Does culture matter for the economic performance of countries? An overview of the literature

From the point of view of economic development, the world is far from being homogeneous. Among the possible causes of such uneven evolution, culture is starting to attract the attention of a growing number of scholars. The present paper surveys some of the most important contributions on culture and economics, with a particular focus on the definition and measurement of culture and on the impact of different cultural traits on economic variables. According to this review of the literature, cultures emphasising individual effort while providing equal opportunities for everyone are more likely to encourage sustained economic growth.     

Does geographical proximity matter in determining the profitability of banks?

Despite the existence of a burgeoning literature on bank profitability, yet, none of them gave due consideration to geographical proximity. I fulfill such a gap by analyzing the effects of COVID-19 on the profitability of top-rated banks. Findings confirm the prevalence of spatial dependence at both the global and sub-global with feedback effects being systematically higher than spillover effects. My study uncovers evidence of a COVID-19 induced decline in asset utilization. Findings advocate sharing economy as a potential tool to banks in combating any future pandemic risk with regionalized approach to supervision being deemed better than its globalized counterpart.     

Does vegetation matter for the criminal behavior among people with serious mental illness?

This study attempts to examine the effect of vegetation on arrests of offenders with and without serious mental illness (SMI). Data from the MacArthur mental health court study were analyzed. Objective arrest data were obtained 12–18 months pre‐ and post‐court involvement between 2005 and 2007. Vegetation data were captured by the normalized difference vegetation index, which can be regarded as a general measure of “vegetation” and linked with GeoID, obtained from the American Community Survey. We analyzed data of sociodemographic factors (e.g., age, gender), crime‐related factors (e.g., age of first arrest), and vegetation in related to the crime on 652 offenders with mental illness. Multilevel negative binomial regression revealed no significant effect of vegetation on arrests among offenders without SMI; however, for those with SMI, a significant variation in vegetation on arrests was found among all study models. Our findings suggest that vegetation is significantly associated with arrests, with a positive effect on reducing the recidivism only among offenders with SMI. Given that practice and policy almost exclusively focus on individual factors of crimes, it is important to have more considerations about how neighborhood factors affect criminal behavior, depending on SMI in order to have more comprehensive methods of crime prevention.     

EU regional convergence and policy: Does the concept of region matter?

Regional convergence has become a heated topic in the last decades. To address it, most papers define regions on the base of normative/administrative criteria, although some consider that it could lead to misleading conclusions. In view of that, this article explores, over the period 1995–2006, the per capita income distribution of two sets of European regions: administrative (NUTS2) and functional (Metropolitan) regions. From a methodological point of view, a distribution dynamics approach – examining the external shape and movements within these distributions – is applied to analyse the issue of convergence. The study does reveal the presence of a process of convergence across both types of regions; however, this seems to be more rapid with Metropolitan than NUTS2 regions, which prompt us to proposing some relative major changes in the EU regional policy.     

Does product complexity matter for competition in experimental retail markets?

We describe a first experiment on whether product complexity affects competition and consumers in retail markets. We are unable to detect a significant effect of product complexity on prices, except insofar as the demand elasticity for complex products is higher. However, there is qualified evidence that complex products have the potential to induce consumers to buy more than they would otherwise. In this sense, consumer exploitability in quantities cannot be ruled out. We also find evidence for shaping effects: consumers’ preferences are shaped by past experience with prices, and firms may in principle exploit this to sell more.     

Household assets,school enrollment,and parental aspirations for children's education in rural China: Does gender matter?

Using rural household data from the China Household Income Project (CHIP) 2002, this article provides an analysis of different effects of household assets independent of family income on children's school enrollment and parental aspirations for education, examining both outcomes by children's gender. The study first compared the responsiveness of boys' and girls' enrollment with the improvement of household assets, measured as liquid assets and net worth, relative to family income. The multivariate regression analysis further detected the effects of household assets on both boys' and girls' school enrollment and parental aspirations for their future education. Statistical results show that, compared with family income, household assets matter more for girls' schooling than for boys'. In addition, household net worth was found to be significantly associated with parental aspirations for children's education regardless of gender. This study, albeit exploratory, sheds light on child welfare and education policies in rural China.     

