Can production subsidies explain China's export performance? Evidence from firm-level data

This paper analyses the relationship between production subsidies and firms’ export performance using a very comprehensive and recent firm-level database and controlling for the endogeneity of subsidies. It documents robust evidence that production subsidies stimulate export activity at the intensive margin, although this effect is conditional on firm characteristics. In particular, the positive relationship between subsidies and the intensive margin of exports is strongest among profit-making firms, firms in capital-intensive industries, and those located in non-coastal regions. Compared to firm characteristics, the extent of heterogeneity across ownership structure (SOEs, collectives, and privately owned firms) proves to be relatively less important.

A puha költségvetési korlát szindrómája a kórházi szektorban = The soft budget constraint syndrome in the hospital sector

A kutatások eddig főképpen azt vizsgálták, hogyan jelenik meg a puha költségvetési korlát szindrómája a vállalati szférában és a hitelrendszerben. A jelen cikk a kórházi szektorra összpontosítja a figyelmet. Leírja az események öt főszereplőjének, a betegnek, az orvosnak, a kórházigazgatónak, a politikusnak és a kórház tulajdonosának motivációit és magatartásuk ellentmondásos jellegét. A motivációk magyarázzák, miért olyan erőteljes a túlköltési hajlam és a költségvetési korlát felpuhulásának tendenciája. A döntési és finanszírozási folyamatok minden szintjén felfelé hárítják a túlköltés és eladósodás terheit. A cikk kitér a különböző tulajdonformák (állami, nonprofit és forprofit nem állami tulajdonformák) és a puha költségvetési korlát szindrómájának kapcsolatára. Végül normatív szempontból vizsgálja a jelenséget: melyek a költségvetési korlát megkeményítésének kedvező és kedvezőtlen következményei, és hogyan tükröződnek a normatív dilemmák az események résztvevőinek tudatában. ___________ Researches so far have examined mainly how the soft budget constraint syndrome appears in the corporate sphere and the credit system. This article concentrates on the hospital sector. It describes the motivations and the contradictory behaviour of the five main types of participant in the events: patients, doctors, hospital managers, politicians, and hospital owners. The motivations explain why the propensity to overspend and the tendency to soften the budget constraint are so strong. The burdens of overspending and indebtedness are pushed upwards at every level of the decision-making and funding processes. The article considers the connection between the soft budget constraint syn-drome and the various forms of ownership (state ownership and the non-profit and for-profit forms of non-state ownership). Finally, the phenomenon is examined from the normative point of view: what are the favourable and unfavourable consequences of hardening the budget constraint and how these are reflected in the consciousness of the participants in the normative dilemmas and events.

Társas kapcsolatok és interakció a szabadidősportban (Social relationships and interaction in the leisure sport)

A sporttermékek iránti kereslet kialakulására a sportszocializáció meghatározó befolyással bír. A sport kiemelkedő szerepet játszik a mai modern társadalomban. Jelentős gazdasági súlyt képvisel, továbbá lehetőséget ad a személyes fejlődésre és a társas kapcsolatok kialakítására, ápolására. Az egyéni személyes előnyök mellett a sportolás támogatása révén a társadalom egészségi állapotának költséghatékony megőrzése is biztosítható. Ezzel együtt hazánkban alacsony a szabadidősportban való részvétel, a lakosság egészségi állapota romlik, az ülő életmód egyre terjed. Az elvégzett kutatás célja az volt, hogy olyan ismeretekre tegyen szert, amelyek segítségével megérthető a sportolást befolyásoló legfőbb tényezők hatása, így az egyén szűk környezetének (család, barátok, iskola) jelentősége, a társas befolyás hazai jellegzetességei. Ezek az ismeretek elősegíthetik mind a profit, mind a non-profit szféra számára a lakosság sikeresebb megszólítását, hozzájárulva egy aktívabb társadalom megteremtéséhez. _______ Sport socialization has high relevance to generate demand for sport. Sport plays an important role in today’s modern societies. It has enormous economic significance and provides opportunity for personal development and for establishing new or keeping existing social relationships. Besides individual personal benefits, supporting sport also ensures the costefficient maintenance of good health on a social level. However sport participation and sport spectatorship are both low in Hungary. At the same time the health status of residents are worsening and the society is characterized by a sitting, sedentary lifestyle. The goal of the study is to gather information on the primary factors influencing sport participation, especially the significance of the close social environment of the individual (family, friends and education). Understanding why people participate in sports and how they can be motivated to do so is of primary importance to both the private and the state sector, explained by business interest and by the need to ensure the healthy operation of the society.

