Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Advertising: Theory and Application to Generic Commodity Promotion Programs

Mandated generic commodity promotion programs funded by commodity taxes, called check-offs, are important and controversial. Previous studies of benefits, and legislated requirements for evaluation, have focused on the own-producer effects of promotion. They have disregarded the costs or benefits experienced by producers of commodities not covered by the program but affected by it either directly or because of induced price changes. In this paper, theoretical models are developed for a case where two producer groups each promote their own commodity, and the two commodities are closely related in consumption. In the likely case, promotion of each commodity has a positive own-commodity producer welfare effect and a negative cross-commodity producer welfare effect, and each producer group will spend less on promotion if they take effects on other producers into account than if they consider only the within-group welfare effects; accordingly, from a broader social perspective, commodity programs are likely to overspend on promotion. An application uses 1994 data on prices, consumption, and advertising expenditures on U.S. beef and pork to illustrate the effects of generic advertising of beef and pork, taking account of cross-commodity effects of advertising and price changes. We quantify the beggar-thy-neighbour non-cooperative outcome and the joint optimum, and discuss the policy implications of the comparison.
Lap2α Expression is Controlled by E2F and Deregulated in Various Human Tumors

Deregulation of the retinoblastoma (pRB) tumor suppressor pathway is frequentlyobserved in human cancer and associated with aberrant activity of E2F transcriptionfactors. We have performed microarray based analysis with the aim of identifyingpotential downstream mediators of the tumor suppressing activity of pRB. Here we reportthat the expression of LAP2 (lamina-associated polypeptide 2) is under direct control ofE2F transcription factors. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays show that the LAP2promoter is bound by endogenous E2F in vivo. The LAP2 promoter is transactivated byectopically expressed E2F and mutation of E2F binding sites eliminates this effect. Westudied the expression level of LAP2α in human tumors by tissue microarray analysisand found LAP2α over expression in a significant percentage of primary larynx, lung,stomach, breast, and colon cancer tissues. In agreement with its regulation by E2F,LAP2α over expression in primary tumors was found to be correlated with tumorproliferation rate.
Seasonal variation in the migration strategies of the green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea species complex

Abstract 1. Insect migration strategies are generally poorly understood due to the propensity for high‐altitude flight of many insect species, and the technical difficulties associated with observing these movements. While some progress has been made in the study of the migration of important insect pests, the migration strategies of insect natural enemies are often unknown.
Do College‐Preparatory Programs Improve Long‐Term Outcomes?

This paper presents an analysis of the longer‐run effects of a college‐preparatory program implemented in inner‐city schools that provided teacher training in addition to payments to 11th‐ and 12th‐grade students and their teachers for passing scores on Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Affected students passed more AP exams, were more likely to remain in college beyond their first and second years, and earned higher wages. Effects are particularly pronounced for Hispanic students who experienced a 2.5‐percentage‐point increase in college degree attainment and an 11% increase in earnings. While the study is based on nonexperimental variation, the results are robust across a variety of specifications, and most plausible sources of bias are ruled out. The results provide credible evidence that implementing high‐quality college‐preparatory programs in existing urban schools can improve the long‐run educational and labor‐market outcomes of disadvantaged youth.
Executive Compensation and the EVA and MVA Performance of South African Listed Companies

The media regularly reports a growing incidence of a non-alignment of executive pay and performance, and in some cases, no link between the two whatsoever. The advent of new measures of shareholder wealth like economic value added (EVA) and market value added (MVA) have allowed some companies to link executive remuneration to shareholder wealth creation. The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between executive remuneration of South African listed companies and EVA and MVA, as well as traditional performance measures like return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). The findings indicate that there is indeed a significant relationship between executive remuneration and EVA and MVA, but that the correlation is better between executive remuneration and ROA and ROE. It is concluded that South African companies need to shift the emphasis away from traditional performance measures to value-creation measures when designing and implementing executive compensation plans.
Insider Trading in the Market with Rational Expected Prices

In the pioneering and influential Kyle's (1985) model, the market maker's pricing rule $\lambda_{n}$ is regarded as a constant when the insider submits her optimal strategy. We loosen this assumption by taking into account sufficiently the effect the insider's strategy $x_{n}$ has on it. When the insider is risk-neutral, she obtains a larger amount of profits in expectation in our model than that in Kyle's (1985) model. When the insider is risk-averse, we get a strong-form efficient market as the trading opportunity approaches infinity. While when the insider is risk-seeking, the information is released at an increasing speed.
Bank Performance, Efficiency and Ownership in Transitition Countries

