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The authors present details of a research-based course in development economics taught at a private liberal arts college. There were three key elements in this class: teaching of applied econometrics, group presentations reviewing published and working papers in development economics, and using concepts taught in class to write an original research paper. The project required using econometric analyses on an existing data set that was available online to answer a question in development economics. The authors illustrate how the three elements of the class complemented each other and provide a case study as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This analysis of the social-technical relationship and innovation among farmers provide important information about the factors which can influence the success of an NGO intervention. To address these questions, the papers have been grouped as conceptual frameworks, the role of NGOs, development policy, the environment and the "dark side" of social capital. Many development projects are designed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the goals of improving well-being for vulnerable populations. Keywords: A13; O13; O18 EN A13 O13 O18 603 609 7 06/02/23 20230601 NES 230601 The idea for this special issue is an output of an international workshop titled "Social Capital and Rural Development" on March 22-23, 2018 in Izmir, Turkey. [Extracted from the article]

There has been a resurgence in scholarship on Karl Polanyi in recent years, against the backdrop of rising populism and critiques of globalization and financialization. In these works, Polanyi is typically portrayed as critic of the contested notion of 'neoliberalism'. In this paper I demonstrate that, to the contrary, Polanyi's Great Transformation (1944) shares many of the themes central to the contributions of the early neoliberals, specifically the ordoliberal thinkers. Polanyi and the ordoliberals did not only seek to analyze the origins of the same social crisis of the 1930 s and 40 s, but their analysis of the deficiencies of nineteenth-century liberalism as well as the subsequent disintegration through rapidly growing interventions in favor of powerful groups in society has much in common. This paper explores these similarities and demonstrates that they also extended to the way they perceived the responsibility of scientists as well as the interdependence of the various orders in society. It is argued that the ordoliberals, their fellow-traveler F. A. Hayek and Karl Polanyi all perceived the interdependence between the state, civil society and the market somewhat differently, but agreed on the need to conceptualize the relationship between the three. Finally, it is suggested that even the normative ideal of Karl Polanyi, the realization of 'freedom in a complex society', has important commonalities with the ordoliberal program: the protection of individual freedom from concentrated forms of power in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some of the main features of recent OECD work on people's well-being and societies' progress. After discussing the main limitations of GDP as a measure of 'welfare', the paper presents the multidimensional framework and rationale underpinning the OECD Better Life Initiative, and describes how this framework aims to overcome the limitations of GDP. The paper also presents some of the evidence from the OECD 'Better Life Index', an interactive tool that allows citizens to compare countries according to their own views and preferences on the relative importance of the different aspects of human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a method to identify manipulation of custodial suspects who attempt to invoke the Miranda right to legal counsel during a custodial interrogation. The method, developed from a combination of framing theory and hypergame theory, first documents the point where custodial suspects' preferences shift and second identifies the proximate cause of that shift using excerpts from legal cases. The method applies linguistic analysis within a hypergame framework to reveal rational behavior of custodial suspects who, despite owning an initial preference to invoke, waive their right to counsel without explicit pressure from police. The paper terms this shift in preferences "manipulation" adding the concept to hypergames and to the literature on noncooperative discursive exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern economics includes two fundamentally different fields, but identically labelled 'Cultural Economics'. The first type deals with cultural institutions in a specific sector of the economy and society: the performing arts, visual arts, and other forms of cultural industry. The second type analyses how culture influences the economy in the form of shared beliefs, norms, and preferences. The two types of Cultural Economics largely disregard each other. This paper argues that their mutual existence should be acknowledged and possible relationships between the fields should be analysed. Future interconnected research opportunities are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general public often demands more frequent audits and harsher penalties to discourage tax evasion. This paper explores how deterrence via better-equipped tax agencies interrelates with the motivation to voluntarily pay taxes, and how both factors jointly influence tax evasion. For a panel of up to 25 European countries, this paper studies aggregate implications of the Slippery Slope hypothesis of tax compliance, and contributes to the literature on the societal dimension of tax evasion. The results suggest that both higher trust in authorities and increased deterrence efforts are positively associated with tax compliance. Trust and deterrence interact and depend on each other: if trust in authorities is low, an increase in tax enforcement works best for narrowing the tax gap (and vice versa). Generally, the positive influence of trust diminishes with increasing deterrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several existing studies have documented a negative relationship between firm financial constraint and export activities but do not attempt to examine factors that could attenuate this relationship in Africa. In this paper, we examine the effect of financial constraint on exports in Africa and explore how the level of trust in countries where firms are located shapes this relationship. We combine the World Bank Enterprise Surveys with different measures of country-level personal and interpersonal trust computed from the Afrobarometer surveys of 19 African countries. Our results show that financial constraints negatively affect export activities. However, this negative effect is attenuated for firms that are located in trust-intensive societies. These findings are robust to different specifications. Interestingly, we find that small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa are more likely to be affected by financial constraints but also more likely to benefit from a higher level of both personal and interpersonal trust, while for larger firms only interpersonal trust matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how, in response to a government request, the Economic Society of Australia (ESA) prepared a ranking of economics journals for use in Australia. ESA commissioned the writer to manage the process and it was agreed that the journal ranking should be based on a survey of all professors of economics and econometrics employed in Australian universities. Following the development of the rankings, Heads of Economics Departments were asked in a follow-up survey whether they viewed the process