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Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are a ubiquitous feature of higher education. However, scholars have presented numerous challenges to the accuracy, validity, reliability and objectivity of SETs as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Given the potential for bias, the use of SETs in professional review may constitute a form of institutional discrimination. Therefore, institutions of higher learning need to develop, adopt and refine better methods for collecting and using student feedback. This paper describes the steps taken by a mid-sized comprehensive university in the USA over a three-year period to do that. We describe the work of our committee dealing with this issue, how we collaborated with the rest of the university to enact change, and the Learning Environment Survey (LENS) system that the university eventually selected and modified. We also report findings from a pilot study of the new instrument, which was favorably received by both students and faculty, and make recommendations for other institutions of higher education.

Education affects individual values and beliefs, mitigates prejudices and enhances open-mindedness. Additionally, education has been shown to affect cultural traits like trust and respect in societies. Building on this literature and employing an extensive individual-level cross country data from World Value Survey (WVS), we explore the role of educational attainment and cultural traits in shaping attitudes towards abortion. Our results show that higher educational attainment is associated with stronger justification of abortion as a choice. We also show that cultural traits like trust and respect enhance the association between educational attainment and attitudes towards abortion. Obedience, however, erodes the impact of educational attainment on the individual justification for abortion. Our results are robust to a wide array of controls as well as estimates taking into bias arising out of simultaneous sample selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: According to the Government of India's Ministry of Labour and Employment Report (2015), almost 90% of the Indian workforce can still be categorized as informally employed, generating approximately 50% of the national product. Challenges with data availability have made a rigorous analysis of the informal economy in India often difficult and inadequate for policy formulations. This study aims to fill the gap by providing an empirical analysis of the informal economy in India using micro-data from the World Bank's Informal Enterprise Surveys. Design/methodology/approach: The authors contribute by empirically testing the association between the adoption of digital technology (payments) and firm performance proxied by firm sales. Matching models are used to mitigate sample selection bias arising out of simultaneous sample selection. Findings: The results suggest that the participation in digital platforms, namely, use of digital payment instruments, is associated with higher sales for firms. The results of this study also show that adoption of digital payments helps in both situations – whether a firm has been using digital technology or has just started using it since the outbreak. Research limitations/implications: More in-depth data over time, spanning across more cities of India, is needed to conduct a further detailed investigation. Social implications: The results should allow policymakers in India to reconsider youth-centric and women-centric business needs, even within the informal sector, which does not often enter the purview of the government but remains responsible for the growth and sustenance of 90% of the country's workforce. If further research on this issue could engage with the impact of demonetization of currency in 2016 as a lagged shock on sales and reestimate subsequent growth, it would perhaps offer a wider spectrum of how the performance of the informal economy in India affects the entire economy, which has over the last four years and before the onset of Covid reported slower growth. Originality/value: Productivity is measured in terms of sales of informal firms in India in a regular month or in recent period like last month. Adoption of technology such as making payments using digital platforms can enhance productivity of firms by lowering standard transaction costs and time spent for visiting banks or financial institutions. Albeit not extensively, the literature has investigated digital technology adoption in the context of firms achieving comparative advantage (D'Ippolito et al. 2019; Scuotto et al. 2017), firms generating value creation (Magistretti, Dell'Era and Petruzzelli, 2019), and in helping with strategic initiatives and agility of firms (Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2018; Piccoli and Ives, 2005). Nonetheless, it would incur certain fixed costs, including acquiring skills and awareness, to manage digital platforms. In addition, physical access to instruments such as smartphones or computers and internet connectivity are prerequisites for productivity enhancements. Firms belonging to the informal sector in India generally face these challenges but may also benefit significantly following successful adoption. