This paper uses an unbalanced panel data set for exporting firms from manufacturing industries in one German federal state, Lower Saxony, to investigate the micro-structure of the recent export boom. Looking at data for 1995/96 to 2001/02 it is demonstrated that a considerable number of plants starts and stops exporting in each year, but that most of the export dynamics is due to positive and n...

We develop a rank-based analysis of clinical trials with unbalanced repeated measures data. We assume that the errors within each subject are exchangeable random variables. This rank-based inference is valid when the unbalanced data are missing either completely at random or by design. A drop in dispersion test is developed for general linear hypotheses. A numerical example is given to illustra...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate ways in which collective creativity and individual creativity exist in an “and/both” rather than in an “either/or” relationship. Design / methodology approach – This study uses and interrelates a number of dualities using “metalectics”, the principal task of which is to balance seemingly conflicting opposites by revealing them and locating th...

This article examines the gap between Dutch judges and the public in terms of preferred severity of sentences. It focuses on one particular explanation usually given for the gap: the lack of case-specific, detailed information on the part of the general public. Findings from three studies are reported and combined: (a) a survey among a sample from the Dutch population (N=2,127), (b) a sentencin...

In order to overcome financial crisis, it is an international tendency to have the shift from a traditional government to local governance. Tony Blair’s New Labour Party came to power in 1997 committed to modernise a local government system to local governance via launching series of long-term action plans. This paper attempts to discuss the institutional transformation and the key policy in th...