Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Innovation, Growth, and Dynamic Gains from Trade

How large are the welfare gains from trade? Would such gains be significantly amplified in the long run when productivity is endogenously enhanced? To address these questions, we focus on the dynamic effect of trade, in particular, how trade affects the incentives for technological advancement. We construct an innovation-based endogenous growth model of North-South trade. There are two types of innovation: one by the North to upgrade the general purpose technology (GPT) and another by all countries to advance entrepreneurial knowledge for developing differentiated products. We find sizable welfare gains from trade, about 5.3% when compared to autarky. The gains in our dynamic model are much higher than the static estimates where the effects of GPT-driven innovation are eliminated. The share of dynamic gains from trade is about 78% of the total gains in our benchmark economy – much higher than comparable figures identified in previous studies. Comparative statics indicate that GPT innovation efficacy, entrepreneurial talent distribution and trade elasticity are crucial for dynamic gains from trade.
Independence and the Effect of Empire The Case of “Sovereign Debts” issued by British Colonies

A large literature has attempted to determine whether belonging to an empire could reduce borrowing costs. A recurring theme in this literature is the role of borrowing and borrowing costs on development but also the relationship between core and periphery or colonial power and colonies. Gunder Frank (1966) has argued that contemporary economic underdevelopment was partially due to the development of the capitalist system. By contrast, Ferguson and Schularick (2006, p. 308) claim that colonies could benefit from ‘the importation (or imposition) of less dysfunctional economic, legal, and political Institutions’. The scope of this chapter is more limited. It does not attempt to determine whether the proceeds of loans were used for constructive purposes but rather it aims at understanding to which extent colonial guarantees were viewed as credible by market participants. The positive impact of colonial status on borrowing costs has been suggested for a long time (Cairncross 1953; Davis & Huttenback 1986). The literature has mostly focused its attention on the period covering the end of the nineteenth century to the First World War. Obstfeld and Taylor (2003) measure this impact by including a colonial dummy capturing the ‘Empire Effect’ in their analysis. They conclude that membership in the British Empire during the gold standard period was ‘neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to get a preferential access on the London Stock Exchange’. More precisely, they find no statistically significant link between colonial status and borrowing cost for the gold standard period and for 1926–31. On the other hand, and using a similar approach, Ferguson and Schularick (2006) find a substantial reduction in risk premium for colonies. Accominotti et al. (2011) attribute these contradictory results to a misspecification of the models. According to them, being a colony would not have a marginal impact but a structural one: as long as a country remained part of the empire, its default risk was the same as the one of the colonial power. Pooling all
Personifying Destinations: A Personal Values Approach

In this article, we examine whether tourists ascribe value priorities to destinations in a way that is consistent with the structure of the Schwartz theory of human values. In study 1, we test a new measure of destination values to elicit tourists’ perceptions of the values of a recent memorable holiday destination and whether these values reflect their holiday experiences. In study 2, we use the same measure to elicit tourists’ perceptions of four popular international destinations (London, New York, Paris, and Bangkok) and examine whether person–destination values congruence influences visit intentions. Across both studies we show that tourists’ perceptions of a destination’s values share a common structure consistent with values theory, but they differ widely in the value priorities they ascribe to destinations. We also found that destination values reflect tourist’s value-expressive holiday experiences and that self-congruity was associated with intentions to visit a destination.
Bank Audit Fee Pressure During the Financial Crisis

This study examines the pressure on bank audit fees during the height of the financial crisis. I employ a prior year benchmark audit fee method and compare it to the actual audit fee to determine the amount of fee pressure applied in a year. Results show a significant amount of fee pressure exerted upon bank auditors during 2008, more so than that found in studies of other industries. This study also investigates a bank specific fee model during the crisis finding differences in determinants of fees for those banks that did apply fee pressure. JEL Classifications: M42.
Government regulation, business leaders’ motivations and environmental performance of SMEs

This paper investigates whether government regulation crowds out intrinsic motivation to improve environmental performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Motivation crowding is the phenomenon by which external pressures reduce intrinsic motivation. Literature on motivation crowding effects of environmental regulations exhibits two gaps. First, previous studies have focused on households while neglecting business organizations, even though businesses account for a major part of industrial pollution worldwide. Second, previous literature neither measured intrinsic motivation nor tested how government regulation affects this motivation. Empirical evidence of motivation crowding by environmental regulations is therefore still lacking. This paper fills both research gaps. Using a dataset of 2,373 SMEs from 12 European countries, we show that government regulation enhances environmental performance directly but harms it indirectly by crowding out intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of business leaders. It only stimulates environmental performance for companies exhibiting low motivation.
Corruption: Public and Private

