Survey Evidence Research Articles

The food security of residents and refugees of Ukraine after the Russian invasion

In this paper, survey evidence is used to examine the food security impacts of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. We focus on both residents of Ukraine and those fleeing to one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, Switzerland. Our questionnaire was sent to both Ukrainian residents and migrants to Switzerland between October 2022 and February 2023. 80% of respondents (n = 1267) indicated that they faced some form of food insecurity, most commonly an inability to eat balanced meals and/or running out of food without being able to buy more. Yet the incidence of more severe forms of food insecurity, including cutting and skipping meals for multiple months, eating less than needed, and feeling hungry without eating, affected more than 20% of the surveyed populations in both countries. Food insecurity for both residents of Ukraine and refugees in Switzerland is significantly more severe for households who perceive themselves to have below average income. In Ukraine higher food insecurity is identified in the conflict’s frontline regions and among larger households with less domestic food production. In Switzerland, women report lower access to many coping mechanisms (producing, trading, or borrowing food). This study underscores the urgent need for improved food programs in conflict zones as well as countries that host refugees, particularly where domestic food prices are very high and language barriers reduce income opportunities.

State Officials’ Impact on Peace Agreement Implementation: Insights from Colombia

ABSTRACT This article interrogates how state officials can influence peace agreement implementation on the ground, focusing on Colombian local-level bureaucrats involved in the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement. Integrating rarely appreciated insights from public administration into peacebuilding research, it presents unique survey and complementary qualitative evidence generated through long-term research on-site (2021–2023). The article argues that, despite legal, institutional and administrative constraints, Colombian state officials significantly shape the inclusivity of the sub-national implementation process and support community actors to varying degrees and in diverse ways. Therefore, it advocates for greater attention to state officials in peacebuilding research more generally.

Maize yield responsiveness and profitability of fertilizer: New survey evidence from six African countries

Maize yield responsiveness and profitability of fertilizer: New survey evidence from six African countries

Housing wealth and long‐term care insurance demand: Survey evidence

Housing wealth and long‐term care insurance demand: Survey evidence

The effect of institutional trust on the relationship between social media as an information resource and policy non-compliance: Dutch survey evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

The abundance of information on social media, partly conflicting with government information, might negatively affect citizens’ compliance with policies. Based on Dutch representative survey data from the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that citizens who ranked social media as a more important information resource were generally less compliant with COVID-19 measures and less willing to get vaccinated. A higher ranking of social media is more strongly associated with non-compliance among citizens with lower levels of institutional trust. Based on these findings, we suggest that efforts to encourage compliance should focus not only on countering misinformation, but also on enhancing institutional trust. Points for practitioners Citizens who ranked social media as a more important information resource on COVID-19 were less compliant with government COVID-19 measures and less willing to get vaccinated. This relationship was strongest among citizens with low levels of trust in the institutions of government involved in managing the pandemic. To enhance compliance with policy measures, government efforts should focus not only on countering misinformation, but also on enhancing trust in government institutions.

Intra-household dynamics and attitudes towards vaccines: Experimental and survey evidence from zambia

Intra-household dynamics and attitudes towards vaccines: Experimental and survey evidence from zambia

Popular Constitutionalism, Legal Pragmatism, and Support for Judicial Reform

The American public has high levels of support for various types of judicial reform, and in this article, we show using survey evidence that the public’s perception of the U.S. Supreme Court’s actual decision-making process and their normative preference for what SHOULD influence that process strongly affect support for six different judicial reforms. We confirm the conventional wisdom that those who perceive the Court as politicized have higher levels of support for reform. In addition, we show that those who desire a more representative court and support the doctrine of legal pragmatism also exhibit high levels of support. We argue that judicial reform advocates should design their campaigns to appeal to those who desire a more representative and pragmatic court, as that could expand the coalition of reform supporters beyond those who disagree with the policy of a Court they see as politicized.

