Civil wars, insecurity, and ethnic disputes have imposed a high human and economic toll in Africa. In this dissertation, I examine the destructive impacts of war on agricultural productivity growth across the continent. Poor agricultural sector performance is more likely to be present around or during times of conflict. Using a panel of 51 countries from 1962-2009 I find that war impedes agricultural productivity growth. But a decline in productivity growth is not associated with the onset of civil war. Results show that low per capita income, stagnant economic growth, a large population, and lack of political freedom correspond to higher incidence of war, while conflict and lack of rainfall are associated with low agricultural productivity growth. I find that armed conflict reduces agricultural productivity growth by 0.76 percent per year and a major armed conflict reduces TFP growth by 1.16 percent. The incidence of a major armed conflict is associated with an efficiency decline in the year by 1.24 percent, substantial setback, for more than three-quarters of countries. This dissertation extends the discussion from productivity and efficiency analysis to the inclusion of the spatial dimension by applying exploratory and confirmatory spatial data analysis and capitalizing on successful spatial techniques and analytical tools proven in geospatial science. The exploratory spatial data analysis provides evidence of spatial autocorrelation in agricultural TFP growth rates in Africa. The results of hot spot analysis reveal that Algeria, Tunisia, Libya in the northern region and Nigeria and Benin in the western region constitute hot spots of agricultural performance and the cold spot, which includes areas of meager productivity, Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa. Africa suffers substantial losses in agricultural productivity when certain countries experience major armed conflict. The dissertation shows that a war may reduce productivity in a given country, but its real effects are larger because it impacts surrounding countries. Overall African TFP declined by 0.0572 percent per year as a result of conflict in Sudan. A war in the Democratic Republic of Congo caused African TFP growth to decline by 0.0285 percent per year.

This study investigates the driving forces of political participation in the Netherlands from a perspective of political equality. Following an article by Jan Teorell (2006) a procedural approach of political equality is examined by studying whether resources or incentives make up the primary driving forces of political participation. An equality hypothesis is derived from normative democratic theory perspectives of participation. The hypothesis is divided in two parts. 1a. and 1b. state that resources should have no direct impact on political participation and incentives should have a direct impact on political participation. Hypotheses 2.a. and 2.b. state that resources do not have an impact on incentives known to impact political participation and that incentives have an impact on resources known to impact political participation. The Dutch panel data LISS (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences) is used and cross-lagged effect models test the hypotheses. The panel data approach improves on previous research in that it ensures the correct temporal order of cause and effect. This helps us better understand the causal relationships at hand compared to previous cross-sectional approaches in the literature. This also enables us to disentangle the effects of all different factors on each other. The results show that while incentives do have some effect on political participation, resources remain significant when controlling for incentives. Furthermore, the results show that resources and incentives are tangled and have several reciprocal relationships with each other as well as political participation itself. In light of these findings, it is concluded that opportunities for political participation are not equal in the Netherlands, despite it being a least-likely case for political inequality. Additionally, the relationships between resources, incentives and political participation in relation to political equality are more complex than normally assumed in the literature.

