An integrate method for performance of women in science and technology based on entropy measure for objective weighting

In the 21st century the role of women in the science and technology (WIST) field is very important. Many countries are actively promoting policies of women in higher education and R&D careers. A nation’s economic growth depends heavily upon its talent base, specifically, the quantity, quality, and utilization of HRST. Therefore, assessing WIST productivity variation is important. The problem of the complexity of performance evaluation makes the development and the application of standard models more difficult. This study uses the VIKOR and entropy method to evaluate the performance of WIST and rank the priorities for them accordingly. The relative weight of different evaluation criteria for the performance of WIST comes from the entropy results. We can see that, the first two important factors for the performance of WIST are a higher education sector and government sector women researchers, as a percentage of the total researchers. The results show that the Korean alternative has the best performance of WIST followed by the Netherlands and Japan.     

Integrated financial supervision: Which model?

Integrated agencies supervising banks, nonbank financial institutions, and securities markets have been gaining popularity around the globe. Using a unique data set on compliance with international standards in 84 countries, we find that greater supervisory integration is associated with higher quality of insurance and securities supervision and greater consistency of supervision across sectors. Within the different forms of integration, we find some support for the “twin peaks” model that integrates supervision across sectors but separates business conduct and prudential supervision. We also find that whether supervision is located inside or outside the central bank has no significant relation to supervisory quality.     

Multi-criteria analysis of economic complexity transition in emerging economies: The case of Paraguay

Like many emerging economies, the productive structure of the Paraguayan economy is not complex. It relies extensively on low value-added activities in the primary sector such as agriculture and cattle ranching. These activities have a lower return in terms of economic and social benefits than other potential productive activities and do not contribute to increasing capability accumulation. In this paper we present a tool to support the identification of strategic sectors and products which if taken advantage of, could leverage development through the accumulation of productive capabilities. Our guiding question is: Which productive sectors should be promoted to foster economic development in Paraguay through a transition towards a more complex economy? To answer this question, we use concepts from the Economic Complexity theory to identify new products and cluster them based on the Product Space methodology for the determination of potential products and combine it with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for multicriteria analysis considering multiple criteria. In doing so, our proposed methodology contributes to both the Economic Complexity and the AHP literature. Through this combination, we tackle the multiplicity of juxtaposed criteria, which should be considered at the prioritization stage in the crafting of economic restructuring measures according to the country's capabilities. Our evaluation showed that the combination of the approaches is useful, and for Paraguay's case, it helped identify sectors, which, if promoted by policymakers, could help boost economic development through complexity and capability accumulation.     

Global bank complexity and financial fragility around the world

Using data for 123 countries from 1996 to 2020, we uncover the effect of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity on financial fragility in the context of financial liberalization. We compute a measure of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity for each country from data on the affiliate network of internationally active banking institutes. The financial effects of geographic complexity may help banks improve their survival by improving their solvency. After extensive testing for the sensitivity of the results, our main findings were threefold. First, a higher degree of geographic complexity of foreign-owned banks reduces the likelihood of a bank’s default, and these effects become more pronounced in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Second, the effects of financial liberalization vary across income groups. Third, the joint effects of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity and financial liberalization on financial fragility vary across forms of financial liberalization. Our findings have several policy implications: first, bank supervisors should consider the presence and structure of foreign bank ownership in their assessments; second, the government should take into account the level of economic development in choosing the proper form of financial liberalization; third, the government should promote financial freedom to strengthen the role of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity in alleviating financial fragility.     

Structural change and blurred sectoral boundaries: assessing the extent to which knowledge-intensive business services satisfy manufacturing final demand in Western countries

This paper focuses on the vertical integration of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) into manufacturing sectors, using a subsystem approach to input–output analysis. It aims at correctly assessing the process of structural change that has occurred in the four main European countries (France, Germany, Italy and the UK) over time (1995–2005). It does not focus on KIBS sectors per se, but on their function as carriers and sources of knowledge which influences the performance of sectors, value chains and clusters across industries and within countries. The analysis shows that KIBS’ contribution to satisfying the final demand of manufacturing is in general largely underestimated; that KIBS vertical integration into manufacturing has increased over time in all the countries investigated except the UK; and that the extent to which manufacturing sectors outsource to KIBS is significantly affected by their technological intensity.     

