirically. Firstly, Firms run by top managers who attended an exclusi ve secondary school or whose family was listed in a metropolitan social register were less likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Secondly, Firms run by top managers who were Jewish were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1 960s. Thirdly, Firms run by top managers situated in the South or west were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. The study selected a sample of the largest 461 publicly traded U.S. industrial corporations from the Federal Trade Commissions Statistical Report on Mergers and Acquisitions (1976), between January 1, 1963, and December 31, 1968. This particular time period was chosen because as the merger wave took off at the end of 1962 and crested in 1968. The results of the study were found through count and binary regression models. The findings of the study are consistent with that of Zeitlin (1974). According to him top managers capacities and interests are shaped by their social class position. Corporate elite members differ in their social class position. It is this variation that influences the behavior of the firms they command. The results indicate that social club memberships and upper-class background influenced a firms propensity to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Network embeddedness and status influenced acquisition likelihood in opposite directions. Corporations that were run by chief executives who were central in social networks but marginal with respect to status were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Therefore, individuals with high status had small interest in adopting innovation. Corporate elites can inhibit the spread of an innovation when it threatens their interests. As observed by Hayes and Taussig (1967), One must never under estimate the moral suasion that the business and financial communities can bring to bear on those who engage in practices of which they disapprove. In this respect, the analysis provides additional evidence that intraclass conflict shaped corporate behavior during the 1960s merger wave. It seemed that in the 1960s, it was not concentrated ownership but, ownership in the hands of capitalist families that reduced a firms tendency to complete diversifying acquisitions. Further, as predicted by agency theory , concentrated ownership would lower acquisition rates most when in the hands of the CEO or other top managers, as opposed to outsiders, However it was found the reverse to be the case. Overall, there was very little support for any of the agency theory in the 1960s merger wave. Further, the results provided no support for several of the class-theory hypotheses. Firms headquartered in the South or West run or by Jewish CEOs did not have a greater propensity to complete diversifying acquisitions during the 1960s. The process of diversification of American firms reached its height during the merger wave of the late 1960s. Matsusaka(1993)evaluated the 1960s merger wave. In an attempt to do so the author has proposed a number of explanations that drove managers to diversify during the conglomerate merger wave. There are reasons to suspect that managers may have pursued a diversification strategy even when it impaired the shareholder. They may have entered new lines of business to protect their organization-specific human capital or establish themselves. On the other hand, they may have been pursuing size as an end and because of strict antitrust opposition to horizontal and vertical mergers they had to expand by buying into unrelated industries. The study has evaluated whether manager were diversifying for their own advantage or in the interest of shareholders returns .To do so the author inspected the effect of diversification on the value of his firms equity. Thus, if the value of a firm declined upon announcement of an acquisition, then its management was not acting to maximize shareholder wealth. One explanation for conglomeration stated in the study, stems from Managerial-Discipline theory. Firstly, Firms were taken over to discipline or replace their bad managers ie â€Å"Managerial-Discipline. Secondly, Managerial Synergy theory states that the bidder management wanted to work with target management, not replace it. In this case the acquirer management believed that the target management would complement to their skills. Therefore firm that had Managerial-discipline problem were likely to have had low profits, and on the other hand managerial-synergy targets were likely to have had high profits. Another explanation is that buyers were motivated by earnings-per- share (EPS) manipulation. This explanation states that conglomerates have a high price-earnings ratio (P/E). [4] Therefore the bidder management was bootstrapping, by buying firms with low P/Es. Construction of the dataset began with a list of mergers from the sample of 1968, 1971 and 1974 .The sample was identified from the takeovers from New York Stock Exchange listing statements and the results were presented through regression. The announcement-period return to the bidders shareholders was measured through dollar return, [5] .Regression of the dollar-return measure found that the return to a diversification acquisition was significantly positive. On average their shareholders enjoyed an $11.0 million value increase in value when bidders made a diversification acquisition,. This rejects the hypothesis that diversification hurt shareholders and is thus inconsistent with the idea that diversification was driven by managerial objectives. On the other hand, bidders who made related acquisitions cost their shareholders $6.4 million on average. Thus, the hypothesis that the markets reaction was the same to related acquisitions and diversification is rejected, suggesting that there was a market premium to diversification. Using descriptive statistical summaries it was found that both diversifying and horizontal buyers preferred to buy firms that were profitable. For both type of acquisitions the average operating profit was more than 5% in excess of the targets industry average. Therefore fame of high-profit targets argues against the importance of a managerial-discipline motive for both types of acquisition and in favor of a managerial-synergy motive. This is because Managerial-discipline takeovers should have been directed at low-profit firms, whose profitability needed improved. The motive was Managerial-synergy as the targets were takeovers were high- profit firms, this is because synergy-motivated managers were looking for good partners Matsusaka(1993). Another factor linked to the managerial theories is whether or not the targets management was retained.Top management is said to have been retained if it meet the following criteria. Firstly It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that the acquired firms management would continue to operate under the new management. Secondly, it was indicated in the buyers listing statement that the targets management would be retained. Lastly, when the merger took place at least one of the top three executives of the target firm was still managing the firm three years later from when the merger took place. According to the above mentioned definitions, 61.8% of the managers in the sample were retained and only 3.5% of the acquisitions fell in the Replaced category. The main finding is that buyers earned significantly positive announcement-period returns during the conglomerate merger wave when they made diversifying acquisitions. The hypothesis that conglomerates were driven by empire building or some other managerial objective can be rejected because such explanations imply value decreases to unrelated acquisitions. Another explanation of the conglomerate merger wave is that mergers were driven by an accounting trick rather than expected efficiencies. Therefore, investors watched EPS; when the EPS went up they bid up the price of the stock. According to this argument, Conglomerates, tended to buy companies with lower P/E ratios than their own in order to increase their EPS and boost their stock prices. There was no evidence that firms earned positive returns which inflated EPS in this way. The study indicated that early conglomerators earned significantly positive returns simply because they were first. They may have gained some rents to organizational innovation. Possibly the men who built the first conglomerates had a unique talent for diversification, which the market rewarded. Hubbard, Palia (1999), have examined the likelihood that internal capital markets were formed to alleviate the information costs associated with the less well-developed external capital markets of the time; that is, whether they were expected to create value by the external capital markets in the 1960s.In this paper, the authors have inspected a form of cross-subsidization that occurs when a financially unconstrained bidding firm takes over a financially constrained target firm and