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This is all part of a trend away from the narrow specialization of the past and towards the offering of a wider and wider range of services. Inevitably, as this trend continues the services offered by the various institutions will increasingly overlap.

At the heart of the financial system of a country is the central bank. In the case of the UK this is the Bank of England. Its role is to oversee and regulate the activities of the different financial institutions. It has the task of ensuring the stability and efficiency of the financial system. It also has the task of carrying out the government's monetary policy.

Moscow Stock Exchange

What the Stock Exchange Started with?

Moscow Stock Exchange began its activities in the XVIII century. Meetings of merchants took place in the open air. The first decree on construction of a stock exchange in Moscow was issued in 1789. However for various reasons construction was delayed.

Only in the second half of 1839 the first building of the exchange was constructed in Linker region. In 1879-1875 a new building was constructed nearby.

8 November 1839 is considered to be the official day of commencement of the Moscow exchange operations. Since that day following decision of the State Council stock exchange rules existing in St. Petersburg became applicable to the Moscow Exchange and the exchange committee started its work.

However the Charter of the Moscow Exchange appeared only in 1870 following the initiative of local merchants who were not pleased by the fact that activities of the stock exchange were managed from St. Petersburg. Draft Charter was passed over to the Ministry of Finance on 18 November 1870 and in two days it was approved. The Charter was compiled on the basis on Provisions on brokers of 1831 and the Charter of St. Petersburg Exchange of 1832, which for long time after served as a model of Charter for provincial exchanges.

Who Could Become a Participant of Exchange?

According to the Charter persons trading on the basis of a merchant's license, joint stock companies and partnerships, having paid the membership fee could become participants of the Moscow Exchange. Therefore only three categories could perform their transactions at the exchange:

•Wholesalers holding first class permission for trading operations;

•Owners of industrial enterprises, engaged in wholesaling;

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• Persons buying in a wholesale manner agricultural products and animals, holding second class permission for trading operations.

Exchange committee elected for the term of three years which consisted of the chairman and 5 members acted as an executive body of the Moscow Exchange. Besides the following commissions were functioning at the exchange: quoting, banking, legal, information etc. There was no distinction between stock and trading.

While in St. Petersburg, Stock Exchange was already working with stock, in Moscow, it did not. In 1847 Moscow traders gave the following answer to the request of the chief trader to supply information on shares price and currency exchange rate: ‘In Moscow there are no banking houses that would be constantly dealing with exchange rates and in foreign bills of exchange and other settlements. Moscow merchants use the rates published in ‘St. Petersburg Commercial Newspaper’; no shares are purchased or sold at the Moscow Stock Exchange».

In 1865 Credit department suggested announcing the rate for internal debt. In March of the following year Stock Exchange Committee wrote in reply: ‘Rates at the Moscow Stock Exchange always coincide with the ones in

St. Petersburg, while stock operations at the exchange are so rare, so there is no possibility to supply information thereon after each meeting’. Only in 1867 publication of prices on a limited range of securities began in weekly reports.

‘Even our Slow Moving Moscow at last Fell to the Excitement’

In 1868 stock exchange fever began in St.-Petersburg. It was followed by activisation of unofficial stock trading. Later something similar started in Moscow. In 1869 Stock Exchange Committee had to take measures against the spreading of unofficial trading. Committee had to introduce daily quotations and to take administrative measures against the gamblers who at first gathered in Chizhev Coaching Inn and later in the house of Georgian Princess. In 1873 newspaper ‘Russkie Vedomosty’ wrote with some irony: ‘Following St.

Petersburg's example even our Slow Moving Moscow at Last Fell to the Excitement; it pulled itself together and managed to get, for a short time though, a stock exchange in a coaching inn’. Since that time transactions with securities became an ordinary matter at the Moscow Stock Exchange.