Does the Privatization of Social security Make Sense for Developing Nations?

We discuss the privatization schemes of Chile and Argentina following a review of three alternatives to privatization. Our major conclusions are as follows: (1) the Chilean scheme has performed very well during much of the past 15 years, but it is not yet clear what will happen during an extended period of economic stagnation and declining financial markets; (2) for many countries it would make more sense to reform existing public pension schemes than to replace them with privatized schemes, at least until one has a better idea how privatized schemes perform in adverse financial environments; (3) privatized schemes have important distributional effects that deserve more attention.     

Productive aging via volunteering: Does social cohesion influence level of engagement?

This study investigated whether neighborhood social cohesion influenced volunteer intensity over two years. The sample was drawn from Health and Retirement Study respondents who completed the 2010 or 2012 Psychosocial and Lifestyle Questionnaire (n = 12,929). Results showed that compared to nonvolunteers, a one-unit increase in neighborhood social cohesion increased the odds of moderate (OR: 1.07, p < .05) and high volunteering (OR: 1.10, p < .001). However, other productive roles, social contact, and education were significant in distinguishing high intensity from moderate volunteering while neighborhood social cohesion was not. Social workers should consider the neighborhood environment when recruiting volunteers.     

Does trust matter for R&;D cooperation? A game theoretic examination

The game theoretical approach to R&D cooperation does not investigate the role of trust in the initiation and success of R&D cooperation: it either assumes that firms are non-opportunists or that the R&D cooperation is supported by an incentive mechanism that eliminates opportunism. In contrast, the present paper focuses on these issues by introducing incomplete information and two types of firms: opportunist and non-opportunist. Defining trust as the belief of each firm that its potential collaborator will respect the contract, it identifies the trust conditions under which firms initiate R&D alliances and contribute to their success. The higher the spillovers, the higher the level of trust required to initiate R&D cooperation for non-opportunists, while the inverse holds for opportunists.JEL Classification code: C720 Non-cooperative games; L130 Market structure, firm strategy and performance; D320 Management of technology, innovation and R&D.     

Does race matter? Assessing consumer discrimination in the secondary basketball card market

Sociologists continue to observe the ways race permeates America's social institutions, the institution of sport being no exception. Although researchers have explored customer racial discrimination via examinations of the secondary sports card market, only three studies have explored the phenomenon in the context of basketball, a sporting context with a higher proportion of non-White players than the baseball and football leagues that have been the primary focus to date. We explore the unique way race matters on the hardwood by employing a methodological approach that previously has been used to study card collecting in other contexts. Data were obtained for 215 retired players and their rookie cards. Controlling for other factors, to include career performance, position, and card scarcity, the results reveal no direct effect of race on card values, but there is an interaction effect between race and Hall of Fame status that impacts card prices. The potential source and implications of this interaction are discussed as well as suggestions for future research.     

Does export concentration matter in economic adjustment programs? Evidence from the euro-area

The recent crisis in some euro area countries is intensively fueling the political and economic policy debate about the effectiveness of the applied adjustment programs. This paper aims to contribute to explaining why the results of these programs could be different across countries, flagging the crucial role of exports. In view of recent economic literature about substitution between domestic and foreign sales, helping exports when domestic demand is adjusting, this paper uses panel data techniques to assess the role of the export structure in explaining this substitution effect in the euro area countries. Building a novel indicator for product concentration, the results suggest that domestic demand developments are more relevant to explaining exports in countries with a lower product concentration index (that is, more diversified exports). This contributes to explain why euro area countries under stress registered different economic performance, in particular the clearly less favorable behavior of Greece, where exports structure is concentrated more strongly in some goods and services than in other euro area countries. With different export behavior the final evaluation of the Greek adjustment would be certainly different. These results suggest that export structure should be taken into consideration when designing or evaluating this type of adjustment programs.     

Inflation targeting and the exchange rate: Does it matter in Turkey?

