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1 – 10 of 152Mats Wilhelmsson, Vania Ceccato and Manne Gerell
This study aims to analyse the effect of gun-related violence on housing values, controlling for the area's crime levels and locational factors. Previous studies that aimed to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the effect of gun-related violence on housing values, controlling for the area's crime levels and locational factors. Previous studies that aimed to find a causal connection between crime and housing values used instrument variables to solve the endogeneity problem. Here, the authors have instead been able to take advantage of the fact that shootings have occurred in random time and space. This has made it possible to estimate models to create windows around the shooting (event) and to estimate the causal effects of the shootings. Thus, the authors aim to contribute to the regression discontinuity design method in this context to estimate the short-term effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the regression discontinuity design method, the authors can estimate the short-term effects of shootings.
Findings
Findings from the analysis indicate that shootings directly affect those who are impacted by shootings and indirectly affect the environments where shootings occur. The indirect effect of shootings is momentary as it is capitalised directly in housing values in the immediate area. The effect also appears to be relatively long-term and persistent as housing values have not returned to the price level before the shooting 100–200 days after the shooting. The capitalisation effect is higher the closer one gets to the central parts of the city. On the other hand, the capitalisation effect is not higher or lower in areas with a higher crime rate per capita.
Originality/value
The article contributes to the previous literature in several ways. First and foremost, it provides an explicit analysis of shootings in built-up areas and their hypothesised effect on property prices through the impact on attractiveness and perceived safety. As far as the authors know, no study has analysed this issue on the international level or in Sweden. In this way, the authors aim to develop a study that can provide critical knowledge about one of the adverse effects of shootings. The authors also contribute to the literature by utilising unique data material, which allows the authors to merge information from the police about the exact location of shootings in the Stockholm area with data on sales of apartments in the same residential areas. In addition to the exact location of the shootings (coordinates), the authors also have access to data about whether the shootings led to injuries or deaths. Thus, the authors have separated the effect of shootings and fatal shootings, which has not been done before. Finally, the authors set out to highlight the results as a contribution to the debate on shootings.
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While the value of human capital for technological innovation is well acknowledged, literature on the role of vocational training in corporate innovation is notably scarce. The…
Abstract
Purpose
While the value of human capital for technological innovation is well acknowledged, literature on the role of vocational training in corporate innovation is notably scarce. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of government support for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) competencies on Korean firms’ innovation. The author investigates SMEs’ patent applications (supported by the government to varying degrees) while accounting for firms’ market position, ownership and management structure, as well as prior changes in firms’ technologies, products, processes and other characteristics. Alternative hypotheses about management motivation – the “lazy manager”, “career concerns” and “special East Asian institutional constraints” hypotheses – are also evaluated.
Design/methodology/approach
Censored and count data analysis methods are used on a panel of 595 Korean firms covering 2005–2015 from the Korean Human Capital Corporate Survey, Intellectual Property Office and National Investment Commission. A regression discontinuity estimator accounts for potential endogeneity because of support for vocational training at firms.
Findings
Firms receiving training support are more innovative than firms without support, but latent effects may play a role. The regression-discontinuity model suggests that firms that succeeded only marginally in obtaining support had higher innovative output than non-recipients near the eligibility threshold.
Originality/value
The findings of this study establish that government support had the intended effect on SMEs’ technological capacity. This cannot be discounted as a simple crowding-out effect. The author also establishes that management–ownership separation within firms was conducive to innovation, that product competition had an inverse U-shaped effect and that management–ownership separation had a substitutable relationship with competition in overcoming managers’ effort avoidance. The findings support the “lazy manager” hypothesis over the “career concerns” and the “special East Asian institutional constraints” hypotheses.
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While there exist many surveys on the use stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), many important issues and techniques in SFA were not well elaborated in the previous surveys, namely…
Abstract
Purpose
While there exist many surveys on the use stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), many important issues and techniques in SFA were not well elaborated in the previous surveys, namely, regular models, copula modeling, nonparametric estimation by Grenander’s method of sieves, empirical likelihood and causality issues in SFA using regression discontinuity design (RDD) (sharp and fuzzy RDD). The purpose of this paper is to encourage more research in these directions.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature survey.
Findings
While there are many useful applications of SFA to econometrics, there are also many important open problems.
Originality/value
This is the first survey of SFA in econometrics that emphasizes important issues and techniques such as copulas.
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Lyndon Lim and Wenjin Vikki Bo
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an English Proficiency (EP) programme and its efficacy with respect to students' academic performance in a university within a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an English Proficiency (EP) programme and its efficacy with respect to students' academic performance in a university within a multi-lingual context, as the programme had been in effect for some years.
