Scholars @Bentley (Bentley University)
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The Analytics of Vulnerable Populations in Brazil
Get PDFConditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs became a popular measure to alleviate poverty in Latin American countries. The Brazilian CCT program, called Bolsa Família, is the largest social welfare program in the country, covering a quarter of all Brazilian households. The objective of the program is to reduce poverty and malnutrition, while providing low-income families access to public services, such as health, education, and social assistance. Since the program is based on conditions of maintaining health and schooling for children, my dissertation comprises two studies that examine the impact of Bolsa Família on educational outcomes and unhealthy behaviors of its participants. The third chapter investigates direct and indirect associations between negative body image perception, depression, and risk behaviors among adolescents in Brazil.
In Chapter 1, I evaluate the impact of Brazil\u27s Bolsa Família program on the probability of dropping out of school, grade progression, and grade repetition. Prior literature has explored the impact of this program on educational outcomes, but these studies use methods that do not address endogeneity. To properly examine the effect of this program, this paper presents the Instrumental Variables method that controls for reverse causality and omitted variables. Consistent with the literature, my results show that the rate of dropping out of school decreases if the household participates in the program, but when addressing endogeneity, this effect is not significant. Surprisingly, in contrast with what is documented by the literature, I find that the rate of grade progression decreases among participants. Finally, I estimate that program participants increase the chance of grade repetition, which was not previously studied. These findings are important to understand the effectiveness of the program in maintaining children in school, contributing to the literature of public policy and causality estimation.
In Chapter 2, I investigate if participants of Bolsa Família are increasing their expenses with ultra-processed foods, alcohol, and smoking products. For these analyses, I use the Propensity Score Matching method. Different from the existing methodology, I incorporate a machine learning approach for better predictability of the propensity score. I present a comparison between Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, Support Vector Machines, Neural Networks, and Logistic Regression in propensity score estimation. My results show that program participants purchase more food and increase expenses with snacks, such as cookies and out-of-home pastries, but they are not purchasing more unhealthy products than non-participants. This study also contributes to the literature on machine learning models for econometrics estimation.
In Chapter 3, I evaluate direct and indirect associations between negative body image perception, depression, and risk behaviors among adolescents in Brazil. Literature has shown associations between these factors among adolescents, however, few studies analyze the Brazilian population. In this paper, I estimate the effects using Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG), a model that is based on a network of conditional independent nodes (Causal Markovian Condition), instead of theory. My results show similarities to the studies in the literature, validating DAG as a method of identifying directed links between variables. This model also finds associations not yet studied in the literature, shedding light on the vulnerability of Brazilian adolescents and their propensity to risk behaviors
Foundational research and NIH funding enabling Emergency Use Authorization of remdesivir for COVID-19
Get PDFEmergency Use Authorization for remdesivir months after discovery of COVID-19 is unprecedented. Typically, decades of research and public-sector funding are required to establish the mature body of foundational research requisite for efficient, targeted drug discovery and development. This work quantifies the body of research related to remdesivir’s biological target, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), or parent chemical structure, nucleoside analogs (NcAn), through 2019, as well as NIH funding for this research 2000–2019. There were 6,567 RdRp-related publications in PubMed, including 1,263 with NIH support, and 11,073 NcAn-related publications, including 2,319 with NIH support. NIH support for RdRp research comprised 2,203 Project Years with Costs of 4,612 million. Research Project grants accounted for 63% and 48% of Project Years for RdRp and NcAn respectively, but only 19% and 12% of Project Costs. Analytical modeling of research maturation estimates that RdRp and NcAn research passed an established maturity threshold in 2008 and 1994 respectively. Of 97 investigational compounds targeting RdRp since 1989, the three authorized for use entered clinical trials after both thresholds. This work demonstrates the scale of foundational research on the biological target and parent chemical structure of remdesivir that supported its discovery and development for COVID-19. This work identifies $6.5 billion in NIH funding for research leading to remdesivir, underscoring the role of public sector investments in basic research and research infrastructure that underlie new drugs and the response to emergent disease
Accepting Change
Get PDFWhether change in the workplace is welcomed or not, most would agree that it is inevitable. Admittedly, it could be disruptive and painful for both employees and managers. Leaving our comfort zones can be anxiety producing and disruptive, especially in the short term. But change can also lead to personal growth and greater job satisfaction for both employees and managers. If change is welcomed, employees become engaged and even excited to move forward as they implement a new strategy and meet the shared goals ahead
Increasing Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards: Voices of Male and Female Directors in the United States
Get PDFAn emerging literature highlights the lack of gender diversity on corporate boards, its implications, and the need for more scholarship and theoretical development on board diversity. According to this literature, to better understand the reasons behind the persistent underrepresentation of women on boards (WOB), of particular importance is the need to access boards directly for data, as opposed to focusing solely on human capital, firm, and board characteristics. This dissertation research directly accesses both male and female board directors using a qualitative interview approach and employs grounded theory techniques to investigate (a) how and why corporate boards appoint members, and (b) specifically how and why they appoint female members.
