This paper analyzes the relationship between microfinance, competition, and growth in a sample of 119 countries over the period 1999–2018. Our results are fourfold. First, we show that microfinance increases economic growth. Second, we identify investment and consumption as the main channels explaining the positive effect of microfinance on growth. Third, our study highlights that the conventional financial sector and microfinance are substitutes and not complements in emerging and developing countries. Finally, we show that competitive microfinance markets allow increasing the positive effect of microfinance on growth.

Course-prerequisite networks (CPNs) are directed acyclic graphs that model complex academic curricula by representing courses as nodes and dependencies between them as directed links. These networks are indispensable tools for visualizing, studying, and understanding curricula. For example, CPNs can be used to detect important courses, improve advising, guide curriculum design, analyze graduation time distributions, and quantify the strength of knowledge flow between different university departments. However, most CPN analyses to date have focused only on micro- and meso-scale properties. To fill this gap, we define and study three new global CPN measures: breadth, depth, and flux. All three measures are invariant under transitive reduction and are based on the concept of topological stratification, which generalizes topological ordering in directed acyclic graphs. These measures can be used for macro-scale comparison of different CPNs. We illustrate the new measures numerically by applying them to three real and synthetic CPNs from three universities: the Cyprus University of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, and Johns Hopkins University. The CPN data analyzed in this paper are publicly available in a GitHub repository.

The main goal of this paper is to introduce a new model of evolvement of beliefs on networks. It generalizes the DeGroot model and describes the iterative process of establishing the consensus in isolated social networks in the case of nonlinear aggregation functions. Our main tools come from mean theory and graph theory. The case, when the root set of the network (influencers, news agencies, etc.) is ergodic is fully discussed. The other possibility, when the root contains more than one component, is partially discussed and it could be a motivation for further research.

Building on a newly compiled database of all extant respondentia contracts from Manila’s notarial protocols between 1736 and 1800, this article examines the overlooked role that the Manila correspondencia played as the crucial private-order institutional mechanism financing Manila’s long-distance silver trade. This instrument organized the structure of long-distance capital flows stretching out from Manila across its intra-Asian and trans-Pacific commercial lines, allowing investors to make claims on future returns and apportion risks in the absence of an adequate public-order institutional framework for high volumes of exchange. Combining the respondentia dataset with account books for institutional lenders (the obras pías), we argue that the Manila correspondencia’s contractual elements offered a specific solution to the Fundamental Problem of Exchange between Asia and the Americas. The contract’s flexibility proved ideal for Manila’s diverse combination of individual and institutional investors to participate in the profits of cross-cultural trade, while offering security and guarantees.

Digital transformation presents a crucial strategic imperative for family businesses seeking to maintain competitiveness and long-term viability. The academic literature reveals divergent perspectives on how family businesses approach digital transformation initiatives. This study adopts a socioemotional wealth perspective to examine the relationship between family ownership and digital transformation. The research specifically investigates how family formal business networks and next-generation dispersion moderate this relationship. Analysis of panel data from Chinese listed family firms between 2016 and 2020 reveals that family ownership negatively influences digital transformation efforts. However, this negative effect diminishes when family firms participate in formal business networks or involve multiple next-generation members in leadership positions. These findings yield important theoretical contributions regarding the intricate relationships between family dynamics and technological advancement. The research also provides practical insights for family business leaders navigating digital transformation challenges. This study advances understanding of how different dimensions of socioemotional wealth shape family firms’ strategic responses to technological change.

This study explores the visual aesthetics of organizational space by contrasting coworking spaces with traditional open-plan offices. Drawing on signaling theory and symbolic interactionism, we examine how ambience communicates symbolic meaning. Employing an archaeological approach to retrieve large-scale online photo data from Coworker and Pinterest, we then apply AI-driven deep learning visual contrast analysis to reveal clear aesthetic distinctions in organizational space. Coworking spaces evoke a homely, dining-room-like ambiance, with artwork, plants, warmer color palettes, and a more homely and hospitable ambience. Traditional open-plan offices, by contrast, tend toward cooler colors and industrial design elements. Findings suggest that coworking spaces visually signal greater affective and sensory value, promoting belonging, creativity, and warmth. The study contributes to organizational space theory by theorizing how visual aesthetics act as symbolic cues that shape workplace experiences and by introducing a methodological framework that integrates AI-based analysis with interpretive meaning-making.

