Suchergebnisse

Intense competition and a world-wide market have led to social evils, such as child labour in various industries. As the developed world's social conscience becomes more acute, marketing initiatives have been developed of which the most prominent is to affix appropriate labels to products, guaranteeing that child labour is not used or is used only under controlled conditions. This issue of social labelling with its modalities and consequences is studied in the article.

AbstractWe analyze the role of debt in corporate governance with respect to a large emerging economy, India, where debt has been an important source of external finance. Using cross‐sectional data on listed manufacturing firms we estimate, simultaneously, the relation between Tobin's Q and leverage for three years, 1996, 2000 and 2003. Our analysis indicates that while in the early years of institutional change, debt did not have any disciplinary effect on either standalone or group affiliated firms, the disciplinary effect appeared in the later years as institutions became more market oriented. We also find limited evidence of debt being used as an expropriation mechanism in group firms that are more vulnerable to such expropriation. In general, our results highlight the role of ownership structures and institutions in debt governance.

Background: In recent decades, contaminations with heavy metals ions have adversely affected the environment, food safety, and human health. Heavy metals, leaching to water sources from the industrial effluents, can enter into the aquatic and food chains of humans and animals from a variety of anthropogenic sources. Scope and Approach: Heavy metal detection has been an intensive area of research today. Both laboratory-based analytical instruments and innovative sensor devices like the electronic nose, electronic tongue, and bio/chemical sensors have increasingly emerged to meet the demand for legislative actions on environmental pollution control and early warning. These evolving technology and developments particularly in the area of nanotechnology and sensors have become key contributing factors in heavy metal detection. Key Findings and Conclusions: This endeavor aims at exploring this field in detail to understand the key principles behind this flourishing science and summarize the recent development in heavy metal detection technologies. This article also gives a brief review of commercially available portable devices that has the potential to become the next gold standard instruments in heavy metal detection.