Do Foreign Firms Transfer Gender Norms in the Labour Market? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Closing the gender gaps in economic opportunities is crucial for boosting economic growth and the empowerment of women. In this paper, we study how foreign firms contribute in reducing gender disparities in the labour market by transferring the gender norms of their country of origin to the affiliates in the host countries. We use cross sectional data on foreign firms located in 19 Sub Saharan Africa countries in 2010 by UNIDO. We find that firms coming from more gender equal countries employ more female workers in their affiliates. This effect is more relevant for the highly skilled female workers.     

Governance or reputation? Flexible tax enforcement and excess goodwill: Evidence from the taxpaying credit rating system in China

This study investigates the effect of flexible tax enforcement on firms’ excess goodwill using unique manually collected data on taxpaying credit rating in China from 2014 to 2021. We document that A-rated taxpayer firms have less excess goodwill; A-rated firms reduce excess goodwill by 0.005 vis-a-vis non-A-rated firms, which accounts for 100% of the mean value of excess goodwill. This finding holds after multiple robustness tests and an endogeneity analysis. Moreover, this negative effect is more pronounced in firms with low information transparency, that are non-state-owned and that are located in regions with low tax enforcement intensity. The channel test results suggest that taxpaying credit rating system as flexible tax enforcement reduces firms’ excess goodwill through a reputation-based effect and not a governance-based effect. This study reveals that the taxpaying credit rating system in China as flexible tax enforcement can bring halo effect to A rating firms, thereby limiting irrational M&As and breaking goodwill bubble.     

关于解决流动性过剩问题的初步思考

本文从流动性的内涵和外延入手,分析了我国流动性过剩的全球背景和我国流动性过剩的表现及结构性特点,提出了解决流动性过剩,要坚持"市场为主、各方联动、化多为少、化少为多、标本兼治、综合解决"的思路,指出当前重点是解决经常账户顺差过大,流动性过剩的来源问题,以及农村地区资金匮乏,导致资金配置结构性失衡的问题。     

社会资本与妇女农民工就业

在妇女农民工从农业到非农业的职业流动过程中,社会资本是影响其流动决策的重要变量之一,对其就业发挥了不可替代的作用.但由于所拥有的社会资本量极其有限等重要因素的影响,妇女农民工基本上都属于"非正规就业",地位低下.改变这种状况的根本办法之一就是采取多种措施有效增加其社会资本的积累.     

Female participation in African labor markets: The role of information and communication technologies

This article investigates the effects of information and communication technologies (ICT) on female labor force participation in a sample of 48 African countries. We specify and estimate linear regression and dynamic panel data models with fixed effects (FE) and system-generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) estimation over the period 2001–2017. The three main results are that ICT use (mobile phone and internet) significantly stimulates female labor force participation in Africa; this effect is enhanced by financial development and female education; the effect of ICT on female employment in Africa is strongest in the industrial sector. These results remain robust to the provision of social, cultural, and institutional variables.     

The female tourist experience in Egypt as an Islamic destination

In Islamic destinations female tourists face the added challenge of negotiating their way through male constructed local norms. This paper fills the gap in gender and tourism research with a focus on female tourists’ experiences in Egypt as an Islamic destination, outlining the diverse ways in which gender shapes and influences their experiences. A qualitative approach was taken to explore women’s coping strategies with the male sexualised gaze that they encountered during their holiday in Egypt, and sheds light on measures taken towards safeguarding themselves. Their experiences were highly influenced and often involuntarily altered by unwanted male attention and sexual harassment, as the women felt the need to fit into local female norms of behaviour in order to safeguard themselves.     

The Load Model: an alternative to QALY

Background: QALYs are widely used in health economic evaluation, but remain controversial, largely because they do not reflect how many people behave in practice. This paper presents a new conceptual model (Load Model) and illustrates it in comparison with the QALY model.

