Do greater amounts of FDI cause higher pollution levels? Evidence from OECD countries

Using an ARDL model for a panel of 15 OECD countries, this work analyses the impact that FDI, both jointly and by sector, has on CO₂ emissions. The findings reveal that these countries are yielding to the pressure on the trade sector. Unexpectedly, gross fixed capital formation shrink pollution, excluding in the mining sector. With findings supporting the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, policymakers must pay attention to FDI inflows, ensuring that FDI place high importance on the transfer of green technologies to improve the efficiency. These goals could be achieved through an increase in the stringency of environmental laws within the host countries, especially the ones related to FDI.     

Does inflation targeting matter for output growth? Evidence from industrial and emerging economies

This paper examines the effects of inflation targeting (IT) on output growth over the “globalization years” of 1986-2004. Employing static panel data methods that control for traditional growth determinants, trade openness and financial globalization, the paper finds that the adoption of a fully fledged IT regime results in higher output income per capita for industrial and emerging economies. However, under dynamic model specifications, the estimated long-run output impact of inflation targeting for emerging market economies is found to be lower than in the case of static models. We argue that this might be due to the long lags until the full effects of greater credibility are felt in the real economy and the fact that emerging market economies adopted the regime much later than industrial economies.     

Do political instability,financial instability and environmental degradation undermine growth? Evidence from belt and road initiative countries

This study investigates the extent to which political instability (PI), financial instability (FI), and environmental degradation undermine economic complexity (EC). EC is more predictive of future growth and development patterns and correlates with the increased ability to create and export a wide variety of sophisticated (high productivity) items. Using data from up to 56 BRI nations, I routinely obtain precise estimates of the negative effect of PI and FI on EC. Further, we examined the indirect effect of PI and FI through the channel of human capital (HC). These findings confirm the core premise that institutional stability largely influences economic complexity by encouraging creative entrepreneurship, HC accumulation, and allocating human resources to productive activities. Moreover, we examined the indirect effect of PI and FI through the channel of CO₂ emissions. These findings support the idea that countries with stable institutions can reduce pollution and protect the environment. It could increase economic complexity while reducing environmental degradation. The main findings support the creation of a pro-development institutional framework that enhance environmental sustainability and reduces poverty by increasing economic complexity.     

Reversing the Negative Experience of Unemployment: A Mediating Role for Social Policies?

This article examines why unemployment is often experienced in a profoundly negative way, and explores the potentially mediating role of social policies. Three dominant theories of unemployment are described, which are often treated as competing, mutually exclusive explanations of the deleterious effects of unemployment. Subsequently, and through drawing upon a qualitative study of unemployed people, it is argued that all three theories are of worth and can be synthesized into a broader explanation of the experience of unemployment as an overarching process of loss. Three forms of loss are identified: loss of agency; loss of the functions of paid work; and loss of social status. The article then explores how these forms of loss can be both ameliorated and intensified through social policy interventions. Concluding, it offers policy recommendations to increase the efficacy of social policies in reversing the negative experience of unemployment, with the conclusion that this will require significant reform of the UK welfare state.     

Risk awareness and adverse selection in catastrophe insurance: Evidence from California’s residential earthquake insurance market

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - How does catastrophe-risk awareness affect purchase decisions and selection patterns in the insurance market? I study this issue using data on take-up rates of...     

Do changes in patent policy influence firms’ technology strategy? Evidence from manufacturing in India

India made patent policy changes to comply with TRIPs agreement that increased the rights of patent owners. Considering that such policy changes influence both in-house research and development investments and technology licensing from external sources, the firms have to accordingly devise their technology strategy. This study employs a simple and fixed effects multinomial logit regression models to study the impact of policy changes on the technology strategy of 402 firms operating in Indian manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2014. The results show that changes in patent policy have a significant impact on technology strategy of firms.     

Can cities be held responsible for early school leaving? Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper examines if ‘naming and shaming’ is an effective tool to increase accountability in school dropout for cities with disadvantaged student populations. It argues that a comparison with other cities might be unfair if regional and population characteristics differ. It discusses the example of two Dutch new towns. The new town policy deliberately attracted low- and medium-income households in the past, such that today the population of those cities differs from other cities. We use a matching analysis to account for observed differences in population and regional characteristics. The results point out that ‘naming and shaming’ may be a dangerous policy to increase accountability: early school leaving differences are driven, to a large extent, by observed differences in population and regional characteristics.     

Do young generations save for retirement? Ensuring financial security of Gen Z and Gen Y

Concerns about the population aging and global trends to shift more responsibility for future retirement from the state to the individual need policy planning to increase youth's savings for retirement. The study aims to identify behavioral, financial, demographic, and educational determinants of savings for retirement in two groups of young adults with reference to people aged 50–60. The binary logit model and pairwise comparison results showed that the probability of saving for retirement increases with age and responsibility fosters saving behavior among young adults. The observed differences allow the formulation of policy recommendations adapted to the preferences of generations Z and Y.     

