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1 – 10 of 680The purpose of this study is to account for a recent non-mainstream econometric approach using microdata and how it can inform research in business administration. More…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to account for a recent non-mainstream econometric approach using microdata and how it can inform research in business administration. More specifically, the paper draws from the applied microeconometric literature stances in favor of fitting Poisson regression with robust standard errors rather than the OLS linear regression of a log-transformed dependent variable. In addition, the authors point to the appropriate Stata coding and take into account the possibility of failing to check for the existence of the estimates – convergency issues – as well as being sensitive to numerical problems.
Design/methodology/approach
The author details the main issues with the log-linear model, drawing from the applied econometric literature in favor of estimating multiplicative models for non-count data. Then, he provides the Stata commands and illustrates the differences in the coefficient and standard errors between both OLS and Poisson models using the health expenditure dataset from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (RHIE).
Findings
The results indicate that the use of Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimators yield better results that the log-linear model, as well as other alternative models, such as Tobit and two-part models.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in demonstrating an alternative microeconometric technique to deal with positive skewness of dependent variables.
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This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health…
Abstract
This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health risks, such as health insurance, sick leave insurance, accident insurance, long-term care insurance, and disability insurance as well as other programs, such as unemployment insurance, pension insurance, and country-specific social insurance programs. These insurance systems exist in almost all developed countries around the world. This chapter discusses the state-of-the art evidence on each of these social insurance systems, briefly reviews the empirical methods for identifying causal effects, and examines possible limitations to these methods. The findings reveal robust and rich evidence on first-stage behavioral responses (“moral hazard”) to changes in insurance coverage. Surprisingly, evidence on how changes in coverage impact beneficiaries’ health is scant and inconclusive. This lack of identified causal health effects is directly related to limitations on how human health is typically measured, limitations on the empirical approaches, and a paucity of administrative panel data spanning long-time horizons. Future research must be conducted to fill these gaps. Of particular importance is evidence on how these social insurance systems interact and affect human health over the life cycle.
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Chiara Mussida and Dario Sciulli
This paper evaluates how the first job when individuals entered the labor market affects the probability of youth being currently employed in formal or informal work in Bangladesh.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper evaluates how the first job when individuals entered the labor market affects the probability of youth being currently employed in formal or informal work in Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on data from the ILO School-to-Work Transition Surveys. The authors use a full-information maximum likelihood approach to estimate a two-equation model, which accounts for selection into the labor market when estimating the impact of entry status on current work outcomes. The main equation outcome follows a multinomial distribution thus avoiding a priori assumptions about the level of individual’s utility associated with each work status.
Findings
The authors find that entering the labor market in a vulnerable employment position (i.e. contributing family work or self-employment) traps into vulnerable employment and prevents the transition to both informal and, especially, formal paid work. This finding holds when accounting for endogeneity of the entry status and it is valid both in the short and in the long run. Young women are less likely to enter the labor market, and once entered they are less likely to access formal paid wok and more likely to being inactive than young men. Low education anticipates the entry in the labor market, but it is detrimental for future employment prospects.
Originality/value
The findings indicate the presence of labor market segmentation between vulnerable and non-vulnerable employment and suggest the endpoint quality of the school-to-work transition is crucial for later employment prospects of Bangladeshi youth.
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Reinhard Hujer, Paulo J.M. Rodrigues and Katja Wolf
The paper aims to present an analysis of the indirect and direct effects of active labour market policy measures at the regional level for Western Germany.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to present an analysis of the indirect and direct effects of active labour market policy measures at the regional level for Western Germany.
Design/methodology/approach
Most evaluation studies of active labour market policy focus on the microeconometric treatment effect using individual data and do not account for possible indirect effects like deadweight and substitution effects. The present study uses a dynamic specification of the augmented matching function at the regional level. A dynamic panel data model is estimated using monthly and regional variation of different labour market programmes as explanatory variables. Furthermore, spatial interactions are taken into account by adding a spatially correlated error term.
