Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender diversity on audit committees and its impact on audit fees: evidence from India

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship existing between gender diverse (women directors) audit committees and audit fees. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a sample of 200 listed Indian firms over a four-year period (2011-2014). Ordinary least squares regression is used to assess whether and how the presence of women directors on audit committees affects the fee paid to the external auditor in India. To deal with the self-selection bias, the authors use a two-stage model developed using Heckman’s (1976) method. Findings The results show a significant positive relationship between the presence of a woman financial expert on the audit committee and audit fees after controlling for a number of firm-specific and governance characteristics and potential endogeneity with the propensity-matching score analysis. From the demand-side perspective of audit pricing, the results indicate that women financial experts on audit committees increase the need for assurance provided by external auditors. Using interaction terms, the authors find that women with financial expertise on an audit committee have a stronger association with audit fees as entity becomes more complex. Research limitations/implications The findings suggest that audit committees with women financial experts are likely to demand higher audit quality, ceteris paribus. Practical implications Gender of the financial expert is critical to the audit committee’s effectiveness. The findings of this study have implications for the composition of an audit committee in a firm. Originality/value This study contributes to the extant literature by examining the less-researched topic of the association between the women representation on audit committees and audit fees. It also offers further empirical evidence that will influence the debate on the importance of gender diversity in corporations.
Household Debt Accumulation and the Great Recession of the United States: A Comparative Perspective

The Great Recession has provided an important intellectual challenge to both post-Keynesian and mainstream economists. In this article we survey some post-Keynesian views on household debt accumulation and the Great Recession of the United States, as well as the Atif Mian and Amir Sufi’s studies, perhaps the most influential and empirically-oriented studies of mainstream economics. We identify and distinguish their policy perspectives, and highlight commonalities and differences between them. By examining both post-Keynesian and Mian and Sufi’s views together, this paper emphasizes that, although there are clear differences between them, a careful examination reveals valuable complementarity which yields a better understanding of household debt accumulation and the Great Recession of the United States. JEL classification: E21, E32, E52, E62
The Impact of Value Created by Culture on Approaching the Sustainable Development Goals: Case of the Baltic States

Culture plays an important role in implementing sustainability principles and approaching sustainable development goals across different countries. This paper aims to analyse the relationship between the value created by culture and the implementation of sustainable development goals of countries. The majority of attention in this research is devoted to composing and calculating the integrated cultural value index, which provides clear linkages between value created by culture and sustainable development goals. An expert survey was conducted, during which experts had to assess indicators by ranking them according to importance. There have been 14 indicators included in total to calculate the integrated cultural value index. The values created by culture in the selected Baltic States have been determined by calculating the weight coefficient of each indicator and providing a composite cultural value index. Statistical data analysis unquestionably confirms that cultural input when implementing sustainable development goals is significant, because there exists a very strong positive relationship between the cultural value index and achieved sustainable development goals in all three case studies.
Financial Policies and Internal Governance with Heterogeneous Risk Preferences

We consider a group of investors with heterogeneous risk preferences that determines a firm's investment policy, and each investor's compensation function. The optimal investment policy is a time-varying weighted average of investors' optimal policies and converges to the policy of the least (most) risk averse investor in booms (busts), reconciling the diversification of opinions hypothesis and the group shift hypothesis. The most (least) risk averse investor has a strictly concave (convex) claim on the firm's net worth. For intermediate risk preferences investors' claim is S-shaped, resembling preferred stock. We derive investors' utility weights absent wealth distribution and under social optimization.
The Role of Blockholders in the Corporate Debt Maturity Structure

This paper examines the impact of blockholders on the corporate debt maturity structure within the framework of agency theory. Using a novel and hand-collected dataset in Australia, we find support for our hypothesis that debt maturity is a concave function of block equity ownership. Our findings contribute to empirical evidence on the monitoring effects of blockholders and the use of debt maturity to control for debt-equity and manager-equity conflicts.
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Netherlands: Access to Higher Education-Institutional Arrangements and Inequality of Opportunity

