Women in the workplace in developing countries

The increased participation of women in economic activities of developing countries has been neglected, although they often work longer hours than men. In Africa, Asia, and the Pacific women average 12-13 hours more a week than men. They are often heads of households as male partners become ill, migrate, or die. The work is mostly in the household with other subsistence activities that statistics do not count. The UN Statistical Office estimated that the percentage of economically active women increased between 1970 and 1990 in the whole world except for sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the gap between female and male employment in the developing world stays wide because of fewer educational opportunities and social restrictions affecting women. 1/2 of the 70% of 830 million economically active women living in developing countries are in Asia. 3 of 4 women aged over 25 in Asia and Africa are illiterate. In Latin America and the Caribbean less than 25% of women are illiterate. Female illiteracy reaches over 75% in northern Africa and western Asia, almost 75% in sub-Saharan Africa, under 50% in eastern and southeastern Asia, and 75% in southern Asia. There is a wide gap between urban and rural illiteracy of women aged 15-24. In Africa over 40% of urban women were illiterate vs. nearly 80% of rural women in 1980. Enrollment in secondary schools in 1985 indicated that while in developed countries about equal number of girls were enrolled per 100 boys, in northern Africa only 70 girls, in sub-Saharan Africa only 60 girls, in eastern Asia 90 girls, and in southern Asia only about 40 girls were enrolled. In Africa under 20% of women vs. 80% of men in northern Africa, were active in the official economy, while in sub-Saharan Africa 40% of women vs. 90% of men, in Latin America nearly 40% of women vs. 80% of men, and in southern Asia in a little over 20% of women vs. over 80% of men.     

Informal authority and economic outcomes of family firms: An issue of national power distance

This paper delivers empirical evidence of how the informal authority of owner families determines the extent to which these can extract private benefits and secure preferential resource access. We argue that owner families in high power distance cultures enjoy increased informal authority. Consistent with our predictions, family firms in higher power distance countries display lower operating performance and are less likely to underinvest. Both effects are moderated by family ownership, family management involvement, and formal country-level governance mechanisms. Moreover, family firms in higher power distance countries are more commonly led by family members and pay lower costs of debt. Overall, our results emphasize the relevance of informal institutions for the economic outcomes and governance situation of family firms.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Institutional Voids,and the Internationalization of Mining Companies into Africa

The paper investigates the factors influencing the internationalization of mining firms into Africa and the strategies employed. We find that the three most important factors identified by mining houses as influencing their decisions to invest are all related to institutional voids particular to developing countries—security of tenure, political stability and poor infrastructure. South African firms have shown themselves to be adept to doing business in volatile political and institutional environments because of their experience within their home base with relatively weaker institutions. They have therefore developed advantages over multinational enterprises from industrialized countries to doing business in these new frontiers.     

The prospects for the developing world: a review of recent forecasts

This article addresses the future aspects of developing countries during the 1980s. To do so it has drawn on recent reports about the future of the world's economy. Even widespread failures of harvests and the increase in the price of oil in the 1970s did not diminish the optimistic attitude about the future in the 1980s. The original World Bank projections predicted a 5.7%/annum increase in gross domestic product and a substantial reduction in the level of poverty. The 1980 report paints a very pessimistic picture due to: the structural changes which the world economy is undergoing (changes in demand and production, slower economies, declines in productivity growth, etc.), world interdependence, and reduction of world resources. Other reports and studies have arrived at the same general conclusions. The predictions of the authors of "Interfutures" are also marked with considerable pessimism. They said that future uncertainties could lead to political rifts as well as economic and social problems. The Brandt commission report sketches a bleak picture for the world economy. Despite the consensus among the varous reports concerning the future in the developing nations, there are differences of opinion concerning the ability of these nations to adjust to the difficult circumstances. Certain actions must be taken immediately--generate more resources for development, measures to reduce oil and food imports, long-term goals should include improvements in administration, increasing agricultural productivity, and better utilizing available resources. The Brandt Commission is less optimistic about the world's ability to help the poor out of its troubles. The OECD targets sub-Saharan Africa as the area to be dealt with immediately. Basically, these developing nations will not be able to rely on industrialization and cheap energy for their growth.     