as a result forms an internal capital market.The study examined whether the external capital markets expected that the formation of internal capital markets in the 1960s were value-maximizing for the bidding firm. However, existing research has argued that internal capital markets can be value-enhancing. As argued by Geneen(1997), the financing and budgeting expertise that a firm possesses is not necessarily related to its degree of diversification. Accordingly, the internal capital market hypothesis for all acquisitions is tested. The study also tests the bootstrapping explanation for conglomeration in the 1960s, which takes place when firms with a high price-earnings ratio (P/E) took over low P/E target firms and fooled the stock market with an increased combined earnings-per-share. In the 1960s, external capital markets were less developed in terms of company-specific information production than in later years. The authors have classified company-specific information into two general categories. Firstly, production information; and secondly, financing and budgeting expertise. However, in this study information-intensive activities were introduced. This was because; it assists the manager to internally allocate capital across divisions of a diversified firm. It was suggested that diversified firms were perceived by the external capital markets to have an informational advantage, because external capital markets were less well developed at that time. Comparing it to the current decade, there was less access by the public to computers, data- bases, analyst reports, and other sources of company-specific information. Not only this there was less large institutional money managers and the market for risky debt was illiquid. The authors selected a sample of 392 acquisitions that occurred during the period from 1961 through 1970. Diversifying acquisitions were defined as those in which the bidder and target do not share any two- digit SIC code Matsusaka(1993), and related acquisitions as those in which they do share a two-digit SIC code. Further the Wall Street Journal was used for announcement date as the event date. Four measures of abnormal returns to the conglomerate bidding firm were calculated. These measures are as follows. Firstly, the usual percentage returns or the cumulative abnormal returns from five days before to five days after the event date. Secondly the percentage returns until date of last revision or the cumulative abnormal returns from five days before to five days after the date of the last revision (Lang et al. (1991)). Thirdly, the dollar returns or the percentage return times the market value of the bidder six days before the announcement (Malatesta(1983); Matsusaka(1993)). Lastly , the investment return defined as the change in the value of the bidder divided by the purchase price (Morck et al. (1990)). Tobins r ratio[6] is used as a proxy for a firms capital market opportunities. The evidence from these measures is mixed. Positive abnormal returns for all four measures were shown for related acquisitions. On the other hand, two of the four measures had shown statically significant positive abnormal returns for diversifying acquisitions in. Not only that diversifying acquisitions do not significantly earn less than related acquisitions in two of the four measures. Thus, evidence suggests, the capital markets believed acquisitions to be generally good for bidder shareholders during the 1960s. More significantly, it was found that when financially unconstrained buyers acquired constrained target firms, highest bidder returns were earned. Further, bidders generally retain target management, signifying that management may have provided company- specific operational information and the bidder on his part also provided capital budgeting expertise. Therefore, external capital markets expected information benefits from the formation of the internal capital markets. The study found no evidence in support of the bootstrapping hypothesis, as the coefficient on the dummy variable[7] was not statistically different from zero. This result is consistent with Matsusaka, (1993), who also finds no evidence for bootstrapping.Therefore, firms merged to form their own internal capital markets as there was a deficiency of well-developed external capital markets in the 1960s. Some firms apparently had an information advantage over the external capital markets and were expected to produce value in an internal capital market. In the 1960s diversified acquisitions were rewarded by financial markets, the informational advantage that acquiring firms appeared to possess was likely to be in the capital budgeting, allocation process and operational aspects of each division. Bidder firms generally retained the target management as it would facilitate them running the operational part of each target firm. The Motives discussed in the above mentioned articles are appealing; however evidence from the stock market suggests that shareholders preferred their firms to diversify. Using a data set from the 60s and early 70s, Matsusaka (1993) reported that, when the company announced an unrelated acquisition, the stock price of the bidder increased on average of $8 million. However, on the announcement of a related acquisition, the bidding firms stock price fell by $4 million. The difference between the two returns is quite significant. Thus it appears that investors fully believed that unrelated acquisitions benefited their firms relative to the alternatives. Thus the managers just did what the stock market told them to do that is to diversify. Evidence from 1980s stock market suggested that shareholders, again, liked what was happening. Shleifer, and Vishny (1992) found that in the 1980s, stock prices of the bidding firms rose when they bought other firms in the same industry, and fell with unrelated diversification. It is clear that the market disapproved unrelated diversification. Therefore it does not astonish that, in light of such market reception, managers stopped diversifying and did what the stock market directed them to do. 2.2 Legal Motives Matsusaka (1996) investigated whether the antitrust enforcement of the 1960s led firms to take on the diversification goal, by preventing them from expanding within their own core industries. If correct, diversification should have occurred more less frequently when small firms merged than when large firms merged since small mergers were less likely to have attracted antitrust attention. Further the author examined the diversification patterns in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where none of these countries had legal restrictions on horizontal growth similar to those in the Unites States. The US Clayton Antitrust Act was the antitrust legislation in the postwar period (1950 Celler-Kefauver amendment to Section 7). The act, prohibited mergers that would substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly. This new law was used by the antitrust authorities and the courts to limit the number of mergers between vertically related and firms in the same lines of business. The strictness of the antitrust environment in 1968 is illustrated by the observation that in the earlier 12 years, all antitrust cases that reached the Supreme Court had been resolved in support of the government. The study indicates the following two implications. Firstly, large horizontal mergers were more liable to have been challenged on antitrust grounds than small horizontal mergers. Secondly mergers between unrelated firms were unlikely to have been blocked, regardless of size. Firms diversified in 1960s, since antitrust authorities prevented them from expanding in their home industries. Later when antitrust policy became less rigid in the 1980s, firms expanded horizontally, leading them to refocus on their core business. Stigler (1966) was perhaps the first to present evidence on the antitrust hypothesis, concluding that, the 1950 Merger Act has had a strongly adverse effect on horizontal mergers by large companies. The author selected a sample of 549 mergers (that took place in 1968) from the New York Stock Exchange. Results of the study were reported through Logit regressions .It was found that bidders were as likely to have entered new industries when they made small acquisitions as when they made large acquisitions, and small buyers were as likely to have diversified as large buyers. Further the total number of diversification acquisitions concerning small companies was high.Though, according to the antitrust hypothesis; diversification should have been widespread primarily in large mergers where same industry acquisitions were prohibited by tough antitrust enforcement. Secondly assembled international evidence indicated that diversification took place in many industrialized nations in the 1960s and 1970s, although restrictions against horizontal combinations were unique to the United States. Yet, most other industrialized Western nations[8] experienced