Economic Determinants Research Articles

Likelihood Analysis of the Factors Effecting Public Opinion of Police Performance in Pakistan

This study identifies behavioral and socio economic determinants of public satisfaction regarding police services in Pakistan. We incorporated the behavioral aspects of society through social networking or social awareness and the usage of technology as additional determinants of police performance. The Probit model with sample selection (heckprobit) is employed, in order to avoid sample selection bias. The findings reveal that the likelihood of satisfaction of male household heads is significantly low. Furthermore, wealthier households are more satisfied; which also raises a question about police performance. The results strongly recommend that the police department needs to improve its behavior, as urban society is less satisfied. Furthermore, the government should reduce the transaction cost of police services and other barriers that keep poor people away from the police; as the poor households are less satisfied. Finally, the social awareness and media is also a significant determinant of public satisfaction. The study finding reveals that the access to media and technology variables indicates that the families who have these facilities have a significantly lower probability of satisfaction in Pakistan.

An Expensive Pass to Freedom: Bond Amounts Trajectories in Immigration Court

Thousands of immigrants are in civil detention awaiting case adjudication in the United States. Unguaranteed legal representation and stringent access to bond hearings restrict the chances of release. Though the institutional purpose of civil detention and bonds in Immigration Court is to secure safety and the public good, we find contradictions in such purpose: increasingly high bonds are mandated regardless of individual circumstances, in a context of legal violence, or the loss and uncertainty experienced by a subclass of individuals scrutinized by the law, characterized by heightened criminalization, scarce legal protections, and broad judicial discretion. We use bond case administrative data from the Executive Office of Immigration Review between 1991 and 2020 in a multivariate analysis that centers on the influence of criminal records and legal representation to get lower bond amounts granted. We find that criminal records predict risk before 2001, but after, individuals with no records are also mandated to pay higher amounts to Immigration Courts. After 2001, legal representation’s influence on reducing bond amounts is subtle but relevant. We analyze these findings in light of policy changes and provide evidence on how increasingly high bonds fracture social and economic determinants of immigrants’ well-being by altering their economic stability while they and their communities also suffer the psychological and physical tolls of detention.

Social and economic determinants of quality of life: Case of European countries

The article is devoted to the study of economic and social drivers of quality of life. The method of weighted sums and the Fishburn formula were employed to assess the level of quality of life. Using Ward's method and the Kalinsky-Kharabash test, three clusters of countries were identified. The relationship between indicators was modeled with the Johansen, Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron tests. Five indicators of social development (children out of school, unemployment, literacy rate, hospital beds, total population) and six indicators of economic development (GDP, minimum wage, government expenditure on education, current health expenditure, state expenditure on physical culture and sports industry) were chosen to establish the relationship between the indicators. The research was focused on the data of 30 European countries. Two hypotheses were proposed and tested in the study. Hypothesis H1 was that public spending on education, health care, and sports stimulates an increase in the quality of life. This hypothesis was confirmed for all countries. Hypothesis H2 assumed that the number of children out of school, the level of unemployment, and illiteracy negatively affect the quality of life. This hypothesis was confirmed only for a small number of countries.

Navigating Professional Paradigms: Transactional Sex, Behavior Change, and Structural Responses in Uganda

Professional paradigms within social work and related social service fields have been critiqued for being behaviorally focused, thereby obscuring and perhaps excusing structural determinants of health and well-being. Recent initiatives in international social work have aimed to align theory, practice, education, and research with sustainable development, reflecting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to address structural determinants. Our qualitative research examined responses to transactional sex among Ugandan youth through in-depth interviews with 23 professionals working in social services with youth who were vulnerable to HIV. Through thematic content analysis, using deductive and inductive analysis, we examined the demographics and determinants of youth transactional sex, prominent models of response delivered by and observed by providers, and the critiques or observed limitations of current practice models. We found that behavioral strategies are pervasive, which is an apparent misalignment with the economic determinants identified by social service professionals. While interviewees described some structural economic interventions, they critiqued gaps and limitations in responses influenced by internal and external pressures shaping professional practice. Our study adds critical analyses regarding social work and social service paradigms to advance structural, social justice-informed responses that align with and advance sustainable development.

