Gendered impacts of fertilizer subsidy removal programs in Malawi and Cameroon

Gladwin's^** main contention is that women provide most of the agricultural labor in sub-Saharan Africa and because much of this labor is oriented to food production for home consumption, the effects of structural adjustment programs on them and the children they work to feed are likely to be different than on men who produce crops for commercial and export production. Her specific hypothesis for Malawi is that the removal of the fertilizer subsidy affects women farmers more than men farmers because it reduces fertilizer use on local maize. As part of the structural adjustment program, a major purpose of removing the fertilizer subsidy is to reallocate resources from food production for domestic consumption to cash crop production for export. In Gladwin's analysis, men farmers produce hybrid maize and tobacco for export and women produce the subsistence food crop, local maize. Gladwin's main contention is probably correct. For the Malawi case, the presentation does not support the hypothesis because two of the major underlying assumptions are inappropriate and the evidence provided is inconclusive. This comment proceeds by discussing the two assumptions and corresponding evidence. The purpose of this comment is not to contradict the hypothesis, but to clarify the Malawi situation and to suggest that a different analytical approach is needed in that context.     

Monotone Matching in Perfect and Imperfect Worlds

We study frictionless matching in large economies with and without market imperfections, providing sufficient conditions for monotone matching that are weaker than those previously known. Necessary conditions, which depend on a key analytical object we call the surplus function , are also offered. Changes in the surplus yield valuable information about the comparative statics of matching patterns across environments. We apply our framework to some examples adapted from the literature, accounting for and extending several comparative–static and welfare results. We also explore the dependence of the matching pattern on the type distribution.     

The implications of performance feedback research for understanding antisocial work behavior

This paper explores existing performance feedback models and their implications for understanding antisocial behavior at work. We begin with the presentation of a summary model that outlines constructs and relationships common in current feedback models. Then, we discuss what these constructs and relationships suggest about the occurrence of antisocial responses when negative performance feedback is provided. In addition, we use the performance feedback model to identify areas of research that have been ignored in current conceptualizations of antisocial work behavior.     

The Informativeness of Relative Performance Information and Its Effect on Effort Allocation in a Multitask Environment

Prior research documents that providing relative performance information (RPI) motivates employees to increase effort; however, a potential downside of RPI is that it also motivates employees to distort their effort allocations between tasks such that it can be detrimental to overall firm performance. This study investigates via an experiment how the informativeness of RPI affects employees' effort allocations and performance in a multitask environment. We investigate the informativeness of two RPI design choices that are observed in practice: detail level and temporal aggregation. Regarding detail level, firms may provide each employee's performance ranking on tasks, which is less informative than providing the actual performance score of each employee. Regarding temporal aggregation, firms may provide RPI that is reset each period, which is less informative than RPI that is based on cumulative performance. We find RPI detail level and temporal aggregation interact to influence effort distortion. Specifically, we find that, compared to reset RPI, cumulative RPI leads to greater distortion of effort away from firm‐preferred allocations and that this effect is magnified when RPI provides actual performance scores rather than performance rankings. Finally, high levels of effort distortion hurt overall performance, thereby demonstrating the potentially detrimental effect of effort distortion on performance. Results of our study enhance our understanding of how firms can use their control over the design of RPI to enhance its usefulness in directing employees' effort in multitask environments by highlighting the role that informativeness of information can have on employee behavior.     

How Do SMEs with Single and Multiple Owners Finance Their Operations Differently? Empirical Evidence from China

We study the impact of firm‐level characteristics on the capital structures of private small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as the differences between the capital structures adopted by SMEs with single and multiple owners in China. Our findings highlight the limited use of asset‐based financing by Chinese SMEs. We also find that the propensity of SMEs with single‐owners to use external debt was significantly less than those with multiple owners. Furthermore, our findings suggest that single‐owned firms are subject to a more constrained pecking order than those with multiple owners. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Quick-service expenditure in Ireland: parametric vs. semiparametric analysis

The aim of this study is to identify the economic and socio-economic factors influencing Irish households' expenditure on quick-service meals, a particularly dynamic component of the foodservice industry, and to determine the extent to which these factors have changed over the course of the 1990s. Maximum likelihood estimation and semiparametric alternatives are considered with the conclusion that in this instance semiparametric techniques do not offer a viable alternative to maximum likelihood estimation of tobit models, even in the presence of heteroscedasticity and non-normality. The results revel that household income, place of residence, commuters and household size have significant and positive influences on quick-service expenditure. Older families, single households and married couples, together with homeowners, display reduced expenditure. The opportunity cost of time is positively related to quick-service expenditure, consistent with theory, while health knowledge has a negative impact on quick-service consumption.     

Implications of fast food restaurant concentration for preschool-aged childhood obesity

In this research, the authors examine the effects on preschool-aged childhood obesity rates associated with the direct and moderating influence of fast food restaurant density levels, consumer poverty, and urbanization. Results show that higher levels of fast food restaurant saturation are associated with increased levels of childhood obesity in both urban and poor areas, with the largest negative effect of fast food availability on obesity occurring in more economically disadvantaged, urban areas. Findings highlight why the societal impacts of targeting vulnerable populations through corporate location selection strategies should be fully considered in social marketing initiatives, especially given that unhealthy products with long term health risks are increasingly accessible.     

Choice and self: how synchronic and diachronic identity shape choices and decision making

Research on the role of identity in choice varies widely across fields like psychology, philosophy, consumer behavior, and economics, in both the key questions addressed and the methods of investigation. Although a large literature has established how salient aspects of identity affect attitudes and norms, less is known about how beliefs concerning identity are shaped and how these beliefs affect decision making. In this review, we cover recent insights into these issues and summarize some newer, developing approaches to understanding (i) how people judge the persistence of identity, (ii) how beliefs about future changes in identity are formed and how they affect choices, (iii) the formation of beliefs about future changes in identity and how these beliefs affect decisions, and (iv) the historical and economic antecedents of identity norms and their consequences for economic behavior. We introduce a distinction between synchronic and diachronic approaches, and highlight important unresolved questions that will help these fields to more fully understand the role that identity plays in shaping choices.     

Impact of first birth career interruption on earnings: evidence from administrative data

This article makes use of unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women’s intermittency decisions play in the determination of her wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in the education level of the woman. The penalty for women with a high school degree with an average amount of intermittency during 6 years after giving birth to her first child is roughly half the penalty for college graduates. We also demonstrate the value of making use of an index to capture multiple dimension of the intermittency experience, and illustrate the importance of firm dynamics in the determination of a woman’s wage.     

Mentoring functions and turnover intention: the mediating role of perceived organizational support

Despite an increasing number of studies investigating the effects of mentoring on employee work outcomes, limited attention has been placed on the relationship between mentoring functions and turnover intentions. In this study, we examined the relationship between mentoring functions and turnover intentions, and the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) on this relationship. Using data collected from 176 employees in three Chinese banks, we found that POS partially mediated the relationship between mentoring functions and employees' turnover intentions.