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This study empirically investigates the difference in employment status between marriage immigrants and native women in Taiwan based on a combined dataset from the 2003 Survey of Foreign and Mainland Spouses’ Life Status and 2003 Women’s Marriage, Fertility and Employment Survey. The conceptual framework is based on the family labor supply model, the human and social capital theories, and the immigrant assimilation theory. From the Probit model of the employment probability, our findings indicate that family background variables, including the presence of small children and husbands’ characteristics, play fairly significant roles in determining the employment probability of marriage immigrants. As for native women, human capital variables such as schooling and age are the most significant factors affecting their employment probability, while husbands’ characteristics play a less important role in this respect. The finding that the employment probability of foreign spouses rises rapidly with the number of years that have elapsed since migration may confirm the employment assimilation for marriage immigrants. This study further applies the nonlinear decomposition analysis developed in the work of Yun (2004) to examine the gap in employment probability between native women and foreign spouses in Taiwan. Our findings show that the employment probability differentials are mostly due to the difference in coefficients and that the effects of the two age variables play dominant roles. The difference in coefficients, in sum, contributes to increasing the gap of employment probability, while the difference in characteristics, in sum, tends to reduce the employment probability differentials.

This chapter provides a statistical analysis of the determinants of attitudes toward foreigners displayed by Europeans sampled in Eurobarometer surveys in 1988 and 1997. Those who compete with immigrants in the labor market are more negative toward foreigners. An increased concentration of immigrants in neighborhoods increases the likelihood of negative attitudes. Racial prejudice exerts a strong influence on anti-foreigner sentiment. Greater racial prejudices, and the decline in the strength of educational attainment in reducing negative attitudes toward foreigners, contribute to the increased anti-foreigner attitudes between 1988 and 1997.

The increase in self‐employment is probably one of the most important change that occurred on the Swiss labour market in the past 20 years. Using newly available census data from 1970 to 2000, seeks to investigate this evolution for the male labour force.

This research is based on census data from 1970 to 2000. Analysis is carried out by means of probability analysis (probit and logit model) and segregation analysis.

Finds that the evolution of the self‐employment rate is driven by changing factors of self‐employment as well as by a changing labour force. However, differences between self‐employed and wage‐workers have become smaller over time. This is especially relevant with respect to occupations. Regarding gender differences, the higher rate of self‐employed among men than among women is due to different factors rather than different characteristics of the labour force. Finally, investigates the structure of self‐employment in 2000. Finds that the distinction between various forms of self‐employment is quite relevant, a result that underlines the heterogeneity of the self‐employed.

Finds that the distinction between different forms of self‐employment (with or without employees) does matter. Thus any research on self‐employment should take into account the heterogeneity of this population.

Data cover exhaustively the Swiss labour force, which allows a thorough investigation of the role of various factors. There is no other data in Switzerland that allows the investigation of the evolution of labour‐market phenomena over such a long period. Also focuses on different forms of self‐employment, a distinction that has often been overlooked in the literature.

This study investigates the factors influencing household financial choices in Malawi. The authors also compare how household financial decisions differ in urban and rural areas.

The authors utilize the logit model to examine the factors that influence household financial decisions using the Malawi Integrated Household Survey 2019–20, while Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition is used to estimate the variations in household financial decisions between urban and rural areas.

The authors find that the likelihood of saving increases with income, secondary and tertiary education, and age. The likelihood of saving also decreases with household size and remittances. Additionally, the authors report that marriage reduces the likelihood of loans, whereas sex, age, and income raise the likelihood of loans. According to this study’s findings, income discrepancies between urban and rural samples account for most observed household financial variations. The authors also find that most of the observed variations in household financial decision-making between urban and rural households are reduced when income equality, participation in agriculture, university education, and household size are considered.

Using data from the Malawi Integrated Household Survey 2019–20, this research analyzes the components that affect household financial decisions. While most studies only look at one component of household finances, this study concurrently addresses debt and savings. The study also evaluates whether changes in the variables between urban and rural households impact those households' financing choices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if credit rationing persists even in the era of financial liberalization, the extent to which individual, firm and loan characteristics influence the rationing behavior of commercial banks and whether the agricultural sector is discriminated against in the commercial bank credit market.

The study employed a probit model with marginal effects and a generalized Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition estimation on a randomly selected data of 1,239 entrepreneurs from eight commercial banks’ credit records about their individual, firm and loan characteristics.

The study revealed that credit rationing persists and that applying for a relatively longer payment period, providing collateral and guarantor, being illiterate, being relatively older and being in the agricultural sector increases the likelihood of being credit rationed, while having some relationship with the bank, having non-mandatory savings and applying from a bank with relatively high interest rates reduce the likelihood of being credit rationed. The study also revealed a credit gap of 17.77 percent and a positive discrimination against borrowers in the agricultural sector as the gap was largely being influenced by unexplained factors.