This work first explores the current status of WOB across the globe. It then presents a thorough review of the relevant literature from 2009 to date that focuses on the business case for women directors, and barriers to increasing gender diversity on corporate boards (GDOB). Findings indicate that barriers can be classified into three key categories, which are often interconnected: (a) Supply-side effects in the pipeline and human capital characteristics; (b) bias and discrimination in the form of stereotypes, the “queen bee” syndrome, and good old boy networks; and (c) institutional/cultural characteristics, including the lack of, or inadequate, mentoring. Results also suggest the complexities associated with identifying and addressing the reasons underlying the persistence of male-dominated boards. Along with the slow progress for WOB, these findings suggest that researchers may need to reevaluate current methodological approaches to investigating this problem in order to yield more effective solutions.
This dissertation research thus takes a phenomenological approach to sociology, whereby grounded theory techniques are invoked for data collection and analysis to investigate male and female directors’ experiences and explore the contributing factors behind board appointment processes. Results suggest that (a) boards find candidate directors using search firms or headhunters, and their personal or professional networks; (b) they often have a specific description of “who they look for,” but tend to appoint a director because they believe he/she will be a good “fit” with the rest of the board; (c) boards appoint female directors for strategic and sociopolitical reasons; (d) women’s contributions are important and different than men’s; and (e) boards avoid appointing female members because of unconscious bias, stereotypes, “Good Ol’ Boy” networks, and the “mirror effect.” Results also reveal a paradox in that even though “the corporate world is embarrassed by how slow the progress has been [for women],” and even though directors indicate “they want to help increase gender diversity,” they still tend to appoint people who “look just like them.” This drives the persistent tendency of current directors to largely ignore female candidates and appoint their male counterparts in a process that often seems to happen subconsciously
What\u27s in a Wage? A New Approach to the Justification of Pay
Get PDFIn this address, I distinguish and explore three conceptions of wages. A wage is a reward, given in recognition of the performance of a valued task. It is also an incentive: a way to entice workers to take and keep jobs, and to motivate them to work hard. Finally, a wage is a price of labor, and like all prices, conveys valuable information about relative scarcity. I show that each conception of wages has its own normative logic, or appropriate justification, and these logics can come apart. This explains some of the debate about wages and makes the project of justifying a wage simpliciter difficult. I identify which logic we should choose, since we must choose, and say what this means for how we should think about the justification of pay
CLIC Newsletter - Fall 2020
Get PDFPAGE 3-4: The History of CLIC and a Farewell to its Founder
PAGE 5: Hear about the Language, Culture, and Business Major from Junior Annie Xie
PAGE 6: Moda Rápida: La Falta de Sostenibilidad de Shein by Olivia Allen, Anna Lang, and Emily Whalen
PAGE 7-9: Film Review of Terraferma (by director Emanu ele Crialese) by Noelle Mandery
PAGE 10: Language Department Classes in Spring 202
We Don’t Have to Lose STEM Students to Business
Get PDFMost undergraduate students who leave STEM majors before graduation choose careers in business. This article argues that better integrating business opportunities and context into the STEM curriculum could advance STEM learning, motivate students to remain in STEM as majors, and cultivate a constructive relationship between business, science, and society
On the Origin, Content, and Relevance of the Market Failures Approach
Get PDFThe view of business ethics that Christopher McMahon calls the “implicit morality of the market” and Joseph Heath calls the “market failures approach” has received a significant amount of recent attention. The idea of this view is that we can derive an ethics for market participants by thinking about the “point” of market activity, and asking what the world would have to be like for this point to be realized. While this view has been much-discussed, it is still not well-understood. This paper seeks to remedy this problem. I begin by showing, against some recent commentators, that McMahon’s view and Heath’s view are fundamentally the same. Second, I clarify the sense of “efficiency” at work in the market failures approach. Finally, I argue that, in its current form, this view has little relevance to the real world of business. I conclude by sketching two ways of modifying it to fit our world
Profitability of Large Pharmaceutical Companies Compared With Other Large Public Companies