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a preliminary empirical analysis of the impact of digital technology adoption on the performance of informal sector firms in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do firms with majority female ownership differ from firms with minority female ownership or male‐owned firms in terms of perceived constraints on accessing finance? Using World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data for Indian firms, our results show that there is no significant difference in male‐ and female‐owned firms in terms of their perceptions about accessing finance. Yet, this is true only for firms with minority female ownership (less than 50%). Firms with majority female ownership do perceive more constraints on accessing finance relative to firms with minority female ownership or zero female ownership. Based on demand‐ and supply‐side factors relating to business inexperience, weaker networking, and lender perceptions, as suggested by signalling and gender congruity theories, the results imply that majority‐female‐owned firms need to negotiate more for financing access, as they need to display positive signals for those investors who might possess stereotypical and gendered beliefs about the abilities of entrepreneurs. We also find that in relation to funding sources being one's own retained earnings or money from family and friends or advances from clients, majority‐female‐owned firms do not perceive financial barriers differently from male‐owned firms or firms with minority female ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Although literacy rates in India have improved for both men and women, less is known about the evolution of gender disparities across different levels of educational attainment. OBJECTIVE The goal is to determine whether gender gaps in schooling outcomes have narrowed, widened, or remained unchanged across birth cohorts. METHODS With a multinomial logit specification, we compare six education outcomes for people born to the 1956-1960, 1961-1965, ..., and 1986-1990 cohort groups. Our empirical tests indicate whether the gender gaps have narrowed, widened, or remained unchanged across the cohort groups. RESULTS We find evidence of narrowing gender gaps for some but not all education outcomes. The gender gaps narrow for not attending school, attending primary school, and primary school completion, but they persist for secondary school completion, attending college, and college completion. CONCLUSIONS Although we observe improvements in the gender gaps in schooling outcomes toward the lower end of the education spectrum, gender inequities associated with higher levels of schooling persist across cohort groups. It is important to understand the causes of these patterns, as there are likely important policy considerations for India as it grapples with the interactions among technological change, a relatively young workforce, and persistent gendered norms and attitudes. CONTRIBUTION The paper makes two noteworthy contributions. First, we show that gender progress in schooling outcomes is not uniform across different levels of educational attainment. Second, our cohort study framework provides a simple test for progress (or lack thereof) in education and other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using cross country data, we explore the role of linguistic structures for the financial development of countries. Specially, we investigate if future time reference (FTR), the requirement of an obligatory future tense marking in languages, matters for financial development or not. Our results show that countries speaking weak FTR language or a language not needing a dedicated future tense marking have enhanced financial development relative to countries speaking strong FTR language. Discounting the future less or having a connection between the present and the future—characteristics of weak FTR languages—has implications for caring about saving and investment, having efficient property rights, protection of shareholders and cost of acquiring information. Our results are robust to multiple measures of financial development and inclusion of determinants of the same. Finally, results show that weak FTR language speaking countries benefit more when their financial development is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do perceived obstacles about corruption matter for Indian firms when it comes to their probability to innovate? Using World Bank Enterprise Survey firm-level data, we show that a unit rise in corruption perception of firms in India lowers innovation rate by about 1 percent. The result is important in terms of policy implementation because recent studies have shown that perceived obstacles can affect firms' probability to innovate. Such analysis is missing in the Indian context where both big and petty corruption is rampant. Our results further show that perceptions about financial barriers matter only when firms also view corruption to be bad. Perceived difficulty in accessing credit in conjunction with corruption perception lowers probability of innovation by 4 percent. This is also true for nonfinancial perceived obstacles of firms. The results remain robust to alternate identification strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the gap between female and male entrepreneurship has been narrowing globally, it is still evident with female rates lagging behind those of males. While existing literature has identified several obstacles to female entrepreneurship, the role of cultural traits has not yet been adequately explored. More importantly, lacking from the literature is a close investigation of female entrepreneurial choices using individual level data across countries. Employing World Values Survey data, an extensive longitudinal panel study of countries over time with over 300,000 individual level observations, we look at how cultural indicators impact female entrepreneurship. Using probit limited dependent variable models, we analyze specifically how cultural indicators impact female entrepreneurship, using measures of independence, obedience, and control over one's own life as our cultural indicators. In our analysis, we control