Primary education and fertility rates

Unified growth theory advances that the transition from a Malthusian regime to sustained economic growth is characterized by technological progress and, amongst other things, by an increase in demand for human capital which in turn creates incentives for lower fertility rates. Bearing that in mind, I ask the question: has southern Africa escaped the Malthusian stagnation? Specifically, I study whether primary school completion rates have played any role in total fertility rates in all countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) during the 1980–2009 period. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the results, based on dynamic panel time‐series methods, suggest that primary education is associated with lower fertility in the SADC, or that the community is already trading‐off quantity for quality of children. Although I do not claim causality, overall the results are significant because, in accordance with unified growth theory, they suggest that the SADC is experiencing its own transition from the Malthusian stagnation epoch into sustained growth, or that the SADC is going through its own post‐Malthusian regime.     

金融支持国防知识产权成果转化问题及策略研究

国防知识产权成果转化应用是国防科技创新体系建设落地见效的关键环节，引入现代金融体系能够有效促进国防知识产权成果转化。目前我国国防知识产权转化工作在组织管理体制、工作运行体系、法规政策制度和信息化建设等方面初显成效，但仍面临整体转化形势不容乐观、金融支持体系尚未成熟等问题，根本原因在于国防知识产权与发明人割裂导致一般金融产品难以通过审核，使融资渠道狭窄；其保密性进一步加大了与金融机构间的信息不对称，使得金融资源配置效率低下；国防知识产权专用性较强，相应抬高了融资成本。为有效解决上述问题，提出3条改进措施，以实现对国防知识产权转化的金融支持，即①从顶层设计上优化解密脱密流程，明确发明人与知识产权的权属关系，细化财税优惠等支持措施；②加强政府财政税收政策支持，引导创新利用多元社会资本进入支持转化领域；③建立各主体参与的金融服务协调保障机制、监测评估体系，启动国防知识产权转化的金融支持试点工作，构建符合国情的国防知识产权转化金融支持体系。     

Drivers of research impact: evidence from the top three finance journals

We study the characteristics of all published papers in the top three finance journals (JF, JFE and RFS), and how these paper characteristics affect the number of citations in Google Scholar and the Web of Science database. First, we find the characteristics in the universalist perspective remain constant while the characteristics in the constructivist and presentation perspectives increase over time. Second, some characteristics are significantly different between the high-impact and the low-impact papers. Third, paper quality, research method, journal placement and paper age are the most important drivers. Last, different drivers play different roles in different journals.     

Rethinking the Career Anchors Inventory framework with insights from a finance transformation field study

It is claimed that the re-engineering and automation of routine work should free accountants to adopt broader, so-called ‘value-adding’ roles as partners to business decision-makers. The ‘new world of work’, involving new process-based methods, single instance ERP systems and the wholesale relocation of professional work to lower cost areas, brings opportunities for accountants in systems design and adding value to the business. For many others, the new reality may be a more competitive and less secure working environment, with a mid-level career bottleneck reflecting a polarisation between the upper and lower layers of the finance function.Based upon Schein's theory of career anchors and using exploratory sequential mixed methods, we consider the impact on the career perceptions of individual accountants as accounting expertise, traditionally embodied in people, is codified and embedded within end-to-end business processes in the context of a finance shared service centre. Key findings include new perceptions of careers with greater emphasis on the acquisition of general managerial competence and leadership skills, with the importance of cultivating a sense of ‘global connectedness' to maintain individual employability. Suggestions are made to update Schein's Career Orientation Inventory to better reflect the reality of accounting in the ‘new world of work'.     

Does partnering with the World Bank shield investors from political risks in less developed countries?

This study explores whether partnering with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) protects foreign investors from aggressive actions by host countries’ governments. Building on the obsolescing bargaining model, we theorize that host states fear that hostile actions towards IFC-supported investments will damage their relationships with the World Bank. Within this context IFC support deters host government aggression towards investments. We assess our argument using country-level panel data as well as interviews with a sample of high-level managers. Findings suggest that IFC-support helps to reduce host state aggression against investing firms.     