Family planning: the unfinished revolution

This is a general overview of family planning programs in developing countries, with a focus on east and southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The author concludes that "by the year 2000, the number of contraceptive users in developing countries will have to be 40 percent higher if fertility declines are to match projections." Suggestions for program improvement are included.     

Environmental problems and developing countries

The status of environmental conditions for forests, soils, water, air, and atmospheric changes is presented for developing countries. Loss and degradation of forests continue. The rate of cutting of moist tropical forests is 17-20 million hectares/year. The consequences would be eventual total destruction within several generations, lost soil and watershed protection, local climate change, and habitat destruction. The human toll can also be great as seen by the flooding deaths of 5000 Philippine villagers. Soil erosion is a greater danger than desertification. In sub-Saharan Africa, total harvest and yields of important food crops have declined compared to increases elsewhere in the world. In countries such as Costa Rica, Malawi, Mali, and Mexico the soil losses approximate .5-1.5% of gross domestic product annually. Progress has been made in water purification, but there are still nearly 1 million people in the developing world without access to clean water for drinking and bathing. 1.7 billion have inadequate sanitation. Access to sanitation in urban areas is on the rise. Waterborne diseases are a result of poor sanitation: 900 million cases of diarrheal disease/year, 500 million with trachoma, 200 million with schistosomiasis, or bilharzia, and 900 million from hookworm. Other diseases resulting from improper sanitation are cholera, typhoid, and paratyphoid. Water scarcity is another problem. Air quality is threatened by dust and smoke pollution which contribute to respiratory illnesses, by indoor burning of wood and charcoal particularly in rural Africa and south Asia, and high levels of lead from automobile emissions. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected through increased illness and even loss of mental functioning as in the case of lead poisoning. Atmospheric changes such as ozone depletion or global warming may not show their impact until decades later. The consequences are high levels of ultraviolet radiation which cause cancers, cataracts, and possibly immune system damage, and temperature increases which will increase the levels of the seas.     

Travelling risks: How did nanotechnology become a risk in India and South Africa?

India and South Africa have invested in nanotechnology since the early 2000s and have identified risks to human health and the environment as an important issue for governance. This is exemplary for a wider trend in which ‘developing countries’ play an increasingly prominent role in the development, production and use of emerging technologies. This validates the claim of the world risk society thesis that countries around the world are now confronted with the risks of emerging technologies. Little is known, however, about the way developing countries deal with the potential risks of emerging technologies. Starting from the observation that the risk colonization of nanotechnology in developing countries cannot be taken for granted, this article draws upon the relational theory of risk in order to investigate how nanotechnology became understood as an object of risk in South Africa and India. The article shows that nanotechnology was constituted as an object of risk in rather different ways in India and South Africa, demonstrating that the spread of risk discourses – and the emergence of a world risk society – cannot be understood without attending to the local context. The article shows that way risk is understood and dealt with changes as risk discourses travel around the world, giving many different faces to the world risk society.     

Spreadsheet usage by management accountants: An exploratory study

Spreadsheets play an important role for managerial accountants. For these practitioners, spreadsheets are necessary tools for traditional responsibilities such as planning, budgeting, forecasting as well as newer decision-making responsibilities. Responsibilities for managerial accounting practitioners have shifted from a transaction-based focus to an emphasis on decision support, planning, and control. Managerial accountants are expected to be key members of decision making and cross-functional teams outside the accounting area. Spreadsheets are major tools for meeting these new responsibilities.     