diversification merger waves and general movements toward diversification in their largest companies (Chandler (1991)).Thus most of the evidence, is not consistent with the antitrust hypothesis, signifying that other explanations for corporate diversification should be emphasized not the anti trust hypothesis. Scholes and Wolfson (1990) state, that the changes in U.S. tax laws[9] in the 1980s had obvious affect on the desirability of mergers and acquisitions. However such transactions were not only motivated by tax factors but also non tax factors[10]. Tax laws can have number of affects on mergers and acquisitions , which can include the following capital losses, presence of tax-attribute carry forwards such as net operating losses , investment tax credits, and foreign tax credits, among others, that might be cashed in more quickly and more fully by way of a merger; the desire to step up the tax basis of assets for depreciation purposes to their fair market value; the desire to sell assets to permit a change in the depreciation schedule to one that is more highly accelerated. The authors in this study have examined the effect of changes in tax laws passed in 1980s on merger and acquisition activity in the United States. The authors selected the annual values of mergers and acquisitions from 1968 through 1987 in nominal dollars. The data source for nominal values was W. T. Grimm and Company for 1968-85 and Mergers Acquisitions (1987-88, rev. quarterly) for 1986 and 1987. Using time series analysis it was found that the dollar volume of merger activity between 1980-1981 increased from $44.35 billion to $82.62 billion (86%) in nominal terms. The percentage increase was approximately twice as large as the next largest percentage increase in annual merger and acquisition activity over the 1970-86 periods. There was spectacular increase in merger activity that began with the passage of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, however this was not the only merger wave that occurred in that time frame. Unusual merger activity was also witnessed in the 1960s. The termination of 1960s wave was accompanied by quite a few regulatory events that depressed such transactions. Firstly, the Williams Amendments had en larged the cost and difficulty of effecting tender offers. Secondly the issuance of Accounting Principles Board Opinions 16 and 17, forced many acquiring firms to boost depreciation expense, goodwill amortization and cost of goods sold. Thirdly the Tax Reform Act of 1969, made transferability of tax attributes (net-operating-loss carry forwards) more restrained. Therefore there was a sudden decline in merger activity from the peak in 1968. Relative to the tax benefits when the non tax benefits of the transaction were small, current management were the most efficient purchasers, as they had an advantage along the hidden information dimension. Therefore 1981 act had increased the incidence of cases in which non tax benefits were less than the common tax benefits of mergers and acquisitions. As a result, there was an increase in the number of transactions involving management buyouts. The annual dollar value of unit management buyouts between 1978-80 increased by a factor of 3, and by a factor in excess of 20 for the period 1981-86. The antitrust proposition mentioned above is appealing as one of the most important reason for diversification, during the 60s and 70s, which simply disallowed mergers of firms in the same industry, regardless of the effects of these mergers o Theories of Merger and Takeover Waves Theories of Merger and Takeover Waves Merger Wave The American economy experienced two great takeover waves in the postwar period, first in the 1960s and the second in the 1980s. Both waves had a deep affect on the structure of corporate America. The main trend in the 60s was diversification and conglomeration. In contrast the 1980s takeover reversed the previous process and brought US corporations back to specialization. In this respects, the last thirty years were a roundtrip for corporate America. This paper is an overview of the salient features of the two takeover waves. 1.1 The 1960s Conglomerate Merger Wave The merger wave of the 1960s was the major since the turn of the century (Stigler, 1968). A typical characteristic of the 1960s transaction was a friendly acquisition, frequently for stock, of a smaller private or public firm which was outside the acquiring firms main line of business. During this period unrelated diversification was widespread among the large companies. Rumelt (1974) has reported that the fraction of single business companies in the Fortune 500 decreased from 22.8% in 1959 to 14.8% in 1969. Further, the portion of conglomerates with no dominant businesses increased to 18.7% from 7.3%. There was also a considerable move to diversification among companies that retained their core business. The driving force behind the 1960s wave was high valuations of company stocks and large corporate cash flows. However the management was unwilling to pay out the high cash flows as dividends, and on the other hand able to issue equity at attractive terms therefore, turned their atte ntion to acquisitions (Donaldsoni. 1984).Dividends were considered as a complete waste, and acquisitions as a very attractive way to conserve corporate wealth. There are two sets of arguments used to explain why companies diversify. The first set argues that firms diversify to increase shareholder wealth. A number of authors have discussed different aspects of diversification that can potentially raise shareholder wealth. Williamson (1970), suggest that firms diversify to beat imperfections in external capital markets. Through diversification, managers create internal capital markets, which are less prone to asymmetric information problems. Lewellen (1971), argues that conglomerates can carry on higher levels of debt since corporate diversification reduces earnings variability. if conglomerate firms are more valuable than companies operating in a single industry If the tax shields of debt increase. Shleifer and Vishny (1992), state that conglomerates may have a higher debt capacity since they can sell assets in those industries that suffer the least from liquidity problems in bad states of the world. Finally, Teece (1980) argues that divers ification leads to economics of scale. The second set of arguments states diversification as a product of the agency problems between shareholder and managers. Amihud and Lev (1981) argue that managers follow a diversification strategy to protect the value of their human capital. However, Jensen (1986) suggests that companies diversify to increase the private benefits of managers. Similarly, Shleifer and Vishny (1989) suggest that managers diversify because they are better at managing assets in other industries. Thus, diversifying will make skills more indispensable to the firm. 1.2 The 1980s Merger Wave Form a longer historical perspective, Golbe and White (1988) presented time series evidence of U.S. takeover activity from the late 1800s to the mid-1980s. Their findings have suggested that takeover activity above 2 to 3 percent of GDP is unusual. However, the greatest level of merger activity occurred around 1980s, at roughly 10 percent of GNP. By this measure, takeover activity in the 1980s is historically high. The size of the average target in the 1980s had increased extremely from the modest level of the 60s. By 1989 28%, of Fortune 500 companies were acquired and many transactions, particularly the large ones, were hostile. Further the medium of exchange in takeovers was cash rather than stock, they were characterized by heavy use of leverage. Firms were purchased by other firms by leveraged takeovers by borrowing rather than by issuing new stock or using solely cash on hand. Other firms restructured themselves, borrowing to repurchase their own shares. The 80s was also characterized by latest forms of control changes, which included bustup takeovers. Bustup takeovers involved the sell off of a substantial fraction of the targets assets to other firms. (Bhagat, Shleifer, and Vishny, 1990; Kaplan, 1997). 2 Merger Motives The following sections will explain the motive behind the two merger waves. 2.1 Managerial Motives Agency theory predicts that unless managers are strictly monitored by large block of shareholders they will certainly act out of self-interest. Amihud and Lev (1981) have provided proof that unless closely monitored by large block shareholders managers will attempt to reduce their employment risk through diversification. Lane et al.