Standard Deviation Rise Research Articles

INFLUENCE OF QUALITY CIRCLES ON LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY IN THE JUDICIAL SERVICE IN NYERI COUNTY

Labour productivity was an important factor in the success of a company. A company’s output was as much dependent on labour productivity as it was on capital productivity. The study sought to examine the influence of quality circles on labour productivity in the judicial service in Nyeri County. The study adopted the descriptive design. The target population comprised 43 Magistrates, 93 Court Administrators, and 145 Lawyers (members of the Nyeri Law Society). Using 30% representation, a sample size of 13 Magistrates, 21 court administrators, and 44 Lawyers (members of the Nyeri Law Society) was utilized. The study used cluster random sampling to select 8 clusters, stratified sampling to identify the sample within each cluster, and simple random sampling to choose respondents from each stratum. It collected quantitative and qualitative data using questionnaires and interviews, then used statistical analysis to organize, summarize, and present the data. Quantitative data was analyzed with descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviation) and presented in tables, graphs, and charts. The study demonstrates there is a very strong positive correlation between labour productivity in courts and quality circles, with a coefficient of 0.875 and a significance level of 0.000. This means that courts that implement quality circles tend to have higher levels of labour productivity The regression analysis shows that technology use significantly enhances productivity, with a one-unit increase resulting in a 0.265 standard deviation rise (Beta = 0.265, p = .026). The study recommended that the judicial service should improve the technology infrastructure to boost productivity and performance in the legal sector.

THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY USE ON LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY IN THE JUDICIAL SERVICE IN NYERI COUNTY

Labour productivity was an important factor in the success of a company. A company’s output was as much dependent on labour productivity as it was on capital productivity. The study sought to examine the influence of technology used on labour productivity in the judicial service in Nyeri regional courts. The study adopted the descriptive design. The target population comprised 43 Magistrates, 93 Court Administrators, and 145 Lawyers (members of the Nyeri Law Society). Using 30% representation, a sample size of 13 Magistrates, 21 court administrators, and 44 Lawyers (members of the Nyeri Law Society) was utilized. The study used cluster random sampling to select 8 clusters, stratified sampling to identify the sample within each cluster, and simple random sampling to choose respondents from each stratum. It collected quantitative and qualitative data using questionnaires and interviews, then used statistical analysis to organize, summarize, and present the data. Quantitative data was analyzed with descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviation) and presented in tables, graphs, and charts. The study demonstrates a very strong positive correlation between labour productivity in courts and technology used (coefficient of 0.746 with a significance level of 0.000. The regression analysis shows that technology use significantly enhances productivity, with a one-unit increase resulting in a 0.265 standard deviation rise (Beta = 0.265, p = .026). The study recommended that the judicial service should improve the technology infrastructure to boost productivity and performance in the legal sector.

The causal association of cheese intake with type 2 diabetes mellitus result from a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

IntroductionWorldwide, type 2 diabetes is a major health concern with numerous risk factors. In observational studies, cheese consumption has been linked to type 2 diabetes, however it is still unclear whether these relationships are causal. To ascertain these relationships, we performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study.Material and methodsA summary of cheese intake statistics from UK Biobank and publicly available genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for type 2 diabetes from IEU OpenGWAS, FinnGen Biobank, EBI GWAS, and Biobank Japan, respectivel. The primary method was pooled meta-analysis with the inverse variance weighting method. The sensitivity analyses included MR-Egger regression, weighted median, weighted mode, and leave-one-out. MR estimations of causation were reported as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).ResultsIn the pooled meta-analysis of the fixed and random effect model, the combined ORs for type 2 diabetes were 0.58 (95% CI: 0.50-0.68, P<0.001) and 0.50 (95%CI: 0.32-0.78, P=0.003) per standard deviation rise in the levels of cheese intake. Sensitivity analysis revealed no horizontal pleiotropy (all P>0.05) but heterogeneity (all P<0.05).ConclusionsWe found that moderate consumption of beneficial cheese may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. These findings suggested that increasing cheese intake appropriate for humans may help prevent and control type 2 diabetes.

How does air pollution affect household consumption? Evidence from China.