Findings
Almost no significant negative effects are found of the stock of participants in programmes of labour market policy on the number of outflows from unemployment into regular jobs. Thus, contrary to findings at the individual level, no lock‐in effect is found. The number of programme participants does not reduce the number of outflows from unemployment. On the other hand when looking not at the stocks but on the outflows from programmes, no positive effects on outflows from unemployment at the regional level are found.
Research limitations/implications
Because of data limitations only a period up to six months after completing a programme is used.
Originality/value
The authors distinguish between the effects of the stock of programme participants and of the outflows from programmes. Furthermore, the authors account for spatially correlated error terms by using a GM estimator proposed by Mutl in 2006.
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Mohammad Habibullah Pulok, Md Nasim-Us Sabah and Ulrika Enemark
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how socioeconomic status and demographic factors were associated with child malnutrition as well as how these factors accounted for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how socioeconomic status and demographic factors were associated with child malnutrition as well as how these factors accounted for socioeconomic inequality of child malnutrition in Bangladesh during 2007-2011.
Design/methodology/approach
Data of this study come from two cross-sectional rounds (2007 and 2011) of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. This paper uses ordinary least square models to estimate the correlates of child malnutrition. The study further uses the concentration curve and the concentration index to estimate socioeconomic inequality of child malnutrition in Bangladesh. Finally, the decomposition method is used to explain socioeconomic inequality of child malnutrition in the study period.
Findings
Regression analysis indicates that child’s age, breast feeding, child’s birth order, the number of under-five child in the household, household wealth and parental education were strongly correlated with child malnutrition in Bangladesh. This study finds that absolute level of child malnourishment slightly decreased between 2007 and 2011, but socioeconomic inequality increased during this period. Children from the poorest household endured the burden of malnourishment more than those from the wealthiest households. The level of inequality also increased among the rural children, although it remained stagnant among the urban children. Decomposition analysis highlights that parental education had a significant negative relation with the average level of malnutrition, but its role was primarily centred among children from wealthier households.
Practical implications
An approach linking the ministry of health and education with other ministries may speed up the reduction of inequalities in social determinants of childhood undernourishment. Most importantly, there is a need for comprehensive government policies to reduce growing economic inequality and increase the relative income of the poor in Bangladesh.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind to apply the decomposition method to explain the socioeconomic inequality of child malnutrition in Bangladesh. This paper presents an enriched understanding of socioeconomic inequality of child malnutrition in Bangladesh during 2007-2011.
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Deniz Gevrek, Marilyn Spencer, David Hudgins and Valrie Chambers
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of salary raises and employees’ perception of these salary raises on their intended retention and turnover. By using a survey data…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of salary raises and employees’ perception of these salary raises on their intended retention and turnover. By using a survey data set from a representative American public university, this study investigates a novel hypothesis that faculty perceptions of salary raises, relative to their perceptions of other faculty members’ assessments of the raises, influence their intended labor supply.
Design/methodology/approach
Using both ordered probit and OLS modeling frameworks, the authors focus on the impact of salary raises and the relative perception of these raises on intended labor supply behavior. They explore a hypothesis that a mismatch between one’s ranking of the salary raise and the perception of others’ rankings causes dissatisfaction.
Findings
The results provide evidence that salary raises themselves are effective monetary tools to reduce intended turnover; however, the results also suggest that relative deprivation as a comparison of one’s own perceptions of a salary raise with others affects employee intended retention. The authors find that employees who have less favorable perceptions of salary adjustments, compared to what they believe their colleagues think, are more likely to consider another employer, holding their own perception of raises constant. Conversely, more favorable views of salary raises, compared to how faculty members think other’s perceived the salary raises, does not have a statistically significant impact on intended retention.
Originality/value
This is the first study that explores an employee’s satisfaction with salary raises relative to perceptions of other employees’ satisfaction with their own salary raises, and the resulting intended labor supply in an American university. The results indicate that monetary rewards in the form of salary raises do impact faculty intended retention; however, perception of fairness of these salary raises is more important than the actual raises. Given the high cost of job turnover, these findings suggest that employers may benefit from devoting resources toward ensuring that salary- and raise-determining procedures are generally perceived by the vast majority of employees as being fair.
