Significant Marginal Effect Research Articles

Nonlinearities in the Intellectual Property-Manufacturing Growth Nexus in the Post-TRIPS Era: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Analysis

AbstractDiscussions around the importance of intellectual property (IP) intensified at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as countries raced to secure IP-protected goods (e.g., vaccines and medical equipment) necessary to respond quickly and adequately to the threat of the virus’ spread. Building on the growing strand of the literature that reexamines IP’s effect on an array of social and economic outcomes, this paper examines the relationship between quantitative (patents and trademarks) and qualitative (IP protection) measures of IP, on the one hand, and manufacturing growth, on the other hand, accounting for the presence of nonlinearities. Using a two-step system generalized method of moments (SGMM) approach on a panel dataset of 81 countries spanning the post-1995 TRIPS Agreement period, our estimates show that these alternative measures of IP have differential and nonlinear effects on manufacturing growth. In particular, patents have a positive significant marginal effect on manufacturing growth past a minimum scale, whereas trademarks do not have a significant effect. In contrast, stronger IPR protection has a positive effect only up to a critical level of IPR protection, implying that “too much” IPR protection can stifle growth-inducing competing innovation. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the mechanisms through which IP may contribute to manufacturing growth, and on some policies, which may help realize this potential. Broadly, this paper speaks to academic and policy discussions surrounding optimal IP enforcement and the benefits and consequences of IP.

Are we doing homework wrong? The marginal effect of homework using spaced repetition

While assigning homework in college courses is supported by both psychological research on memory and studies of economics classes, research examining the marginal effect of homework scores on exam performance generally shows insignificant results. These weak marginal effects may be due to the number of times students repeat the work and how spread out they are; the few studies that show positive marginal effects of homework performance use at least three spaced repetitions. This study evaluates a spaced repetition model of short homework assignments repeated at increasing intervals in intermediate microeconomics. Results show a positive significant marginal effect; students who did better on the homework assignments scored higher on both in class exams and a cumulative final. The implication is that the simple change of structuring homework assignments with additional spaced repetitions may significantly improve learning.

Associations between employment and mental health of older workers with disparate conditions: Evidence from China

PurposeThis study aimed to examine associations between the employment of older people and mental health across demographic characteristics, socioeconomic conditions, and health status, with a focus on pensions. MethodsThis study included 4,512 participants aged 60–69 from the CLASS in 2014. A multiple linear regression was conducted to investigate the association between employment and mental health. A causal forest model was applied to estimate the heterogeneous treatment effects. ResultsEmployed individuals (n = 1,295) reported better mental health than their non-employed counterparts. This association displayed significant heterogeneity, primarily attributed to pensions. Those with lower pensions may be compelled to work due to financial reasons, thus offsetting the health-promotion effect of employment. ConclusionEmployment may benefit the mental health of older adults, which has a more significant marginal effect on those who are men, older, urban residents, without a spouse, below primary education, receiving more pensions, and less family and friend support.

Governance and Intellectual Capital in Companies that Listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange

Intellectual capital disclosure uses VAIC (Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient) disclosure methodology that reveals the company's ability to manage its intangible assets over time. The research was conducted using the sampling method from the financial statements of companies listed on the IDX. The financial statements used are reports from 2017 to 2021. The purpose of this study is to show that there is a significant positive, negative, or marginal effect between the variable 'independent committee' and corporate governance represented by board size. The number of committee members, block ownership and committee size indicate the dependent variable measured by the VAIC (Value Added Intellectual Coefficient) method, namely the frequency of intellectual capital examination and audit committee meetings. The validation of this research is done by analysis method using Eviews and SPSS program. The results showed that independent committee, committee size, and audit committee size have an effect on VAIC disclosure, while block ownership and the frequency of audit committee meetings do not. Keywords: Corporate Governance, Intellectual Capital, VAIC

Does financial knowledge contribute to the upgrading of the resident's consumption?