Design/methodology/approach
A quasi-experimental approach was used to study the efficacy of an EP programme in a university within a multilingual context. Data across two academic years were used, along with regression discontinuity design.
Findings
Results suggest that the EP programme had a significant and positive intervention effect on students' initial semester grade point average. The programme effect size was found to be medium to large.
Research limitations/implications
It might be useful to extend the study for one more year for more concrete conclusions. As the study was anchored upon the structure of the 2016 EP programme, any major curricular/structural change to the programme warrants another study.
Practical implications
This study demonstrated that the implementation of EP programmes in higher education institutions is essential not only for international students who are foreign language speakers of English but also for domestic students in English-speaking countries, especially for bi/multilingual speakers.
Originality/value
Previous studies related to the efficacy of EP within higher education have focused on international students who speak English as an additional/foreign language. Further, most studies have focussed on students' self-reported experiences and have yielded disparate findings. This study contributes to scholarship as it addresses the under-researched area related to domestic students who speak English as the first language in a bi/multi-lingual context.
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Veronica Ines Fernandez Orellano and Taís Cardoso Tellini
This study investigates the impact of political alignment on intergovernmental transfers to the Brazilian unified health system (SUS). The authors analyzed both automatic…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the impact of political alignment on intergovernmental transfers to the Brazilian unified health system (SUS). The authors analyzed both automatic transfers based on pre-established rules and discretionary transfers, using two criteria of political alignment between mayors and the central government.
Design/methodology/approach
For the empirical analysis the authors used regression-discontinuity design (RDD) and the outcomes of close elections between 2001 and 2017.
Findings
The results indicate positive and statistically significant effects of party alignment on the two transfer categories, especially discretionary transfers, but also on transfers based on pre-established rules. The effect of direct party alignment, when mayors and the president are from the same party, is greater than that resulting from coalitions established in municipal and federal elections.
Research limitations/implications
The positive effect of party alignment was found both in discretionary transfers (those that do not have previously established rules) and some non-discretionary transfers (although they have previously defined regulations). A part of these regulations depends on production capacity and on taking part in programs promoted by the central government, which may produce entropy in the financing system, and a margin to benefit political allies. In the case of the SUS system, it is possible that this entropy is greater in the basic health care category than in the moderate and high complexity one, allowing a higher margin for discretion in transfers allocated to the former. Stricter rules associated to basic health care transfers would be desirable.
Practical implications
In Brazil, stricter rules and monitoring associated to basic healthcare intergovernmental transfers would be desirable.
Social implications
The results may inspire some improvement in the mechanisms that govern the distribution of resources to basic healthcare in Brazil, improving social welfare by improving social justice in the distribution of resources to basic healthcare.
Originality/value
The authors does not know any other study about the impact of party alignment on the distribution of intergovernmental transfers to the Brazilian unified health system.
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The purpose this paper is to review some of the statistical methods used in the field of social sciences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose this paper is to review some of the statistical methods used in the field of social sciences.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of some of the statistical methodologies used in areas like survey methodology, official statistics, sociology, psychology, political science, criminology, public policy, marketing research, demography, education and economics.
Findings
Several areas are presented such as parametric modeling, nonparametric modeling and multivariate methods. Focus is also given to time series modeling, analysis of categorical data and sampling issues and other useful techniques for the analysis of data in the social sciences. Indicative references are given for all the above methods along with some insights for the application of these techniques.
Originality/value
This paper reviews some statistical methods that are used in social sciences and the authors draw the attention of researchers on less popular methods. The purpose is not to give technical details and also not to refer to all the existing techniques or to all the possible areas of statistics. The focus is mainly on the applied aspect of the techniques and the authors give insights about techniques that can be used to answer problems in the abovementioned areas of research.
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Anders Fredriksson and Gustavo Magalhães de Oliveira
This paper aims to present the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) method in an accessible language to a broad research audience from a variety of management-related fields.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) method in an accessible language to a broad research audience from a variety of management-related fields.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper describes the DiD method, starting with an intuitive explanation, goes through the main assumptions and the regression specification and covers the use of several robustness methods. Recurrent examples from the literature are used to illustrate the different concepts.
Findings
By providing an overview of the method, the authors cover the main issues involved when conducting DiD studies, including the fundamentals as well as some recent developments.
Originality/value
The paper can hopefully be of value to a broad range of management scholars interested in applying impact evaluation methods.
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