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Adolescent pregnancy stands as a societal challenge, compelling young individuals to prematurely discontinue their education. Conversely, an expansion of high school education can potentially diminish rates of adolescent pregnancy, given that educational attainment stands as the foremost risk factor influencing sexual initiation, the use of contraceptive methods during initial sexual encounters and fertility. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the implementation of the public educational policy introducing full-time schools (FTS) for high schools in the state of Ceará, Brazil, on early pregnancy rates.

Using the difference-in-differences method with multiple time periods, we measured the average effect of this staggered treatment on the treated municipalities.

The main result indicates a reduction of 0.849 percentage points in the teenage pregnancy rate. Concerning dynamic effects, the establishment of FTS in treated municipalities results in a 1.183–1.953 percentage point decrease in teenage pregnancy rates, depending on the timing of exposure. We explored heterogeneous effects within socioeconomically vulnerable municipalities, yet discerned no impact on this group. Rigorous tests confirm the robustness of the results.

This paper aims to contribute to: (1) the consolidation of research on the subject, given the absence of such research in Brazil to the best of our knowledge; (2) the advancement and analysis of evidence-based public policy and (3) the utilization of novel longitudinal data and methodology to evaluate adolescent pregnancy rates.

A debate on whether new ventures should be supported with public funding is taking place. Adopting a position on this discussion requires rigorous assessments of implemented programs. However, the few existing efforts have mostly focused on regional cases in developed countries. To fill this gap, this paper aims to measure the effects of a regional acceleration program in a developing country (Medellin, Colombia).

The economic notion of capabilities is used to frame the analysis of firm characteristics and productivity, which are hypothesized to be heterogeneous within the program. To test these relationships, propensity score matching is used in a sample of 60 treatment and 16,994 control firms.

This paper finds that treated firms had higher revenue than propensity score-matched controls on average, confirming a positive impact on growth measures. However, such financial growth is mostly observed in service firms rather than other economic sectors.

Further evaluations, with a longer period and using more outcome variables, are suggested in the context of similar publicly funded programs in developing countries.

These findings tip the balance in favor of the literature suggesting supportive programs for high-growth firms as opposed to everyday entrepreneurship. This is an insight, especially under the context of an emerging economy, which has scarce funding to support entrepreneurship.

This research assesses the economic impact of biomass plant installations on Brazilian municipalities, focusing on (1) labor income, (2) sectoral labor income and (3) income inequality.

Municipal data from the Annual Social Information Report, the National Electric Energy Agency and the National Institute of Meteorology spanning 2002 to 2020 are utilized. The Synthetic Difference-in-Differences methodology is employed for empirical analysis, and robustness checks are conducted using the Doubly Robust Difference in Differences and the Double/Debiased Machine Learning methods.

The findings reveal that biomass plant installations lead to an average annual increase of approximately R$688.00 in formal workers' wages and reduce formal income inequality, with notable benefits observed for workers in the industry and agriculture sectors. The robustness tests support and validate the primary results, highlighting the positive implications of renewable energy integration on economic development in the studied municipalities.

This article represents a groundbreaking contribution to the existing literature as it pioneers the identification of the impact of biomass plant installation on formal employment income and local economic development in Brazil. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to uncover such effects. Moreover, the authors comprehensively examine sectoral implications and formal income inequality.

In Ghana, legal and illegal artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) activities have attracted the attention of the general populace and academia with varied opinions. This study examined how adopting the coping strategies for ASM operations affected the welfare of farm households.

Primary data were solicited from respondents using a semi-structured questionnaire. This paper used the endogenous treatment effect model to quantitatively estimate whether or not farmers who adopt coping strategies for activities of ASM have improved or deteriorated welfare.

The results revealed that households adopted coping strategies such as diversification, social networking, land reclamation, borrowing, dependence on the market for food and resettlement in other communities. The endogenous treatment effect model results show that households that adopted land reclamation and social networking had improved welfare regarding consumption expenditure and food security compared to non-adopters. Conversely, diversification was associated with lower consumption expenditures and high food insecurity among adopters.

