Financial inclusion as a pathway to welfare enhancement and income equality: Micro-level evidence from Nigeria

While the importance of financial inclusion as a means of poverty and income inequality reduction has long been recognised, the paths to welfare enhancement and income equality through financial inclusion remain partially acknowledged. Using micro-level data on 1 750 rural Nigerian households, this study examines the finance-welfare nexus by constructing a multi-variable financial inclusion index. The results first show that financial inclusion exerts a strong positive influence on household welfare. However, the decomposition analysis shows that middle- and high-income households gain more from financial inclusion in comparison to the targeted low-income households. Second, informal livelihood strategies, such as environmental resource extraction, crops, and livestock production, revealed reduced welfare disparities across income distributions. Therefore, for financial inclusion to alleviate welfare inequality and ensure income convergence, rural financial markets must be redesigned to allow wider access to credit, specifically for low-income and vulnerable households.     

Historical development of the school for deaf children which was opened in Cyprus under the British Administration

In this paper, the School for Deaf Children that was opened under the rule of the British Administration in Cyprus is examined. The school was opened in the 1953–1954 academic year and became the second private education institution on the island. Additionally, it was a mixed school that served both the Greek and Turkish communities. Although the school was initially opened with contributions from the Rotary Club, it continued to provide educational services with funds from the British Administration, students’ parents and voluntary contributions. During the period of mixed education, the school could not adopt a fully settled structure in terms of the building in which it was locate and was moved to different areas during that period. In the period when the British government transferred responsibility for the education on the island to the Greek and Turkish communities, the school continued to provide services on a mixed basis. However, after the events of 1963, the Turkish teachers and students began to leave the school. Today, it continues its activities in southern Nicosia, whereas in the northern part of the island, the Lapta School for People with Hearing and Speaking Disabilities was opened in 1975 in order for Turkish students to continue their education. The present study is supported with information obtained from Education reports and Cyprus Gazette resources as well as national and international works and verbal resources.

     

MANAGING SWITCHING COSTS IN MULTIPERIOD PROCUREMENTS WITH STRATEGIC BUYERS*

This article examines the use of switching costs by long‐lived strategic buyers to manage dynamic competition between rival suppliers. The analysis reveals how buyers may employ switching costs to their advantage. We show that when switching costs are high, a buyer may induce suppliers to price more competitively by credibly threatening to replace the incumbent supplier with his rivals. The implications of this finding for adoption of technology and firm organization are explored in settings in which the buyer is integrated with the suppliers and where the buyer is an outsourcer.     

Inter-country distancing,globalisation and the coronavirus pandemic

Originating in China, the coronavirus has reached the world at different speeds and levels of strength. This paper provides an initial understanding of some driving factors and their consequences. Since transmission requires people, the human factor behind globalisation is essential. Globalisation, a major force behind global well-being and equality, is highly associated with this factor. The analysis investigates the impact globalisation has on the speed of initial transmission to a country and on the scale of initial infections in the context of other driving factors. Our cross-country analysis finds that measures of globalisation are positively related to the spread of the virus, both in speed and in scale. However, the study also finds that globalised countries are better equipped to keep fatality rates low. The conclusion is not to reduce globalisation to avoid pandemics, but to better monitor the human factor at the outbreak and mobilise collaboration forces to curtail diseases.     

Do stock prices undervalue investments in advertising?

Under the efficient market hypothesis, the stock price incorporates the full value of a firm’s advertising. If so, advertising spending should not be associated with future abnormal stock returns. Nevertheless, from 1995 to 2015, advertising spending often leads to abnormal stock returns the following year. The strongest results surface for consumer goods and services where advertising used to build brand equity can carryover from one year to the next. No significant differences arise for healthcare, industrial goods, or retailer advertising. Healthcare and industrial goods advertising is often modest. Retailer advertising that builds traffic should have little if any carryover into the following year. These results may help marketing managers defend an advertising budget whose benefits carryover into the following year, but hurt current profits. Having more investment analysts on Wall Street with a marketing background should help reduce this overly conservative “wait and see” discount for carryover advertising.     

A simple approach for assessing the cost of system nervousness

A well-known problem in coordinating supply chain inventories is that replenishment decisions are revised due to stochastic demands. This issue is often referred to as system nervousness. The literature distinguishes between two types of nervousness: setup-oriented and quantity-oriented. It is widely accepted that cost of nervousness is difficult to measure. We argue that this cost can be evaluated by means of three well-established inventory control strategies: static uncertainty, dynamic uncertainty, and static-dynamic uncertainty. These strategies reflect extreme cases with regard to the setup- and the quantity-oriented nervousness, and provide a simple yet an objective measure to assess the cost of system nervousness. Our results are of practical importance. We highlight that the setup-oriented nervousness, which is considered to be the most critical in practice, can be eliminated with a minor cost penalty. This is, however, not the case for the quantity-oriented nervousness.     

Religiosity versus rationality: Depositor behavior in Islamic and conventional banks

This study investigates the behavioral aspects of Islamic bank depositors in a dual banking system. By categorizing depositors into groups based on the amount of their deposited funds, we estimate the responses of these groups to interest rate changes. We take the findings of conventional banks as a comparative baseline and investigate the extent to which the changes in different Islamic depositor groups differ from conventional depositor groups. The findings show that depositors in both Islamic and conventional banks respond to interest rate changes. The analysis indicates that Islamic bank depositors are more responsive when their deposit sizes are larger. When Islamic bank depositors’ opportunity costs rise due to a rise in the interest rate, they do not hesitate to withdraw deposits. The relation between interest rate changes and deposits is more robust in Islamic banks than in conventional banks.     

Productivity losses from road traffic deaths in Turkey

The importance of road traffic injuries in Turkey is not generally appreciated, in part due to lack of knowledge of its economic burden and in part due to major underestimation in official statistics. The total years of potential life lost and potentially productive years of life lost from mortality were calculated in order to estimate the cost of productivity losses from road traffic deaths in Turkey. More years of potentially productive life are lost due to road traffic deaths than to respiratory tract illnesses or diabetes mellitus, two other serious health problems in Turkey. Road traffic deaths cost Turkey an estimated USD 2.6 billion every year in productivity losses alone, more than the World Bank estimate of the indirect costs from the 1999 Marmara earthquake (USD 1.2-2 billion), Turkey's worst earthquake since 1939 (World Bank Turkey Country Office, 1999). This study highlights the importance of accurate information in ameliorating the burden of road traffic safety in Turkey. Turkey has great opportunities to implement cost-effective interventions to reduce the economic burden of fatal and non-fatal road traffic injuries.     

An investigation of high school students’ social capital development within organizational climate

The aim of this study is to investigate the connection between school climate and students’ social capital development. 304 final year high school students participated. The result of the research indicated a statistically significant positive relation between school climate and social capital development. The research aimed to measure for the first time, high school students’ social capital development and the evaluation of social capital i terms of school dimensions and it is hoped that it will contribute to local and foreign resource and be an example to similar studies.