Using data from 1996 to 2000, we investigate the effects of ownership, especially by a strategic foreign owner, on bank efficiency for eleven transition countries in an unbalanced panel consisting of 225 banks and 856 observations. Applying stochastic frontier estimation procedures, we compute profit and cost efficiency scores taking account of both time and country effects directly. In second-stage regressions, we take these efficiency measures along with return on assets as dependent variables with dummy variables for ownership type, a variable controlling for bank size, and dummy variables for year and country effects as explanatory variables. Methodologically, our results demonstrate the importance of including fixed effects, especially country effects, and also suggest a preference for efficiency measures over financial measures of bank performance in empirical work on transition countries. With respect to the impact of ownership, we conclude that privatization by itself is not sufficient to increase bank efficiency as government-owned banks are not appreciably less efficient than domestic private banks. Our results do support the hypothesis that foreign ownership leads to more efficient banks in transition countries. We find that foreign-owned banks are more cost-efficient than other banks and that they also provide better service, in particular if they have a strategic foreign owner. Moreover, the participation of international institutional investors is shown to have a considerable additional positive impact on profit efficiency, which is consistent with the notion that these investors facilitate the transfer of technology and know how to newly privatized banks. In addition, we find that the remaining government-owned banks are less efficient in providing services, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the better banks were privatized first in transition countries. Finally, efficiency declines with bank size, which could call into question government-orchestrated bank consolidation strategies. We conjecture that the presence of many small and efficient foreign greenfield operations in these transition countries may be responsible for this result.
Accountability Issues of SDGs in a Global Public Goods Context

Accountability issues are a major concern regarding the SDGs. A considerable body of academic literature on the subject is available. Two features of this literature are striking. The first is that the concept of accountability is not very well elaborated and bares no connection to the extensive accountability literature in the field of public administration. The second feature is that, although accountability is closely linked to governance, the governance of SDGs is again rather poorly treated in the existing literature as it turns an almost blind side on the considerable global public goods aspects of SDGs. <br><br>This paper wants to remedy these shortcomings. First, it sets out to look at SDGs through the lens of welfare economics and the global public goods paradigm. Secondly the consequences of this heterogenous picture for accountability will be examined. Following the framework developed by Bovens (2007) two stages have to be distinguished. In the first stage the system has to be described in terms of actors, fora, information and sanctioning. In the second stage the evaluation has to be done, in principle using some benchmark. The accountability system as described in the first stage can then be compared to some ideal type of accountability and be evaluated on a satisfaction scale. Adaptations in the accountability system can then be going in the right or in the wrong direction. <br><br>This paper should allow to see more clearly the accountability issues of the SDGs by putting them into the framework of global public goods. <br>
Secularization and Long-Run Economic Growth

This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious individuals, leading secular individuals to work harder and to save more in order to experience this pleasure from consumption. These activities are conducive to economic growth. Higher income makes consumption more affordable and increases the appeal of a secular identity for the next generation. An extension of the basic model investigates the Protestant Reformation as an intermediate stage during the take-off to growth. Another extension introduces intergenerationally dependent religious preferences and demonstrates how a social multiplier amplifies the speed of secularization.
Braincase of Panphagia protos (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha)

ABSTRACT We describe a partial braincase of the basal sauropodomorph Panphagia protos from the Upper Triassic (mid-Carnian) horizons of the Ischigualasto Formation. The disarticulated braincase from a subadult individual includes one frontal, both parietals, one prootic, and the supraoccipital. The frontal is longer anteroposteriorly than it is wide transversely, has a small anterolateral process, and an elongate oval depression for the olfactory bulb. The supraoccipital is broader transversely than it is deep dorsoventrally and lacks a pronounced median nuchal eminence. Some braincase features that characterize more derived basal sauropodomorphs are not present in Panphagia, including a broader frontal and reduced anterior tympanic and floccular recesses. Panphagia appears to represent an early stage in the evolution of sauropodomorph dinosaurs.
Go with the Politician

Chinese local leaders are frequently moved across prefectures. By combining local leader rotation data and comprehensive firm land parcel purchase data across prefectures from 2006 to 2016, this paper examines how firm–politician connections affect resource allocation and finds that a firm headquartered in a leader’s previous work prefecture purchases three times more land parcels in that leader’s new governing prefecture than the prefecture-year mean, at half the unit prices. Identification is from within-firm-year variation in various prefectures through exogenous politician rotation. Land usage efficiency is lower for these follower firms’ land parcels. Land allocation distortion is also economically sizable. (JEL D22, D72, O17, O18, P25, P26)
Breaking for the Border: The Effect of the Exchange Rate on Cross-border Shopping in Ireland

