Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Liberalization and Export Promotion: Evidence From Nigeria (1987–2018)

Financial liberalization policy is expected to enhance credit allocation to important sector in the economy. With previous studies mainly focusing on the effect of financial liberalization on economic growth in Nigeria, this study explored the effect of financial liberalization on export promotion in Nigeria from 1987-2018. The study used secondary data obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin (2018). Techniques such as Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF), Philip Perron, Bound Co-integration Test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Pairwise Granger Causality were employed. It was found from the unit result that lending rate was stationary at level form while loan on export, savings rate, gross domestic product, exchange rate and trade openness were integrated at first difference. Also, long run relationship was established among the variables. The ARDL result showed that loan on export, gross domestic product and trade openness significantly enhanced total export while savings rate and exchange rate negatively influenced total export in Nigeria. Furthermore, the Pairwise causality test revealed that loan to export, gross domestic product and exchange rate granger caused total export. The study concluded that financial liberalization has the potential of enhancing exportation in Nigeria through the provision of adequate credit to export based firms. It was recommended that, adequate credit should be given to export based industries at low rate of at least 12%, also, savings rate should be push upward to a threshold of at least 10% to increase savings and resources mobilization of financial and finally, exchange rate should be stabilized through adoption of effective policies.
Malleability of Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Migrants

How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. We find that if a household moves to a state with a higher (lower) average alcohol purchases than the origin state, the household is likely to increase (decrease) its alcohol purchases right after the move. The current environment explains about two-thirds of the differences in alcohol purchases. The adjustment takes place both on the extensive and intensive margins.
Skewness Preference and IPO Underpricing: International Evidence

This paper examines the impact of expected skewness on IPO underpricing based on a comprehensive set of 17,051 IPOs from 23 countries between 1990 and 2013. We find that IPOs with high expected skewness have significantly higher first-day return around the world, confirming the previous results based on U.S. IPOs. Such preference for skewness is more pronounced in countries with relatively higher gambling propensity, a larger number of non-religious population, a more individualistic culture, and a higher newspaper circulation. Moreover, IPOs with high expected skewness significantly underperform those with low expected skewness over a longer horizon, which is exacerbated under a stronger gambling tendency and individualism. Our results provide additional empirical support for skewness preference and pricing of lottery type assets in an international setting.
Analytical Tools for Measuring Poverty Dynamics: An Application Using Panel Data in the Philippines

This study reviews two methods of measuring poverty dynamics. The components approach uses the longitudinally averaged income to determine whether a household is chronically poor or not. On the other hand, the spells approach counts the number of poverty episodes experienced by a household. Using panel data from the Philippines, we examine the differences between these analytical methods of measuring chronic and transient poverty. Furthermore, the study also examines the sensitivity of estimates of poverty dynamics to measurement parameters. While I find that both the components and spells approaches suggest that most poverty experiences of Filipino households were persistent, my robustness analysis reveals that the relative importance of persistent and transient poverty are sensitive to the type of poverty measure used and the poverty line specified. In particular, the relative importance of transient poverty increases dramatically as the poverty line decreases or as the poverty measure becomes more sensitive to the welfare of the poorest of the poor.
Building Our Own Bridges: How a Distressed Urban Neighborhood Bridges the Digital Divide

Prior research on digital divides and inequalities demonstrates that those who have multiple Internet access points engage in broader and more capital-enhancing online uses (Dutton & Blank, 2013, 2014; Zillien & Hargittai, 2009). These capital-enhancing uses, in turn, can serve as one mechanism to help narrow socio-economic inequities in distressed communities. This paper examines highly distressed urban communities in the city of Detroit, Michigan. Based on 525 telephone surveys of Detroit residents, this study uses a path modeling approach to examine the relationship between socio-economic variables, attitudes toward the internet, different points of access and devices, and different types of capital-enhancing Internet uses, such as e-commerce, looking for health information, reading the news and job seeking. By building on studies that identify the impact of access points on social capital and understanding online behavior as it relates to different types of devices, such as desktops, laptops, and mobile phones, policy makers can take steps to narrow digital divides.
‘Fateful’ vs. ‘Everyday’ Choices: Qualitative Differences in Choice Situations and the Dimensions of Choicework

This study focuses on choicework in situations of different subjective importance. Psychology students (N=74) and internet sample respondents (N=1,833) were asked to recollect several choice situations of varying importance from their experience and to name, describe, and evaluate them using a number of self-report measures. Combining qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we devised a series of qualitative indicators of choicework (context and content of choice, emotional attitude to the choice process, satisfaction with choice, mindfulness, autonomy, difficulty, and significance) and compared the choice situations on these parameters. Significant and trivial choices differed on a number of variables (more significant situations were characterized by more complicated and conscious choicework). Choice situations with different thematic content also differed in their subjective importance and other parameters of choicework. The results imply the necessity to consider the scale of significance and the thematic content of situations used in choice studies.
Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Divergence and Phylogenetic Relationships among Eight Chromosome Races of the Sceloporus Grammicus Complex (Phrynosomatidae) in Central Mexico

