Indirect Channels Research Articles

R&D, exports and employment growth: firm-level evidence using administrative data from South Africa

This paper asks two main research questions. First, what is the relationship between firm-level innovation and export performance? Second, what is the direct effect of innovation on employment, while accounting for the indirect innovation-export link? I use a novel longitudinal administrative dataset of all firms registered to pay tax in South Africa, over 2010–2016. The first main result suggests a positive and significant relationship between innovation and export performance. Second, the fixed effects results show that direct innovation positively impacts employment growth in manufacturing firms, however, R&D-induced exports – the indirect channel – negatively impacts employment growth. This points to the notion that productivity enhancements necessary for South African manufacturing exporters to compete internationally might promote labor-saving innovations. Nonetheless, the overall innovation effect on firm employment growth is positive.

Does Financial Development Alleviate Poverty? Empirical Evidence from Indonesia

This study examines the contribution of financial development to poverty reduction in Indonesia using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to the cointegration framework. It also employs annual data of several financial development measures such as domestic credit, broad money, and financial development indexes from 1986 to 2018. Our findings suggest that financial development and poverty reduction have a cointegration relationship, regardless of the financial development indicators used. Furthermore, we find that domestic credit, broad money, financial institution depth, financial market depth, financial market access, and financial market efficiency reduced poverty. It suggests that financial development reduced poverty through its indirect channel, i.e., the economic growth effect.

Understanding young Chinese consumers' preferences for foreign clothing brands: a behavioural approach

PurposeThis research explores the purchasing behavioural drivers of young Chinese consumers purchasing foreign clothing brands. The aim is to include a range of drivers identified by different investigations into a single approach, to determine direct and indirect channels by which these drivers influence purchasing behaviour, and their relative importance in quantitative terms.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology is based on an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour that considers hypotheses based on a number of studies revised in the literature review. This theoretical framework was used as the basis for a questionnaire applied to a sample of 362 young Chinese consumers. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling approach was used to analyse the collected data.FindingsThe results revealed three main channels influencing purchasing behaviour which were shown to share the same root, corresponding to the influences of the social network young consumers belong to. This result suggests that social norms have a key role in explaining young consumers' purchasing behaviour through its impact on their needs for status and social recognition, their attitudes towards foreign cultures and foreign brands, and their beliefs regarding the attributes of foreign clothing.Practical implicationsThe work therefore provides companies operating in the foreign clothing market the confidence to devise business strategies that focus on the channel demonstrating the highest influencing power. A strategy likely to have the highest influencing power is one that uses celebrities to promote the reputation of products and reinforce the messages associated with status and social recognition. Reinforcement of these strategies could include secondary strategies linked to the other channels such as the one related to the adoption of foreign cultural symbolism.Originality/valueIn contrast to the majority of related studies, this investigation also explores indirect channels or paths by which a behavioural driver affects the behaviour of young Chinese consumers. In fact, this investigation not only simultaneously identified the different paths influencing young Chinese consumers purchasing behaviour but also quantitatively identified their relative importance.

Stationary quantum entanglement and steering between two distant macromagnets

Generating and manipulating magnon quantum states for quantum information processing is a central topic in quantum magnonics. The conventional strategy amplifies the nonlinear interaction among magnons to manifest their quantum correlations at cryogenic temperatures, which is challenging for magnets with vanishingly small nonlinearities. Here we propose an unconventional approach to prepare entangled states of two distant magnon modes by applying a two-tone Floquet field to each magnet inside a microwave cavity. The Floquet driving can effectively generate parametric interaction between magnons and photons, and thus opens an indirect entanglement channel between the two magnon modes mediated by cavity photons. By optimizing the relative ratio of the magnon–photon coupling and the detuning between the magnon modes, the two magnon modes can reach a stationary and robust entanglement, of which the strength is enhanced compared with entanglement generated via magnetic nonlinearities. Furthermore, one-way steering between the two magnets is realized by engineering unequal damping rates of the two magnets while the steering asymmetry can be efficiently modulated by tuning the coupling strength of magnons and cavity photons. The essential physics of our findings universally applies to a wide class of magnets with small nonlinearities and may find promising applications in engineering robust magnon quantum states for quantum information science.

