Security threat: a reality or right-wing political discourse phenomenon

Asia Europe Journal - This article studies the potential paradigm shift in Europe linking refugees’ influx with the security phenomenon through the works of intellectuals belonging to...     

The Impact of School Meals on School Participation: Evidence from Rural India

This article assesses the effect of transition from monthly distribution of free food grains to the daily provision of free cooked meals to school children on enrolments and attendance in a rural area of India. School panel data allow a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to address possible endogeneity of programme placement. The results suggest that programme transition had a significant impact on improving the daily participation rates of children in lower grades. The average monthly attendance rate of girls in grade one was more than 12 percentage points higher while there was a positive but insignificant effect on grade one boys' attendance rate. The impact on enrolment levels was insignificant.     

Unequal Laws and the Disempowerment of Women in the Labour Market: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Institutions are defined as the set of rules that govern human interactions. When these rules are discriminatory, they may disempower segments of a population in the economic spheres of activity. In this study, we explore whether laws that discriminate against women influence their engagement in the economy. We adopt a holistic approach where we explore an overall measure of unequal laws also known as legal gender disparities and relate it to several labour market outcomes for women. Using data for over 59,000 firms across 94 economies, we find that unequal laws not only discourage women’s participation in the private sector workforce, but also their likelihood to become top managers and owners of firms. Suggestive evidence indicates that access to finance, property ownership, business registration, and labour market constraints are pathways by which legal gender disparities disempower women in the private sector.     

Empirical examination of public debt sustainability in African economies: A panel data analysis

This study intends to investigate public debt sustainability across 29 Sub-Sahara African (SSA) economies, employing various econometric specifications, for the sampled years 1996–2020. The study employs Bohn's (Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint? Journal of monetary Economics, 54(7), pp.1837–1847.) framework of sustainability as the baseline model to assess public debt sustainability across the sampled Sub-Sahara African economies. As additional tests of public debt sustainability in order to support the baseline findings, the study also employs panel unit root and timeseries unit tests. The baseline findings from the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions show that public debt is sustainable across the panel of SSA economies. The positive and statistically significant response of primary balance under the Bohn's framework of sustainability manifest that the intertemporal budget constraint is not violated in the sampled economies. The consistency in the estimates under the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions also show that the estimates are robust throughout the estimation process. Also, utilizing the panel unit root test for public debt sustainability, the findings show that public debt is stationary over the sampled years which implies that intertemporal budget constraint holds and that public debt is sustainable across the sampled SSA economies. However, the timeseries analysis indicate that although majority of the SSA economies have sustainable public debt ratios, four countries namely Uganda, Sudan, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire have unsustainable public debt ratios. The study has important policy implications in terms of prudent public debt management and fiscal management for the sampled SSA economies.     

Police legitimacy and support for vigilante violence in Pakistan

Bottoms and Tankebe recently analysed the multidimensional nature of police legitimacy and made an argument for its relevance to social order. Using survey data from three communities of varying socioeconomic conditions in Pakistan, this paper examines the links between the multiple dimensions of the Bottoms-Tankebe model of police legitimacy and support for vigilante violence. The findings show overall high levels of support for vigilantism. Regression analysis shows that experiences of police illegality consistently predict support for vigilantism across the three communities. Perceived quality of police decision-making predicts support for vigilantism in some conditions but not others. Contrary to expectations, quality of interpersonal treatment by police and police effectiveness do not explain support for vigilantism. We also found no evidence to show that feelings of obligation to obey the police mediate the influence of police legitimacy on vigilante support. The implications of these findings are discussed in this paper.     

Decomposing the Labour Productivity Gap between Migrant-Owned and Native-Owned Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa

Migration studies have been primarily based on the movement of individuals from developing to developed economies, with a focus on the impact of migrants on host country wages. In this study we take a different angle by exploring the labour productivity of migrant-owned firms versus native-owned firms in 20 African economies using firm-level data. We find that labour productivity is 78 per cent higher in migrant-owned firms than native-owned firms. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method we find that structural effects account for 80 per cent of the labour productivity gap. Returns to manager education largely explain the productivity advantage of migrant-owned firms over native-owned firms. Interactions with the government, access to finance, informality, and power outages are also considerable contributors to the labour productivity gap.     

Emerging donors: the promise and limits of bilateral and multilateral democracy promotion

This paper examines the evolving pattern of democracy promotion by three emerging donors: India, Brazil and South Africa. It first asks how the emerging donors promote democracy through their development assistance. The paper argues that despite the risk of compromising security and trade interests, the emerging donors have adapted to a 2 × 2 (two by two) model of democracy promotion by which they circumvent risk by promoting procedural democracy through bilateral means and non-procedural democracy through multilateral frameworks. Second, the paper asks why these three countries exhibit the same pattern of democracy promotion in spite of not having coordination among them. In response, the paper provides a structure–agent explanation. The paper contends that the structural constraints imposed on emerging donors are conducive to the operation of the 2 × 2 model in promoting democracy. While the model safeguards the emerging donors from criticism of being undue interveners in other countries' domestic affairs, it also privileges them with international recognition for being responsible partners in democracy promotion.     

Divulging data: Domestic determinants of international information sharing

Information is a core input of governance that is often disrupted by the processes associated with globalization. To mitigate potential governance failures, states turn to information sharing – the exchange of sensitive data between governments. Such exchanges, however, come with considerable risks. Building on work in International Relations and organizational sociology stressing the importance of institutional similarity, we argue that states commit to information sharing based on their beliefs as to the reliability and predictability of potential partners – an assessment that involves a relative evaluation of domestic institutions. We test our argument on institutional similarity with a new dataset of mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) – a critical example of information-sharing agreements. The empirical analysis finds substantial support for our argument: states with similar legal institutions are much more likely to sign MLATs. The article contributes to a range of research concerned with the politics of globalization, especially as it relates to enforcement cooperation, the role of domestic institutions, and information flows.