Unconditioned Effects Research Articles

Effects of entrepreneurship and governance quality on global and regional economic performance: A pathway to sustainable development

AbstractThis study investigated the effects of entrepreneurship and governance quality on global and regional economic performance, and the moderating influence of governance quality on the entrepreneurship‐economic performance nexus. The study used a panel of 109 countries from 2010 to 2022. Prais‐Winsten regression, standard Fixed Effects regression with robust standard errors, Fixed Effects regression with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors, and the dynamic system GMM regression were used. We find that the unconditional effect of entrepreneurship on global economic performance is mainly negative, while governance quality predominantly exerts positive effect on global economic performance, but generally failed to moderate the adverse effect of entrepreneurship. Interestingly, we find regional disparities indicating that the patterns in Europe and Asia align with the global results, while the dynamics in the Americas show that the unconditional effect of entrepreneurship on economic performance is mainly positive and significant, with governance quality also exerting significant positive influence and reinforcing the positive effect of entrepreneurship. For Africa, we find that entrepreneurship is a potent driver of economic performance when it is measured using Total Early‐stage Entrepreneurial Activity and Entrepreneurial Employee Activity. We discussed the policy implications of these findings in relation to the sustainable development goals.

Marriage as an Argument for Energy Poverty Reduction: The Moderating Role of Financial Inclusion

ABSTRACTThe present research extends the extant literature by investigating the hypothesis on whether marriage can be a substitute for financial inclusion in energy poverty reduction in Ghana. Pooled data and two‐stage least‐squares techniques are used in the estimation process; the validity of the tested hypothesis (i.e., that marriage is a substitute for financial inclusion in energy poverty mitigation) is based on three main criteria: (i) a positive interactive effect relative to the negative unconditional effect of marriage; (ii) a marriage net effect lower in magnitude compared to the unconditional effect of marriage; and (iii) an insignificant interactive effect when both unconditional effects are negative. The investigated hypothesis is not valid in the full sample, urban subsample, and female subsample while it is valid in the rural and male subsamples. Policy implications are discussed.

Expert’s reputation concern and consumer information

Serious information asymmetry exists between consumers and expert sellers in the credit-goods market. This study develops a generic model to investigate the relationship between consumer information and expert fraud in the credence goods market. The unique features of the model are that (i) the state of the consumer is multidimensional, (ii) the expert seller has concerns about their reputation, and (iii) information asymmetry exists between the consumer and the expert seller regarding the necessity of the provided treatment ex-ante and ex-post. On average, the equilibrium amount of the recommended treatment is greater than the necessary level. The contingent effect of any consumer information on expert overtreatment can be evaluated by analyzing the posterior variance of the number of problems updated by the information. Consumer information on only part of the problem hardly reduces expert overtreatment in certain situations. The unconditional effect of consumer information on expert seller fraud varies considerably with state distribution.

Influence of footshock number and intensity on the behavioral and endocrine response to fear conditioning and cognitive fear generalization in male rats

Foot-shock paradigms have provided valuable insights into the neurobiology of stress and fear conditioning. An extensive body of literature indicates that shock exposure can elicit both conditioned and unconditioned effects, although delineating between the two is a challenging task. This distinction holds crucial implications not only for the theoretical interpretation of fear conditioning, but also for properly evaluating putative preclinical models of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involving shock exposure. The characteristics of shocks (intensity and number) affect the strength of learning, but how these characteristics interact to influence conditioned and unconditioned consequences of shocks are poorly known. In this study, we aimed to investigate in adult male rats the impact of varying shock number and intensity on the endocrine and behavioral response to contextual fear conditioning and fear generalization to a novel environment markedly distinct from the shock context (i.e., fear generalization). Classical biological markers of stress (i.e., ACTH, corticosterone, and prolactin) were sensitive to manipulations of shock parameters, whereas these parameters had a limited effect on contextual fear conditioning (evaluated by freezing and distance traveled). In contrast, behavior in different novel contexts (fear generalization) was specifically sensitive to shock intensity. Notably, altered behavior in novel contexts markedly improved, but not completely normalized after fear extinction, hypoactivity apparently being the result of both conditioned and unconditioned effects of foot-shock exposure. The present results will contribute to a better understanding of shock exposure as a putative animal model of PTSD.