This paper examines the impact of residents' financial knowledge on the scale and structure of their consumption. The survey data of CHFS in 2017, 2019 and 2021 are selected as the research samples. The study finds that: improved financial knowledge can significantly promote consumption upgrading; the impact of financial knowledge on the scale of residents' consumption has a more significant marginal effect in rural households, divided into urban and rural households; the digital financial inclusion index will significantly weaken the positive impact of financial knowledge on the scale and structure of households' consumption.

Capital structure decisions under uncertainty: the case of Turkey

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the relationship between uncertainty and target leverage ratios on manufacturing firms listed in Borsa Istanbul between 2005–2020. To handle possible instrument proliferation and weak instrument problems of System GMM methodology of dynamic panel data, we mainly adopted the Quasi Maximum Likelihood estimator and found that uncertainty has a significant negative marginal effect on target leverage ratios. Our analysis revealed that firms with high levels of uncertainty have lower average leverage ratios than other firms. ANCOVA analysis results show that uncertainty is in the first three time-varying variables which have the highest impact on target leverage variation.

Demographic, social and economic factors affecting the adoption of green toilets among rural households in India.

This study investigates the demographic, social and economic factors as key determinants of green toilet adoption among rural households in India. The Rural Impact Survey data of the World Bank have been used for this study, covering 2731 rural households from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. The chi-square test and regression analysis with marginal estimate have been used to analyze the data. Result of the analysis indicates that about 36.2 percent surveyed rural households have reported access to green toilets having proper effluent discharge systems as per the environmental norms. Further, there is a significant association between the adoption of green toilets and demographic, social and economic characteristics of rural households. Finally, the regression analysis indicates that a number of demographic, social and economic factors i.e., age, education, income, social category, access to information, access to drinking water, and asset ownership have a significant marginal effect on the adoption of green toilets in rural India. Considering the importance of ensuring total sanitation and commitment under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations for eradicating open defecation for all by 2030 in the country, the results of the study provide useful policy directions for enhancing the adoption of green toilets among the rural households in India.

Assessing incentives to increase digital payment acceptance and usage: A machine learning approach.

An important step to achieve greater financial inclusion is to increase the acceptance and usage of digital payments. Although consumer adoption of digital payments has improved dramatically globally, the acceptance and usage of digital payments for micro, small, and medium-sized retailers (MSMRs) remain challenging. Using random forest estimation, we identify 14 key predictors out of 190 variables with the largest predictive power for MSMR adoption and usage of digital payments. Using conditional inference trees, we study the importance of sequencing and interactions of various factors such as public policy initiatives, technological advancements, and private sector incentives. We find that in countries with low POS terminal adoption, killer applications such as mobile phone payment apps increase the likelihood of P2B digital transactions. We also find the likelihood of digital P2B payments at MSMRs increases when MSMRs pay their employees and suppliers digitally. The level of ownership of basic financial accounts by consumers and the size of the shadow economy are also important predictors of greater adoption and usage of digital payments. Using causal forest estimation, we find a positive and economically significant marginal effect for merchant and consumer fiscal incentives on POS terminal adoption on average. When countries implement financial inclusion initiatives, POS terminal adoption increases significantly and MSMRs' share of P2B digital payments also increases. Merchant and consumer fiscal incentives also increase MSMRs' share of P2B electronic payments.

Copula-based standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index and its evaluation in China

The standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) lacks the assessment mechanism for the coupling relationship between the magnitudes of the precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (ETP), and water deficit, making it hard to predict the drought precisely. This paper selected the marginal and joint cumulative distribution functions (CDF) of P and −ETP to present their magnitudes and water deficit, respectively. We formatted the Frank copula-based SPEI (SPEIC) to combine the marginal CDFs at 3, 6, 9, and 12-month scales. It indicated that the two-parameter Gamma distribution was the best-fitted marginal CDFs of the P (CDFP) and −ETP (CDF–ETP). The CDFP exerted a slightly more significant marginal effect on the joint CDF than the CDF–ETP at 6 to 12-month scales, indicated by the steeper slope of the CDFP’s marginal curves vs joint CDF. The verified more significant marginal effect denied the implied assumption of the same marginal effects of the P and −ETP using SPEI. The new-constructed SPEIC temporally fluctuated highly consistent with the SPEI in the whole, energy- and water-limited regions of China, indicated by the higher 3 to 12-month-averaged Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient ≥ 0.63 and determination coefficient ≥ 0.75. The SPEIC had a more sensitive detectivity of the drought frequency, indicated by more events detected. Besides, it had a minor sensitive detectivity of the drought severity, indicated by the larger SPEIC under the same specified frequencies of the P and −ETP.

