Same-sex sexual behaviour: US frequency estimates from survey data with simultaneous misreporting and non-response

Survey-based research concerning sexual behaviour almost inevitably confronts the simultaneous problems of misreporting and non-response. These problems lead to disparities among estimates of the number and characteristics of those who engage in same-sex sexual behaviour. This paper proposes a statistical model to consistently estimate the frequency of same-sex sexual behaviour in the presence of non-ignorable misreporting and non-response. The model is fitted using 1991–2000 General Social Survey data. Frequency estimates corrected for simultaneous misreporting and non-response are reported. According to the model, 7.1% of US males and 4.1% of females – 15.8 million individuals – are not exclusively heterosexual. Allowing for misreporting and non-response increases the estimated same-sex frequency by more than four million. The model reveals new patterns between misreporting and non-response probabilities and standard demographic variables such as age and income.     

Net private capital flows and economic growth–the case of emerging Asian economies

This article makes an exploratory empirical investigation into the relationship between net private capital flows and economic growth using a panel dataset from emerging Asian countries, namely South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, over the period 1980–2001. Overall, this article indicates that net private capital helps to promote economic growth for the countries in the sample. In addition, this article also supports the view that net private capital flows will better contribute to economic growth under a sound policy and economic environment. This article also seeks to improve the estimation results by controlling for reverse causality as an econometric method that can control, for reverse causality is very important to examining the relationship between net private capital flows and economic growth. To tackle this issue, this article employs the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation technique, which is an econometric technique that can handle the reverse causality using the lagged explanatory variables as instruments.     

The reception of Anglo leadership styles in a transforming society: the case of American companies in Vietnam

This article examines the transfer of Anglo leadership styles in a transforming society. It aims to investigate the transferability of two American leadership styles, namely performance-oriented and participative styles, to Vietnamese subsidiaries. Utilising an exploratory case study approach, this article presents evidence of a strong acceptance of these leadership styles, and tries to ascertain whether the adoption of a humane style of leadership in line with Vietnamese traditions is a means of leaders reconciling the cultural gap. Several complexities arise from the transforming nature of the Vietnamese socio-political and economic context. Specifically, the importance of subcultures – particularly those relating to generation – is highlighted. Situational contingencies, such as the skills set of the recipient group, also emerge as important considerations. Finally, the authors call for leadership dynamism as a means of facilitating congruence and adaptability between the leadership styles used and the various contextual complexities encountered in the transfer and reception process.     

Tracing the causes of the banking crisis

We add the Bernanke–Gertler–Gilchrist model to a modified version of the Smets–Wouters model of the U.S. in order to explore the causes of the banking crisis. The innovation of this article is estimating the model using unfiltered data allowing for non-stationary shocks in order to replicate how the model predicts the crisis. We find that ‘traditional shocks’ account for most of the fluctuations in macroeconomic variables; the non-stationarity of the productivity shock plays a key role. Crises occur when there is a ‘run’ of bad shocks; based on this sample they occur on average once every 64 years and when they occur around 10% are accompanied by financial crisis. Financial shocks on their own, even when extreme, do not cause crises – provided the government acts swiftly to counteract such a shock as happened in this sample.     

Determinants of bilateral trade: evidence from ASEAN+3

In this research, we investigate the determinants of international trade, employing a dataset of bilateral trade and economics characteristics in the ASEAN+3 countries. We include a large number of independent variables that potentially drive international trade. We also use various standard gravity model variables to maintain consistency with the current literature. The results provide some important insights into the determinants of bilateral trade and offer policy implications regarding the promotion of international trade for governments worldwide. In particular, we find that output asymmetry between countries positively explains bilateral trade. Moreover, the findings suggest that making use of comparative advantage by differentiating the export product structure is important in promoting international trade. We do not find a consistent impact from bilateral exchange rate volatility on bilateral trade. This result points to the importance of providing opportunities for the hedging of currency uncertainty to avoid its adverse effects on trade. The results for other standard gravity model variables are consistent with the results of previous theoretical and empirical research.     

Volatility and Price Jumps in Agricultural Futures Prices—Evidence from Wheat Options

Evidence suggests that agricultural futures price movements have fat-tailed distributions and exhibit sudden and unexpected price jumps. There is also evidence that the volatility of futures prices is time-dependent both as a function of calendar-time (seasonal effect) and time to maturity (maturity effect). This article extends Bates' (1991) jump-diffusion option pricing model by including both seasonal and maturity effects in the volatility specification. Both in-sample and out-of-sample procedures to fit market option prices on wheat futures show that the suggested model outperforms previous published models. A numerical example shows the magnitude of pricing errors for option valuation.     

Corporate Governance and Performance in Publicly Listed,Family-Controlled Firms: Evidence from Taiwan

Using a multi-industry dataset of 228 firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) this paper analyses the effects of ownership structure and board characteristics on performance in large, publicly traded firms that are controlled by founding families. After taking account of possible endogeneity problems, we do not find that family control is associated with performance measured in terms of accounting ratios, sales per issued capital, earnings per share and market-to-book value. However, share ownership by institutional investors, and foreign financial institutions in particular, is associated with better performance. Our results indicate that board independence from founding family and board members’ financial interests have a positive impact on performance.     

Liquidity and Return Relationships in an Emerging Market

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between liquidity and stock returns in the Vietnam stock market during the global financial crisis. Vietnam is one of a new group of frontier emerging markets referred to as CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa). We use a rich and detailed data set of firm characteristics to identify a positive relationship between liquidity and stock returns. This contradicts the negative correlation typically found in stock returns in developed markets. Our results support the proposition that when a market is not fully integrated with the global economy, a lack of liquidity will be a less important risk factor. Our findings contribute to those studies that highlight the diversification benefits from including frontier markets, which have a lower degree of integration with the global economy, in international portfolios.     

Regional differences in the production processes of financial and social outputs of microfinance institutions

This study uses panel data of microfinance institutions across the world to compare production processes across regions, assess the relevance of unobserved heterogeneity and estimate economies of scale. Comparing a financial production process to a multidimensional production process that accounts for the presence of outreach in the objective function suggests that financial and social output reflect complements in South Asia but not in other regions. Furthermore, we find substantial economies of scale for a pure financial production process. However, accounting for outreach lowers estimated economies of scale, suggesting that producing outreach creates high transaction costs and requires exploitation of local knowledge.