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We investigate the effect of servicification on global value chain (GVC) upgrading within the context of China's manufacturing industry. Utilising comprehensive data on manufacturing value-added, we present new evidence for the influence of servicification on the GVC position of the manufacturing industry in China. We find that although domestic and aggregate servicification enhances GVC, foreign servicification curtails the GVCs of manufacturing firms. Our results show that foreign direct investment, capital intensity and institutions are GVC enhancing. At the same time, the increased global market share of the Chinese manufacturing industry has reduced the GVC of manufacturing firms in China. From a policy perspective, the results highlight the need to take cognisance of the heterogeneity of manufacturing firms and the impact of domestic and foreign servicification on the GVC of manufacturing firms in China. Total servicification and domestic servicification enhanced the GVC position of Chinese manufacturing industry. Foreign servicification worsened the GVC position of Chinese manufacturing industry. Foreign direct investment, capital intensity and institutions are GVC-enhancing, while increased global market share is GVC-impeding. The GFC exacerbated the adverse impact of foreign servicification on the GVC position of Chinese manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making decisions about education choices is challenging and difficult for students. Utilising the theory of reasoned action, we specify and estimate a conceptual framework that captures the cognitive process of decision making of students in choosing top-up higher degrees in Hong Kong. Top-up higher or bachelor's degrees are top-up undergraduate programmes forming a progression route for sub-degree graduates to earn bachelor's degrees. We argue that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived value influence a student's top-up higher education choices. Our results show that family members, educators, job availability and security, social image and difficulty of curriculum play critical roles in influencing students' decision. We also find differences between females and males, between business and non-business students and between Year 1 and Year 2 students in higher education choices. These findings underscore the importance of educational institutions developing effective policies for promoting top-up higher degree programmes by taking cognisance of gender, the field of study and year of study differences and for policy makers to understand the dynamics of higher education.

The use of improved crop varieties can increase agricultural productivity and enhance the welfare of farmers. This study examined whether the adoption of improved maize varieties (IMV) is associated with the increased welfare of farmers in rural Ethiopia. A panel data set with 1886 observations collected in three waves from 2009/10 to 2014/15 were used for the analysis. The adoption decision was modelled using a double‐hurdle model, and the welfare effect of IMV adoption was estimated using a fixed‐effects instrumental variable approach. Our findings reveal that IMV affects the welfare of farmers. Specifically, we found that IMV adoption increases households' income, asset ownership and maize consumption while also reducing income poverty. The poverty estimates indicate that a 10% increase in the area allocated to IMV was associated with a 4.79% reduction in the probability of being below the $1.90 poverty line. However, the poverty‐reducing effect of IMV adoption was heterogeneous across households, with the most pronounced effect experienced by households with extensive landholdings. Our findings suggest that facilitating access to IMV and land under cultivation can effectively improve farmers' welfare and reduce poverty in rural Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study using time-series analysis for predicting demand for import of pulses, lentils, etc. in India is presented. For the purpose of the study, data from 1970 to 2000 is used.

Despite the heightened interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recent years, the question of whether CSR affects a firm's financial performance remains unresolved. Using a sample of Australian publicly listed firms over the period 2009–2015, we find that CSR enhances financial performance. The positive relationship is more pronounced in mining firms than it is in non‐mining firms. However, the financial benefit of CSR is negatively moderated by the level of industry competition. These empirical findings remain robust after controlling for sample selection bias and endogeneity and employing alternative variable measures and estimation methods. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of industry characteristics in explaining the effects of CSR on financial performance. This archival study finds enhanced financial performance for a sample of Australian firms that undertake CSR activities. This effect is more pronounced in the mining industry, and is negatively impacted by competition with an industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an extended gravity model that corrects for zero trade, endogeneity and heterogeneity, we empirically investigate whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) promote trade. The model was estimated using a comprehensive panel dataset of the East African Community (EAC) from 1990 to 2017 and applying the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood estimator. Empirical results show that RTAs have enhanced trade within the EAC regional bloc, but the impact varied across countries and sectors. We find that RTAs have led to an increase in imports from and exports to non-bloc countries, and this impact persists after 12 years. Our empirical findings are robust to alternative model specifications. Exploiting RTAs policy implication, this paper provides new empirical evidence highlighting that promoting RTAs could promote trade in the East African Community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically investigates the impact of the East African Community (EAC) on economic growth. We utilized a comprehensive panel data spanning from 1988 to 2017. We estimated an endogenous growth model using feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and panel corrected standard error (PCSE) estimators. Regional trade agreements (RTAs) and trade openness enhance economic growth. RTAs in the same region have a more significant impact on economic growth than plurilateral and multilateral RTAs. Regionalism in the EAC has heterogeneous country effects on economic growth. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications, highlighting the importance of RTAs in enhancing economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of government support programs (GSPs) on the interrelationships between the dimensions of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance using a sample of agro-based small- and medium-sized enterprises in a developing economy. The study develops a two-dimensional metric of the GSP construct consisting of financial and non-financial GSP interventions. The study finds preliminary evidence that both nonfinancial and financial GSPs have moderating effects that can magnify the impact of the EO dimensions of innovativeness, risk taking, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness on performance. These findings offer guidance to small business policymakers in developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Board gender diversity is a keenly debated topic in both management practice and academic discourse. This study examines the influence of board gender diversity on firm financial performance in four ASEAN countries. Adopting agency and resource dependence approaches, board gender diversity's interactions with three mediating organizational variables are evaluated against four organisational performance measures. Partially supporting agency theory and resource dependence theory, the results suggest that board gender diversity are only positively associated with sales to fixed asset ratio and sales per employee ratio. The BGD's effects at the organisational level are mediated distinctly by firm size, ownership structure, and industry nature respectively, and by the multivariate interaction among these variables. The results of this paper support the findings of other studies that found a partially significant link between the board gender diversity and the firm's performance. Decision-makers in society and politics, therefore, need to be aware of the empirical evidence indicating that stimulating organisational environment may need to be configured before the valuable outcomes of gender diversity can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid decline of global biodiversity has engendered renewed debate about the social, economic, and political factors contributing to it. Specifically, there is little understanding of the role that political ideology within a country (e.g., nationalism, conservatism, socialism) plays in determining biodiversity outcomes. We used negative binomial generalized linear models to investigate the importance of national regime ideology in predicting threatened animal species and protected area establishment compared with other factors that affect biodiversity outcomes, such as gross domestic product, inequality, and democracy. For threatened animals, the model with the highest Akaike weight suggested adverse biodiversity outcomes arose from larger gross domestic product (β = 0.120, p < 0.001). However, nationalism (β = 0.371, p < 0.01) and socialism (β = 0.293, p < 0.05) were also significantly associated with increased proportions of threatened species. For protected areas, the model with the highest Akaike weight suggested increases in democracy (β = 0.880, p < 0.001) led to a rise in relative protected area estate. Conservative regime ideology was also associated with greater protected area estate, although this did not increase the weight of evidence in support of the best models. These findings highlight the relevance of political ideology for predicting biodiversity outcomes at a national scale and illustrate opportunities to tailor policies and advocacy to promote biodiversity conservation more effectively. By targeting appropriate messaging and political advocacy, conservationists can improve the likelihood that politicians and their nations will participate in positive biodiversity actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, there has been increasing disparity in savings across regions and income groupings globally. In this paper, we investigate whether the quality of institutions explains the saving disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Utilizing comprehensive panel data and spanning the period 1980–2015, we estimate a savings model using the two-step instrumental variable generalized method of moment (2SIV-GMM) estimator. Our results show that the impact of institutions on savings behaviour differs across regions and income groupings, and in SSA, in aggregate. We find that the level and growth of per capita income and terms of trade enhance savings whereas government consumption expenditure, financial sector development and the elderly dependency rate are savings impeding. The findings are robust to alternative model specification and highlight the importance of institutions in influencing savings behaviour in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm efficiency analysis provides significant insights into farms’ potential to enhance agricultural productivity. This article reports on an investigation of technology adoption and technical efficiency (TE) in the Ethiopian maize sector. We estimated TE while accounting for the potential technological difference between improved and local maize varieties and addressing self-selection bias resulting from farmers’ decisions to adopt new crop varieties. Using comprehensive household-level data collected in 2011 from five major maize-producing regions in Ethiopia, we specified a stochastic frontier model to estimate TE and employ propensity score-matching technique to address self-selection bias. The result confirm that imposing a homogenous technology assumption for improved and local maize varieties biases efficiency estimates and the ranking of farmers based on their efficiency scores. The mean TE of 66.18%, estimated after correcting for technology difference and self-selection bias, indicated that an increase of around 33.82% in maize productivity could be achievable with the current input levels and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether study-specific attributes account for systematic variations in reported technical efficiency (TE) scores in crop production. We conducted a meta-regression analysis using mean TE (MTE) estimates from primary frontier studies of Ethiopian crop sub-sector over the period 1991–2015. The estimated MTE of 66% indicates a capacity to increase efficiency in crop production. Results from a fractional outcome regression model revealed that reported efficiency estimates vary substantially across studies and agro-ecologies. We found that reported efficiency estimates are influenced by the frontier methodology used, the functional form assumed, assumptions about technology representation, the estimated dimension of the model, output aggregation and the publication outlet. We show that reported efficiency estimates are sensitive to variations in agro-ecologies. We argue for the need to consider differences in agro-ecologies when estimating TE because failure to account for this may bias efficiency estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically investigates the effect of central bank's foreign exchange interventions on the level and volatility of the Uganda shilling/US dollar exchange rate (UGX/USD) under an inflation-targeting regime. Utilizing daily data spanning the period 1 September 2005, to 31 December 2015, we estimate a foreign exchange intervention model within a GARCH theoretic framework. Empirical results indicate that foreign exchange interventions have had mixed impact on the volatility of the exchange rate. We find that inflation targeting is capable of curbing temporary exchange rate shocks. Empirical results indicate that while order flow is capable of reducing exchange rate volatility, an increase in the operating target rate, the 7-day interbank rate tends to exacerbate exchange rate volatility. Our empirical results