Movements in the real exchange rate between countries sharing an international border act as a demand shock, especially for the retail, entertainment and restaurant sectors located near the border. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effects of fluctuations in the nominal exchange rate on cross-border shopping flows from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. The dataset consists of hourly car flows at sixteen traffic counters and the daily exchange rate during 2013-17. Identification is achieved by exploiting the daily variation in the exchange rate, the spatial variation in the effect of the exchange rate and by focusing on cross-border journeys made by car at different times of the day. When the Euro appreciates by 1%, car flows on the average border crossing rise by 2% between 9am and 3pm. This is an estimated 513 cars crossing the Irish border to go shopping. This paper provides an analysis of exchange rate movements and incentives to shop across the border outside of the North American context.
Subprime Crisis and Board (In)Competence: Private vs. Public Banks in Germany

We examine evidence for a systematic underperformance of Germany's state-owned banks in the current financial crisis and study if the bank losses can be traced to the quality of bank governance. For this purpose, we examine the biographical background of 593 supervisory board members in the 29 largest banks and find a pronounced difference in the finance and management experience of board representatives across private and state-owned banks. Measures of "boardroom competence" are then related directly to the magnitude of bank losses in the recent financial crisis. Our data confirms that supervisory board (in)competence in finance is related to losses in the financial crisis. Improved bank governance is therefore a suitable policy objective to reduce bank fragility.
Effect of Meat Piece, Packaging and Storage on pH, Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances and Microbial Counts in Broilers Fed Diets Supplemented with Ram Horn Hydrolysate

This research was carried out to determine the effects of meat piece, packaging type and storage time on the pH, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), total mesophilic, total psychrotrophic, lactic acid and Enterobacteriaceae counts at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 days of storage, in broilers fed diets containing 0% (H0), 1% (H1), 2% (H3) and 3% (H3) levels of ram horn hydrolisate (RHH) in daily water requirements of chicks during experimental periods. A total of 240 male broiler chicks (Ross-308) were allocated to four dietary treatments (H0, H1, H2 and H3 groups) in a completely randomized experimental design. RHH-added water and feed were offered ad libitum consumption for the first 28 days of the experiment; and then they were fed only a basal diet and normal drinking water to the end of the study. At the end of the trial all the birds were slaughtered, then standard dissection of carcasses, breasts and drumsticks were divided into two groups for vacuum and aerobic packaging. Packed breasts and drumsticks were stored at 3 ± 0.5°C for 12 days, and the pH, TBARS and microbial counts were determined during the storage period. The use of ram horn hydrolysate at 1% and 3% levels in broiler diets increased pH values of breast fillets and drumstick meats (p < 0.01). TBARS value (p < 0.01) and Enterobacteriaceae counts (p < 0.01) decreased compared to the control group. pH, TBARS and Enterobacteriaceae counts were lower (p < 0.05) in breast fillets than drumstick muscles. The pH, TBARS and bacteria counts increased during storage (p < 0.01). The vacuum packaging preserved the meat quality properties of broiler breast fillets and drumsticks meats (p < 0.05). The results obtained from the present study, concluded that the use of ram horn hydrolysate in broiler diet decreased lipid oxidation of the broiler breast and drumstick meats, and the level of Enterobacteriaceae was also reduced in vacuum packed samples during the storage period.
The Head Skeleton of the Rhaetian Sphenodontid Diphydontosaurus Avonis Gen. Et Sp. Nov. and the Modernizing of a Living Fossil

The skull and lower jaw of a new sphenodontid reptile Diphydontosaurus avonis is described from disarticulated bones. The fossils were recovered from a detrital limestone of Rhaetian age deposited within solutional and tectonically formed fissures within the Carboniferous Limestone of Tytherington quarry near Bristol. The bone remains, numbering over 1000, are exquisitely preserved with intact facets. Diphydontosaurus was the smallest member of an insular fauna, was primarily insectivorous, and probably formed locally high-density populations. Uniquely for a sphenodontid, Diphydontosaurus had pleurodont teeth on the premaxilla and on the anterior regions of the dentary and maxilla. However, Diphydontosaurus also has the series of acrodont teeth alternating in size on the maxilla and dentary which is characteristic of the Sphenodontidae and particularly Sphenodon. An analysis of 49 synapomorphs in the Diapsida emphasises the sphenodontid nature of Diphydontosaurus. A study of these synapomorphs among the other Triassic sphenodontids Clevosaurus and Planocephalosaurus and the eosuchian Gephyrosaurus suggests that the lack of a quadrate-quadratojugal conch and the complete lower temporal bar are secondarily derived in the `living fossil' Sphenodon punctatus. The tuatara is therefore much less archaic than hitherto proposed. Functional reasons are advocated for the loss of the conch and the regrowth of a complete lower temporal bar. Transformation series are described which could have led to the shape of the maxilla, dentary, premaxilla, palatine and to the loss of the lacrimal in Sphenodon.
Democracy’s Comparative Advantage: Evidence from Aggregated Trade Data, 1962-2010