Increasing air pollution not only affects the population's health but also changes its consumption structures and patterns. Using China Family Panel Studies, this study investigates the relationship between air pollution and household consumption. The findings reveal that household consumption is considerably affected by air pollution: One standard deviation rise of PM2.5 concentration will decrease the household consumption by 8.7%. Moreover, this effect is irreversible in the short term. What is more, air pollution has significantly changed consumption structure and patterns. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the influence of air pollution on consumption generates the so-called Matthew Effect, wherein medium and low-income and rural households are exposed to a greater negative effect. Mechanism tests indicate that air pollution may reduce household consumption through three channels: increase negative emotions, decrease outdoor activities, and depress future expectations. The conclusions drawn in this paper enrich our understanding of the economic impact caused by air pollution and bring important significance to the government in promoting the coordination and sustainable development of the environment and economy.

Firm-level political uncertainty, corporate lobbying and risk-taking

Prior research shows that political uncertainty affects general economic and firm-related outcomes. However, little is known about how firm-specific political uncertainty is related to corporate risk-taking. Taking advantage of a recent construct and using a large sample of non-financial U.S. firms covering the period between 2002 and 2021, we find compelling evidence that firm-specific political uncertainty is positively related to corporate risk-taking, especially for larger firms. On average, a one standard deviation rise in the level of political risk at the firm-level results in a 2.53% increase in risk-taking. Further analysis shows that the impact of firm-level political uncertainty on corporate risk-taking is more pronounced for firms that spend more on corporate lobbying. Our results are significant and robust to alternative risk-taking measures and endogeneity tests.

Causations between obesity, diabetes, lifestyle factors andthe risk of low back pain.

Despite numerous observational studies, the causal relationship between obesity-measured by body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC)-as well as type 2 diabetes (T2D), lifestyle habits, and susceptibility to low back pain (LBP) remains obscure. This investigation employed two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to explore causality, using genetic variants linked to relevant factors from genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Specifically, we selected independent genetic variants related to BMI, WC, T2D, smoking, alcohol consumption, and coffee intake from established GWASs, all of which demonstrated genome-wide significance. The comparative data for LBP were derived from a GWAS involving European subjects, under the auspices of the renowned MRC-IEU (Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit) consortium. Elevated BMI and WC were associated with odds ratios of 1.002 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.001-1.004, p < 0.001) and 1.003 (95% CI = 1.002-1.004, p < 0.001) for LBP per standard deviation (SD) increase, respectively. Regarding smoking initiation and coffee consumption, the odds ratios stood at 1.002 (95% CI = 1.001-1.004, p = 0.001) and 1.004 (95% CI = 1.001-1.008, p = 0.034) for LBP, respectively. However, an augmented log odds ratio for T2D and each SD rise in alcohol consumption frequency revealed no significant causal impact on LBP risk. Our findings indicate a potential causal link between obesity, smoking, and coffee intake in the genesis of LBP, suggesting that mitigating these factors could contribute to LBP prevention.

Impacts of Air Pollution on Chinese Expressions of Happiness on Social Media

Many studies have demonstrated that air quality is an important factor affecting national well-being. Is there a relationship between air pollution and people’s happiness? To explore this, more than 40,000 haze-related tweets on the Chinese largest microblog platform SinaWeibo were collected. Using daily data for 6 Chinese cities from January 1 to February 12, 2023, we applied natural language processing (NLP) to analyze theWeibo tweets and construct a daily city-level expressed happiness metric. A fixed effects model was applied to reveal the relationship between air pollution and happiness. We found that&#x0D; a one standard deviation rise in the Air Quality Index corresponded to a 0.042 standard deviation fall in the happiness index on average. People in large and rich cities are more sensitive to air pollution, and people suffer more from air pollution on weekends and holidays than on workdays. This project may provide new insights into air pollution and public engagement, and help governments and related institutions to better understand the public’s needs regarding air quality.

