Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The political economy of institutions in Africa : comparing authoritarian parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda

This thesis presents an original theory of authoritarian party and legislative institutions in Africa, tracing their trajectories from an early period of regime consolidation through subsequent episodes of socio-economic and institutional change. Contra a dominant rational choice literature on authoritarian institutions, as well as an Africanist analysis of “neo-patrimonialism”, I demonstrate how institutional variation reflects differences in the underlying distribution of power across African regimes. I argue, first, that variation in legislative strength and assertiveness is a function of the institutional strength and cohesion of ruling parties. The institutional make-up of these parties varies, in turn, depending on the early strategies of “politicized accumulation” and patronage distribution deployed by authoritarian leaders, as well as subsequent patterns of economic change. The legislature remains more marginal and subservient where authoritarian leaders work to centralise wealth accumulation, control patronage distribution and build up party institutions to channel and constrain elite contestation. By contrast, parliaments assert themselves where more diffuse patterns of accumulation fuel patron-client factionalism, undermine party cohesion and turn the legislature into an arena for intra-elite bargaining. Beyond analysing when and how parliaments strengthen, I also reassess the significance of a more assertive legislature, particularly its implications for distributive outcomes. My explanation of institutional variation yields fresh insights regarding whose interests a stronger legislature is likely to represent. Once we appreciate the role of elite contestation in driving legislative activity, it follows that parliamentary interventions tend to serve elite interests, reinforcing an existing wealth inequality. To demonstrate this argument, I use a combination of within- and cross-case analysis, drawing primarily on the Tanzanian and Ugandan cases with further reference to Kenya and Rwanda. I adopt a process tracing methodology to assess the validity of my causal argument and, for evidence, rely primarily on qualitative data drawn from elite interviews, archival work and observation of relevant party and legislative meetings.
Major sporting events: achieving an international sport development legacy

ABSTRACT Rationale/Purpose: With international sport development programmes increasingly contributing to the legacy of major sports events, there is a need to understand how sustainable, long-term legacy impacts may be achieved. This paper focuses on the management of such programmes and the steps that might be taken to sustain them. Methodology/Approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior event managers (n = 5) selected from several national (UK) and international sports governing bodies. Findings: Equal partnership is highlighted as central to enhancing legacy programme sustainability, by explicitly engaging stakeholders in the design and management process. Practical implications: Recommendations are provided for delivering sustainable international sport development programmes which represents a useful resource for organisations active within this field. Research contribution: The paper builds upon current sport management literature by proposing ‘best practice’ in relation to the assessment of delivery contexts, and how information gained through this process can shape sustainable sport development programme design.
Show them the flag: status ambitions and recognition in small state coalition warfare

ABSTRACT Why do small states actively contribute to US- and NATO-led military operations? The small state literature has recently developed a novel explanation, referring to their dependency upon the alliance hegemon. The logic is that the small states aim to improve their status and reputation in order to remain relevant and to receive protection. This article contributes to this literature by moving away from this fear of abandonment motivation towards more positive status incitements. It shows how such status motives actually guide and shape small states’ military contributions in US- or NATO-led operations. It does so by using recent innovations in process-tracing methodology to create a status-seeking mechanism. Using the case of Belgium’s participation in the military coalition against ISIL, this article goes beyond the usual Scandinavian suspects in the small state literature and demonstrates that status motivations have relevance for a wider group of small states.
Spillover Effects of Foreign Monetary Policy on the Foreign Indebtedness of Banks and Corporations

This paper analyses the impact of foreign monetary policy — from a broad range of countries — on the foreign indebtedness of Colombian banks and corporations, and evaluates if capital controls can help to mitigate these spillover effects. The paper uses two unique loan-level datasets on cross-border lending that cover all the foreign loans granted by foreign-located financial institutions to domestically located financial and non-financial companies, respectively. The results support the existence of spillover effects of foreign monetary policy over the characteristics of cross-border loans. In particular, periods of foreign monetary policy easing (tightening) are associated with: i) increases (decreases) on the cross-border lending to banks, and decreases (increases) on the cross-border lending to corporations; and ii) decreases (increases) on the loan interest rates to banks and corporations. The paper also finds that capital controls play an important role in mitigating these spillover effects, however, their effectiveness depends on the stance of both foreign and domestic monetary policy.
PENGARUH COMPUTER ATTITUDE, COMPUTER SELF EFFICACY, DAN TRUST TERHADAP MINAT MENGGUNAKAN SOFTWARE AKUNTANSI PADA KARYAWAN LPD SE-KOTA DENPASAR

