Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Economic and Social Roots of Populist Rebellion: Support for Donald Trump in 2016

This paper critically analyzes voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using survey data from the American National Election Survey and aggregate data on Congressional districts, it assesses the roles that economic and social factors played in Donald J. Trumpâ€™s `Populist` candidacy. It shows the hollowness of claims that economic issues played little or no role in the campaign and that social factors such as race or gender suffice to explain the outcome. While agreeing that racial resentment and sexism were important influences, the paper shows how various economic considerations helped Trump win the Republican primary and then led significant blocs of voters to shift from supporting Democrats or abstaining in 2012 to vote for him. It also presents striking evidence of the importance of political money and Senators` `reverse coattails` in the dramatic final result.
The Transmission of Monetary Policy in South Africa Before and After the Global Financial Crisis

This paper examines whether the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in South Africa has changed after the global financial crisis (GFC). We use a Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model with Minnesota priors and 15 monthly variables, extending the system of Christiano, Eichenbaum, with Evans (1999). The benefit of the BVAR approach is that it can accommodate a large cross section of variables without running out of degrees of freedom. To identify the change in the transmission process, we divide the sample size into two subsamples, namely the pre‐GFC period (March 2001 to August 2008) and the post‐GFC period (September 2008 to February 2016). The results indicate that a change in the transmission of monetary policy occurred after the GFC. The magnitude of the effect of a monetary policy shock on output is considerably greater in the pre‐GFC period compared to the post‐GFC period. Moreover, the impact of a policy shock on inflation is not statistically significant in the post‐GFC period. The variance decomposition shows that the interest‐rate channel has possibly weakened in the post‐GFC period.
What determines firms’ intention to postpone product differentiation?

Abstract In present-day Japan, more firms are beginning to apply postponed product differentiation in favor of providing mass-customized products. Mass customization can lead to competitive advantages in satisfying consumers’ individual needs. We propose a causal model to describe why and how Japanese distributors decide to postpone product differentiation and supply mass-customized products. The model was empirically tested by structural equation modeling with a dataset from Japanese automobile dealers, who have employed highly advanced mass customization systems and are world leaders in this practice. The results show that two environmental factors, uncertainty and innovation, affect firms’ expectations of their customers’ intentions to purchase mass-customized products and, in turn, firms’ decisions regarding postponing product differentiation in favor of mass customization. Mass customization has a high potential for growth in the future due to increasing levels of uncertainty and evolving forms of innovation.
The value relevance of accounting information in the MENA region

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the value relevance of accounting information in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) region with an emphasis on the potential impact of IFRS adoption. This paper aims to not only examine the value relevance of accounting information in the MENA region but also draw comparisons between Gulf countries (GCC) and non-GCC country firms to determine whether there are distinct differences across the two regions. Design/methodology/approach To investigate the value relevance of accounting information in the MENA region, two pooled regression models are used based on the Ohlson (1995) model. The first regression model is conducted for the GCC and non-GCC regions separately. A second regression model is conducted using a pooled sample of the MENA region collectively with dummy and interaction variables to further explore the potential differences between the two regions in terms of the value relevance of accounting information. Findings The empirical results show that the measures of accounting information have a highly significant positive relationship with the market value per share for firms in the MENA region, thereby indicating that accounting information in the MENA region is value relevant. Although book value per share and earnings per share are significant determinants of value relevance in both GCC and non-GCC country firms, operating cash flows per share is only a significant determinant of value relevance in non-GCC country firms. The research findings of the study also show a significant negative impact of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of accounting information in the MENA region. Practical implications This research paper provides important insights for investors and regulators by providing evidence that accounting information is value relevant in the MENA region, and that IFRS adoption does not necessarily lead to a greater degree of value relevance. In fact, investors and regulators should be aware that the adoption of IFRS in MENA country firms results in diminished value relevance of accounting information. This finding is of particular significance to policymakers attempting to improve accounting disclosure. Originality/value The paper expands the value relevance of accounting information literature in the context of developing economies, in general, and the MENA region, in particular. There is a paucity of research into the value relevance of accounting information for MENA country firms, particularly in the case of the impact of IFRS adoption. Thus, this paper provides an important contribution in terms of expanding the value relevance literature in relation to IFRS adoption in the MENA region.
Real Exchange Rate Misalignment and Economic Growth in Belt & Road Countries: The Role of Financial Integration

