Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Status, Education and Government Spending in a Two-Sector Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper extends the relative wealth specification of status preference to the two-sector Uzawa (1965) Lucas (1988) model and examines the effectiveness of government spending on economic growth. It is found that the desire for relative wealth-induced social status and/or the education component of relative wealth-induced social status are important ingredients in determining the growth rate effects of government spending. Provided that the agent is concerned with his or her relative social position, the education-induced social status plays a more important role than the physical-asset-induced social status in determining the validity of public spending on growth. If individuals do not care about their education-driven social rewards, then an increase in government spending has no effect on the balanced growth rate regardless of the presence of the physical-asset-induced social status. A rise in government spending reduces the long-run growth rate if the education-induced social status is present.
Reference Dependence and Conjoint Analysis

Abstract Although there is enormous evidence that reference levels influence preferences, conjoint models, one of the most successful marketing research tools, assume that preferences depend on the absolute levels of attributes. In this paper we investigate the relevance of reference effects in two settings, compositional or self-explicated models in experimental studies 1 and 2, and decompositional or choice-based models in experimental study 3. In particular, we introduce a simple modification of the traditional self-explicated conjoint model which permits dependence of preference on reference levels. By eliciting gains and losses from expectations the model is adaptable to changes in respondents' reference points, which the traditional model is incapable of. Reference options are found to clearly affect subject choices in studies 1 and 2. In addition, the reference dependent self-explicated model is found to offer useful predictions when reference points are manipulated in study 1, and improve on predictions of its traditional counterpart when reference points are measured in study 2. In contrast, in study 3, the choice-based model’s diagnostics and predictions are found to be robust to reference point manipulations. Taken together, these results suggest that the self-explicated model is more suited than the choice-based model to understanding and predicting how respondents make judgments relative to reference points because reference points and gains and losses from reference levels are more salient in the self-explicated model. We discuss implications for managers constructing conjoint models in product-market settings wherein reference points are changing due to new product introductions or marketing efforts.
Tax Changes and Cigarette Prices

The recurring question of the difference between specific and ad valorem taxes has recently been revived by Barzel (1976), who argued (p. 1185) that ". when quality is not fully controlled, the effects of the two types of taxes differ radically. The excise tax induces a substitution of quality for quantity, resulting in a greater increase in the price per unit than predicted by the constant-quality model. The ad valorem tax induces a reduction in quality and lower after-tax price than predicted. " Evidence consistent with these hypotheses is found in the response of cigarette prices to tax changes. In the further tests reported by Johnson (1978), prices rise significantly less than the tax in New Hampshire, where the state tax was ad valorem, and significantly more in the remaining states, which impose specific taxes. The purpose of this note is to question not Barzel's analysis but rather the interpretation of the evidence, on the pedestrian grounds of implausibility. As Barzel himself observes (p. 1194, n. 32), "the size of New Hampshire makes it unlikely that cigarettes would be tailormade for it. The scope for removing characteristics is quite limited, then. " The scope for adding characteristics in other states seems equally limited. To avoid misunderstanding it should be emphasized that the hypothesized variations in quality are a supply-side phenomenon, not a demand-side response to the relative cheapening of superior brands when a specific tax is increased. Johnson's estimates imply that the 90 increase in the New Hampshire tax over the period 1954-76 should have reduced the net price by 3.6? , ceteris paribus; the slightly larger mean tax increase in the remaining 48 continental states should have raised net price by 0.90. What changes in the quality of the services sold with cigarettes could have justified such a differential? What are the observable counterparts of the tax changes? In the absence of a convincing answer to those questions, the estimated response of cigarette prices to taxes represents a fact in search of a theory.
An Empirical Study of Corporate Brand Image, Customer Perceived Value and Satisfaction on Loyalty in Shoe Industry

A positive corporate brand image is not only increasing competition but also encourage consumers to repurchase. With loyal customers, companies can reduce the operating cost and acquisition expenses. This initial study was from relevant literature, then set up research structure and hypotheses. Survey was employed, and respondents collected from the customers of ASO in Taiwan. There were 208 usable questionnaires to analyze descriptive statistics, reliability, validity, and SEM model. Based on the research results, corporate brand image significantly affects customer perceived value, customer satisfaction and loyalty; customer perceived value has strong impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty for the sample; and customer satisfaction significantly affects customer loyalty. Therefore, companies should have a positive brand image to customers, and specifically focus on those factors in order to build a long-term and mutually profitability relationships with customers and create loyalty as competitive advantages in the markets. The study focuses on the industry of shoes in Taiwan, and adopts only a quantitative method. Future research could employ a different design to examine the causal relationships posited by the theories, and extension the study to discuss mediation or moderation among dimensions.
The Impact of R&D on the Value of European Firms