are robust to alternative model specifications. We argue that inflation targeting is an effective monetary policy tool for curbing exchange rate volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A better understanding of tourism small and medium enterprise (TSME) management practices could improve firm performance. Extending the resource-based view theory, this study empirically investigated the causal relationships between management practices and TSME firm performance using a structural equation model and survey data of 346 tourism entrepreneurs. Six of the nine hypotheses were confirmed. It was found that business planning, entrepreneurial motivation, and government assistance do have a direct and positive effect on TSME firm performance. Additionally, entrepreneurial motivation was positively associated with business planning, business alliance, and firm performance; however, business alliance and Internet adoption did not affect firm performance. The findings highlight the importance of management practices that have previously been overlooked in policy decision making within the tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on understanding the impact of microfinance on poverty reduction and wellbeing measures of health, education and living standards in Northeastern Mindanao, the Philippines. We employ a mixed method approach involving a survey of 211 microfinance client and non-client households. We find that little over one in five households are multidimensionally poor, with non-client households being poorer than microfinance client households. Our results show that microfinance has had a mildly positive impact on poverty reduction with incomes and savings of microfinance client households being higher than those of non-client households. Based on the impact of microfinance on poverty reduction, we argue that it is important that policymakers implement strategies for promoting and creating greater access to microfinance as this has the capacity to reduce poverty and improve the well-being of the poor and marginalised in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global financial crisis has disrupted trade and capital flows in most developing economies, resulting in an increased volatility of exchange rates. We develop an autoregressive distributed lag model to investigate the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Uganda. Using data spanning the period 1960–2011, we find that exchange rate volatility positively affects economic growth in Uganda in both the short run and the long run. However, in the short run, political instability negatively moderates the exchange rate volatility–economic growth nexus. These results are robust to alternative specifications of the economic growth model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article measures and compares performance in the accommodation industry across Australian states and territories. The authors specify a Bayesian frontier model and estimate the model using panel data spanning the period 1998 to 2009. The results indicate that there are differences in efficiency across states and territories and also between sectors. Empirical results show that the hotel sector is the most efficient, followed by the guest house and motel sector and, finally, the serviced apartment sector. The Bayesian regression results indicate that the key determinants of efficiency in the accommodation industry are the international attractiveness of the state or territory, the share of large accommodation providers in the sector, and the prevailing economic conditions within the state or territory. The findings that the efficiency measures differ across regions and types of sector indicate that adopting a holistic approach to policy formulation and implementation may not be appropriate to ensure competitiveness of the accommodation industry in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Although water markets have been in operation for nearly 30years, previous empirical studies have ignored farmer’s land use response to water trading in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), Australia. A Nerlovian partial adjustment model of rice and cotton acreage response in the MDB were specified and estimated using data for the period 1965–2008. The results indicate that acreage response for rice and cotton with respect to the price of water are inelastic in both the short- and long-run. The findings of this study bring into question the effectiveness of water trading scheme as the primary means of ensuring the efficient use of water and highlight the need for other complementary measures in the MDB. The results of this study highlight the complex interdependencies of many factors that influence farmer’s land use decisions and draw an important conclusion that although water trading has increased the efficient use of irrigated water, its impact on farmers’ land use decisions has been too small to stimulate any significant reduction in irrigated water usage in the MDB. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article investigates the impact of regional integration on intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and other APEC countries. The study uses pooled cross-sectional and time-series data spanning the period 1980–1999 at a 3-digit Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) level. After accounting for trade imbalance and following Thailand's entry into APEC, intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and countries in Oceania and America decreased, while trade with other Asian countries grew marginally. Results indicate that, in the post APEC era, trade openness stimulated increased intra-industry trade levels with countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia, but decreased trade with countries in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Thailand has achieved a spectacular average annual growth rate of 8% in the past two decades, due largely to the opening of the economy to international trade, there is not yet a consensus on the exchange rate regime that is most suited to the restoration of sustained growth in Thailand. This study empirically investigates the predictors of exchange rate regimes in Thailand using quarterly data spanning the period 1990:1 and 2002:3. Results indicate that the government is likely to choose a pegged exchange rate regime in periods of monetary shocks and unsustainable public finance whereas an open economy with a degree of economic development and foreign reserves will encourage the government to opt for a flexible exchange regime in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal intertemporal investment behaviour of Australian pastoralists is modelled using panel data for the period 1979–1993. Results indicate that quasi-fixity of inputs of labour, capital, sheep numbers and cattle numbers is characteristic of production in the pastoral region. It takes about two years for labour, four years for capital and a little over two years for both sheep numbers and cattle numbers to adjust towards long-run optimal levels. Results also indicate that, after accounting for adjustment costs, own-price product supply and input demand responses are inelastic in both the short and long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]