The research was intended to cover a large number of commercial banks in Ghana. However, most of the banks were unwilling to provide such information about their borrowers; hence, the research was limited to only eight commercial banks who provided the author with the information needed for the study.

The study concludes that policies that enhance human capital, women, and older access to credit and agricultural-oriented financial services and others, will go a long way to reduce rationing and increase access to credit, especially to the agricultural sector.

The research proposes the use of group lending as a form of collateral and monitoring to ease risks and default, and hence supports sustainable funding to increase access and outreach.

The paper looks at the comprehensive way about the various factors determining credit rationing in that it considers not only the individual, economic/firm and loan characteristics but also the extent to which discrimination toward the agricultural sector exists in the commercial banks credit market.

This paper focuses on two issues, firstly the extent to which the employment position of the main ethnic minority groups in England and Wales changed between 1991 and 2001 and secondly, a detailed examination of employment rates amongst ethnic groups in 2001. Relative to Whites, the employment position of most ethnic minority groups improved over the period, especially for males. Some of this improvement was due to enhanced levels of observable characteristics. However, the employment gap between Whites and some ethnic minority groups remains extremely large. Educational qualifications, religion and local deprivation are found to be important influences on employment for many minority groups. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of these findings.

This paper aims to address the following research question: Is loan funding to female entrepreneurs in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco affected by self-selection from borrowers or/and discrimination from lenders? This paper sheds light on empirical literature review, which displays mixed evidence.

The authors use a pooled sample of 3,896 businesses in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia drawn from the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES). Despite selection biases and overweighing, the sample provides descriptive statistics upon gender ownership and gender management (human capital characteristics and financial data). The authors design two regression logistic models with interaction to investigate loan demand and loan granting with respect to self-selection vs discrimination. Female management is disentangled from female ownership with respect to entrepreneurship.

Neither self-selection nor discrimination affects female owners compared with their male counterparts, whereas female managers do self-select themselves. In as much as the WBES female subsample include several biases, the authors eventually emphasise the importance of the non-surveyed informal sector, which includes most (micro-)businesses, and loan funding provided by the microfinance industry to these female businesses. Microfinance fills the gap for working capital but not for fixed assets. The size of the business is a major factor explaining both self-selection and discrimination.

Findings of this study have important policy implications for closing the gender gap in accessing finance. In addition to supply-side factors, demand-side factors should be addressed. Informality also needs to be addressed, as many micro and small enterprises owned or managed by women are informal entities without registration or/and social protection. One way to increase women's demand for financial services is to introduce financial products to meet their needs (e.g. social protection basic coverage). Governments can help develop these new products by strengthening the microfinance industry with a favourable regulatory and institutional framework. The authors also wonder about the extension of this study. Thus, a new cross-sectional analysis of the most recent surveys in the North African region would allow the authors to enlarge the overall sample and measure the evolution of the gender gap over time.

So far, funding female entrepreneurship remained little investigated in these North African countries. Several sampling biases in the WBES – small businesses underestimation and manufacturing industry overweighting, which have been overlooked so far, explain the absence of self-selection and discrimination. In contrast, size plays an important role. Hence, the focus on microenterprises (the informal sector) and the microfinance industry suggests indeed that female entrepreneurs operating in small businesses have to cope with both self-selection and discrimination.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain a comprehensive structure of past empirical studies on financial contagion which can provide the present growth and future scope of research work on the field of contagion analysis.

Present study identifies 151 empirical studies on financial contagion and summarises all the studies on the basis of tools and methodology used, year of the studies, origin of the studies, sample period and sample countries taken, studies undertaken on the basis of different crisis period and markets considered and finally sources of the studies.

The results of the analysis show that the empirical studies on contagion increased continuously over the past five years. Higher order test of contagion with more number of sample countries may provide more accurate picture on financial contagion.

This paper collects, classifies and summarises past empirical studies on financial contagion and provides valuable conclusion on present growth and future scope of studies on financial contagion. The information given in this paper can be helpful for future researchers and academicians on this particular field; the summary of the conclusion (from past reviews) may be helpful for the policy makers for asset allocation and risk management.

To examine gender and ethnic wage structures and wage differentials an Israel and decompose the difference in wages into endowments, discrimination and selectivity components.

Selection and wage equations are estimated for each of the population groups (Eastern women, Western women, Eastern men, Western men) separately. The wage equations are corrected for selectivity using the Heckman procedure and subsequently wage differentials are decomposed into the three components mentioned above, using four alternative decompositions suggested in 2004 by Neuman and Oaxaca.

Gender wage differentials are significantly larger than ethnic differences. Discrimination is more common between the genders. The four alternative decompositions – that are based on different assumptions and objectives – yield different results.

Decomposition of wage differences between groups needs to take into account information on the local relevant labor market and the wage setting process.

Information on the relative shares of the endowments, discrimination and selectivity components leads to a more effective way to close wage gaps.

Employment of new proposed decomposition methodologies that might lead to practical implications to combat gender and ethnic wage gaps in Israel.