Can financial literacy reduce anxiety about life in old age?

This study examines the role of financial literacy in reducing anxiety about life in old age. We hypothesize that financial literacy increases preparedness for old age through better savings and investment decisions, leading to the accumulation of more assets and earning more income, which enhances financial capacity and reduces anxiety. Using data from a nationwide panel survey in Japan, we provide evidence that financial literacy can reduce anxiety about life in old age by making people capable of accumulating more assets and earning more income. Moreover, the interaction of financial literacy with age and spouse reduces anxiety, while living with children increases anxiety about life during old age. We check the robustness of our results using an alternative measure of financial literacy, changing composition of the sample, controlling for residents’ geographical dispersion, and testing for endogeneity bias. The major findings remain unchanged after considering these factors.     

Determinants of corporate social disclosure: Empirical evidence from Bangladesh

We explore the potential firm and industry characteristics that determine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practises by Bangladeshi listed firms. We use a CSR disclosure checklist to measure the extent of CSR disclosure in the annual reports and a multiple regression analysis to examine the determinants of CSR disclosure. Our study finds that CSR disclosure has positive and significant relationships with export-oriented sector, firm size and types of industries. We also find a negative relationship between CSR disclosure and family ownership. The overall findings of our study provide empirical evidence which suggests that a number of firm and industry characteristics are important determinants of the extent of CSR disclosures in a developing country like Bangladesh. Our findings can help the policy makers to adopt necessary regulatory reform to improve the CSR practises and enhance organisational legitimacy.     

Innovation and Growth: A Schumpeterian Model of Innovation Applied to Taiwan

Following Schumpeter, we assume that innovation in specific firms, or groups of firms, can have economy-wide effects. Models based on this idea can be shown to have multiple equilibria. The idea of a positive feedback loop innovation system, or POLIS, is formalized by picking an appropriate sequence of equilibria over time. It is shown that POLIS has empirical relevance by applying the formal model to an actual economy. The 1997-98 financial crisis in many Asian countries, most notably South Korea, seemed to have reversed the conventional wisdom regarding the "East Asian miracle". This paper applies the concept of a POLIS to the case of Taiwan to show that, at least in this case, neither the view that the miracle was a mirage nor the view that the growth was a result of factor accumulation only is correct. Ultimately, technological transformation--in particular the creation of a positive feedback loop innovation system--is what makes the difference between sustained growth and gradual or sudden decline. Although problems remain in both the real and the financial sectors, the successes of Taiwan in building the preconditions for an innovation system are worth examining. Upon careful examination of Taiwan's system of innovation within the above Schumpeterian model it is found that Taiwan has a fighting chance of building a POLIS in the near future.     

ROY MODEL SORTING AND NONRANDOM SELECTION IN THE VALUATION OF A STATISTICAL LIFE*

Wage‐hedonics is used to recover the value of a statistical life (VSL) by exploiting the fact that workers choosing riskier occupations are compensated with a higher wage. Roy (Oxford Economic Papers 3 (1951), 135–46) suggests that observed wage distributions will be distorted if individuals choose jobs according to idiosyncratic returns. We describe how this type of sorting biases wage‐hedonic VSL estimates and implement two new estimation strategies that correct that bias. Using data from the Current Population Surveys, we recover VSL estimates that are three to four times larger than those based on the traditional techniques, statistically significant, and robust to a wide array of specifications.     

The influence of service orientation discrepancy between managers and employees on employees’ affective outcomes

This study attempted to relate service orientation discrepancy (SOD) between employees and managers to employees’ affective reactions [role conflict (RC), role ambiguity (RA), job satisfaction (JS), and organizational commitment (OC)] in the restaurant industry. The findings of the study indicate that there is a SOD between managers and employees; employees saw themselves as more enthusiastic and less bureaucratic than managers. When this SOD was correlated with employee outcomes such as RC, RA, JS, and OC, the results indicated that SOD had a direct effect on RC, JS and OC. SOD also had indirect effects on JS, and OC through RC and RA. RC had a direct effect on JS and an indirect effect on OC. RA had a direct effect on JS. Finally, JS had a direct effect on OC.     

Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the academic literature on policy-making at the global level by empirically showing the nature and institutional challenges of higher education reforms under NPM principles. The authors explain the key strategies adopted by Indonesia’s government and the problems it faced in reforming its higher education system. The overall result was negative. The Indonesian reforms will not bring about meaningful outcomes unless the existing institutions, and the environment in which they operate, are also reformed.     

A Bibliometric Review of the Special Issues of Psychology & Marketing: 1984-2020

Psychology & Marketing (P&M), an internationally reputed journal, publishes original, peer-reviewed, empirical research on the application of psychological theories and techniques to marketing. The aim of this essay is to provide a bibliometric overview of the leading trends in the special issues of P&M over its history (1984–2020). Using bibliometric techniques, we analyze the impact of the special issues via their most cited papers, most productive authors, affiliated institutions and countries, as well as the best guest editors who contributed to the selection of the most cited special issue articles. Using network analysis VOSviewer software, we also group the special issues into four clusters to identify common themes. Further, we develop graphical visualization of coauthorships, bibliographic coupling, and cocitations. Results show that the most productive contributors are from American institutions and that P&M remains well connected to other leading journals in the marketing and psychology discipline, such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Business Research.     

Exploring the Impacts of McService on Customers’ Loyalty: An Emerging Market’s Perspective

The aim of the study is to examine the key service quality attributes that affect Korean consumers’ loyalty toward McDonald’s in Korea. A survey instrument was developed to examine the key service quality attributes that influenc Korean consumers’ loyalty. The surveys were distributed to Korean college students. The results of the study suggest that social place and employee service quality are the two major dimensions that significantly affect Korean respondents’ intent to return to McDonald’s. Interestingly, convenience, value, and food quality were not found to be major dimensions that impact Korean respondents’ intention to return to McDonald’s. This finding is starkly different from the common belief that McService is based on value and covenience, as emphasized by McDonald’s value statements. The results of the study suggests that Korean consumers view McDonald’s as a social gathering place and expect high service quality from McDonald’s.     

Who do we blame for abusive supervision?

Research has looked extensively at one side of abusive supervision (that is employee perceptions) and subsequently linked this phenomenon to supervisors' actual behaviour. We address this research gap by investigating the other side—employee characteristics as a factor related to the perception of abusive supervision (AS). Data collected from 443 employees within the Pakistani telecommunications industry revealed that employees' intimidation behaviours was positively related to their perceptions of AS, mediated by emotional exhaustion. In addition, recognition (from top management) was found to moderate the indirect effects of intimidation on AS via emotional exhaustion. Our findings challenge the assumption that supervisors are to blame for exhibiting abusive behaviour and identify a new, underlying factor related to AS.     

The economic cost of the Islamic State on the Syrian and Iraqi economies

In this paper, we evaluate the economic cost of the Islamic State on the Syrian and Iraqi economies from 2010 to 2016. To do so, we use the Post-Terrorism Final Economic Damage Simulator—PTFED-Simulator. The PTFED-Simulator assesses the economic damage of terrorism based on ten different indicators: (1) total regional terrorism tension (?T_t); (2) harmonized anti-terrorist strategy (AT₊); (3) war losses from terrorism (?πt); (4) total economic leakage from terrorism (?Ψt); (5) economic desgrowth from terrorism (?δ_t); (6) military dimension of terrorism (MD_t); (7) post-terrorism economic damage (?Π_t); (8) post terrorism economic damage evaluation; (9) post-terrorism reconstruction plan (PTR_t); and (10) terrorism effect on mega-disk networks mapping. Overall, we seek to evaluate the impact of terrorism on economic performance from a multi-dimensional perspective in both the short run and long run.