Access to a Telephone and Factor Market Participation of Rural Households in Bangladesh

This paper assesses the impact of access to a telephone on rural households’ factor market opportunities. It answers two questions. First, does the use of a telephone have any impact on rural households’ factor market participation? Second, correcting for market participation, does the use of a telephone have any impact on the type of factor market participation? For the first question, the paper uses a bivariate probit to correct for omitted variable bias and for the second question, the paper uses a two‐stage probit. The empirical findings suggest that access to a telephone has a significant positive impact on factor market participation. The difference in market participation between telephone users and non‐users is around 14%. However, once a household participates in the market, the use of a telephone does not have any impact on specific factor market participation.     

Heterogeneity,leveling the playing field,and affirmative action in contests

The heterogeneous abilities of players in various competitive contexts often lead to undesirable outcomes such as low effort provision, a lack of diversity, and inequality. A range of policies is implemented to mitigate such issues by enforcing competitive balance, that is, by leveling the playing field. Some of those policies, known as affirmative action (AA) policies, are practiced in ethical response to historical discrimination against particular social groups, and are also aimed at increasing competition. This survey summarizes the rapidly growing literature on contest theory regarding AA and other policies that level the playing field. Using a general theoretical structure, we outline the theoretical, experimental, and empirical research findings on contest outcomes under a multitude of policy mechanisms, and in doing so, we touch upon some of the common debates in the AA literature.     

A simple matching domain with indifferences and a master list

Review of Economic Design - We present a two-sided one-to-one market setting where one side of the market is objectively ranked. Constraints prevent agents on the other side from matching with...     

The Russia–Ukraine conflict and investor psychology in financial markets

This study examines the effect of the Russia–Ukraine conflict on global financial markets and the resulting changes in investor psychology. We have analysed weekly data from January 2021 to March 2023, including indicators such as gross national income, Bitcoin historical price, Standard and Poor 500 index, US consumer price index, US dollar index, and investor psychology index, using a variety of econometric techniques. Our findings reveal a positive and significant correlation between investor psychology and market returns. These results highlight the importance of monitoring investor psychology during times of conflict as it can greatly impact investment decisions in financial markets, providing valuable insights for investors and policymakers.