The purpose of this paper is to provide additional research on the market valuation of R%D in Europe, and also to shed light on some firm and country characteristics which sensibly modulate the effect of R%D on firms' value. The analysis is performed using a panel regression approach with fixed effects, including time and country effects, for years 2001-2007. Empirical results show that the effect of R%D expenditures is positive and significant across countries with the exception of Italian firms, confirming previous evidence on this topic. R%D is most highly valued for firms that operate in hi-tech sectors, whereas it remains negative for low-tech ones. Size generally presents negative returns to scale for these firms, indicating that small firms which operate in hi-tech industrial sectors are able to invest more efficiently in R%D. Firms that operate in low-tech industries can achieve consistent returns to scale due to their alternative investment in innovation. Well-developed loan and equity markets and a high level of shareholder protection have a positive effect on the market valuation of R%D. The empirical results we achieve offer an interesting point of view about the effect of R%D on firms' performance across European financial markets.
Leadership as it Promotes a Culture of Trust and an Open School Climate: a Catholic Secondary School Perspective

Today's Catholic schools not only have the obligation to educate in order to meet the economic needs of the individual and society as a whole, but also to educate for the Greater Good in order to serve the civic and ethical needs of society. The principals of these schools are responsible for creating a school-wide learning community for both teachers and students. Leaders are entrusted with facilitating spiritual growth, increasing the growth of human capital through academics and professional development, as well as, enhancing social capital through sustained, positive collective interactions with community members. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which leadership promotes a culture of trust and an open climate in Catholic secondary schools within the Archdiocese of Newark. Furthermore, it investigates the relationship between organizational climate and trust in the principal, as well as, the relationship between trust in the principal and trust among faculty members. Lastly, it compares the means for openness and teacher behaviors. The study is a mixed method design which distributed surveys to faculties for the quantitative piece and interviewed principals to enrich the study qualitatively. Eleven high schools participated in the study; surveys were returned by 199 teachers. Seven building principals agreed to be interviewed in order to tease out further information regarding trust and climate. Findings suggest if a high level of openness exists then there tends to be trust in the principal within schools. Descriptive statistics were used to find correlations and the study implemented a comparison of the means with regard to teacher behaviors. Lastly, the analysis determined that if there was trust in the principal there would likely be trust among colleagues. This study might act as a catalyst for change in Catholic secondary schools throughout the archdiocese. Recommendations include continuing Catholic school leadership seminars at the local level and sustaining university programs for newly appointed or emerging Catholic school leaders. It is also recommended that at the building level schools work 'to improve their scores for trust among colleagues which was determined to be just slightly above average. O Copyr igh t by Cons tance S l a v i n McCue, 2 0 0 9 A l l R i g h t s Reserved
Reconsidering the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation

A model with sticky wage rates and involuntary unemployment is used to compute the marginal cost of taxation, and these estimates are compared with those obtained from the conventional price-clearing equilibrium model. Important determinants of the marginal cost estimates are the response of sticky wages to a tax increase, the elasticity of demand for labor, and the unemployment gap. By contrast, the conventional model focuses on the elasticity of labor supply. The different models have different implications for efficient tax design. However, the new model generally agrees with the conventional model regarding significant efficiency costs of higher taxation. Copyright 1995 by The Economic Society of Australia.
Corporate Governance in Less Developed Countries

This paper argues that there is a pressing need for coherent analysis of the development and implementation of corporate governance (CG) codes in less developed countries (LDCs) in general, and Africa in particular. Africa has recently been argued to be the next focus of global economic growth and there is an urgent imperative to explore and understand the gulf between what is understood by CG in developed and less developed countries. Empirical evidence suggests that CG codes originating from Western countries may fail to operate effectively within Africa and other LDCs, raising the potential need for modification in order to be able to deliver the intended impact. This paper seeks to address this deficiency and develops a framework to guide LDCs scholars in understanding the key areas where the efficacy of Western inspired CG codes requires assessment. This framework is built upon five key CG themes emerging from an extensive review of the literature - supervision and enforcement; boards of directors; shareholder rights; stakeholder relations; transparency and disclosure – and the possible uses of this framework are explored. The paper aims to encourage conceptual coherence and enhance the comparability of research findings across a range of LDCs with heterogeneous institutional backgrounds.
The Ethics of Tax Evasion: Perceptual Evidence from Nigeria

