The Environmental Kuznets Curve Under a New Framework: The Role of Social Capital in Water Pollution

We advance a case for including social capital in an environmental Kuznets curve analysis using highly disaggregated data of water pollution in Louisiana. We create a social capital index and employ parametric and spatial panel regression models to explain water pollution dynamics.      

Preference for rural living environment improvement initiatives in China

The Chinese government has launched the Rural Living Environment Improvement Initiative (RLEII) to solve the poor living conditions in rural areas. The initiative enhances rural greenery; provides sanitary toilets; and promotes proper disposal of animal manure, sewage, and household waste in rural areas. We collected data using in-person interviews with 938 rural residents in Xinjiang, China, to elicit their preference, preference intensity, and preference heterogeneity for RLEII. Results indicated that rural residents prefer to see shortcomings of the RLEII addressed. Rural greening construction is identified with the highest preference intensity. We also find significant heterogeneity in rural residents' preferences for each attribute of RLEII. The preference heterogeneity is rooted in the region's economic condition (poor vs. nonpoor region). It is essential to understand rural residents' choice for rural public goods supply and to respect their preference intensity, sequence, and heterogeneity for RLEII to enhance the implementation performance. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

The Impact of Market Structure on Ex‐Dividend Day Stock Price Behavior

We explore the impact of market structure on the ex‐day price anomaly. Measuring the price‐drop ratio (PDR) as the ratio of the price change on the ex‐day to the dividend amount, we find that the average NASDAQ PDR is significantly less than one and significantly less than the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) PDR. We then investigate a subset of firms that voluntary switch from NASDAQ to the NYSE and find that the PDR significantly increases after the switch, suggesting that market structure affects PDRs. We also create a matched sample and find that the NASDAQ PDR converges toward its matched NYSE counterpart, particularly after the introduction of SuperMontage. Our evidence is consistent with significant NASDAQ market structure changes reducing execution cost differences between the two exchanges and, in turn, reducing the PDR difference. Overall, our results highlight the important role market structure can play in understanding anomalies.     

Fuzzy goal programming based genetic algorithm approach to nutrient management for rice crop planning

The main purpose of this paper is to present a tolerance based fuzzy goal programming (FGP) and a FGP based genetic algorithm (GA) model for nutrient management decision-making for rice crop planning in India. In the proposed model, we have included fuzzy goals such as fertilizer cost and rice yield in the decision-making process. Fuzzy goals are converted to goal constraints using their corresponding membership function values and the deterministic equivalent of the fuzzy model is obtained using tolerance based FGP approach. This deterministic nutrient management model is also solved using a proposed real coded GA and the optimal combination of fertilizer is obtained to maximize the yield of rice within the available budget. A case example is solved under various scenarios to demonstrate the proposed approach.     

Transforming rural lives through decentralized green power

India has been pursuing non-conventional sources of energy for various applications for a long time now. Several technologies—solar heating, solar photovoltaic, biomass, wind—have been demonstrated over the years. Currently, renewable sources of energy make up for about 5% of grid electricity produced in the country. This is impressive growth compared to 2.7% that is contributed by nuclear energy despite huge investments made in that sector. Despite the growing contribution of renewables to the national power kitty, about 125,000 or 21% villages remain in dark and not all households have power in the villages electrified. While the government efforts continue to spread solar and biomass based lighting, heating and power systems in villages, efforts in the non-governmental sector have shown that decentralized, off-grid power generation through biomass-based gasifiers and solar photovoltaics offers a viable, long-term solution to rural electrification. Though government policies now recognize decentralized power generation, they do not see it as a preferred mode of rural electrification nor do they foresee a major role for voluntary agencies and people's organizations in decentralized power generation through renewable sources. While technology has shown the way, right policy initiatives and enabling environment are lacking to use decentralized power generation through renewables as an input in overall development process.     

Personality and pay satisfaction: exploring the influence of organizational justice and gender in South Africa

This study contributes to the limited established empirical research on the impact and relevance of individual-level personality variables, specifically the broad dispositional trait, core self-evaluations, on the pay satisfaction of historically disadvantaged individuals. In light of recent inquiries which document the important causal role of personality attributes in the emergence of fairness perceptions, this study examines the mediating role of justice perceptions on the relationship between core self-evaluations and pay satisfaction. Using a sample of historically disadvantaged individuals from South Africa, our results show that organizational justice perceptions fully mediate the relationship between core self-evaluations and pay satisfaction. Furthermore, this study finds that gender moderates the relationship between core self-evaluations and pay satisfaction such that self-confident historically disadvantaged females are more satisfied with their pay than their male counterparts.     

Dealing with existing theory: national fatality rates,vehicle standards and personal safety

Abstract

In this paper we discuss some of the weaknesses in exiting theories and understandings behind road safety interventions and policy making. The paper deals with four main issues: road traffic fatality rates and per capita income of countries, vehicle crashworthiness standards, role of pedestrian and powered two-wheeler share in traffic on fatalities, and safety standards for vehicles other than cars. Recent data indicate that there may not be a strong relationship between income and road safety performance and it is possible for low and middle-income countries (LMIC) to decrease death rates at present income levels. Safer cars have had a major role in reducing fatality rates, but, gains in traffic safety in high income countries may be partly due to reducing exposure of vulnerable road users. Small lightweight vehicles (like tuk-tuks, three-wheeled scooter taxis) operating in many LMIC appear to have low fatality rates though they do not follow any crashworthiness standards. Very different crashworthiness standards need to be developed for low mass vehicles incapable of operating speeds greater than 50?km/h. LMIC may not be able to reduce fatality rates below about 7 per 100,000 population unless there are innovative developments in road design and all vehicle safety standards.     

Motivation and ability in the decision to acquire

This study considers the decision to undertake an acquisition using a framework built around the concepts of motivation and ability to acquire. The paper develops an integrative model to examine how firm characteristics contribute to motivation and ability in predicting the likelihood of an acquisition and draws on two streams of literature to motivate the model: behavioral theory of the firm to explain a firm's motivation to acquire, and absorptive capacity to explain a firm's ability to acquire. Results from a publicly traded sample show that firms failing to meet aspirations (i.e., those with motivation) are more likely to acquire, as are firms that have a high absorptive capacity (i.e., those with ability). Most interestingly, absorptive capacity moderates the influence of performance shortfalls in the decision to acquire and is most important when the motivation to acquire is low.     

Hierarchical effects of product attributes on actualized innovativeness in the context of high-tech products

This paper examines the influence of product attributes in high-tech products on consumers' actualized innovativeness. In Stage 1, product attributes are identified based on interviews with consumers. In Stage 2, a survey is conducted with a different set of consumers in order to classify the product attributes into primary, secondary or tertiary attributes and to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that primary, secondary and tertiary attributes have a reverse hierarchical influence on actualized innovativeness. That is, tertiary attributes influence the actualized innovativeness most, followed by secondary, and then by primary attributes. However, only primary attributes positively moderate the relationship between inherent and actualized innovativeness. These results can help marketing researchers and practitioners understand the influence of product attributes on behavioral aspects of consumer innovativeness.