Get PDFUnderstanding the profitability of pharmaceutical companies is essential to formulating evidence-based policies to reduce drug costs while maintaining the industry’s ability to innovate and provide essential medicines
The Influence of Internal Audit Competency on Financial Reporting Quality and Enterprise Risk Management
Get PDFThe internal audit function (IAF) is critically important to financial reporting quality and enterprise risk management (ERM). Following both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the financial crisis of 2008, there have been improvements to other monitoring functions, such as the audit committee, management, and the external auditor, but regulation over the IAF is nearly absent. Further, our understanding of how IAF competency is developed and how IAF competency impacts both financial reporting quality and ERM outcomes is limited. My dissertation consists of three archival studies that investigate IAF competency using LinkedIn data. Taken together, these three studies contribute to a stifled IAF literature that is limited in its data availability and to an emerging accounting literature that seeks to understand more about accounting and audit personnel at the individual level. Specifically, I examine determinants of IAF competency, associations of IAF competency and financial reporting quality, changes to IAF competency as an outcome of financial reporting failures, and IAF competency as a determinant to ERM quality and ERM oversight disclosure. Using a new dataset that captures ten dimensions of IAF competency, I contribute to an important area at the intersection of audit and corporate governance.
The first paper reviews the extant IAF literature, describes a data collection protocol for hand-collected, individual-level, and longitudinal IAF personnel data from LinkedIn, and develops a comprehensive and objective IAF competency measure that incorporates ten components and can easily be linked to other publicly available data sources. I use this new measure to investigate the determinants of IAF competency. Despite a niche of IAF-related studies borne from survey-based sources, prior literature has not paid much attention to investigating what determines higher levels of IAF competency. This study finds evidence consistent with IAF competency improving over time and audit committee accounting expertise influencing higher competency. This study is important as it investigates IAF competency over a six-year period and estimates associations between other monitoring characteristics. Further, this study is academically important because the data collection methodology can inform future research using LinkedIn to develop personnel-related measures.
The second paper examines firm changes to IAF competency in light of financial reporting failures. Provided the regulatory scrutiny over other monitoring mechanisms, it is possible that firms improve other sources of monitoring that are highly visible to stakeholders (e.g. the audit committee; CFO; external auditor) when a reporting failure occurs. However, it is also possible that firms committed to monitoring quality improve IAF competency ex-post as the IAF plays a direct role in potentially mitigating future failures. This study finds evidence consistent with IAF competency improving in the year following a financial reporting failure (i.e. material weakness disclosure; restatement). This study is important because it documents firms’ swift movement to improve competency in light of greater reporting risk, suggesting firms recognize the importance of the IAF in the corporate governance structure. Further, this study demonstrates that the conversation around IAF regulation is still important as not all firms are equally likely to increase IAF competency after a failure.
The third paper examines whether IAF competency is associated with ERM quality and ERM oversight disclosure decisions. Recent financial crises have prompted firms to focus on improving ERM practices, and recent governmental rulings have prompted greater disclosure about firms’ risk management processes. Due to the COSO ERM framework’s constraint that identifies management-specific risk responsibilities, the IAF may not have enough reach within the ERM framework to improve ERM quality or to influence ERM oversight disclosure decisions. However, it is also possible that the IAF’s direct role in risk identification and monitoring of risks helps to provide information to management and to the board that enables their monitoring of ERM quality and provides about the necessary confidence to disclose ERM oversight practices. This study finds evidence consistent with IAF competency helping to improve ERM quality and the likelihood and extent of ERM oversight disclosure in the proxy statement and audit committee charter. This study is important because it documents the value the IAF contributes to the ERM process, beyond its traditional financial reporting role. Further, this study demonstrates that management and boards can take advantage of IAF’s monitoring capabilities in order to bolster ERM performance and comfort around ERM monitoring processes