Tax evasion has the effect of distorting the principle of perfect market resource allocation with rippling effects on the state of infrastructures. Tax evasion in most developing countries is so rampant and this development is much exacerbate by the fact that not many of these countries have made an effort to measure the ethical reasons that taxpayers give, the extent of this problem and at the same time analyze its impact. Thus, this study is directed towards understanding the behaviour of taxpayers towards tax evasion in Nigeria. The study made use of statistical test for population means and level of significance tests to evaluate the hypotheses formulated for the study. The study shows that the hypothesis that tax evasion is ethical sometimes is not accepted. The study also found that the level of tax evasion when government is corrupt is significantly higher than when it relates to other views expressed on government discrimination, unjust treatment and tax affordability. There are indications from the study that the various arguments that respondents gave to justify tax evasion include government corruption, unfair treatment of citizens, tax affordability and unfavourable tax system. This shows that the responsiveness of government in terms of accountability, human right treatment and optimal tax rate play a significant role in the payment of taxes. The Government and other policymakers should find the results of this study useful in discouraging tax evasion and in developing tax policies aimed at minimizing tax evasion.
The q-Theory Approach to Understanding the Accrual Anomaly

Interpreting accruals as working capital investment, we hypothesize based on q-theory that firms optimally adjust their accruals in response to discount rate changes. A higher discount rate means less profitable investments and lower accruals, and a lower discount rate means more profitable investments and higher accruals. Our evidence supports this optimal investment hypothesis: (1) adding an investment factor into standard factor regressions substantially reduces the magnitude of the accrual anomaly, often to insignificant levels; (2) accruals covary negatively with discount rate estimates from the dividend discounting model, and for the most part, with estimates from the residual income model; (3) accruals with low accounting reliability covary more with capital investment than accruals with high accounting reliability; and (iv) expected returns to accruals-based trading strategies are time-varying, suggesting that the deterioration of the accrual effect in recent years might be temporary and likely to mean-revert in the near future.
Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis, accounting information and the 2007–9 financial crisis in the UK and US

This paper examines the financial crisis of 2007–9 in the UK and US in terms of the financial instability hypothesis (FIH), a theory of boom, bust and financial crises. It is shown that in a similar way to the crises of 1866 and 1987 (Barnes, 2007) the FIH provides an important depiction of the 2007–9 crisis and how it came about. However, it does not recognize: (1) the role of accounting information and how it may contribute to boom and bust and be used to change perceptions and mislead; and (2) the likelihood of fraud and financial swindles, all features of the 2007–9 crisis.
A Residential Demand Charge: Evidence from the Duke Power Time-of-Day Pricing Experiment

Demand charges account for one-third to one-half of industrial and commercial electricity bills, and yet they have been virtually ignored, both theoretically and practically, as a component of residential tariffs. Our objective here is twofold: (1) to model and test the effects of a time-of-use demand charge on residential consumer behavior and (2) to evaluate, theoretically and empirically, its influence on utility system peak. Among the pragmatic issues are the effects of sustained hot weather on household response and the effects of the charge on demand at time of system peak compared to billing demand.
Corporate environmental reporting through the lens of semiotics

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to understand the motives behind corporate environmental reporting in Malaysia and Australia from an alternative perspective, i.e. through semiotics. Design/methodology/approach - Reviews are made on the annual reports of the top 50 public companies in both countries, and the uses of business languages in those reports are investigated. The research concentrates on the significations of environmental messages made through paradigmatic and syntagmatic tests. Findings - Corporate environmental disclosures made by the public companies in Malaysia and Australia signify similar form of motives. The tones, orientations, and patterns of environmental disclosures indicate that environmental information is a strategic mechanism used towards enhancing good corporate reputation. Research limitations/implications - Environmental reporting plays a significant role in promoting corporate “green” image in conjunction with the aims for better social integration. Practical implications - Semiotics offers a useful basis that enables a greater understanding of why companies prepare and disclose environmental information. Such an understanding holds the potential to provide ideas and guide policy-makers, and other stakeholders (and users) of corporate environmental information. Originality/value - This paper is the first to comparatively investigate the corporate motives and intention of environmental reporting practices via the application of semiotics on a two-country data, specifically Malaysia and Australia.
Gender, Design and Education: The Politics of Voice

i RESUME ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii PROLOGUE ix INTRODUCTION GENDER, DESIGN AND EDUCATION: THE POLITICS OF VOICE 1 0.1 The interrelationship of value, space, gender and education 3 0.2 The thesis question 3 0.3 Methodology 4 CHAPTER 1: DEFINITIONS: VALUES AND WAYS OF KNOWING 6 1.1 Values 6 1.1.1 What is a value? 6 1.1. 2 Perception as impacting on value assumptions 9 1.1. 3 Objective value as hierarchical Frondizi and the idea of hierarchical values10 1.1. 4 Contextualizing values 11 1.1. 5 The changing face of interior design An issue of values 13 1.1. 6 Examples of values in design 13 1.1. 7 Value as knowledge and power 15 1.1. 8 Value in design education 16 1.1. 9 Pedagogies in design 16
Stress and eustress in nursing students.