Corruption is recognised as a major stumbling block to development and is associated with injustice and abuse of power. The consensus on the detrimental effects of corruption stands in contrast with the lack of agreement on the set of phenomena that fall under the heading A«corruptionA­ and there is little discussion on whether the economics of corruption should also include corruption in the private sector. This question is relevant since different foci will have different theoretical bases and policy ramifications. We analyse the issue from two complementary perspectives: whether the impacts of corruption are limited to corruption in the public sector and whether a large public sector is associated with more corruption. First, we review theoretical and empirical perspectives on corruption, showing how concern over corruption in the private sector has a long history, dating back to Marshall and Coase. Second, we analyse corruptionA­s determinants using a panel data approach. The econometric analysis demonstrates how our indicator of government involvement in the economy is a poor predictor of corruption prevalence. Finally, the paper highlights the policy implications of the one-sided focus on corruption in the public sector and proposes an explicit acknowledgment of the role of corruption in the private sector.
Loss Aversion in Financial Markets

Experimental evidence suggests that people are more sensitive to losses than gains by a factor of about two. Researchers have drawn implications from loss aversion to understand various aspects of individual decisions and asset prices in financial markets. At the current stage, some ancillary assumptions have been made in deriving these implications. Loss aversion affects financial markets through affecting the risk attitudes of market participants. Taken as a whole, loss aversion is a useful ingredient in helping us understand financial markets.
Using Cultural Mindsets to Reduce Cross‐National Auditor Judgment Differences

In a globalized audit environment, regulators and researchers have expressed concerns about inconsistent audit quality across nations, with a particular emphasis on Chinese audit quality. Prior research suggests Chinese audit quality may be lower than U.S. audit quality due to a weaker institutional environment (e.g., lower litigation and inspection risk) or cultural value differences (e.g., greater deference to authority). In this study, we propose that lower Chinese audit quality could also be due to Chinese auditors’ different cognitive processing styles (i.e., cultural mindsets). We find U.S. auditors are more likely to engage in an analytic mindset approach, focusing on a subset of disconfirming information, whereas Chinese auditors are more likely to take a holistic mindset approach, focusing on a balanced set of confirming and disconfirming information. As a result, Chinese auditors make less skeptical judgments compared to U.S. auditors. We then propose an intervention in which we explicitly instruct auditors to consider using both a holistic and an analytic mindset approach when evaluating evidence. We find this intervention minimizes differences between Chinese and U.S. auditors’ judgments by shifting Chinese auditors’ attention more towards disconfirming evidence, improving their professional skepticism, while not causing U.S. auditors to become less skeptical. Our study contributes to the auditing literature by identifying cultural mindset differences as a causal mechanism underlying lower professional skepticism levels among Chinese auditors compared to U.S. auditors, and providing standard setters and firms with a potential solution that can be adapted to improve Chinese auditors’ professional skepticism and reduce cross-national auditor judgment differences.
Democratic backsliding in sub-Saharan Africa and the role of China’s development assistance

ABSTRACT The article observes 19 hybrid regimes in sub-Saharan from 2005 to 2014 and examines the influence of each country's level of economic development, short-term macroeconomic performance, and ratio of Chinese to Western official financing on the trajectory of its political development, with some regimes making improvements in the quality of democratic governance, others backsliding into greater authoritarianism, and still others remaining largely stable. The study suggests that while Western leverage might have been influential in the democratic development of observed hybrid regimes, it could have been counterbalanced by the presence of alternative Chinese foreign assistance.
Accurate spirometry assessment and interpretation for chronic disease management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in general practice : what are the barriers for practice nurses?

