What do friends and the media tell us? How different information channels affect women’s risk perceptions of age‐related female infertility

This paper investigates through which channels women receive information about the general risk levels of age‐related female infertility and how the different channels affect women’s perceptions of the risk. We find that the media reaches women of all ages, while only about one woman in four has received information from the health care system. We also find that friends and relatives are an important source of information that affects women’s risk perceptions. However, the information from friends and relatives seems to generally make female recipients more likely to overestimate the risks. We conclude that the information sources have different, sometimes even opposite, impacts on the risk perceptions, possibly making it harder for a woman to be aware of the true general risks of age‐related infertility.     

Managed care,technology adoption,and health care: the adoption of neonatal intensive care

Managed care may influence technology diffusion in health care. This article empirically examines the relationship between HMO market share and the diffusion of neonatal intensive care units. Higher HMO market share is associated with slower adoption of mid-level units, but not with adoption of the most advanced high-level units. Opposite the common supposition that slowing technology growth will harm patients, results suggest that health outcomes for seriously ill newborns are better in higher-level units and that reduced availability of mid-level units may increase their chance of receiving care in a high-level center, so that slower mid-level growth could have benefitted patients.     

Do religiosity and political beliefs affect female representation and firm performance?

We investigate the effect of the community values surrounding a firm's headquarters on the percentage of women on a firm's board of directors. We use religiosity and political affiliation measures to capture the values associated with the community norms. We find that firms headquartered in counties with lower religiosity and a lower percentage of Republican voters are more likely to have a greater number of female board members. Furthermore, firms with more female directors located in more Republican areas or more religious cities are more likely to have lower valuations, as measured by Tobin's Q. These results have implications for corporate culture and the supply of female directors.     

Managed care, consolidation among health care providers, and health care: evidence from mammography

We discuss the effects of managed care on the structure of the health care delivery system, focusing on managed-care-induced consolidation among health care providers. We empirically investigate the relationship between HMO market share and mammography providers. We find evidence of consolidation: increases in HMO activity are associated with reductions in the number of mammography providers and with increases in the number of services produced by remaining providers. We also find that increases in HMO market share are associated with reductions in costs for mammography and with increases in waiting times for appointments, but not with worse health outcomes.     

The Effects of Executive,Firm, and Board Characteristics on Executive Exit

We estimate a hazard model of the probability of top corporate executives exiting their firms over the period 1996–2010. Our main findings are that: (1) female executives have greater likelihoods of exit than males, (2) the likelihood of exit increases with the independence of the board and decreases with the fraction of the board that is female and the average age of board members, and (3) a higher percentage of independent directors on the board lowers the probability of exit more for females than for males. Further, controlling for exit risk reduces the well‐documented compensation differential between men and women.     

劳动力市场性别差距、生产结构转型与人口增长转变

本文从劳动力市场性别差距视角为理解生产结构转型与人口增长转变的互动关系提出了新的理论机制。以脑力劳动密集型生产部门比重提高为特征的生产结构转型将缩小性别工资差距，提高家庭生育养育机会成本并降低生育率，进而增加女性劳动相对供给，这又会进一步提高脑力劳动密集型生产部门比重。直接干预女性劳动定价政策可能会带来女性结构性失业，反而扩大劳动力市场性别差距，且不利于生产结构转型；单方面降低女性生育养育成本政策虽然能够提高生育率，但也可能产生类似不利影响；降低男性生育养育成本政策既可以提高生育率，又可以缩小劳动力市场性别差距，并促进生产结构转型；生育养育成本补贴支出由政府承担的影响比由企业承担更为温和。本文结果表明，促进人口长期均衡发展的政策应与缩小劳动力市场性别差距、推动生产结构转型的政策统筹谋划和协调推进。本文研究为“优化人口发展战略，建立生育支持政策体系”提供了一定的理论依据和参考。     

Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?

We examine corporate financial and investment decisions made by female executives compared with male executives. Male executives undertake more acquisitions and issue debt more often than female executives. Further, acquisitions made by firms with male executives have announcement returns approximately 2% lower than those made by female executive firms, and debt issues also have lower announcement returns for firms with male executives. Female executives place wider bounds on earnings estimates and are more likely to exercise stock options early. This evidence suggests men exhibit relative overconfidence in significant corporate decision making compared with women.     

Board gender diversity and dividend payout: The critical mass and the family ties effect

We analyse the relationship between female directors and payout policy for a sample of non-financial Spanish listed firms. Based on the critical mass theory, we find an inverted-U shaped relationship. For low levels of female representation in the board, women directors increase dividends in order to reduce agency conflicts, and improve reputation or legitimacy. However, after an inflection point, characteristics traditionally associated to women, such as risk aversion, a conservative and prudent financial attitude, and lower overconfidence emerge and reduce dividend payments. Moreover, our results suggest that female directors play a very different role with the controlling shareholder, depending on what family ties exist. Women directors who have family connections with the dominant shareholder exhibit the same inverted-U shaped relationship with dividends. In contrast, for female directors with no family ties, the relationship with dividends is U-shaped. Our results show the faultlines within the group of female directors depending on the relationship with the family owners, and that the influence of non-family female directors only arises when this group of women gain enough power, visibility, authority, and legitimacy.     