Till Death Us Do Part? A Critical Analysis of Obligation and Choice for Spousal Caregivers

Research demonstrates a significant number of carers identify obligation or lack of other alternatives as the reasons they undertake informal care. By utilizing critical discourse analysis, this research explores choice for informal caregivers in contemporary Australian social policy. Analysis demonstrates increasing shifts in policy toward choice in consumer-directed care, a feature absent for those who provide care. Familial care is a central pillar of Australian social policy, as it is in many liberal and conservative welfare regimes. Analysis reveals that these core social policies are fundamentally incongruent, with significant implications for individuals and social work practice.     

Meritocracy in the awarding of research grants? Evidence from Social Science Korea

In 2010, the Korean government launched a new funding scheme for social scientists, Social Science Korea (SSK). Contrary to conventional grant programs, the SSK adopted a competition scheme among research teams by eliminating those who failed to pass annual evaluations, while, at the same time, emphasizing cooperation and interdisciplinary research. Substantial research has documented the determinants of receiving research grants in Western countries, but little is known about how these determinants operate in Korean academia. Using results from the stage evaluations of the SSK, we estimate logistic regression models. The results indicate that factors of meritocracy, such as publication record, strongly affect the likelihood of success, but so do political factors, such as a PI obtaining his or her doctoral degree from a foreign institution. The importance of a PI’s gender and age, and of being located in Seoul, is not supported by the data.     

Do we follow others when we should outside the lab? Evidence from the AP top 25

We use data from the Associated Press college American football poll to analyze two types of ex-post optimality of social learning in a non-lab setting. The poll is a weekly subjective ranking of the top 25 teams, voted on by over 60 sports journalists. Voters potentially can learn from their peers by observing the aggregate ranks before updating their individual ranks. Our results indicate that, while voters do learn from their peers to some extent, the informativeness of peer ranks appears to be under-valued.     

Does research and development expenditure impact innovation? Evidence from the European Union countries

This study empirically investigates the relationship between innovation and Research & Development expenditure in European Union countries over the period 1995–2014. The findings of the empirical analysis show that there is a co-integration relationship between innovation and R&D. The results also reveal the existence of a positive and significant effect of business, public and higher education R&D on innovation. Business R&D is the sector with the highest positive effect on innovation. The results indicate that EU should strengthen the cooperation between business, public and higher education R&D through the encouragement of partnerships between the private sector, R&D and innovation system.     

Decentralization and growth: Do informal institutions and rule of law matter?

We develop a model of the interactions among decentralization, informal institutions and the rule of law. The model sheds light on the ambiguous empirical results reported in the literature regarding the growth effects of the policy of devolving fiscal responsibility to local governments. We find that the distribution of civicness within a country determines the magnitude of the effects of decentralization on its regional convergence, as well as whether decentralization fosters or dampens the country’s national growth. We perform a series of simulated “reforms” using Monte Carlo methods parameterized using OECD countries data set. We then test our findings using a panel data set of 23 OECD countries covering the period 1975–2010. We find that the short and the long run growth effect of decentralization policy depends on the size of the policy reform and can range from extremely negative to positive depending on the rule of law, the level of social capital and its regional dispersion, in line with the model predictions.     

Do securely and insecurely attached children derive well‐being from different forms of gender identity?

We examined whether attachment security moderates influences of two gender identity variables—felt gender typicality and felt pressure for gender differentiation—on preadolescents' well‐being. We tested two hypotheses. The first was that attachment security protects children from the distress that can stem from feeling gender atypical or from feeling pressure for gender conformity. The second was that secure children derive well‐being from believing they are similar to same‐gender peers whereas insecure children derive well‐being from believing it important to be different from other‐gender peers. We assessed children's attachment security, gender identity, and well‐being (self‐esteem, internalizing problems) in two successive years (N = 211, M initial age = 10.1 years). Results supported the second hypothesis. Attachment security may govern children's contingencies of well‐being.     

Playing the Game of Outcomes‐based Performance Management. Is Gamesmanship Inevitable? Evidence from Theory and Practice

This article presents the case for the need for a re‐think in the prevailing orthodoxy of measurement approaches in the governance and management of public services. The article explores the simplification of complex reality that outcomes‐based performance management (OBPM) requires in order to function, and the consequences of such simplification. It examines the evidence for and against the effectiveness of OBPM, and argues that both sets of evidence can be brought into a single explanatory story by understanding the theory of OBPM. The simplification required to measure and attribute ‘outcomes’ turns the organization and delivery of social interventions into a game, the rules of which promote gamesmanship, distorting the behaviour of organizations, managers and practitioners who undertake it.