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Tapping into talent: coupling education and innovation policies for economic growth
No full textHow do innovation and education policy affect individual career choices and aggregate productivity? This paper analyzes the effect of R&D subsidies and higher education policy on productivity growth through the supply of innovative talent. We put scarce talent, higher education attainment, and career choice at the center of a new endogenous growth framework with individual-level heterogeneity in talent, financial resources, and preferences. We link the model to micro-level data from Denmark on the backgrounds of who obtains a PhD and becomes an inventor and the outcomes of a set of policy interventions. We find that R&D subsidies can be strengthened when combined with higher education subsidies, which enable talented but poor youth to pursue a career in research. Education and innovation policies not
only alleviate different frictions, but also impact innovation at different time horizons. Education policy is more effective in societies with higher income inequality
Spouses’ health: what happens beyond the widowhood effect?
No full textObjectives. We focus on married couples, and we analyse how the susceptibility and survival of individuals can be influenced by the illnesses and death experienced by their spouses. Methods. We perform a cohort study following married couples (age 65–75 years) from 2001 to 2013. We monitor individual’s susceptibility status and three spouses’ illnesses (i.e. diabetes, cancer, and mental diseases). The methodology used is the Cox regression. Results. The initial cohort is composed of 22,639 couples. During the follow-up, 24% of the individuals dies, 91% experiences at least one susceptibility increase and 43% experiences one spouse’s illness. Results from the Cox regressions report a change in the individual health that is specifically related to the occurrence of the spouse’s diseases and death. Moreover, the three diseases hit individuals differently. Discussion. What emerges from this work is the importance of considering the mechanism of the widowhood effect with an extensive approach
Business and Human Rights: From National to International and Back Again
Get PDFThe negative impacts on individuals’ enjoyment of human rights stemming from the activities of private economic actors such as corporations, including those which carry out activities of a transnational character, have long been documented. Impunity of corporations for their adverse human rights impacts, however, has been a recurrent problem at the national level. This has commonly been attributed to many national governments’ lack of will or ability to regulate effectively the conduct of corporations with respect to human rights or to enforce any such regulation. Against this background, various constituencies have looked to international human rights law to compel states to regulate corporate conduct. Under international human rights law, however, the substantive requirements of the human rights obligations of states with respect to the activities of corporations remain vaguely defined. As for corporations themselves, they do not currently bear human rights obligations under international law. Given these limitations, voluntary or non-binding regulatory approaches have been relied on to date in the field of business and human rights. At the international level, specifically, a number of non-binding instruments on business and human rights have been developed and adopted. The most significant of these non- binding instruments is the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which aim to provide guidance to states and corporate actors on responsible business behaviour, inter alia, with respect to human rights. While scholars and practitioners have questioned the effectiveness of this non-binding instrument in improving corporate behaviour with respect to human rights and in tackling corporate accountability gaps, the UNGPs have nonetheless acted as catalyst for the more recent, ongoing elaboration at the international level of a treaty on business and human rights. They have also informed the substance of this so-called ‘draft legally binding instrument’. Similarly, and until now more significantly, the UNGPs have inspired the development and informed the substance of a number of national laws which place certain human rights obligations on relevant categories of corporate actors at the domestic level. More recently, the UNGPs have arguably influenced and informed EU-wide legislation requiring Member States to place certain obligations on relevant categories of companies under their respective domestic law. This thesis explores the recent developments in the business and human rights regulatory journey through international and national law, a journey intertwined but not co-extensive with the regulatory journey from binding to non-binding and return. It examines these different levels, international and national, of this regulatory journey and their interaction. At the same time, it examines the function of non-binding instruments in the recent law-making efforts to tackle the negative externalities of corporate globalization
Rural-urban pay difference in the microfinance industry: evidence from developing countries
No full textPurpose: This study examines the rural-urban wage disparity in the microfinance sector, motivated by the increasing urban focus of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their emphasis on equitable compensation. It aims to test the existence of an urban wage premium and identify its key drivers. Study Design: Using panel data from 1810 MFIs across 111 developing countries (2007–2018), the study employs Fixed Effects Models and System Generalized Method of Moments to analyze average employee salaries, urban versus rural loan distribution, and firm-level metrics like operational self-sufficiency and portfolio quality. Findings: The study confirms a significant urban wage premium, reasonably driven by agglomeration effects, higher cost-of-living adjustments, and greater productivity in urban areas. Larger and financially stable MFIs also offer higher wages, regardless of location. Contributions: This research extends the urban wage premium literature to the microfinance context, incorporating firm-level factors to explain pay disparities. It provides a global perspective on wage inequality within MFIs. Implications: The findings recommend policy interventions to address rural-urban disparities, and future research into employee-level heterogeneity. They also guide practitioners in attracting and retaining talent across markets
Is legal knowledge practical?