Economic policy uncertainty and shadow banking: Firm-level evidence from China

This paper identifies the causal effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the shadow banking activities of nonfinancial enterprises (NFEs) in China. Using hand-collected data on corporate shadow banking during the period of 2007–2019, we find that there is a positive effect of EPU on shadow banking activities of NFEs and a one standard deviation increase in EPU is significantly associated with a 0.0690 standard deviation rise of firms’ shadow banking business. Furthermore, the effect is more prominent in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and in firms with high external financing dependence. Financing constraints and the yield spreads between financial and real investments are the main channels through which EPU affects firms’ shadow banking business. Our findings shed fresh light on the understanding of how uncertainty regarding economic policies affects firm investment decisions and enrich the study of determinants of firm financialization.

The social transmission of economic sentiment on consumption

This paper investigates the causal effect of economic sentiment on consumption using Gallup micro-data between 2008 and 2017. After showing that individuals update their beliefs about the national state of the economy in response to local housing and labor market fluctuations, I use the Facebook Social Connectedness Index (SCI) to construct an SCI-weighted index of housing price growth that captures individuals’ exposure to housing market shocks in connected zip codes. Using plausibly exogenous variation in individuals’ exposure to friends who experience heterogeneous housing price growth, I find that a standard deviation rise in economic sentiment is associated with a 17.3–24.6% rise in consumption of non-durables.

The Role of Investor Relations and Good Corporate Governance on Firm Performance in the Case of the Companies Listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange

The objective of this paper is to investigate the role of Investor Relations (IR) in the performance of companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The study is motivated by the findings in the literature that investor relations may boost information disclosure, analyst following, institutional investor share, liquidity, and business valuation. The current article contributes to the relevant literature by making use of the recently released unique database of VEKTOR scores on company investor relations for 2019 and 2020. The main finding based on regression methodology shows that IR scores have a strong positive relationship with firm performance. Specifically, a one standard deviation rise in the IR score corresponds to a 2.6% rise in company ROA. Companies may be advised to strengthen their investor relations based on these findings about the beneficial role of investor relations.

An analysis of pedestrian crash trends and contributing factors in Texas

Introduction & research objectivesPedestrian crash rates and deaths have risen across the United States over the past decade, in contrast to motor vehicle traffic crash counts and rates. Analysis of pedestrian crash rates per vehicle-mile traveled and walk-mile traveled (VMT and WMT) illuminates the impacts of homelessness, land development densities, income, weather, and many other variables across the State of Texas, helping to propel more effective safety policies. MethodsThis study examines key factors for and countermeasures against pedestrian crashes, while predicting pedestrian crash rates per VMT and WMT, as sourced from the Texas DOT (TxDOT) and the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) add-on sample. Crash data from TxDOT's Crash Records Information System (CRIS) database were analyzed using an ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression by controlling for a variety of socioeconomic, climate, and roadway design variables, including homelessness, which has emerged as a serious issue along freeway rights-of-way in many U.S. urban areas. ResultsAt the county level in Texas, there is a moderately positive relationship between job density and pedestrian crash rates, but a practically significant and negative relationship with population density. Median income and homelessness have very practically significant, positive impacts on pedestrian crash and fatality rates. For example, a 1 standard deviation increase in homelessness per 1000 residents is associated with a +14.4% of 1 standard deviation rise in the total pedestrian crash rate per WMT at the county level, all else constant. Similarly, pedestrian crashes per WMT rise in a notable way with the share of children under age 17 and rates of homelessness. ConclusionsThese results suggest significant positive relationships between pedestrian crash rates per VMT and per WMT with respect to household incomes and homelessness, at the county level. Pedestrian crashes and pedestrian deaths per WMT also reveal practically significant contributions by larger youth populations and poverty rates. A weaker but still practically significant relationship exists between crash rates per VMT and population growth rate, warranting further investigation on the relationship between exurban land use patterns and pedestrian crashes.

Do product market reforms raise innovation? Evidence from Micro-data across 12 countries

How does policy affect innovation and the digital economy? We revisit how product market regulation affects innovation and develop a novel framework for thinking about digital regulation. Using new company-level micro-data across 12 countries between 1998 and 2012, this paper first estimates the effect of competition policy on innovation. We find that a standard deviation rise in standardized index of product market regulation is associated with a 1.03% decline in innovation activities. These declines are a result of product market regulation on the incentives to invest in in-house R&D and make the appropriate capital acquisitions, as well as of the effects of regulation on the cost of innovation activities. We then theorize on the effect of digital regulation on innovation and we empirically explore it on a sub-sample of the years in our analysis. We find that “protective regulation”, i.e., regulation that creates predictability and scope for markets to work, confers a positive effect on innovation, while “restrictive regulation”, i.e., regulation that endeavors to spell out negative behaviors, confers a negative effect on innovation. We also find that the digital regulation results are more sensitive to the content of regulation. We attribute this ambiguity to the fact that markers require an enhanced level of trust to be operative.