This paper recommends that farm households in mining communities form cooperatives and farmer-based organizations to ensure improved access to joint resources for enhanced capacity to cope with ASM-induced shocks. There is a need for government and civil society organizations to encourage and support land reclamation measures.

This paper covers a broader perspective and deploys more than one welfare proxy, which has not been considered before in previous studies.

This paper aims to examine the interrelation between two innovating strategies (product and process) on total factor productivity (TFP) growth and the dynamic linkages between these strategies, for Colombia. The authors first explore whether ex ante more productive firms are those that introduce innovations (the self-selection hypothesis) and if the introduction of innovations boosts TFP growth (the returns-to-innovation hypothesis). Second, the authors study the firm’s joint dynamic decision to implement process and/or product innovations. The authors use Colombian manufacturing data from the Annual Manufacturing and the Technological Development and Innovation Surveys.

This study uses a four-stage procedure. First, the authors estimate TFP using a modified version of Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003), proposed by De Loecker (2010), that implements an endogenous Markov process where past firm innovations are endogenized. This TFP would be estimated by GMM, Wooldridge (2009). Second, the authors use multivariate discrete choice models to test the self-selection hypothesis. Third, the authors explore, using multi-value treatment evaluation techniques, the life span of the impact of innovations on productivity growth (returns to innovation hypothesis). Fourth, the authors analyse the joint likelihood of implementing process and product innovations using dynamic panel data bivariate probit models.

The investigation reveals that the self-selection effect is notably more pronounced in the adoption of process innovations only, as opposed to the adoption of product innovations only or the simultaneous adoption of both process and product innovations. Moreover, our results uncover distinct temporal patterns concerning innovation returns. Specifically, process innovations yield immediate benefits, whereas implementing both product innovations only and jointly process and product innovations exhibit significant, albeit delayed, advantages. Finally, the analysis confirms the existence of dynamic interconnections between the adoption of process and product innovations.

The contribution of this work to the literature is manifold. First, the authors thoroughly investigate the relationship between the implementation of process and product innovations and productivity for Colombian manufacturing explicitly recognising that firms’ decisions of adopting product and process innovations are very likely interrelated. Therefore, the authors start exploring the self-selection and the returns to innovation hypotheses accounting for the fact that firms might implement process innovations only, product innovations only and both process and product innovations. In the analysis of the returns of innovation, the fact that firms may choose among a menu of three innovation strategies implies the use of evaluation methods for multi-value treatments. Second, the authors study the dynamic inter-linkages between the decisions to implement process and/or product innovations, that remains under studied, at least for emerging economies. Third, the estimation of TFP is performed using an endogenous Markov process, where past firms’ innovations are endogenized.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of job-hopping executives at their former and subsequent firms.

We conduct regression analyses using a sample of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2020 to examine whether CSR performance is similar from one firm to the next as executives switch jobs.

We find a positive relationship between the CSR performance of former and subsequent firms under job-hopping executives. This relationship is the strongest in the year of the job switch; it weakens in the second year and eventually disappears in the third year. In addition, we show that this relationship benefits different CSR stakeholder groups and is contingent on executive and subsequent firm attributes and job-hopping characteristics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that firms that hire a new chief executive officer from a firm with a strong track record in CSR, the new firm experiences a significant surge in CSR performance compared with firms that do not experience such a shock.

This study has implications for executive hiring decisions.

This study extends the understanding of CSR determinants through the lens of inter-organisational ties associated with job-hopping executives.

This paper aims to examine prospective graduate students' attitudes toward educational loan borrowing in an experimental setting.

Participants were randomly assigned to two treatment groups and one control group. Subjects in experimental group 1 received financial education: a short online course on the economic viability of getting a master's degree and how to finance it with a graduate student loan, while subjects in experimental group 2 received financial education along with information on the availability bias.

