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In 1997 minimum wages were introduced in the West and East German construction sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyze their impact on wage growth and employment retention probability of affected workers.

Following a difference‐in‐differences approach the paper proposes a method to identify the effects of this quasi‐experiment despite the lack of information on working hours in the large panel microdata. The method determines the size of the treatment and control group by the maximum likelihood criterion.

All results show positive wage growth effects of the minimum wage regulation in both parts of the country. When it comes to employment effects, the results clearly differ between the two parts of the country. The employment effects are negative for East Germany and positive for West Germany, although the latter are not always statistically significant.

Although there is a limit to the simple transferability of the results for the construction sector to other industries, the study provides some useful insights for this country concerning reactions to the minimum wage. This is the first paper analyzing the effect of minimum wages in Germany using microeconometric methods.

As the minimum wage in the East German construction sector was much higher in relation to the median wage than in West Germany, a tentative conclusion of the different employment results might be that the trade‐off between increasing wages for low‐paid workers and the danger of job losses does not exist in this case if minimum wages are moderate.

This paper provides valuable information on the impact of wage growth and employment retention probability in Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the indirect relationship between board gender diversity and capital structure decisions and to examine whether the capital structure is affected by the type of approach used to promote women’s participation in the boardroom.

Based on a sample of French non-financial listed companies over the period 2006–2019, this paper uses structural equations modeling, difference-in-differences using propensity score matching and chow test to highlight these effects.

This paper finds that the relationship between the board gender diversity and the capital structure is mediated through the information transparency channel and firm risk taking channel. Furthermore, the results show that the effect of board gender diversity on capital structure decisions varies through the approach adopted (voluntary, enabling or coercive).

This paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the study is to the knowledge the first to examine whether and how board gender diversity affects capital structure decisions through two mediations channels, namely, the information transparency and the firm risk taking. Second, the study is one of the first to examine whether the capital structure is affected by the type of approach used to promote women’s participation in the boardroom: coercive, enabling or voluntary approach.

The purpose of this paper is to exploit the effect of equity financing constraints on the firm’s investment in research and development (R&D) by utilizing a quasi-experiment in China.

A difference-in-difference identification strategy is employed to test the treatment effect of the IPO suspension in China. For robustness testing, the authors incorporate cross-sectional variation in external financial dependence to identify the different influences an IPO suspension has on R&D investments for firms across multiple industries through the difference-in-difference-in-difference approach and the authors also adopt a matching approach to check the parallel trend assumption. Moreover, the authors introduce a placebo test to further verify the empirical results.

Through the empirical analysis, the authors find that the firms subjecting to the IPO suspension are more likely to reduce their investments in R&D than those not affected by the IPO suspension. Besides, the negative effect of equity financing constraints on R&D investments is concentrated on external financial dependent industries. The firms in industries with larger external financial dependence tend to decrease more in their R&D expenditures when they experience the equity financing constraints.

This paper provides a new negative evidence on equity financing constraints on R&D investments link so that contributes to the debate about the effect of the financing constraints on R&D investments.

The study provides a meaningful suggestion for governments to diminish the frictions in the financial market and to improve enterprises’ public financing circumstances by finding that equity financing constraints have negative impacts on firms’ R&D investments.

There are some apprehensions around previous empirical studies investigating the impact of financing constraints on R&D investments as the existing literature is unable to provide an unambiguous method to exactly distinguish and measure the degree of financing constraints the firms confronting with. This paper solves this problem by first utilizing an IPO suspension in China as a quasi-experiment to examine the effect of equity financing constraints. Therefore, it gives insight to solve the problem of measuring financing constraints in future researches.

Inflation targeting has increasingly become a popular monetary framework since its first introduction in New Zealand at the beginning of 1990. However, the causality effects of this policy on economic performance, particularly in periods of economic turmoil remain controversial. Thus, this paper re-examines the treatment effect of inflation targeting on two important macro indicators which are inflation rate and output growth with the focus on emerging market economies. The global financial crisis, which is known as the great recession since the last decade, is investigated as an exogenous shock to test for the effectiveness of this popular regime.

The difference-in-difference approach in the fixed-model is employed for this investigation using a balanced panel data of 54 countries with 15 inflation-targeting countries for the period 2002 to 2010.

The examination finds that there is no significant difference in terms of the inflation rate and gross domestic product growth over the whole research period between the treatment and control groups. However, the outcome suggests that emerging economies can control the increase in inflation rate when the economy has to cope with the exogenous uncertainties.

This finding indicates important policy implications for central banks in many countries.

Inflation targeting can help emerging countries to reduce an increase in inflation rate in the crisis period without many trade-offs in the growth of output.

This paper aims to analyze conflict resolution strategies among individuals who encountered disputes with family, neighbors, workmates, businesses, strangers, government authorities or other members in their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Applying a difference-in-difference approach by sex, the authors use a representative panel of adults living in 82 cities from across Mexico to measure changes in antisocial strategies (violence) and prosocial strategies (non-confrontational methods and dialogue) to resolve disputes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, men reduced their use of violence by 19.6% while women did so by 17.4%. There was a parallel rise in non-confrontational strategies used to solve conflicts equal to 73.6% for men and 62% for women. The use of dialogue as a tool for resolving disputes increased by more in cities that banned the sale of alcohol. Alternative Twitter data corroborates the main findings, suggesting that individuals are becoming more prosocial during the pandemic.

To the knowledge, this is the first empirical study to analyze changes in strategies for conflict resolution as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating how individuals adapt their dispute strategies under extraordinary circumstances such as a pandemic, with a focus on a middle-income setting.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of Literacy Boost Project Model implemented by World Vision on reading skills of early grade students in Ethiopia. It intended to examine whether the intervention contributed to improving students’ achievement in reading comprehension.

