Search results for "Development economics"
showing 10 items of 243 documents
The Well-Being Gap during the Great Recession: The Role of Growth and Institutions
2020
The purpose of this paper is to examine the well-being dynamics across European countries during the Great Recession and to investigate the potential role of the quality of formal institutions in mitigating the negative effect of the economic downturn. This study uses the club convergence methodology by Phillips and Sul (2007; 2009) to group EU-28 countries that present similar features in terms of well-being during the period 2005-2017. The study also applies probit models to investigate the potential role of several social and institutional characteristics that are supposed to affect subjective well-being levels. The results show the existence of a “well-being gap” among European countrie…
Determinants of Immigration in Europe. The Relevance of Life Expectancy and Environmental Sustainability
2017
This research analyzes the main variables that determine immigration in Europe and includes aspects related to the economy, population, healthcare, and environmental sustainability. The empirical analysis consists of two sets of data: one made up of all EU member states (EU-28) and the other containing countries that form a part of the Eurozone (EU-19), using the Generalized Method of Moments. The sample covers the period between 2000 and 2014, and the data are analyzed separately and comparatively in the most relevant stages during that time (economic prosperity, crisis, and recovery). The most notable results indicate that the variables related to GDP and public debt largely serve to just…
Sexual Exploitation from Origin Countries to Destination Countries
2020
Human trafficking tends to follow a pattern of phases, such as recruitment, transfer, exploitation, protection, and sometimes re-trafficking. This chapter gives the opportunity for the reader to understand the influence of several factors within human trafficking at a geographical level, from the origin and transit country to the destination country, as well as at a cultural, social, and criminological level. All factors are considered according to victim nationality, in this case Romanian and Nigerian, including the vulnerable factors created by the criminal groups. In this chapter, the difference of citizenship between Nigerian women, who are third-country nationals, and Romanian women, w…
“If you compress the spring, it will snap back hard”: The Ukrainian crisis and the balance of threat theory
2014
The narrative of an aggressive and neo-imperialist Russia that has dominated analyses of the 2014 Ukrainian crisis lacks theoretical rigour. We argue that a sustainable transformation of the Ukrainian crisis requires an accurate analysis of the context of the conflict, which should include an understanding of Moscow’s perception of the threats to its interests. This policy brief develops a theoretical understanding of the Ukrainian crisis through the lens of Stephen M. Walt’s balance of threat theory. We conclude that a realist analysis will help to explain Russian actions.
An institutional view on access to finance by Tanzanian women-owned enterprises
2017
We investigate the limited use of bank and microfinance loans by Tanzanian female entrepreneurs. Using survey data, we observe that female entrepreneurs mainly use informal sources to finance their businesses. We analyze how “perceptions” of gendered cognitive and normative institutions determine whether a female entrepreneur applies for a formal loan. Following results stand out: first, we find that high collateral requirements, interest rates and personal guarantee requirements make formal loans unattractive. Second, female entrepreneurs only apply when they expect to be successful. Since they “perceive” access to finance to be more problematic for women,female entrepreneurs are discourag…
Exploring why global health needs are unmet by research efforts: the potential influences of geography, industry and publication incentives
2020
[Background]: It has been well established that research is not addressing health needs in a balanced way — much more research is conducted on diseases with more burden in high-income countries than on those with more burden in lower-income countries. In this study, we explore whether these imbalances persist and inquire about the possible influence of three factors, namely geography, industry and publication incentives.
Do Powerful CEOs Determine Microfinance Performance?
2012
Authors version of an article published in Journal of Management Studies. The definitive version is available from Wiley at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01046.x Recently, microfinance has been coming under public and media attacks. The microcredit crisis following from microfinance-induced suicides in 2010 in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh indicates that weak corporate governance and imprudent risk taking have far-reaching consequences. Yet, analyses of corporate governance mechanisms among microfinance institutions (MFIs) remain underdeveloped. As a response, this study examines the impact of CEO power on MFI risk taking by deriving explicit predictions of this effect fr…
ICT demand behaviour: An international comparison
2009
This study aims to provide some empirical explanations for the gaps in ICT diffusion between industrialized countries, especially European countries vis-à-vis the United States. The panel data cover eleven OECD countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. These annual macroeconomic data span the 1981-2005 period.The analysis provides some original results: (i) the impact on ICT diffusion of the level of education and market rigidities has changed over time. The correlation of ICT diffusion, positive with the level of education and negative with market rigidities, increased over time (in absolute terms)…
Dependency on un-captured GDP as a source of resilience beyond economic value in countries with advanced ICT infrastructure: Similarities and dispari…
2015
Abstract The majority of countries with advanced information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure have been experiencing extended stagnation due to an “embedded” trap in ICT advancement. However, certain countries have been able to sustain a high level of ICT- driven global competitiveness. This suggests that in these contexts there is resilience beyond economic value. Finland and Singapore can be considered countries of resilience with respect to ICT-driven global competitiveness because of their continued GDP growth despite the recession. While both countries share significant similarities including institutional strength in ICT, they demonstrate noteworthy disparities in the…
Three Halves of a Whole : Redefining East and West in UNESCO’s East-West Major Project 1957-1966
2017

 
 
 In 1946 Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s rst Director-General, suggested that two opposing philosophies of life were confronting each other from the East and the West, setting the focus on the cultural aspect of this polarisation and de ning the possibility of an East- West conflict as the main threat to world peace. A decade later, in 1957, UNESCO launched The Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values to promote its ideas of intercultural understanding as a means to maintaining peace. The core concepts of the Project, East and West, were not strictly defined. Here East and West, as concepts, fit Reinhart Koselleck’s definition of Grundbegri…