for age, marital status, social class, town size, and level of education, as these factors have an effect on the decision to be self-employed. We also conducted robustness analysis using alternate cultural indicator variables to look for any change when compared to our benchmark findings. Our findings show that being a female lowers the probability of being self-employed. This supports the existing literature that shows a gap, albeit narrowing, between male and female entrepreneurship. Our main set of results also show that the cultural traits of independence and sense of control over one's life both help alleviate the negative impact of gender (being a female) on entrepreneurial choices. As a society, valuing obedience has the opposite impact - it magnifies the negative effect of being female on the probability of being self-employed. These findings were shown to be robust when we incorporated alternate cultural indicator variables. Our findings suggest that consideration should be given to cultural traits in the context of development outcomes. Because cultural traits can be difficult to change, our results suggest that as policy makers implement interventions to promote self-employment among females, they should be aware of the relevant cultural factors of the area and how these interact with female entrepreneurship. Policy can then be tailored to the cultural environment to maximize the intended effect on female entrepreneurship rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that increased political representation for minority groups can lead to positive outcomes for the same whether it be women, ethnic or religious groups. Building on such studies, our results show that greater share of women in parliament leads to better health and education outcomes for countries. In concurrence with existing studies, this can be plausible as women, being a minority group in terms of political representation, may care about health and education benefits of women in general. Further, in sync with findings of existing literature that show women being less corrupt than men or having different systematic preferences compared to males, greater share of women in parliament can mean more efficient utilization of funds and, thus, enhanced health and education outcomes for everyone. Robust identification strategies have been established to handle causality concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interactive impact of financial development and political institutions on a specific development outcome: gross domestic investment. We explore whether financial development and political institutions act as substitutes or complements in the context of domestic investment. Using data from the period 1975–2017 for 131 countries to construct annual and five-year interval panels, we employ Fixed Effect (FE) and Dynamic Panel estimators (System GMM) to test our hypothesis. We find a significant interactive impact of political institutions and financial development on domestic investment. More specifically, we find a substitution effect among these factors. In the presence of inefficient institutions, financial development mitigates the negative impact of political institutions on domestic investment, and vice-versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between women's economic, social, and political rights with the level of income inequality. We use dynamic panel estimation to check our hypothesis that that strong rights for women translate into higher participation in economic productive activities, improve income and education and support for future generations, thus reducing the overall income inequality in the economy. We further look at how a country's overall economic performance and the status of women's education alter the relationship. The relationship is strengthened if countries are either in the higher‐income spectrum or have higher levels of female educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: In the wake of the global financial crisis that resulted in many business closures and given the long‐term problem of population aging in advanced countries and poverty in low‐income countries, it has become important to investigate whether new business formation by women entrepreneurs is a path to prosperity even when countries experience low fertility rates. Existing country studies suggest that female entrepreneurship can have favorable development outcomes through the channels of employment, innovation and welfare, but this paper undertakes a holistic cross‐country analysis on the determinants of female entrepreneurship, exploring the role of fertility rates in affecting female entrepreneurial outcomes. We find that the impact of fertility rate is negative and significant in influencing entrepreneurship. But factors like greater tertiary enrollment of females and higher ratios of female to male labor force participation rates can offset the negative impact of fertility rate and in fact can make the impact positive. Additionally, greater access to informal finance makes female enrollment more effective in mitigating the negative impact of fertility rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can corruption affect the relationship between human capital and FDI for a host country? This paper explores the interactive impact of corruption and human capital on FDI. In particular, we investigate whether countries with higher or lower corruption levels benefit differently in terms of FDI inflow following an equal improvement in the level of human capital. Employing an extensive panel data and robust identification strategies, our results suggest that if the corruption score of a highly corrupt country becomes comparable to that of a low corruption country, FDI inflow