A 2,479-base pair mitochondrial DNA fragment was sequenced for eight chromosome races of Sceloporus grammicus from central Mexico to estimate their phylogenetic relationships. The species S. poinsetti and S. olivaceus were used separately as alternative outgroups. A total of 795 positions varied in three complete protein-coding genes examined (ND3, ND4L, ND4), and 52 of 292 positions varied across five transfer RNAs examined (glycine, argenine. histidine, serine, leucine). Sequence divergence values ranged from 0.0 to 0.23 among the ingroup taxa, and a maximum of 0.26 was observed between ingroup and outgroup taxa. Alternative analyses based upon equally weighted characters and several alternative character-weighting options were used to obtain phylogenetic hypotheses for the complex, and a single most-parsimonious tree was selected from among these on the basis of a new character-weighting method that takes into account the observed frequencies of all 12 possible substitutions for protein genes
Do VIX and Trading Volume Subsume Incremental Information above GARCH-Type Models for the Volatility Forecast?

The VIX index and trading volume (VO) can subsume information of the future volatility in financial markets, and therefore, have been commonly used as volatility forecasting instruments. Previous studies have identified superior VIX- and VO-based forecasts compared to various GARCH-type models, while contradictory evidence for the outperformance of GARCH-based forecasts rises controversies about the optimal forecast. To evaluate whether VIX and VO may subsume incremental information over GARCH-type models, this paper evaluates the volatility forecast efficiency of VIX, VO and GARCH. <br><br>Latest daily VIX, VO and SPX during 01/01/2006-17/07/2017 are sorted from Bloomberg. To access the forecast efficiency, Mincer-Zarnowitz (MZ, 1969) regression, the forecast encompassing test and root-mean-square error (RMSE) are to be applied. The present empirical result indicates incremental information in VIX, while VO seems to subsume little or no additional information over GARCH, which contradicts previous findings of Kambouroudis and McMillan (2016). <br><br>Recent concerns about the influence of financial turmoil on the volatility forecast have generated a considerable body of research; however, most previous investigations of the volatility forecast efficiency have not addressed this issue. Hence, this paper is motivated to identify the effect of 2008 financial crisis on the volatility estimates. Current findings confirm a negative crisis dilution effect occurred in 2012, especially for VO-based predictions. The identified dilution effect demonstrated a negative influence of turmoil on volatility forecasts due to the disruption of the economic condition during the post-crisis period. Further work is recommended on validating this issue in various financial markets, such as foreign exchange markets.
The Short and Long-Run Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) Performance in the Emerging Market: Evidence From Saudi Arabia Share Market

This study examines the short-and-long-run share performance of IPO companies listed on the Saudi Arabia Stock Exchange (Tadawul) from 1st January 2000 to 31st August 2017. 45 IPO companies were included in this study. This study employs the event time approach and abnormal returns are calculated using the market-adjusted initial returns for short-run share performance and buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHAR) for long-run performance. First, our analysis reports under-pricing of IPO shares at Tadawul with a high abnormal initial return of 76.61%. Second, we find over performance of IPO shares in the long-run where the market-adjusted BHAR outperformed both market indices - (i) positive and significant when benchmarked against EWI; and (ii) positive but not significant when benchmarked against VWI. Our findings are consistent with extant literature for the developing countries like Malaysia and Singapore.
Diversity of soil fungi studied by PCR–RFLP of ITS

Ribosomal DNA sequences provide new molecular approaches to characterise fungal species from the environment. This study presents a culture-independent approach to assessing fungal diversity by direct amplification, cloning, restriction digestion and sequencing of internal transcribed spacers (ITS). We have assessed this novel approach both with culturable soil fungi and with total environmental DNA extracted from the same soil sample. Sixty-seven colonies and 51 cloned amplicons from total DNA were compared on the basis of their ITS restriction patterns. Then, 58 representative ITS sequences were determined and classified by comparing their sequences with ITS sequences of known origin. All culturable fungi were ascomycetes with one basidiomycete exception. In contrast, cloned amplicons from total environmental DNA were identified to ascomycetes, one basidiomycete, one zygomycete and to several fungi belonging to the kingdoms Chromista and Protozoa. The results show that PCR-RFLP of ITS provides an efficient culture-independent molecular tool for ecological studies and to assess fungal diversity.
Concealment as Responsibility Shifting in Overlapping Generations Organizations

