Racial discrimination in umpire voting: an (arguably) unexpected result

Using data from an official most valuable player award in professional sport, we test for the presence of discrimination by match officials (umpires), who are responsible for ranking the top three players within each match. These umpires are found to award significantly more votes to (and have a higher probability of voting for) players identified as (Australian) Indigenous, after controlling for within-match production. The result offers further evidence on racial discrimination, and runs counter to numerous analogous studies both in sport, as well as in labour and other socio-economic outcomes in general.     

Sludged! Can financial literacy shield against price manipulation at the shops?

Retailers lure consumers with clever use of choice architecture; examples include “bargains” heavily restricted in the fine print and discounts structured to exaggerate the true saving. Given that financial literacy is a key competency for managing money, good financial literacy may provide protection from these “sludges.” In an exploratory experiment, we measure 48 university students' retail literacy and financial literacy, while concurrently tracking their emotional reactions and decision time using FaceReader software. We then test hypotheses on a larger sample using an online survey. We find that strong financial literacy supports retail literacy and vice versa, but the two constructs are distinct. The differences are identified through mathematical and methodological reasoning, gender, and emotion. While gender remains a factor for financial literacy, it is less prominent in retail literacy, and women respond more positively to retail literacy performance measurement. We recommend future investigation into building women's financial literacy performance using materials that are aesthetically pleasing and based on familiar financial frames and scenarios.     

Public perceptions of the dioxin incident in Irish pork

In early December 2008, a global recall of Irish pork was initiated as a result of a subset of the national pork output being contaminated with dioxin. In this study, members of a panel from an Internet‐based longitudinal monitor of public opinion on food and health issues were used to assess public perceptions about the dioxin incident in late December. Although most respondents did not regard food as posing a risk to health, a larger proportion of respondents reported that that there was a ‘very high’ health risk from pork (8.6%) compared to any other food of animal origin. However, when asked to rank the risk posed to human health from a broad range of food and non‐food hazards, PCBs/dioxins were considered to pose less of a risk than high fat food, chemical pollution, or tanning. The majority of respondents (70.5%) considered that the authorities managed the incident in an ‘adequate’ or ‘very efficient’ manner. Respondents who considered that the authorities’ management of the incident was ‘incompetent’ rated the risk associated with eating Irish pork to be higher than those who considered that the authorities’ management was ‘very efficient’. Both the European Food Safety Authority and the Irish food safety authorities pronounced that there was no risk to human health from the level of dioxin in the pork. These communications, coupled with the rapid handling of the incident in an open and transparent way, reassured consumers and maintained their confidence in the food supply.     

Our Dream is a World Full of Poverty Indicators: The US,the World Bank,and the Power of Numbers

With the launch of its Africa Results Monitoring System (ARMS), the World Bank has recently consolidated its ‘results agenda’, and is now rolling out a concerted effort to improve International Development Association (IDA) borrowers' ability to track the impact of lending projects on a range of poverty indicators. Although the US pushed hard for the implementation of ARMS, viewing it as a means of improving its ability to monitor and control the Bank, the initiative has paradoxically also provided the Bank with an additional source of legitimacy and autonomy. This apparent contradiction forces a clarification of the analytical framework we use to investigate international organisations (IOs) to allow us to understand the ‘positive feedback cycle’ that has developed between the Bank and the US regarding the standard with which to judge the IO's performance. The refined focus on the impact of Bank-supported interventions has important implications for the internal ‘battlefield for knowledge’ in the organisation, particularly concerning the competing visions of an ‘economic’ and a ‘multi-dimensional’ conceptualisation of poverty.     

The Relevance of the Institutional Underpinnings of Porter's Five Forces Framework to Emerging Economies: An Epistemological Analysis

ABSTRACT Using the Toulmin method, we present an epistemological analysis of Porter's Five Forces Framework (FFF) in light of the increasing evidence pertaining to the institutional context in emerging economies. The analysis reveals three key qualifiers in the theoretical structure of FFF – transaction costs, capital flows and laws governing rivalry. Evidence from emerging economies indicates that FFF's assumptions about the qualifiers are not met in these economies. Indeed, firms in these economies adopt strategies not derivable from FFF to tackle their unique institutional contexts. Our Toulmin analysis helps pinpoint the directions for further research in emerging economies. Specifically, the three qualifiers provide a meaningful way of building typologies and taxonomies to accommodate the diversity of institutional contexts and to link them to firm-level strategies. Our discussion also highlights the need to turn the spotlight on laws governing rivalry, a relatively under-explored topic in emerging economies, and the effectiveness of different network strategies.     

A quantitative approach to guiding the promotional efforts of IPAs in emerging markets

Investment promotion agencies (IPAs) engage in a range of promotional activities with the aim of improving foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. However, at any particular time, they tend to concentrate their efforts towards image building or investment generation. The decision of where to focus promotional efforts depends on investors’ perceptions of the IPA's location. In contrast to current methods, this paper employs an innovative quantitative finance approach that allows IPAs to speedily measure risk perceptions using real-time data. Using this approach, the paper focuses on determining whether or not the risk of nationalisation is a concern for large multinational companies in the natural resource sector. Our empirical results demonstrate that such companies are not concerned about nationalisation risk. The findings have implications for guiding the promotional efforts of IPAs, both in countries where nationalisation is a risk and in countries where changes in the political environment have reduced the risk of nationalisation.