Efficiency in the provision of social care for older people. A three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis using self-reported quality of life

Using a three-stage data envelopment analysis approach, this paper explores efficiency in the provision of social care for older people in 148 English Councils in 2009/10. Departing from D'Amico and Fernández (2012) [31] our measure of efficiency is inscribed within the production of welfare framework and based on self-reported quality of life of recipients of the services. Our results indicate a high level of efficiency, but once we control for the effects of a number of environmental variables, we found that more stringent eligibility criteria and higher assessment costs are negatively associated with the efficiency in the provision of social services.     

Barriers to the investment in the Concentrated Solar Power sector in Morocco: A foresight approach using the Cross Impact Analysis for a large number of events

The Scenario Analysis methods have often been used by policy makers as an instrument to manage uncertainty and to support the shaping of long-term economy policies. In this research, we apply Scenario Analysis in order to identify the barriers affecting the decision to invest in the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) sector in Morocco. Our results aim at facilitating the process of defining different paths in strategic political and policy actions. Using data from a survey on a panel of experts, the Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) and the Cross Impact Matrix System (SMIC) techniques are applied. The advantage of these techniques is that they allow including in the analysis the interlinkages between the events that will define the future scenarios. However, their limitation is that the number of events analyzed cannot be too high since the information collected from the experts increases exponentially according to the number of events introduced. We thus expand our analysis with a new methodological approach, combining the use of prospective and statistics techniques. This approach allows addressing the mentioned limitation and applying these techniques, initially restricted to 6 events in its common application, to a large number of events. The results show that uncertainty and informality would be key factors in promoting the arrival of companies in this sector. Additionally, regarding companies that already have a presence in Morocco’s renewable energy sector, an increase in activity would be achieved through improvements in the easing of financial and legal barriers.     

Social entrepreneurship as an essentially contested concept: Opening a new avenue for systematic future research

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an active area of practice and research within the last three decades. Nevertheless, in spite of its growing popularity, scholars and practitioners are far from reaching a consensus as to what social entrepreneurship actually means. This has resulted in a number of different definitions and approaches within the field of social entrepreneurship. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the ongoing contestation of social entrepreneurship and to offer a novel conceptual understanding of the concept that can facilitate the development of systematic and structured future research. To this end, we analyze social entrepreneurship on the basis of the theory of essentially contested concepts, which was proposed by Walter Bryce Gallie in 1956. Building upon this theory, this article shows that social entrepreneurship can be regarded as an essentially contested concept and that a universal definition that would be accepted among contestant parties is hardly possible. Responding to this recognition, the article proposes the conceptualization of social entrepreneurship as a cluster concept, which can serve as a conceptual tool to help advancing social entrepreneurship as a coherent field of research despite its contested nature.     

DETERMINANTS OF SOVEREIGN BONDS RATINGS: A ROBUSTNESS ANALYSIS

Several studies have attempted to deduce the determinants of sovereign bond ratings. In this study, Extreme Bounds Analysis is applied to approximately 30 factors proposed by the literature in order to assess their robustness with a focus on the relative importance that economic and political variables receive in the shaping of the ratings. We find that policies that constrain the public sector are among the most robust. Variables such as rule of law, openness to economic flows, central bank independence, and market friendly policies are found to be more robustly correlated with the ratings than foreign reserves, fiscal deficit, sovereign bond yields, and economic growth.     

Health and cosmetics: Investigating consumers’ values for buying organic personal care products

In investigating consumers’ intentions to re-purchase organic personal care products (PCP), this study extends the theory of planned behaviour by including perceived value dimensions as the antecedents of attitude in the model. The findings revealed that most of the hypothesised relationships linking the consumer perceived value constructs (namely, health, safety, hedonic and environmental) with attitude towards the rebuying of organic PCP, were supported. Also, better product knowledge about organic PCP would lead to more positive attitudes towards re-purchasing the product. In contrast, social value was not important in predicting attitude. Similarly, the influence of subjective norm on rebuying intention was not supported. In terms of ranking of importance with regards to prediction of re-purchasing intention, attitude was the most important predictor followed by perceived behavioural control, product knowledge, hedonic value, environmental value and safety value.     

我国行政审批制度改革的力场分析与突破策略

行政审批是政府对市场和社会资源进行配置的前置性管理手段。为了与社会主义市场经济体制相匹配,我国在行政审批改革中设立了减少审批项目、规范审批行为、实现制度创新和推进依法行政的改革目标。但根据力场分析理论,在行政审批制度改革过程中由于对相关主体利益的重新分配造成改革力场中存在驱动力和制约力。通过研究改革中决策者、执行者、受规制者和消费者的利益取向,可以获知驱动力和制约力的强弱,并推算出制度变迁的方向。为了使行政审批制度改革能够顺利推行,还需进一步分析制约力存在的方式并寻求相应的突破策略。     

农业创业情境下商业模式设计的影响机制研究——基于模糊集定性比较分析

农业创业者如何通过整合与管理资源与能力，设计新颖型商业模式创造更多价值，是实现乡村振兴战略的关键措施。文章基于资源编排、商业模式理论，以央视《致富经》栏目40个案例为样本，运用模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）方法，剖析资源编排、机会能力、创业学习所构成的前因变量组态对农业创业活动中商业模式设计的影响机制。研究发现，资源编排在农业创业活动中发挥不可或缺的关键作用；相较于资源结构化和资源捆绑，资源利用在新颖型商业模式设计中的作用更为突出；机会能力须与资源编排共同作用，方可实现新颖型商业模式设计；在资源编排作用缺乏时，创业学习的发挥有助于新颖型商业模式设计的形成。研究成果诠释了农业创业情境下资源编排、机会能力与创业学习对商业模式设计的影响机制，为开展农业创业活动提供指导。     

玉林市存贷比运行特征、存在问题及对策建议——基于桂东四市比较

存贷款比例是银行业金融机构经营管理的重要指标之一,存贷比例过低不利于地方经济的发展。广西玉林市自2000年以来,存贷差逐年扩大,存贷比长期在低位徘徊,2013年存贷比在广西全区排最后一名。本文通过桂东四市（玉林市、梧州市、贺州市、贵港市）经济金融主要指标对比,分析玉林市银行业金融机构存贷比运行特征,揭示造成玉林市低存贷比的原因,提出提高存贷比的相关措施以及科学合理看待存贷比的建议。     

央行货币政策报告文本信息、宏观经济与股票市场

本文利用金融情感词典和文本分析技术,分析中国人民银行货币政策执行报告的文本情绪、文本相似度和文本可读性等多维文本信息,刻画央行货币政策执行报告的文本特征,探究货币政策报告的文本信息与宏观经济和股票市场的关系。实证研究发现,货币政策报告的文本情绪的改善会引起显著为正的股票市场价格反应,报告文本相似度的增加会引起股票市场波动性的显著降低,报告可读性对公布后股票市场的波动性影响不显著。货币政策报告文本情绪还与诸多宏观经济指标显著相关。进一步研究发现,引起股票市场显著反应的是报告文本情绪中反映货币政策指引的部分,而反映宏观经济历史状态的部分对股票市场的影响不显著。本文从文本大数据分析角度证明了我国央行沟通的有效性,对国内央行沟通相关研究形成了有益补充。