(1998) in this study have reexamined Amihud and Lev findings about agency theory Using a sample of 309 US firms that diversified between 1962 1970, from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Statistical Report on Mergers and Acquisitions (1976). This study falls in the third broad category[1] of agency studies. However this analysis only examines the strategic behaviors of managers when they are not under siege and are also not in a situation, in which their interests are clearly in conflict with those of shareholders. Specifically, firms without large block shareholders are expected to engage in more unrelated acquisitions and show higher levels of diversif ication than firms with large block shareholders (Jensen and Meckling (1976)) Using Multiple Regression, the study found no evidence for the standard agency theory predictions that management controlled firms are linked with strategically lower levels of diversification and lower levels of returns than are firms with large block shareholders. It was found that Ownership structure and diversification are largely independent constructs. Thus, managers may be are worthy of more trust and autonomy than what the agency theorists have prearranged for them. Rather than seeking to restrict managerial discretion through extreme oversight, a more balanced approach by principals is needed. Some safeguards are essential as conflicts of interests between managers and shareholders do arise in certain situations, therefore, the assumption that such conflicts dominate the day-to-day management is not realistic. Matsusaka,(1993) takes a deep look at the astonishingly high pre-merger profit rates of target companies during the conglomerate merger wave. The main goal of the study is to assess how important was managerial discipline as a takeover motive. The analysis uses an extensive data set of 806 manufacturing sector acquisitions that took place in 1968, 1971 and 1974. The sample was collected from New York Stock Exchange listing statements. Sample of 609 observations was taken from 1968, 117 from 1971, and 129 from 1974. The results did not differ in any vital way by year, so observations from the three periods were pooled. Because antitrust enforcement was strict in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was safely assumed that the sample mergers were not motivated to increase market power Ravenscraft and Scherer (1987). This allowed the investigation to focus on a narrow set of merger motives. Profitability[2] throughout the study was measured as a rate of return on assets. The theory identified two basic characteristics of mergers motivated to discipline target management. First it wsa observed that the target was underperforming its industry and the only reason to discipline the managers was that they were not maximizing profit. It could be because of incompetence that they were pursuing their own objectives. The second, the target company had publicly traded stock and the only posibility to discipline management was by electing an appropriate board of directors. In this situation a takeover was necessary to effect a change as the diffused stock ownership resulted in free-rider problems. Owners can remove bad managers of privately owned firms, as they are closely held. The problem occurs in large publicly traded firms with diffuse ownership. The statistical results revealed that both public and private targets had extremely high profit rates prior to acquisition compared to their size classes and industries. Therefore, takeovers were not motivated to discipline target managers during the conglomerate merger wave. The second finding of the study is that public targets were not as particularly profitable as private targets. It was also found that the largest public targets had the lowest profit rates. A credible interpretation of the evidence is that managerial discipline may have been significant for just a small set of acquisitions that involved large publicly-traded targets. Matsusaka (1993) leaves the bigger question unexplained. Why buyers time and again sought high profit targets during the merger wave. There is a simple clarification, that high quality assets are generally favored to low quality assets, as high quality assets are more expensive. In addition to explaining why firms seek high-profit targets, an asset complementarity theory implies that firms tend to divest their low-profit divisions Palmer and Barber (2001) have determined the factors that led large firms to participate in the1960s wave. The theoretical approach, of the study conceptualizes corporate elites (managers and directors) as actors. However it is assumed that these actors have interests which have arisen from positions held in organizational and institutional environments, and from multidimensional social class structure. Often Acquisitions are deviant and innovative ways by which corporate these elites can increase their status and wealth. Corporate elite diversify to the extent that their place in the class structure provides them with the capacity and interest to augment their wealth and status in this way. The authors have examined how the firms top directors and managers class position influenced its tendency to employ diversification in the 1 960s. More specifically the following arguments on social status[3] have been tested empirically. Firstly, Firms run by top managers who attended an exclusi ve secondary school or whose family was listed in a metropolitan social register were less likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Secondly, Firms run by top managers who were Jewish were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1 960s. Thirdly, Firms run by top managers situated in the South or west were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. The study selected a sample of the largest 461 publicly traded U.S. industrial corporations from the Federal Trade Commissions Statistical Report on Mergers and Acquisitions (1976), between January 1, 1963, and December 31, 1968. This particular time period was chosen because as the merger wave took off at the end of 1962 and crested in 1968. The results of the study were found through count and binary regression models. The findings of the study are consistent with that of Zeitlin (1974). According to him top managers capacities and interests are shaped by their social class position. Corporate elite members differ in their social class position. It is this variation that influences the behavior of the firms they command. The results indicate that social club memberships and upper-class background influenced a firms propensity to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Network embeddedness and status influenced acquisition likelihood in opposite directions. Corporations that were run by chief executives who were central in social networks but marginal with respect to status were more likely than other firms to complete diversifying acquisitions in the 1960s. Therefore, individuals with high status had small interest in adopting innovation. Corporate elites can inhibit the spread of an innovation when it threatens their interests. As observed by Hayes and Taussig (1967), One must never under estimate the moral suasion that the business and financial communities can bring to bear on those who engage in practices of which they disapprove. In this respect, the analysis provides additional evidence that intraclass conflict shaped corporate behavior during the 1960s merger wave. It seemed that in the 1960s, it was not concentrated ownership but, ownership in the hands of capitalist families that reduced a firms tendency to complete diversifying acquisitions. Further, as predicted by agency theory , concentrated ownership would lower acquisition rates most when in the hands of the CEO or other top managers, as opposed to outsiders, However it was found the reverse to be the case. Overall, there was very little support for any of the agency theory in the 1960s merger wave. Further, the results provided no support for several of the class-theory hypotheses. Firms headquartered in the South or West run or by Jewish CEOs did not have a greater propensity to complete diversifying acquisitions during the 1960s. The process of diversification of American firms reached its height during the merger wave of the late 1960s. Matsusaka(1993)evaluated the 1960s merger wave. In an attempt to do so the author has proposed a number of explanations that drove managers to diversify during the conglomerate merger wave. There are reasons to suspect that managers may have pursued a diversification strategy even when it impaired the shareholder. They may have entered new lines of business to protect their organization-specific human capital or establish themselves. On the other hand, they may have been pursuing size as an end and because of strict antitrust opposition to horizontal and vertical mergers they had to expand by buying into unrelated industries. The study has evaluated whether manager were diversifying for their own advantage or in the interest of shareholders returns .To do so the author inspected the effect of diversification on the value of his firms equity. Thus, if the value of a firm declined upon announcement of an acquisition, then its management was not acting to maximize shareholder wealth. One explanation for conglomeration stated in the study, stems