The Influence of Computer Attitude, Computer Self Efficacy, and Trust on the Interest of Using Accounting Software at LPD in Denpasar. Denpasar City is one of city in Bali that still makes the LPD (Lembaga Perkreditan Desa) a business entity that can improve people’s welfare. Denpasar City’s LPD is a financial institution that utilizes accounting software in processing data and transactions. The use of accounting software in the Denpasar City’s LPD is very operational in accommodating all information and producing reports quickly and accurately so that they can be useful in decision making. This study aims to determine the effect of whether Computer Attitude, Computer Self Efficacy, and Trust towards the Interest Using Accounting Software. The theory used in this study is the theory of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study was carried out in all LPD in the city of Denpasar. The population in this study were employees who using accounting software. Based on the population, sample were selected through simple random sampling, while 60 employees taken as sample by using of formula Slovin. The data collected by documentation and questionnaires. The data analysis technique used are descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis. The results of this study are: 1) computer attitude do not have impact on interest using accounting software. 2) computer self efficacy has a positive and significant impact on the interest using accounting software 3) trust has a positive and significant impact on the interest using accounting software. 4) computer attitude, computer self efficacy, and trust have a positive and significant impact simultaneously on the interest using accounting software. Keywords: Computer attitude, computer self efficacy, trust, and the interest of using accounting software
A Cross-National Comparison of Intragenerational Variability in Social Media Sharing

Given Millennials’ early digital life experiences, the adoption of social media tends to be greater among members of this generation compared to older ones. However, studies that report such age-based generalizations tend to neglect the phenomenon of intragenerational variability in social media use, providing an oversimplified picture of how people behave. Moreover, studies that compare social media use across nations are lacking, and are also needed to establish the generality of this phenomenon. This paper investigates intragenerational variability in social media sharing among Millennial travelers in six nations (Canada, France, India, Japan, Mexico, and USA) using Destination Canada’s Global Tourism Watch database. A latent class segmentation model is used to identify groups of travelers with different ways of using social media to share trip experiences. Results supported five unique classes of social media sharing, ranging from nonuse to highly integrated sharing across many platforms. Additionally, class membership is predicted by covariates (nationality, travel experience, and social media use and goals) and is predictive of destination advocacy (offering recommendations). The identification of different classes of social media sharing advances theory on intragenerational and cross-national variability, and informs the development of international strategies that target Millennial travelers based on their tendency to share and advocate.
Determinants of place of delivery: A comparison between an urban and a rural community in Nigeria

Child-birth is a risk producing event that requires timely and adequate medical intervention for women who experience obstetric complications. The provision of a health worker with midwifery skills at every birth, plus access to emergency hospital obstetric care, is the option to mitigate this risk. However, in sub Saharan Africa, most births take place outside health facilities and without skilled attendants. This study aimed to determine and compare the factors which influence the choice of place of delivery among women in an urban and a rural community in Sokoto. It was a cross-sectional comparative study of 600 randomly selected women of reproductive age, in Sokoto South and Gwadabawa Local Government Areas of Sokoto State, Nigeria using semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaires. The proportion of women who delivered in health facilities was 65.0 and 4.7% in the urban and rural groups, respectively; whereas the proportion that had skilled attendants at delivery was 70 and 4.3% in the urban and rural groups, respectively. Lack of consent from husband, no privacy in health facilities, distance to the health facility and non-availability of delivery wards were the reasons for home deliveries in the rural study group, while the emergency nature of labour was the reason in the urban group. Women residing in rural areas need health promotion interventions in order to meet the International Conference on Population and Development + target of achieving 90% births attended by skilled attendants by 2015. Key words: Determinants, place of delivery, skilled attendant, urban and rural, Sokoto.
Public debt in developing Asia: a help or hindrance to growth?