The Impact and Importance of Mandatory Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in Europe

In this paper we report the results of conducting a two‐stage analysis on the impact and importance of mandatory adoption of international accounting reporting standards (IFRS) on European Union firms. In the first stage we determined the impact of mandatory adoption of IFRS across 13 countries and twenty industries. This was accomplished by identifying significant differences in return on assets (ROA) for firms computed under IFRS and local, generally accepted accounting principles (LG). Significant positive differences were detected for firms in Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom: only German and Norwegian firms exhibited a negative average significant difference between ROA calculated using IFRS and LG. Repeating the analysis of differences in ROA on an industry‐by‐industry basis yielded additional Portuguese and Spanish firms for the second stage of the analysis in which the impact of mandatory IFRS adoption was assessed. Defining impact in terms of market and financial reporting quality, we found a statistically significant relationship between accounting information and market returns for firms in the all‐countries‐combined sample of 3,530 observations, and in the countries of Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Support for the timeliness of accounting information was uncovered for firms in the all‐countries‐combined sample, and in the countries of Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Finally, evidence to support the proposition that accounting regimes produce quality discretionary accruals was found for firms from the all‐countries‐combined sample of 3,480 observations and from Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. When comparing differential accounting information constructed under IFRS and LG, however, few differences could be found. Specifically, there was no statistical support for any of the samples that accounting information produced under IFRS was any more value relevant than the accounting information derived using LG. When our examination shifted to the timeliness of earnings, a positive differential impact between earnings constructed on the basis of IFRS and local accounting standards was detected only for the all‐countries‐combined sample. Finally, the quality of discretionary accruals was shown to be significantly higher under IFRS than LG for firms in Finland, Greece and Sweden.     

Using life cycle approaches to enhance the value of corporate environmental disclosures

As the focus of environmental policy and management shifts from cleaner production at the process level towards greener products as a whole, stakeholders ask for transparency throughout the entire value chain. This article assesses the comprehensiveness and the value of currently reported quantitative environmental disclosures of 97 listed companies from the automotive, banking, pharmaceutical and electronic hardware sectors. Findings indicate that quantitative environmental disclosures have many limitations, including incompleteness and inconsistency regarding corporate activities and sites, and limited internal data coherence. For many sectors, corporate disclosures only cover a very small share of the total environmental burden of products. A stepwise procedure is proposed to verify and improve the quality and completeness of reporting using life cycle approaches. We present simple data quality tests, and we introduce the concept of the environmental influence matrix, which provides a solid basis for the identification and prioritization of key performance indicators and areas of action. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Business strategies for transitions towards sustainable systems

This paper develops a strategic perspective for business to contribute to the innovation of societal systems. Sustainability issues at the level of societal sectors cannot be addressed by single organizations but need to be thought of as systemic challenges in which business, government and civil society each play different roles. Sustainability involves structural changes over longer periods of time, and requires co‐evolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and organizational forms. We propose that the transition management framework offers a fruitful way to analyze such co‐evolutionary processes of social transformation and subsequently develop strategies to influence and accelerate such processes. We present the case of two firms working in this new context of transition management in The Netherlands. From these cases we conceptualize a more general approach for business to redefine and reframe the societal context in which it is operating and develop novel business strategies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Gender equality and economic complexity

This study is the first attempt to examine the influence of gender equality on economic complexity. Specifically, we investigate the effects of four aspects (employment, health, education, rights) of gender equality with 20 variables in an economic complexity index. To deal with potential endogeneity, we used the two-step system–generalized method of moments approach with an unbalanced panel of data on 119 economies from 1991 to 2017. First, labor participation in industry or service sectors as well as wage and salaried employment by women appears to improve economic complexity, while women’s employment in agriculture, contributions to family workers, self-employment, and vulnerable employment have a negative impact. Second, better health conditions for women increase economic complexity. Third, gender equality in education has a positive impact on economic complexity. Fourth, the empowerment of women in terms of socioeconomic-political rights is a positive factor for economic complexity. Overall, gender equality has great benefits for economic complexity.     

CALCULATING ENERGY-RELATED CO2 EMISSIONS EMBODIED IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE USING A GLOBAL INPUT–OUTPUT MODEL

The Global Resource Accounting Model (GRAM) is an environmentally-extended multi-regional input–output model, covering 48 sectors in 53 countries and two regions. Next to CO₂ emissions, GRAM also includes different resource categories. Using GRAM, we are able to estimate the amount of carbon emissions embodied in international trade for each year between 1995 and 2005. These results include all origins and destinations of emissions, so that emissions can be allocated to countries consuming the products that embody these emissions. Net-CO₂ imports of OECD countries increased by 80% between 1995 and 2005. These findings become particularly relevant, as the externalisation of environmental burden through international trade might be an effective strategy for industrialised countries to maintain high environmental quality within their own borders, while externalising the negative environmental consequences of their consumption processes to other parts of the world. This paper focuses on the methodological aspects and data requirements of the model, and shows results for selected countries and aggregated regions.     

