100 key research questions for the post‐2015 development agenda

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) herald a new phase for international development. This article presents the results of a consultative exercise to collaboratively identify 100 research questions of critical importance for the post‐2015 international development agenda. The final shortlist is grouped into nine thematic areas and was selected by 21 representatives of international and non‐governmental organisations and consultancies, and 14 academics with diverse disciplinary expertise from an initial pool of 704 questions submitted by 110 organisations based in 34 countries. The shortlist includes questions addressing long‐standing problems, new challenges and broader issues related to development policies, practices and institutions. Collectively, these questions are relevant for future development‐related research priorities of governmental and non‐governmental organisations worldwide and could act as focal points for transdisciplinary research collaborations.     

Bayesian inference for the parameters of Weibull distribution under progressive Type-I interval censored data with beta-binomial removals

This article considers the problem of estimating the parameters of Weibull distribution under progressive Type-I interval censoring scheme with beta-binomial removals. Classical as well as the Bayesian procedures for the estimation of unknown model parameters have been developed. The Bayes estimators are obtained under SELF and GELF using MCMC technique. The performance of the estimators, has been discussed in terms of their MSEs. Further, expression for the expected number of total failures has been obtained. A real dataset of the survival times for patients with plasma cell myeloma is used to illustrate the suitability of the proposed methodology.     

Does land ownership make a difference? Women's roles in agriculture in Kerala,India

Drawing on a 12-month study, this paper explores the role of women in agriculture in Kerala, India. Despite claims that women enjoy high status in Kerala, economic, social, and cultural factors interplay to reinforce gender differences in ownership, control over, and access to critical agricultural resources, including land. Although women may gain access to land through inheritance, marriage, or informal networks, none of this guarantee effective control over it. The traditional rights of women to land have not been adequately recognized: the gender gap in the ownership and control of property is the only most significant contributor to the gender gap in the economic well-being, social status, and empowerment of women. The existing socioeconomic changes and crisis which render agricultural land as a main source of livelihood, is leading nair women's share of land being sold, with gains going to men, thus decreasing women?s ownership of land to the status of male-controlled dowry. The case of the Christian succession laws in Kerala illustrate that legal provisions alone can have a limited impact on changing gendered power structures. The role of women in agriculture needs to be recognized, and institutional support must be increased in order for women to gain access to agricultural inputs and technology, which in turn, leads to better agricultural practices and a higher income from farming in the country. Most importantly, there should be a concerted effort to enable women to function as independent farmers who control their own land.     

The health consequences of trafficking in women in Mexico: findings from Monterrey city

There has been little research on the health consequences of trafficking in women in Mexico and this study examines the effects of trafficking in women. Twenty internally trafficked women were interviewed in Monterrey city, Mexico, during the years 2007 and 2008. Although the study found that trafficking of women in Mexico results from multi-causal factors, we found that in general trafficked women suffer a wide range of physical and sexual violence. This has direct consequences on their physical and mental health and in particular their sexual health.     

A test of the relationship between manufacturing technology and the scope for innovation

The growth of any manufacturing business seems to pass through qualitatively distinct stages, having differential needs for innovation. This relation, between evolution of technology and its demand for innovation, is tested here. With firm-level data from Indian industry, collected specifically for this study, the proposition finds a high degree of support. It is further supplemented by data on the stimulus for innovation which explains why the theory is only partially adequate.     

