Board diversity and firm performance: evidence from the U.K. SMEs

This study examines the relationship between board diversity and firm performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the U.K. In particular, we investigate the role of gender and age as two dimensions of diversity. Using a large sample of SMEs (34,798 firms) located in the U.K. and focusing on the period from 2005 to 2013, our results show a significant negative association between each of gender diversity and age diversity, and firm performance. Our evidence yields important insights on the association between board diversity and firm performance, and calls suggestions for increased board diversity into question. A possible explanation for our findings could be due to the fact that our sampled firms are SMEs, whereas those in previous studies have been large enterprises. This research provides insights to entrepreneurs on how to enhance their performance, and to governments and policymakers on the development of rules that would achieve better performance in the SME sector.     

Gender differences in financial performance: new empirical evidence

This article provides new empirical evidence on gender differences in self-reported and observed financial performance. Using a quasi-experimental framework, comparing people who live in a matrilineal and a patrilineal environment in India, the results show that no significant gender differences in observed and self-reported performance exist among respondents who belong to the matrilineal culture. In contrast, women who live in a patrilineal environment self-report more often than men that they are not dealing well with economic and financial problems. However, no significant gender differences in observed financial performance are found.     

Gender diversity,cash holdings and the role of the institutional environment: empirical evidence in Europe

While substantial evidence is emerging internationally on higher risk aversion among women than among men, there is less evidence on women’s business choices. We explore some of the reasons for the relationship between gender diversity and cash holdings. Specifically, this paper focuses on the choices involving the stock of cash held by firms in which women have executive roles and can consequently exert a crucial influence on the firms themselves. We estimate our proposed empirical models using a dataset of 12,466 observations from 18 European countries. We find a positive relationship between the presence of women with executive roles in the firm and cash holdings. Women tend to make more conservative choices probably because they are more risk averse than men are. This propensity has a relevant impact on the financial choices of firms when women play a leading role. Notably, the study demonstrates that the institutional environment and industry differences moderate our baseline relationship.     

The Impact of Gender Quotas on Votes for Women Candidates: Evidence from Italy

To explore the impact of quotas on women's political representation, this study estimates a conditional multinomial logit for the probability of voting for men and women, utilizing data that includes all regional candidates in four Italian regions in 1995 and 2000. This regional electoral system allows voters to choose both the party and the specific candidate (open-list proportional system). The results show that the introduction of a 50 percent gender quota in candidate lists leads to a substantial increase in the probability that voters will choose women candidates, from 12 to 36 percent. Nevertheless, the probability of voting for women (36 percent) is lower than the probability for men (64 percent). Voters have a male bias in Italy. Both the district size and the political party have an effect on the probability of voting for women versus men. The more liberal the party is, the higher the probability that women receive votes.     

Gender quota in the civil service and female participation: Evidence from Nepal

Female quotas for high-ranking positions in corporations and governments should (i) increase the hiring of women and (ii) inspire more women to apply for these positions. The goal will be that eventually, (iii) even without the quota, more women will apply to and succeed in high-ranked positions. This paper exploits the variations of female quotas in Nepalese civil service exams across years, services, ranks and exams within the same service to investigate these three effects. Empirical results show that female quotas in a given exam increase applications and the hiring of women. Even in exams without a quota, the female quotas of other exams within the same service increase the number of female applicants.     

Intellectual capital and firm performance: evidence from Indian banking sector

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the entire Indian banking industry was paralysed and their performance was shattered by the unfolding of enormous cases of Non-performing Assets (NPA). The study estimates the operating efficiency of 40 Indian banks for 5 years (2011–15) as a proxy of performance measure using the output-oriented DEA-BCC model. We find that nearly 62% of the state-owned banks and 47% of the private banks are inefficient indicating that the inefficient banks need to reduce their inputs or improve their output to become efficient. The study further investigates the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and bank performance using a truncated regression model. The regression results show that out of the three components of intellectual capital, only human capital efficiency is positively and significantly associated with operational efficiency while structural capital and finance capital have a negative impact on the efficiency of banks. The study concludes that to achieve competitive edge banks should invest in their human capital. The results are robust in the case of financial variables taken as a proxy for performance.     

Dynamic linkages between Asian stock prices and exchange rates: new evidence from causality in quantiles

This article applies the Granger causality test in quantiles to investigate causal relations between stock returns and exchange rate changes for nine Asian markets over the period 1 January 1997 to 16 August 2010. Our empirical results indicate that the quantile causal relations vary across different quantiles and different periods. Although the causal effects of exchange rate changes on stock returns (or stock returns on exchange rate changes) are heterogeneous across quantiles, the overall evidence suggests that most stock and foreign exchange markets are negatively correlated. The result shows that there are more bidirectional causal relations in accordance with this method than the conventional least square (LS) estimation. The symmetry of these quantile causal effects (the ‘averaging effect’) helps to explain why conventional LS method usually obtains an insignificant result of causality.     