Spirometry (lung function assessment) is an essential tool for the chronic disease management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Chronic disease monitoring for COPD was introduced in 2004 and included spirometry for target achievement and financial remuneration within the Quality and Outcomes Framework of the General Medical Services Contract. However, practice nurses have anecdotally struggled to gain competence and expertise with the spirometric procedure and interpretation post 2004, despite the successful achievement of financial targets within the general practice setting. A sequential exploratory mixed methods study (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003) was undertaken within a University Health Board in Wales to determine what, if any, barriers exist for practice nurses undertaking spirometry assessment and interpretation for the chronic disease management of COPD. Quantitative data were collected via an online questionnaire. Qualitative interviews were conducted and analysed using an analysis framework method (Ritchie et al, 2003). The methodological framework of the feminist transformative lens (Caracelli and Greene, 1997) was utilised to gain an understanding of the barriers practice nurses faced in the gaining of competence with spirometry assessment and interpretation within the wider professional context. The quantitative results confirmed the anecdotal reports of difficulty with spirometry and demonstrated that lack of training was the greatest reason for lack of confidence in spirometric interpretation, followed by lack of clinical time and lack of general practitioner (GP) support. The qualitative results demonstrated that practice nurses are commonly working as disenfranchised isolated practitioners within general practice teams, and are commonly undertaking a procedure in which they are not highly confident. Recommendations for development of future clinical practice are: mandatory training with assessment of competency to improve skills with spirometry, in addition to supervisory support and training of GP colleagues. Other recommendations include: a greater focus on inter-professional team working to reduce professional isolation and disenfranchisement of practice nurses, and for practice nurses to actively contribute to local and national initiatives to improve spirometry services in the long term.
Origins of Sub-Saharan African Varieties of Capitalism and Implications for Development Policy

The Varieties of Capitalism approach is applied to Sub-Saharan African economies, and a proposition is made. It is argued that the state of underdevelopment and the legacy of colonial economic policy are characterized by several key structural and business-environmental conditions which makes market institutions to emerge as the predominant form of recourse (relative to private sector non-market institutions) for managing economic transactions and solving coordination problems, and which create extreme LME-type outcomes. However, the state of underdevelopment is also characterized by structural inadequacies which distort the forms and efficiency of these market institutions and thus limit aggregate efficiency. The size and coordinative capacity of private-sector non-market institutions is structurally limited to overcome these problems. The state thus emerges as a major compensating, facilitating and/or substituting actor in economic affairs. Yet, the possibility of government failure lurks to derail the success of such state compensation, thereby leading, in the worst cases, to more neo-patrimonial forms of capitalism.
Corporate Innovation: Do Diverse Boards Help?

Abstract We find that corporate innovation is positively related to board diversity as measured by a multidimensional index. The benefit of board diversity is more pronounced for firms with more complex operations, more experienced boards, and stronger external governance, suggesting that diverse boards have superior advising capacity. We find evidence to suggest that firms with diverse boards engage in more exploratory innovations and develop new technology in unfamiliar areas. As a result, they create a larger number of both most-cited and uncited patents. Finally, of the six different aspects of board diversity, professional diversity matters the most for corporate innovation.
The Political Logic of Government Disclosure: Evidence from Information Requests in Mexico

When citizens ask questions, how does their government answer? Requests for government information confront officials with incentives both for and against disclosure. We argue that officials seek to manage political risks in ways that favor requests from government-aligned regions. We study responsiveness in the context of Mexico’s access-to-information law, using publicly available data from several hundred thousand information requests filed with Mexican federal government agencies between 2003 and 2015. Our empirical strategy makes comparisons only among requests sent to similar agencies on similar topics at similar times, while accounting for the complexity, sophistication, and sensitivity of individual requests. We find that requests filed from locales with higher governing-party vote shares receive more favorable responses, across multiple indicators of the nature and timing of responses. Further, we find bias only for requests on publicly relevant topics, providing evidence in favor of a mechanism of mitigating political risks over one of rewarding supporters with greater access to benefits.
Characteristics of Colorectal Cancer in Elderly Patients in Comparision with Younger Patients

Background/Aims: Considering the increasing age of the general population and the incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC), this study examined the characteristics of CRC in the aged, by comparing the clinical, endoscopic and histologic findings of CRC of younger and old patients. Methods: The records of 232 patients diagnosed with CRC from March 2003 to September 2004 were reviewed retrospectively. Two cohorts based on age, under and over 65 years, were compared for the patient and tumor characteristics. Results: The bowel habit change was significant (p=0.018) and there was a high prevalence of hematochezia in the older patients. The rate of cancer detection via a routine checkup was higher in the younger patients (p=0.015). The incidence of right colon cancer increased with age, and substantially higher in females. More older patients had Dukes stage C disease (p=0.007), while more younger patients had stage D (p=0.022). The incidence of metastasis was high in those with right colon cancer (p=0.009), and significantly higher in female. In females, high-risk tumor such as mucinous or signet-ring was more common in the older patients. The older patients had significantly low CEA levels in the advanced stage. Synchronous CRC was more common in the older patients (8.1% vs. 3.4%) and was located within the adjacent segment. Conclusions: CRC must be considered when older patients present with changes in their bowel habits or hematochezia. The right colon must be examined closely in older patients, particularly in females. A metastasis should be checked in right colon cancer, particularly in females. In older patients, advanced disease should be considered even in those with a low CEA level, and synchronous CRC must be searched for in the same or adjacent segment to that of the primary cancer. (Korean J Gastrointest Endosc 2007;34:76-82)
Induction in Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia: A Study of 22 Cases

Treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia yields high complete remission (CR) rate with disappointingly low overall survival. We describe the results of induction in 22 cases of adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia treated between January 2011 and January 2013. Median age at presentation was 28 years (range 13-70). Fatigue (n=15, 68%) was the most frequent presenting complaint followed by fever (n=14, 63.7%). 36.3% patients presented with splenomegaly while 31.8% had lymphadenopathy. The average presenting white cell count was 61 k/ul. B-ALL was more common than TALL (59% and 27% respectively). 8 cases were deemed high risk and 14 cases were standard risk. One patient died early in induction before specific treatment. 20 patients were treated with intensive chemotherapy (CALGB8811=12, MCP 841=4, CCG-BFM=2 and BFM-90=1, others 1). Overall CR was 85% while CR in CALGB8811 was 83.3%. The average time to NADIR was 10 days (range 6 -17 days). The most common complication in induction was neutropenic sepsis (n=19, 86.4%) contributing alone to induction mortality of 15% (n=3). Causative organism was identified in only 31.8% cases (n=7), the commonest being pseudomonas and coagulase negative staphylococcus. Facilities for extended immunophenotyping and cytogenetic tests (in addition to BCR-ABL by PCR) are required for administration of standard of treatment. J Bangladesh Coll Phys Surg 2015; 33(1): 18-22
Financial Development, Efficiency, and Competition of ASEAN Banking Market

This study aims to examine the nexus between financial development, competition and efficiency of ASEAN countries over the period 2011 to 2016. Using dataset 78 banks over the ASEAN countries, the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure efficiency, Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to measure market concentration, Lerner Index to measure market power. The dynamic panel approach namely Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed to examine nexus between financial development, competition and efficiency of banks. The empirical results of nexus between financial development, competition and efficiency drawn three conclusions: firstly, competition is positively related to efficiency (technical efficiency and pure technical efficiency). Secondly, competition is negatively related to scale efficiency. Thirdly, financial development is negatively related to efficiency (pure technical efficiency) and competition. Nevertheless, GDP are positively related to competition. The results of this study imply encourage competition in banking sector foster the efficiency. Development in financial sector make banks inefficient and underutilized resources while improve market power.
Irish Attitudes to Muslim Immigrants

This paper uses data from the 2014 Special Module of the European Social Survey on attitudes to immigration to investigate attitudes towards Muslim and White immigrants in Ireland. Drawing on theories of social identity, ethnic threat and social distance, the paper develops hypotheses about which factors influence attitudes to Muslim immigrants, and how and why they might differ from attitudes to White immigrants. Comparing these attitudes, we find evidence of an “ethnic hierarchy” in Ireland, with more positive attitudes to White than to Muslim immigrants. We also find that age and religious practice are associated with attitudes towards Muslim immigrants, but have only weak effects on attitudes towards White immigrants. The analysis reveals that an international terrorist attack had a negative effect on attitudes to Muslim immigrants but not on attitudes to White immigrants.
Measuring Executive Personality Using Machine-Learning Algorithms: A New Approach and Audit Fee-Based Validation Tests

We present a novel approach for measuring executive personality traits. Relying on recent developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we utilize the IBM Watson Personality Insights service to measure executive personalities based on CEOs’ and CFOs’ responses to questions raised by analysts during conference calls. We obtain the Big Five personality traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – based on which we estimate risk tolerance. To validate these traits, we first demonstrate that our risk-tolerance measure varies with existing inherent and behavioural-based measures (gender, age, sensitivity of executive compensation to stock return volatility, and executive unexercised-vested options) in predictable ways. Second, we show that variation in firm-year level personality trait measures, including risk tolerance, is largely explained by manager characteristics, as opposed to firm characteristics and firm performance. Finally, we find that executive inherent risk tolerance helps explain the positive relationship between client risk and audit fees documented in the prior literature. Specifically, the effect of CEO risk-tolerance – as an innate personality trait – on audit fees is incremental to the effect of increased risk appetite from equity risk-taking incentives (Vega). Measuring executive personality using machine-learning algorithms will thus allow researchers to pursue studies that were previously difficult to conduct.