Plasticity across levels: Relating epigenomic, transcriptomic, and phenotypic responses to osmotic stress in a halotolerant microalga.

Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of a given genotype to produce alternative phenotypes in response to its environment of development, is an important mechanism for coping with variable environments. While the mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity are diverse, their relative contributions need to be investigated quantitatively to better understand the evolvability of plasticity across biological levels. This requires relating plastic responses of the epigenome, transcriptome, and organismal phenotype, and investigating how they vary with the genotype. Here we carried out this approach for responses to osmotic stress in Dunaliella salina, a green microalga that is a model organism for salinity tolerance. We compared two strains that show markedly different demographic responses to osmotic stress, and showed that these phenotypic responses involve strain‐ and environment‐specific variation in gene expression levels, but a relative low—albeit significant—effect of strain × environment interaction. We also found an important genotype effect on the genome‐wide methylation pattern, but little contribution from environmental conditions to the latter. However, we did detect a significant marginal effect of epigenetic variation on gene expression, beyond the influence of genetic differences on epigenetic state, and we showed that hypomethylated regions are correlated with higher gene expression. Our results indicate that epigenetic mechanisms are either not involved in the rapid plastic response to environmental change in this species, or involve only few changes in trans that are sufficient to trigger concerted changes in the expression of many genes, and phenotypic responses by multiple traits.

Scaling with body mass and age in glycolytic enzymes of domestic dogs.

Animals produce ATP through oxidative phosphorylation using oxygen, but cellular energy can also be obtained through glycolysis when oxygen is not present at sufficient levels. Although most mammals of larger body mass have longer life spans, small dog breeds tend to outlive large breeds. Primary fibroblast cells from larger breeds of dogs have previously been shown to have increased dependency on glycolytic phenotypes across their lifespan. Different levels of activity of the glycolytic enzymes pyruvate kinase (PK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) may provide insight to a mechanism that leads to the different metabolic phenotype observed in different sized breeds as they age. In this study, 1) we measured the activities of PK, LDH, and PEPCK in primary fibroblasts from dogs of different breed sizes and age classes and 2) measured the activities of PK and LDH inplasmafrom dogs of different breed sizes and age classes. We found that there was no significant relationship between body mass and PK, LDH and PEPCK activity in primary fibroblasts. Further, there were not significant differences with activity in these enzymes for old dogs compared to young dogs. In plasma, we found a negative correlation between PK activity and body mass and no relationship between LDH activity and body mass. There was a negative relationship between LDH activity and age in dogs. Further, while a negative correlational relationship between PK activity and age was only marginal, a best subsets regression model demonstrated a significant marginal effect of age on PK activity. PK and LDH may provide intermediates for other metabolic pathways in small breeds. However, large breed dogs may demonstrate a deficiency in metabolism at the PK level, a cellular metabolic pathway that may potentially aid in tumor progression.