As stock trading was poorly developed Moscow Stock Exchange was to a great extent dependent on St. Petersburg. Relief from «slavery» came only in

1889 when the auctions were shifted to earlier hours and from Wednesday and Saturday (appointed in 1866 as following existing auction days in St. Petersburg) — to Tuesday and Friday. This turned out to be enough to give Moscow trading more independence.

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In 1891 elected management of the Moscow Stock Exchange approved "The rules for purchase and sale of securities, gold, silver, customs coupons and foreign negotiable bills of exchange".

It is interesting to look through these rules today. For example paragraph

8 of Section I said: ‘Conditions of time transactions, namely price, deadline and method of payment were shown in trader's report, prepared and signed by the trader in two copies and approved by the seller's and buyer's signatures confirming that they actually sold and purchased accordingly under terms and conditions indicated in report. Upon completion of the deal reports are returned by both parties.’

Paragraph 5 of Section II defined the right to dividends and interest on time transactions: “Since the time when the deal was completed dividend coupon belonged lo the buyer as well as the right to receipt of newly issued shares. If a time transaction was performed with interest bearing securities, the interest was charged in favour of seller up till the day of transfer".

Gradually Moscow Stock Exchange almost caught up with St. Petersburg by volume. Most of securities listed in St. Petersburg were traded at the Moscow Exchange. However in official bulletin the number of listed industrial companies was limited. According to contemporaries this can be explained by the very high standards applied by the Moscow Stock Exchange Committee to new candidates for listing at Moscow Exchange.

In fact the Stock Exchange Committee was trying to supercede St. Petersburg in improvement of various norms and rules for participants of the stock market.

The Evolution of Bank Deposit Money

From coins to banknotes to bank deposits

Precious metals have been used as money for thousands of years. Even as lumps of metal carried around in sacks they still functioned quite well as money.

Coins made from these precious metals were an early improvement introduced by many societies including the Greeks and Romans. Coins had the clear advantage that they did not have to be weighed out each time they were used. But despite this gain in simplicity and uniformity, the use of coins enabled many rulers to increase their spending by adding base metals to the coins and thereby increasing the number of coins. This debasement of the coinage frequently led to problems of inflation as money supply increased too rapidly.

Paper money has a much more recent origin. The first paper money was issued by goldsmiths. Wealthy merchants and individuals would deposit their gold with goldsmiths whose businesses required them to have safe storage

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facilities. The goldsmith would issue a receipt for the gold, much as you are given a receipt at a disco when you deposit your coat!

It was soon realized that it was much easier to use these receipts for the purchase of goods than for the purchaser to have to go along to the goldsmith, withdraw the necessary amount of gold and hand it over to the seller of the goods, and for the seller then to redeposit it with the goldsmith. It was easier still if these receipts were issued in fixed denominations. Thus goldsmiths' receipts became very much like modern banknotes.

The alternative was for a purchaser to write a note instructing the goldsmith to transfer a certain amount of gold to the seller. These notes were very much like modern cheques.

Goldsmiths also realized that only a small fraction of the gold in their vaults would be withdrawn at any one time, and even then there would be other people who were making new deposits. So why not lend out some of the gold and make money by charging interest? This is precisely what they did. When these loans of gold were redeposited back with goldsmiths, new notes were issued in addition to the original ones. A proportion of these gold deposits would again be lent out and yet more notes issued when the gold once more returned to the goldsmiths' vaults.

Of course, goldsmiths had to keep a fraction back each time to cover the possibility of depositors actually withdrawing their gold rather than relying on the notes. Nevertheless the total value of the notes issued considerably exceeded the total value of the gold. The notes were only partly backed by gold. This is known as a system of fractional backing.

It was a short step from goldsmiths' notes to banknotes and bank loans. Banks, often originally operating as goldsmiths, issued their own banknotes in excess of the gold in their vaults, just as the goldsmiths had done.

