The influence of corporate governance on changes in risk following the global financial crisis: evidence from the Portuguese stock market

This paper examines the influence of corporate governance characteristics on changes in total, market and idiosyncratic risk in the Portuguese capital market following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. We aim to address corporate practices, while determining if corporate governance characteristics can help predict future variations of the risk associated with a certain security and, in this sense, if these characteristics may be used to help monitor or forecast risk of an existing portfolio of securities over time. We find positive and significant changes in total and idiosyncratic risk for non-financial firms listed on Euronext Lisbon, consistent with increases in investor uncertainty during the crisis period. Our results suggest that changes in risk measures over a shorter-term and a longer-term period vary with governance characteristics. The capital market rewarded companies with a greater proportion of non-executive directors and directors that exercise (on average) management roles in more companies or institutions. On the other hand, the capital market punished companies with a greater proportion of independent directors and greater ownership concentration.     

COMPETITION FOR UNIVERSITY PLACES AND PARENTAL TIME INVESTMENTS: EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM

Across the industrialized world college‐educated parents invest more time in their children relative to noncollege‐educated parents. Yet, the reason for the education gradient in parental time investments is not well understood. Using 24‐hour diary surveys since the 1970s we document an inverse U‐shape in the education gradient in the United Kingdom. Theories unfolding gradually and monotonically cannot easily explain this pattern. Using an exogenous increase in the number of students going on to university in the 1980s, we show that an alternative explanation based on competition for university places can explain the temporal and spatial variation in the education gradient. (JEL J13, J24)     

The “Places and Non-places” Held by Women in Social Economy Organizations

Scientific literature and facts have highlighted the perpetuation of gender inequality in the labour market in spite of the ongoing endeavours of political bodies and legal norms to eliminate the vertical and horizontal segregation of women. Portuguese Social Economy Act stresses “the respect for the values […] of equality and non-discrimination […], justice and equity […]”. In this paper, we offer a reflection on indicators that uncover vertical and horizontal segregation in the labour market. Based on a mixed methodological approach, we found very high rates of employment feminization in social economy organizations. Women are mainly allocated to technical and operational activities, being ultimately underrepresented in statutory boards and as such excluded from deliberation and strategic decision. The sector is moving away from the ideals of justice and social equity and may preserve women’s “non-place” in the definition of the public and strategic direction and in the most invisible/private organizational “places”.     

Infants’ Ability to Detect Emotional Incongruency: Deep or Shallow?

Infants can detect individuals who demonstrate emotions that are incongruent with an event and are less likely to trust them. However, the nature of the mechanisms underlying this selectivity is currently subject to controversy. The objective of this study was to examine whether infants’ socio‐cognitive and associative learning skills are linked to their selective trust. A total of 102 14‐month‐olds were exposed to a person who demonstrated congruent or incongruent emotional referencing (e.g., happy when looking inside an empty box), and were tested on their willingness to follow the emoter's gaze. Knowledge inference and associative learning tasks were also administered. It was hypothesized that infants would be less likely to trust the incongruent emoter and that this selectivity would be related to their associative learning skills, and not their socio‐cognitive skills. The results revealed that infants were not only able to detect the incongruent emoter, but were subsequently less likely to follow her gaze toward an object invisible to them. More importantly, infants who demonstrated superior performance on the knowledge inference task, but not the associative learning task, were better able to detect the person's emotional incongruency. These findings provide additional support for the rich interpretation of infants’ selective trust.     

Modelling two types of heterogeneity in the analysis of student success

ABSTRACT

Student dropout is a worldwide problem, leading private and public universities in developed and underdeveloped countries to study the subject carefully or, as has recently been done, to analyse what drives student success. On this matter, different approaches are used to obtain useful information for decision-making. We propose a model that considers the enrolment date to the dropout or graduation date and also covariates to measure student success rates, to identify what the academic and non-academic factors are, and how they drive the student success. Our proposal assumes that there is one part of the population who is not at risk of dropping out, and that the part of the population at risk is heterogeneous, that is, we assume two types of heterogeneity. We highlight two advantages of our model: one is to identify the period of higher risk to dropout due to considering the academic survival time and the second is due to the inclusion of covariates that enable us to identify the characteristics linked to dropout. In this research, we also demonstrate the identifiability of the model and describe the estimation procedures. To exemplify the applicability of the approach, we use two real datasets.     

Synchrony,Co‐Eating and Communication During Complementary Feeding in Early Infancy

The transition from milk to complementary food is a crucial but difficult process, requiring considerable adult sensitivity. We know little about the relationship between maternal feeding behaviors and infant willingness to eat at the onset of complementary feeding (CF), and we know even less about how these patterns might vary across cultures. Thirty‐seven dyads (15 from the UK and 22 from Italy) took part in a longitudinal study, during which mealtimes were video‐recorded 1 week after the onset of CF (Time 1) and at 7 months of infant age (Time 2). The first five minutes of mealtimes were coded for maternal feeding behaviors, for infant willingness to eat, and for synchrony in feeding. Maternal vocal communications (MVCs) and attention‐directing acts (ADAs) during the whole mealtime were also coded. Infant willingness to eat was significantly related to synchrony and co‐eating, suggesting the importance of sensitivity and empathy during feeding as in other parent–infant interactions. The frequency of maternal ADAs varied between nationalities and, contrary to current advice, did not relate negatively to infant willingness to eat. These patterns and variations suggest the need to consider CF as a contextually variable and sensitive foundation for feeding relationships.     

Parental Support in Adolescents' Career Development: Parents' and Children's Perceptions

Using social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 2000 ), this study examined the role of parents' and children's perceptions of parental support in adolescents' career choices. A total of 94 Italian adolescents (30 boys, 64 girls) and both of their parents (N = 188) participated in the study. The authors tested a fully mediated model between mothers' and fathers' perceptions of support and career choice through the indirect effect of adolescents' perceptions of parental support and career self‐efficacy. Results provided support for the model. Specifically, both mothers' and fathers' perceptions of support predicted their adolescents' career choice through the mediating effect of the youths' perceptions of parental support and career self‐efficacy. These results have important implications for practice and underscore that parents need to be involved very early on in their children's vocational development.     

Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander†

The purpose of this paper is to build on Systemic and Organizational Cybernetics (OC) through the Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) in order to study university analyzing them as social systems. A representation of the self-assessment process is provided through a model that allows university decision markers to diagnose or design information systems for self-evaluation process of graduate programs. The developed systemic framework could offer practical guidelines for decision makers in public or private universities in applying the concepts of organizational and systemic cybernetics in order to strengthen the viability of postgraduate programs and to perform processes for self-evaluation in collective decisions. This research also presents a case study carried out at the Industrial University of Santander, in Bucaramanga, Colombia. This article is an original attempt to fill the conceptual and practical gap on Organizational Cybernetics, existing in the design of self-assessment models graduate programs. Another contribution is the introduction of a Viable System Model of the higher education system in Colombia through the Organizational Cybernetics.     

Cyber risk measurement with ordinal data

Statistical Methods & Applications - The paper proposes a new methodology to measure cyber risks which, instead of using quantitative loss data, often not available, employs ordinal data. The...