An investigation of the strategies used by organizations participating in the welfare-to-work network program and correlation of the strategies with the retention data to determine best practices for job retention among former welfare recipients

This ex post facto study (N = 209) examined the relationships between employer job strategies and job retention among organizations participating in Florida welfare-to-work network programs and associated the strategies with job retention data to determine best practices. ^ An internet-based self-report survey battery was administered to a heterogeneous sampling of organizations participating in the Florida welfare-to-work network program. Hypotheses were tested through correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. The partial correlation results linked each of the job retention strategies to job retention. Wages, benefits, training and supervision, communication, job growth, work/life balance, fairness and respect were all significantly related to job retention. Hierarchical regression results indicated that the training and supervision variable was the best predictor of job retention in the regression equation. ^ The size of the organization was also a significant predictor of job retention. Large organizations reported higher job retention rates than small organizations. There was no statistical difference between the types of organizations (profit-making and non-profit) and job retention. The standardized betas ranged from to .26 to .41 in the regression equation. Twenty percent of the variance in job retention was explained by the combination of demographic and job retention strategy predictors, supporting the theoretical, empirical, and practical relevance of understanding the association between employer job strategies and job retention outcomes. Implications for adult education and human resource development theory, research, and practice are highlighted as possible strategic leverage points for creating conditions that facilitate the development of job strategies as a means for improving former welfare workers’ job retention.^

A relação entre desempenho e a forma legal das instituições de microcrédito

This work test the relationship of performance and legal form of microfinance institutions (MFI), in our work MFI can be banks, non-governmental organizations (NGO), cooperatives, non-banks financial institutions (NBFI) or rural banks. We use linear regression model, panel data and variables dummy for the legal forms. Our samples are 243 MFI from all continents, except North America, in the period from 2007 to 2012. We found that bigger MFI generates higher profit, higher returns and higher self-sufficiency rates, so the growing can be a way for consolidation of MFI. For smaller MFI a way can be assimilation or merging with other MFI. Cooperatives, non-bank financial institutions and rural banks can serve more customers, causing greater impact on society, and get higher returns. This suggests the most appropriate legal form for microfinance market can be cooperatives, non-banks financial institutions or rural banks balancing social orientation and profit orientation.

Market reforms and privatisation in the English National Health Service

The article examines developments in the marketisation and privatisation of the English National Health Service, primarily since 1997. It explores the use of competition and contracting out in ancillary services and the levering into public services of private finance for capital developments through the Private Finance Initiative. A substantial part of the article examines the repeated restructuring of the health service as a market in clinical services, initially as an internal market but subsequently as a market increasing opened up to private sector involvement. Some of the implications of market processes for NHS staff and for increased privatisation are discussed. The article examines one episode of popular resistance to these developments, namely the movement of opposition to the 2011 health and social care legislative proposals. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these system reforms for the founding principles of the NHS and the sustainability of the service.

Health reforms in Latin America: processes and results

Two types of health reforms in Latin America are analysed: one based on insurance and service commodification and the one referred to the unified public systems of progressive governments. Health insurance with explicit service packages has not fulfilled their purposes of universal coverage, equal access to necessary health services and improvement of health conditions but has opened health as a field of profit making for insurance companies and private health providers. The national health services as a state obligation have developed territorialized health services and widened substantially timely access to the majority of the population. The adoption of an integrated and wide social policy has an impact on population well fare. It faces some problems derived from the old health systems and the power of the insurance and medical complex.

What is social innovation? The paradigm shift and its relationship with Social Work

Innovation is a fundamental part of social work. In recent years there has been a shift in the innovation paradigm, making it easier to accept this relationship. National and supranational policies aimed at promoting innovation appear to be specifically guided by this idea. To be able to affirm this hypothesis, it is necessary to review the perception that social workers have of their duties. It is also useful to examine particular cases that show how such social innovation arises.

Law Relating to Admission in Minority Educational Institutions in India

This Study pertains to the law relating to admission in minority educational institutions in India. This is an area which needs certainty. Every year, admissions to various institutions are challenged. The future of umpteen number of students are at stake. Only when clarity with regard to the nature of the rights and conditions to be fulfilled to get the rights are made, conflicts can be prevented. Awareness in this area has to be developed. Considering the peculiar nature of rights provided under Article 30 to the minorities, there is an argument that Article 30 is absolute in nature and restrictions on this right can be only in the interests of the minorities. But there is also a counter argument that minority rights are not absolute and that all rights are absolute only to the extent of their logical extreme. Thus reasonable restrictions can be placed over Article 30. The Legal framework is not comprehensive and conflicting judicial responses add to the dilemma. Legal frame work has pitfalls which creates confusions. Though there are decisions by the highest court of the land regarding admission rights, various parts of the decisions are quoted in isolation by interested parties to assert their sides. Many States try to frame legislations regulating admissions inspired by the judicial pronouncements, which are later declared as violative of minority rights and held unconstitutional. This state of affairs has prompted me to select this area as the subject for study. Study is an analysis for a better regime of law relating to admissions in minority educational institutions in India balancing the interests of various stakeholders viz. minority and non minority educational institutions, both professional and elementary, students, parents and the State.