Today banks in England do not issue their own notes, but their loans still exceed their deposits of cash. For every ₤1 in cash deposited in the banking system, loans considerably in excess of ₤1 can be created, and these loans come back as additional deposits. Today it is bank deposits that form the bulk of money supply. Only a fraction of these deposits are in cash. The rest are simply bookkeeping entries created by the banks.

But what of modern banknotes If these are used to back bank loans, what backs the banknotes? What does the promise on a ten pound note mean when it says, ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds'? It does not mean that if you take the note along to the Bank of England you will be given $10 worth of gold. Today's currency is not backed by gold. The amount of gold in the Bank of England is only a tiny fraction of the total amount of currency in circulation.

A currency not backed by gold (and no currencies in the world today are) is known as a fiat currency: a currency whose supply depends on the will of

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government. The issuing of currency not backed by gold is known as fiduciary issue. This means currency issued on trust. The point is that if the government is prepared and able to match the supply of currency to the requirements of the economy, and if the public has confidence in the government's willingness and ability to do this, then this will be adequate to ensure the stability of the currency. The backing of gold will be unnecessary.

Technology and Employment

Does technological progress create or destroy jobs?

Does technological progress destroy jobs? The obvious answer may seem to be yes. After all, new technology often involves machines taking over jobs that were previously done by people.

There is another view, however. This argues that a failure to introduce new technology and ultimately to remain competitive will offer an even worse long-term employment problem. Markets, and hence employment, will be lost to more efficient competitors.

The relative merits of each of these views are difficult to assess, since they depend greatly upon the type of technology, its organization in the workplace and the market within which it is located. Four stages in the effects of new technology on jobs are isolated.

Stage (1) Design and Installation

Here labour requirements grow as first designers and then construction workers are employed. As construction/ installation is completed, employment from this source will then disappear.

Stage (2) Implementation

Here labour requirements decline, especially if the technology is concerned with improving existing processes rather than creating new products.

Stage (3) Servicing

Maintenance and repair may have positive employment effects. This may gradually decrease over time as 'teething troubles' are eliminated, or it may increase as the stock of initially new machines begins to grow older.

Stage (4) Market expansion

This represents the long-term impact of technology on employment levels as the improved and/or cheaper products lead to more sales.

The optimistic view holds that, historically, technology has generated more jobs than it has destroyed. The Institute for Employment Research at Warwick University suggested in the early 1980s that, although approximately 340 000 jobs would have been displaced by new technology in the six years up to 1990, this would have been more than compensated by the creation of 420 000 new jobs, both directly in the industries experiencing technical innovation, and also indirectly in related non-innovating industries.

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The pessimists, however, are less certain about the potential employment benefits of new technology.

At the end of the 1980s, Rolls-Royce in Derby had 3 workers producing what 30 did twenty years previously. Plessey reduced their Liverpool workforce by 825 in two years as they expanded their production of digital telephone exchanges. In Japan, the number of workers in TV production was cut by 50 per cent during the 1970s. Output, however, grew by 25 per cent.

Even in growth industries such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, optical technology and high-value plastics there has been a decline in employment in many countries — especially in the UK. In the late 1980s only Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside and South-West England saw an increase in hightech employment. In the UK as a whole, high-tech employment fell by 5.3 per cent between 1984 and 1989. The reason is that increases in labour productivity reduced the number of workers required per unit of output faster than demand for these products expanded, and this was at a time when the economy was booming! Not surprisingly, the decline in employment in these industries accelerated in the recession of the early 1990s.

Even with the recovery of the mid-1990s, this trend continues. One of the main problems is the increasing level of international competition, which threatens jobs in industries where technological innovation is too slow.

And so the relationship between technology and employment is one that poses a serious dilemma. A failure to innovate reduces a country's competitive position and hence its employment potential in the longer term. Yet technological innovation can represent a serious source of job loss in the immediate future.

