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The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact of conflict witnessed in Pakistan on the enrolment rates of boys and girls. Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children, with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5–16 years not attending school.

By merging data on violence with the data on enrolment rates, this paper finds that exposure to violence is correlated with a decline in overall district-level enrolment rates in the short run at primary-level schools and middle-level schools.

However, for boys, violence is also negatively correlated with enrolment rates at middle-level schools in the medium run. One possible mechanism tested in this paper is the potential substitution of boys into the labour market during a period of conflict.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper adds to the existing literature in several ways. Firstly, the effect of conflict on the labour market by impacting schooling for boys and girls is examined for the first time in Pakistan. Secondly, the district-level data set on enrolment rates used for this study is novel and has not been used before for this type of analysis. Thirdly, while this study strengthens the evidence that the short run effects of conflict are stronger than the long-run effects, it also confirms the negative effects of conflict do not fade away immediately. Fourthly, this study emphasizes that each conflict is unique in terms of its heterogeneous effects across different cohorts, such as gender, as these effects are dependent on the mechanism through which conflict impacts each individual.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on company innovation, specifically centering on the quantity and quality of innovation. The paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of whether the epidemic inhibits innovation and the role of digital transformation in mitigating this negative impact.

The paper uses a quasi-experimental study of the COVID-19 pandemic and constructs a differential model to analyze the relationship between the epidemic and firm innovation in three dimensions: total, quantity and quality. The paper also uses a difference-in-difference-in-differences model to test whether digital transformation of firms mitigates the negative impact of the epidemic and its mechanism of action.

The results show that COVID-19 significantly reduced the overall level of firm innovation, primarily in terms of quantity rather than quality. Furthermore, this study finds that digital transformation plays a pivotal role in mitigating the pandemic’s adverse impact on innovation. By addressing financing constraints and countering demand insufficiency, digital transformation acts as a catalyst for preserving and fostering innovation during and after the pandemic.

This study extends the current research on the pandemic’s impact on firm innovation at the micro level. It offers valuable insights into strategies for fostering digital transformation among Chinese enterprises in the post-pandemic era.

Many European countries suspended mandatory conscription after the Cold War, and especially between 2000 and 2010. However, with the changing security situation in Europe, more and more countries are considering the re-introduction of the draft. That is why, it is important to evaluate the impact of conscription on draftees, including its effect on fertility outcomes. Additionally, fertility is of particular interest because birth rates have been below replacement levels in most European countries at least in the last two decades. This, combined with the increase in life expectancy, has contributed to aging population and raises concerns about the future economic prospects and sustainability of the continent. Military service could be related to fertility in several ways. Compulsory service for men would affect the marriage market and subsequently child-bearing outcomes. For example, men who serve in the military would have to delay higher education at least by a year, given that they plan to continue their education after high school. One possibility is that this leads to older men meeting younger women if partners meet at college. Alternatively, in case the partners know each other prior to the draft, service could delay marriage by up to a year due to the conscription, postponing planning and having children, and potentially having fewer children as women might be less able or less willing to have a child after a certain age. Finally, some men who plan and would otherwise continue their education might choose to not do so or to further postpone it once they disattach from studying during their service. For some men, this might influence their marital and subsequent fertility outcomes. In either of these scenarios, a draft or its suspension is likely to be connected to fertility.

This study examines the effect of the suspension of the draft in Spain in December 2001 on three fertility outcomes of men that would have been drafted in the absence of the suspension. The author performs the analysis in a difference-in-differences framework. Potential concerns and policy implications are also discussed.

The findings suggest that after the suspension of the draft, individuals started to have their first child earlier given that they decide to have children. Consistent with the overall time trend, they became less likely to have a child and started to have fewer children. However, the age at birth of the first child decreased while the number of children and the likelihood of having a child increased for men relative to women, after compared to before the suspension of the mandatory draft.

The author extends prior literature by investigating the effect of the abolition of compulsory military service in Spain in December 2001 on fertility. This is novel is several ways. First, to the best of the author’s knowledge, previous literature has examined the effect of this Spanish reform only on labor market outcomes prior to men's conscription. Second, even for other countries that terminated the compulsory draft, fertility has been under-studied, providing an opportunity for further exploration. Third, this analysis is based on rich Census data, representative of the population in Spain. Finally, given the inconclusive findings of previous studies for other countries and the proposed re-introduction of the draft in some parts of Europe, additional evidence of the effect of the conscription has important policy implications necessary for the evaluation of future military service policy decisions.

Agricultural banks likely respond differently to economic downturns compared to nonagricultural banks. Limited previous research has examined the performance of agricultural banks under economic crisis and in the presence of banking regulations. This study aims to explore agricultural banks' responses to economic and regulation shocks relative to nonagricultural banks.

This study uses bank-quarter level data from 2002 to 2022 for virtually all commercial banks in the U.S. In this research, the Z-score measures the bank’s default risk, the return on assets measures bank profitability and changes in amount of farm loans indicate the wider impact on the agricultural sector. Effects of the financial crisis, Basel III reforms to banking regulation and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on these banking measures are assessed using distinct empirical frameworks. The empirical estimations use various subsamples based on bank types, bank sizes and time periods.

Economic downturns are associated with fluctuations in returns and the risk of default of commercial banks. Agricultural banks appeared to be more resilient to economic downturns than nonagricultural banks. However, Basel III regulated agricultural banks were more likely to fail amidst the pandemic-related economic shocks than the regulated non-agricultural banks.