The impact of discriminatory pricing based on customer risk: an empirical investigation using indirect lending through retail networks

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the profit implications of analytics-driven centralized discriminatory pricing at the headquarter level compared with sales force price delegation in the purchase of an aftermarket good through an indirect retail channel with symmetric information.Design/methodology/approachUsing individual-level loan application and approval data from a North American financial institution and segment-level customer risk as the price discrimination criterion for the firm, the authors develop a three-stage model that accounts for the salesperson’s price decision within the limits of the latitude provided by the firm; the firm’s decision to approve or not approve a sales application; and the customer’s decision to accept or reject a sales offer conditional on the firm’s approval. Next, the authors compare the profitability of this sales force price delegation model to that of a segment-level centralized pricing model where agent incentives and consumer prices are simultaneously optimized using a quasi-Newton nonlinear optimization algorithm (i.e. Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno algorithm).FindingsThe results suggest that implementation of analytics-driven centralized discriminatory pricing and optimal sales force incentives leads to double-digit lifts in firm profits. Moreover, the authors find that the high-risk customer segment is less price-sensitive and firms, upon leveraging this segment’s willingness to pay, not only improve their bottom-line but also allow these marginalized customers with traditionally low approval rates access to loans. This points out the important customer welfare implications of the findings.Originality/valueSubstantively, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically investigate the profitability of analytics-driven segment-level (i.e. discriminatory) centralized pricing compared with sales force price delegation in indirect retail channels (i.e. where agents are external to the firm and have access to competitor products), taking into account the decisions of the three key stakeholders of the process, namely, the consumer, the salesperson and the firm and simultaneously optimizing sales commission and centralized consumer price.

Peer effect on dividends and return comovement

This study investigates the stock return comovement of dividend-paying and nonpaying firms induced by peer effects of dividend payout policies. We consider peer effect as a channel that links a firm’s dividend initiation to firms that did not change dividend status. Dividend initiation attracts investors to the industry and puts pressure on peer firms to change their dividend policy, which leads to return comovement between nonpaying peers and paying firms. Using matched peer firms that resemble dividend initiators, we find that return comovement can be induced through an indirect channel without changes in style or category. Excess return comovement for firms without dividends is observed with dividend payers of the market and their industries through peer influence.

On selling format choice and quality differentiation in dual‐channel supply chains

AbstractWhen suppliers sell products through a direct channel and an indirect channel, they usually differentiate the two channels by quality to alleviate channel conflicts. The quality choice for different channels poses a great challenge to the suppliers, which also bears implications for the online retailer's choice between the reselling format and the agency format. This paper uses a game‐theoretic model to investigate the interaction between the supplier's quality differentiation strategy and the online retailer's selling format choice in dual‐channel supply chains. Different from the previous literature, we endogenize the supplier's quality decisions and find that the supplier always chooses to sell the high‐quality product through the direct channel and sell the low‐quality product through the online retailer. Moreover, compared with the reselling format, the quality level of the low‐quality product is reduced but that of the high‐quality product is lightly increased under the agency format. The intuition is that the supplier tends to highlight the advantage of each channel to acquire more profit. Regardless of the supplier's choice, the online retailer always prefers the agency format. We further extend our model in several important directions, which lend robustness to our core insights.

The impact of world oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables in Vietnam: the transmission through domestic oil price

This study examines the impact of world oil price shocks on macroeconomic variables in Vietnam with a focus on the transmission channel of domestic oil prices. The Structural Vector Autoregression model with two blocks of real economy variables and monetary variables is employed. The world oil price follows an autoregressive process to reflect the exogenous nature of world oil price shocks to the domestic economy. The retail domestic oil price is determined simultaneously by only the world oil price due to the government's control of the domestic oil market. Using monthly data in the period between 2009 and 2021, the study indicates that a positive shock to world oil prices will increase the domestic oil prices significantly, industrial production (slightly and only statistically significant in the third month after), and inflation (significantly in 8 months). Besides, the domestic oil price is not the only transmission channel of world oil price shocks to the economy. This result implies forecasting, assessing, and controlling the impact of the world oil price shock on the economy should focus on both domestic oil prices and other indirect channels.