Bilateral investment treaties and sovereign default risk: Evidence for emerging markets

AbstractThis paper analyses the impact of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on sovereign default risk using monthly data for 29 emerging markets from 1996 to 2016. Under a BIT, foreign investors can use an international arbitration scheme to enforce compensation claims against the host country's government. We focus on the so far unexplored legal risk associated with BITs since a higher likelihood of government expropriations implicitly increases public debt. We do not find a significant unconditional effect of BITs on sovereign default risk (measured by the month‐over‐month percentage change in a country's Emerging Market Bond Index). Considering the heterogeneity of BITs and political risk, we find robust and strong negative effects of BITs on sovereign bond returns. In countries with high political risk of expropriation (measured by low executive constraints), we find that the implementation of BITs with strong investor protection is associated with a significantly negative impact on sovereign bond returns (−0.45 percentage points), which compares to roughly 11.7% of bond returns' monthly standard deviation.

Governance, debt service, information technology and access to electricity in Africa

AbstractThe study investigates the role of governance (i.e., ‘voice and accountability,’ political stability/no violence, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, corruption‐control and the rule of law) in the incidence of short‐term debt services on infrastructure development in the perspective of telecommunication infrastructure and access to electricity. The focus of the study is on 52 African countries for the period 2002–2021. The generalised method of moments is employed as estimation strategy and the following findings are established. Debt service has a negative unconditional effect on access to electricity and telecommunication infrastructure. Governance dynamics moderate the negative effect of debt service on infrastructure dynamics. Effective moderation is from regulatory quality and corruption‐control for access to electricity and from government effectiveness, regulatory quality, corruption‐control and rule of law, for telecommunication infrastructure. Policy implications are discussed.

Terrorism and economic complexity in Africa: The unconditional impact of military expenditure

AbstractFollowing the rising wave of terrorism in Africa, particularly in the last decade, this study investigated the effect of terrorism on economic complexity in the region as well as the moderating role of military expenditure in the terrorism–economic complexity relationship. A panel of 34 African economies was used over the period 2010–2021. The study also used the dynamic system generalized method of moments framework. We find that the unconditional effect of terrorism on economic complexity in Africa is predominantly negative and significant, and that military expenditure in the region has been ineffective in moderating this adverse effect. This finding remained robust regardless of whether terrorism is measured by the number of terrorism incidents, fatalities, injuries, or hostages. However, our results showed that industrialization, urbanization, and governance institutional quality are potent channels for promoting economic complexity in Africa. Among others, the study emphasized the need for policymakers and leaders in Africa to collaborate at the level of the African Union to address the detrimental effects of terrorism on the continent.

Conditional and Unconditional Treatment Effects in Randomized Clinical Trials: Estimands, Estimation, and Interpretation

ICH E9(R1) specifies the importance of precisely defining the treatment effect for clinical trials—to inform patient choices and facilitate evidence-based decision-making. FDA’s guidance on covariate adjustment encourages the judicious use of baseline covariates to enhance efficiency. Careful consideration is required when adjusting for covariates in nonlinear models such as logistic regression and Cox regression. For these nonlinear models, including baseline covariates can change the targeted treatment effect (estimand). It is also crucial that the proposed statistical analyses align with the estimand of interest. Covariate-adjusted estimators used for unconditional treatment effect are typically robust to misspecification of the used regression models. Despite extensive literature and recommendations by the FDA on the statistical theory and properties of these methods, the real-life application of such methodologies is still limited. Moreover, a few open questions require further discussion, especially for time-to-event outcomes. In this article, we present causal estimands definition of conditional and unconditional treatment effects in randomized clinical trials. We also evaluate different estimation methods for estimating conditional and unconditional treatment effects for the binary and time-to-event endpoints. We also discuss practical considerations in choosing the conditional versus unconditional effect, implementing the estimation methods, and interpreting results.

Unconditional effects of general policy interventions

This paper studies the unconditional effects of a general policy intervention, which includes location-scale shifts and simultaneous shifts as special cases. The location-scale shift is intended to study a counterfactual policy aimed at changing not only the mean or location of a covariate but also its dispersion or scale. The simultaneous shift refers to the situation where shifts in two or more covariates take place simultaneously. For example, a shift in one covariate is compensated at a certain rate by a shift in another covariate. Not accounting for these possible scale or simultaneous shifts will result in an incorrect assessment of the potential policy effects on an outcome variable of interest. The unconditional policy parameters are estimated with simple semiparametric estimators, for which asymptotic properties are studied. Monte Carlo simulations are implemented to study their finite sample performances. The proposed approach is applied to a Mincer equation to study the effects of changing years of education on wages and to study the effect of smoking during pregnancy on birth weight.