The authors examine inequality in access to postsecondary education in the Netherlands in a historical perspective. Three types of postsecondary education are distinguished: (1) universities (WO); (2) higher vocational colleges (HBO); and (3) senior vocational education (MBO). The tertiary system is two-tiered with a distinct separation between vocational and academic programs of study. Previous research demonstrates that inequality of educational opportunity decreased markedly for cohorts born between 1920 and 1970 in lower levels of education while inequality of access at the postsecondary level remained stable. This study examines whether inequality at higher levels of education has remained stable for more recent cohorts and whether, and how, the differentiation between the vocational and academic tracks has played a role in the persistence of educational inequality. Using a multiple-panel database, the study examines both upward and downward transitions in postsecondary educational careers for students born between 1965 and 1981.
Collective Identities and the Integration of Core State Powers: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue explores the relationship between collective identities and the integration of core state powers, that is, the delegation of powers to a centralized institution in policy areas that are essential for the functioning of the modern state. In this introductory article we present the main conceptualizations of the contributions to the special issue that define our understanding of collective identities and core state powers. We discuss the multi‐level nature of collective identities and we discuss theoretical expectations over the link between collective identities and core state powers. Finally, we briefly present each of the contributions to the issue and discuss how they relate to the broad research goals, the special issue and to each other.
A Study of the Interplay between Intuition and Rationality in Valuation Decision Making

ABSTRACT There is widespread acceptance that both intuition and rationality can play significant roles in valuation decision-making. However, a study that specifically examines how intuitive and rational approaches interact is still missing. This study addresses this gap by applying cognitive theories of information processing and using a very detailed analysis of verbal protocols to propose a model of cognitive structure that identifies and describes the reasoning of property valuers during a commercial valuation task. The empirical data suggest that valuers start with an established goal and then engage in analytical and intuitive thinking until a valuation outcome has been reached. It is argued that a major reason for effective valuation decision-making, in a real-world context, is that the cognitive processes required by experts’ analytical and intuitive thinking demonstrate greater degree of cohesiveness and interrelatedness. The ability of valuers to integrate more intuition into their largely rational decision-making process suggests the need for valuation professional organisations to formally acknowledge intuition as an important component of valuation professional competence and skill requirement and to customise professional valuers’ training and development programmes to facilitate the development of appropriate intuitive approaches for effective valuation decision-making.
Changes in the trends of vegetation net primary productivity in China between 1982 and 2015

China has been experiencing significant climate and land use changes over the past decades. The way in which these changes, particularly a warming hiatus and national ecological restoration projects that occurred almost concurrently in the late 1990s, have influenced vegetation net primary productivity (NPP), is not well documented. Here, we estimated annual and seasonal changes in China’s NPP between 1982 and 2015 using the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach model and examined their shifting years (SHYs) caused by the switch in climatic factors and the restoration projects. Our analyses revealed that the growth of annual, spring and summer NPP stalled in 1997 or 1998, while the trend of autumn NPP increased in 1992 at the national scale. We also showed that the changes in the NPP trends were more sensitive to the warming hiatus in spring and autumn, as well as in the temperate monsoonal region and the Tibetan Plateau, while the larger trend of autumn NPP in eastern China after the SHY was strongly coupled with increased monsoonal precipitation. Although the starting years of the restoration projects were partially consistent with the SHYs of the NPP trends, the projects were likely playing minor roles in enhancing NPP increase. Our findings can be applied for ecological risk assessment and future management of ecological restoration projects in the context of global change.
Greek Government-Debt Crisis Events and European Financial Markets: Surprises of Greek Bond Yields and Inter-Relations of European Financial Markets

In this paper, we study the impact of Greek government-debt crisis events on European ﬁnancial markets during the European sovereign debt crisis. We examine the eﬀect of three categories of Greek government-debt crisis events in realized correlation and correlation jumps of government bonds, CDS and stock indices of seven European countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Germany and France) via the respective dummy variables and news surprises of 2-year, 5-year and 10-year government bonds and CDS in a non-parametric framework by employing Tobit regression models. According to our results, the direction of most impacts on correlation and correlation jumps is negative. We also investigate the types of Greek government-debt crisis events that have the highest impacts on correlation and correlation jumps. Our ﬁndings provide valuable insight into the relationship between events related to Greek instability and European ﬁnancial markets during the European sovereign debt crisis.
AN ESTIMATED DSGE MODEL WITH LEARNING BASED ON TERM STRUCTURE INFORMATION