Gender and entrepreneurial success: evidence from survey data

A wealth of studies have contributed to the literature on gender differences in entrepreneurial success, but most lack key controls that aid in determining that success. Scale of the entrepreneur’s business is often not accounted for, and no studies to the author’s knowledge approach the gender comparison by specifically utilizing a sample of entrepreneur-only managed businesses. This allows for a direct comparison between individual entrepreneurs’ performance by gender, without the confounding heterogeneity that workforces may introduce. Data are taken from a national US survey of individuals, and model specifications include a number of important but oftentimes unavailable controls that have never before been used in conjunction. Female and male entrepreneurial success are statistically equal after controlling for risk preferences, intelligence, start-up capital, prior industry experience and hours worked at the business. Alternative specifications and sensitivity checks confirm and expand on these results.     

Gender, piece rates and wages: evidence from matched employer-employee data

Why are women disproportionately on piece rates? We investigatethree possible explanations: (1) Women are more likely to beon piece rates, because they have a shorter expected tenurethan men. (2) A greater demand for flexibility between workand home attracts women to work place technologies suitablefor variable pay based on individual performance. (3) Womenprefer piece rates, because they are subject to less wage discriminationwhen objective performance measures are available. The weightof our empirical evidence supports the third hypothesis. Theunexplained gender wage gap is substantially smaller in thepiece-rate regime than in the time-wage regime.     

Economic uncertainty and corruption: evidence from a large cross-country data set

A vast amount of research has considered numerous causes and correlates of corruption. Also, there have been many studies of the consequences of various forms of uncertainty. However, exploration of the nexus between economic uncertainty and corruption appears scarce. After providing an intuitive and heuristic linkage between general economic uncertainty and corruption, this article uses a large cross-country data set to augment a fairly standard model with simple proxies for uncertainty and to investigate how economic uncertainty might affect the prevalence of corruption. In addition, a quantile-regression framework is used to judge how the strength of various covariates may differ with the level of corruption. Seven main points emerge from the estimates. First, economic uncertainty is associated positively with corruption, and the relation seems to be robust across measures of uncertainty and corruption. Second, quantile-regression estimates indicate considerable parametric heterogeneity across the distribution of corruption. Third, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita has the expected corruption-mitigating role. Fourth, increased political rights and civil liberties also appear to lower corruption. Fifth, greater government consumption is associated with lower corruption. Sixth, while the hyperinflation dummy lacks significance in most OLS regressions, its significance varies across the distribution of corruption. Seventh, neither police force nor government subsidies shows significance, but transition economies have more corruption.     

The return to education and its distribution in urban China: evidence from quantile regression analysis

Based on Chinese Households Income Projects in 2002, this paper discusses the relationship between the return to education and the quantiles of income distribution. The findings in this paper show that the return to education is lower for the higher quantiles, while the estimators also depend on the choice of control variables. The methodology of the quantile regression might be helpful in adjusting the ability bias in the estimation on return to education. The policy implications of the paper highlight the impact of the education expansion in boosting the income growth for those in lower quantiles.     

A systematic literature review of the relationship between demographic diversity and innovation performance at team-level

ABSTRACT

Demographic diversity is a relevant aspect to consider when forming innovation teams, particularly where the labour market needs to be transformed in terms of age, gender and race (as in South Africa). Existing research reports mixed findings about the effects of demographic diversity on innovation performance of teams. This study contributes to the existing equivocal research by systematically reviewing the literature about the effects of demographic diversity and its dimensions on innovation performance of teams. Results show that high diversity of demographic dimensions, namely age, gender and culture increases team innovation performance when considered individually while the overall team demographic diversity has mixed effects. This review also confirms the existence and effects of various moderators that can be leveraged to develop team-formation policies such that the direct effects of demographic diversity and its dimensions on team performance can be influenced to foster the desired innovation performance.     

The returns to education and wage penalty from overeducation: New evidence from Vietnam

This study intends to estimate the rate of returns to education in Vietnam, the distributive effects of education on wages, and the wage penalty from the incidence of overeducation in the Vietnamese labor market during 2004–2016. This study employs a pseudo-panel approach to address omitted variables bias and the unconditional quantile regression to identify the heterogeneity of returns to education across the income distribution. Our main finding indicates that the estimated rate of returns to education in Vietnam is approximately 6.5%, showing a downward bias from previous estimates. The returns vary across wage distributions, where a lower rate of return is observed in lower quantiles and a higher rate among those individuals at the higher quantiles. The returns to education have declined since 2008, confirming the oversupply of highly educated workers in the Vietnamese labor market with an estimated wage penalty of 17%. Government assistance measures are needed to reduce the overeducation and the wage penalty issues in the Vietnamese labor market.     