Population growth. Its magnitude and implications for development

A summary of the 1984 World Development Report is provided. The 3 major points stressed in the report were: 1) rapid population growth adversely affects development, 2) governments must adopt policies to reduce fertility, and 3) policies adopted by many countries have effectively reduced fertility. World population growth began accelerating at 0.5%/year in the 18th century, and by 1950 the annual acceleration rate was 2%. Most of the increase in population size is occurring in less developed countries, and this increase is due in part to the recent decline in mortality experienced by these countries. Of the 80 million individuals who will be added to the world's population in 1984, 70 million will be in the developing countries. Since 1965 the population growth rate for developing countries as a group declined from 2.4% to 2%. However, because of the high proportion of younger aged individuals in developing countries, the decline in fertility is expected to level off. According to World Bank population projections, the world population will stabilize at around 11 billion in 2150. During the interium, the population of developing countries will increase from its present level of 3.6 billion to 8.4 billion, and the population of developed countries will increase from 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion. These projections are probably overly optimistic. The adverse impact on development of rapid population growth is due to several factors. 1st, resources which could be used for investment must instead be used to fulfill the consumption needs of an increased number of people. 2nd, increases in the labor force must be absorbed by the agricultural sector, and this reduces agricultural productivity. 3rd, rapid population growth increases management problems. The adaption of policies by governments to reduce fertility is a necessary step in halting population growth. For poor families, children provide economic security. Therefore, governments must act to improve the economic conditions for poor families if they hope to reduce population growth. Education and job opportunities must be expanded and social security provided for the elderly. In the past it was assumed that fertility would only decline when urbanization, industrialization, and income reached a certain level. It is now known that appropriate policies can effectively reduce fertility even in the absence of economic advancement. Fertility declines are more closely related to increases in literacy and life expectancy than to increases in the gross national product. Family planning programs in China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Korea, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia have reduced fertility far below the level normally associated with the income levels prevailing in those countries.     

Population growth and food supply in sub-Saharan Africa

It is argued in this article that sub-Saharan Africa, given its present institutions and endowments of capital and technology, is already dangerously close to overpopulation. The rapid growth of its population projected for the next decades will greatly increase human misery and depress economic development. Specifically, rapid population growth will have disastrous effects on the region's ability to increase exports and provide people with food. There must be a search for new ways in which these effects could be mitigated. In sub-Saharan Africa fertility either continues to be very high or is increasing, in part due to some decline in traditional practices that reduce fertility, such as prolonged breastfeeding. This situation and the expectation of declining mortality imply that African population growth may increase further. Currently, population in sub-Saharan Africa is about half that of India and a third of China. There are 2 main reasons why reduced fertility in the next few decades is unlikely in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole: Africa has low literacy, high infant and child mortality, and low urbanization; and average African fertility rates may even increase for the next 20 years or so. The question that arises is what are the implications of continuing and rapid population growth for the African food supply. The region's cereal production is largely restricted to 4 grains, i.e., millet, sorghum, maize, and rice. The volume of grain production is less, by weight, than 60% of the production of roots and tubers. There are 2 main differences between the output of these crops in sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world: yields/hectare are lower in Africa than in elsewhere; and yields have generally been decreasing or largely constant in Africa. The low productivity has several causes. Today, population pressure has brought diminishing returns to traditional agriculture in much of the Sahel and the savanna, in parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, and parts of the West African forest belt. There is also the absence of the Green Revolution, i.e., the use of new high yielding seeds and new technologies in agriculture that has led to marked increases in yields in most other parts of the world. A totally different and more productive agriculture might evolve if African governments were to fundamentally change their vision. Existing production technology could allow substantial increases in the yields of many crops if some basic changes were made in the policies affecting agriculture. A way to achieve such change would be to make farming profitable. The effect of population growth in diminishing returns to agriculture also lends urgency to the need for family planning. Generally, population policy in Africa badly needs strengthening.     

