Over‐indebtedness and microcredit in Cambodia: Moving beyond borrower‐centric frames

Over the past two decades, Cambodia has experienced an unprecedented credit boom, a growth in lending so rapid that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) referred to it as “one of the fastest financial deepening episodes by historical cross‐cultural standards” (IMF, 2016, p. 4). This deepening has been driven by the expansion of microcredit. In tandem, over‐indebtedness has increased among microcredit borrowers, and debt has become a significant political and economic concern. This article explores how over‐indebtedness is understood and explained by stakeholders across microcredit value chains. To do so, we draw on interviews with microfinance institution (MFI) executives, investors, branch managers, partners, financial literacy trainers, loan officers and borrowers in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. We find that across the sector, dominant framings of over‐indebtedness privilege borrower‐centric explanations, while discounting the structural drivers of excessive lending and borrowing. As a consequence, current efforts to limit over‐indebtedness are unlikely to produce the kinds of solutions that are most needed to reduce the debt stress among borrowers. These arguments have implications across the Global South, particularly for contexts where microfinance is rapidly expanding.     

Challenging the Rhetoric of Choice in Maternal Labour‐Force Participation: Preferred Versus Contracted Work Hours

The notion of choice in maternal labour‐force participation (LFP) is a contentious one, with assertions that LFP is a direct result of either personal inclinations, such as employment commitment or external factors, such as historically available opportunities. This article suggests an alternative framework for understanding and testing choice in LFP using preferred versus contracted work hours. It explores these constructs quantitatively in a group of working mothers (N = 275) with dependent children and investigates qualitatively the underlying reasons for discrepant preferred versus contracted work hours in a sub‐sample of these women with under‐school‐aged children (N = 20). The results show that nearly two‐thirds of women working full time would prefer to work part time and the major reasons for not acting on their preferences is because of the nature of the job and the lack of career opportunities available for part‐time employees.     

Medical students' and tutors' experiences of directed and self-directed learning programs in evidence-based medicine: a qualitative evaluation accompanying a randomized controlled trial

This qualitative study aims to interpret the results of a randomized controlled trial comparing two educational programs (directed learning and self-directed learning) in evidence-based medicine (EBM) for medical students at the University of Oslo from 2002 to 2003. There is currently very little comparative educational research in this field. In the trial, no statistically significant differences between the study groups were shown for any outcomes considered (EBM knowledge, skills, and attitudes). Further analysis suggests that main reason for the negative trial results was that the majority of students learned equally effectively, whichever program they received, although implementation of the educational programs was not complete because of varying attendance. This study illustrates a stepwise evaluation model that might be useful in evaluating other socially complex interventions.     

On the efficiency of using the sample kurtosis in selecting optimal lpestimators

This paper examines the efficiency of thesample kurtosisin obtaining L_P estimates as an estimates of central tendency for symmetric distributions. Moreover, guidelines are established for determining an optimal value of P based on the kurtosis of the error distribution.     

Measuring Christian Beliefs that Affect Managerial Decision-Making: A Beginning

Although considerable work has been done on the measurement of religious values and beliefs, little is understood about their effect on managerial values and decision making. This paper reports on theoretical work by the authors identifying Christian religious beliefs that might affect managerial decision making; it also reports the results of empirical work validating five scales of religious beliefs that might affect managerial decision making. Future research directions are proposed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Union-Nonunion differentials and establishment size: Evidence from the NLSY

We provide new empirical evidence on union-nonunion differentials using the 1990 wave of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY) data set which allows us to examine a broader set of fringe benefits than most other studies and provides a rich set of control variables. Our major finding is that the union effect decreases with establishment size for both components of the compensation structure, i.e., wages and fringe benefits. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Southern Economic Association conference in Washington, DC in 1996. We thank Tom Hyclak and other session participants. We also acknowledge the financial support from Ade Howe Kent Fund. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Defining delayed consequences as reinforcers: some do, some don't, and nothing changes

Results of a survey sent to members of the editorial boards of five behavior-analytic journals in 1990 indicated that there was no consensus among respondents with respect to whether delayed events can function as reinforcers (Schlinger, Blakely, Fillhard, & Poling, 1991). Since that time, several studies with nonhuman animals have demonstrated that events delayed by at least several seconds can increase the probability of occurrence of the responses that produce them. To determine the relative number of contemporary behavior analysts who nonetheless believe that reinforcers must immediately follow the responses that produce them, the present study replicated the procedures used by Schlinger et al., with similar results. That is, respondents did not agree with respect to whether delayed events could be reinforcers.