Female directors in bank boardrooms and their influence on performance and risk-taking

We assess the role of women in bank boardrooms in a sample of 461 large banks from OECD countries. After controlling for bank and country specific effects, we find that the presence and percentage of female directors in boardrooms have a positive influence on performance. We also find a negative relation between the presence of women in boardrooms and risk-taking. These relations hold for the supervisory board, and with some exceptions for the audit committee. For a sub-sample of 134 listed banks we find that markets positively value the presence of women on the board, supervisory board and audit committee.     

Envisioning the future for older adults: Autonomy,health, well-being,and social connectedness with technology support

Envisioning the future of older adults of 2050 is a challenging task given the heterogeneity of the older adult population. We consider primarily the domains of home, health, and social participation for individuals over age 65 and the potential role of information, communication, and robotic technology for enhanced independence, maintenance of autonomy, and enriched quality of life. We develop several scenarios to illustrate the diversity of circumstances, health, and living situations for older adults in the future. We discuss possible negative outcomes resulting from the proliferation of technology, including increased social isolation and a widening digital divide. However, we focus primarily on envisioning desired situations wherein older adults have autonomy and independence; are easily able to manage their health and wellness needs; have rich and rewarding opportunities for social connectedness, personal growth, continued life purpose, and overall high quality of life. To attain this future, we must be acting now: designing the technology with involvement by today’s older adults who represent the needs and capabilities of tomorrow’s older adults; developing the necessary infrastructure to support widespread availability and deployment of these technologies; and supporting the integration of technology into people’s lives at younger ages with adaptive functionality to support changing needs and preferences.     

Syrian women accountants’ attitudes and experiences at work in the context of globalization

The purpose of this study is to explore how globalization is impacting on the experiences of Syrian women accountants working in the accounting and finance professions. The study uses postcolonial theory to interpret face-to-face in depth interviews with female accountants and in particular their experiences and attitudes regarding wearing or not wearing the hijab in Syria. Insights from the interviews reveal that Syrian women accountants have been able to use the practice of veiling in order to negotiate greater opportunities for access to work in a patriarchal context. Nonetheless, the increased influence in recent years of private/Western accounting and finance firms has mainly hindered women, especially veiled women’s ability to access and progress at work. The study suggests that the issue of female clothing for Muslim women is still overemphasized in the East and West. The paper argues for the need to go beyond the politics of the hijab and to focus on addressing broader socio-political, cultural and global conditions that are contributing to Syrian women’s marginalization in the accounting and finance professions, and beyond.     

Board gender quotas,female directors and corporate tax aggressiveness: A causal approach

As a result of a mandatory board gender quota regulation, the percentage of female directors in Norway increased from around 5% in 2001 to over 40% in 2007, while it remained stable in neighbouring Denmark. Taking advantage of this unique research setting, this study implements a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the effects of the gender composition of the board of directors on corporate tax aggressiveness. Results indicate that the likelihood of corporate tax aggressive strategies increased in Norway after the appointment of many female directors, compared to the situation in Denmark. This finding is robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses and, in particular, to how corporate tax aggressiveness is measured. We interpret this result as caused by the way in which the incorporation of women to the boards was achieved, that is, through a mandatory board gender quota regulation. Possible implications of the findings are discussed.     

Complementary relationship between female directors and financial literacy in deterring earnings management: The case of high-technology firms

We explore whether the presence of female directors on the boards of high-technology firms has an impact on the boards' monitoring and oversight of earnings management. Using difference-in-difference analyses, we utilize an exogenous change in Israel to examine the changes in, and the effects of, female director representation in constraining earnings management in a changing accounting environment that increased managers' ability to report earnings opportunistically. We find that a high representation of women on the board does not make an incremental contribution to the explanation of earnings management over and above the presence of a female director with financial literacy. However, the presence of one financially literate female director on the board does have a significant effect on restraining earnings management. Moreover, financially literate female directors are more effective than their financially literate male counterparts in deterring earnings management. Our results are robust to controlling for firm characteristics related to the selection of a woman to participate on the BOD as well as to the selection of a financially literate woman in particular. We conclude that financial literacy is complementary to female representation on the board in constraining earnings management. An important economic implication of our findings is that a regulatory move to increase the representation of women on corporate BODs should refer specifically to the inclusion of at least one woman with financial literacy on the board.     

New development: Women with altitude—exploring the influence of female presence and leadership on boards of directors

This article reports on a study examining the influence of women on the boards of directors of NHS foundation trusts in England in the light of a recent UK government inquiry into women in senior positions. A high female presence among executive and non-executive directorships did not result in significant differences either in financial return or service quality. However, female chairs or chief executives resulted in significant reductions in negative social outcomes, such as lower clinical negligence costs, without harming financial management. The findings have important implications for gender diversity and gender targets on the boards of directors in business and other sectors.     