ABSTRACT We study the effects of public debt on economic growth using a panel of 25 Asian countries from 1970 to 2015. Using a collection of panel data models, we find weak evidence in favour of a negative relationship. Our estimates imply that a 10% increase in debt predicts declines in growth rates ranging from 0.2% to 0.4%.
Autoimmune responses to thyroid/breast shared antigens to develop novel and specific therapies and diagnostics

An association between breast cancer (BC) and thyroid autoimmunity (TA) has been frequently observed and several small-scale studies correlated the presence of thyroid peroxidase (TPO) autoantibodies (TPOAb) with an improved BC outcome. The presence of an immune response to shared thyroid/breast antigens has been hypothesized: both tissues express the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) and have a peroxidase activity: TPO in thyroid and lactoperoxidase (LPO) in breast. I have identified 3 possibilities: i) BC patients with TPOAb may also have autoantibodies to NIS (NISAb) ii) BC may express TPO iii) TPOAb may cross-react with LPO in BC. This thesis aimed to identify the TA/BC shared antigen(s) and also investigated the prognostic role of TPOAb in a large cohort of BC patients. The presence of NISAb was investigated by flow cytometry using CHO cells stably transfected with human NIS. No positive response was obtained in 42 patients with BC and/or TA, therefore NIS is unlikely to be an antigen. TPO transcripts (RT-PCR, QPCR, LongRange PCR) and protein (western blot, immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence) were detected in BC tissues but at levels 104 times less than in thyroid tissue. TPO was also expressed in adipose tissue and different cancers. Some potentially BC specific TPO isoforms were identified. The observational large-scale study conducted on 1974 women affected with BC did not reveal any evidence for a significant impact of TPOAb and/or thyroid function on BC prognosis. In conclusion, BC and thyroid tissues share similar properties and could be common targets of TA, with TPO being the most likely common antigen; further studies are needed to clarify the role of tissue-specific TPO isoforms. The roles of TPOAb and thyroid function on BC prognosis have to be reconsidered, maybe focusing on different TA aspects (e.g. goitre, different autoantibodies).
Current conditions or future risks: certainty and uncertainty in decisions about statins

Preventive medications such as statins are recommended to an increasingly large number of people. To those who make these recommendations, prevention is synonymous with risk reduction; the clinical task of helping people decide about preventive medication is therefore widely framed as one of risk communication. In this article, I explore the role of risk and uncertainty in accounts of medication decisions, drawing on qualitative data from interviews carried out between 2011 and 2013 in the east of England with people who had been offered statins. I found that very few participants mentioned risk or likelihood, or described weighing benefits against harms, the process central to the risk communication project. Instead, those who had decided to take statins described their certainty that statins were needed to treat current problems. This certainty was informed by knowledge about the present or the past; information about possible future harms was presented solely as contributing to concern about current problems. In contrast, those who had decided not to take statins explained their decisions in terms of the inherent uncertainty of information about the future, presenting this uncertainty as a reason to decline medication. This asymmetry between explanations for accepting and for declining statins is rooted in differences between the ways past, present and future information are handled. These findings challenge the assumption that decisions about statins are construed as decisions about risk by those offered them, and raise questions about the usefulness of using risk and uncertainty as key concepts for theoretical accounts of what is going on when people consider taking preventive medication.
Gender diversity and firm performance: evidence from India and Singapore

ABSTRACT This study investigates if gender diversity on boards is an effective driver of financial performance. For this purpose, this study choses two countries, one of which has the soft law approach (Singapore) while the other has mandatory requirements (India) on corporate boards gender diversity. By doing so, it examines if there is a comparability between the listed firms of the two countries. Our results suggest that the gender diversity has a positive and significant effect on the financial performance of the firms of both the countries. Although, the gender diversity of the two countries does not seem to affect the growth opportunities of both the countries. Further, our results indicate that the board characteristics affect the performance positively and significantly when the sample is divided into five quantiles for the firms in these two countries. These findings have implications to the managerial decision making and relevance to stewardship theory and resource dependency theory.
On the Market Reaction to Capitalization of R&D Expenditures: Evidence from ChiNext

ABSTRACT Based on 2009–2016 ChiNext data, this paper studies the relation between a company’s R&D expenditure capitalization and its business performance and the external market response to this decision. We find that, the more a company’s R&D expenditure is capitalized, the better its performance will be. In addition, the regression on the short-term market reaction shows that the increment of the development expenditure cannot lead to a direct market response. The regression results on the long-term market performance indicate that the market accepts the lagging of the R&D achievements and anticipates more intangible assets could be converted from these achievements. Overall, our results provide evidence that only the R&D expenditures that really form the intangible assets reflect the value of the capitalization and facilitate the sustainable innovation of ChiNext-listed companies.
Determinants of Female Teachers Progress to Leadership in Government Aided Primary Schools in Ntungamo District, Uganda