Update on HIV infection

In the third decade of the global epidemic, it is evident that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease is quite different from the disease first recognized among a small number of homosexual men in 1981. The spread of HIV has been particularly alarming in developing countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, and it continues to threaten other populations in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. HIV therapeutic advances have resulted in a marked decrease in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) incidence and death in the United States and Western Europe. With the introduction of "triple therapy," antiretroviral treatment has resulted in an extraordinary increase in the quality of life and life expectancy among HIV-infected persons. However, the rate of decline in AIDS incidence and deaths from the latter part of 1998 through 2000 has slowed for a number of reasons. Even with the stabilization of HIV in Western countries, it remains as important as ever to follow sound insurance principles to address HIV risk. The clinical success stories have yet to be translated into the insurance realm. A very strict analysis of the medical literature will be needed.     

私人信息、公开信息与中国的金融市场参与

金融市场的发展能够为长期的经济增长提供动力,家庭对金融市场的有限参与是制约金融发展的重要因素之一。2015年中国绝大多数家庭未能参与金融市场。本文采用倾向得分匹配方法考察了私人信息和公开信息对家庭金融市场参与的影响以及两者的影响差异。基于2015年CGSS数据集的分析结果显示,家庭拥有金融市场私人信息或者能够充分获取公开信息都会显著提升其参与金融市场的概率。家庭获取公开信息的渠道越广泛,经由各种渠道获取的公开信息越多,参与金融市场的概率就越高。总体而言,充分获取公开信息比拥有私人信息对家庭金融市场参与的影响更大,这是源于个体对两种信息质量预期的不同。公开信息具有比私人信息更广泛的信息来源和更强的可验证性,这提升了家庭对公开信息质量的预期,为其提供了参与金融市场的更大激励。对中国而言,改善政策制定和执行的效率以及政策承诺的可信性有助于提升家庭对公开信息质量的预期,从而鼓励家庭参与金融市场。     

农村失独家庭养老需求的差异性与精准扶助——基于四川省H县调查

农村失独家庭是农村弱势群体中的“弱势群体”。准确识别失独家庭的养老需求并做出相应的策略安排,是养老资源有限条件下的理性选择。本文基于对四川省H县8个镇302户失独家庭的问卷调查,通过建立模型和访谈方式分析农村失独家庭养老需求的差异性。结果表明:老年失独家庭的养老需求比非老年失独家庭明显更高;收入和健康状况是影响农村老年失独家庭和非老年失独家庭养老需求的重要因素;性别、文化程度、婚姻状况以及有无积蓄对老年失独家庭和非老年失独家庭的各类养老需求类的影响有所不同;养老保险对两类家庭的养老需求均无显著影响。因此,本文从注重养老资源供给的侧重性、提高失独家庭收入水平、重点关注失独家庭的健康保障和提供菜单式的养老服务等方面对农村失独家庭的养老保障提出了精准扶助的政策思考。     

The determinants of private capital flow volatility in Sub-Saharan African countries

The study investigates the underlying factors of patterns of volatility for FDI, portfolio equity and cross-border bank lending inflows for sub-Saharan African countries using a panel framework with data from 1990 to 2011. No other study has focussed exclusively on sub-Saharan Africa when investigating the determinants of private capital flow volatility. This study is further unique in that it employs clearly-delineated cross-border bank lending data from the Bank of International Settlements’ (BIS) Locational Banking Statistics that has not been used by similar prior studies. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) global liquidity lowers FDI volatility while private sector credit increases volatility; (2) global liquidity increases portfolio equity volatility with growth and the quality of macroeconomic policies found to be important pull factors in lowering volatility; and (3) the quality of macroeconomic policies and trade openness are important pull factors in lowering cross-border bank lending volatility while financial openness increases volatility.     