from Managerial-Discipline theory. Firstly, Firms were taken over to discipline or replace their bad managers ie â€Å"Managerial-Discipline. Secondly, Managerial Synergy theory states that the bidder management wanted to work with target management, not replace it. In this case the acquirer management believed that the target management would complement to their skills. Therefore firm that had Managerial-discipline problem were likely to have had low profits, and on the other hand managerial-synergy targets were likely to have had high profits. Another explanation is that buyers were motivated by earnings-per- share (EPS) manipulation. This explanation states that conglomerates have a high price-earnings ratio (P/E). [4] Therefore the bidder management was bootstrapping, by buying firms with low P/Es. Construction of the dataset began with a list of mergers from the sample of 1968, 1971 and 1974 .The sample was identified from the takeovers from New York Stock Exchange listing statements and the results were presented through regression. The announcement-period return to the bidders shareholders was measured through dollar return, [5] .Regression of the dollar-return measure found that the return to a diversification acquisition was significantly positive. On average their shareholders enjoyed an $11.0 million value increase in value when bidders made a diversification acquisition,. This rejects the hypothesis that diversification hurt shareholders and is thus inconsistent with the idea that diversification was driven by managerial objectives. On the other hand, bidders who made related acquisitions cost their shareholders $6.4 million on average. Thus, the hypothesis that the markets reaction was the same to related acquisitions and diversification is rejected, suggesting that there was a market premium to diversification. Using descriptive statistical summaries it was found that both diversifying and horizontal buyers preferred to buy firms that were profitable. For both type of acquisitions the average operating profit was more than 5% in excess of the targets industry average. Therefore fame of high-profit targets argues against the importance of a managerial-discipline motive for both types of acquisition and in favor of a managerial-synergy motive. This is because Managerial-discipline takeovers should have been directed at low-profit firms, whose profitability needed improved. The motive was Managerial-synergy as the targets were takeovers were high- profit firms, this is because synergy-motivated managers were looking for good partners Matsusaka(1993). Another factor linked to the managerial theories is whether or not the targets management was retained.Top management is said to have been retained if it meet the following criteria. Firstly It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that the acquired firms management would continue to operate under the new management. Secondly, it was indicated in the buyers listing statement that the targets management would be retained. Lastly, when the merger took place at least one of the top three executives of the target firm was still managing the firm three years later from when the merger took place. According to the above mentioned definitions, 61.8% of the managers in the sample were retained and only 3.5% of the acquisitions fell in the Replaced category. The main finding is that buyers earned significantly positive announcement-period returns during the conglomerate merger wave when they made diversifying acquisitions. The hypothesis that conglomerates were driven by empire building or some other managerial objective can be rejected because such explanations imply value decreases to unrelated acquisitions. Another explanation of the conglomerate merger wave is that mergers were driven by an accounting trick rather than expected efficiencies. Therefore, investors watched EPS; when the EPS went up they bid up the price of the stock. According to this argument, Conglomerates, tended to buy companies with lower P/E ratios than their own in order to increase their EPS and boost their stock prices. There was no evidence that firms earned positive returns which inflated EPS in this way. The study indicated that early conglomerators earned significantly positive returns simply because they were first. They may have gained some rents to organizational innovation. Possibly the men who built the first conglomerates had a unique talent for diversification, which the market rewarded. Hubbard, Palia (1999), have examined the likelihood that internal capital markets were formed to alleviate the information costs associated with the less well-developed external capital markets of the time; that is, whether they were expected to create value by the external capital markets in the 1960s.In this paper, the authors have inspected a form of cross-subsidization that occurs when a financially unconstrained bidding firm takes over a financially constrained target firm and as a result forms an internal capital market.The study examined whether the external capital markets expected that the formation of internal capital markets in the 1960s were value-maximizing for the bidding firm. However, existing research has argued that internal capital markets can be value-enhancing. As argued by Geneen(1997), the financing and budgeting expertise that a firm possesses is not necessarily related to its degree of diversification. Accordingly, the internal capital market hypothesis for all acquisitions is tested. The study also tests the bootstrapping explanation for conglomeration in the 1960s, which takes place when firms with a high price-earnings ratio (P/E) took over low P/E target firms and fooled the stock market with an increased combined earnings-per-share. In the 1960s, external capital markets were less developed in terms of company-specific information production than in later years. The authors have classified company-specific information into two general categories. Firstly, production information; and secondly, financing and budgeting expertise. However, in this study information-intensive activities were introduced. This was because; it assists the manager to internally allocate capital across divisions of a diversified firm. It was suggested that diversified firms were perceived by the external capital markets to have an informational advantage, because external capital markets were less well developed at that time. Comparing it to the current decade, there was less access by the public to computers, data- bases, analyst reports, and other sources of company-specific information. Not only this there was less large institutional money managers and the market for risky debt was illiquid. The authors selected a sample of 392 acquisitions that occurred during the period from 1961 through 1970. Diversifying acquisitions were defined as those in which the bidder and target do not share any two- digit SIC code Matsusaka(1993), and related acquisitions as those in which they do share a two-digit SIC code. Further the Wall Street Journal was used for announcement date as the event date. Four measures of abnormal returns to the conglomerate bidding firm were calculated. These measures are as follows. Firstly, the usual percentage returns or the cumulative abnormal returns from five days before to five days after the event date. Secondly the percentage returns until date of last revision or the cumulative abnormal returns from five days before to five days after the date of the last revision (Lang et al. (1991)). Thirdly, the dollar returns or the percentage return times the market value of the bidder six days before the announcement (Malatesta(1983); Matsusaka(1993)). Lastly , the investment return defined as the change in the value of the bidder divided by the purchase price (Morck et al. (1990)). Tobins r ratio[6] is used as a proxy for a firms capital market opportunities. The evidence from these measures is mixed. Positive abnormal returns for all four measures were shown for related acquisitions. On the other hand, two of the four measures had shown statically significant positive abnormal returns for diversifying acquisitions in. Not only that diversifying acquisitions do not significantly earn less than related acquisitions in two of the four measures. Thus, evidence suggests, the capital markets believed acquisitions to be generally good for bidder shareholders during the 1960s. More significantly, it was found that when financially unconstrained buyers acquired constrained target firms, highest bidder returns were earned. Further, bidders generally retain target management, signifying that management may have provided company- specific operational information and the bidder on his part also provided capital budgeting expertise. Therefore, external capital markets expected information benefits from the formation of the internal capital markets. The study found no evidence in support of the bootstrapping hypothesis, as the coefficient on