Central Explanatory Variables Research Articles

Analysis of the Effect of Digital Economy on Total Factor Productivity of Manufacturing Firms

The paper empirically evaluated the impact of the degree of metropolitan digital economy growth on the total factor output of businesses using panel data from manufacturing listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2011 to 2019. It has been discovered that, first and foremost, urban digital economy growth can greatly improve business total factor output. After replacing the explanatory factors and central explanatory variables, the benchmark regression findings stay robust. Second, the impact mechanism test shows that metropolitan digital economy growth promotes company technological innovation, thereby increasing enterprise total factor output. Third, the sample is split into three samples in the eastern, central, and western regions, and the regressions are run independently in each. According to the analysis findings.

A New Electorate? Explaining the Party Preferences of Immigrant-Origin Voters at the 2017 Bundestag Election

AbstractImmigrants now constitute a sizeable and rapidly growing group among many Western countries' electorates, but analyses of their party preferences remain limited. Theoretically, immigrants' party preferences might be explained with both standard electoral theories and immigrant-specific approaches. In this article, we rigorously test both perspectives against each other using the most recent data from Germany. Applying the Michigan model, with its three central explanatory variables – party identification, issue orientations and candidate evaluations – to the party preferences of immigrant-origin and native voters, we find that this standard model can explain both groups well. In contrast, we find no direct effects of the most prominent immigrant-specific variables, and neither do these meaningfully moderate the Michigan variables. However, we find strong formative effects on the presence of political attitudes and beliefs: immigrants with a longer time spent in Germany, a stronger German identity and less experience of discrimination report significantly fewer item non-responses for the Michigan model's main explanatory variables.

A Macro-Level Account of Money and Credit to Explain Gendered Financialization

ABSTRACT The paper intervenes in the debate on macroeconomics, money, gender, and financialization. Generally, there is an omission in gender studies on gender-specific effects of monetary policy. Not only is there a blind-spot about the role of monetary policy in feminist political economy, there is equally a blind-spot in meso-level analysis which focus on the social construction of institutional mechanisms and the predatory market power of oligopolistic banks. Yet, monetary policy is neither neutral in the short-term nor long-term. Such policies have gender-differentiated effects on employment, income, consumption, savings which in turn have feed-back effects on economic growth. My intent is to focus on the changing role of monetary policy and highlight the omission in gender studies on financialization, as well as argue that the shift of the credit cycle to fictitious capital (future revenue) is one of the central explanatory variables in the predatory banking model of subprime lending. Yet, the financial crisis of 2007 did not usher in a normalisation of the credit and finance system. Exactly the opposite happened. Unconventional monetary policy continues to facilitate a credit system based on future claims which has gendered distributional effects, in the process increasing the wealth inequality on a global scale.

Microfoundations in international relations

Many of our theories of international politics rely on microfoundations. In this short note, I suggest that although there has been increasing interest in microfoundations in international relations (IR) over the past 20 years, the frequency with which the concept is invoked belies a surprising lack of specificity about what microfoundations are, or explicit arguments about why we should study them. I then offer an argument about the value of micro-level approaches to the study of conflict. My claim is not that all theories of IR need to be developed or tested at the micro-level in order to be satisfying, but rather, that many of our theories in IR already rest on lower-level mechanisms—they either leave these assumptions unarticulated or fail to test them directly. In these circumstances, theorizing and testing micro-level dynamics will be especially helpful. I illustrate my argument using the case of resolve, one of the central explanatory variables in the study of international security. I argue that the absence of microfoundations for resolve is one reason why IR scholars have had difficulties testing whether resolve has the effects we often claim, and sketch out a two-stage research design political scientists can use to study unobservable phenomena.

The role of ability, motivation, and opportunity to work in the transition from work to early retirement--testing and optimizing the Early Retirement Model.

Determinants in the domains health, job characteristics, skills, and social and financial factors may influence early retirement through three central explanatory variables, namely, the ability, motivation, and opportunity to work. Based on the literature, we created the Early Retirement Model. This study aims to investigate whether data support the model and how it could be improved. Employees aged 58-62 years (N=1862), who participated in the first three waves of the Dutch Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM) were included. Determinants were assessed at baseline, central explanatory variables after one year, and early retirement after two years. Structural equation modeling was applied. Testing the Early Retirement Model resulted in a model with good fit. Health, job characteristics, skills, and social and financial factors were related to the ability, motivation and/or opportunity to work (significant β range: 0.05-0.31). Lower work ability (β=-0.13) and less opportunity to work (attitude colleagues and supervisor about working until age 65: β=-0.24) predicted early retirement, whereas the motivation to work (work engagement) did not. The model could be improved by adding direct effects of three determinants on early retirement, ie, support of colleagues and supervisor (β=0.14), positive attitude of the partner with respect to early retirement (β=0.15), and not having a partner (β=-0.13). The Early Retirement Model was largely supported by the data but could be improved. The prolongation of working life might be promoted by work-related interventions focusing on health, work ability, the social work climate, social norms on prolonged careers, and the learning environment.

Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM): The Design of a Four-year Longitudinal Cohort Study among 15,118 Persons Aged 45 to 64 Years

The objective of the Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (STREAM) is to acquire knowledge on determinants of transitions in employment and work productivity among persons aged 45-64 years. Research Framework: A research framework was developed, in which transitions in employment (e.g. leaving the workforce, entering the workforce, job change) and work productivity are influenced by the following determinants: health, job characteristics, skills and knowledge, social factors, and financial factors. Central explanatory variables in the framework are the ability to work, the motivation to work, and the opportunity to work. Study Design: STREAM is a prospective cohort study among 12,055 employees, 1,029 self-employed persons, and 2,034 non-working persons, all aged 45 to 64 years at baseline. The study sample was stratified by age and employment status (employed, self-employed, non-working), and was drawn from an existing internet panel. The baseline measurement was carried out in 2010 (response: 70%), and with yearly follow-up measurements in 2011 (response: 82%), 2012 (response: 80%), and 2013. At each wave, participants fill out an online questionnaire covering all aspects of the research framework. Place and Duration of Study: The Netherlands, between October 2010 and December 2013. Methodology: Quantitative data on all aspects of the research framework were assessed with an online questionnaire, qualitative data were assessed with interview studies, and the questionnaire data can be linked to register data at Statistics Netherlands for 89% of the participants. Results: Transitions in employment between the first three waves of data among the participants are described. Conclusion: STREAM will provide insight in the determinants of healthy and productive labour participation among persons aged 45 years and older, which will support the development of interventions prolonging working life in good health, while maintaining good work productivity.

Latin American Attitudes toward Women in Politics: The Influence of Elite Cues, Female Advancement, and Individual Characteristics

This article outlines three theoretical arguments—socialization, status discontent, and elite cues—that generate competing predictions about the way context shapes gender attitudes. Using hierarchical analysis, we assess the power of these arguments in Latin America, a region that manifests considerable variation on our central explanatory variables and thus offers important theoretical leverage. We find men's gender attitudes to be highly contingent on elite cues and susceptible to backlash effects in response to women's economic advancement. Also, where women lack national representation, distrust of government promotes support for female leadership as an alternative to the discredited (male) establishment. The analysis supports existing individual-level explanations of gender attitudes and demonstrates a connection between diffuse democratic values and gender egalitarianism. The findings suggest that recent advances for female politicians in Latin America may be susceptible to reversal, and they illuminate strategies for strengthening women's equality in the region.

Methodological Issues in the Study of New Parties’ Entry and Electoral Success

Studies of the emergence and electoral success of new parties frequently suffer from conceptual and methodological flaws: effects of electoral institutions that primarily operate at the level of the constituencies are specified at the national level; central explanatory variables such as electoral demands and competitors’ responses are measured with crude proxies; the interplay of formation and success is overlooked; and empirical models neglect the point that the underlying data may exhibit dependencies both in space and time. In this article, we highlight these problems and offer some potential solutions using the Swiss Green Party (GPS) as an empirical case.

A HUMAN CAPITAL MODEL OF THE EFFECTS OF ABILITY AND FAMILY BACKGROUND ON OPTIMAL SCHOOLING LEVELS

This paper develops a theoretical model of optimal schooling levels where ability and family background are the central explanatory variables. We derive schooling demand and supply functions based on individual wealth maximization. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data, we stratify our sample into 1‐yr full‐time equivalent (FTE) work experience cohorts for 1985–1989. The estimated Mincerian “overtaking” cohort (the years of work experience at which individuals’ observed earnings approximately equal what they would have been based on schooling and ability alone) corresponds to 13 FTE years of experience, yielding on average a rate of return of 10.3% and an average (optimal) 11.4 yr of schooling. (JEL J24, J31, J22)

Exploring Protest Participation in India: Evidence from the 1996 World Values Survey

Abstract This paper presents evidence from survey data related to the extent, nature and source of protest participation in India. We examine three models of such activity extensively employed in a western context – the alienation, resource and mobilization models. While we find some evidence for their general applicability, especially in regard to mobilization, many of the most central explanatory variables associated with these models – age, education, urban/rural residence, political trust, acceptance of the present political system, confidence in political institutions and to a lesser extent, gender, reveal associations with protest that are contrary to theoretical expectations. This suggests the necessity for modifying existing theories of unconventional political participation when and if employed in a non-western setting.

Electoral participation among immigrants in Sweden: Integration, culture and participation

Abstract Modern states claim to be democratic. However, foreign citizens who are legal residents are denied voting and other political rights. In 1975, Sweden granted voting rights in local elections to all foreign citizens who had been resident in Sweden for three years. However, only a small majority, 60 per cent, of the enfranchised foreign citizens voted in the 1976 elections. In 1991, the figure was as low as 41 per cent. One of the two main questions discussed here is how integration into one's own group and integration into the majority society affect electoral participation. The second question takes up differences in cultural orientations between immigrant groups and how these are related to voting behaviour. This is done with the help of Mary Douglas’ theory of group and grid, as developed by Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky. The empirical data was collected through interviews with four different immigrant groups in the city of Malmo, Southern Sweden. The central explanatory variables, expressed in...

Organizational Illegality: Theoretical Integration and Illustrative Application

Research on organizational illegality coming from several disciplines converges on three central explanatory variables; environment (pressure, need, or distress); structure (corporate, industrial, or legal); and inner-directed choice processes (pathology, intent, or proactive exploitation). This paper briefly uses such a framework to identify and categorize a few of the theories of organizational illegality. A research strategy is then presented using the instances of prosecution for misrepresentation (deceptive advertising) as an example.