Decoding and Delivering Public Health

Health is an essential requirement for the development and welfare of individuals as well as populations. Health is often viewed as a domain distinctively divided into two separate worlds: clinical medicine and public health. Fundamentally, clinical medicine operates with the individual as the unit of observation and intervention, while public health has the population as the unit of study and service. While the health system is charged with the prime responsibility for delivering care, it is also necessary to recognise and respect the role of the community, not merely as a beneficiary but as an active contributor to agenda-setting, implementation and monitoring. To ensure that a wide range of health services reach all entitled persons in the population, we need to design and deliver a strong Universal Health Coverage programme, which is best delivered when public financing accounts for a major portion of the health expenditure. Since health is profoundly influenced by social, economic, environmental and commercial determinants, it is imperative that these determinants are shaped to enable, rather than erode, health. Public health has emerged from the communion of medicine and social sciences. It is now a multi-disciplinary confluence of life sciences, quantitative sciences, social sciences and management sciences. Public health research must be multi-disciplinary, to assist the development and delivery of enlightened public policy through multi-sectoral pathways.

Whole Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Transmission Lines Using the Economic Life Interval Method

With the large-scale construction and commissioning of transmission lines over the past two decades, the grid is facing a large-scale centralized decommissioning of transmission lines. The transmission line’s economic life is crucial to rationalizing its construction and reducing the grid’s development costs. Based on the minimum economic life calculation principle, the static and dynamic transmission line economic life calculation model is established, considering the whole life cycle for transmission line cost. The improved gray GM (1,1) model is applied to forecast cost data during the economic life assessment of transmission lines with fewer samples. Considering the cost uncertainty in life-cycle costing, the interval cost model based on the coefficient of variation wave amplitude is proposed to determine the economic life intervals under different guarantees by using the normal distribution probability density function, which reduces the influence of cost fluctuations on the economic life calculation error. The economic life analysis of a 500 kV transmission line is used as a case study to verify the model’s accuracy and effectiveness. The method shows the economic life intervals under different guarantee degrees based on the most probable economic life determination, which provides theoretical support for calculating the economic life elasticity of transmission lines.

Time Series Analysis of the Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal: Economics Perspective

The main aim of this paper is to identify the major economic determinants of foreign direct investment in Nepal. In doing so, the Johansen-Juselius (JJ) cointegration approach as well as vector error correction model are implemented to identify the relationship among the macro variables. The empirical results revealed that all the variables are stationary at first difference and the evidence of cointegrating vector is obvious based on the JJ cointegration results. In addition, it is found that there is a long run relationship among the variables based on the coefficient of Error Correction Term (ECT). The long run coefficients show that Trade, GDP, exchange rate, and interest rate have a positive impact on FDI in Nepal, while, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and inflation (CPI) have a negative impact. Finally, in the short run, only one lag of FDI is affecting FDI. These results suggest that the inward FDI tends to incorporate information from the macroeconomic variables.

Household exposure to the risk of cooking smoke: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

BackgroundIn Sub-Saharan Africa, the place of cooking and choice of fuel for cooking have detrimental effects on health due to excessive exposure to smoke. This study explores household-level exposure to the risk of cooking smoke and its associated determinants. MethodsUsing a quantitative approach, we pooled the most recent waves of the Demographic Health Survey dataset yielding 442,339 households from 33 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we first construct disaggregated measures of smoke exposure risk, determine the extent of households’ vulnerability to this risk, and investigate the associated determinants. We used the ordered probit regression to examine the socio-demographic and economic determinants of the levels of household smoke exposure risk in SSA. ResultsWe found evidence that 67 % of households cook indoors while 86 % use smoke-producing fuels for cooking which, may indicate a high level of vulnerability to smoke exposure. As expected, 53 % of households have a high risk of smoke exposure. Our findings reveal factors such as wealth, size, educational level, and age of household heads as the key determinants of the disaggregated smoke exposure risk measures. For robustness, we grouped households by their rural-urban locations to establish evidence of the determinants. ConclusionsThe study identifies socio-economic characteristics as essential variables in determining a household's level of exposure to cooking smoke risk in SSA. We, therefore, propose to policymakers in the sub-region to improve the accessibility to clean cooking fuels, especially to all rural households. In this light, we recommend the promotion, subsidization, and enforcement of policies to encourage households to use clean cooking fuels.