The raw material basis of global value chains: allocating environmental responsibility based on value generation

A new approach to allocate environmental responsibility, the ‘value added-based responsibility’ allocation, is presented in this article. This metric allocates total environmental pressures occurring along an international supply chain to the participating sectors and countries according to the share of value added they generate within that specific supply chain. We show that – due to their position in global value chains – certain sectors (e.g. services) and countries (e.g. Germany) receive significantly greater responsibility compared to other allocation approaches. This adds a new perspective to the discussions concerning a fair distribution of mitigation costs among nations, companies and consumers.     

Economic conditions for innovation: Private vs. public sector

The Hicks induced innovation hypothesis states that a price increase of a production factor is a spur to invention. We propose an alternative hypothesis restating that a spur to invention requires not only an increase of one factor but also a decrease of at least one other factor to offset the companies’ cost. We illustrate the need for our alternative hypothesis in a historical example of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, we econometrically evaluate both hypotheses in a case study of research and development (R&D) in 29 OECD countries from 2003 to 2017. Specifically, we investigate the dependence of investments to R&D on the economic environment represented by average wages and oil prices using panel regression. We find that our alternative hypothesis is supported for R&D funded and/or performed by business enterprises while the original Hicks hypothesis holds for R&D funded by the government and R&D performed by universities. Our results reflect that the business sector is significantly influenced by market conditions, unlike the government and higher education sectors.     

Enhancing the green efficiency of fundamental sectors in China’s industrial system: A spatial-temporal analysis

Due to sectoral interactions in the economy, the overall green efficiency (GE) of China’s industrial system relies heavily on fundamental sectors that contribute substantial energy to the supply chain production of other sectors but shows low sectoral GE. For the three fundamental sectors in China’s industrial systems, namely the smelting and pressing of nonferrous metals (SPNFM), the processing of petroleum, coking, and nuclear fuel (PPCNF); and the manufacturing of nonmetallic mineral products (MNMMP), we employed a three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to measure GE in the fundamental sectors in 30 provinces from 2010 to 2015. We then adopted a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model to evaluate the influence of technological innovation (TI), industrial agglomeration (IA), environmental regulation (ER), and intraindustry competition (IC). The results showed that GE in the three fundamental sectors varied spatially. Specifically, TI promoted GE in MNMMP, but the effect was not obvious in the SPNFM and PPCNF sectors. Moreover, ER had positive impacts on GE in the fundamental sectors. The effects of IA and IC on GE in the fundamental sectors varied in direction and strength. After eliminating the impacts of environmental effects and statistical noise, the real GE in the three fundamental sectors varied significantly compared to the comprehensive GE. Policy opportunities for enhancing GE in the fundamental sectors mainly lie in region-specific policy and regulations that avoid a “one-size-fits-all” governance approach.     

贸易自由化与中国企业进口中间品质量升级

进口高质量中间品是发展中国家实现技术追赶的重要途径;贸易自由化会降低进口高质量中间产品的贸易成本和相对价格,促进企业进口中间品质量升级。基于此,本文利用细分关税数据、海关数据和工业企业数据,将加工贸易作为控制组、一般贸易作为处理组,采用倍差法经验分析贸易自由化对中国企业进口中间品质量的影响。结论发现：伴随关税下降,中国企业进口中间品质量整体增长,且一般贸易组增长速度远快于加工贸易组。同加工贸易相比,关税下降1%一般贸易进口中间品质量增长高出0.06%~3.74%。这一作用在持续进口企业中,在基础设施完善、市场化水平高、经济集聚程度高的地区更明显。上述结论通过了同趋势假设、内生性等一系列稳健性检验。     

Disaggregate productivity comparisons: sectoral convergence in OECD countries

International comparisons of productivity have used exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP) to make output comparable across countries. While aggregate PPP holds well in the long run, sectoral deviations are persistent. It raises the need for a currency conversion factor at the same level of aggregation as the output that is compared. Mapping prices from household expenditure surveys into the industrial classification of sectors and adjusting for taxes and international trade, I obtain an expenditure-based sector-specific PPP. Using detailed price data for up to 8 years between 1970 and 1999, I test whether the sectoral PPPs adequately capture differential changes in relative prices between countries. They work well for agriculture and the majority of industrial sectors, but not for most service sectors and for manufacturing sectors that produce differentiated products. Using the most appropriate conversion factor for each industry, productivity convergence is found to be taking place in all but a few industries for a group of 14 OECD countries. The latter results are robust to the base year used for the currency conversion.     