Competitive exchange rate is an important tool for the economies to boost the exports and raise foreign exchange reserves. The strategy is handy when the countries are economically open to the world. BRI (Belt & Road Initiative) countries are financially integrated with each other through the foreign capital. This study seeks to investigate the role of financial integration in the relationship between real exchange rate misalignment and economic growth in Belt & Road countries during 2001-2016 and 2013-2016 by applying the generalized method of moment (GMM). Using grouped and ungrouped samples; the results reveal that the real exchange rate plays a significant and positive role in economic growth. Financial integration also plays a significant and positive role in economic growth. The interaction terms of the real exchange rate and financial integration play a significant and negative role in economic growth. Moreover, several robustness checks like two-stage least squares, fixed and random effect models also confirms the results of the GMM approach. Furthermore, policy recommendation can be drawn from this study, like capital shortage can be adjusted by applying a competitive exchange rate policy. Keywords : Real exchange rate misalignment; economic growth; financial integration; Belt & Road countries. JEL Classification: O11, F43, F31 DOI : 10.7176/DCS/9-10-06 Publication date :October 31 st 2019
Preparation and in vitro release of levofloxacin carboxymethyl chitosan sustained-releasing microsphere

Objective: To study the optimum technique for preparing implantable levofloxacin carboxymethyl chitosan (LVFX/CMC) sustained-releasing microsphere with emulsification and cross-linking process and to investigate the product release characteristic in vitro. Methods: Orthogonal test based on 4 factors: CMC concentration,CMC/LVFX (M/M),CMC/ glutaraldehyde (M/M) ,stirring speed, was employed to determine the optimum preparing technique of microsphere. The in vitro release characteristic of the microsphere was observed with basket rotating method. Results: The order of the importance of the 4 factors on quality of microspheres was CMC concentration CMC/LVFX (M/M ) stirring speed CMC/ glutaraldehyde (M/M). Microsphere prepared with the optimized method had a mean diameter of 64. 55 jum,a drug content of 21. 69%, and an enveloping rate of 58. 07%. The in vitro release accorded with Higuchi equation. T50 was 47. 01 h and 72. 02% of the drug was released in 7 A. Conclusion: Our preparing technique for LVFX/CMC microsphere is successful,and the release of LVFX from the microsphere is sustained in vitro.
The Appointment of Women to Ministerial Positions across Europe: Presence, Portfolios and PolicyThe Appointment of Women to Ministerial Positions across Europe: Presence, Portfolios and Policy

More and more women are appointed to ministerial positions in Europe, across countries and political parties. Yet, there are significant gaps in our understanding of the factors which shape where and when women are appointed, and the impacts these appointments have on public policy. By considering the partisan dynamics and motivations of party leaders, I provide an insight into systematic variation in the number of women appointed to governments, the policy portfolios women are allocated, and the policy outcomes of women ministers on parental leave policy. This develops our understanding of women's access to government positions, which has important implications for how women are represented in the most powerful policy-making positions. I develop a theoretical framework for the role of gender in ministerial selection and portfolio allocation by considering the policy, office and vote-seeking motivations of party leaders. Through a cross-national, time-series analysis over 45 years of European governments, I find that more women are appointed to European cabinets by left-wing parties, and by female party leaders. Women are better represented in cabinets in gender-progressive countries, and where party supporters have more gender-equal social attitudes. When women are allocated to the government, they are significantly less likely to be appointed to the 'core' offices of state, and 'masculine' and 'neutral' policy areas, but this is moderated by party ideology. I find that women are more likely to be appointed to 'masculine' portfolios where a party's voters have more progressive gender attitudes. Considering the policy implications of women's appointment to ministerial positions, I examine the circumstances under which government reforms of parental leave for fathers follow the 'dual-earner/dual-carer' model of family policy. I find that women's active engagement in paid work is a necessary condition for the most gender-balanced forms of parental leave. The sufficiency pathways arising from a qualitative comparative analysis suggest that left-wing female ministers are 'entrepreneurial' in pursuing progressive family policy, while male right-wing ministers require pressure from public attitudes. The sufficiency pathway for leftist ministers also includes a left-dominated Parliament.
Anomalies and False Rejections

We use information from over 2 million trading strategies randomly generated using real data and from strategies that survive the publication process to infer the statistical properties of the set of strategies that could have been studied by researchers. Using this set, we compute $t$-statistic thresholds that control for multiple hypothesis testing, when searching for anomalies, at 3.8 and 3.4 for time-series and cross-sectional regressions, respectively. We estimate the expected proportion of false rejections that researchers would produce if they failed to account for multiple hypothesis testing to be about 45%.
Political Survival and Economic Development in Microstates: The Cases of Liechtenstein, the Cook Islands and Niue