When petroleum revenue transparency policy meets citizen engagement reality: Survey evidence from Indonesia

When petroleum revenue transparency policy meets citizen engagement reality: Survey evidence from Indonesia

Speculating on Higher-Order Beliefs

Abstract Higher-order beliefs—beliefs about others’ beliefs—may be important for trading behavior and asset prices but have received little systematic empirical examination. Examining more than 20 years of evidence from the Robert Shiller Investor Confidence surveys, we find that investors’ higher-order beliefs provide substantial motivations for nonfundamental speculation–taking a stock market position that conflicts with one’s valuation of the market. To explore the equilibrium implications, we construct a model that matches the survey evidence and highlights that investors’ higher-order beliefs amplify stock market overreaction and excess volatility. (JEL G12, G40)

Values as Luxury Goods and Political Behavior

Abstract Motivated by novel survey evidence, we develop a theory of political behavior in which the relative weight voters place on values rather than material considerations increases in income. The model unifies several stylized facts about US politics and makes new predictions. The luxury goods idea implies—and two datasets confirm—that rich moral liberals are considerably more likely to vote against their economic interests than poor moral conservatives, cautioning against the common narrative that the working class is particularly politically motivated by values. For sufficiently morally liberal voters, increased income can even reduce the likelihood of voting for Republicans. Rich liberals’ and poor conservatives’ asymmetric priorities also explain why Democrats are internally more heterogeneous than Republicans, and why income and voting Republican are positively correlated across voters but negatively across states. Finally, we interpret the secular partisan realignment of rich moral liberals and poor moral conservatives through our model.

The Reliance on Computer-mediated Communication by Audit Firms During the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in audit firms relying on Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) when communicating with their clients. Although most audit firms employed CMC to some extent before the pandemic, their use of it increased with the onset of the pandemic because of the prohibition of face-to-face communication. This study aims to discover how auditors used CMC during the pandemic, and in particular, which CMC tools were used most frequently. While the shift to CMC during the COVID-19 pandemic was mandatory, its increased use is expected to influence audit firm adoption of CMC following the pandemic period. Thus, this study also investigates this intention for continued use and how it varies with audit firm size. Finally, the study investigates whether audit firm size affects the cooperation between auditors and their clients when employing CMC. Based on both interviews and survey evidence, the use of CMC is found to be more pervasive after the pandemic than before it. Further, smaller audit firms expect to rely more than bigger audit firms on CMC following the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the study revealed that the clients of larger audit firms are more cooperative when auditors communicate with them using CMC during the pandemic than is the case for smaller audit firms. These results should be of significant interest to audit firms, especially smaller firms that may decide to invest more in CMC following the COVID-19 period. In addition, regulatory bodies should provide more detailed guidance to audit firms in terms of their use of CMC technologies.

GeoStoryTelling: An Integrative Multi-Media Methodology and No-Code, Cost-Free Software to GeoContextualize Ethnographic, Health, and Survey Evidence

Our life stories evolve in specific and contextualized places. Although our households may be our primarily shaping environment, our neighborhoods expose us to the immediate “real world” outside home. Indeed, the places where we are currently experiencing and have experienced life play fundamental roles in the development of our identities, beliefs, fears, perceptions of the world, and even in the (mis)understanding of our prospects of social mobility. Despite the analytic benefits that knowledge of the places and contexts where we experience life brings to better understanding our life stories and health outcomes, most qualitative, health, and mixed methods researchers continue to forego the analytic and elucidating power that geo-contextualizing our participants' narratives bring to our analyses, research findings, conclusions, and plans of action. From this view then, most qualitative, health, and mixed methods research findings and conclusions may have been ignoring the spatial contexts that most likely have shaped the experiences of research participants. The main reason for the underuse of these geo-contextualized stories is the requirement of specialized training in geographical information systems (GIS) and/or computer and statistical programming along with the absence of cost-free and user-friendly geo-visualization tools that may allow non-GIS experts to benefit from geo-contextualized outputs. To address this gap, we present GeoStoryTelling , an analytic framework and user-friendly, cost-free, multi-platform software that enables researchers to visualize their geo-contextualized qualitative narratives. The use of this peer-reviewed software (see https://doi.org/10.24433/CO.7385885.v3 ), available in Mac ( https://cutt.ly/E724wAx ) and Windows ( https://cutt.ly/J724f0C ) operating systems, does not require users to learn GIS nor computer/statistical programming to obtain state-of-the-art, and visually appealing and interactive maps. These resulting HTML visualizations are capable of integrating a variety of multi-media inputs that include text, image, videos, sound recordings/music, as well as hyperlinks to other websites—see https://cutt.ly/k7X9tfN . Since GeoStoryTelling relies on OpenStreetMap , its applications may be used worldwide, thus strengthening its potential reach to the qualitative, mixed methods, ethnographic, and health scientific communities, regardless of location around the world.

