Socio-demographics,political attitudes and informal sector employment: A cross-country analysis

In this paper, we empirically investigate the relationship between informal sector employment and micro-level socio-demographic characteristics, political acts and attitudes, and individual norms. Using self-reported individual micro-level data from the World Values Survey for seven developing countries (China, Ecuador, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and Yemen), our cross-country regressions and principal component analysis reveal that socio-demographic characteristics of individuals are strong predictors of their informal sector employment. Our estimations further document that individual preferences for an economically strong, interventionist and egalitarian state and confidence in state and political institutions are positively and significantly correlated with informal sector employment, whereas variables associated with confidence in free market institutions and support for competition are negatively and significantly correlated with informal sector employment. We also show that individuals who participate either actively or inactively in peaceful and lawful political processes are significantly less likely to work in the informal sector. Finally, we document that individual norms, such as religiosity and tax morale, are negatively correlated with informal sector employment. Throughout our analysis, instead of having to rely on ad-hoc informality categorizations of third parties, we base our measurement of informal sector employment directly on the self-evaluation of individuals, who have the best information on the degree of their informality.     

Effect of mobile teaching on students who need special education

The purpose of this study is to test the mobile application designed for the teaching purposes of students who need special education. Many mobile applications and software are available for teaching, thus this study will point the effect of using such technologies in teaching activities as an assistive method to the teacher. The tests are done using our previously designed mobile application that is designed to teach the basic concepts. As it is indicated in the design, the process starts with the testing of the basic abilities of the children, therefore, our tests include these kind of pretests and after that testing phases that will measure the effect of the application to learning. Students who need special education are the focus of the study. The tests are carried out in a special education centre, in Nicosia, Northern Cyprus on two students. Test results show that the mobile application developed in its current form, is a good tool to assist the teachers to enhance and speed up the learning process.

     

Real Incentive Effects of Soft Information

Both soft, noncontractible, and hard, contractible, information are informative about managerial ability and future firm performance. If a manager's future compensation depends on expectations of ability or future performance, then the manager has implicit incentives to affect the information. We examine the real incentive effects of soft information in a dynamic agency with limited commitment. When long-term contracts are renegotiated, the rewards for future performance inherent in long-term contracts allow the principal partial control over the implicit incentives. This is because the soft information affects the basis for contract renegotiation. With short-term contracts, the principal has no control over the basis for contract negotiation, and thus long-term contracts generally dominate short-term contracts. With long-term contracts, the principal's control over implicit incentives is characterized in terms of effective contracting on an implicit aggregation of the soft information that arises from predicting (forming expectations of) future performance. We provide sufficient conditions for soft information to have no real incentive effects. In general, implicit incentives not controllable by the principal include fixed effects, such as career concerns driven by labor markets external to the agency. When controllable incentives span the fixed effects of career concerns, the latter have no real effects with regard to total managerial incentives—they would optimally be the same with or without career concerns. Our analysis suggests empirical tests for estimating career concerns that should explicitly incorporate noncontractible information.     

WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE DECLINE IN CRIME?*

In this article we analyze recent trends in aggregate property crime rates in the United States. We propose a dynamic equilibrium model that guides our quantitative investigation of the major determinants of observed patterns of crime. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: First, the model is capable of reproducing the drop in crime between 1980 and 1996. Second, the most important factors that account for the observed decline in property crime are the higher apprehension probability, the stronger economy, and the aging of the population. Third, the effect of unemployment on crime is negligible. Fourth, the increased inequality prevented an even larger decline in crime. Overall, our analysis can account for the behavior of the time series of property crime rates over the past quarter century.     

Protection versus Promotion: An Empirical Investigation

Using Turkish industry-level data from 1983 to 1990, we find that politically organized industries receive both higher protection and promotion than unorganized ones. Tariff rates are decreasing (increasing) in the import-penetration ratio and the absolute value of the import-demandelasticity for organized (unorganized) industries. Subsidy rates are decreasing (increasing) in the output-supply elasticity for organized (unorganized) industries. The results are consistent with the predictions of the Grossman–Helpman model and its extension in this paper. The mix of protection and promotion is inversely related to the ratio of their respective marginal deadweight cost measures.     

Foods produced using biotechnology: how does the law protect consumers?

This paper addresses the following subjects: biotechnology and consumers, concern about risks, consumer acceptance, labelling of foods produced using biotechnology, the legal approach to consumer protection, and consumer protection policies relating to biotechnology products in the European Union, the United States, Turkey and global institutions such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is likely that biotechnology will gain ground much more rapidly in the twenty‐first century than in the past. Despite rapid, detailed and precise advances in gene technology, its applications have not been the received with a great deal of consumer enthusiasm. Consumers have approached genetically modified foods with considerable apprehension and opposition. Consumer concerns about bioengineered food products focus on the questions of human health, environmental and social risks and benefits. The most important stages in the process of marketing new foods produced using biotechnology are to demonstrate user need and consumer acceptance. Generally, the technical complexity of biotechnology makes it difficult for consumers to understand details of the product and the specific attributes of biotechnology applications. Scientific uncertainty, the nature of consumer concerns and general reluctance to accept biotechnology products, increase the importance of consumer protection. Legal protection is a very important factor in the solution of new social problems related to technological advances. More specifically, consumer and environmental law support consumer protection related to foods produced with biotechnology. The basic principles of consumer law can be re‐formulated as consumer rights. Environmental law is a new phenomenon, but precautionary principles and public participation in decision‐making for environmental law are relevant to consumer protection relating to bioengineered food products.     

一纸灵魂的处方，一曲生命的悲歌——再读《红处方》

女作家毕淑敏在创作中始终关注着女性及其生存状况，《红处方》亦是如此，它被一些批评家看作是毕淑敏的女权主义开山之作，事实并非如此。在《红处方》中，强大的女性话语场背后透露出的是女性自我意识的缺失，但与之对应的是作者向读者进行着更为深切的生命体验展示及发自灵魂深处的人性拷问，为现实生活中的人们开了一纸灵魂的处方，具有深广的社会意义，对这一事实的认识是理解《红处方》的重中之重。     

The welfare effects of disclosure under cognitive dissonance

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

A welfare analysis of social security in a dynastic framework*

In this article, we study the welfare effects of unfunded social security in a general equilibrium model populated with overlapping generations of altruistic individuals that differ in lifetime expectancy and earnings ability. Contrary to previous research, our results indicate that steady‐state welfare increases with social security for most households, although by very different amounts. This result is mainly due to two factors. First, the presence of two‐sided altruism significantly mitigates the crowding out effect of unfunded social security. Second, ability shocks and uncertain lifetimes generate significant heterogeneity among households to yield different induced preferences for social security.     

Asymmetric effects of industrial production,money supply and exchange rate changes on stock returns in Turkey

The aim of this article is twofold: First, it examines the asymmetric effects of industrial production, money supply and RER on stock returns in Turkey by using the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model over the periods of 1994:01–2017:05 and 2002:01–2017:05. Second, it tries to determine whether there is a change of these macroeconomic variables’ effects on stock returns after the 2001 financial crisis since after 2002 period represents a structural break from the past in terms of economic, political and macroeconomic policy approaches. The study finds that the effects of the changes in industrial production, money supply and RER on stock returns are asymmetric, and the asymmetries are larger after the 2002 subsample compared to the full sample period. The empirical results further suggest that tight monetary policies appear to retard the stock returns more than easy monetary policies that stimulate them.