Balancing Retirement Security With the Needs of Frail Parents

Abstract

Caring for frail elderly parents can interfere with work responsibilities. People who provide care to their parents may need to take time off from work or retire altogether. However, reductions in labor supply at midlife can have serious implications for retirement wealth and, as a result, on economic well-being in later life. This paper examines how family support for the elderly can affect retirement savings by examining the relationship between labor supply, time help to parents, and financial assistance to parents. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study on a nationally representative sample of women ages 53–63, we found that women who helped their parents with personal care assistance worked significantly fewer hours than did those who did not help their parents, whereas those who provided financial assistance worked significantly more hours. Although few persons at midlife presently spend substantial amounts of time helping their elderly parents in any given year, for those who do, the costs can be high. Pressures on families are likely to mount in the near future as falling mortality and fertility rates continue to increase the proportion of the population that is very old and as women continue to play more important roles in the labor market.     

Large shareholders and accounting research

Large shareholders are a potentially very important element of firms’ corporate governance system. Whereas analytical research is typically vague on who these large shareholders are, in practice there are important variations in the types of large owners (and the different types of large owners could play very different governance roles). After briefly reviewing the standard agency cost arguments, in this article I emphasize the heterogeneity of concentrated ownership and in particular focus on the roles of families, institutions, governments, and employee ownership. I also discuss the role of large shareholders in private (i.e., unlisted) firms, where ownership tends to be more concentrated than in publicly traded firms. Finally, I briefly discuss variations in ownership structures across selected countries.     

Dual agency problems in family firms: Evidence from director elections

We use director elections to analyze outsider shareholder perspectives of agency problems in family firms. Compared to nonfamily firms, outsider shareholders in family firms provide weaker support for director slates proposed by the firms’ nominating committees. Outside shareholder support decreases when families receive private benefits of control, when family members serve in leadership roles, or when family members serve on board monitoring committees. We do not find similar results for other actively engaged concentrated owners. Our results provide new insights into outsider shareholders’ satisfaction with family control in publicly held firms and their perceptions of the family-outsider agency conflicts.     

Determinants of Labor Productivity in MENA Countries

This article scrutinizes the role of various determinants (compensation, human capital, oil rent, trade, financial development, innovation, and industrialization) in labor productivity in the context of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Dynamic-OLS and fully modified-OLS were applied to analyze panel time series data over the period 1980 to 2014. It was found that size of employment and compensation are negatively associated with labor productivity, while human capital and capital stock are positively associated with it; and that oil rent, financial development, trade openness, and industrial value addition play significant roles in promoting labor productivity. Finally, innovation was found to be an important factor in accelerating labor productivity. These findings are important for labor policy making in MENA economies.     

人口老龄化与区域创业水平——基于启信宝创业大数据的研究

本文首次基于启信宝大数据获得我国各城市创业数据,同时利用人口推演模型获得各城市人口老龄化数据,利用计划生育政策作为工具变量建立起二者之间的因果识别。本文发现,老年人口抚养比每上升1%,城市创业企业数量将下降10%左右,具有显著的经济意义。本文在宏观和微观两个层面进行了丰富的机制检验,发现同时存在家庭内部的“养老压力”机制和家庭外部的“等级效应”机制,这两条机制分别揭示家庭内部人口老龄化和家庭外部人口老龄化对个体创业行为的影响。整体而言,本文工作补充了人口老龄化与创业的相关研究,也为制定创业和人口政策提供参考。     

Family control,multiple institutional block-holders,and informed trading

This paper investigates how large family shareholders and institutional block-holders jointly influence informed trading and firm valuation in the Hong Kong stock market. It combines market microstructure research with studies on the governance roles of multiple block-holders and finds that institutional block-holders rely on their relative controlling power vis-à-vis family owners to mitigate problems associated with informed trading. They also use their ownership rights to improve the structure of informed trading. However, these governance roles are predominantly exercised by pressure-resistant institutional block-holders. Informed trading reduces firm valuation, while an improvement in its structure increases valuation. Therefore, the governance roles of controlling families and pressure-resistant institutional block-holders may have different implications in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information risk.