Responding to Globalization

Management is no longer constrained by national borders. Burger King is owned by a British firm and McDonald’s sells hamburgers in Moscow. Exxon, a so-called American company, receives almost 75 percent of its revenues from sales outside the United Stares. Toyota makes cars in Kentucky; General Motors makes cars in Brazil; and Ford (which owns part of Mazda) transfers executives from Detroit to Japan to help Mazda manage its operations. These examples illustrate that the world has become a global village. In turn, managers have to become capable of working with people from different cultures.

Globalization affects a manager’s people skills in at least two ways. First, if you’re a manager you’re increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign assignment. You’ll be transferred to your employer’s operating division or subsidiary in another country. Once there, you’ll have to manage a work force that is likely to be very different in needs, aspirations, and attitudes from the

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ones you were used to back home. Second, even in your own country, you’re going to find yourself working with bosses, peers, and subordinates who were born and raised in different cultures. What motivates you may not motivate them. While your style of communication may be straightforward and open, they may find this style uncomfortable and threatening. This suggests that if you’re going to be able to work effectively with this people, you’ll need to understand their culture, how it has shaped them, and learn to adopt your management style to these differences.

Coping with ‘Temporariness’

Managers have been always concerned with change. What’s different nowadays is the length of time between change implementations. It used to be that managers needed to introduce major change program once or twice a decade. Today, change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of continuous improvement, for instance, implies constant change.

Managing in the past could be characterized by long periods of stability, interrupted occasionally by short periods of change. Managing today would be more accurately described as long periods of ongoing change, interrupted occasionally by short periods of stability! The world that most managers and employees face today is one of permanent ‘temporariness’. The actual jobs that workers perform are in permanent state of flux. So workers need to continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements. For example, production employees at companies like Caterpillars, Chrysler, and Reynolds Metals now need to know how to operate computerized production equipment. That was not part of their job description 15 years ago. Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux. In the past, employees were assigned to a specific work group and that assignment was relatively permanent. There was a considerable amount of security in working with the same people day in and day out. That predictability has been replaced by temporary work groups, teams that include members from different departments and whose members change all the time, and the increased use of employee rotation to fill constantly changing work assignments. Finally, organizations themselves are in the state of flux. They continually reorganize their various divisions, sell off poor-performing businesses, downsize operations, and replace permanent employees with temporaries.

Today’s managers and employees must learn to cope with temporariness.

They have to learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability. The study of organizational behavior can provide important insights into helping you better understanding a work world of continual change, how to overcome resistance to change, and how best to create an organizational culture that thrives on change.

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2) Информационно-измерительные и управляющие системы

Hype aside, renewable energy emerging as viable long-term energy industry business opportunity.

Renewable energy development is beginning to emerge as a viable, longterm business opportunity for energy companies.

The subject of renewable energy presents the average businessperson or investor with a number of difficulties.

First, it is often associated with "new age" quirky thinking, when in reality renewables are the oldest and most proven form of energy generation.

Second, the subject suffers from overly extravagant resource-based claims that are far from realizable. (For example, the global wind resource is vast; however, the proportion that can be economically captured for power generation remains small.)

Third, it is full of inconsistency - in definition, description, and reporting.

Drivers

Four key factors are driving the rapidly accelerating development of the renewable energy industries:

•Environmentally driven markets. These are generally the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries that, in order to meet mandated emission targets emanating from the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol on climate change, will sharply accelerate their use of renewable energy. These markets are expected to provide the largest gain in the use of renewables in the short term and the largest short-term business opportunities.

•Energy-driven markets. These are particularly the Asian and other developing economies where demands for new energy are being propelled by population growth, industrialization, and urbanization. Government and industry are predisposed to meet new electricity requirements from renewable sources, which are indigenous and have relatively short installation timeframes. The energy demand from these markets is expected to overtake that of the OECD countries beyond 2002 and become a significant sector by 2007.

•The green consumer. The liberalization of energy policy and the rise of the political and "green" consumer are also driving greater demand. The breakup of state energy monopolies has spawned competition and allowed businesses and individuals to choose their provider of electrical services. In many markets, the options for industrial, business, and residential consumers include "green energy programs. While still a minor part of the mix, green

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energy options will gradually increase awareness and attention and cause increased market demand from some customer segments.