Individual investor ownership and the news coverage premium

If widely-circulated news providers cater to the information demands of individual investors, stocks with high individual ownership should receive more news coverage, theoretically resulting in lower volatility and a lower cost of capital. In this paper, I explore this hypothesis by utilizing the extensive news sources available in Bloomberg Terminals to construct a monthly panel dataset of S&P 500 firms between 2012 and 2019. I verify that companies with a higher percentage of individual investor ownership receive more news coverage, and that this effect is strongest among larger firms. In order to quantify the importance of this mechanism for stock prices, I estimate a panel VAR model and conduct a counterfactual analysis where the news coverage response to exogenous shifts in ownership composition is effectively “shut off”. The counterfactual analysis implies that an increase in news coverage triggered by a one standard deviation rise in individual ownership reduces annual stock volatility by 0.51% and annual returns by 0.135%, suggesting that the individual investor-news coverage channel partially offsets the more well-documented informational advantages of institutional ownership.

Impacts of climate shocks on household consumption and inequality in India

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of climate shocks, measured as temperature and precipitation variability, on real monthly per capita consumption expenditure of Indian households over the 1988–2012 period, utilising data from the National Sample Survey Organisation's Consumer Expenditure Surveys. The regression results show an increase in consumption by 1.2 per cent on average, in response to a one standard deviation rise in temperature, with heterogeneous impacts across economic sectors. While agricultural and industrial households experience consumption declines of 1.7 per cent and 8.3 per cent on average, service sector households exhibit consumption increases by 2.4–9.6 per cent on average across rural and urban regions, in response to a one standard deviation rise in temperature. The analysis suggests an increase in inequality of consumption across sectors due to climatic shocks, with implications for climate policy and sustainable development in India.

The effect of maternal and paternal height and weight on antenatal, perinatal and postnatal morphology in sex-stratified analyses.

Low birthweight is associated with diseases later in life. The mechanisms for these associations are not well known. If the hypothesis concerning "maternal constraint" is correct for humans, as shown in animal experiments, we expect the maternal, not paternal, body proportions to influence antenatal growth and those of both parents to influence postnatal growth. We aimed to study the effect of maternal and paternal height and weight on fetal femur length antenatally (gestational weeks 20 and 30) and body length and weight at birth and postnatally (12 and 24months old) in both sexes. In this prospective cohort study, 399 healthy pregnant women aged 20-42years were recruited at The Mercy Hospital for Woman, Melbourne, Australia from 2008 to 2009. Fetal femur length was measured using antenatal ultrasound (gestational weeks 20 and 30). Body length and weight were measured for parents and offspring at birth and postnatally (12 and 24months). Each standard deviation (SD) rise in maternal weight (15.5kg) was associated with 0.24 SD (0.5mm) and 0.18 SD (0.4mm) longer femur length in female and male fetuses at week 20 and 0.17 SD (0.5mm) and 0.38 SD (1.1mm) longer femur length in female and male fetuses at week 30, respectively. In girls, each SD rise in paternal height (7.2cm) was associated with 0.29 SD (0.6cm) longer birth length. In boys, each SD rise in maternal height (6.7cm) was associated with 0.23 SD (0.5cm) longer birth length. In both sexes, parental height and weight were associated with offspring length and weight at 12 and 24months (SD ranging from 0.20 to 0.38, length from 0.7 to 1.5cm and weight from 0.3 to 0.6kg). The multivariable linear regression analyses were adjusted for parental age, height and weight, maternal smoking, alcohol intake, parity, and ethnicity, all P<0.05. Maternal, not paternal, body proportions determined fetal growth in both sexes. Paternal height predicted birth length in girls. In contrast, maternal height predicted birth length in boys. Both parents predicted postnatal body proportions at 12 and 24months in both sexes.