the dummy variable[7] was not statistically different from zero. This result is consistent with Matsusaka, (1993), who also finds no evidence for bootstrapping.Therefore, firms merged to form their own internal capital markets as there was a deficiency of well-developed external capital markets in the 1960s. Some firms apparently had an information advantage over the external capital markets and were expected to produce value in an internal capital market. In the 1960s diversified acquisitions were rewarded by financial markets, the informational advantage that acquiring firms appeared to possess was likely to be in the capital budgeting, allocation process and operational aspects of each division. Bidder firms generally retained the target management as it would facilitate them running the operational part of each target firm. The Motives discussed in the above mentioned articles are appealing; however evidence from the stock market suggests that shareholders preferred their firms to diversify. Using a data set from the 60s and early 70s, Matsusaka (1993) reported that, when the company announced an unrelated acquisition, the stock price of the bidder increased on average of $8 million. However, on the announcement of a related acquisition, the bidding firms stock price fell by $4 million. The difference between the two returns is quite significant. Thus it appears that investors fully believed that unrelated acquisitions benefited their firms relative to the alternatives. Thus the managers just did what the stock market told them to do that is to diversify. Evidence from 1980s stock market suggested that shareholders, again, liked what was happening. Shleifer, and Vishny (1992) found that in the 1980s, stock prices of the bidding firms rose when they bought other firms in the same industry, and fell with unrelated diversification. It is clear that the market disapproved unrelated diversification. Therefore it does not astonish that, in light of such market reception, managers stopped diversifying and did what the stock market directed them to do. 2.2 Legal Motives Matsusaka (1996) investigated whether the antitrust enforcement of the 1960s led firms to take on the diversification goal, by preventing them from expanding within their own core industries. If correct, diversification should have occurred more less frequently when small firms merged than when large firms merged since small mergers were less likely to have attracted antitrust attention. Further the author examined the diversification patterns in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where none of these countries had legal restrictions on horizontal growth similar to those in the Unites States. The US Clayton Antitrust Act was the antitrust legislation in the postwar period (1950 Celler-Kefauver amendment to Section 7). The act, prohibited mergers that would substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly. This new law was used by the antitrust authorities and the courts to limit the number of mergers between vertically related and firms in the same lines of business. The strictness of the antitrust environment in 1968 is illustrated by the observation that in the earlier 12 years, all antitrust cases that reached the Supreme Court had been resolved in support of the government. The study indicates the following two implications. Firstly, large horizontal mergers were more liable to have been challenged on antitrust grounds than small horizontal mergers. Secondly mergers between unrelated firms were unlikely to have been blocked, regardless of size. Firms diversified in 1960s, since antitrust authorities prevented them from expanding in their home industries. Later when antitrust policy became less rigid in the 1980s, firms expanded horizontally, leading them to refocus on their core business. Stigler (1966) was perhaps the first to present evidence on the antitrust hypothesis, concluding that, the 1950 Merger Act has had a strongly adverse effect on horizontal mergers by large companies. The author selected a sample of 549 mergers (that took place in 1968) from the New York Stock Exchange. Results of the study were reported through Logit regressions .It was found that bidders were as likely to have entered new industries when they made small acquisitions as when they made large acquisitions, and small buyers were as likely to have diversified as large buyers. Further the total number of diversification acquisitions concerning small companies was high.Though, according to the antitrust hypothesis; diversification should have been widespread primarily in large mergers where same industry acquisitions were prohibited by tough antitrust enforcement. Secondly assembled international evidence indicated that diversification took place in many industrialized nations in the 1960s and 1970s, although restrictions against horizontal combinations were unique to the United States. Yet, most other industrialized Western nations[8] experienced diversification merger waves and general movements toward diversification in their largest companies (Chandler (1991)).Thus most of the evidence, is not consistent with the antitrust hypothesis, signifying that other explanations for corporate diversification should be emphasized not the anti trust hypothesis. Scholes and Wolfson (1990) state, that the changes in U.S. tax laws[9] in the 1980s had obvious affect on the desirability of mergers and acquisitions. However such transactions were not only motivated by tax factors but also non tax factors[10]. Tax laws can have number of affects on mergers and acquisitions , which can include the following capital losses, presence of tax-attribute carry forwards such as net operating losses , investment tax credits, and foreign tax credits, among others, that might be cashed in more quickly and more fully by way of a merger; the desire to step up the tax basis of assets for depreciation purposes to their fair market value; the desire to sell assets to permit a change in the depreciation schedule to one that is more highly accelerated. The authors in this study have examined the effect of changes in tax laws passed in 1980s on merger and acquisition activity in the United States. The authors selected the annual values of mergers and acquisitions from 1968 through 1987 in nominal dollars. The data source for nominal values was W. T. Grimm and Company for 1968-85 and Mergers Acquisitions (1987-88, rev. quarterly) for 1986 and 1987. Using time series analysis it was found that the dollar volume of merger activity between 1980-1981 increased from $44.35 billion to $82.62 billion (86%) in nominal terms. The percentage increase was approximately twice as large as the next largest percentage increase in annual merger and acquisition activity over the 1970-86 periods. There was spectacular increase in merger activity that began with the passage of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, however this was not the only merger wave that occurred in that time frame. Unusual merger activity was also witnessed in the 1960s. The termination of 1960s wave was accompanied by quite a few regulatory events that depressed such transactions. Firstly, the Williams Amendments had en larged the cost and difficulty of effecting tender offers. Secondly the issuance of Accounting Principles Board Opinions 16 and 17, forced many acquiring firms to boost depreciation expense, goodwill amortization and cost of goods sold. Thirdly the Tax Reform Act of 1969, made transferability of tax attributes (net-operating-loss carry forwards) more restrained. Therefore there was a sudden decline in merger activity from the peak in 1968. Relative to the tax benefits when the non tax benefits of the transaction were small, current management were the most efficient purchasers, as they had an advantage along the hidden information dimension. Therefore 1981 act had increased the incidence of cases in which non tax benefits were less than the common tax benefits of mergers and acquisitions. As a result, there was an increase in the number of transactions involving management buyouts. The annual dollar value of unit management buyouts between 1978-80 increased by a factor of 3, and by a factor in excess of 20 for the period 1981-86. The antitrust proposition mentioned above is appealing as one of the most important reason for diversification, during the 60s and 70s, which simply disallowed mergers of firms in the same industry, regardless of the effects of these mergers o

Salvador Dali :: Biography