Public support for politicisation of international sports: the German national football team at the Qatar World Cup

The idea of sport as an apolitical or neutral sphere seems to be no longer resonate within the polarised societies of our times. Recent survey evidence indicates that Germans have been particular supportive of a (re)politicisation of sports in case it advocates values they deem important as well as of campaigns to boycott the controversial Football World Cup in Qatar 2022. The current contribution explores to what such commitments to the politicisation in sport are subject to saliency, framing and identity effects. These questions are examined by analysing street survey data conducted during the World Cup in a German university city (17 November 2022 to 21 December 2022; N = 2,657). The findings indicate that the commitment to a politicisation of sport as well as political advocacy for progressive values in international sport has been very stable. The respondents would abstain from politicisation only to some extent if they perceive a clear trade-between political advocacy and sporting imperatives. In an era of intensified political tensions, these findings come with rather unfortunate implications for the sport governing bodies.

Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries

Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries

Exploring innovation across organizations: the role of contracts and management controls

Abstract This paper addresses a gap in the management accounting literature by examining the relationship between innovation, contract completeness, and the use of management controls in buyer–supplier relationships. Early evidence shows that uncertainty significantly affects contracts and controls, reducing both contract completeness and the inclusion of control specifications in contracts. However, little is known about the role of innovation in shaping inter-organisational relationships. Our study leverages survey evidence collected in the fashion industry, where innovation is both a source of competitive advantage and an intrinsic feature of the production process. Results indicate that process innovation has a negative relationship with contract completeness and reduces the formalisation of controls in contracts, while product innovation has no significant association. This study highlights the importance of designing contracts that balance completeness and flexibility in innovation activities, and the crucial role that trust plays, as a substitute for contractual control mechanisms, in improving buyer–supplier relationships.

ESG Disclosure and Financial Performance: Survey Evidence from Accounting and Islamic Finance

This study examines the relationship between Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures and perceived financial performance within the context of Islamic finance, with a focus on Maqasid al-Shariah—the overarching goals of Islamic law. Using a quantitative approach, the study surveyed 350 stakeholders in Saudi Arabia’s Islamic finance sector, including corporate managers, investment professionals, and financial analysts, over a six-month period (May to October 2024). The findings indicate that stakeholders perceive a positive relationship between ESG disclosures and financial performance, particularly when companies align their ESG practices with Islamic finance principles. However, the study does not measure actual financial performance; rather, it assesses stakeholders’ perceptions of ESG’s influence on corporate governance, risk management, and investment attractiveness. Results suggest that companies integrating ESG principles with Maqasid al-Shariah foster greater stakeholder trust, enhance corporate responsibility, and promote long-term sustainability. However, variations in trust and investment decisions exist based on industry type, ESG disclosure levels, and demographic factors such as experience and familiarity with ESG practices. The study provides novel insights into how Islamic finance principles shape ESG disclosure practices, offering practical recommendations for improving corporate governance and sustainability. By emphasizing transparency, ethical investment, and regulatory alignment, these findings contribute to ongoing discussions on sustainable finance and the role of ESG in shaping Islamic financial institutions.

