Impact of farmer group participation on the adoption of sustainable farming practices—spatial analysis of New Zealand dairy farmers

This paper analyzes the impact of participation in farmer groups on dairy farmers’ adoption of sustainable farming practices in New Zealand. A spatial propensity score matching method is used to consider the spatial dependence and social connections between farmers in the decision-making of farmer group participation and adoption of sustainable farming practices. The results show that farmers’ decisions of farmer group participation are affected by their neighbors’ choices, and participation in farmer groups has a positive effect on farmers’ adoption of sustainable farming practices. The findings indicate the important role of social interactions in farmers’ voluntary uptake of sustainable agricultural practices. Overall, the positive effect of farmer group participation on the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices highlights learning and knowledge spillover among farmers, which emerges as important to the formulation of sustainable farming policy.     

Agricultural commercialisation,asset growth and poverty in rural Vietnam

Poverty remains a substantial threat in rural areas of many developing countries, and solving this problem requires an in-depth understanding of the income generating capacity that determines poverty. This paper examines the impact of agricultural commercialisation on the capability of rural households to accumulate and productively use assets and reduce structural and multidimensional poverty. A longitudinal dataset of around 2000 households with a total of 9781 observations from five rural surveys undertaken in the period 2008–2017 in Vietnam is used. Results from a fixed effects regression with an instrumental variable and a control function approach show that agricultural commercialisation has a positive effect on the accumulation of assets and reduces multidimensional and structural poverty over time. However, the effect is not homogeneous and is larger for households that are not mainly engaged in rice commercialisation. This suggests that commercialisation can be a path out of poverty, especially if policy makers move towards utilising other crops instead of rice.     

Adapting to the new normal: A sustainable livelihood framework for the informal sectors during COVID-19

The extraordinary COVID-19 outbreak has heightened the existential dangers to the informal sector. This study explores the informal sector's tactics in Vietnam for mitigating the pandemic's effects and better adapting to the new normal. Using a sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) and multivariate model for ordered choices (MVOC) to conduct surveys on 513 subjects from the informal labor, our findings indicate that financial management is the most prevalent technique for mitigating the effects of COVID-19. Notably, the perception of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on income and health is crucial to the adoption of mitigation efforts. The Vietnamese government, State Bank, and financial institutions should provide more help to the informal sector, particularly those operating in remote locations so that they can increase their resilience through mitigating measures. In parallel, the informal sector should participate in more deliberate forward mitigation planning in the anticipation of inevitable future shocks.     

Corruption and corporate leverage in an emerging economy: The role of economic freedom

This study investigated the effects of corruption and economic freedom on corporate leverage. We also evaluated how economic freedom shapes the effect of corruption on corporate leverage. Using a sample of Vietnamese firms covering a nine-year period from 2010 to 2018, we find evidence that increased control of corruption has a significant positive impact on firm leverage, whereas the opposite is true for economic freedom. This effect is robust to alternative measures of control of corruption as well as advanced estimation methods, such as firm-fixed effects and quantile regressions. Our results also reveal that the positive impact of corruption controls on corporate leverage is more pronounced for firms with high economic freedom. Econometrically, our findings indicate that firms with better control over corruption prefer debt financing, as demonstrated by their higher leverage ratio.     

Can microcredit reduce vulnerability to poverty? Evidence from rural Vietnam

Extant literature has extensively explored microcredit's impacts, confirming its essential role in poverty alleviation. However, most studies focus on poverty measures that exclusively emphasize current poverty status without adequately addressing the potential of falling into or remaining in poverty. Furthermore, the role of credit services in helping the poor in rural areas appears to be underexamined in the literature. To address this knowledge gap, this study investigates whether rural microcredit can reduce household vulnerability to poverty. A theoretical framework is developed to capture the mechanism by which microcredit borrowing has a vital role in household businesses and impacts the probability of being poor in the future. The Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey data set from 2008 to 2016 is used to explore this issue. The findings indicate that rural Vietnam's access to microcredit significantly reduces vulnerability to poverty. Moreover, better-off households are seemingly the most effective at using microcredit, whereas the opposite is found among worse-off households. These results are found to be robust using the propensity score matching method.     

Supporting worklife learning at work to sustain employability

The concept of employability extends beyond initial occupational preparation into the ability to remain employable as, inevitably, occupational capacities and workplace requirements change frequently across working lives. Hence, the need to continually learn to remain occupationally current and respond to changing workplace requirements becomes paramount. The evidence suggests that much of that learning arises through individual efforts and the support of co-workers through work activities. So, there is a need to understand how that learning can be supported to sustain employability across lengthening working lives. Drawing on an Australian study, reported here are perspectives from managers and workers in diverse workplaces about current modes of continuing education and training and about how workers are assisted with their learning to meet personal needs and qthose of employers. Employers want an occupationally current workforce that can meet specific workplace needs; workers want the capacities to remain employable, which may extend to advancing their careers elsewhere. The data indicate differences in perceptions about what is being provided, how frequently the provisions are used, and the worth of its certification. Whilst the findings indicate shared concerns about the importance of learning, there were clear differences in views about the models and processes used to support that learning. Across both sets of informants can be seen distinctions between ‘training solutions’ and ‘learning solutions’. A more nuanced analysis suggests that the training solution is appropriate and effective at some point in workers' worklife trajectories but in other circumstances, learning through practice is proposed as being more efficacious.     

Corporate carbon assurance and the quality of carbon disclosure

Based on an international sample, this study examines the association between corporate carbon assurance and carbon disclosure. We find that companies that adopt carbon assurance tend to have better carbon disclosure quality than their unassured peers. Cross-sectional analyses demonstrate that the positive relationship is stronger in stakeholder-oriented countries. We also document that carbon assurance plays a substitutive role for country-level carbon regulation and social trust. Further analyses suggest that carbon assurance has differential impacts on specific types of carbon disclosure and the quality of carbon disclosure increases with the percentage of reported emissions assured and the level of carbon assurance.     

An evaluation of the impacts of the adoption of IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers

This paper evaluates the impact of IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers on the value relevance of financial reports for Australian listed firms. We find that for most firms the impacts of transition were immaterial, however some firms experienced a significant reduction in earnings and/or retained earnings and for these firms the value relevance of earnings was generally lower in the pre-adoption period compared to firms in which there was no material impact. Post adoption, there is little evidence that the standard improved the relevance of earnings generally.