This paper investigates the monetary policy reaction functions of the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey (CBRT) over the periods 1987:01–2001:12 and 2002:01–2009:05. We specifically attempt to shed light on question to what extent exchange rate developments still continue to influence monetary policy, even under inflation targeting. This study seeks to investigate how the monetary policy responded to the exchange rate shocks before and after adoption of inflation targeting regime. How large the effect of exchange rate shocks is accounted for in forecast error variances decompositions for monetary policy as compared to other shocks? Using the VAR model, this study shows that there has been strong pass-through during whole period. Moreover, in the postcrisis period, exchange rate has been the main reaction variable for the CBRT.     

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.     

A matter of distance? Retailer acceptance of the US dollar in the Canadian plains

The continued economic integration of North America has connected cross-border shoppers along the US-Canadian border. This paper explores the use of the US dollar in Canadian retail establishments along a geographical spine in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. We find that distance away from the border is inversely related to the rate of US dollar acceptance in Saskatchewan. More important to the acceptance decision, however, is business maturity and provincial location in Saskatchewan.     

What are the minimal requirements of rational choice? Arguments from the sequential-decision setting

There are at least two plausible generalisations of subjective expected utility (SEU) theory: cumulative prospect theory (which relaxes the independence axiom) and Levi’s decision theory (which relaxes at least ordering). These theories call for a re-assessment of the minimal requirements of rational choice. Here, I consider how an analysis of sequential decision making contributes to this assessment. I criticise Hammond’s (Economica 44(176):337–350, 1977; Econ Philos 4:292–297, 1988a; Risk, decision and rationality, 1988b; Theory Decis 25:25–78, 1988c) ‘consequentialist’ argument for the SEU preference axioms, but go on to formulate a related diachronic-Dutch-book-style’ argument that better achieves Hammond’s aims. Some deny the importance of Dutch-book sure losses, however, in which case, Seidenfeld’s (Econ Philos 4:267–290, 1988a) argument that distinguishes between theories that relax independence and those that relax ordering is relevant. I unravel Seidenfeld’s argument in light of the various criticisms of it and show that the crux of the argument is somewhat different and much more persuasive than what others have taken it to be; the critical issue is the modelling of future choices between ‘indifferent’ decision-tree branches in the sequential setting. Finally, I consider how Seidenfeld’s conclusions might nonetheless be resisted.     

Does proximity matter? Plant location,public awareness,and support for nuclear energy

Does geographic proximity to nuclear power plants influence public attitudes toward nuclear energy? Utilizing a statewide survey of North Carolina residents, this research considers whether proximity to a nuclear facility – measured by residence in a 10 or 50 mile Emergency Planning Zone – influences citizen awareness, support, and perceptions of safety concerning nuclear energy. The results suggest that while geographic proximity to generating sites does lead to increased levels of awareness, it does not appear to impact overall attitudes toward the use and perceived safety of nuclear energy.     

Does multiculturalism help immigrant youth engage in school? Multicultural paradox in the welfare state

Research thus far has presented inconsistent findings regarding the effect of multiculturalism on the integration of immigrant youth; however, few studies have focused on making sense of these inconsistencies and further developing research in this field. In the current study, we focus on the possibility that policy arrangements for social welfare may condition the effect of multiculturalism in different directions. Specifically, we hypothesize that the policy mix of generous welfare spending and strong multiculturalism may not aid in the acculturation of immigrant youth in the host country. Cross-national multilevel data from 28,879 immigrant youth in 29 countries were analysed. The results indicate that immigrant youth show higher school engagement in countries with stronger institutionalised multiculturalism. However, this pattern varies depending on the social welfare policies of individual countries. When strong multiculturalism is combined with generous welfarism in a country, it does not positively affect the school engagement of immigrant youth. These findings align with our speculation that multiculturalism is likely to work better in liberal economies than in generous welfare states.     

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.     

Are beliefs a matter of taste? A case for objective imprecise information

We argue, in the spirit of some of Jean-Yves Jaffray’s work, that explicitly incorporating the information, however imprecise, available to the decision maker is relevant, feasible, and fruitful. In particular, we show that it can lead us to know whether the decision maker has wrong beliefs and whether it matters or not, that it makes it possible to better model and analyze how the decision maker takes into account new information, even when this information is not an event and finally that it is crucial when attempting to identify and measure the decision maker’s attitude toward imprecise information.