War, solidarity and welfare attitudes: Survey evidence from the war in Ukraine

ABSTRACT How does interstate war affect social policy preferences? Historical research has emphasised war-induced surges in demand for social protection, solidarity and fairness norms as central factors behind welfare expansion. Yet evidence for demand-side shifts remains unsystematic and restricted to a handful of Western countries. The outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine has undoubtedly led to substantial shifts in popular attitudes. Based on original survey evidence from post-invasion Ukraine, matched with geolocated conflict data, this article seeks to elucidate the role of warfare in shaping welfare attitudes and prosocial preferences. We distinguish between two types of war impacts – proximate exposure to war violence and war-related financial deterioration – and show that these affect welfare-related attitudes differently. Whereas proximate exposure to conflict promotes national-level solidarity, war-related material victimisation is associated with higher support for social spending. Only weak support is found for an effect on fairness norms. While indicating that the historical link between warfare and demand for social policy has wider applicability, the results also underscore the variated impact of war and the resulting individual-level heterogeneity in attitudes. Finally, with the war ongoing, the Ukrainian case highlights the question of under which circumstances welfare demand may translate into policy change.

Do Inflation Expectations Become More Anchored During a Disinflation Episode? Evidence for Euro Area Firms

Does a successful disinflation contribute to the anchoring of inflation expectations? We provide novel survey evidence on the dynamics of euro area firms’ inflation expectations during the disinflation episode since 2022. We show that firms’ short-term inflation expectations declined steadily towards the inflation target as the disinflation progressed. However, we also document a thick tail in longer-term inflation expectations, substantial disagreement about the inflation outlook, and an increased sensitivity of longer-term inflation expectations to short-term inflation expectations. These findings suggest that it may take more time to bring inflation expectations fully in line with central bank objectives.

Opportunities for Downward Accountability? Survey Evidence From Small Transnational NGOs

ABSTRACTDevelopment NGOs face expanded pressures for accountability, both to deliver project results and to operate with participatory and democratic processes. Existing research distinguishes between “upward” accountability to donors and “downward” accountability to clients or beneficiaries, and it often finds that pressures of upward accountability can be stronger. We examine the practices of a subset of NGOs that could be an ideal case for strong downward accountability: small transnational NGOs, which rely on individual donors, tend to make long‐term commitments to a handful of sites, and prize relationships with beneficiaries. We analyze a survey of small U.S.‐based NGOs and find that informal, relational forms of downward accountability dominate among this group. Our analysis finds that the reported frequent visits by U.S. leadership and partnership structure with the host community are associated with more robust downward accountability. Contrary to our predictions, higher shares of funding from foundations and government are not associated with weaker downward accountability. Most importantly for theory, we learn that a lack of required formal upward accountability—in written reports and quantification—is not sufficient to produce stronger downward accountability. Small NGOs are largely untouched by the era of evaluation and quantification in the management of nonprofits. We cannot say whether the absence of these pressures is necessary to promote downward accountability, but we conclude that it is not sufficient.

The impact of speciesism on customers' acceptance of service automation

PurposeThe marketplace is becoming increasingly automated, with consumers frequently expected to interact with machines. Not all consumers are receptive to this trend. We examine how the individual difference of speciesism impacts consumer reactions to automation in the marketplace.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted three studies, including an exploratory correlational survey and two two-factor studies.FindingsStudy 1 provides survey evidence of a positive relationship between one’s level of speciesism and their belief that customer service automation is justified. Study 2 finds that speciesists have more favorable attitudes toward brands using automated (vs human) customer service. Study 3 finds that the more speciesists perceive that tasks they are required to perform at their own work are illegitimate (i.e. unreasonable), the more favorable their reactions to automation, which provides support for our theorizing that speciesists appreciate automation’s ability to relieve humans of such work tasks.Practical implicationsWe recommend that marketers target speciesists as early adopters of chatbots. Further, brands targeting customers likely to be high on speciesism can benefit from adopting chatbots for routine tasks, as this can improve this segment’s brand attitudes.Originality/valueThis research identifies that speciesists, people who strongly ascribe to the belief that humans are superior to other species, are particularly receptive to automation in customer service (in the form of chatbots). We provide evidence suggesting that speciesists appreciate that automation relieves their fellow humans of automatable tasks.