Neighbourhood Effects in Pesticide Use: Evidence from the Rural Philippines

This study investigates how pesticide use by neighbouring farmers affects a given farmer's pesticide use. Although it is common knowledge that pesticide use has spatial externalities, few empirical economic studies explicitly analyse this issue. Applying a spatial panel econometric model to plot‐level panel data for Bohol, Philippines, this study shows that pesticide use, especially for herbicides, is spatially correlated, although there is no statistically significant spatial correlation in unobserved shocks. This implies that farmers apply pesticides by referring to the behaviour of neighbouring farmers rather than responding directly to the intensity of their own infestation.     

The Falsification of Four Popular Hypotheses About the Asian Crisis

Various claims have been made about the causes of the Asian crisis and its spread. Here, we use data on the behaviour of capital flows during the crisis to test the strong forms of four such hypotheses, that portfolio investors and hedge funds played a dominant role in initiating and/or spreading the crisis; that moral hazard kept efficient markets from predicting the crisis; and, finally, the common lender hypothesis of Kaminsky and Reinhart. In the process we also test implications of the Calvo-Mendoza model of rational investor ignorance. All are falsified as monocausal explanations. For example, portfolio investments that could not have been subject to substantial moral hazard continued to flow into Asia until very shortly before the crisis. Likewise, banks were a much larger source of capital outflows during the crisis than were portfolio investors. While falsified in their strongest forms, several of these hypotheses in less strong forms should play a role in a more nuanced analysis. It is necessary to move past simple single-factor approaches in order to produce a more complete, synthetic explanation of this episode.     

Expertenwissen im politischen Prozess — Nutzen,Grenzen und Gefahren

Since the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis, confidence in politicians as well as the economists in their advisory expert panels seems to be at an all-time low. Why do politicians reject science-based advice unless it fits into their political agenda? Are economists misunderstood by politicians and vice versa? The tension between the ideal of evidence-based policy-making and the reality of policy-based evidence-making is hardly a new phenomenon. Therefore, the expectation that Donald Trump, the Brexiteers and European populists will necessarily disappoint their voters because they simply cannot deliver what they have promised is misleading. Experts would be well advised to use the debate on the post-factual era as an impetus to reflect critically on their profession. One opinion expressed in this Zeitgespräch is that the contested societal and political impact of modern economics is due to its restricted scientific self-concept. A more open, pluralistic and transdisciplinary self-definition of economics would strengthen its societal influence. Another contributor ponders the proper incentives to persuade academic economists to provide economic policy advice. Key is the independence of advisory institutions like the German Council of Economic Experts. The selection of people with the best scientific qualifications will ensure the reputation of such institutions.     

Director Tenure Diversity and Board Monitoring Effectiveness

This study examines the impact of director tenure diversity on board effectiveness. We find that tenure‐diverse boards exhibit significantly higher CEO performance‐turnover sensitivity and that firms with tenure‐diverse audit committees are less likely to experience accounting restatements. Furthermore, we document that tenure‐diverse compensation committees also award less excess compensation and are less likely to overcompensate. Even though tenure‐diverse boards seem to exhibit superior monitoring performance, there is limited evidence that their firms exhibit superior financial performance. The findings suggest that recent calls for board renewal, to the extent that it would increase tenure diversity rather than just decrease average board tenure, may help enhance board monitoring.     

Trust Evolvement in Hybrid Team Collaboration: A Longitudinal Case Study

Trust is referred to as a key facilitator in team collaboration as it is an important condition for information sharing. In this paper, we investigate factors associated with the establishment of trust in hybrid teams that collaborate virtually as well as face-to-face. Furthermore, we deliver an instrument to understand trust development in teams. We describe exploratory results of the instrument by running experiments with teams of collaborating students in China and Netherlands. Quantitative and qualitative analysis has been used to analyze these data. Finally, in the analysis of the experiments we describe initial patterns of trust development in groups from both individual and group perspectives, in two different cultural contexts.     

Financial Literacy and Self‐Employment

In this paper, we study the relationship between financial literacy and self‐employment. We use established financial literacy questions to measure literacy levels. The analysis shows a highly significant and positive correlation between the index and self‐employment. We address the direction of causality by applying instrumental variable techniques based on information about maternal education. We also exploit information on financial support and family background to account for concerns about the exclusion restriction. The results provide support for a positive effect of financial literacy on the probability of being self‐employed. As financial literacy is acquirable, the findings suggest that entrepreneurial activities might be increased by enhancing financial literacy.     

Bury pacioli in africa: a bookkeeper's reification of accountancy

The origins of accountancy are all too frequently equated with the antecedents of double-entry bookkeeping, notwithstanding warnings from both Pacioli and Littleton to the contrary. It is ironic that Pacioli—the formalizer of double-entry bookkeeping—is lionized today in the appellation, 'Father of Accounting'. Here, we argue that this promotion of Pacioli the Technocrat fails to acknowledge incipient social aspects of his work (and that found in more ancient texts). Further, we contend that such reconstructions of Paciolian and ancient works are not entirely innocent. Rather, they fit nicely with a Eurocentric and post-colonial ideology, which anoints with enthusiasm an Italian monk as accounting's premier contributor to modern civilization ( sic ). This view simultaneously construes other civilizations as underdeveloped, pre-modern, and even barbaric (with the corollary of providing a moral pretext for invading, occupying and 'saving' a subjugated people). It should come as no surprise that Western accounting scholars haven't searched too hard for alternative 'Fathers of Accounting' among colonized civilizations. This article, in contrast to the orthodox wisdom, seeks to redeem Littleton's notion of 'Accountancy' in a way that encompasses the diversity of counting, measuring, recording, reporting and accountability that functioned in different ancient and contemporary social formations. Such a view introduces an older and richer lineage for accountancy—as a field that is, and always has been, integral to social, political and cultural life. In short, we propose burying Pacioli the Bookkeeper, and redeeming Pacioli the Social Actor, by explicating the social, cultural and political content inchoate in his work, and that found in even more explicit pre-Paciolian ancient texts (particularly those from Africa, that reach back to the Dawn of Civilization).     

Cultural influences and the mediating role of socio-cultural integration processes on the performance of cross-border mergers and acquisitions

This paper reports findings from a longitudinal case study (2005–2011) of a merger between an Austrian and a German energy provider. I develop a model of socio-cultural integration processes based on an analysis of critical incidents expressed in 71 problem-centred interviews and observations with acquired and acquiring employees at four different points of time: immediately before the takeover and during the first negotiation talks, and one, three and six years after the takeover. The findings suggest that the relationship between national and organizational cultural differences and M&A outcomes is mediated by socio-cultural integration processes defined in terms of the formation of interpersonal relationships, trust and shared identity. Based on these findings I formulate specific propositions and build an evidence-based model of M&A socio-cultural integration processes that guides future research and practice.