Association of Primary Care Engagement in Value-Based Reform Programs With Health Services Outcomes

Policy makers envision synergistic benefits from primary care reform programs that advance infrastructure and processes in the context of a supportive payment environment. However, these programs have been operationalized and implemented separately, raising the question of whether synergies are achieved. To evaluate associations between primary care engagement in voluntary delivery system and/or payment reform programs and health services outcomes. This was an observational longitudinal analysis of US ambulatory primary care organizations (PCOs) with attributed Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries (1.6-1.9 million unique beneficiaries annually) using data for 2009, 2010, and 2015 to 2017; PCOs included multispecialty practices that delivered primary care. Data analyses were performed from January 2020 to December 2021. Annual PCO participation in or recognition by (1) the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid's meaningful use (MU) program, (2) the National Committee for Quality Assurance's Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program, and/or (3) the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), an Accountable Care Organizations program. Independent and joint associations between an additional year of participation by a PCO in each of the 3 reform programs, and 3 types of outcomes: (1) hospital utilization (all-cause admissions, ambulatory care sensitive admissions, all-cause readmissions, all-cause emergency department visits); (2) evidence-based diabetes guideline adherence (≥1 annual glycated hemoglobin test, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol test, nephropathy screening, and eye examination); and (3) Medicare spending (total, acute inpatient, and skilled nursing facility). The study sample comprised 47 880 unique PCOs (size ≤10 beneficiaries, 50%; ≤1-2 clinicians, 65%) and approximately 5.61 million unique Medicare beneficiaries (mean [SD] age, 71.4 [12.7] years; 3 207 568 [57.14%] women; 4 474 541 [79.71%] non-Hispanic White individuals) across the study years (2009, 2010, 2015-2017). Of the hospital utilization measures, only ambulatory care sensitive admission was associated with improved performance, showing a statistically significant marginal effect size for joint participation in MU and MSSP (-0.0002; 95% CI, -0.0005 to 0.0000) and MSSP alone (-0.0003; 95% CI, -0.0005 to -0.0001). For diabetes adherence, joint participation in PCMH and MU was associated with 0.06 more measures met (95% CI, 0.03 to 0.10) while participation in all 3 programs was associated with 0.05 more measures met (95% CI, 0.02 to 0.09). Stand-alone PCMH and stand-alone MU participation were also associated with improved performance. Joint participation in MU and MSSP was associated with $33.89 lower spending (95% CI, -$65.79 to -$1.99) as was stand-alone MSSP participation (-$37.04; 95% CI, -$65.73 to -$8.35). This longitudinal observational study found that participation by PCOs in single or multiple reform programs was associated with better performance for only a subset of health services outcomes. More consistent and larger synergies may be realized with improved alignment of program requirements and goals.

Intermittency in Wind Energy and Emissions from the Electricity Sector: Evidence from 13 Years of Data

Renewable subsidies and mandates currently play a central role in the environmental and energy policy in the United States, one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters. Therefore, accurately estimating the environmental benefits from wind energy is key to evaluating the existing policies and setting future directions and has been studied within a growing body of the literature. However, most of the existing studies do not take the intermittency into account, and the small number of studies that do only study a relatively short time period limiting the extent to which they can be informative within different ranges of wind generation capacity. In this paper, we present the first estimates of the environmental benefits of wind energy generation using a dataset that spans well over a decade. Specifically, we use 13 years of hourly and sub-hourly data to estimate the causal effect of wind generation and its intermittency on CO2, NOx, and SO2 emissions from the electricity sector in Texas. Additionally, we compared the full sample results to those from sub-samples where the dataset is divided into subgroups based on wind output level. We found that while wind generation clearly has a statistically significant negative marginal effect on all pollutants we studied, the marginal effect of intermittency varies across different wind output levels in a highly irregular way. Our findings suggest that conducting pooled analyses has the potential to mask the irregularity in the variation of the effect of intermittency in wind generation across different wind output levels.

How does duplicate tweeting boost social media exposure to scholarly articles?