Firms sometimes have problems with their products or management systems, problems that can lead to catastrophic events. Often, workers in such firms are aware of these problems but fail to report them to their superiors. This paper examines workers’ incentives for concealing problems within an overlapping generations organization consisting of a subordinate and a manager. It shows that concealment is more likely if the problem’s growth rate increases overtime. It also shows that, as time passes, subordinates grow more likely to conceal a problem even though the social loss from concealment increases. Further, imposing and rewards on managers may actually increase the motivation for concealment.
Dynamic Momentum and Contrarian Trading

High momentum returns cannot be explained by risk factors, but they are negatively skewed and subject to occasional severe crashes. I explore the timing of momentum crashes and show that momentum strategies tend to crash in 1-3 months after the local stock market plunge. Next, I propose a simple dynamic trading strategy which coincides with the standard momentum strategy in calm times, but switches to the opposite contrarian strategy after a market crash and keeps the contrarian position for three months, after which it reverts back to the momentum position. The dynamic momentum strategy turns all major momentum crashes into gains and yields an average return, which is about 1.5 times as high as the standard momentum return. The dynamic momentum returns are positively skewed and not exposed to risk factors, have high Sharpe ratio and alpha, persist in different time periods and geographical markets around the globe.
What Drives Customer Inspiration? A Goal-Systemic Perspective

While inspiration plays an essential role in marketing practice and everyday consumer language, practitioners often seem to lack a clear understanding of the drivers of inspiration. Scientifically, inspiration challenges traditional categorizations as it combines cognitive and motivational aspects of human behavior. By integrating inspiration with goal systems theory, this paper proposes a framework for the psychological processes which drive customer inspiration. Across three experimental studies in the context of physical exercising, we test the ability of this goal-systemic perspective to predict effects on inspiration. Study 1 reveals that inspiration can result both from the addition of new means as well as new goals and depends on participants’ pre-existing goal-systems. Study 2 replicates these findings and shows that the effects on inspiration are largely mediated by the strength of new goal-means associations. Finally, study 3 explores the effect of participants’ mindsets on inspiration through new goals and means. In conclusion, these results provide evidence that the effects of realizing new goals and new means on inspiration depend on pre-existing goal systems and mindsets in a way that is consistent with goal systems theory. Therefore, goal systems theory can provide a useful framework for the analysis of inspiration in consumer research.
Community Awareness about Family Planning Program in District Malakand, Pakistan

The current study was conducted in the three selected villages of District Malakand, Pakistan. The study proceeded with the objectives to assess community awareness and perception about family planning program. A sample size 169 respondents, married male persons were randomly selected. A highly significant association was found between family planning program with awareness about spacing/gap. Moreover, a significant association between family planning program and family planning is for the improvement of the society. In addition, a highly significant association was found between family planning program and positive effects of family planning on the health of mother and child. It is concluded that family planning is functioning, people approval to it, and contributing positively towards condensing birth rate. Awareness program strengthening through seminars, the involvement of religious and motivation towards higher adoption rate were suggested is policy recommendations in light of the study.
Cash Flow, R&D Investment and Profitability: Evidence from Chinese High-Tech and Other Industrial Firms

This paper examines the dynamic relationship among cash flow, R&D investment and profitability. Previous empirical studies have not considered the dynamics of this relationship, the endogeneity problem and causality factors. To overcome these econometric problems simultaneously, I build a panel vector autoregression model (PVAR) for a sample of 588 China’s listed firms over eight years. There is some evidence of reverse causality between these variables after controlling the individual fixed effects. We find that the positive impact of R&D investment on profitability over the long term, which indicates the difference in R&D effect on profitability for the two groups of firms, is significantly larger in high-tech firms. In contrast, the positive impact of energy intensity on carbon intensity is mainly reflected in the short term. This paper confirms the importance of R&D investment and financing constraint in improving firm profitability.
The (Non-) Effect of Labor Unionization on Firm Risk: Evidence From the Options Market

Abstract Labor unionization has no causal effect on firm risk. Using a regression discontinuity design to study the impact of labor union elections on option-implied firm risk, we find that unionization per se does not affect investor perceptions about firm price, tail, or variance risk. This finding is robust to studying very short (5-trading day) and long (up to 2-year) windows around the elections. Moreover, there is no unionization effect on firm risk either in subsets of firms facing strong union bargaining power, or with characteristics that prior literature identifies as important determinants of the effect of unionization on firm outcomes.
Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi

This is the one essential handbook for all who work with or are interested in fungi (including lichens, slime moulds, yeasts and fungal analogues). This new edition, with more than 21,000 entries, provides the most complete listing available of generic names of fungi, their families and orders, their attributes and descriptive terms. For each genus, the authority, the date of publication, status, systematic position, number of accepted species, distribution, and key references are given. Diagnoses of families and details of orders and higher categories are included for all groups of fungi. In addition, there are biographic notes, information on well-known metabolites and mycotoxins, and concise accounts of almost all pure and applied aspects of the subject (including citations of important literature). All information has been updated as necessary since the publication of the ninth edition in 2001. In addition the tenth edition has the following new features: a completely new classification of the Kingdom Fungi based on recent multi-gene phylogenetics research; a major revision of the classification of the Basidiomycota and substantial modification of the "basal" groups; further integration of anamorphic and teleomorphic genera in the classification; enhanced distinctions between the true fungi and unrelated groups traditionally studied by mycologists; and, improved information on references to publications.
First Records of Phyllophaga (Phyllophaga) Mentalis (Saylor) and Hemiphileurus simplex (Prell) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in Mexico

Chiapas is the Mexican state with the most speciose fauna of Scarabaeidae, with 368 species recorded (Pacheco-Flores et al. 2008). Phyllophaga (sensu lato) Harris is the most diverse genus, with 68 species. Also, it is the most economically important because some of its species are considered by the farming community to be agricultural pests (Castro-Ramírez et al. 2005). On the other hand, HemiphileurusKolbe has 51described species, with 16 occurring in Mesoamerica and five in Chiapas (Pacheco-Flores et al. 2008; Ratcliffe and Curoe 2011). The aim of this note is to report the presence of Phyllophaga mentalis (Saylor) and Hemiphileurus simplex (Prell) in Mexico for the first time and to provide information about their biology and feeding habits. Collecting took place between February and August 2010 for four days each month in the principal forests (pine forest, pine-oak-sweetgum forest, and cloud forest) of Lagunas de Montebello National Park (LMNP) (between 16°04′30′′ and 16°09′45′′N and 91°38′04′′ and 91°43′00′′W). The area has an average elevation of 1,500 m, a monthly mean temperature of 23.6°C, and an annual rainfall of 1,862 mm (INEGI 1984; CONANP 2007). Collecting methods consisted of direct collecting, traps baited either with human feces or with squid, and white fluorescent light and black light traps with all light traps operating two hours from dusk. Samples were processed and deposited at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, San Cristóbal de Las Casas (ECOSUR-SC-E), and the Instituto de Ecología, Xalapa (IEXA), entomological collections. Sixty-five adults of P. mentalis were captured during June, July, and August; 33 adults were taken in July alone. Peak activity occurred from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm. Using the white fluorescent light method, 34 beetles (19 males and 15 females) were captured, while using the blacklight 31 adults (15 males and 16 females) were collected. Sorted by vegetation type, 12 adults were captured in pine forest, six in pine-oak-sweetgum forest, and 47 in cloud forest, all located on average from 1,454 to 1,566 m elevation. Phyllophaga mentalis has no agricultural importance in the area since it affects neither corn nor kidney bean crops located near the collection areas. According to Cano (1999) and Morón (2003), P. mentalis inhabits cloud forests at elevations from 1,200 to 1,500 m, where adults fly from May to July. Collections made in the LMNP represent a new country record for Mexico; the species was previously known only fromAlta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Zacapa, and Huehuetenango in Guatemala (Saylor 1941; Cano 1999; Morón 2003). Twenty adults of H. simplex were captured. Among these, two males were collected during April, two males and one female during May, one male and three females during June, two males and six females during July, and two males and one female during August. All collections were made by four types of capture: direct collecting from the ground (one male, two females), traps
Sirex noctilio control program in response to the 1987 Green Triangle outbreak

Summary In 1987, 1.8 million tree deaths resulted from a Sirex noctilio outbreak in Pinus radiata plantations in southeastern South Australia and southwestern Victoria. The major response was to inoculate 147 000 trees with the parasitic nematode Deladenus siricidicola. Also, projects to salvage sirex-infested trees and to release the parasitoid Megarhyssa nortoni were implemented. The inoculation program cost $1.3 million. Productivity and costs were calculated for the seven procedures used to introduce the nematode. Efficiency was increased by using machines to fell and delimb the trees and by redesigning the inoculation hammer. Knowledge gained from this outbreak should prompt a review of the control recommendations. Forest managers should implement a rigorous control program, as soon as sirex is detected in a region, to minimise the risk of a future outbreak. Key words: Sirex noctilio, Deladenus siricidicola, biological control, forest pest management, Pinus radiata.