No full textGiven the distinction between knowing-that and knowing-how, one could claim that legal knowledge is eminently practical: one who knows the law enjoys some form of knowing-how, namely, how to exercise certain intellectual faculties, or how to perform certain activities like interpreting legal texts or arguing a case. I present some arguments to the effect that legal knowledge is not practical, being rather propositional in nature, as knowing-that instead of knowing-how. This is not to deny, though, that such activities like interpretation and argumentation are extremely important in the legal domain. I also consider whether legal knowledge is practical in a different sense, namely, with a view to decision and action. I contend that it is not practical in this sense either, even if it is mainly used for practical purposes
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Analyzing the Impact of Blockchain Technology on Traceability for SMEs
No full textFirms save from bonds but not from loans
No full textWe empirically study the corporate propensity to save from bonds versus loans. Our findings indicate that firms save approximately 14 cents of every dollar borrowed through bonds, while they do not exhibit similar savings behavior with loans. Saving from bonds is pervasive over time, and in the cross-section pledgeability is a key driver of this behavior. Specifically, we find that lower asset tangibility and shorter asset maturities are linked to substantial increases in saving rates from bond borrowings. We show that our results align with a model that incorporates external financing frictions and costly default
Economic inequality is fueled by population scale, land-limited production, and settlement hierarchies across the archaeological record
Get PDFDefining wealth broadly to include wealth in people, relational connections, and material possessions, we examine the prehistory of wealth inequality at the level of the residential units using the consistent proxy of Gini coefficients calculated across areas of contemporaneous residential units. In a sample of >1,100 sites and > 47,000 residential units spanning >10,000 y, persistent wealth inequality typically lags the onset of plant cultivation by more than a millennium. It accompanies landscape modifications and subsistence practices in which land (rather than labor) limits production, and growth of hierarchies of settlement size. Gini coefficients are markedly higher through time in settlements at or near the top of such hierarchies; settlements not enmeshed in these systems remain relatively egalitarian even long after plant and animal domestication. We infer that some households in top-ranked settlements were able to exploit the network effects, agglomeration opportunities, and (eventually) political leverage provided by these hierarchies more effectively than others, likely boosted by efficient intergenerational transmission of material resources after increased sedentism made that more common. Since population growth is associated with increased sedentism, more land-limited production, and the appearance and growth of settlement hierarchies, it is deeply implicated in the postdomestication rise of wealth inequality. Governance practices mediate the degree of wealth inequality, as do technical innovations such as the use of animals for portage, horseback riding, and the development of iron smelting
Detecting the key role of the family in explaining corporate heritage use in family firms
No full textThis paper looks at the socioemotional wealth (SEW) priorities to reveal how family involvement in the firms affects their use of heritage as a marketing signal, thereby leading to a corporate heritage identity. Built considering the distinction between extended and restricted family’s SEW framework, we find a direct relationship between the presence of a family CEO and the use of heritage, that is moderated by the family involvement in the board and by the generational stage. Our empirical analysis employs a quantitative approach applied to a sample of medium- and large-sized firms examined over the period from 2000 to 2016