will rise by almost 40 percent for an equivalent rise in human capital stock. The results remain robust for various measures of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an extensive dataset covering 187 countries during 1993–2011, this paper explores the impact of media freedom from government control on women's rights. To measure women's rights, we consider economic, political and social rights that capture the extent of government's respect for these rights at country level over time. A free press improves government's accountability to the society and leads to better governance. In the context of women's rights, a free press can enhance positive rights by helping women raise voices and gain recognition, and thereby making the government create a more conducive environment for women's empowerment. Further, higher press freedom can reduce the infringement of negative rights by calling for greater public accountability. Yet, a free media, while necessary, may not be sufficient in enhancing such rights, and other institutional factors related to a country's development might be essential to reap the benefit of a free media. Our estimated marginal impacts show that greater access of media (in the form of internet and mobile users) and countries with greater democratic capital enhance the impact of media freedom on women's economic and social rights, with little effect on political rights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Trade liberalization is usually expected to lead to greater economic activity including higher labor force participation rates. Using data from forty-eight Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1985-2012, we explore the impact of trade openness on labor force participation rates ( LFPR), and examine how political institutions such as democracy, political rights, and civil liberties can play a role in driving this relationship in the above group of low-income countries. The estimated marginal impact of openness on LFPR shows that LFPR is increasing with the level of institutional quality. In particular, political institutions are critical in enhancing the benefit from openness. Our conclusions are similar for male and female participation rates although the magnitudes of the former are higher, thus confirming that improving institutions can generate greater labor market benefits from trade in poor countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature has focussed extensively on the development outcomes resulting from international migrant remittances. Yet, the human capital channel promoting remittance effectiveness has received little attention. Given the multilateral policy drive to promote female literacy in recent decades, it is relevant to examine whether female human capital formation improves the effectiveness of remittances in terms of its impact on per capita income. Using a panel of 103 developing economies over the period 1970–2012, this paper attempts to answer this question empirically. The paper finds that female human capital affects the remittance-growth relationship differently according to whether it is the primary, secondary or tertiary level of human capital. Our estimates of the marginal impacts of remittances show that while higher levels of skilled human capital (secondary and tertiary enrolments) enhance the marginal impact of remittances on per capita income, low-skilled human capital (primary enrolments) fails to do so. Our conclusion stresses the need to encourage female human capital beyond the promotion of literacy rates in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Can foreign aid help free the press? Aid may boost press freedom by incentivizing government to reduce media regulations and provide financial support for infrastructure. Alternatively, foreign aid may prevent press freedom by expanding the role of the state and promoting government over private enterprises. We contend that the magnitude of foreign aid's influence is conditional on the existence of democratic checks. Using panel data from 1994 to 2010, we find evidence suggesting that aid significantly increases press freedom in democracies but insignificantly relates to press freedom in autocracies. Collectively, the results suggest that a standard deviation increase in aid to a country at the mean level of democracy increases press freedom by approximately a 1/20th standard deviation. Overall, the findings suggest that donors should be cautious as most aid recipients are not democratic and aid leads to only relatively small marginal improvements in press freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using a cross-national panel data, we investigate the combined effect of education attainment and a durable democratic system on the corruption levels of a nation. Higher levels of education foster a sense of ethical behavior and civic duty in the citizenry by raising awareness, which in turn, should reduce corruption. Decades-long tradition of democracy, on the other hand, increases government transparency and accountability as politicians have to seek reelection, and thus, stable democratic system should reduce political corruption. Our empirical results suggest that the combined effect of these variables reduces corruption significantly, and a durable democracy and education behave as complements in combating corruption. Additionally, our marginal estimates show that durability successfully enhances the effect of literacy in curbing corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While past studies had conflicting conclusions regarding the impact of foreign aid on growth and development of a nation, recent studies have tried to delve deeper into the question, ‘what makes aid work?’ (see, Dutta, Leeson, and Williamson, 2013; Burnside and Dollar, 2000, 2004; Svensson, 1999). This paper tests how political stability (vis-à-vis political instability) affects the relationship between domestic investment and foreign aid. Applying dynamic panel estimators, our results show that political stability affects aid’s effectiveness on domestic capital formation. The paper considers alternative measures of political stability (vis-à-vis instability), focusing on the political characteristics of a system that have the potential to make a nation stable. Political stability affects policy selection by the government positively and, thus, public resources such as foreign aid are put to the desired use. The estimated marginal impacts show that foreign aid enhances domestic investment in the presence of a stable political climate, but there is a diminishing return to aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- During recent times, the stock market has emerged as a major financial institution of an economy. Yet, cross-country differences, in size and role of stock market, persist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Considering multiple dimensions of culture, identified in the literature by Hofstede (1980/2001) and World Value Survey, the authors construct the hypotheses: trust, a key cultural trait, should positively influence stock market development; uncertainty avoidance, Hofstede's cultural dimension should negatively influence the development of the stock market; and individualism, an alternate cultural dimension of Hofstede's measures, should be positively correlated with stock market development. The cross-country empirical analysis supports the hypotheses. The results hold for multiple measures of stock market development. Design/methodology/approach -- This paper investigates the correlation between various cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Specifically, the authors consider three different cultural trait measures. The authors consider a cross-sectional analysis of an extensive number of countries. While all explanatory variables of interest are considered over the period 2000-2007, the authors consider 2008 figures for the dependent variables of interest, financial development. Ordinary least squares is considered as the benchmark specification. Robust regression has been considered as part of robustness analysis. The authors mention throughout the paper that the results stress on significant association between the variables, only. Findings -- The empirical results support the hypotheses. The first measure, trust, is positively associated with stock market development of a nation. Statistically, for one standard deviation rise in trust (1 SD = 37.5), stock market capitalization will go up between 11 and 19 percentage points. Uncertainty avoidance, the second measure is negatively correlated and statistically, the impact is much greater. Finally, the third measure, individualism, is positively correlated with stock market development. Statistically, for one SD rise in individualism (SD = 23.9), stock market capitalization will rise by 23 percentage points. Originality/value -- Existing literature has stressed the role of cultural traits -- trust, uncertainty avoidance, individualism -- in the promotion of entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. Since most startups need to raise capital in order to implement their new ideas, cross-country heterogeneity in the strength of capital markets may lead to important differences in entrepreneurship and productivity growth across economies (Greenwood and Jovanovic, 1990; Jayaratne and Strahan, 1996; Levine, 1997; Beck et al., 2000; Guiso et al., 2004). Yet, the link between stock market development and cultural traits has not been established in the literature. This paper aims to fill this missing link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data covering 1970-2008 for South Asia, this study investigates the influence of human capital disaggregated by gender, on economic growth. We use an extended version of the Solow growth model with per capita gross domestic product ( GDP) a function of the key variables, viz. physical capital accumulation, human capital accumulation, trade openness and capital flows, fiscal policy and financial development. The key contribution of this study is to show that openness when interacted with the human capital stock disaggregated by gender, has differential impacts on economic growth. While the positive impact of male secondary schooling captures the direct skill effect relative to primary schooling, the marginal influence of female primary/secondary schooling fails to show a positive impact on growth at higher levels of openness. An implication stemming from this study is that educational opportunities for females at the secondary level should be increased for South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the role of political institutions and culture in creating an efficient financial infrastructure for a country. It further delves into this relationship and addresses the question: do both types of institutions mentioned above affect financial development of a country, jointly? Our findings support the established notion in the literature that institutions matter for financial development. We show both these types of institutions - political institutions and culture - jointly promote financial development. Further, our result stresses that these two types of institutions behave as complements - the presence of efficient political institutions augment the effectiveness of culture and, thus, financial development is enhanced. Our results are robust to various proxies of institutions and alternate estimation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]