Effects of terrorism and economic policy uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa: A study of the moderating role of governance institutions

AbstractFollowing the paucity of empirical evidence on the effects of terrorism and uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa and the moderating role of governance institutions on these relationships, this study raised two important questions. First, how are terrorism and uncertainty impacting on economic complexity in Africa? Second, how are governance institutions moderating the effects of terrorism and uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa? To answer these questions, the study employed pooled ordinary least squares and dynamic system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators, with a panel of 33 African countries over the period 2010–2021. We find that the unconditional effects of terrorism and uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa are predominantly negative and significant. We also find that governance institutions predominantly have unconditional positive and significant impact on economic complexity in Africa but failed to moderate the adverse effect of uncertainty on economic complexity. However, trade openness, international tourism and lagged economic complexity are potent factors promoting economic complexity in Africa, while physical capital stock remained a deterring factor. The study concluded that policymakers and leaders in Africa should engage in collaborative efforts at the African Union level to promote high‐quality institutions, while simultaneously addressing the detrimental effects of terrorism and uncertainty on the continent.

Inflation and energy poverty: threshold effect of governance quality in Africa

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to test the modulating role and threshold of governance quality in the cost of living–energy poverty nexus.Design/methodology/approachTwo-step System Generalized Methods of Moment empirical model with linear interaction between cost of living and governance quality was estimated. This study used data on 40 African countries over 20 years (2000–2019).FindingsThe paper shows that the conditional effect of inflation on energy poverty is negative. Thus, governance quality acts as a moderator on the relationship between inflation and energy poverty beyond a threshold. The study's principal practical implication is that governance quality reverses inflation's positive unconditional effect on energy poverty, and governance quality may be improved beyond specific policy-defined thresholds to achieve the desired goal of lowering energy poverty. Nonetheless, governance quality at initial stages would not drive the needed reduction in energy poverty unless it goes beyond the threshold of 0.03, 0.02 and 0.07.Research limitations/implicationsThis study recommends that policymakers should initiate policies that would ensure increased access to clean energy.Originality/valueThis study's main contributions are that the authors estimated the threshold beyond which governance quality reverses the adverse impact of inflation on energy poverty. Further, the authors have shown that governance quality is a catalyst to reduce energy poverty.

Effects of police violence on citizen calls for service: The killing of Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati, Ohio

ABSTRACT Research on the impact of police violence on citizens’ willingness to call the police has yielded mixed results, with some studies finding strong effects and others finding none. We contribute to this literature by examining whether calls for service declined in the aftermath of the killing of Samuel DuBose by a University of Cincinnati Police Department officer in 2015. We employ an interrupted time series design, treating the DuBose killing as an exogenous shock that may have altered the trend in calls for service from 2014 to 2016. We gathered data on 911 calls and crime incidents from the Cincinnati Police Department, to which we appended block group-level demographic data from the American Community Survey. We find a substantial unconditional effect of DuBose’s killing on the level of calls for service in all neighborhoods, especially in majority Black neighborhoods. The size of these effects is reduced substantially after introducing controls; nevertheless, the effect of the DuBose killing is still significant in calls for service in all block groups and for majority Black block groups. We conclude by calling for increased research on the community-level impacts of police violence.

Substitution and size effect for factor demand revisited

We reconsider the decomposition of the comparative statics effect of a factor price increase on (unconditional) factor demand into a substitution and a size (or level) effect. While for the own price effect the substitution effect and the size effect go into the same negative direction, the cross price effect cannot be signed unambiguously, in general. But for two cases of regularity, homotheticity and complementarity, the size effect is negative. We furthermore show by example that in both special cases the cross substitution effects are still ambiguous, but that under complementarity the unconditional effect is always negative. Hence, if the cross substitution effect happens to be positive, it is dominated by the negative size effect in this case. We further show by example that without such regularity assumptions the cross price effect is ambiguous. Finally, we study the impact of a factor price increase on the cost, which can also increase or decrease.