Salvador Dali precise and detailed painful reality and, placed them inside somber and depressing landscapes as in The persistence of Memory' in 1931 (Smith, 2002, 1/1). His paintings showed a surrealist maturity since he was twenty. From 1926 to 1929, Dali begun making objects loaded with modern sexual symbols. For example, showing a dirty figure filled with excrement as in 'The Lugubrious Game' done in 1929. At this period, surrealists were very attracted to Salvador Dali because of his strong personality and his violent works and paintings full of sexual and excrements allusions (Neret, 2000, p.21). The trompe-l'oeuil photographs, by Salvador Dali, took surrealist paintings to another level by using techniques never used before. These paintings are filled with unusual shapes, double-sided figures and, anamorphosis, that are distorted images that could be well understood only if seen from a certain angle. They made him "a quarter century in advance, the patron saint of American photo-realists" (NÃ ©ret, 2000, p.27). They were used to transcribe the image of Dali's dreams. This was a revelation in his surrealist paintings mainly caused by a very special person in Dali's life called Gala. As a person, Salvador Dali was very special and had a revelation in his life by meeting Helena Diakonoff or Gala. It all begun by a visit of Andre Breton, Louis Aragon and, Paul Eluard to Dali. They were three masterminds of the surrealism movement. At this time, Gala was Paul Eluard's wife and the minute she entered Salvador's home everything changed in his life. She was for Dali, "the woman of his childhood dream"

Challenges & prospects of garment industry in bangladesh Essay

Current problem and prospect of Garments industry in Bangladesh â€Å"A study on R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD†. Objective of the study:Broad objective:q The broad objective of this report is to identify the current problems and prospects of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTDSpecific objectives:q To identify the current problems of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD. To find out the current position of Bangladeshi garments industry in the world. To identify the growth and trends of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD. Methodology of the study:Ââ€" Research type:Basically it is a descriptive research by nature.Ââ€" Sources of data:Both primary & secondary data are used for this study, these are:Primary data: it includes the following sources of data.v By a questionnaire through merchandiser and floor in-charge.v Face to face conversation with the top officials.   Secondary data: I need much information for the report, which we get from secondary data.These are:v Annual report of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD. Different types of document of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD.v Various published document from BGMEA.v World wide web. Data collection procedure:Ø Questionnaire: Well structured questionnaire is used for primary data collection.Ø Population: Total population 24 including merchandiser & floor in- charge. 7. Ø Sampling frame: Name list of 24 merchandiser & floor in-charge.Ø Sampling method: Non-probability convenience sampling methods are used.Ø Sample size: 10 sample size. 8. Limitation: While preparing this report, though I have been helped by management of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD and other ways, there were some uncontrollable limitations, which are:Ø Unavailability of relevant research works, article, publications relevant to R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD.Ø Limited time of internship program. 9. Analysis and Findings:1. What type of products are produce in your industry? knit 40% woven 60%Findings: From this table it is seen that, 60% woven & 40% knit garments produce R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD 10. 2. Which are the exporting market of our country? USA 30% others 70%Findings: From this table it is seen that, 30% USA &Others is 70% market where my company does their business. 11. 3. Unskilled garments worker is problem for the R.M.KNITFASHION.LTD? strongly agree 30% agree 70%Findings: From this table it is seen that, strongly agree 30% and agree 70%.Unskilled garments worker  is the main problem for this industry. Do you think document delay & improper documentare the concluding major problems? no 30% yes 70%Findings: Above the table it is seen that, yes 70% & no 30%. 13. 5. Do you think R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has a enoughemergency stairs? agree 20% strongly disagree 50% disagree 30%Findings: From this table it is seen that, agree 20%, disagree 30% & strongly disagree 50%. 14. 6. Do you think R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has a enoughsecurity force & tools for fire controlling? agree 30% disagree 70%Findings: Above the table it is seen that, agree 30% and disagree 70%. 15. 7. Does R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD provides facilities fortheir worker? agree 40% disagree 60%Findings: From the table it is seen that, agree 40% and disagree 60%. 16. 8. Do you think R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has a highquality machine? agree 30% disagree 70%Findings: From the table it is seen that, agree 30% and disagree 70%. 17. 9. Do you think R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD pay workerwages timely? yes 30% no 70%Findings: From the table it is seen that, yes 30% and no 70%. 18. 10. Do you face any problems in collecting rawmaterial? yes no 50% 50%Findings: From the table it is seen that, yes 50% and no 50%. 19. 11. What are the basic problems on the way of developmentof R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD? dependency on foreign market 10% poor garment policy 30% unskilled labor 60%Findings: From the table it is seen that, unskilled labor 60%, poor garments policy 30% and dependency on foreign market 10%. 20. 12. How can we remove from above problems of R.M.KNITFASHION.LTD? increase investment try to increase the in this sector area of export 30% 10% establish new infrastructure and conducting training & development program 60%Findings: From the table it is seen that, try to increase the area of export 10%, establish new infrastructure and conducting training and development program 60% and increase investment in this sector 30%. 21. Current position of Bangladeshi garments industry in the world.Bangladesh ranks 4th largest clothing exporter in the world:Source: Xinhua [08:47 July 23, 2010]Bangladesh has been ranked as the fourth largest exporter of clothing with a 3 percent share of the global market by the world body World Trade Organization (WTO), Vice-president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Faruque Hassan said on Wednesday.Hassan made the remarks while speaking to the members of Overseas Correspondents of Bangladesh (OCAB at the office of BGMEA. in xporter of cotton T-shirts and second largest exporter of cotton pullover and jeans for the European Union and the second largest exporter of cotton trousers to the United States by volume. The BGMEA vice-president said although the low cost production of clothing is still an important competitive edge for Bangladesh, the increasing competition in the global apparel market has caused manufacturers to produce quality products, increase the commitment with buyers and social responsibility in factories, which have made Bangladesh a reliable option in the global supply of clothing.At present, there are about 5,000 garment factories in Bangladesh and over two million workers are employed in the sector, 90 percent of them are women. 23. Growth and trends of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD Financial year UE U.S.A Total Knit Woven RMG Knit Woven RMG production FY 2009 140000 pcs 220000pcs 360000pcs 170000pcs 250000pcs 420000pcs 780000pcs FY 2010 165000pcs 230000pcs 395000pcs 176000pcs 258000pcs 434000pcs 829000pcs FY 2011 167000pcs 232000pcs 399000pcs 170000pcs 255000pcs 425000pcs 824000pcs 840000 829000 824000 820000 800000 780000 780000 760000 740000 2009 2010 2011 Graph: Growth & trends of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD 24. Major findings:Ââ€" Most of the time R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD produce woven products.Ââ€" Main market of our garments product is EU and Bangladesh also exports in USA and other country.Ââ€" Unskilled garments worker are problem for development of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTDÂâ€" Documentation problem is also a big problem.Ââ€" R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has no enough emergency stairs.Ââ€" R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has no enough security force and tools for fire controlling.Ââ€" R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD has no high quality machines.Ââ€" R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD do not pay worker wages timely. 25. Recommendation:Ââ€" Improving other garment product not dependent only for woven product of R.M.KNIT FASHION.LTD.Ââ€" Extended foreign market.Ââ€" Trained up workers by various diploma course.Ââ€" Fire consciousness is required for all workers.Ââ€" Increase emergency stairs.Ââ€" Ensure enough security force and tools for fire controlling.Ââ€" Ensure high quality machine, so that they can produce high quality product.Ââ€" And the most important is timely pay wages.