Civil War Settlers: Scandinavians, Citizenship, and American Empire, 1848–1870

Civil War Settlers: Scandinavians, Citizenship, and American Empire, 1848–1870

Chrystal Ann Chemris. The Spanish Baroque and Latin American Literary Modernity: Writing in Constellation

Chrystal Ann Chemris. <i>The Spanish Baroque and Latin American Literary Modernity: Writing in Constellation</i>

Banking regulation, credit supply, and Uneven regional development. An exploratory comparison of Italy and Germany

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, first, and of the 2011 European financial crisis, and second, important changes have been brought to the European banking regulatory framework. Banking capital requirements (capital adequacy ratios) have been tightened on a global scale - through the “Basel III” agreements. New liquidity and leverage requirements have been imposed on all European banks, to strictly curtail risk and indebtedness, rightly identified as two significant causes of the 2008 financial crisis. As for any case of regulatory tightening, these changes in banking regulation have been resented by the regulates as excessive constraints on banks’ business - in particular their lending business, especially small and medium-sized firms, which have little access to capital markets, because of significant information asymmetries characterizing credit relations. In this paper, we aim to analyse the implications of these modifications in banking regulation which tend to favor banks organized in the form of joint stock companies to the detriment of banks organized as non-profit enterprises such as credit cooperatives. Thus, the question we are addressing in this paper is the following: to what extent have recent European banking regulatory changes affected regional economic development? We will answer the question by analysing descriptive statistics concerning the structure of the banking system and credit supply in two countries, Italy and Germany. These two countries share important characteristics, which underline the relevance of a strong nexus between banking sector development and growth on a local scale. In particular, both countries are characterized by a high number of small and medium-sized firms and both have a fragmented banking system, with a sizeable number of not-for-profit and local banks. The hypothesis formulated here is that changes in banking regulation can affect local and regional economic development through two channels: a first, direct channel, through which regulatory changes directly and negatively affect banks’ credit supply to small and medium-sized firms; and a second, indirect channel, through which regulatory changes induce changes in the structure of the local and regional banking system, which, in turn, affect (among other things) credit supply. A comparison between Italy and Germany will allow us to assess the relative strength of these two channels, identify those factors, which may allow us to explain outcomes differentials, and thus help identify policy implications.

How public attention drives corporate environmental protection: Effects and channels

Elucidating how public attention drives corporate environmental protection behavior is critical for sustainable development. Thus, this study constructs an instrumental variable for public attention and also regresses the related effects and channels of public attention in China. The sample includes the pollution-intensive listed enterprises on the Chinese Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2019. The empirical results suggest that, increasing public environmental awareness significantly reduces production by 0.06 % in enterprises with high consumer pressure, and green innovation in enterprises with high investor pressure increases significantly by 0.12 %. The public achieves this effect through direct and indirect channels. Public attention directly drives corporate behavior due to pressure from consumers and investors. Moreover, public attention promotes environmental policies aimed at state-owned enterprises and indirectly drives corporate behavior. These findings demonstrate the significant role of the public during green process, and highlight the channels to maximize the public impacts for policymakers.

Factors affecting the choice of marketing channel by beekeepers in Türkiye

This study aims to analyze the factors affecting the marketing channel choices of beekeepers in the sale of strained honey. The primary data was collected with questionnaires conducted with 162 bee breeders in Türkiye. When beekeeper characteristics by marketing channel selections were compared, it was determined that breeder's education status, income other than beekeeping, the status of getting support, payment method, satisfaction with the marketing channel, way of determining the price, the source of information, and credit usage status were the variables influential in choosing a marketing channel. As a result of comparing the group selling strained honey through the direct channel and the group selling it through the indirect channel, significant differences were found between the groups in terms of beekeeper's age, the share of beekeeping in annual income, the number of hives, the share of strained honey in beekeeping income, and the selling price of honey. Providing training for beekeepers, ensuring their access to market information, improving infrastructure conditions, and encouraging the production of bee products and cooperative membership will increase their income.