Nível de Satisfação nos Cuidados Prestados em Estruturas Residenciais para Idosos: estudo comparativo entre instituições do sector lucrativo e do sector solidário

Com o aumento da esperança média de vida e, consequentemente, com o aumento do número de idosos que necessitam de respostas sociais capazes de proporcionar uma melhor qualidade de vida, a escolha da Instituição onde colocar o nosso familiar é cada vez mais exigente. Este estudo teve como principal objetivo realizar uma análise comparativa do grau de satisfação dos utentes, familiares e colaboradores de duas instituições distintas da região centro (uma do sector solidário e outra do sector lucrativo) pelos serviços prestados, procurando acima de tudo, acabar (ou talvez não) com o estereótipo de que a qualidade dos serviços prestados por uma instituição do sector lucrativo é sempre melhor que aqueles prestados por uma Instituição Privada de Solidariedade Social. As conclusões retiradas deste estudo revelaram que, contrariamente ao estereótipo que a sociedade nos impõe, os utentes, famílias e colaboradores da Instituição Privada de Solidariedade Social são os que mais se encontram satisfeitos com a qualidade dos serviços prestados. No entanto, para além de não pudermos extrapolar estes resultados para a generalidade das instituições, para se compreender melhor os resultados obtidos neste estudo foi tido em conta a zona geográfica em que cada uma das instituições se encontra e o públicoalvo que ambas abrangem. / With increasing life expectancy and hence with the increasing number of elderly people who need social solutions capable of providing a better quality of life , the choice of the institution where you put our family is increasingly demanding . This study aimed to carry out , between these two types of institutions , a comparative analysis of the degree of user satisfaction , family and employees of two different institutions of the central region ( a supportive sector and one from the profit sector ) for services rendered, looking above all, end (or maybe not) with the stereotype that the quality of services provided by an institution of the profit sector is always better than those provided by a Private institution of Social Solidarity. Findings from this study revealed that, contrary to the stereotype that society imposes on us , the users , families and colleagues of Private Institution of Social Solidarity are the ones who are satisfied with the quality of services provided. However , besides we can not extrapolate these results to the majority of institutions , to better understand the results obtained in this study was taken into account the geographical area in which each institution is and the audience that both cover .

Betydelsen av socialt ansvar : En kvalitativ studie om ideella elitidrottsföreningars sociala samhällsengagemang

De ideella elitidrottsföreningarna börjar till stor del bli kommersialiserade och gränsen mellan dem och vinstdrivande företag är på väg att suddas ut. De är dock fortfarande en ideell idrottsförening till formen som ska vara allmännyttig, demokratisk, ha folkrörelsekaraktär, vara jämlik och jämställd – de ska med andra ord genom sin huvudsakliga verksamhet bidra till samhället. Trots det tenderar elitidrottsföreningarna att ta ytterligare samhällsansvar genom att bedriva olika projekt och verksamheter med syfte att på olika sätt hjälpa till exempel utsatta grupper i samhället. Syftet med studien är att förstå vilken betydelse de sociala samhällsengagemangen har för ideella elitidrottsföreningar i förhållande till deras intressenter. Genom att utföra semistrukturerade intervjuer med representanter från fem olika ideella elitidrottsföreningar har vi skapat en förståelse kring deras sociala ansvarstagande för att därefter tolka vilken betydelse detta har för föreningarna och för vilka de arbetar med socialt ansvarstagande. Uppsatsen bidrar till att förstå att det finns nya strategier att använda sig av när det handlar om att bedriva en ideell elitidrottsförening. Vi önskar att uppsatsen kan bidra till att inspirera personer inom föreningsvärlden att våga gå nya vägar när det kommer till att leda och utveckla Sveriges idrottsföreningar.