2 Acknowledgement . 5 Chapter 1: Introduction . 9 Chapter 2: What is a microstate? Towards a new definition of Micro-Statehood . 14 Small States in International Politics and Academia . 14 The Perplexing Rise of Small States . 14 How Small is Small? 16 The Existing Approaches to Defining Microstates . 16 The Problem of Size . 17 The Problem of Statehood . 20 Microstates as Modern Protected States: Towards a New Definition . 22 The League of Nations and the Lilliputian States . 22 Lilliputians as Protected States . 23 Microstates as Modern Protected States . 25 Conclusion . 30 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework and Methodology . 32 Theoretical Framework . 32 Introduction . 32 Context: From Dependency to Managed or Mismanaged Dependency . 32 Management of Benign Protection . 37 Formation of Benign Protection Arrangements . 38 Management of Benign Protection and Economic Development . 42 Methodology . 48 Case Analysis and Selection . 49 Advantages of studying microstates . 52 Data collection . 52 Challenges and Limitations . 53 Conclusions . 54 Chapter 4: The Principality of Liechtenstein . 56 Introduction . 57 Territory, Location and Population . 59 Political System . 60 History prior to Sovereign Statehood . 63 Early History . 63 The Birth of the Principality of Liechtenstein as a Distinct Political Unit . 64 First Micro-statehood: Association with Austria . 66
Internationalization and Performance of SMEs in Masan Free Trade Zone (Korea): The Direct and Moderating Effects of Firm Size

Purpose – This study analyzes the effect of internationalization represented as exporting on firm performance on the subject of SMEs operating in Masan Free Trade Zone which has shown poor performance recently despite its status as the oldest and largest free trade zone in Korea. We also analyze the effect of firm size on firm performance, and the moderating role of firm size in relation to internationalization and firm performance. Design/methodology – This study uses multiple regression models for unbalanced panel data as the empirical tools for the estimation of the effect that internationalization has on firm performance (ROA or ROS). Our sample consists of 91 manufacturing SMEs among all 110 companies located in Masan Free Trade Zone as of 2017. Findings – The degree of internationalization has a negative impact on firm performance. However, firm size turns out to have a positive effect and play a positive moderating role in the relation to internationalization and firm performance. This seems to be because most tenant companies operating in Masan Free Trade Zone are small firms whose costs of internationalization may exceed the benefits. Empirical results also show that longer CEO tenure has a greater negative effect on firm performance. Originality/value – The originality/value of this paper can be found in 3 aspects. First, we conducted an empirical analysis on the relationship between the internationalization and firm performance of SMEs in a specific region, namely, Masan Free Trade Zone. Second, while most previous studies focused on listed medium companies, most of the sample of this study are small and medium nonlisted enterprises. Third, it is witnessed that firm size has a positive moderating effect on the relation between internationalization and firm performance.
Export margins and world shocks: an empirical investigation in fixed and floating regimes

ABSTRACT We use 4-digit data to document the role of world shocks for intensive and extensive margin of exports. We estimate a VAR model, where the endogenous bloc comprises bilateral export margins and relative GDP, and the exogenous bloc comprises disaggregated measures of world price shocks. We find that world shocks have a significant impact on both the average export volume and export diversification. Impulse responses display considerable heterogeneity depending on the shock considered, the exchange rate regime and the great trade collapse. The evidence in the paper has remarkable consequences for trade and exchange rate policies.
Do menu-labelling laws translate into results? The disparate impacts on population obesity and diabetes

ABSTRACT Despite their joint importance to health care costs, the nature of the relationship between obesity and diabetes is contested within the medical literature. We leverage California’s 2008 law mandating menu-labelling at restaurants to confirm that the law reduced obesity compared to the experience of counties not subject to such regulation. Despite this reduction in obesity, we find no California-specific reduction in the prevalence of diabetes and we find a significantly positive impact on the likelihood of new diabetes diagnoses. We evaluate a range of potential hypotheses that rationalize the divergent findings on obesity and diabetes.
Perceived stress among male medical undergraduates at College of Medicine, Majmaah, Saudi Arabia

Objectives: This study was conducted to explore the level of perceived stress in male medical undergraduates. In addition, this study also examines the change in perceived stress with progressing academic years. Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted at College of Medicine, Majmaah, Saudi Arabia. The students were contacted in the class, and their participation was voluntary. All one hundred and thirty-five medical students of first, second and third year were targeted for study whose age range was 18-23 years. A 10-item perceived stress scale (PSS-10) questionnaire was used to measure the level of stress among the subjects. Results: One hundred five subjects participated in the study. Majority of students belonged to year 1 (n=50, 47.6%) of which 5 students had least stress, 24 had mild stress; 19 had moderate stress and 2 had severe stress. Almost one third of the students (n=34, 32.4%) were studying in year 2 of which 19, 11 & 2 students had mild, moderate and severe stress respectively. Similarly one-quarter (n=21, 20.0%) of students were studying in year 3 of which 5 students had least stress, 6 had mild stress and 9 students had moderate stress. Conclusions: The stress among our students was found to be higher than other medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. However, no significant difference in stress level was found between different academic years.
We have a long way to go if we want to realize the promise of the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration”