This study explored the determinants of female teachers’ progress to leadership in government-aided primary schools in Ntungamo District. Specifically, the study explored how personality characteristics, school factors and social factors determined female teachers’ progress to leadership in government-aided primary schools. This cross-sectional study used a sample of 210 respondents and data were collected using a questionnaire survey. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis that included frequencies, percentages and means, and inferential analyses that were correlation and regression. Descriptive results revealed that the level of female teachers’ progress to leadership was good, had strong personality characteristics and experienced favourable school and social factors. Regression results revealed that organisational factors and social were positive significant determinants of female teachers’ progress to leadership while personality characteristics were negative and insignificant determinants. Therefore, the conclusions reached were that personality characteristics were not the most probable factors that determined female progress to leadership in primary schools, school factors were essential for female teachers’ progress to leadership in primary schools, and social factors were imperative for female teachers’ progress to leadership in primary schools. It was thus recommended that bodies charged with promoting of female teachers such District Education Service Commissions and schools leadership should assess personality characteristics of women when promoting them to leadership, those charged with management of schools such as District Education Officers, Inspectors of Schools, Schools Management Committees and head teachers should ensure that school factors promote female teachers progress to leadership, and leadership of schools from national to local level and community members should ensure that social factors in place promote female teachers progress to leadership.
The effects of business models on bank risk before, during and after financial crisis: evidence from China

ABSTRACT Using Chinese data from 2004 to 2016, we investigate the effects of business models on bank risk before, during and after financial crisis. Three main results emerge. First, insolvency risk and ROA volatility significantly increase if banks increase their share of non-interest income, and this relationship mainly appears during and after financial crisis. Second, a higher non-deposit funding share results in lower capital risk and credit risk and higher asset quality. However, these effects disappear after financial crisis. Finally, further analyses show that the effects of non-interest income on bank risk are mainly from assets-based non-interest income, and the effects of non-deposit funding on bank risk come primarily from money-market and short-term funding.
The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Irish Firms. ESRI Policy Series No. 44. May 2002

The National Minimum Wage was introduced in Ireland in April 2000. A survey of firms was carried out by the The Economic and Social Research Institute prior to its introduction, as part of a prospective analysis of the likely impact of the minimum wage. The present study is based on a further survey carried out in late 2000/early 2001, commissioned by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. This survey interviewed both a substantial proportion of the firms in the earlier sample - for whom the situation "before and after" the minimum wage can be directly compared - and significant numbers of other firms. Here the results from these surveys are used to assess the impact of the minimum wage on employment, wage levels and other aspects of work organisation among Irish firms. Broader issues relating to the impact on the earnings distribution and on household incomes, requiring complementary analysis of individual and household­ level data rather than information from firms, are not addressed.
The Impact of Strategic Human Resource Management Practices on Competitive Advantage Sustainability: The Mediation of Human Capital Development and Employee Commitment

Academic institutions like other business organizations strive to achieve, maintain, and sustain their competitive advantages. In this study, we examined the influence of the “strategic human resources management (HRM) practices” on the achievement of “competitive advantages” that will be sustainable, with an evaluation of the mediating role of “human capital” development, and the commitment of employees in an academic environment. Six hundred questionnaires were randomly distributed to the employees of selected universities in Erbil City of Iraq. Structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques were employed for the analysis with the use of Smart Partial Least Square PLS. Findings from our study revealed a linear and positive influence of the strategic HRM on the sustainability of “competitive advantages”; strategic HRM was also found to positively influence human capital development and the commitment of employees to the institutions; the influence of both human capital development and employees’ commitment were found to have a partial mediation in the strategic HRM practices and sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) relationship. Finally, theoretical and management implications were suggested.
Multiple Dimensions of Human Development Index and Public Social Spending for Sustainable Development

Multidimensional assessment of human development is increasingly recognized as playing an important role in assessing well-being. The focus of analysis is on the indicators measuring the three dimensions of Human Development Index (HDI) — standard of living, education and health, and their relationship with public social spending for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The study estimates the effects of public social spending on gross national income (GNI) per capita (in PPP in $), expected years of schooling and life expectancy for a sample of 68 countries. The relationship is robust to controlling for a variety of factors and the estimated magnitudes suggest a positive long-run effect of public educational spending on GNI per capita, public educational spending on expected years of schooling, and public health expenditures on life expectancy.