• Few studies disclose how duplicate tweeting strategy boosts social media exposure to online information, especially to scientific publications. • Several novel metrics are proposed to measure the behavior of duplicate tweeting. • Social media exposures to scholarly articles have significant marginal effects as the number of duplicate tweeting increases. • The interval of duplicate tweeting is negatively correlated with social media exposure to scholarly articles. • Posting non-duplicate content can bring more online exposure to articles, facilitating more discussion or conversations. Duplicate tweeting is a kind of behavior that a user posts the same or substantially similar original tweets to one or several topics multiple times in a row, which is commonly used to boost social media exposure to online information. However, how this behavior boosts social media exposure to online information, especially to scientific publications, is still unclear. In this study, we use the number of retweets an article received as a proxy for social media exposure to the article. Based on the duplicate tweeting records of 12,263 users on Twitter from 2011 to 2017, we find that social media exposure to scholarly articles has a significant marginal effect as the number of duplicate tweeting ( k ) increases. It ramps up a peak value when k is between 2 and 4 and goes down when k takes a greater value. We also find that a longer posting interval can sharply reduce social media exposure to scholarly articles, and posting non-duplicate content can significantly improve the exposure. Our findings not only help scientists and journal publishers effectively improve the social impact of their research outputs but also advance the understanding of the diffusion processes of scholarly articles.

Determinants of digital banking adoption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A technology acceptance model approach

This study aims at investigating the determinants of digital banking adoption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The study is based on data from the 2017 Global Financial Inclusion Survey covering 1009 respondents, which has been analysed using simple analytical tools such as the chi-square test and logistics regression. About 51.5% of respondents reported adoption of digital banking in Saudi Arabia. The factor of trust in digital banking has been added to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in predicting digital banking technology adoption. The two constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) i.e. perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU), show a significant and positive marginal effect on the adoption of digital banking, whereas trust indicates a negative and significant marginal impact with controlling effect of age and education of the consumers. This study provides valuable insights for financial institutions, consumers, business entities and researchers in promoting the digital banking system in Saudi Arabia.

The relationship between equine pastern dermatitis, meteorological factors, and the skin microbiota.

BackgroundEquine pastern dermatitis (EPD) is a multifactorial syndrome, with prolonged exposure to moisture assumed to be a predisposing or primary factor.Hypothesis/ObjectivesTo examine the course of EPD lesion severity, changes in bacterial skin microbiota, and the influence of meteorological factors.AnimalsProspective, longitudinal cohort study over a one‐year period, with six Franches‐Montagnes stallions, four affected by EPD and two unaffected, that were kept under the same conditions.Methods and materialsPasterns were scored for lesion severity and sampled once a month for 12 consecutive months. Lesion severity, the skin microbiota and meteorological factors were examined for associations.ResultsEPD lesions tended to worsen in autumn and at the beginning of spring. The relationship between lesion severity and the meteorological factor precipitation was not clearly evident; high scores were preceded by both low or high rates of precipitation. Microbiota in affected pasterns appeared to have experienced a reduction in alpha diversity. Beta diversity analyses demonstrated that bacterial community structures were altered in affected versus unaffected pasterns, and that alterations were more pronounced with higher EPD scores (P = 0.005). Meteorological factors also had considerable influences on the bacterial composition, whereby these influences appeared to be more marked in the affected pasterns (P = 0.001, F = 3.19) than in unaffected ones (P = 0.005, F = 1.83).Conclusions and clinical relevanceOur study provides preliminary observations of the relationships between lesion severity, meteorological factors and cutaneous bacteria. The population was too small to draw firm conclusions, and further studies on environmental factors and the involvement of bacteria in this multifactorial disease are needed.

Mobile money adoption, input use, and farm output among smallholder rice farmers in Ghana

AbstractFinancial exclusion continues to be a major challenge to smallholder farmers' participation in agricultural value chains in developing countries. Digitizing procurements and other forms of transactions using mobile money technology among value chain actors is essential for ensuring financial inclusion and enhancing agricultural value chain transformation. This study examines the factors influencing the adoption of mobile money technology and the impact of the technology on production input use and farm output, utilizing data from a cross‐sectional survey of smallholder rice farmers in northern Ghana. A linear regression with endogenous treatment effects method is employed to account for both observable and unobservable selection bias. The results reveal positive and significant marginal effect of mobile money technology on input use and farm output. Adopters of the technology applied 18% and 13% more fertilizer and herbicides, respectively than nonadopters. The output increased by about 4% for the adopters. The results also show that mobile money technology adoption, input use and farm output are significantly influenced by education, farmer‐based organization (FBO) membership, access to credit, input prices, and location fixed effects. Expansion of mobile technology networks, increased investment in education, credit facilities, and FBOs can be quite relevant in promoting the adoption of mobile money technology in Ghana. [EconLit citations: C34, C35, Q12, Q13]