Q-TAM: a quality technology acceptance model for technology operations managers

This paper contributes to research on the quality factors that affect customer acceptance and intention to continue purchasing disposable technology. We have developed a model (Q-TAM) that integrates the Technology Acceptance Model and a quality framework. We conducted a survey of 322 smartphones users and analyzed the results using Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to determine how our integrated Q-TAM model affected consumers’ intention-to-continue-purchasing disposable technology. The PLS-SEM analysis of the Q-TAM model established that consumers assessed the product quality based on two distinct dimensions: attribute quality and reliability quality. Further, we found support for the positive and significant effects of product quality and perceived ease of use as predictors of a customer’s intention to purchase a technological device. Of interest is our finding that perceived usefulness, in the presence of product quality, is not significant. The finding also suggests that customers perceive the usefulness of a product as a component/part of a product’s quality dimension, confirming Joseph Juran’s quality philosophy of “fitness of use.” This suggests that in order to satisfy consumer demands, technology operations managers must ensure their products are of good attribute and reliability quality. The findings of this study make a case for a quality technology acceptance model (Q-TAM) that encourages technology operations managers to focus their efforts on quality to ensure that their products satisfy customer needs and are perceived as useful.     

Mapping global sustainability report scoring: a detailed analysis of Europe and Asia

This study maps the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) relations for a set of global enterprises. Enterprise interrelationships are built using the Mutual Information (MI) of the data reported by enterprises. From the MI topology, we describe interrelationships among the enterprises using chord diagrams to represent the inter- and intra-connectivity between geographical regions and economic sectors globally, by continent and country. Detailed maps are presented for European and Asian regions/sectors, including the relationship between Europe and Asia’s top reporting countries. Our findings reinforce previous research regarding the role of Europe as a driver of sustainability and its influence worldwide. We also determined that Spain is a major player in Europe and that Northern Europe does not have the assumed leading role mentioned in related studies. Eastern Asia is, by far, the leader of the region, and the GRI maps demonstrate the preponderant role of China in the region and the minimal role of India. MI topology maps outline the behavior of the economic sectors, for all the studied regions. Furthermore, a measure that relates the inter- to intra-connections is presented to describe the internal an external relationships among regions/sectors.     

中荷之间的任务贸易

在经济全球化时代,随着交易成本的降低和世界性专业化分工,国际贸易特征发生变化。任务贸易理论将替代李嘉图的比较优势理论。文章试图利用任务贸易理论来解释中荷之间的贸易。荷兰是通往欧洲腹地的通道,而中国负责为荷兰进行产品的生产和组装。这些都是典型的服务外包任务。     

The effects of an environmental accountability system on local environmental governance and firms’ emissions

The Chinese central government introduced the environmental accountability system (EAS) policy in 2006 to encourage local governments to execute environmental policies appropriately. However, the effects of this EAS policy have not been investigated at the firm level. In this study, we first measured the environmental governance intensity of local governments by calculating the environment word portion (EWP) of the annual governments’ work reports and found that local governments increased their efforts after the EAS policy implementation. We then constructed a continuous difference-in-difference (DID) strategy to estimate the effect of the EAS on firms’ emission and found that firms significantly reduced their sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emission under the regulation intensity of local governments after the EAS policy. The reductions are mainly because of the private, non-export, labour- and capital-intensive firms. The EAS policy may encourage firms to reduce coal usage, design more products, decrease capacity investment and even withdraw from the market, thus reducing pollutant emission. Finally, we tested firms’ response in various polluting sectors and found that the EAS policy may cause local governments to fail in distinguishing low pollution sectors from high pollution sectors.     

Sectoral Survey‐based Confidence Indicators for Europe*

We analyse a novel dataset of Business and Consumer Surveys, using dynamic factor techniques, to produce composite coincident indices (CCIs) at the sectoral level for the European countries and for Europe. Surveys are timely available, not subject to revision, and fully comparable across countries. Moreover, the substantial discrepancies in activity at the sectoral level justify the interest in sectoral disaggregation. Compared with the confidence indicators produced by the European Commission we show that factor‐based CCIs, using survey answers at a more disaggregate level, produce higher correlation with the reference series for the majority of sectors and countries.