AIM This paper is a report of a study to identify experiences that led to both distress and eustress and to make recommendations to help students cope with course demands. BACKGROUND Much of the research on stress in nursing students is quantitative in focus and all draws on their experience of distress, with little attempt to understand experiences of eustress. METHOD A series of focus groups were carried out with a volunteer sample of final year nursing students (n = 16) in the United Kingdom in 2007. The data were thematically analysed. FINDINGS The themes identified were clinical experience, support, learning and teaching experience and course structure. There were experiences within each that were perceived as sources of distress and eustress. Many of the sources of distress concur with earlier findings but they are more likely to be experienced and commented on because the demands of present-day programmes and the profile of many nursing students mean that more effort is invested in meeting educational demands. The experiential learning and patient-care opportunity that placements provided was an important source of eustress. CONCLUSION Students who coped well drew on effective support networks and adopted a positive, optimistic perspective towards programme issues. Effective educators did not offer more time than those perceived as less effective but seemed more effective at tuning into students' concerns, showing more empathy and offering clearer guidance.
Multipoint methylation analysis indicates a distinctive epigenetic phenotype among testicular germ cell tumors and testicular malignant lymphomas

Hypermethylation of tumor‐suppressor genes has been implicated in the pathogenesis of human cancers. Although a growing number of genes showing hypermethylation is being reported in human cancer, methylation profiles of tumor‐related genes in testicular neoplasms have not been well elucidated. This study was designed to show the methylation profiles of multiple CpG islands in testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) in comparison with those in testicular malignant lymphomas. We studied the methylation status of E‐cadherin, CDKN2B, CDKN2A, BRCA1, RB1, VHL, RASSF1A, RARB, and GSTP1 by use of TGCT tissues and testicular malignant lymphoma tissues (25 primary TGCT tissues and three primary testicular lymphoma tissues). Methylation was not observed in E‐cadherin, CDKN2B, CDKN2A, BRCA1, RB1, VHL, RASSF1A, RARB, and GSTP1 in any of the TGCT tissues. In contrast, all three (100%) of the testicular lymphoma tissues demonstrated hypermethylation of E‐cadherin, RASSF1A, and RARB, but not CDKN2B, CDKN2A, BRCA1, RB1, VHL, and GSTP1. These data demonstrate that a distinctive epigenetic phenotype underlies the TGCTs and testicular lymphomas at the CpG sites of E‐cadherin, RASSF1A, and RARB; a distinctive epigenetic phenotype was not observed among seminomatous TGCTs and non‐seminomatous TGCTs at the CpG sites examined. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Government Formation and Strategic Voting in Multi-Party Systems:Voting for Coalitions in the Netherlands

Voters may have different strategic reasons to vote for a party that is not their favourite. The best known form of strategic voting takes place in major itarian electoral systems, where citizens may decide to not waste their vote by supporting a cand idate that has no chance of winning the constituency seat. This incentive to vote strategic ally is absent in proportional systems with large district magnitudes. We argue that in multi-party s ystems another form of strategic voting takes place, as considerations about future government co alitions may stimulate citizens to vote strategically. We evaluate this proposition on the basis of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2006, which contained a novel series of survey item s aimed at identifying such considerations. The results suggest that Dutch voters did indeed vo te strategically aiming to influence government formation. The key finding is that if voters did no t conceive of their favourite party as taking part in the coalition they would like to see formed afte r the election, they deflected and voted for one of the major parties, as these were likely to take part in this coalition. Voters’ estimates of the probability of particular coalitions forming, on th e other hand, had virtually no impact.
Linking Academic Forestry Education with Employers' Demands: a Case Study from Malaysia

SUMMARY University curricula, particularly forestry curricula, have been traditionally orientated to the employers' needs and the society's wants. Modern curriculum development requires a dialogue between universities and potential employers of graduates even more to keep abreast of diversity and change. To this end, the Malaysian-German Forestry Education Project at the School of International Tropical Forestry commissioned three surveys in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah to learn about employers demand in forestry and related fields. Apart from putting emphasis on sound state-of-the-art knowledge in core technical fields such as Forest Management and GIS/Remote Sensing, employers interviewed judged basic computer skills, soft skills and adequate practical training programmes as being equally important.