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Maria Bruna Zolin, Danilo Cavapozzi and Martina Mazzarolo
Milk is one of the most produced, consumed and protected agricultural commodities worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to assess how trade-opening policies can foster food…
Abstract
Purpose
Milk is one of the most produced, consumed and protected agricultural commodities worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to assess how trade-opening policies can foster food security in the Chinese milk sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence proposed in our paper is based on time series data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2019) and FAOSTAT (2020). Differences in income elasticity between urban and rural areas are estimated by OLS regressions. The data also provide empirical evidence to assess to what extent and to which countries China is resorting to meet its growing demand.
Findings
Per-capita milk consumption of Chinese is rising. The authors’ estimates show that milk income elasticity is higher in rural areas. China is also progressively increasing its dependence on imports. Producers who benefit the most are those from countries implementing trade-opening policies.
Research limitations/implications
Other methods could be applied, by way of example, the gravitational model.
Practical implications
Trade agreements and the removal of barriers could be effective responses to protectionist pressures and to food security concerns.
Social implications
The case examined is of particular interest as it intervenes on food security and safety.
Originality/value
The paper adds value and evidence to the effects of trade on food security in a country with limited and exploited natural resources addressing a health emergency and environmental concerns.
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Frank Agyire-Tettey, Charles Godfred Ackah and Derek Asuman
The purpose of this paper is to assess determinants of returns to male and female entrepreneurship in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda at selected quantiles along the distribution, as well…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess determinants of returns to male and female entrepreneurship in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda at selected quantiles along the distribution, as well as examine gender gaps in returns to entrepreneurship and factors contributing these gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing a unique data set collected in the three countries on entrepreneurial motivations, constraints and performance, the authors apply unconditional quantile regression technique to assess the determinants of returns to entrepreneurship at various quantiles along the distribution. Additionally, the authors employ decomposition techniques to assess gender gaps in returns to entrepreneurship at various points along the distribution. The data contain extensive information on entrepreneur’s personal characteristics, including parental background and household composition and structure.
Findings
The study finds substantial differences in determinants of returns to male and female entrepreneurship along the distribution, with firm asset increasing returns to entrepreneurship. There is also the presence of gender gaps in returns to entrepreneurship at the lower-end of distribution, however, gaps disappear at the upper tail of the distribution, indicative of sticky floors in returns to entrepreneurship in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. The authors also find gender bias against female entrepreneurship in the three countries, as unobserved characteristics largely responsible for the gender gaps in entrepreneurial returns.
Originality/value
This work has been undertaken by the authors and has not been carried out by any other person. The study will add to the existing literature on gender and returns to entrepreneurship.
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Dilek Demirbas, Lauren Wilkinson and David Bennett
The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of the recent recession on both the automotive manufacturer as well as their suppliers. The research aims to identify if the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of the recent recession on both the automotive manufacturer as well as their suppliers. The research aims to identify if the impact has been the same at each of the organizations, or if there has been a difference.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper carries out a case study research, into the need for suppliers to increase their responsiveness following recession and the impact this has had on supplier relations. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were carried out at the vehicle manufacturer with two members of production control staff from VMUK plus seven production control staff at seven tier 1 suppliers to VMUK.
Findings
Supply chains have been enhanced through an increased level of responsiveness, following the economic downturn and supplier relations have had a positive impact post-recession.
Research limitations/implications
Literature argues that competitive advantage can be achieved through responsiveness, and that responsiveness is critical during a period of volatility and market uncertainty. Furthermore, literature also argues that competitive advantage can be achieved through positive supplier relations. This study investigates both of these arguments.
Originality/value
This study concludes that the positive supplier relations offer a competitive advantage when there is no cost advantage to be found elsewhere. Furthermore, this study concludes that as a direct impact of the recession, supplier relations have improved within the case studies investigated.
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