Machine Learning and Expert Judgement: Analyzing Emerging Topics in Accounting and Finance Research in the Asia–Pacific

In this paper, we focus on the question to what extent machine learning (ML) tools can be used to support systematic literature reviews. We apply a ML approach for topic detection to analyze emerging topics in the literature—our context is accounting and finance research in the Asia–Pacific region. To evaluate the robustness of the approach, we compare findings from the automated ML approach with the results from a manual analysis of the literature. The automated approach uses a keyword algorithm detection mechanism whereby the manual analysis uses common techniques for qualitative data analysis, that is, triangulation between researchers (expert judgement). From our paper, we conclude that both methods have strengths and weaknesses. The automated analysis works well for large corpora of text and provides a very standardized and non-biased way of analyzing the literature. However, the human researcher is potentially better equipped to evaluate current issues and future trends in the literature. Overall, the best results might be achieved when a variety of tools are used together.     

Income inequality and education revisited: persistence,endogeneity and heterogeneity

This article presents new results on the relationship between income inequality and education expansion – that is, increasing average years of schooling and reducing inequality of schooling. When dynamic panel estimation techniques are used to address issues of persistence and endogeneity, we find a large, positive, statistically significant and stable relationship between inequality of schooling and income inequality, especially in emerging and developing economies and among older-age cohorts. The relationship between income inequality and average years of schooling is positive, consistent with constant or increasing returns to additional years of schooling. While this positive relationship is small and not always statistically significant, we find a statistically significant negative relationship with years of schooling of younger cohorts. Statistical tests indicate that our dynamic estimators are consistent and that our identifying instruments are valid. Policy simulations suggest that education expansion will continue to be inequality reducing. This role will diminish as countries develop, but it could be enhanced through a stronger focus on reducing inequality in the quality of education.     

On the peer effects of star students

We estimate the effect that star students have on their siblings’ learning outcomes, measured by their high school grade point average (GPA) and their math grades. To this end, we couple administrative school data on grades with an unusual natural experiment in Peru that generates exogenous variation in the presence of star students at home. We find that star students increase their siblings’ GPA by 0.33 SDs and their math grades by 0.22 SDs. The effect size is inversely related to number of siblings, suggesting that the remaining siblings act as substitutes for the star student.     

CAUSAL INFERENCE ON EDUCATION POLICIES: A SURVEY OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES USING PISA,TIMSS AND PIRLS

The identification of the causal effects of educational policies is the top priority in recent education economics literature. As a result, a shift can be observed in the strategies of empirical studies. They have moved from the use of standard multivariate statistical methods, which identify correlations or associations between variables only, to more complex econometric strategies, which can help to identify causal relationships. However, exogenous variations in databases have to be identified in order to apply causal inference techniques. This is a far from straightforward task. For this reason, this paper provides an extensive and comprehensive overview of the literature using quasi‐experimental techniques applied to three well‐known international large‐scale comparative assessments, such as PISA, PIRLS or TIMSS, over the period 2004–2016. In particular, we review empirical studies employing instrumental variables, regression discontinuity designs, difference in differences and propensity score matching to the above databases. Additionally, we provide a detailed summary of estimation strategies, issues treated and profitability in terms of the quality of publications to encourage further potential evaluations. The paper concludes with some operational recommendations for prospective researchers in the field.     

Finance,institutions, and innovation activities in China

Using novel firm-level micro-panel data in China from 2000 to 2009 and data on institutional factors, we study which funding sources effectively finance firm innovation activities in China and how the effectiveness of funding sources varies according to the quality of institutions. We show that institutional factors impact the effectiveness of each funding source in different ways. First, when property rights are better protected against the risk of expropriation by the government, internal financing from net profit—namely, the reinvestment of profit—is more important in financing firm innovation activities. Second, as contracts are enforced more reliably, trade credit finance and bank finance play larger roles in financing firm innovation activities.