ENGINEERING DIGITAL SHARING PLATFORM TO CREATE SOCIAL CONTAGION: EVIDENCE FROM LARGE SCALE RANDOMIZED FIELD EXPERIMENTS

Peer-to-peer information sharing has fundamentally changed customer decision-making process. Recent developments in information technologies have enabled digital sharing platforms to influence various granular aspects of the information sharing process. Despite the growing importance of digital information sharing, little research has examined the optimal design choices for a platform seeking to maximize returns from information sharing. My dissertation seeks to fill this gap. Specifically, I study novel interventions that can be implemented by the platform at different stages of the information sharing. In collaboration with a leading for-profit platform and a non-profit platform, I conduct three large-scale field experiments to causally identify the impact of these interventions on customers’ sharing behaviors as well as the sharing outcomes. The first essay examines whether and how a firm can enhance social contagion by simply varying the message shared by customers with their friends. Using a large randomized field experiment, I find that i) adding only information about the sender’s purchase status increases the likelihood of recipients’ purchase; ii) adding only information about referral reward increases recipients’ follow-up referrals; and iii) adding information about both the sender’s purchase as well as the referral rewards increases neither the likelihood of purchase nor follow-up referrals. I then discuss the underlying mechanisms. The second essay studies whether and how a firm can design unconditional incentive to engage customers who already reveal willingness to share. I conduct a field experiment to examine the impact of incentive design on sender’s purchase as well as further referral behavior. I find evidence that incentive structure has a significant, but interestingly opposing, impact on both outcomes. The results also provide insights about senders’ motives in sharing. The third essay examines whether and how a non-profit platform can use mobile messaging to leverage recipients’ social ties to encourage blood donation. I design a large field experiment to causally identify the impact of different types of information and incentives on donor’s self-donation and group donation behavior. My results show that non-profits can stimulate group effect and increase blood donation, but only with group reward. Such group reward works by motivating a different donor population. In summary, the findings from the three studies will offer valuable insights for platforms and social enterprises on how to engineer digital platforms to create social contagion. The rich data from randomized experiments and complementary sources (archive and survey) also allows me to test the underlying mechanism at work. In this way, my dissertation provides both managerial implication and theoretical contribution to the phenomenon of peer-to-peer information sharing.

Limpiando el cuerpo y el alma. Higiene y control social en Medellín al iniciar el siglo XX

Este artículo pretende mostrar algunos de los cambios sociales que se dieron en Medellín al finalizar el siglo XIX e iniciar XX, momento en el que la ciudad vivió un proceso de crecimiento urbano no experimentado antes y que provocó la progresiva adecuación de nuevos organismos e instituciones para suplir las demandas económicas y sociales que también se fueron incrementan­do. Organizar e higienizar el espacio urbano, acorde con las ideas de ciudad y de ciudadano que se estaban imple­mentando en Europa, fueron algunas de las metas que se establecieron para planear la ciudad y, a la vez, tratar de mitigar el impacto del crecimiento de­mográfico que acusaba problemáticas de tipo social. Casas de beneficencia, manicomios, orfelinatos, hospitales, cárceles, patronatos, teatros, universi­dades, entre otras, fueron algunas de aquellas alternativas que se idearon con el fin de prevenir estas problemá­ticas, así como también propendieron por moralizar, distraer y castigar los comportamientos que se calificaban de inadecuados por parte de las élites.

Crowdfunding for non-commercial initiatives

Organizations and individuals dealing with non-commercial initiatives are in permanent search for funding. Crowdfunding is an alternative way of collecting funds from general public through Internet-based platforms, which is currently gaining popularity all over the world. There are several research initiatives in that field that show the influence of different factors on the success of campaigns, both with commercial and non-commercial objectives. Non-profit nature of the project is named among key predictors of positive outcome. In this context, the purpose of this work is to check whether the tendencies detected by scholars are valid for non-commercial initiatives, especially those having socially aware objectives, posted on the Belarusian crowdfunding platform Ulej. The method used for validation of the research hypotheses is binary logistic regression and statistical test. The results showed that the dependent variable success is influenced by such independent variables as the funding goal, the sum collected, the number of sponsors and the average pledge. On the other hand, the effect of the duration period is not significant. Inferential analysis shows that there is no difference in the level of success between commercial and non-commercial projects and that social orientation does not increase the likelihood of meeting financial goals. The findings are opposite to those provided in literature. However that could be explained by the short period of functioning of platform and the small number of projects.

Princípios de responsabilidade social : como vão as coisas nas pequenas e médias empresas do Portugal periférico?

O presente trabalho aborda a problemática da Responsabilidade Social Empresarial no âmbito das Pequenas e Médias Empresas, e corresponde à dissertação exigida para conclusão do Mestrado em Gestão da Universidade de Évora. Analisa-se o 'estado da arte' naquela matéria, verifica-se que o problema da responsabilidade social não é uma novidade das últimas décadas e apresenta-se o resultado da aplicação no Alentejo de um inquérito utilizado no Brasil pela Ethos-Sebrae para medir a consciencialização das PME relativamente às questões da Responsabilidade Social. Conclui-se pela necessidade de implementar acções de formação, sensibilização e assessoria, junto dos pequenos empresários, através de Instituições sem fins lucrativos. ABSTRACT: This work is focused on the subjects of small and medium size enterprises concerning the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and it is the required exposition for the conclusion of the Master’s degree in Management given by the University of Évora. lt contains the analysis of the "state of the art" in this subject, confirming that the problem of social responsibility is not a new concern in the last decades. Besides it presents the result of the application in Alentejo of an inquire used in Brazil by Ethos- Sebrae to measure the level of conscience of the small and medium size companies in what concerns to their social responsibility. lt comes to the conclusion it is required that non-profit institutions should implement workshops, actions of awareness and advisory directed to small enterprisers.