Quetiapine attenuates the acquisition of morphine-induced conditioned place preference and reduces ERK phosphorylation in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex

ABSTRACT Background: Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic that antagonizes dopamine and serotonin receptors. It has been suggested that quetiapine can be used to treat substance use disorders, including opioid use disorder. Opioids modulate dopaminergic functions associated with conditioned reinforcement and these effects can be measured via the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Opioids’ unconditioned effects are regulated by several proteins, including extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and cAMP-responsive element-binding (CREB). Objective: To assess the effect of quetiapine on morphine-induced CPP and motor activity levels, and on the levels of ERK and CREB proteins in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. Methods: 42 male rats were exposed to a CPP protocol, in which they underwent a conditioning paradigm with saline, quetiapine (40 mg/kg), morphine (10 mg/kg), morphine plus quetiapine (10, 20, or 40 mg/kg), or morphine plus memantine (7.5 mg/kg, a positive control drug) (n = 6 per group). The rats were tested for CPP and exploratory activity. Levels of ERK and CREB proteins in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex were also measured. Results: Quetiapine co-administered with morphine inhibited morphine-induced CPP [F (6, 70) = 11.67, p < .001] and morphine’s effects on motor activity (p < .001). Morphine enhanced ERK phosphorylation in the hippocampus (p < .001) and cerebral cortex (p < .001), an effect inhibited by quetiapine. Conclusion: Quetiapine attenuates morphine-induced CPP and locomotion and these effects are associated with a reduction of ERK phosphorylation in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. These results suggest that quetiapine should be further explored as a potential treatment for opioid use disorder.

Effects of renting on household energy expenditure: Evidence from Australia

This paper uses household survey data from Australia to investigate whether renters face larger energy bills than otherwise similar households. We find that a negative unconditional effect of renting on residential electricity expenditure becomes positive when controlling for log net wealth, with renters on average spending about 8% more than otherwise similar households. This is a larger effect than in most prior studies. The effect operates via higher usage quantities rather than higher average prices, and a similar effect is found for overall residential energy expenditure including natural gas. Central to the story is that renters tend to have lower net wealth, and net wealth is associated with higher energy use due to reasons including additional appliance ownership. This makes net wealth an important control. The findings cast light on the potential for more ambitious policy responses to reduce energy-related disadvantages faced by renters in Australia. There is also scope for further research into whether similarly large effects are evident in other countries.

Finance, poverty-income inequality, energy consumption and the CO2emissions nexus in Africa

PurposeThis study provides the critical masses (thresholds) at which the positive incidence of finance and economic growth will be dampened by the negative effects of income inequality and poverty on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa for policy direction.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed the two steps systems GMM estimator for 41 countries in Africa from 2005–2020.FindingsThe study found that for finance to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.681, 0.582 and 5.991, respectively. Similarly, for economic growth (GDP per capita growth) to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.669, 0.568 and 6.110, respectively. On the poverty level in Sub-Saharan Africa, the study reports that the poverty headcount ratios (hc$144ppp2011, hc$186ppp2011 and hc$250ppp2005) should not exceed 7.342, 28.278 and 129.332, respectively for financial development to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita. The study also confirms the positive nexus between access to finance (financial development) and energy consumption per capita, with the attending adverse effect on CO2emissions inescapable. The findings of this study make it evidently clear, for policy recommendation that finance is at the micro-foundation of economic growth, income inequality and poverty alleviation. However, a maximum threshold of income inequality and poverty headcount ratios as indicated in this study must be maintained to attain the full positive ramifications of financial development and economic growth on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa.Originality/valueThe originality of this study is found in the computation of the threshold and net effects of poverty and income inequality in economic growth through the conditional and unconditional effects of finance.

Context evoked morphine conditioned effects can be equivalent to morphine induced drug effects in terms of behavioral response and ERK activation in reward associated subcortical brain structures

Conditioned drug cues can evoke brief drug-like responses. In this report we show that using brief test sessions, contextual cues can induce conditioned hyperlocomotion and ERK responses equivalent to morphine induced responses. To assess acute unconditioned effects, rats that received morphine (MOR-1) or vehicle (VEH-1) were immediately placed onto an arena for a 5-min locomotion recording session after which ERK was measured in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc). There were no differences in locomotion between the groups. However, the MOR-1 group had strong ERK activation in VTA and NAc. To assess MOR-conditioned effects, a chronic phase was carried out according to a Pavlovian conditioning protocol. There were two MOR paired groups (MORP), one MOR unpaired (MOR-UP) group and two VEH groups. The treatments were administered over 5 daily five minute test sessions. The final conditioning test was on day 6, in which one of the MOR-P groups and one of the VEH groups received VEH (MOR-P/VEH-6 and VEH/VEH-6, respectively). The other MOR-P group and VEH group received MOR (MOR-P/MOR; VEH/MOR-6, respectively). The MOR-UP group received VEH (MOR-UP/VEH-6). Rats received the treatments immediately prior to a 5-minute arena test, and after the session ERK was measured. No morphine induced locomotor stimulation was observed on day 1 but on days 2 to 5, hyperlocomotion in both MOR-P groups occurred. On test day 6, the MOR-P/VEH-6 and the MOR-P/MOR-6 groups had comparable locomotor stimulant responses and similar ERK activity in the VTA and NAc. The MOR-UP group did not differ from the VEH group. We suggest that ERK activation evoked by acute morphine served as a Pavlovian unconditioned stimulus to enable the contextual cues to acquire morphine conditioned stimulus properties and increase the incentive value of the contextual cues.

