Migrant remittances and fertility

This study examines the role of migrants’ remittances in developing countries’ fertility transition. Employing an unbalanced panel of South Asian countries and controlling for various economic and socio-demographic factors, we find that remittances are significantly associated with a lower number of children born to women of childbearing age. This suggests the remittances’ substitution effect to be at play rather than the income effect, and may result from decreased need for children for financing the household’s future needs as well as from better access to healthcare and contraceptive methods available to migrant households. Remittances’ association with fertility appears to be more important than the transfer of fertility norms from migrants’ host countries. The monetary aspects of international migration may therefore be more important for the region’s demographic transition than social remittances.     

The ethical profile of global marketing negotiators

As international trade and business opportunities grow globally, insight into trading partners’ strategies is essential. One of the major strategies that impact trading partners’ relationships is negotiation strategy employed by each partner. These strategies assume even greater importance when these strategies have ethical content. This study examines the effects of marketing executives’ preferred ethical ideologies (relativism and idealism), opportunism and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of unethical negotiation tactics. Utilizing a sample of 995 marketing executives from six countries, cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance revealed two types of marketing negotiators: principled and corrupt negotiators. Corrupt negotiators tend to be more Machiavellian, more relativist, more opportunistic and less idealistic than their principled counterparts. Principled negotiators tend to perceive unethical negotiation tactics less favorably than their corrupt counterparts. Implications of these results for practitioners and directions for future research are discussed.     

Financial crisis and accounting quality: Evidence from five European countries

This study investigates how the economic crisis affects the scope for earnings manipulation and the value relevance of reported financial numbers for companies that are audited by a big 4 auditor. The analysis is focused on Portuguese, Irish, Italian, Greek and Spanish listed companies. The findings show that Portugal, Italy and Greece tend to engage more in earnings management in their effort to improve their lower profitability and liquidity, and accommodate their higher debt and growth. Ireland exhibits less evidence of earnings manipulation, while the findings for Spain are to some extent conflicting. Additionally, the reported financial numbers of Portuguese and Greek companies that are audited by a big 4 auditor were found to be of higher quality before the crisis. In contrast, Irish, Italian and Spanish companies report more value relevant financial numbers during the crisis. The results of this study are particularly useful for accounting regulators when preparing accounting rules that seek to reduce information asymmetry and earnings manipulation and increase the quality of reported disclosures in light of a crisis and for investors that need further assistance for the establishment of a profitable investment strategy in periods characterized by high uncertainty and volatility.     

The post-crisis recovery and its risks and opportunities

This article considers the prospects for the development of the Russian economy in the post-crisis period. Key factors are analyzed that may affect the rate of the economic recovery. Opportunities are studied for changing the qualitative characteristics of economic development. Key objectives are formulated for the mid-term development of the Russian economy.     

How Productive Is Workplace Health and Safety?

In this paper, we investigate the causal impact of workplace health and safety practices on firm performance, using Danish longitudinal matched employer–employee data merged with unique cross‐sectional representative firm survey data on work environment conditions. We estimate standard production functions, augmented with workplace environment indicators, addressing both time‐invariant and time‐varying potentially relevant unobservables in the production process. We find positive and large productivity effects of improved physical dimensions of the health and safety environment, specifically, “internal climate” and “monotonous repetitive work”.     

Russia’s salt industry: Problems of development

The paper describes the current situation in the salt industry. It points to the inadmissibly high and expanding market share of imported salt products despite the country’s own colossal resource base and the domestic enterprises’ huge unused capacities. It has been shown that OAO Russian Railroads (OAO RZhD) will economically benefit due to its reasonable policy of selective reduction of the railroad shipment tariffs for salt for domestic producers due to the inevitable growth of the country’s own salt output.     

Consumer Power: Evolution in the Digital Age

The predictions of growing consumer power in the digital age that predated the turn of the century were fueled by the rise of the Internet, then reignited by social media. This article explores the intersection of consumer behavior and digital media by clearly defining consumer power and empowerment in Internet and social media contexts and by presenting a theoretical framework of four distinct consumer power sources: demand-, information-, network-, and crowd-based power. Furthermore, we highlight technology's evolutionary role in the development of these power sources and discuss the nature of shifts in power from marketers to consumers in terms of each source. The framework organizes prior marketing literature on Internet-enabled consumer empowerment and highlights gaps in current research. Specific research questions are elaborated for each source of power outlining the agenda for future research areas.     

The Depreciation of Human Capital Over Time: The Case of Economic Knowledge Revisited

In this note, the authors point out what is learned in principles lasts longer with students of high ability and if the first course is followed by additional courses in economics or mathematics. This lends support to the practice of advising majors not to delay the intermediate theory course after completing principles.     

Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS) and Farmers’ Fertilizer Use in Rural Nigeria

Fertilizer use in Nigeria is estimated at 13 kg/ha, which is far below the 200 kg/ha recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The objective of this investigation was to identify the determinant factors of farmers’ participation in Nigeria's Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS). In addition, we determined the impact of the GESS on fertilizer use in rural areas. A total of 1,200 rural farmers were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Results from the use of a recursive bivariate probit model indicated that GESS significantly impacted on the access and usage of fertilizer among the rural farmers; and that contact with extension agents, ownership of mobile phones, power for charging phone batteries, value output, mobile network coverage, ability to read and write were positive determinants of rural farmers’ participation in the GESS; whereas increased distance to registration and collection centers, and cultural constraints to married women reduced farmers’ tendency to participate in the GESS. The findings suggest that farmers’ participation in the GESS is a critical factor for raising fertilizer use in Nigeria. This implies that food security in sub‐Saharan Africa can be achieved by increasing the participation of rural farmers in the GESS.     

The efficiency of competitive mechanisms under private information

We consider the efficiency properties of exchange economies where privately informed traders behave strategically. Specifically, a competitive mechanism is any mapping of traders’ reports about their types to an equilibrium price vector and allocation of the reported economy. In our model, some traders may have non-vanishing impact on prices and allocations regardless of the size of the economy. Although truthful reporting by all traders cannot be achieved, we show that, given any desired level of approximation, there is such that any Bayesian-Nash equilibrium of any competitive mechanism of any private information economy with or more traders leads, with high probability, to prices and allocations that are close to a competitive equilibrium of the true economy. In particular, allocations are approximately efficient. A key assumption is that there is small probability that traders behave non-strategically.