When Twenty-Four Hours is not Enough: Time Poverty of Working Parents

Individuals can be money poor, time poor or both. While income is the most used indicator of poverty, broader indexes including non-monetary aspects of deprivation have been proposed and measured. As one such measure, our study focuses on the element of deprivation arising from the time deficit of many working people. The usual poverty threshold is calculated as the amount of income to buy the minimum required goods and services from the market. This minimum required purchase is greater for these people since they have less time than the average person to produce some goods and services for themselves at home. So, they need money to buy these in the market in order to maintain the same consumption. The income standard must be supplemented to adequately measure actual poverty. Time use data make it possible to establish time requirements and time availability and provide a measure of time poverty. Using Canadian GSS 1998 data, and building on the work of Vickery (1977, ‚The time poor: A new look at poverty’, The Journal of Human Resources 12(1), pp. 27-48) and of Douthitt (1993, ‚The inclusion of time availability in Canadian poverty measures’, Time-Use Methodology: Toward Consensus (ISTAT, Roma), pp. 83–91), and our own previous study, we estimate time-adjusted poverty thresholds and rates for single and dual parent Canadian families. As expected, we have found high incidence of time deficit among the employed single parents with children. We make a case for the acceptance of a redefined poverty standard for such time-deprived groups.     

Escalation: The Role of Problem Recognition and Cognitive Bias

Escalation of commitment to a failing course of action is an enduring problem that remains central to the study of managerial behavior. Prior research suggests that escalation behavior results when decision makers choose to ignore negative feedback concerning the viability of a previously chosen course of action. Previous work has also suggested that certain cognitive biases might promote escalation behavior, but there has been little attempt to explore how biases other than framing affect escalation. In this article, we explore the extent to which decision makers actually perceive negative feedback as indicative of a problem and how this influences their decision to escalate. Although problem recognition and cognitive biases have been intensively studied individually, little is known about their effect on escalation behavior. In this research, we construct and test an escalation decision model that incorporates both problem recognition and two cognitive biases: selective perception and illusion of control. Our results revealed a significant inverse relationship between problem recognition and escalation. Furthermore, selective perception and illusion of control were found to significantly affect both problem recognition and escalation. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. To improve problem recognition and reduce the incidence of escalation, practicing managers should implement modern project management practices that can help to identify and highlight potential problems while guarding against these two key cognitive biases that promote the behavior.     

Competitive and Cooperative Positioning in Supply Chain Logistics Relationships*

Cooperative logistics relationships require the sharing of information, which must be enabled by the integration of disparate information systems across partners. In this article, we theorize business‐to‐business logistics relationships should be managed using cooperative and competitive postures. Based on data from 91 dyadic relationships using interorganizational information technology (IT), we find that performance gains accrue when parties share strategic information and customize IT; mutual trust enables IT customization and strategic‐information flows and equitable relationship‐specific investments positively impact IT customization, mutual trust, and performance. Among other scholarly and practical implications discussed, partners should compete on resources for IT customization and cooperate to share strategic information. Managers tend to think of relationships with firms as polar opposites and view them as entirely cooperative or entirely competitive. Our results support active balancing and understanding of both competitive and cooperative stances. Such an approach enables conditions for participation symmetry that yields greater performance gains.     

Gender issues in social security policy of developing countries: Lessons from the Kerala experience

This paper is based on the premise that labour market conditions are critical in shaping access to social security benefits. Women's entitlement to long-term social security is in many respects different from that of men on account of the assumptions which pervade the system about gender roles, labour market conditions, and outcomes. The Indian state of Kerala has made great strides in formulating various schemes for workers in the informal sector, but gender concerns in social security are in want of attention in the light of demographic pressures, fiscal constraints and changes in the global economy.     

Bayesian variable selection using an adaptive powered correlation prior

The problem of selecting the correct subset of predictors within a linear model has received much attention in recent literature. Within the Bayesian framework, a popular choice of prior has been Zellner's g$g$-prior which is based on the inverse of empirical covariance matrix of the predictors. An extension of the Zellner's prior is proposed in this article which allow for a power parameter on the empirical covariance of the predictors. The power parameter helps control the degree to which correlated predictors are smoothed towards or away from one another. In addition, the empirical covariance of the predictors is used to obtain suitable priors over model space. In this manner, the power parameter also helps to determine whether models containing highly collinear predictors are preferred or avoided. The proposed power parameter can be chosen via an empirical Bayes method which leads to a data adaptive choice of prior. Simulation studies and a real data example are presented to show how the power parameter is well determined from the degree of cross-correlation within predictors. The proposed modification compares favorably to the standard use of Zellner's prior and an intrinsic prior in these examples.