This study examines the resiliency of agricultural banks during economic downturns and under postfinancial crisis regulation. This is one of the first empirical works to analyze the effectiveness of Basel III regulation across bank types and sizes considering the COVID-19 pandemic. The key finding suggests that banking regulation should consider not only size heterogeneity but also the heterogeneity in lending portfolios.

This chapter aims to examine the impact of whistleblowing policy (WH) on earnings management (EM) in an emerging market, Egypt. Our sample period from 2014 to 2019: the pre-whistleblowing policy period is 2014–2016 and the post-whistleblowing policy period is 2017–2019 with a total of 780 observations and the data are analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis. Data are collected from annual reports, corporate governance reports, and companies’ website. The empirical analysis shows that whistleblowing policy coefficient is negative and significantly impacts EM in Egyptian firms. The result shows that when the firm adopts a whistleblowing policy, it led to decrease in EM. In addition, we provide strong and robust evidence by the difference-in-difference (DID) method to show that whistleblowing is significantly negatively associated with the extent of EM, which indicates that firms have an effective whistleblowing policy and can have several benefits. Firstly, it can help to identify and prevent illegal or unethical behavior within an organization, which can ultimately save the company from potential legal and reputational damage. Secondly, a whistleblowing policy can empower employees to speak up about any concerns they have, without fear of retaliation, which can help to create a more transparent and ethical work environment. Overall, an effective whistleblowing policy can contribute to the long-term success of a company and the broader economy. The findings of this chapter are relevant to policymakers, governments, management, employees, and shareholders to constraining EM in Egyptian firms.

The dissemination of misleading and false information through media can jeopardize a company’s reputation, thus posing a threat to its stock and performance. Institutional investors are known to influence capital markets. Therefore, this paper investigates whether institutional investors engage in shaping the media sentiment stock nexus, stabilize company stocks and enhance performance.

We first investigate the effect of media sentiment on market reactions by using panel regression models. To examine the role of institutional investors, we design a quasi-experiment by exploiting the Financial Crisis of 2008 and go further by examining the heterogeneity across levels of institutional ownership. Due to risk-averse, investors may respond asymmetrically to pessimistic and positive sentiment. Accordingly, we split the sample into two sub-types, good news and bad news, based on keywords representing positive or negative content.

We find supportive evidence that institutional investors have impacts on how the markets react to media news, and the impacts are heterogeneous in the face of bad and good news. We conjecture that institutional investors act as a stabilizer of stock prices through media sentiment management.

This paper confirms the distinctive effects of institutional investors on capital markets, and uncovers the behind-the-scenes intervention and possible causal link running from institutional investors to media sentiment management. It contributes to the broad field of institutional investors' behavior, media news involvement in capital markets and market efficiency.

This paper aims to study the economic effects of Cloud Computing for a sample of Israeli firms. The authors propose a framework that considers how this technology affects firm performance also introducing the indirect economic effects that take place through cloud-complementary technologies such as Big Data and Machine Learning.

The model is estimated through structural equation modeling. The data set consists of the microdata of the survey of information and communication technologies uses and cyber protection in business conducted in Israel by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The results point to Cloud Computing as a crucial technology to increase firm performance, presenting significant direct and indirect effects as the use of complementary technologies maximizes its impact. Firms that enjoy most direct economic gains from Cloud Computing appear to be the smaller ones, although larger enterprises seem more capable to assimilate complementary technologies, such as Big Data and Machine Learning. The total effects of cloud on firm performance are quite similar among manufacturing and service firms, although the composition of the different effects involved is different.

This paper is one of the very few analyses estimating the impact of Cloud Computing on firm performance based on country microdata and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first one that contemplates the indirect economic effects that take place through cloud-complementary technologies such as Big Data and Machine Learning.

This study aims to assess the impact of participation in self-help group (SHG) on the psychological empowerment of rural tribal women.

Primary data was collected using multistage random sampling from the rural women of Jharkhand, India. The propensity score matching method was adopted using the psmatch2 command in STATA.

The results show a significant positive change in women’s self-esteem, self-confidence, self-efficacy, autonomy, knowledge and skills, reduction in agony and quality of life after participation in SHG. This reveals that participation in SHG has a significant positive impact on the psychological empowerment of rural tribal women.

Despite the numerous studies on rural women’s empowerment, there is little evidence of literature focusing on the impact of participation in SHG on psychological empowerment, specifically in the tribal context. This study primarily focuses on women belonging to the scheduled tribe category of Jharkhand, one of the poorest states of India.

This study explores whether the unique organizational form of family firms helps to mitigate the negative effects caused by the announcement of product recalls.

The authors use an event study, for a sample of 2,576 product recalls in the United States (US) automobile industry, between January 2010 and June 2021.

The authors found that stock market's reaction to a product recall announcement is less negative for family firms. This superior performance is partially driven by the family firms' long-term investment horizons and higher strategic emphasis on product quality. However, the relationship between family ownership and cumulative abnormal returns around product recall announcements is nonlinear as the impact of family ownership starts by being positive but becomes negative for higher levels of family ownership. The authors also find that family firm's chief executive officer (CEO) and managerial ownership influence positively the stock market reaction to product recall announcements.

This work has several implications for family firms' management as well as for investors and financial analysts. First, as higher managerial ownership is associated with a greater emphasis on product quality, decreasing stock market losses when a product recall occurs, family firms should consider increasing equity-based compensation. Second, as there seems to exist an optimal proportion of family ownership, family firms should consider the risks of increasing too much their ownership share. Third, investors and financial analysts can use the results in the study to help them in their investment and trading decisions in the stock market.

The authors extend the knowledge of product recalls by studying the under-researched role of the flexible, internally focused culture of family businesses on the stock market reaction to product recalls.