Gradient Type‐II CdSe/CdSeTe/CdTe Core/Crown/Crown Heteronanoplatelets with Asymmetric Shape and Disproportional Excitonic Properties (Small 11/2023)

Multi-Crown Type-II Nanoplatelets In article number 2205729, Hilmi Volkan Demir and co-workers discuss the recombination dynamics of CdSe/CdSeTe/CdTe core/crown/crown nanoplatelets (NPLs) with a step-wise gradient electronic structure. The NPLs possess disproportional electron and hole wavefunction distributions, in which the activation/deactivation of direct and indirect channels is possible by adjusting the domains' geometry. These NPLs demonstrate exceptionally high two-photon absorption cross-section and low dark-bright exciton splitting energy.

Direct and indirect activation of the adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel to induce spinal cord ischemic metabolic tolerance.

The mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel is central to pharmacologically induced tolerance to spinal cord injury. We hypothesized that both direct and nitric oxide-dependent indirect activation of the adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel contribute to the induction of ischemic metabolic tolerance. Spinal cord injury was induced in adult male C57BL/6 mice through 7minutes of thoracic aortic crossclamping. Pretreatment consisted of intraperitoneal injection 3 consecutive days before injury. Experimental groups were sham (no pretreatment or ischemia, n=10), spinal cord injury control (pretreatment with normal saline, n=27), Nicorandil 1.0mg/kg (direct and indirect adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel opener, n=20), Nicorandil 1mg/kg+carboxy-PTIO 1mg/kg (nitric oxide scavenger, n=21), carboxy-PTIO (n=12), diazoxide 5mg/kg (selective direct adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel opener, n=25), and DZ 5mg/kg+carboxy-PTIO 1mg/kg, carboxy-PTIO (n=23). Limb motor function was assessed using the Basso Mouse Score (0-9) at 12-hour intervals for 48hours after ischemia. Motor function was significantly preserved at all time points after ischemia in the Nicorandil pretreatment group compared with ischemic control. The addition of carboxy-PTIO partially attenuated Nicorandil's motor-preserving effect. Motor function in the Nicorandil+carboxy-PTIO group was significantly preserved compared with the spinal cord injury control group (P<.001), but worse than in the Nicorandil group (P=.078). Motor preservation in the diazoxide group was similar to the Nicorandil+carboxy-PTIO group. There was no significant difference between the diazoxide and diazoxide+carboxy-PTIO groups. Both direct and nitric oxide-dependent indirect activation of the mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channel play an important role in pharmacologically induced motor function preservation.

How does fiscal decentralization lead to renewable energy transition and a sustainable environment? Evidence from highly decentralized economies

Effective fiscal management ensures the coordination of taxes and spending authority for attaining inclusive and sustainable growth. Therefore, this study intends to estimate the direct and indirect channels of expenditure, revenue, and composite fiscal decentralization on carbon emissions through renewable energy transition in highly decentralized countries. It employs a cross-sectional augmented auto-regressive distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) method, allowing dependencies across countries and heterogeneity in the slope parameters. In the long run, the direct effects of expenditure (revenue) decentralization on carbon emissions are significantly positive (negative) with coefficient magnitudes of 0.16% and 0.04% (0.09% and 0.08%). The indirect effects of expenditure and revenue decentralization are substantially negative through renewable energy consumption with the coefficient magnitude of 0.135% and 0.138%, respectively. In contrast, composite decentralization and its interactive terms with renewable energy show an emissions-mitigating effect of 0.179% and 0.192%, respectively. These outcomes exhibit that the down-delegation of financial authority (revenue or composite) at local government increases resource efficiency and leads to higher renewable energy consumption. Similar results are echoed in the short run; however, the magnitude of coefficients is significantly higher in the long run. The overall findings provide fascinating policy recommendations.

