Using partial identification methods to estimate the effect of violence against women on their children’s health outcomes

A growing literature in economics seeks to estimate the costs of violence against women by examining, for example, its impact on the health outcomes of their children. However, it is difficult to assign a causal interpretation to these nonexperimental studies due to the presence of unobservable characteristics affecting violence and health outcomes simultaneously. The lack of credible instrumental variables applicable in several countries further limits our knowledge. I address this gap by using new partial identification methods to estimate the relative size of the unobservables needed to eliminate the estimated effects in nonexperimental studies. I also expand the external validity of the analysis by using data from five standardized nationally representative household surveys in Latin America. Consistent with previous studies, cross-sectional estimates show large negative associations between violence against women and an array of child health outcomes. However, when accounting for omitted variable bias, at best, two-thirds of the estimates remain robust and they are concentrated on the outcomes with the largest cross-sectional estimated impacts.     

How should Engel's law be formulated?

Engel's law expresses a “negative stochastic association” of income and the proportion of income that is spent on food. However, there are many quite different notions of “negative stochastic association” and consequently there are different ways of defining Engel's law. We relate these different concepts to Engel's original statistical analysis and show that one must give credit to Engel for the first non-parametric statistical analysis of budget-data.     

Effects of perceived product quality and Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) on consumer price preferences for children's furniture in China

The effects of perceived product quality and orientation toward Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) on consumer price preferences were studied with the use of survey data of the children's furniture market in two metropolitan cities of China: Shanghai and Shenzhen. Based on the results from a factor analysis and logistic regression, consumers’ perceived product quality of children's furniture was identified as a four-dimensional construct: ‘supplier attributes’, ‘extended product attributes’, ‘basic product attributes’ and ‘environmental quality attributes’. Consumer price preferences were discovered to be negatively influenced by ‘basic product attributes’, but positively influenced by consumer orientation towards LOHAS, gender and education level. In conclusion, China's children's furniture market presents a high-end niche segment with growth potential for both furniture producers and wood material suppliers.     

The puzzle of greenhouse gas footprints of oil abundance

The present inquiry lays a groundwork for the analysis of the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of oil in the oil-abundant settings. To address the research question, the study puts forward a three-sector decision model, which provides a common ground for the assessment of the interaction of the structuralist and institutional factors influencing environmental pollution in the oil-reliant economies. The study shows that fossil-fuel abundance triggers forces, which induce diametrically opposed effects concerning atmospheric pollution. These are the rising carbon-intensive oil extraction and processing and fossil-fueled power generation versus shrinkage of the carbon-intensive manufacturing and growth of the low-carbon tertiarization. The theoretical analysis enables compartmentalization of the essential factors, which determine GHG emissions in the respective countries. To assess the significance of the proposed theoretical framework, the study employs multivariate panel co-integration techniques and two-stage fixed effects estimations for a dataset of 38 oil-producing countries for the time period between 1960 and 2018. In contrast to the existing literature, this study drives apart from the black box approaches that employ just one omnibus variable, per capita income.     

Creating Opportunities for Women in the Renewable Energy Sector: Findings from India

This paper identifies opportunities and constraints that low-income women face in accessing livelihoods in the renewable-energy sector in India through qualitative and quantitative research conducted in collaboration with The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) and the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in 2012–13. Whereas previous research has focused on women mostly as end users of solar and biomass technologies, this research attempts also to understand women's potential as entrepreneurs, facilitators, designers, and innovators. Findings reveal that although access to technology and employment in the energy sector is limited by inadequate purchasing power and low social status, there is tremendous potential to create livelihoods for women at all levels of the energy supply chain. Broader findings indicate that women can gain optimal traction from employment in the energy sector only if there are wider socially progressive policies in place, including state intervention to create a robust social welfare infrastructure and accessible, high-quality, public services.     