Exploring the Causes of Technocratic Minister Appointments in Europe

In the last decade, the appointment of technocratic ministers has become more common than ever before in Europe. Yet, scholarly attention has mostly focused on the economic determinants that lead to the appointment of such political outsiders in governments. In contrast, political determinants have not been fully examined. This article aims to investigate the role of economic determinants, as well as institutional factors (e.g. electoral system), party-system characteristics (e.g. volatility, polarization) and cabinet-related factors (e.g. intra-cabinet heterogeneity, the strength of populist parties within the government). Using a novel data set comprising data for more than 7000 ministers, including around 900 technocrats, our analysis shows that the share of populist parties within the cabinets has the strongest effect on the likelihood of appointing technocrats in national government. However, institutional-level variables appear to have no effect on the levels of technocratic appointments.

How does the economy affect a religious phenomenon? A panel approach to international pilgrimages to the Shrine of Fátima

Abstract This paper investigates the economic determinants of Catholic pilgrimages to the Shrine of Fatima using a panel data set with annual observations from 2008 to 2017 from 29 origin countries. The Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag, using the estimator of Driscoll and Kraay (1998), was employed to examine short- and long-run impacts. The results reveal that, in the short run, GDP per capita, the exchange rate and overall international departures positively impact the number of pilgrims. In the long run, international departures and GDP per capita cause positive impacts, while unemployment shows a negative impact. All effects are statistically significant. Besides shedding light on the relationship between economic determinants and religious phenomena, this paper is valuable to national and local policymakers, shrine managers and regional entrepreneurs. It is a tool for everyone who must be aware of the main determinants of the number of pilgrims, to plan joint measures that may generate more significant opportunities to attract pilgrims, crucial to supporting the local economy and in addition to being an important contribution to the economics of religion literature, indicating contemporary impacts on a religious phenomenon.

Trust and reciprocity norms in the analysis of social capital related to udder health. A mixed methods approach with dairy farmers and veterinarians from the north of Antioquia.

Understanding trust between dairy farmers and other actors in the dairy chain, as well as the reciprocity norms among them are fundamental to encouraging collective action and decision-making to improve milk production and udder health. The objective of this study was to understand the relationships of trust between dairy farmers and other actors in the dairy chain related to udder health in the north of Antioquia. Mixed methods (cross-sectional and grounded theory) with a convergent triangulation design were used. A total of 216 dairy farmers participated in the quantitative component, and 17 dairy farmers and 9 veterinarians in the qualitative component, they were located in 9 milk-producing municipalities in the north of Antioquia. A characterization survey of the dairy farmers, a survey on reliability and udder health, an analysis of each farm's annual average BTSCC and CFU, and semi-structured interviews on the same topic were conducted. Problems were found in the biological indicators of udder health on the farms: BTSCC was poor for 67% of the dairy farmers, and CFU was poor for 22% of the dairy farmers. Veterinarians are the actors whom dairy farmers trust the most. Trust in dairy chain actors is complex, variable, and depends on many aspects. Trust representation, Socio-cultural Factors, Economic and Commercial Factors, Labor, Clinical and Laboratory Conditions of Milk, and Norms of Reciprocity constitute the categories of analysis when theorizing about trust and udder health. Each of the theoretical and emerging categories in this study describes actors, attitudes, behaviors, relationships between actors, and norms, allowing us to understand that trust between dairy farmers and other actors in the dairy chain in order to face the problems of udder health and milk production depends on technical processes, individual and collective human attitudes and behaviors, supply of services, political, regulative and economic determinants, the latter being transcendental in decision-making to invest in mastitis control and udder health care.