Research on Voluntary Information Disclosure (VID) has been of interest in several disciplines including, but not limited to, entrepreneurship, accounting, finance, law, and marketing. Although there has been extensive research on VID aimed at financial market investors, scant research in marketing exists on VID targeted at prospective business partners that can influence firm future performance significantly. Financial and marketing disclosures have been advocated for by investors and public policymakers as they mitigate the adverse selection problems between the firm and its stakeholders (e.g., investors, customers, and prospective channel partners). Managers are, however somewhat skeptical about its outcomes because of the cost of disclosures (i.e., ex-ante costs of collecting, processing and disseminating the information, ex-post costs of conflicts and litigations, competitive position and proprietary costs). My dissertation consists of three essays on voluntary disclosure of performance metrics in marketing channels and aims to enhance our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of such VIDs. The first essay examines the antecedents of ex-ante VID for standardized contracts in marketing channels. Prior literature in accounting, entrepreneurship, and marketing has investigated drivers of information disclosures to analysts, investors, and customers. Nonetheless, this study bridges the gap in examining why some firms disclose information to prospective channel partners when it cost them to do so and makes the firms vulnerable to competitors. If the disclosure is a signal of quality, we are also interested in knowing whether it is a substitute for other signals of quality or a complement. I draw on signaling and institutional theories to develop a theoretical framework and empirically test it through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the U.S. franchising industry. The results suggest that firms (e.g., franchisors) make such disclosures to prospective business partners (e.g., franchisees) in order to signal profitability of partnering, to attract financial and managerial resources, and develop their entrepreneurial networks. This study contributes to signaling theory literature by investigating organizational quality signaling, providing empirical evidence for drivers of multiple signaling and shedding light on the conflicting views on substitutability or complementarity of multiple quality signals. The study has implications for managers who wish to attract potential business partners through signaling profitability of their business. Furthermore, there are some insights for regulators on the debate on making voluntary disclosures mandatory. The second essay examines the performance consequences of i) signaling through ex-ante voluntary disclosure of performance metrics and ii) screening through selection standards, in the formation stage of new partnerships in marketing channels. It is essential for many entrepreneurial business networks to expand their channel by attracting business partners while still preventing low-quality partners from joining the network. However, information asymmetry between the two parties introduces a double-sided adverse selection problem to the relationship. In other words, the heterogeneous quality - the ability to perform the job - of each party (i.e., the focal firm or the prospective partner) is unknown to the other party. To date, most of the empirical studies have addressed the issue from only one side, either from the perspective of the buyer or the supplier, and have assumed that the other side is open to the relationship. However, in a selective inter-firm relationship that both parties have the option to select the other party, adverse selection problems should be resolved for both of them to enhance the performance of the partnership. To bridge this gap in the literature (i.e., to mitigate double-sided adverse selection problems), I propose a novel framework based on signaling and transaction cost theories. This study suggests and empirically examines a complementary effect of the simultaneous use of signaling and screening on the firm performance. I integrate secondary data from various sources to shape a unique multi-sector panel data set that allows for assessment of the effects of these predictors on firm performance over time through a rigorous econometric model. Contrary to some claims in the extant literature, the results demonstrate that rigorous screening process hurts the firm performance unless it is combined with a proper quality signaling mechanism. This study contributes to the B2B marketing literature and provides implications for practitioners by shedding light on the performance implications of channel governance mechanisms such as signaling and screening. Further, it provides empirical support for the effects of B2B marketing strategies on firm sales revenue growth. The third essay looks closely into the voluntary disclosure of performance metrics. In the previous studies, the decision to disclose is operationalized as a binary variable of whether a firm discloses or not. In the absence of comprehensive regulation, disclosure strategies are subject to significant variation amongst firms, but can also vary over time within an individual firm. Through a content analysis of disclosure documents and scrutiny of the different components that comprise them, I explore the impact of disclosure content on firm performance. This study attempts to reconcile conflicting views of managers, investors, analysts, and regulators. On the one hand, VID should positively impact firm performance through mitigating information asymmetry. On the other hand, skeptical managers make the argument that VID negatively impacts a firm’s performance through costs of preparation, dissemination, potential litigation, and competition. Using a sample of publicly traded restaurant chains in the U.S., I empirically assess firm performance as a function of the disclosure strategy and its interactions with the firm’s characteristics and governance mechanisms. I collect independent variables from the firms’ disclosures through content analysis of public documents and obtain performance metrics of the firms in the stock market from Compustat. This study provides a novel context within which to investigate whether and how financial markets look at the firm’s disclosure behavior in dealing with its prospective channel partners, and it contributes to marketing-finance interface literature. My dissertation is positioned in the marketing strategy-entrepreneurship interface domain and is a multi-faceted study that looks at the phenomenon of VID from different angles and provides implications for several stakeholders. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Distribution channel strategy has a long-term effect on firm performance, is associated with considerable irreversible costs, and can constitute a sustainable asset and competitive advantage for firms. Information asymmetry among the distribution channel members has been known as the basis of opportunistic actions in such exchange relationships. My dissertation research investigates drivers and consequences of information disclosure strategies and is focused on the firms’ voluntary disclosure of performance metrics at the inter-firm relationship formation stage of developing marketing channels. This dissertation consists of three inter-related essays. In the first one, I study drivers of voluntary information disclosures to prospective channel partners. Then, I investigate the performance consequences of such disclosures and their interactions with channel governance mechanisms such as screening, in the second study. Since firms are heterogeneous in the content of their disclosures, in the third study, I conduct a content analysis of the firm’s disclosures to understand its influence on firm performance. Based on Organizational Economics theories and Institutional Theory, I develop my theoretical frameworks and test them empirically using archival data. The empirical context for my work is the franchising industry because it is the most common type of partner-based retail system and is a significant component of the US economy as well as other developed countries and emerging economies. The research findings offer both theoretical and practical implications for researchers and practitioners and contribute to the literatures on signaling and transaction cost theories as well as information disclosure and franchising.