Difference in difference with propensity score matching impact estimation model was used in the study. Baseline and end line data collected by World Vision Ethiopia in four districts in Oromia region, where the project had been operational, were used for the research. A total of 1,418 students (685 control and 733 intervention) were selected using random sampling technique and assessed based on the core reading skill components.

The result of the analysis indicated significant improvement in the core reading skills of treated students. The ultimate outcome of reading comprehension skill from the previous evaluation was found inflated. Variables related to the home literacy environment and community activities were found significantly impacting the students reading achievement.

Policies and strategies intended to improve the quality of education, particularly the reading skills of early grade students, in the study area and scaling up the literacy boost project to areas with similar context, thus should give due attention to the variables related to the home literacy environment and community activities.

This study is important in providing valuable information on early grade education quality improvement interventions, especially to development practitioners and policymakers to make informed decisions regarding education sector reform and development in the study area.

The research examines the impact of heavy rail transport infrastructure on residential property prices in Melbourne at different stages of project development using the Mernda Rail Extension Project as a case study.

A difference-in-difference approach is used to quantitatively measure the magnitude of change in the house price at different stages of rail transport infrastructure project development.

When controlling for a range of structural, neighbourhood, and locational attributes, the authors find that properties within 800 m from the proposed train station are 8.7% higher in value than those outside 800 m (but within 1,600 m). However, during the project's construction, the project's benefits in the form of house price appreciation are not fully realised. “Unrealised benefit” is attributed to the negative externalities of construction works and apprehensions associated with the project's shelving and time delays.

Depending on the availability of data on residential property transactions in the future, a spatial analysis of rail infrastructure's radius of catchment effect is needed.

Findings from this research are beneficial for policymakers concerned with transport and land use planning, property valuation for taxation and mortgage purposes.

This research contributes to the knowledge of the impact of the rail project on house prices in Melbourne. While there are earlier studies on the topic, there is limited understanding of this prime Australian city attractive to domestic and foreign investors.

This is a longitudinal study exploring the effect of ISO 9000 certification on firm's financial performance in the pre-crisis period and the 2008 financial crisis period.

The empirical analysis is based on a 22-year dataset with balance sheet data from 136 Greek listed firms covering the period 1992–2013. A matching technique is applied to properly estimate potential differences in the impact of ISO 9000 on firm's financial performance between the groups of certified and matched non-certified (control) firms in the entire period but, most importantly, in pre-crisis vs crisis periods, using the difference-in-differences econometric approach.

The findings indicate that certified firms exhibit significantly higher financial performance relative to the matched non-certified group in both the pre-crisis and crisis periods, which tends to persist for several years post-certification. The financial crisis has a negative and statistically significant effect on firm performance in both the certified and matched non-certified groups, which nevertheless did not differ significantly between them. Controlling for sectoral and technological differences did not harm the higher performance of certified firms relative to the matched control peers. The results remain in the same direction when the authors test the ISO 9000 effect in the sub-group of certified firms that obtained the certification at the firm-level.

The study is original in its sample design and hypothesis testing. The matched sample created from a sufficiently long and continuous time dataset enabled the authors to properly estimate firm performance differences of ISO 9000 between pre-crisis and crisis periods. Of additional value is the testing of sectoral/technological differences and the distinction between firm-level and plant-level certification.

This study explores the link between ISO 9001 certification, personal data protection and firm performance using financial balance sheet and survey data. The security aspect of data protection is analyzed based on the major requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and mapped to the relevant controls of the ISO/IEC 27001/27002 standards.

The research analysis is based on 96 ISO 9001–certified and non-certified publicly traded manufacturing and service firms that responded to a structured questionnaire. The authors develop and empirically test their theoretical model using the structural equation modeling technique and follow a difference-in-differences econometric modeling approach to estimate financial performance differences between certified and non-certified firms accounting for the level of data protection.

The estimates indicate three core dimensions in the areas of “policies, procedures and responsibilities,” “access control management” and “risk-reduction techniques” as desirable components in establishing the concept of data security. The estimates also suggest that the data protection level has significantly impacted the performance of certified firms relative to the non-certified. Controlling for the effect of industry-level factors reveals a positive relationship between data security and high-technological intensity.

The results imply that improving the level of compliance to data protection enhances the link between certification and firm performance.

This study fills a gap in the literature by empirically testing the influence of data protection on the relationship between quality certification and firm performance.

This study tends to investigate how the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected banks' contribution to systemic risk. In addition, the authors examine whether the impact of the pandemic may vary across advanced/emerging economies, and with banks with differed characteristics.

The authors construct the bank-specific conditional value at risk (CoVaR) and marginal expected shortfall (MES) to measure their contribution to systemic risk and define the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic by the timing when countries report more than 100 confirmed cases. The authors use the approach of difference-in-differences to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on banks' contribution to systemic risk. This sample comprises monthly panel data of around 900 listed commercial banks in 39 advanced and emerging economies.

The authors find that, firstly, the COVID-19 pandemic increased banks' contribution to systemic risk significantly around the world. Secondly, the impact of the COVID-19 virus was more pronounced in developed countries than in emerging economies. Finally, banks with a larger size and higher loan-to-deposit ratio are more greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, while a higher capitalization for banks is insufficient to shelter them from the adverse impact of such pandemic.

The authors assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on banks' contribution to systemic risk. Using the conditional value at risk (marginal expected shortfall) of banks as the measure, this study’s results suggest that banks' contribution to systemic risk increases by around 25% (48%) amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This study’s findings may shed some light on the potential policies that financial regulators may employ to ameliorate the adverse outcomes of the ongoing pandemic.