and the results as acceptable or whether amendments should be made. ESA concluded, as does this paper, that the process and the results were credible and generally accepted and that the findings should not be altered on an ad hoc piecemeal basis. ESA also concluded that any revision of these rankings should be based on a similar transparent process of consultation with the profession. Details of the rankings of the journals surveyed can be found on the ESA website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two potential mechanisms – access to credit and reduction in relational risks – through which social trust can affect R&D investments. Social trust can increase R&D investments by expanding firms' access to external finance with which they can use to fund promising R&D projects. It can also increase R&D investments by reducing relational risks that expose firms to ex-ante and ex-post holdups or expropriation risks. Using industry-level data on R&D investment intensities in 20 OECD countries, I test these mechanisms by evaluating whether more external finance dependent and relational risk vulnerable industries exhibit disproportional higher R&D investment intensities in trust intensive countries. The results indicate that external finance dependent industries and relational risks vulnerable industries experience relatively higher R&D investment intensities in trust-intensive countries. Therefore, the results underline access to external finance and reduction in relational risks as causal pathways linking social trust and R&D investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper starts off with a portrayal of Eduard März' life in Vienna and of the impact that environment had on his early scientific work. The paper proposes that the shared experience had a strong bearing on the relationship between the student M¨arz, 'that fascinating immigrant' (James Tobin), and his teacher Schumpeter, the 'high priest of his science' (M¨arz). The paper highlights the various facets of this unique relationship including the interesting differences in the interpretations of the student and his teacher regards Marxian theory, Austro-Marxism and social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper cultural values and regulatory barriers to start-up are presented as characteristics of the business environment which influence the international differences in the level of entrepreneurial activity. A first objective of this paper is to measure the importance of a country's cultural values in determining the national level of entrepreneurial activity, calculated by the Total Entrepreneurial Activity rate from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Culture is studied using Schwartz's value structure (Schwartz ). This allows for the differentiating of seven cultural orientations that are then arranged around three bipolar dimensions: Autonomy- Embeddedness, Egalitarianism-Hierarchy and Harmony-Mastery. The paper also studies the effect of regulatory barriers for business start-ups on the Total Entrepreneurial Activity in different countries. Regulatory barriers are determined using data from the 'Doing Business' project of the World Bank. The role of cultural values and regulatory barriers in entrepreneurial activity is tested using data from 56 countries and Structural Equation Modeling. The paper shows that cultural values and regulatory barriers are not related to entrepreneurship in the same way in countries with differing levels of development. On the contrary, the strength and nature of the influence of both factors on entrepreneurial activity depends on a country's per capita GDP. Furthermore, the impact of regulatory barriers on entrepreneurship is moderated by cultural values. Thus, the discouraging effect of the regulatory barriers on entrepreneurial activity is more important in those countries with a societal culture characterized by autonomy, egalitarianism and harmony values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces narratives in entrepreneurial ecosystems as drivers of effectuation vs. causation. Drawing on 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore, we found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in each ecosystem, and these narratives encourage either effectuation or causation. Our findings indicate that the narratives in the ecosystem in Silicon Valley facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore a cautious balance of both. Our research suggests that narratives can explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Plain English Summary: The ecosystems in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore spark different narratives about entrepreneurship, which indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in the ecosystem and in turn encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial approaches. We conducted 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore. We found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in an ecosystem and encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial behavior and decision-making. Those narratives seem to shape tendencies towards specific strategic logics. The narratives either encourage "effectuation" (i.e., when they focus on building partnerships and utilizing the networks, and when they encourage confidence and speed) or "causation" (i.e., when they focus on developing systematics and structured plans, and when they encourage harmony and conformity). Narratives in Silicon Valley seem to facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore both. Our research suggests that narratives explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Our findings suggest specific strategies and success factors in each ecosystem. For example, the narratives prevalent in Silicon Valley have a sales focus, in Munich a need for detailed plans, and in Singapore value conformity. Thus, our findings provide insights for entrepreneurs for strategic location choices and on how to position their new venture at a specific location. VCs and policy makers gain from insights into how to leverage strengths and how to counteract problematic mechanisms in an ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the investment performance of US ethical equity mutual funds relative to the market and their traditional counterparts using a survivorship-bias-free database. We detect selectivity and market timing performance of fund managers using two models. First, we use Treynor and Mazuy's (Harv Bus Rev 44:131-136, 1966) model to determine these performances from a quadratic regression of fund returns on market returns. Second, we use a comprehensive and integrated model derived by Bhattacharya and Pfleiderer (A note on performance evaluation. Technical Report 714, Stanford, California, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, 1983) and Lee and Rahman (J Bus 63:261-278, 1990) to simultaneously capture stock selection and market timing skill of fund managers. This model extracts timing skill from the relationship between managers' forecast and realized market return. In addition, the R approach developed by Amihud and Goyenko (Rev Financ Stud 26:667-694, 2013) for evaluating selectivity is also used in this paper. Our empirical results indicate that ethical funds perform no worse than their traditional counterparts, although ethical and traditional funds do not outperform the market. We find some evidence of superior security selection and/or market timing skill among a very small number of ethical and traditional funds. It appears that matching traditional funds have slightly more abnormal (superior as well as inferior) performance than ethical funds in our sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]