The present dissertation research has three purposes: the first one is to predict anthropogenic deforestation caused by small farmers firstly using only pathways of past land cover change and secondly using demographic, socioeconomic and land cover data at the farm level. The second purpose is to compare the explanatory and predictive capacity of both approaches at identifying areas at high risk of deforestation among small farms in Rondõnia, Brazil. The third purpose is to test the assumptions of stationary probabilities and homogeneous subjects, both commonly used assumptions in predictive stochastic models applied to small farmers' deforestation decisions. This study uses the following data: household surveys, maps, satellite images and their land cover classification at the pixel level, and pathways of past land cover change for each farm. These data are available for a panel sample of farms in three municipios in Rondõnia, Brazil (Alto Paraiso, Nova União, and Rolim de Moura) and cover a ten-year period of study (1992-2002). Pathways of past land cover change are graphic representations in the form of flow charts that depict Land Cover Change (LCC) in each farm during the ten-year period of study. Pathways were constructed using satellite images, survey data and maps, and a set of interviews performed on a sub-sample of 70 farms. A panel data analysis of the estimated empirical probabilities was conducted to test for subject and time effects using a Fixed Group Effects Model (FGEM), specifically the Least Square Dummy Variable (LSDV1) fixed effects technique. Finally, the two predictive modeling approaches are compared. The first modeling approach predicts future LCC using only past land cover change data in the form of empirical transitional probabilities of LCC obtained from pathways of past LCC. These empirical probabilities are used in a LSDV1 for fixed–group effects, a LSDV1 for fixed-time effects, and an Ordinary Least Square model (OLS) for the pooled sample. Results from these models are entered in a modified Markov chain model's matrix multiplication. The second modeling approach predicts future LCC using socio-demographic and economic survey variables at the household level. The survey data is used to perform a multinomial logit regression model to predict the LC class of each pixel. In order to compare the explanatory and predictive capacity of both modeling approaches, LCC predictions at the pixel level are summarized in terms of percentage of cells in which future LC was predicted correctly. Percentage of correct predicted land cover class is compared against actual pixel classification from satellite images. The presence of differences among farmers in the LSDV1-fixed group effect by farmer suggests that small farmers are not a homogeneous group in term of their probabilities of LCC and that further classification of farmers into homogeneous subgroups will depict better their LCC decisions. Changes in the total area of landholdings proved a stronger influence in farmer's LCC decisions in their main property (primary lot) when compared to changes in the area of the primary lot. Panel data analysis of the LCC empirical transition probabilities (LSDV1 fixed time effects model) does not find enough evidence to prefer the fixed time effects model when compared to a Ordinary Least Square (OLS) pooled version of the probabilities. When applying the results of the panel data analysis to a modified markov chain model the LSDV1-farmer model provided a slightly better accuracy (59.25% accuracy) than the LSDV1-time and the OLS-pooled models (57.54% and 57.18%, respectively). The main finding for policy and planning purposes is that owners type 1—with stable total landholdings over time—tend to preserve forest with a much higher probability (0.9033) than owner with subdividing or expanding properties (probs. of 0.0013 and 0.0030). The main implication for policy making and planning is to encourage primary forest preservation, given that the Markov chain analysis shows that primary forest changes into another land cover, it will never go back to this original land cover class. Policy and planning recommendations are provided to encourage owner type 1 to continue their pattern of high forest conservation rates. Some recommendations include: securing land titling, providing health care and alternative sources of income for the OT1's family members and elderly owners to remain in the lot. Future research is encouraged to explore spatial autocorrelation in the pixel's probabilities of land cover change, effects of local policies and macro-economic variables in the farmer's LCC decisions. / Ph. D.

Yes / Drawing from 645 microfinance institutions across 56 countries, this paper examines the deposit-borrowing dynamic of microfinance institutions’ source of capital. We find that deposits and borrowings are substitutes rather than complements. We further find that the degree of substitutability is more pronounced among microfinance institutions operating in a developed financial sector where the level of information asymmetry is lower. Our findings represent novel contribution in understanding microfinance institutions’ funding behaviour that supports its quest for further growth and long-term sustainability. / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, April 2023.

Yes / This paper uses a new measure of international trade, i.e. the international trade potential index, to measure the welfare gains from trade across countries. The measure is based on the import shares of countries in their gross domestic products. It is observed that gains from international trade are low in prosperous economies, but they are larger in poorer economies. Then, the paper investigates the impact of the index of international trade potential on renewable energy consumption in the unbalanced panel dataset of 36 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries from 1966 to 2016. The novel evidence is that international trade potential is positively related to renewable energy consumption. It is also found that per capita income, per capita carbon dioxide emissions, and energy prices increase the demand for renewable energy. / The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Philosophy & Social Science Fund of Tianjin City, China (Award #: TJYJ20-012).