Gender wage gaps and economic crisis in Greece

ABSTRACT

We examine gender wage gap (GWG) in Greece for 2013, by using a survey data set. Our findings show first, that the unadjusted GWG is 15.3%, while European Commission reports a value of 15%. Secondly, we derive the ‘adjusted’ GWG, using the Oaxaca and Ransom (OR) and the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (JMP) methods to be ranging from 10% to 13.6%. Thirdly, looking into the behaviour of the full population, we find a decreasing trend for the discrimination effects, an increasing trend for the residuals effects and a ‘random’ endowments effects while moving to higher deciles. These three effects are associated to the economic crisis 2008–2015. Fourthly, our findings do not show evidence of either a ‘glass ceiling’ effect or a ‘sticky floor’ effect. Finally, that there is strong evidence that investing in higher education reduces the wage discrimination between sexes.     

The impact of new goods and service products on firm growth: evidence from Austrian-linked firm-level data

Using a matched innovation survey and structural business statistics, we investigate the impact of the introduction of new service products and other types of technological innovations on firm growth measured as subsequent two-year employment growth. Results, based on median and robust regression methods for manufacturing firms, show that, on average, both the introduction of new goods and process innovations have a significant and positive impact on subsequent firm growth. In contrast, the introduction of new services does not, on average, have a significant impact on firm growth for both manufacturing and service firms. However, quantile regressions show that the introduction of new service products has a significant and positive impact on firm growth for high-growth service firms. Finally, in manufacturing, the introduction of product innovations has a positive impact on firm growth at both the lower and higher ends of distribution (i.e. for both high-growth and shrinking firms).     

Propensities to engage in and punish corrupt behavior: Experimental evidence from Australia, India, Indonesia and Singapore

This paper examines cultural differences in individual decision-making in a corruption game. We define culture as an individual's accumulated experience, shaped by the social, institutional, and economic aspects of the environment in which the individual lives. Based on experiments run in Australia (Melbourne), India (Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Singapore, we find that there is a greater variation in the propensities to punish corrupt behavior than in the propensities to engage in corrupt behavior across cultures. Consistent with the existing corruption indices, the subjects in India exhibit a higher tolerance of corruption than the subjects in Australia. However, the subjects in Singapore have a higher tolerance and the subjects in Indonesia have much lower tolerance of corruption than expected. We conjecture that this is due to the nature of the recent institutional changes in these two countries. We also vary our experimental design to examine the impact of the perceived cost of bribery and find that the results are culture-specific.     

Minimum Wages and the Gender GAP in Pay: New Evidence from the United Kingdom and Ireland

Women are disproportionately in low‐paid work compared to men so, in the absence of rationing effects on their employment, they should benefit the most from minimum wage policies. This study examines the change in the gender wage gap around the introduction of minimum wages in Ireland and the United Kingdom (U.K.). Using survey data for the two countries, we develop a decomposition of the change in the gender differences in wage distributions around the date of introduction of minimum wages. We separate out “price” effects attributed to minimum wages from “employment composition” effects. A significant reduction of the gender gap at low wages is observed after the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland, while there is hardly any change in the U.K. Counterfactual simulations show that the difference between countries may be attributed to gender differences in non‐compliance with the minimum wage legislation in the U.K.     

Internet use and consumption diversity: Evidence from rural China

The Internet is integral to modern living. While the Internet is ubiquitous in China's urban areas, its uptake is still lagging in the country's rural regions—the development potential of the Internet remains untapped, and despite China's steep economic growth during the 21st century, the living standards in its rural regions remain low. The Internet can accelerate rural development in China. This study is focused on analyzing whether and to what extent Internet use affects consumption diversity, an indicator of the quality of life, in rural China. To this end, we employ the instrumental-variable-based two-stage endogenous treatment regression model to analyze the 2018 China Family Panel Studies survey data. The modeling approach allows us to account for the endogeneity of Internet use. The results show that consumption diversity is positively associated with Internet use. Furthermore, it rises with household income, household size, and wealth. Whether the Internet is accessed via smartphones or computers has no bearing on household consumption diversity. We also find that education, household income, and wealth increase one's predicted probability of using the Internet. The results also point to regional differences in consumption diversity and the likelihood of using the Internet.