The potential of using creolized texts in teaching languages to foreign students (demonstrated on Internet memes)

One of the challenges facing a modern foreign language teacher is both a relatively low level of initial language training of educational migrants and their low motivation in studying the entire system of a foreign language and their involvement in the educational process. One of the ways to solve this problem is the system of working on creolized texts. The creolized text (also called the polycode, or multimodal text) as a type of text that combines verbal and iconic information, is familiar to modern students from different countries, and fits into the world postmodern reality. Most often, creolized texts are spoken of in the analysis of advertising products, posters, or film texts. At the same time, for foreign language teachers, the use of polycode texts is by no means a novelty: you can at least name cards, posters, illustrations, picture dictionaries, and other means used at the initial stage. These verbal-iconic means have proven their unconditional effectiveness both in explaining lexical and grammatical material and in reinforcing what has been learned. Reading a creolized text allows for the transition from text to meaning: such an algorithm allows an applicant for higher education to comprehensively use reception, memory, intelligence, and activate speech-thinking processes in a foreign language. One of the most glowing functional types of creolized texts today is the meme – a special kind of multimodal text, closely welded verbal and iconic components that have a basic set of features: repeatability, comicality, recognizability, relevance. The use of memes in teaching foreign languages is an important way to increase the motivation of educational migrants to study, to establish intercultural communication, to form students’ linguistic and cultural competence, to facilitate the processes of adaptation and socialization in the new reality. Such texts may well become one of the sources of information about the national and cultural characteristics of a foreign country and its native speakers.

Do Internet Penetration and Online Censorship Levels Affect Long-Term Repression Success in Street Protest Prevention?

This research paper aims at learning whether Internet penetration and online censorship affect repression against civil society organization (CSO) capacity to prevent street protest events and/or reduce protest participant numbers in the long term. Although there is a large corpus of studies on the consequences of the Internet and social media development for street protest mobilization, there is little empirical research on whether offline CSO repression works in the age of the Internet and whether this new repression impact is modified by attempts to organize online censorship. I tried to solve this problem with large-N cross-national datasets on protest participation, CSO repression and online censorship as well as on the share of Internet users from 1990 to 2018. I propose a set of hypotheses claiming that repression has a negative unconditional effect on street protest probability and protester numbers, that the Internet penetration makes repression effect less negative or more positive, and that online censorship transforms repression impact into more negative and less positive. I test these hypotheses with pooled linear and logistic regressions weighted by inverse probability of loss to follow-up. The results demonstrate that when the repression effect exists, an uncensored Internet makes the weak repression effect positive and transforms highly severe repression effects from negative to null. Online censorship at a high level of Internet use only removes the positive effect of weak repression. Acknowledgments: The reported study was funded by RFBR and EISR, project number 21-011-32120.

Terrorism and economic growth in Africa: understanding the role of military expenditure

ABSTRACT Across African countries, terrorism has become a major challenge to socioeconomic development. While there are studies that have examined the influence of terrorism on economic growth, this study adds to the existing literature by investigating the role of military expenditure on the relationship between terrorism and economic growth in Africa. The study utilised a dataset comprising 24 African countries for which terrorism activities have increased substantially in the last decades. Utilising an instrumental variable Fixed Effects model with standard errors that account for cross-sectional dependence, serial correlation and group-wise heteroskedasticity, the study revealed that, (1) terrorism has a detrimental effect on economic growth in the selected African countries, (2) the interactive effect of military expenditure and terrorism on economic growth is significantly positive, (3) the net effect of military expenditure on the relationship between terrorism and economic growth is positive when the number of terrorism incidents act as a proxy for terrorism but negative when the number of terrorism fatalities acts as a proxy for terrorism. However, this negative effect is substantially lower when compared to the unconditional effect of terrorism on economic growth in Africa. Policy recommendations based on these findings are discussed.