This study focused on Corporate Community Involvement Disclosures (CCID), a theme usually disclosed under Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures (CSRD) in annual reports. The primary aim of the research is to investigate the genuineness and raison d'être of CCID in annual reports. To do this the researcher adopted a holistic approach employing an extensive theoretical framework, which integrates Legitimacy, Stakeholder, Agency, Signalling and Semiotics theories and asking three main research questions. Firstly, what are the motivations for CCID in annual reports? Secondly, what is the information content of CCID in annual reports? And lastly, how real is CCID in annual reports? That is can CCID be read and construed as a real measure of corporate community development (CCD)? Using content analysis and a quality score index the study examined a panel dataset covering the period from 1999 to 2009. The data was collected from a sample of 803 annual reports of 73 UK companies taken from the FTSE 350 companies and cutting across all ten industries of the Industrial Classification Benchmark (ICB) Index. Generally the study is more of a quantitative study with hypotheses developed and tested with panel data regression models in order to provide answers to the three research questions. However, due to the sensitivity of the third research question, in addition to panel regression, the researcher performed a qualitative analysis of question three using semiotics. The study provided evidence to show that CCID as disclosed in annual reports have an undertone of reputation/impression management like other CSR disclosures (CSRD). The community activities reported do not seem to address the expectations of the local communities per se; rather the disclosures seemed to be targeted at a wider stakeholder group that is likely to offer immediate reward for such disclosures. Similarly result from semiotic analysis revealed that signification of reality is either doubtful or unreal for most companies sampled. The study is unique as it is the first to explore the reality of CCID as it appears in annual reports using a combination of a panel study approach and semiotics. In addition a major contribution of the study is that it explored the ways in which multiple theoretical underpinnings can inform research by developing a CCID Meta-theory model and thus provided a robust and enriched analysis and unique insights into the CCID phenomenon.

Rapporterade naturkatastrofer har ökat markant under senare år, likt totala kostnader som följer. Utländska direktinvesteringar har ökat parallellt och är en viktig variabel för återhämtning efter en katastrof, särskilt för utvecklingsländer. Naturkatastrofer utgör en risk för utländska direktinvesteringar varför syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera naturkatastrofers inverkan på inflödet av utländska direktinvesteringar. För att besvara uppsatsens syfte analyseras om direktinvesteringar i utvecklade och utvecklingsländer påverkas olika av naturkatastrofer samt hur olika typer av naturkatastrofer påverkar direktinvesteringar. Få publikationer finns att tillgå inom ämnet, varför uppsatsen fyller en kunskapslucka. Uppsatsen använder ett balanserat paneldataset med 1632 observationer över tidsperioden 1980 - 2011. Fixed Effect Model tillämpas och resultaten visar att naturkatastrofer har en negativ inverkan på inflödet av utländska direktinvesteringar på både kort och lång sikt. Effekten är mer negativ på lång sikt vilket stärker bilden av att direktinvesteringar är långsiktiga. Stormar är den typ av naturkatastrof, framför översvämningar, som är tydligast bunden till direktinvesteringar. Jordbävningar visar ingen signifikans. Naturkatastrofer påverkar utländska direktinvesteringar i utvecklade länder marginellt mer än i utvecklingsländer. Den ekonomiska tillväxten är enbart signifikant för utvecklingsländer som uppvisar en positiv signifikant för alla studerade tidshorisonter. För utvecklade och utvecklingsländer har stormar och översvämningar ett negativ samband med direktinvesteringar. Jordbävningar uppvisar en positiv signifikans på 1 års sikt för utvecklade länder, men ingen signifikans för utvecklingsländer.Nyckelord: Utländska / The reporting of natural disasters has increased significantly during the last century. Likewise has the financial costs risen along with the natural disasters. Foreign direct investments (FDI) has increased during the same time period and is a key variable for economic recovery after a natural disaster, especially for developing countries. Natural disasters imposes risk for FDI, hence the purpose of this study is to analyze the impact natural disasters has on FDI. This study investigate if there are differences in how developed and developing countries cope with natural disasters and how different types of natural disasters affects FDI in different ways. The study uses a 1632 observation panel data set covering the time period 1980 to 2011. The regression model applied is Fixed Effect Model. The results show that natural disasters significantly impact FDI negatively, both in the short and long-run. The marginal effect in the long-run are shown to be more negative than in the short-run, establishing that FDI are long term investments. The type of natural disaster, closest connected to FDI are storms. The impact from natural disaster on developed countries is marginally more notable than the impact on developing countries. Economic Growth, as a regressor, is only shown to be significant for developing countries. For developed and developing countries storms and floods are negatively connected to FDI. In developed countries earthquakes have a positive connection to FDI in a one year period.