Systemic Risk with Multi-Channel Risk Contagion in the Interbank Market

The systematicness of banks is an important driver of financial crisis. Overlapping portfolios and assets correlation of banks’ investment are important reasons for systemic risk contagion. The existing systemic risk models are all analyzed from one aspect and cannot reflect the real situation of the banking system. In the present paper, considering the overlapping portfolios and assets correlation, a contagion network model with multi-channel risk is proposed, which is with interbank lending (direct contagion channel), overlapping portfolios (indirect contagion channel), and assets correlation (indirect contagion channel). In addition, the model takes investment risk as an impact factor and learns the operation rules of the banking system to help banks compensate for liquidity through asset depreciation. Based on the proposed model, the effects of assets correlation, assets diversity, assets investment strategy, interbank network structure, and the impact of market density on risk contagion are studied and analyzed quantitatively. The method in this paper can more truly reflect the banking system risk than the existing model. This paper provides a solution for quantitative analysis of systemic risk, which provides powerful tools for macroprudential stress testing and a reference for regulatory authorities to prevent systemic risk.

Perfect nonreciprocity by loss engineering

Realization of nonreciprocal transmission with low insertion loss and high contrast simultaneously is in great demand for one-way optical communication and information processing. Here we propose a generic approach to achieving perfect nonreciprocity that allows lossless unidirectional transmission by engineering energy losses. The loss of the intermediate mode induces a phase lag impinging on the indirect channel for energy transmission, which does not depend on the energy transmission direction. When the direct transmission channel coexists with the indirect lossy transmission channel, the dual-channel interference can be tuned to be destructive simultaneously for backward transmission from the rightmost mode to the leftmost mode, and for forward transmission from the leftmost mode to the intermediate mode. The former interference outcome corresponds to 100% nonreciprocity contrast, and the latter guarantees zero insertion loss for forward transmission. Additionally, our scheme also allows a nonreciprocity response over a wide bandwidth by increasing the losses while keeping perfect nonreciprocity at resonance. The robustness against loss indicates that our scheme is advantageous in the implementation of nonreciprocal optical devices with high performance.

Mobile money, ICT, financial inclusion and growth: How different is Africa?

We investigate the contributions of fixed and mobile telecommunications (ICT) and mobile money to economic growth and financial inclusion in a 22-year panel of 146 countries. We extend the Solow growth model to include human capital, money, ICT, and mobile money, splitting the sample into sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the rest of the world (RoW) in addition to the whole sample analysis. We find mobile money affects economic growth through direct and indirect channels. Mobile money has a significant overall positive impact on growth, especially in countries with better mobile phone penetration and more dispersed populations. But its total quantitative effect is not large. Mobile money also tends to improve financial inclusion which in turn promotes growth. There are important differences between the SSA and RoW parameters, implying that the quantitative determinants of growth are different to some extent as between SSA and RoW.

Realizing direct and indirect impact of environmental regulations on pollution: A path analysis approach to explore the mediating role of green innovation in G7 economies.

The alarming impact of climate change and environmental pollutants has increased the focus of policymakers and think tanks' focus on formulating environmental regulations. Environmental regulations may reduce emissions directly and indirectly, as postulated by the famous Porter Hypothesis. It shows that environmental regulation may enhance pollution-reducing innovation by reducing agency costs while at the same time increasing firms' private benefit. The study is designed to investigate environmental regulations' direct and indirect impact on CO2 and GHG emissions using innovations as mediation factors. The study employs a structural equation method using data on G7 economies from 1990 to 2020 to test the relationship between regulations, innovations, and pollution. The study findings confirm that environmental regulations help reduce emissions directly. Our findings also confirm the Porter hypothesis whereby regulations encourage innovations and result in reduced emissions through this indirect channel. The study findings have significant implications for controlling pollution through placing environmental regulations and encouraging innovations.