The Effect of Microcredit on Women Empowerment in Welfare and Decisions Making in Malaysia

Microcredit is perceived as an effective tool to empower women, especially those who are deprived of accessing financial services. However, the literature has arrived with contradictory evidence and demonstrates that the effect of microcredit may partially or not empower women. This study intends to examine whether the access to Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) affects several aspects of empowerment in urban Malaysia. A cross-sectional survey was distributed to 474 old and new clients to examine the effect of microcredit on women empowerment in decision-making process and resource controlling. Based on the propensity score matching, our result shows that the access to AIM microcredit affects positively women’s monthly income. In addition, microcredit empowers women borrowers in a set of household decisions making including mobility, daily expenditure, children school, health expenditure and loan order decision.     

Pre- versus post-crisis central banking in Qatar

In the years before the global financial crisis of 2008–2010, Qatar experienced a huge build-up of liquidity surplus in the banking system, mainly driven by surging net capital inflows. This paper identifies various sources of interbank liquidity in Qatar and discusses the various implications of structural primary liquidity surplus for the money market in particular and the economy at large. The paper attempts to evaluate the Qatar Central Bank policy making and conduct during the pre- and post-crisis periods within a framework of the Austrian monetary overinvestment theories, and concludes that the central bank had forcibly committed several forced monetary policy mistakes, which resulted in a breakdown in the interest rate channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. This led to the inability of the central bank to control the interbank interest rate and to an accelerating inflation rate during the pre-crisis years. In contrast, a dramatic change in the central bank's monetary policy framework and a deliberate monetary policy mistake on behalf of the central bank resulted in a restoration of the interest rate channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism, stabilization of the interbank interest rate close to the central bank's policy rate and a sharp deceleration in the inflation rate in the post-crisis period. The paper concludes by offering brief policy recommendations.     

When Boards Matter: The Case of Corporate Social Irresponsibility

While academic research has made remarkable progress in understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), we have scant understanding of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). This paper adopts a stakeholder‐agency perspective towards CSiR to ask two related questions: (1) What board‐level structures can monitor management to reduce CSiR? and (2) What are the conditions that render board monitoring more effective? Employing a unique objective measure of CSiR and a sophisticated system generalized method of moments with dynamic panel model on a sample of publicly listed firms in the USA between 2002 and 2015, this paper demonstrates how firms with a specific board‐level governance bundle (i.e. a large, more independent board, with a board CSR committee, a higher proportion of women within boards with frequent director activity) are better equipped to reduce irresponsible behaviours, both in terms of number of irresponsible incidents as well as in terms of their economic costs to the firm. Moreover, the effectiveness of this governance bundle sustains under conditions of high institutional ownership and high board remuneration. This paper has implications for CSR and corporate governance literatures, as well as for managers and policymakers.     

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.     

The informal health sector and health care-seeking behaviour of mothers in urban Dhaka slums

Infant and child mortality in Bangladesh has declined in recent years but early death rates remain high among Bangladesh’s urban poor, even in comparison to rates in rural Bangladesh. Although they live close to the country’s leading public hospitals and private health clinics, the urban poor continue to rely heavily on services and advice provided by the informal health sector. This paper examines the use of the informal health sector by urban poor children’s main caregivers, their mothers, and the key role performed by pharmacists in treating these children. It explores the nature of the relationship between the mothers and the health providers and the implications for the broader health system. The study combines in-depth interviews with survey data.     

Multiple comparisons with a control in repeated measures incomplete block designs using R-estimators

New multiple comparison with a control (MCC) procedures are developed in repeated measures incomplete block design settings based on R-estimates. It is assumed that the errors within each subject are exchangeable random variables. The R-estimators of the treatment effects are obtained by minimizing a sum of Jaeckel (1972)-type dispersion functions. Based on the R-estimators, Dunnett-type multiple comparison procedures are developed for comparing test-treatments with a control-treatment. Under exchangeable errors, it is demonstrated that for Cox-type designs, the new procedures are more efficient than the existing nonparametric procedures. The new MCC procedures are applied to a data set in a clinical trial which consists of patients with reversible obstructive pulmonary disease.     

Patriarchal bargains in short-term women's migration from Bangladesh

This paper looks at the migration of women from Bangladesh to the Middle East as short-term migrants, mainly for work in the domestic care sector as domestic workers, housekeepers, nannies, cooks, etc. This group accounts for about 15 per cent of the total short-term migration cohort. They face particular challenges around not only the precarity of their employment but also in navigating a series of patriarchal norms in both Bangladesh and the destination countries in the Middle East. The paper will build on the work of Deniz Kandiyoti and her seminal work on patriarchal bargains. This paper will explore the challenges women face in migrating to the Middle East: in their decision to migrate, their experiences abroad, and on return and reintegration into Bangladesh society and their home life, and how these are determined by a series of patriarchal bargains both in Bangladesh and the destination country.     

Asymptotic behaviour of frequency polygons under φ-mixing samples

Under mild conditions, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the uniformly strong consistency of the frequency polygon investigated by Scott under φ ?mixing samples. The results obtained weaken the relevant conditions used by Carbon et al. [6].     

Circular Binary Block Second- and Higher-Order Neighbor Designs

Some new neighbor designs are presented here. Second-order neighbor designs for different configurations are generated in circular binary blocks. Third-order and fourth-order neighbor designs for some cases are also constructed. In all cases, circular blocks are well separated and these designs are obtained through initial block/s. At the end of the study, some models for analysis of these designs are also presented.     

Minimal circular balanced repeated measurement designs in unequal period sizes

Abstract

Repeated measurement designs (RMDs) are widely used in medicine, pharmacology, animal sciences and psychology. In these fields, there are several situations where these designs should be used in periods of different sizes. With the use of RMD, residual effects or carry over effects may arise and balanced RMDs are solution to this problem. In this article, therefore, some infinite series are developed through method of cyclic shifts to obtain circular balanced repeated measurements designs in periods of two different sizes.