Gender gap in self‐employment: The role of risk attitudes

This paper examines the link between the willingness to take risk and the gender gap in self‐employment in the transition economy, where for decades entrepreneurship was considered a crime. Using rich data on risk preferences and entrepreneurial activities, we show that male–female risk tolerance differential is the main determinant of the gender gap in self‐employment in Ukraine. The decomposition results indicate that up to 38% of the gap can be attributed to this factor. Robustness tests support the validity of the baseline findings by suggesting that the results are not confounded by such factors as being unemployed before starting a current job, having a self‐employed household member, or living in a relatively wealthy household before transitioning to self‐employment.     

Consumer microflow experiences

This research explores relatively short, low‐intensity flow states, called microflow and demonstrates that they differ from their longer, more complex deepflow variants with regards to antecedents. As an advancement to flow theory, we demonstrate that the ideal condition to elicit microflow is when skills are slightly higher than the difficulty of the task. Importantly, despite being relatively shorter, microflow experiences still have a strong positive influence on consumer attitudes. Our research also advances theory by demonstrating that the two dimensions of microflow have different relationships with the level of difficulty and consumer attitudes. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications.     

La gestión mecanicista de las Instituciones de Educación Superior: un estudio desde la modelación sistémica

The bureaucratic tendencies to organize work in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of which facilitates personnel control and the mechanical ways to measure educational content are the ones that shatter education in pieces, under the hierarchy criterion, also shattering the professor's labor. This organizational method results in an incompetent education, leaving very negative consequences for teaching development. We address this problem by using systemic modeling and Structural Equations Systems (SEM) to confirm hypotheses from scientific observation. It was proven that there was a negative impact of mechanistic management which affected teacher's development. This was proven in context in two HEIs located in Villahermosa (Tabasco, Mexico).     

The Road to Sustainability: Exploring the Process of Corporate Environmental Strategy Over Time

We explore corporate environmental strategy over time, investigating the patterns of evolving environmental investment decisions. Longitudinal case studies provide evidence that environmental strategy evolves through a feedback process, wherein outcomes of earlier decisions have an impact on subsequent decisions. Specifically, positive feedback from outcomes like innovation triggers higher goals, enhancing the undertaking of advanced investments, whereas negative feedback from outcomes, such as increased costs, decelerates the adoption of further investments. The study points to an emergent view of environmental strategy, where capabilities that are gradually developed in concomitance with environmental outcomes lead to an upgrading of environmental goals, thus triggering the feedback process. The process eventually culminates in higher levels of environmental conduct, being more and more integrated with business strategy and competitive advantage. Managers' values and environmental attitudes influence environmental decisions and actions, affecting the acceleration of the feedback process and the magnitude of responses. Managerial implications are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Consumers' awareness,acceptance and attitudes towards functional foods in Turkey

The aim of the present study was to investigate consumers' awareness, acceptance and attitudes towards functional foods in Turkey. Eight hundred and eight people participated in this study: aged between 20 and 80 years, 38.5% were male and 61.5% were female. Participants were given a questionnaire and were asked to fill it in by themselves to minimize the influence of the interviewer. Results indicated that socio‐demographic characteristics such as age, education level and income level are important indicators of consumers' awareness and consumption of functional food. The results show that the female respondents were 2.987 times more aware of functional food than the male respondents. Similarly, the likelihood of respondents having awareness of functional food was 1.431 times greater among those who had a higher educational level than among those with a lower educational level. Consumers who used vitamin supplements were 1.228 times more aware of functional food than other consumers. The results show that older respondents were 3.395 times more aware of functional food than younger respondents. Respondents with a history of familial diseases were more likely than others to have consumed margarine with plant sterol, fruit juices fortified with vitamin C, and breakfast cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals. Those with a diet‐related problem were more likely to have consumed cholesterol‐lowering products than those without a problem. As a conclusion, this study has shown that socio‐demographic characteristics such as age, education and income levels, and prices are important indicators that influence consumers' awareness and consumption of functional food. These results suggest that this type of knowledge could affect consumers' interest in functional foods, and therefore educational strategies might be necessary to encourage the consumption of functional foods.