Agents can learn from financial markets to predict macroeconomic outcomes, and learning dynamics can feed back into both the macroeconomy and financial markets. This paper builds on the adaptive learning (AL) model of [Slobodyan, S. and R. Wouters (2012a) American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 4, 65–101. ] by introducing the term structure of interest rates. This extension enables term structure information to fully characterize agents’ expectations in real time. This feature addresses an imperfect information issue neglected in the related AL literature. The term structure of interest rates results in a strong channel of persistence driven by multi-period forecasting. Including the term structure in the AL model results in a model fit similar to that obtained in the rational expectation (RE) version of the model, but it greatly reduces the importance of other endogenous sources of aggregate persistence such as price and wage stickiness and the elasticity of the cost of adjusting capital. The model estimated also shows that term premium innovations are a major source of persistent fluctuations in nominal variables under AL. This stands in sharp contrast to the lack of transmission of term premium shocks to the macroeconomy under REs.
Analysis of key barriers in retirement planning

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to holistically study barriers in the path of implementation of retirement planning, as the need is increasing with decrease in mortality. The proper retirement planning can be one of the most important tools to control financial expenses on healthcare and welfare on old age population in government budgets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a blend of theoretical framework and practical application and uses interpretive structural modeling (ISM) analysis to draw linkage and impact of identified barriers in the path of achievement of goals of retirement planning. The study has used three different research phases: identification of barriers from the literature, interviews with experts of industry at second stage and designing an ISM impact matrix cross-reference multiplication model. The identification phase led to the selection of 15 factors from past literature and by suggestion from industrial experts.FindingsThis study seeks to identify which barrier is acting as the most dominant one for the mass adoption of retirement planning and this result is helpful for policymakers to remove the dominant barrier. The result of this analysis can make retirement planning easy by elimination of highlighted barriers on the basis of their importance in the path of achievement of retirement goals. In the ISM level diagram, barriers such as marital status, number of financial dependents at the bottom, gender, income level, educational level, financial literacy, financial dependency, policy regulation, terms and conditions, goal clarity and psychological and cultural factors are on the top. Barrier of macroeconomic and bureaucratic impediments are also very important factors for achievement of retirement goal of an individual, but they cannot be controlled directly by the associated members of industry.Originality/valueThe concern for providing sufficient retirement resources is growing with the increase in life expectancy for human beings. Such requirement has attracted views from not only academicians but also policymakers. This paper is one of the preliminary attempts to identify barriers in implementation of retirement planning and rank them according to their importance.
Tablio: Realising Classroom Differentiation and Inclusion with Tablets

[Introduction] This eBook contains the intellectual outputs of the European Erasmus+ project called TABLIO (2016-1-BE02-KA201-017311). The Tablio-project aims to strengthen teachers and school in realising classroom differentiation and inclusion by the means of tablets and other mobile devices. All outputs were developed in the period 2017 - 2019 in close cooperation with teachers, schools, teachers educators and student-teachers in Europe. The following organisations were part of the project consortium: • PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Belgium (lead partner) • Institut za Napredno Upravljanje Komunikacij, Slovenia • Istanbul University, Turkey • iXperium Expertise center Learning with ICT, Netherlands • Tell Consult, Netherlands • North-West Regional College, Northern-Ireland • CESIE, Italy This eBook contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1 describes the design toolkit for classroom differentiation and inclusion by means of tablets. Chapter 2 describes existing practices in European classroom, gathered early 2017. Chapter 3 describes the results of a design-based research approach in several European schools. All outputs can be found on the website http://tablio.eu as well. Besides English, the outputs are described in Dutch, Slovenian, Italian and Turkish.
Fear of Hazards in Commodity Futures Markets

Abstract We examine the commodity futures pricing role of active attention to weather, disease, geopolitical or economic threats or “hazard fear” as proxied by the volume of internet searches by 149 query terms. A long-short portfolio strategy that sorts the cross-section of commodity futures contracts according to a hazard fear signal captures a significant premium. This commodity hazard fear premium reflects compensation for extant fundamental, tail, volatility and liquidity risks factors, but it is not subsumed by them. Exposure to hazard-fear is strongly priced in the cross-section of commodity portfolios. The hazard fear premium exacerbates during periods of adverse sentiment or pessimism in financial markets.
Does spatial proximity raise firm productivity? Evidence from British manufacturing