時至今日，公立大學在財務收入來源方面有企業捐助及教育部穩定來源支持，反觀私立大專院校，其收入來源卻是不穩定，可能造成其財務困難進而影響其辦學成效，私立大學如何提升其教學品質增加其收入，為首要關鍵點之一。而本研究透過資本人才密度比來展現學校的教學品質程度，並藉由相關文獻之彙總整理，歸納出影響大專校院資本人才密度比決策之因素。 本文以各私立大學院校所提供的財務報表，評估84學年度至94學年度各私立大學院校在資本人才密度比之影響，利用Panel Data統計方法，分析不同特質的學校，其經營產出上的差異，並提供學校經營者管理上的建議。 實證結果發現，學雜費收入、捐贈及補助收入、圖書支出，與資本人才比例為正相關。而在生師比方面會因不同的模型結構有不同影響變動。在機器設備之支出方面，若以碩博士生為研究對象，學校對於機器設備方面的投入建設，以提升全體碩博士生的設備使用。包含電腦儀器設備、投影設備等。設備投入越多，學生享有教學資源越多；但以全校人力為衡量標準，導致資源配置錯誤，無法達成配置效率(allocation efficiency)。 在虛擬變數方面，根據不同背景特性將其轉化，對醫學院而言，大多為小班制，醫學院的實習課都在醫院，教師品質來自於各醫院，與資本人才密度比呈現正相關的影響力。但在理工學院方面亦會因不同的模型結構有不同影響變動。而文法商學院，人力的訓練遠遠高於機器設備的使用率，較強調人才的管理組織整合能力的結合，與資本人才密度比呈現正相關。

多角化是否能提升銀行獲利與降低風險？本文採2000年至2007年21家本國銀行之年資料，獲利以調整呆帳費用後之資產報酬率作為評估基礎；風險以資產報酬率的標準差衡量，利用追蹤資料分析法，探討銀行多角化程度對獲利與風險之影響，並分析對於逾放比率不同之銀行，其獲利、風險之影響因素是否有所差異，實證結果顯示：一、依品質一致性原則調整呆帳後之資產報酬率，較財報公佈之資產報酬率具較佳之解釋能力與統計顯著性；二、營業收入多角化可提升獲利與降低風險；資產配置多角化不但無法提升獲利，甚使其面臨更高之風險；轉投資模式與風險具有負向關係；三、金融控股公司經營模式與獲利具有正向關係；資產規模與風險具有負向關係；權益資產比及用人費用率與獲利、風險具有負向關係；總體環境因素和風險具有正向關係；四、對於低逾放比率銀行，分散營業收入來源，擴充銀行規模及提高自有資金比例，對其獲利與風險皆有正面之助益；對於高逾放比率銀行，僅有營業收入多角化模式可同時提升獲利與降低風險，意謂此類銀行除可採取營業收入多角化策略彌補呆帳損失外，亦應確實監控授信資產品質，方能有效地改善獲利能力與降低風險。 / Does diversification indeed lead to increase profitability and reduce risk? We use a panel dataset of 21 banks in Taiwan for the period from 2000 to 2007, bad debt-adjusted ROA serves as the measure of profitability and the standard deviation of ROA serves as the measure of risk. This study investigate the effect of diversification on profitability and risk and hope to know how it works out under different non-performing loans ratio. Our main finding are as follows:(i)Compare with ROA in financial statement ,bad debt-adjusted ROA making better significance. (ii)Revenue diversification has positive relation to increase profitability and negative to reduce risk. Asset diversification has negative relation to reduce profitability and positive relation to increase risk. Equity investment has negative relation between risk. (iii) Banks operating as part of financial holding companies can improve profitability. Size has negative relation between risk. Equity to asset ratio and compensation to revenue ratio have negative relation to reduce both profitability and risk. Macroeconomic factor has positive relation to increase risk.(iv)For low non-performing loans ratio banks, revenue diversification, size and equity to asset ratio have positive relation to increase profitability and negative to reduce risk. For high non-performing loans ratio banks, revenue diversification is the only way to improve banks’ profitability and reduce risk. It draws a conclusion that banks monitor loan need strengthening in high non-performing loans ratio banks.