Effective Book Review Writing Tips

Effective Book Review Writing Tips There are fundamental differences among the various kinds of scientific books. What should be covered in an effective book review. Monographs. We can define a monograph as a specialized book written for a specialized audience. Therefore, the reviewer of a monograph has one paramount obligation: to describe for potential readers exactly what is in the book. What, precisely, is the subject of the book, and what are the outside limits of the material covered? If the monograph has a number of subjects, perhaps each with a different author, each subject should be treated individually. The good book review, of course, will mirror the quality of the book; the pedestrian material will be passed over quickly, and the significant contributions will be given weightier discussion. The quality of the writing, with rare exceptions, will not need comment. It is the information in the monograph that is important to its audience. Highly technical language and even some jargon are to be expected. Reference Books. The subject of a reference book is likely to be much broader than that of a monograph. Still, it is important for the reviewer to define in appropriate detail the content of the book. Unlike the monograph, which may contain many opinions and other subjective material, the reference book contains facts. Therefore, the prime responsibility of the book reviewer is to determine, however possible, the accuracy of the material in the reference book. Any professional librarian will tell you that an inaccurate reference book is worse than none at all. Textbooks. In reviewing a textbook, the reviewer has a different set of considerations. Unlike the language in a monograph, that in a textbook must be nontechnical and jargon must be avoided. The reader will be a student, not a peer of the scientist who wrote the book. Technical terms will be used, of course, but each should be carefully defined at first use. Unlike in the reference book, accuracy is not of crucial importance. An inaccurate number or word here and there is not crucial as long as the message gets through. The function of the book reviewer, then, is to determine whether the subject of the text is treated clearly, in a way that is likely to enable students to grasp and to appreciate the knowledge presented. The textbook reviewer has one additional responsibility. If other texts on the same subject exist, which is usually the case, the reviewer should provide appropriate comparisons. A new textbook might be good based on its own evident merits; however, if it is not as g ood as existing texts, it is useless. Trade Books. Again, the reviewer has different responsibilities. The reader of a trade book may be a general reader, not a scientist or a student of the sciences. Therefore, the language must be nontechnical. Furthermore, unlike any of the other scientific books, a trade book must be interesting. Trade books are bought as much for entertainment as they are for education. Facts may be important, but a boring effusion of facts would be out of place. Scientific precepts are sometimes difficult for the layperson to comprehend. The scientist writing for this market must always keep this point in mind, and the reviewer of a trade book must do so also. If a somewhat imprecise, nontechnical term must replace a precise, technical term, so be it. The reviewer may wince from time to time, but a book that succeeds in fairly presenting scientific concepts to the general public should not be faulted because of an occasional imprecision. Finally, with trade books (as with other scientific books, for that matter), the reviewer should try to define the audience. Can any literate person read and understand the book, or is some level of scientific competency necessary? If a reviewer has done the job well, a potential reader will know whether or not to read the book under consideration, and why. Imprint Information. At the top of a book review, the reviewer should list complete imprint information. The usual order is as follows: title of the book, edition (if other than the first), name of author(s) or editor(s), publisher, place (city in which the publisher is located), year of publication, number of pages, and list price of the book. Conventionally, well-known cities are not followed by state or country names. A publisher located in New York is listed New York not New York, NY and London is listed as London not London, U.K. A company providing support in all kinds of book review writing can be a good source of help when you need a book review. Books related to any discipline and of any kind can be reviewed excellently by following the instructions. If you do not know how to do a book review writing, do not get upset as we are here to help you. So, follow the instructions given below for book review writing: Read the book for which you are going to do book review writing. While reading, summarize all the chapters in your own words. Evaluate the book. Closely look into the writing style of the author, what words he/she uses mostly, how he/she has managed to deliver his/her views regarding the main topic and what theme he/she has followed to write the book. Try to find out the center of the book, the main idea around which the whole text is revolving. Find out the strong and weak aspects of the writer which he/she has shown in his/her writing. Highlight the strong and weak points in your review writing. Try to find out how the writer has justified his/her claims that he/she made in his/her written work. Introduce the text. Conclude in the last. Remember writing book reviews is a small exercise, you should not write a number of pages for it. Try to cut it short. First of all, do the drafting for book review writing, then check it and write it with amendments. Try to keep the review as simple as you can. Moreover, it should be readily understood. If you are still in need of assistance, contact us, and we will resolve all of your problems related to book review writing.

Global Common essays

Global Common essays According to James E. Post, common is a shared resource, such as land, air, or water that a group of people uses collectively. In the article title, Water: Critical shortages ahead?-water is a resource shared globally and its consumption has raised six fold between 1900 and 1995-more than double the rate of population growth. According to a 1997 United Nations assessment of freshwater resources found that one third of the worlds population lives in countries experiencing moderate to high water stress. Moderate to high stress translates to consumption levels that exceed 20 percent of available supply. The article, points out that, much of the projected increase in water demand will occur in developing countries, where population growth, industrial and agricultural expansion will be greatest. As a result, the World Resources Institute states that, agriculture already accounts for about 70 percent of water consumption worldwide and the United Nations projects a 50 to 100 percent increas e in irrigation water by 2025. The article points out that if water demand continues to grow and agriculture continues to dominate the water usage worldwide, water supplies will shrink and groundwater reserves will began to be depleted faster than they can be replenished by precipitation. This will have a negative impact throughout the globe as countries and societies will began to experience water scarcity-especially the low income nations. This will drive the industrialize nations to regulate the consumption of water as well as raise the price of water to discourage waste and abusive. This will greatly affect the low-income nations as they lack the financial and technological capabilities to keep up with the raise demands of water. According to the World Resources institute, this situation has already caused serious water shortages to develop in some regions, shortchanging human water needs and damaging aquatic ecosyst...

Live Face Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Live Face - Assignment Example Discovery process entails gathering information about perspectives and experiences about the brand by the internal and external customers of the organization. Additionally, a company can improve its brand dynamics by looking at its historical information on branding as part of the discovery stage. The outcome of the discovery process is referred to as a core brand analysis which enables the entity to know what the brand symbolizes and the intended audience (Gregory, 2004). The Blue Team Focus Company should as a next step develops a strategy to communicate what the brand intends to achieve, express brand personality and stakeholder expectations about the company. For Blue Team Focus, a brand strategy should emphasize the expected customer experience through interaction with the company from using the Live Face product. After developing the brand strategy, Blue Team Focus should engage in corporate brand communication which involves marketing, promotion, and advertising and creating awareness about the brand through public relations. Given that Blue Team Company has an already established customer base through Sony and Verizon FIOS; it has a less job to do in terms of brand communication. Finally, Blue Team should invest in brand management that involves keeping the brand alive and ensuring its growth using the appropriate company resources (Gregory, 2004). According to Westwood (2002), contingency planning is done through a SWOT analysis when all information and opinions are collected from marketing research. Blue Team Focus Company should evaluate its strengths in relation to its weaknesses considering available opportunities and potential threats in the marketplace. The company shall leverage its strengths from advantages related to proprietary technology mainly from Sony and Verizon FIOS.  

The Creative Class; Importance of Economic Development and Planning Research Paper

The Creative Class; Importance of Economic Development and Planning - Research Paper Example Pondering over the market strategies adopted by this class, the paper also institutes the notions of the creative class namely brain drain and brain gain. In short, the paper, quoting examples, determines the validity of the claim that the creative class is mandatory for economic planning and development. Over the last few centuries, the world has prospered in many ways. The advancement in science and technology is responsible for all the development that has taken place across the globe. However, despite the era of technology and enlightenment, there are certain things that remain the same. One such thing in the social structure of an economy is the class. (Bonanni, 2004) The term ‘class’ is a very interesting one as it is often used to refer to a group of individuals who possess the economic influence and leverage over a certain number of people. Class, still being a part of the social structure, is a huge determinant of economic planning and development. In fact the last decade has seen a lot of theoretical work on the effect of a certain class on the development of a particular market in an economy. In the past decade, most analysts have pondered over the relationship of creativity (more appropriately the creative class) and economic development. (Atkinson, 2009) For most commentators, the explanation of economic development through the concept of creativity is a tired formula which does not really help achieve any appropriate results. (Peck, 2005) For others however, the idea of an economy that is based on skills and services is a creative one, an idea that has affected the ground rules for achieving economic development. This in tur n has affected how many cities and urban centres (that are economic hubs) have sought to manage their economic policies with a special focus on the arts, culture and other place based characteristics in order to make the cities a better place to live