The UK’s economy is one of the most regionally imbalanced in Europe. The government’s recent industrial strategy discusses various means of addressing this, one of which is the strengthening of existing clusters. Using plant-level indices of spatial proximity derived from postcode district data, this article investigates the extent of spatial concentration and its impact on total factor productivity in advanced manufacturing sectors in Great Britain. The results from estimation of production functions indicate that, in most advanced manufacturing sectors, spatial concentration has a negative impact on productivity in small plants and a positive effect in larger plants. Large plants likely benefit more from knowledge spillovers due to their higher levels of absorptive capacity.
How valuable is a legislative seat? Incumbency effects in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies

Abstract In many developing countries, national legislative seats are considered less valuable than (subnational) executive positions. Even then, ambitious politicians may seek a legislative seat either (a) as a window of opportunity for jumping to an executive office; or (b) as a consolation prize when no better option is available. Using a regression discontinuity design adapted to a pr setting, we examine these possibilities in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies between 1983 and 2011. In line with the consolation prize story, we find that marginal candidates from the Peronist party—which controls most provincial governorships—are more likely to be renominated and serve an additional term in the legislature, but not necessarily to jump to an executive office. The effect is stronger in small provinces.
The Political Implications of Natural Disasters

When natural disasters like floods or droughts happen, people experience their wrath, losing lives, livelihoods, homes and security. Natural disasters disrupt the status quo, and create social, humanitarian and political needs. In most cases, people turn to their governments to provide for these needs. However, governments vary widely in their ability and willingness to provide for these needs. Citizens evaluate the outcomes of the government’s actions in response to their needs arising from the e↵ects of the natural disaster. Much work on the e↵ects of natural disasters has been undertaken by civil war scholars. This project uniquely contributes to our understanding of how natural disasters a↵ect political processes by extending the analysis to the areas of human rights, sub-national social conflict and leadership duration.
Education and training as a ‘way out’ of unemployment: a response to poor prospects?

Taking up education or training is one of the ways of leaving unemployment besides the transition into employment. This paper examines under what conditions this ‘way out’ is possible for young unemployed people. It asks in particular to what extent taking up training is associated with a chance of re-employment that is considered to be poor. On the basis of the empirical analyses using the data of the life history study of the 1964 and 1971 cohorts, it emerges that training does in fact constitute a quantitatively significant way out of unemployment, but a way which is chosen above all by people who have relatively good employment prospects anyway: unemployed males and unemployed people with higher school qualifications select the education/training option as a way out of unemployment clearly more frequently. However in the empirical analyses, the occupational-field-specific, period- and time-dependent chance of re-employment, ascertained from secondary data, surprisingly proves to be (statistically) insignificant.
Definitions and Legal Aspects of the Term “War” and the Related Terms

Normative acts applicable in the Republic of Poland do not lack a multitude of formulations of terms such as: war, state of war or time of war. The lack of legally binding definitions and the inconsistency of the use of identical definitions lead to different, often contradictory interpretations of particular situations, which may have different legal consequences. Only a precise and detailed definition of these concepts, preferably by incorporating them into national or international law, would dispel many doubts and close the way to sometimes contradictory interpretations, which is particularly important for security and defence concepts and issues. Therefore, in this paper the author will present definitions and regulations resulting from Polish legal acts, relating to war, war time and the state of war.
Clientelism and Dominance: Evidence from Turkey

The aim of this thesis is to develop a number of theoretical ideas about the emergence of the predominant party system in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government from 2002 to 2015. A predominant party system emerges when a party wins at least three elections in a row by more than a 10 percent margin and forms the government alone. I argue that the expansion of clientelist networks under the AKP government has twofold ramifications, which in turn have reproduced the cycle of dominance. First, it strengthened voters’ partisan identification. Second, it changed voters’ ideology such that they became less resistant to or even supportive of neoliberal reforms. The conclusions are based on fieldwork in one of the poorest and most densely populated districts of Istanbul, Bagcilar.
Toward excellence in public relations: identifying practices and barriers in Kuwaiti corporate, governmental and non-profit organizations

ABSTRACT This study aimed to examine the applicability of the Excellence principles in Kuwait, generating insights into factors that affect the practice of strategic public relations management across corporate, governmental and nonprofit organizations. The findings, based on 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Kuwaiti public relations practitioners, revealed that the public relations profession demonstrates low levels of adherence to the generic principles of excellence. Public relations practitioners are less involved in strategic management and less empowered in the dominant coalition. Practitioners have provided various barriers including higher management’s lack of understanding of public relations, and lack of qualified practitioners, which have created disparities in understanding symmetrical communication. The sector of the organizations and the employment system in the country have also contributed to the situation.