Do Product Market Reforms Raise Innovation? Evidence from Micro-data Across 12 Countries

How does policy affect innovation and the digital economy? We revisit how standard product market regulation affects innovation and develop a novel framework for thinking about digital regulation. Using new establishment-level micro-data across 12 countries between 1998 and 2012, this paper first estimates the effect of competition policy on innovation. We find that a standard deviation rise in standardized index of product market regulation is associated with a 1.029% decline in innovation activities. These declines are a result of product market regulation on the incentives to invest in in-house R&D and make the appropriate capital acquisitions, as well as of the effects of regulation on the cost of innovation activities. We then theorize on the effect of digital regulation on innovation and we empirically test our hypothesis using a sub-sample of the years in our analysis. We find that “protective regulation”, i.e., regulation that creates predictability and scope for markets to work, confers a positive effect on innovation, while “restrictive regulation”, i.e., regulation that endeavors to spell out negative behaviors, confers a negative effect on innovation. We also find that the digital regulation results are more sensitive to the content of regulation. We attribute this ambiguity to the fact that markers require an enhanced level of trust to be operative.

Sentimental Business Cycles and the Protracted Great Recession

This paper investigates the causal effect of economic sentiment on consumption using micro-data between 2008 and 2017. After showing that individuals update their beliefs about the national state of the economic in response to local housing and labor market fluctuations, I use the Social Connectedness Index (SCI) to construct an SCI-weighted index of housing price growth that captures individuals' exposure to housing market shocks in friends' zipcodes. Using plausibly exogenous variation in individuals' exposure to friends who experience heterogeneous housing price growth, I find that a standard deviation rise in economic sentiment is associated with a 0.16-0.22% rise in consumption of non-durables.

Prenatal Temperature Shocks Reduce Cooperation: Evidence from Public Goods Games in Uganda.

Climate change has not only led to a sustained rise in mean global temperature over the past decades, but also increased the frequency of extreme weather events. This paper explores the effect of temperature shocks in utero on later-life taste for cooperation. Using historical climate data combined with data on child and adult behavior in public goods games, I show that abnormally high ambient temperatures during gestation are associated with decreased individual contributions to the public good in a statistically and economically significant way. A 1 standard deviation rise in mean ambient temperature during gestation is associated with a 10% point decrease in children's cooperation rate in a dichotomous public goods game, and the reduced taste for cooperation lasts into adulthood.

Cognitive Abilities, Democracy and Intellectual Property Rights Protection

The goal of this research is to investigate the link between cognitive abilities, as measured by cognitive abilities index and intellectual property rights protection using cross-national data. The findings suggest that cognitive abilities at a national level are significantly related with IPR protection. As expected intellectual capacity is positively and significantly related to the intellectual property rights and explain nearly 23% of cross national differences. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in the cognitive abilities index is associated with slightly less than a half standard deviation rise in IPR index. However, 65% of the effect of cognitive abilities on IPR protection is mediated by the democratic institutions.

Could Malaria Control Programmes be Timed to Coincide with Onset of Rainfall?

Malaria cases in South Africa's Northern Province of Limpopo have surpassed known endemic KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga Provinces. This paper applies statistical methods: regression analysis and impulse response function to understand the timing of impact and the length that such impacts last. Climate data (rainfall and temperature) are obtained from South African Weather Services (SAWs); global data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), while clinical malaria data came from Malaria Control Centre in Tzaneen (Limpopo Province). Data collected span from January 1998 to July 2007. Signs of the coefficients are positive for rainfall and temperature and negative for their exponents. Three out of five independent variables consistently maintain a very high statistical level of significance. The coefficients for climate variables describe an inverted u-shape: parameters for the exponents of rainfall (-0.02, -0.01, -0.02, -0.00) and temperature (-46.61, -47.46, -48.14, -36.04) are both negative. A one standard deviation rise in rainfall (rainfall onset) increases malaria cases, and the effects become sustained for at least 3months and conclude that onset of rainfall therefore triggers a 'malaria season'. Malaria control programme and early warning system should be intensified in the first 3months following the onset of rainfall.