Impact of sociodemographic and economic determinants of health on COVID-19 infection: incidence variation between reference periods

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 pandemic hit Portugal in March 2020, causing widespread disruption to various aspects of society. While extensive research has been conducted on the significance of socio-economic disparities in infection risk, this study aims to enhance our understanding of their evolving relationship over time by analysing four distinct periods in 2020. Study design and methodsThis retrospective observational ecological study included individuals residing in the Primary Healthcare Cluster areas of Almada-Seixal and Western Lisbon and Oeiras, who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 through a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test between the 2nd of March and the 8th of November of 2020. Using incidence rates for each specific neighbourhood (n = 29) and period, we explored the relationship between neighbourhood-level socio-economic variables and the risk of infection using negative-binomial regression models. ResultsIn the analysed period, a total of 8562 confirmed COVID-19 cases were identified. Overall incidence rates for each period were sequentially 2.74, 5.03, 3.99 and 14.29 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 person-days. Housing overcrowding, illiteracy rate and place of birth were associated with increased risk of infection, while age, congregate living, and employment in the secondary sector exhibited the opposite association. No association was consistent across all time periods. ConclusionsOur findings support the idea that the influence of socio-economic determinants of health is not immutable throughout time. In a pandemic context where information, knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours are ever-changing and evolving, a dynamic, inclusive, and adaptable approach to disease control can lead to a more equitable distribution of improved outcomes, benefiting all strata of society.

Socio Economic Determinants and Effective Menstrual Management among Primary School Girls in Rural Schools in Nyatike Sub County

Access to menstrual hygiene products is a major challenge facing women and girls in developing countries, including Kenya. This study is about the socioeconomic determinants of menstrual management among girls in Nyatike Sub County. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to establish the effects of traditional practices on menstrual management among primary school girls, examine the effects of knowledge and awareness of hygiene on menstrual management, analyze the effects of family income on the menstrual management of girls, and assess the current measures that are in place to enhance menstrual health management of girls in rural primary schools in Nyatike Sub County. A descriptive survey design was used, and cluster sampling coupled with simple random sampling was used to select 689 respondents for the questionnaire, who were mainly primary school girls, head teachers and teachers, and the female heads of households. Descriptive analysis showed that 59.3% of the girls have encountered traditional restrictions during their menstruation. About 74.4% of the respondents believe that knowledge about menstrual hygiene has improved their overall confidence and comfort during menstruation. Additionally, 53.2% of the girls always have access to the menstrual hygiene products they need. However, 46.8% still have difficulties obtaining the necessary products. Consequently, 76.8% of the respondents revealed that their schools are sensitizing students about menstrual health and hygiene. The inferential analysis showed that traditional practices have various effects on menstrual management among primary school girls. In conclusion, there is a positive effect of knowledge and awareness of hygiene on menstrual management among primary school girls. It is also clear that most primary schools have implemented some menstrual health management strategies for girls. The study recommends regular awareness and sensitization programs for students, teachers, parents, and the community to eliminate stigma, myths, and misconceptions around menstruation.

The factors influencing urban health in Jakarta Province during Covid-19 outbreak

The rapid urbanization in Jakarta has given rise to a wide range of urban problems, characterized by an imbalance between the population growth rate and urban resources. This imbalance has resulted in a decline in the quality of urban services, making the population highly venerable to diseases, particularly during and after the Covid-19 outbreak. Relevant studies have indicated that variables related to infrastructure, social and economic determinants can affect urban health. However, the literature exploring the relationship between health determinants and urban health from an urban planning perspective is still limited. The aim of the research is to examine the relationship between health determinants and urban health in Jakarta Province during the Covid-19 outbreak. The study employed Partial Least Square (PLS) path modeling using smartPLS software, while data were collected through questionnaires administered to 317 Jakarta residents. The results showed that urban health determinants, represented by the built environment/infrastructure and social determinants, significantly and positively impacted the physical health of Jakarta residents. However, the urban health determinants insignificant on the mental health of Jakarta residents during Covid-19. It was also found that built environment/infrastructure had a greater influence on physical health than other determinants. This impact was significant for both neighborhoods that are well-resourced and under-resourced. The influence of the social determinant on physical health significantly varied between these neighborhoods. This research emphasized the importance of stakeholders focusing on improving the population’s quality of life and health through the built environment/infrastructure and social determinants.

