The Dynamic Relationship Between Technology Innovation and Human Development in Technologically Advanced Countries: Fresh Insights from Quantiles-on-Quantile Approach

Our study investigates the relationship between technology innovation and human development in technologically advanced countries using data from quarterly observations from the last decade of the twentieth century to the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This objective of this study is to implement Quantile-on-Quantile regression (QQ) technique that as formulated by Sim and Zhou (J Bank Finance 55:1–8, 2015) and the renowned Granger-causality in quantiles as proposed by Troster (Econom Rev 37(8):850–866, 2018) examine the basic relationship between the given quantiles of technology innovation and their effects on the quantiles of human development. Therefore, the outcomes of this study explain the overall interdependence of technology innovation and affect the overall human development index. It is enumerated that the empirical results indicate that a significant positive relationship exists between technology innovation and human development in all selected technologically advanced countries, predominantly in both low and high tails. Moreover, the outcomes of Granger causality quantiles indicate a bi-directional fundamental relationship between these two variables in the dataset of all countries. The outcomes of the observations are extended to the recent findings on these two variables’ nexus and imply a differential impact on the technologically advanced countries. This causality guides us to offer some specific policy recommendations to each group of countries.

     

Social Protection Spending in Context of Structural and Institutional Performance: A Global Empirical Analysis

Social Indicators Research - An understanding about the dynamics of social protection spending is made in the context of structural and institutional performances. A dataset of 134 countries for...     

Politics−Bureaucracy Relationship in Bangladesh: Consequences for the Public Service Commission

The paper attempts to analyze the consequences of political pressure placed on the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Bangladesh. Through extensive literature review and empirical research, the authors conclude that the independence, efficiency and effectiveness of the PSC largely depend on the politics–administration relationship. Furthermore, this relationship is affected by regime types and it regulates the optimum functioning or malfunctioning of the institution.

An exploration of the relationship between police presence,crime and firms in developing countries

Economic theory predicts that a rise in police presence will reduce criminal activity. However several studies in this field have found mixed results. This study adds to the literature by exploring the relationship between the size of the police force and crime experienced by firms. Using survey data for about 12,000 firms in a cross‐section of 27 developing countries it is found that increasing the size of the police force is negatively associated with crime experienced by firms. Results are confirmed using a panel of firms for a subset of countries for which data are available. It is also found that this negative relationship is stronger under certain macroeconomic circumstances.     

“Explain or change”: The quality and uses of ethnicity data in universities and healthcare organisation in England

“Explain or change” was a key term that came into currency in the UK from 2016 onwards to put the onus on public institutions to account for disparities in outcomes on the basis of class, gender, and ethnicity in the main. One of the most prominent outcomes of this policy initiative was the government Race Disparity Audit. This article aims to go behind the headline figures to understand what it means to either “explain” or “change” figures and policies around race/ethnicity in particular. It outlines the findings of a survey and some interviews with staff working in the NHS in London and in universities in England. The findings point to difficulties with the quality of data generated by these organisations, as well as the uses of data. Practitioners feel that data is incomplete and do not provide the routes to policy measures that will make a clear difference to outcomes. At the same time, there is a feeling there is a lack of will to use data to either explain or change their organisation's response to race inequality. Thus, this article concludes that the use of ethnicity data remains the main concern for many participants in this study.     

Islamophobia and the Discursive Reconstitution of Religious Imagination in Europe

Since much of the discussion about Islamophobia has been concerned with positive-self and negative-other representations of Muslims, understanding it as a culturally racist discourse foregrounds the way Muslims are constructed as deeply threatening to the values and identities of the spaces they occupy. These representations invoke an essentialised and determinative Muslim culture that can be understood as the central organising principle of Islamophobia: the belief that relies upon binary oppositions that allow its proponents to advocate a host of positive values, while repudiating and denigrating Muslims. This paper explains how Islamophobia can be conceptualised as the racist discourse that upholds a system of Eurocentric supremacy, a historical development based on the universalising aspects of Western culture that led to the development of a racialised social system in Europe. By demonstrating the form and content of Islamophobic discourse, the paper draws attention to a wide array of issues ranging from the securitisation discourse, institutionalisation of Islamophobia, to its modes of articulation in specific European countries. It further argues that given the rise of racist, especially Islamophobic, far-right parties in European countries, combating Islamophobia becomes an institutional priority that requires outspoken and brave initiatives and persons who not only challenge this pervasive form of racism but also address structural forms of discrimination affecting Muslims or those perceived as such.     

Achieving manufacturing excellence through the integration of enterprise systems and simulation

This paper discusses the significance of the enterprise systems and simulation integration in improving shop floor’s short-term production planning capability. The ultimate objectives are to identify the integration protocols, optimisation parameters and critical design artefacts, thereby identifying key ‘ingredients’ that help in setting out a future research agenda in pursuit of optimum decision-making at the shop floor level. While the integration of enterprise systems and simulation gains a widespread agreement within the existing work, the optimality, scalability and flexibility of the schedules remained unanswered. Furthermore, there seems to be no commonality or pattern as to how many core modules are required to enable such a flexible and scalable integration. Nevertheless, the objective of such integration remains clear, i.e. to achieve an optimum total production time, lead time, cycle time, production release rates and cost. The issues presently faced by existing enterprise systems (ES), if properly addressed, can contribute to the achievement of manufacturing excellence and can help identify the building blocks for the software architectural platform enabling the integration.