Hot gas ingestion in chute rim seal clearance of gas turbine

Abstract The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solver was used to calculate, using a test rig to verify the accuracy. The interaction mechanism between different sealed cooling air and gas ingestion at the rotor-stator cavity and chute rim clearance has been investigated. Several groups of representative sealed cooling air flow were selected to explore the cooling efficiency, flow characteristics, tangential and radial velocity ratios in the cavity and the pressure potential field characteristics of trailing edge. The conclusions are obtained: the sealed cooling air flow rate has a significant marginal effect on the sealing effect. The gas ingestion behavior under the small sealed cooling air flow belongs to the disc cavity intrusion, and the intrusion and outflow regions at the of rim clearance are obviously divided into the intrusion characteristic section and the outflow characteristic section. The ingestion behavior under large sealed cooling air flow belongs to clearance ingestion, and the intrusion flow is limited to the chute rim clearance position, which cannot be further penetrated into the cavity. At this time, the clearance area and the cavity area become independent, and the gas ingestion characteristics depend more on the internal flow of the clearance and the vortex structure formed.

Hot gas ingestion in chute rim seal clearance of gas turbine

Abstract The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solver was used to calculate, using a test rig to verify the accuracy. The interaction mechanism between different sealed cooling air and gas ingestion at the rotor-stator cavity and chute rim clearance has been investigated. Several groups of representative sealed cooling air flow were selected to explore the cooling efficiency, flow characteristics, tangential and radial velocity ratios in the cavity and the pressure potential field characteristics of trailing edge. The conclusions are obtained: the sealed cooling air flow rate has a significant marginal effect on the sealing effect. The gas ingestion behavior under the small sealed cooling air flow belongs to the disc cavity intrusion, and the intrusion and outflow regions at the of rim clearance are obviously divided into the intrusion characteristic section and the outflow characteristic section. The ingestion behavior under large sealed cooling air flow belongs to clearance ingestion, and the intrusion flow is limited to the chute rim clearance position, which cannot be further penetrated into the cavity. At this time, the clearance area and the cavity area become independent, and the gas ingestion characteristics depend more on the internal flow of the clearance and the vortex structure formed.

The Heterogeneous Public Debt–Growth Relationship: The Role of the Expenditure Multiplier

Currently countries are facing a new crisis caused by the COVID-19, which leads to the rise of government expenditures and additional borrowing. This situation highlights the importance of examine factors which determine the level of public debt that still sustains economic growth. A growing body of research supports the idea of a non-linear debt–growth relationship and estimates the threshold level above which debt becomes unsustainable and has a negative effect on output. The empirical evidence points out that there is no single sustainable debt threshold level that holds for all countries. This research complements scarce empirical evidence on the heterogeneous debt–growth relationship and provides some insights on the publicly available statistical indicators that might signal a relatively low/high expenditure multiplier and, at the same time, potentially unsustainable/sustainable growth stimulus through the use of borrowed funds. We test the hypothesis that the expenditure multiplier is shaping the impact of public debt on growth. Our empirical examination is based on panel data analysis in the groups of countries with expected relatively high and low expenditure multiplier. Research results show that a statistically significant negative marginal effect of debt on growth starts to manifest at a lower debt-to-GDP ratio when the expenditure multiplier is lower and vice-versa. The study shed some light on the sources of heterogeneity in a debt–growth relationship. We can conclude that countries with a high expenditure multiplier level can borrow more and sustain growth. In contrast, in countries with a lower expenditure multiplier, a relatively low debt level becomes unsustainable for growth.