Relying on a control group in the assessment of financial literacy education intervention impacts, this research finds positive causal treatment effects on individuals’ attitudes toward debt-financed graduate education. In comparison to the control group, experimental subjects perceived the possibility of going into debt with a graduate loan to complete a master’s degree as less stressful and worrying.

This study has important educational policy implications to prevent students from stopping investing in human capital by perceiving educational loan debt as something stressful or worrying. The results can help potential (and current) grad students develop a feasible financial plan for graduate school by encouraging higher education institutions to implement educational loan information and financial education into university seminar courses for better graduate student loan decision-making.

Student attitudes toward debt have been analyzed in the context of higher education, but only a few researchers internationally have used an experimental design to study personal financial decision-making.

Prior research has extensively examined how bringing technology from work into the non-work life domain creates conflict, yet the reverse pathway has rarely been studied. The purpose of this study is to bridge this gap and examine how the non-work use of smartphones in the workplace affects work–life conflict.

Drawing from three literature streams: technostress, work–life conflict and role boundary theory, the authors theorise on how limiting employees' ability to integrate the personal life domain into work, by means of technology use policy, contributes to stress and work–life conflict. To test this model, the authors employ a natural experiment in a company that changed its policy from fully restricting to open smartphone access for non-work purposes in the workplace. The insights gained from the experiment were explored further through qualitative interviews.

Work–life conflict declines when a ban on using smartphones for non-work purposes in the workplace is revoked. This study's results show that the relationship between smartphone use in the workplace and work–life conflict is mediated by sensed stress. Additionally, a post-hoc analysis reveals that work performance was unchanged when the smartphone ban was revoked.

First, this study advances the authors' understanding of how smartphone use policies in the workplace spill over to affect non-work life. Second, this work contributes to the technostress literature by revealing how, in specific situations, engagement with ICT can reduce distress and strain.

Research has examined how new ventures strengthen local economic outcomes; however, limited research examines health-oriented ventures and their impact on social outcomes, including health outcomes. Increased VC investment in healthcare service start-ups signals more activity toward this end, and the need for further academic inquiry. We examine the relationship between these start-ups and county-level health outcomes, health factors, and hospital utilization.

Data on start-ups funded via institutional venture capital from PitchBook were merged with US county-level outcomes from the County Health Rankings and Area Health Resources Files for 2010 to 2019. We investigated how the number of VC-funded healthcare service start-ups, as well as a subset defined as innovative, were associated with county-level health measures. We used panel models with two-way fixed effects and Propensity Score Matched (PSM), controlling for demographics and socioeconomic factors.

Each additional VC-funded healthcare service start-up was related to a significant 0.01 percentage point decrease in diabetes prevalence (p < 0.01), a decrease of 1.54 HIV cases per 100,000 population (p < 0.1), a 0.02 percentage point decrease in obesity rates (p < 0.01), and a 0.03 percentage point decrease in binge drinking (p < 0.01). VC-funded healthcare service start-ups were not related to hospital utilization.

This work expands our understanding of how industry-specific start-ups, in this case healthcare start-ups, relate to positive social outcomes. The results underscore the importance of evidence-based evaluation, the need for expanded outcome measures for VC investment, and the possibilities for integration of healthcare services and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

This paper examines the impact of extreme rainfall shocks on the performance in test scores of students living near at-risk urban areas in Brazil.

To identify the causal effect, we consider the exogenous variation of rainfall at the municipal level conditioned on the distance from the school to risk areas and the rainfall intensity in the school months.

The results suggest that extreme precipitation shocks, defined as a shock of at least three months of high-intensity rainfall, have an adverse impact on both math and language performance. Through a heterogeneous effects analysis, we find that the impact varies by student gender, with girls being more affected. In addition, among students who study near at-risk areas, those with better previous school performance and higher socioeconomic status are more negatively affected.

Our results suggest that extreme weather events can increase the differences in human capital accumulation between the population living near risk areas and those living more distant from these areas.