Racial/ethnic match and student–teacher relationships

This paper explores the role of teacher race/ethnicity in the teacher-perceived relationships with kindergarten and early elementary school students. Employing a model with both student and teacher fixed effects, we discover a positive link between the racial/ethnic match and the teacher-reported relationships with students. Specifically, minority students tend to have closer relationships with their teachers when they are taught by a minority teacher. Our analyses also provide suggestive evidence that the effects on the teacher–student relationships could not be driven by differential racial discrimination between white and minority teachers. Particularly, white and minority teachers are not differentially biased in judging their relationships with minority students, implying that the source of the racial/ethnic interaction effects is likely to come from the role modeling of behaviors. Given the importance of the relationships between young children and nonparental adults in their early stages of life, these findings have crucial policy implications.     

The impacts of women's land ownership: Evidence from Vietnam

Women's equal access to and control over economic resources such as land are integral to achieve gender equality and sustainable economic development. This study evaluates the impacts of women's land ownership on various women's and household's outcomes in the context of Vietnam. We discuss the beneficial effects of allowing women to own more land on both women and their families. In particular, there is a positive association between women's land ownership and intra-household bargaining power in various aspects. In particular, the relationship is the strongest for women's autonomy in decisions regarding their children. It is also easier for land-holding women to formally access credit and invest in human capital. We further study the favorable effects of women's land ownership on their families in terms of spending and saving behaviors. Finally, women's land ownership also contributes to household social capital. These findings lend support to the passage and implementation of laws intended to grant women equal rights to the ownership and control over land.     

Armed conflicts and women's authority in intra-household decision making

This paper evaluates the extent to which armed conflicts alter women's intra-household decision making in 51 countries over the past three decades (1990–2018). Exploiting the variations both within and across districts in the timing of battles, we uncover adverse consequences of armed conflict on women's engagement in household decisions on both financial and non-financial aspects. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the number of battles (equivalent to an increase of 5.1 battles) reduces the composite financial and non-financial decision indices of women by 2.32% and 1.34% relative to the sample averages. Breaking down the decision-making indices by looking at the underlying items, we further find that the declines in women's intra-household decision making come from reductions in all aspects of financial and non-financial domains.     

Energy Consumption and Bitcoin Market

Asia-Pacific Financial Markets - This paper is the first empirical paper to study the relationship between Bitcoin energy consumption and its market. Using the variance decompositions in...     

The impact of world oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables in Vietnam: the transmission through domestic oil price

This study examines the impact of world oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables in Vietnam with a focus on the transmission channel of domestic oil prices. The Structural Vector Autoregression model with two blocks of real economy variables and monetary variables is employed. The world oil price follows an autoregressive process to reflect the exogenous nature of world oil price shocks to the domestic economy. The retail domestic oil price is determined simultaneously by only the world oil price due to the government's control of the domestic oil market. Using monthly data in the period between 2009 and 2021, the study indicates that a positive shock to world oil prices will increase the domestic oil prices significantly, industrial production (slightly and only statistically significant in the third month after), and inflation (significantly in 8 months). Besides, the domestic oil price is not the only transmission channel of world oil price shocks to the economy. This result implies forecasting, assessing, and controlling the impact of the world oil price shock on the economy should focus on both domestic oil prices and other indirect channels.     

International Environmental Agreement and Trade in Environmental Goods: The Case of Kyoto Protocol

Environmental and Resource Economics - The Kyoto Protocol has received much criticism for its effectiveness as well as the spillover effect (i.e. carbon leakage and competitiveness loss). This...     

Impacts of fiscal decentralization on local development in Vietnam: A disaggregated analysis

After the Doi Moi reforms, Vietnam pursued fiscal decentralization to strengthen the autonomy and governance capacity of local governments. While several empirical studies analysed the impact of fiscal decentralization on the economic growth of Vietnamese provinces, very few studies examined its impact on their social development. This study represents an initial effort to fill this gap. The empirical analysis applied the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to an updated panel data of 63 Vietnamese provinces, spanning the period from 2011 to 2019. The results indicate a positive impact of fiscal decentralization on both economic and social development as well as efficiency of resource utilization for development targets. However, realizing the full potential of fiscal decentralization requires the fulfilment of certain conditions.