•Economic drivers. The market is increasingly being influenced by traditional market drivers rather than by political forces. In some situations wind, biomass, and small-scale hydropower are becoming viewed as complementary to fossil fuels, not as a replacement, and there is also an observable trend among conventional energy producers to consider the use of renewable technologies.

Wind energy

Over the past 6 years, wind energy has been the fastest-growing renewable energy source, with additional output growing at a compound rate of 30%. It is likely to maintain this position for the medium term, as some projects have now achieved output and economy ratings comparable with fossil and nuclear power.

Europe and North America have dominated wind energy developments over the past 2 decades. However, the past 5 years have seen the European region forge ahead in terms of installed capacity, and with the current economic and political situation, it is unlikely that this situation will change. While currently accounting for 73% of installed capacity. European growth has slowed slightly to 36% /year from over 40%/ year. However, while other regions have grown faster, the large installed base of Europe has maintained its pre-eminent global position.

One interesting situation has been the development within Western Europe of offshore wind farms. Western Europe has a higher average population density coupled with a higher offshore wind resource than North America. This has made offshore wind a viable alternative for Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and the UK. There is currently about 80 Mw of installed capacity offshore, all of it in Europe, with Denmark responsible for 63% and the Netherlands 16%.

There are, however, extensive development plans throughout the region that could lead to a massive increase in installed capacity by 2010. Among the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, there is the possibility of nearly 6,500 Mw of installed capacity, which, if realized, would make offshore wind the fastest growing sector of the wind energy market.

In the US, huge tracts of sparsely populated land with good wind potential and suitable grid connections have made onshore wind generation the economic option.

Over the next few years, continued technological improvements, such as the development of 5 Mw turbines, should lead to further efficiency and output

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gains and see wind energy firmly ensconced as a commercial proposition for large-scale, subsidy-free power generation.

Manufacturing wind turbines is becoming a significant business in some countries. For Denmark, an early pioneer in the sector, this has become the country's largest engineering export.

Solar energy

Solar energy is becoming a well-established business sector. The technologies can be characterized into two distinct groups: photovoltaic (Pv), or "active," and thermal, or "passive." Pv directly converts light to electricity, while passive systems use solar energy for direct heating or to generate electricity indirectly through a heat-transfer system. The passive use of solar energy is separated into solar heating and solar thermal electricity.

With 1 sq m of installed solar collectors saving 200-600 kw-hr/year of electricity - depending on the country, the type and quality of the installation, the weather conditions, and consumption pattern - it is projected that the solar collectors to be installed in Europe (mainly southern Europe) by 2005 will produce 14 million Mw-hr of solar thermal energy.

There is no global estimate of the number of passive systems in use today, but there are an estimated 5 million-plus systems in use in developed nations.

The major energy companies BP PLC and Royal Dutch/Shell Group are both significant players in the Pv solar technology sector.

Tidal, current-stream energy

Engineers have been trying for hundreds of years to effectively harness what is widely acknowledged as one of the great untapped energy resources of the planet - the energy associated with the movement of ocean tides and current streams.

However, most potential sites are poorly located with regard to prospective users and often in areas of high ecological value. But technological developments of the last decade coupled with the growing acceptance of the need for renewable energy should ensure that tidal and current-stream energy finally move out of their development stage and into commercial reality.

One extreme example is a 2.2 Gw tidal fence being planned by Blue Energy Canada Inc., Vancouver, BC, for the San Bernadino Strait off the Philippines. The project, estimated to cost $2.8 billion and take 6 years to complete, would be the largest tidal power plant in the world.

However, the main future of tidal and current stream energy schemes may lie in small-scale tidal power plants similar to the new generation of 3-5 Mw wind turbines that are being adapted to subsea use. With lower capital costs and