Mental Health Patterns and Consequences: Results from Survey Data in Five Developing Countries

The social and economic consequences of poor mental health inthe developing world are presumed to be significant, yet remainunderresearched. This study uses data from nationally representativesurveys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, and Mexico andfrom special surveys in India and Tonga to show similar patternsof association between mental health and socioeconomic characteristics.Individuals who are older, female, widowed, and report poorphysical health are more likely to report worse mental health.Individuals living with others with poor mental health are alsosignificantly more likely to report worse mental health themselves.In contrast, there is little observed relation between mentalhealth and consumption poverty or education, two common measuresof socioeconomic status. Indeed, the results here suggest insteadthat economic and multidimensional shocks, such as illness orcrisis, can have a greater impact on mental health than poverty.This may have important implications for social protection policy.Also significant, the associations between poor mental healthand lower labor force participation (especially for women) andmore frequent visits to health centers suggest that poor mentalhealth can have economic consequences for households and thehealth system. Mental health modules could usefully be addedto multipurpose household surveys in developing countries. Finally,measures of mental health appear distinct from general subjectivemeasures of welfare such as happiness.     

The impact of the managed care backlash on health care spending

The health spending slowdown associated with the managed care revolution in the 1990s suggests that managed care may have been successful in controlling health care spending. I exploit the passage of state regulation during the “managed care backlash” as well as geographic variation in managed care intensity to measure the impact of managed care on spending. I find that restricting managed care causes a large and significant increase in hospital spending, which cannot be explained by changes in hospital market concentration, other regulatory activity, and multiple other possible explanations. I also do not find effects of the backlash on mortality.     

Forecasting disability: application of a frailty model

Random changes in individual frailty occur due to the stochastic processes of physical deterioration or environmental influences. This paper implements a stochastic ageing model using maximum likelihood methods and calibrates the model to more than 30 years of historical Australian mortality data in order to examine cohort and gender differences in health-state distributions among older adults. We find that frailty levels have declined over time for both male and female cohorts. Nonetheless, patterns of frailty are different between genders. Older females experience a faster pace of health deterioration than their male counterparts causing them to move quicker into worse states of health. Health states are also more heterogeneous among women than men. Population-level estimates suggest that the number of elderly Australians requiring aged care services will exceed that projected under governmental assumptions by 2050.     

Household portfolio choices,health status and health care systems: A cross-country analysis based on SHARE

Health risk is increasingly viewed as an important form of background risk that affects household portfolio decisions. However, its role might be mediated by the presence of a protective full-coverage national health service that could reduce households’ probability of incurring current and future out-of-pocket medical expenditures. We use SHARE data to study the influence of current health status and future health risk on the decision to hold risky assets, across ten European countries with different health systems, each offering a different degree of protection against out-of-pocket medical expenditures. We find robust empirical evidence that perceived health status matters more than objective health status and, consistent with the theory of background risk, health risk affects portfolio choices only in countries with less protective health care systems. Furthermore, portfolio decisions consistent with background risk models are observed only with respect to middle-aged and highly-educated investors.     

Contraceptive Use and the Quality, Price, and Availability of Family Planning in Nigeria

Nigeria has experienced high fertility and rapid populationgrowth for at least the past thirty years. Only recently havepublic authorities launched efforts to promote contraceptiveuse. In this article, individual women are linked to the characteristicsof the nearest health facility, pharmacy, and source of familyplanning to assess the relative importance of women's socioeconomicbackground and the characteristics of nearby services on contraceptiveuse. The results suggest that the limited levels of female schooling(and probably other factors affecting women's opportunity costof time) are constraining contraceptive use, especially in ruralareas. Another major constraint to increased contraceptive useis the low availability of family planning services in Nigeria.Broader availability of the pill and other methods in pharmaciesand of injectables and intrauterine devices (IUDs) in healthfacilities is likely to raise contraceptive use. Outpatientor consultation fees at nearby health facilities do not appearto be constraining demand for modern contraceptive methods.     

Financial advice and gender: Wealthy individual investors in the UK

We examine how gender differences in investment risk tolerance, knowledge, confidence and portfolio cash allocations relate to the gender mix of investors and financial advisors among a sample of wealthy individuals in the UK. Our results demonstrate that gender effects are more nuanced than previously assumed. First, while even wealthy women consider themselves more conservative and allocate a higher proportion of their investable assets to cash than men, previous findings of lower investment knowledge and confidence do not extend to our sample. Second, having an advisor matters. Advised investors perceive themselves to have a higher risk tolerance and invest 10.6%-points more than self-directed investors. Finally, the investor-advisor gender combination matters, but only for female investors. Women with male advisors are more risk averse, feel less knowledgeable and less confident about their investment decisions. They also invest 11%-points less than women with female advisors. Indeed, female investors advised by women report the highest risk tolerance and make the lowest portfolio allocation to risk-free assets across the full sample, including men.