People have conquered the Earth and altered ecosystems (Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenco, & Melillo, 1997) to the extent that some have suggested that we have entered the Anthropocene epoch (Steffen, Crutzen, & McNeill, 2007). Yet, people can also restore degraded ecosystems. On March 1st, 2019, the United Nations designated the period of 2021–2030 as the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration” (UNEA, 2019; see MARN, 2019 for context). This is laudable; yet, it is also naïve because it implies that restoration practitioners actually have the evidence to guide them (Cooke et al., 2018). Despite many calls for restoration efforts to clearly state objectives and implement rigorous monitoring programs, this rarely occurs (Block, Franklin, Ward Jr, Ganey, & White, 2001; Suding, 2011). In fact, restoration is often as much an art as it is a science (Van Diggelen, Grootjans, & Harris, 2001). We applaud the restoration practitioners who devote their lives to restoration and have in many cases produced significant restoration gains, and we acknowledge that many restoration efforts do indeed achieve at least partial success. However, the evidence for restoration efficacy is mixed and action without evidence has no guarantee of effectiveness. If restoration actions are ineffective, they are a waste of precious resources that could have been invested in something that actually works and at worst they could actually do more harm than good (Pullin & Knight, 2009a). We worry that a decade from now we may be reflecting on the vast financial resources invested in restoration with negligible (because interventions did not work) or immeasurable (because outcomes were not evaluated) benefits for ecosystems, biodiversity, and humanity. The evidence base to guide restoration practitioners is scant and potentially biased given publication bias (Jennions & Moeller, 2002), the lack of appropriate controls and replication, and little long-term monitoring to determine the circumstances in which restoration actually works (Wortley, Hero, & Howes, 2013). One thing we do know is that active (versus passive) restoration often fails to achieve desired outcomes (Jones et al., 2018). Some researchers have called for an “effectiveness revolution” (Keene & Pullin, 2011)—something that is certainly germane to restoration. What is effective? And in what context? Synthesis activities can guide us but the reality is that restoration science remains imperfect and infrequently supported by a robust evidence base (Cooke et al., 2018). We could use this decade as an opportunity to build coalitions of diverse stakeholders to coordinate what efforts are needed to understand where and when restoration is most effective. If we use it instead to attempt large-scale restoration projects without good evidence for efficacy, we are Received: 17 April 2019 Revised: 3 October 2019 Accepted: 7 October 2019
Prosocial Motivation of Private Sector IT Professionals Joining Government

Attracting highly skilled IT talent has become a priority and an immense burden for government organizations—especially when they have other—higher paying—employment opportunities. We set out to explore why IT professionals choose a government job to make an impact on society. We aim at disentangling the effects of different types of motives, such as extrinsic, intrinsic, and other-oriented motivational forces on the decision to accept a challenging government IT job. We use self-determination theory (SDT) to analyze publicly available statements of former private sector IT professionals reporting their reason for joining 18F. Our study is one of the first attempts to use SDT as a comprehensive framework for conducting qualitative research into work motivation in the public sector. We shed light on the conceptual and empirical distinctiveness of motives, behaviors, and perceptions of prosocial impact, which are often lumped together in the public service motivation (PSM) literature. We contribute novel empirical evidence to a nascent stream of research that uses SDT to disentangle the intrinsic, prosocial, and purely extrinsic motives that drive individuals’ decisions to join public-sector organizations.
Possible Association between Parental Socioeconomic Status and Development of Autistic Traits among Children Screened 36 Months after Birth in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study

3 Introduction 3 Previous studies on the possible link between socioeconomic status and autism. 4 Aims of the study 5 Materials and Methods 5 MoBa and the ABC study 5 The screening algorithm and the Social Communication Questionnaire – SCQ. 6 Diagnostic evaluation 7 Exposure and outcome variables 8 Statistical analyses 9 Possible selection bias in our study 10 Results 10 SCQ-33 >=12 as outcome variable 12 ASD-ST as outcome variable 18 ASD as outcome variable 20 Investigation of possible selection bias 21 Discussion 25 Main results 25 Strengths and weaknesses 26 Conclusion 27 References 28