Scholars have long debated the nexus between political institutions and economic outcomes. The thesis of democratic advantage has been under careful scrutiny and empirical evidence is notoriously inconclusive. One topic that has drawn extensive scholarly attention is democratic institutions as a source of comparative advantage in international trade. Using a new data set that covers around 140 countries from 1962 to 2010, we find that on average, democratic countries have the comparative advantage in exporting differentiated products, which reflects lower transaction costs in trade and higher economic complexity. Echoing literature on electoral autocracy, we also make the distinction between different subtypes of authoritarian regimes. Similarly, authoritarian countries with electoral institutions have the comparative advantage in exporting differentiated products relative to other authoritarian countries, though the magnitude is much smaller and inconsistent over time. Our results are robust to a large set of control variables and multiple model specifications. In sum, our paper provides new insights into the relationship between democracy and trade and complements existing literature on the effect of authoritarian institutions on economic development. Note: This is the first-submission version to World Development.
Impact of Coaching on Employee Performance Mediated by Rewards and Recognition

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of workplace coaching on employees’ performance in Malaysia mediated by rewards and recognition. Many studies in the past examined the influence of coaching on employee performance, the relationship between coaching and rewards and recognition, as well as the impact of rewards and recognition on employee performance. However, no research on the influence of coaching and employee performance mediated by rewards and recognition appears to have been conducted or examined. There is also no research carried out to examine the rewards and recognition influence of coaching. Some research has examined the relationship between coaching and rewards and recognition in the past, yet no body examines the influence of coaching on rewards and workforce recognition. Based on the critical review of research literature, the questionnaire for this research was developed and divided into four sets of questionnaires based on dependent, independent and mediating variables. The dependent variable used in this study is Employee Performance. The independent variable used to determine the impact on employee performance is coaching. The research used survey approach with a Likert Scale-based survey questionnaire (for strong agreement, strongly disagree -1 and 5). The data collected based on convenience sampling technique through non-probability sampling. Total of 200 questionnaires would be distributed to employees in Malaysia that have experience being a coach or a coachee at a workplace. SPSS Amos Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and Regression Analysis is used to analyse the data collected.
Do Equity Financing Cycles Matter?: Evidence from Biotechnology Alliances

While the variability of public equity financing has been long recognized, its impact on firms has attracted little empirical scrutiny. This paper examines one setting where theory suggests that variations in financing conditions should matter, alliances between small R&D firms and major corporations: Aghion and Tirole [1994] suggest that when financial markets are weak, assigning the control rights to the small firm may be sometimes desirable but not feasible. The performance of 200 agreements entered into by biotechnology firms between 1980 and 1995 suggests that financing availability does matter. Consistent with theory, agreements signed during periods with little external equity financing that assign the bulk of the control to the corporate partner are significantly less successful than other alliances. These agreements are also disproportionately likely to be renegotiated if financial market conditions improve.
Influence of External Factors on the Taiwan Stock Exchange

Due to the small market size and the low trading volume, emerging markets are, in general, shallow and easily affected by external factors such as the capital flows from foreign portfolio investment and the stock market fluctuations of their major trading partners. This study attempts to investigate how foreign portfolio investment and the trading partnerâ€™s equity market affect the local stock market and whether such impacts are persistent through time. Adopting the GARCH-EVT-Copula approach, this study takes the Taiwan Stock Exchange as an example to examine (1) the time varying dependencies between the changes in the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index and the changes in foreign portfolio investment volume, and (2) the time varying dependencies between the changes in Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index and the changes of the China A-Shares market aggregation index. The empirical results indicated that although foreign portfolio investment started as a strong force in moving the market, it became less influential during the financial crisis period. The stock movements from an emerging marketâ€™s top trading partner, however, become more influential as the international trading volume between the two increased and did not weaken even during the financial crisis period.