Methods: Load is the average annual weight attributed to morbidity and mortality over a defined period, using weightings based on preference judgements. Morbidity Load is attributed to states of illness, according to their perceived severity. When people are in full health, Load is zero (no morbidity). Death is treated as an event with negative consequences, incurred in the year following death. Deaths may be weighted equally, with a fixed negative weight such as ?100, or differ according to the context of death. After death, Load is zero. In a worked example, we use the standard gamble method to obtain a weighting for an illness state, for both Load and QALY models. A judge is indifferent between certainty of 1.5 years’ illness followed by death, or a 50/50 chance of 1.5 years’ full health or 1-year illness, each followed by death. The weightings calculated are applied to a hypothetical life, 72 years in full health followed by 3 years with illness then death, using both models. Three other hypothetical outcomes are also compared.

Results: For an example life, the relative size of the morbidity component compared with the mortality component is much higher in the Load model than in the QALY model. When comparing alternative outcomes, there are also substantial differences between the two models.

Conclusions: In the Load model the weight of morbidity, relative to mortality, is very different from that in the QALY model. Given the role of the QALYs in economic evaluation, the implications of an alternative, which generates very different results, warrant further exploration.     

Excess capacity,production technology and technical inefficiency in hospitality sector

This article examines the effects of excess capacity on the production cost and technical inefficiency of hotels and restaurants in Norway. The dataset includes a daily unbalanced panel of 94 hotels and restaurants from 2003 to 2014. To accommodate inefficiency, we use an input distance function (IDF). Inefficiency in the IDF means that if inputs are overused by k% then production cost is also increased by k%. We also allow inefficiency to differ across locations and regions by using them as determinants. The results indicate that excess capacity considerably affects the cost and increases inefficiency. The marginal effect on cost increases with excess capacity, but the effect on inefficiency sets in when it exceeds 50 percent. Furthermore, we find less overuse of inputs by firms in small metro towns and the Northern region causing them to be more efficient [except for the Southern and Western regions] than their counterparts.     

Enrichment for retail businesses: How female entrepreneurs and masculine traits enhance business success

Studies indicate that more male entrepreneurs are pursuing business ventures than their female counterparts. Latterly, there has been increased research interest in female entrepreneurs and their positive contribution to the retail economy. The main purpose of this study was to examine how some specific masculine traits can be enculturated into individuals (i.e. female entrepreneurs). The study also reviewed literature that discussed reasons which hinder female entrepreneurs in the retail world. The reasons range from being risk averse, being too agreeable and being overly anxious about failure. Through qualitative research exploration of female entrepreneurs, semi-structured interviews were undertaken to examine and understand their experiences. Themes which emerged from questioning the ten female entrepreneurs enabled the researcher to construct a theoretical framework. Analysis of the content findings showed that female entrepreneurs were indeed willing to adopt specific masculine traits. The result of this investigation is that through implementing specific masculine traits, female entrepreneurs have greater chances of success in their retail businesses. Although the research presented valid findings regarding the benefits of masculine traits on the retail industry, the research was limited by the sample size and the location of the research. This contribution remains unique in the way that it provides valuable information to the retail industry about the process of overcoming failure through enculturating masculine traits into female entrepreneurs.     

Fertility and the puzzle of female employment in the Middle East and North Africa

Female labour force participation rates across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have remained low for over four decades even though, in the same period, women's education rapidly increased and fertility rates substantially decreased. This study provides a better understanding of this surprising phenomenon by testing whether the number of children affects the mother's labour supply (using twins at first birth as an instrumental variable.) Despite a strong first stage, it does not find statistically significant effects in the second stage, even in the combined sample of over 100,000 observations. This non‐result, however, does not rule out that fertility affects women's employment in these countries. But it rejects impacts larger than 0.09. Similar twin‐studies in the United States found effects between 0.12 and 0.31. The paper discusses the implications of this result in understanding the puzzle of female participation in MENA and in designing policies to increase women's employment.