Determinants of government spending on primary healthcare: a global data analysis

In 2018 global leaders renewed their political commitment to primary healthcare (PHC) ratifying the Declaration of Astana emphasising the importance of building a sustainable PHC system based on accessible and...

Determinants of Military Spending in Africa: Do Institutions Matter?

Abstract This paper focuses on the determinants of military spending in Africa by considering the role played by institutions. With data obtained between the years 1996–2019, the Driscoll and Kraay fixed effects, the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), and the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) estimators are used. The findings suggest that government size, trade freedom, economic risk, and political risk decrease military spending, whereas government stability and military involvement in politics are found to raise it. Using alternative institutional variables, we find that corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, regulatory quality, the rule of law, and voice and accountability significantly diminish military spending in Africa. In addition, concerning the economic determinants, the results reveal that trade openness and total natural resource rents reduce military spending, while GDP per capita, inflation, and foreign debt stocks increase it. Looking at strategic determinants, arms imports, urban population, and ethnic tensions positively affect African military expenditures. Robustness checks show that these results change once regional specificities are considered. The study concludes that institutional factors could be an engine for evolution in Africa’s military spending.

Socio-cultural and economic determinants of girl child education in Ashaiman municipality of the Greater Accra region of Ghana

Socio-cultural and economic determinants of girl child education in Ashaiman municipality of the Greater Accra region of Ghana

Cohabiting couple's economic organization and marriage patterns across social classes.

Empirically examine whether different economic theories of marriage formation predict the transition from cohabitation to marriage differently across social classes. Less-educated individuals marry their cohabiting partners at lower rates than their college-educated peers, but the reasons for this are unknown. Few studies have examined the intersection of social class and couple-level economic resources to understand if the potentially gendered economic determinants of marriage vary according to a couple's social location. Couple-month data come from the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation, including 1,879 cohabiting couples, 478 of whom transition to marriage. Logistic regression is used to test whether the marriage bar, gender specialization, gendered institutions, or gender revolution framework best predicts the likelihood of marrying. Joint indicators of the marriage bar and the gendered economic organization of couples both predict marriage, but the specific gendered organization varies by the couple's level of education. Among couples where neither partner has a college degree, male-breadwinning couples are most likely to marry; dual-earning couples are most likely to marry among more-educated couples. Although college-educated couples seem to have shifted to a more egalitarian model of marriage, as predicted by the gender revolution framework, the marriages of the less-educated are still characterized by traditional arrangements, in line with the idea that marriage is a gendered institution. By showing that different theories predict marriage depending on the couple's social position, these findings provide groundwork to explore why the less educated are increasingly less likely to marry their cohabiting partners.

Economic Determinants Concerning Corporate Tax Revenue

This study quantifies the impact of selected economic determinants on corporate tax revenues. The methodology applies a panel regression method with the 27 EU Member States considered for 2004–2020. This paper used a panel regression model with fixed effects, and the Arellano adjustment was used to achieve robust standard deviations. Source data were obtained from the European Commission, Eurostat, World Bank and Transparency International databases. Based on this hypothesis, we wanted to prove that the nominal tax rate, which is legislatively determined based on political consensus, is a decisive determinant of the amount of tax revenue. However, the analysis results reject this hypothesis, although the model showed it as positive but statistically insignificant. On the other hand, an interesting research result is that the analysis confirmed the effective tax rate as a significant determinant of tax revenues. From this, we can conclude that policies should be aimed at an effective tax rate or a better harmonisation of the nominal tax rate towards the effective rate.

Impact of demographic, social and economic determinants in COVID-19 related outcomes in the middle-aged population of Navarre (Spain)

Impact of demographic, social and economic determinants in COVID-19 related outcomes in the middle-aged population of Navarre (Spain)