There is consensus that health outcomes are shaped to a considerable extent by social determinants or non-medical factors (Marmot 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) describes these social determinants as

We document that climate-triggered institutional portfolio rebalancing affects S&P 500 firms’ cost of equity through climate change price pressure (CCPP). Using a demand-based asset pricing framework, we estimate firm-level CCPP from physical and transition exposures over 2005–2021. A one-standard-deviation intensification of CCPP raises the cost of equity by up to 6% of its average, with banks and insurers as the main drivers. Yet firms do not subsequently improve environmental performance, indicating that the statistically significant effect of CCPP on cost of equity is ineffective to alter corporate behavior. Our CCPP metrics can help policymakers and investors design targeted environmental strategies.

This article shows that when a compensation peer firm experiences a significant failure in its say-on-pay (SOP) voting, the focal firm’s stock price is adversely affected, resulting in reduced CEO pay in the subsequent period. This pay-reduction effect is amplified when the board is more powerful, when proxy advisors express concerns about CEO pay, and when the compensation consultant lacks quality. Directors who react to the price drop and cut the CEO’s pay receive higher votes in future director elections, implying a market feedback effect for directors of the focal firm triggered by their peers’ SOP voting failure.

We report evidence consistent with institutional investors using industry-level information that they obtain from their investments in venture capital (VC) funds to earn excess returns in publicly traded stocks. We use court rulings regarding the Freedom of Information Act as an exogenous shock affecting the information flow between VC funds and institutional investors to show that the excess returns are explained by information received via this channel. Thus, institutional investors serve as conduits of information from private to public markets. In the process, institutional investors earn higher returns from their VC investments than implied by the cash flows received therefrom.

This article set out to explore how organisations can raise awareness for menopause at work without unintentionally exacerbating stigma. Identity regulation can control the boundaries within which stigmatised identities are (re)constructed, and yet it is unclear how identities that are constructed through awareness of menopause, might respond to the traditional control pathway of identity regulation. This multi-method study was conducted in two parts: a survey (n = 525) on women’s health at work, the findings of which informed the content of a qualitative vignette writing task, which was completed by a sub-population (n = 54, women in their 40s and 50s) from the survey. Findings suggest that organisations should create awareness while adequately considering unintentional consequences of exacerbating stigma, and that uncritically adopted male allyship might present a barrier to menopause awareness and disclosure. There are practical implications of these findings relevant to menopause awareness at work.

This research presents the design, pricing, and consumer testing results of a potential private financial product that integrates retirement savings with social care funding through contributions to a supplemental defined contribution pension scheme. With this product, some contributions will be earmarked specifically to cover social care expenses if needed post-retirement. Our research indicates that offering benefits that address both retirement income supplementation and social care funding in a combined approach is appealing to consumers and could help overcome behavioural barriers to planning for social care. As with established defined contribution schemes, this product is designed for distribution in the workplace. Employees can contribute a portion of their earnings to their pension accounts. Employers may partially or fully match these contributions, further incentivising participation. In addition to financial support, participants will gain access to social care coordination services designed to facilitate ageing at home. These services will help retirees navigate care options, coordinate necessary support, and optimise the use of their allocated social care funds, ultimately promoting independence and well-being in later life.

Qualitative data and analysis can enrich our understanding of key questions in behavioural public policy. In this perspective, I make the case for incorporating qualitative approaches better and more often into our research. I offer practical ideas on how to do this, and a call for action from researchers, reviewers, editors, policy makers and our Higher Education and funding institutions.

We investigate the impact of corruption on female leadership in Brazil using cross-sectional municipal-level data. Our findings suggest that corruption significantly reduces the proportion of working women in leadership roles. Additionally, corruption decreases female representation in leadership relative to men, though this effect is less robust. When examining sectors most vulnerable to corruption, the results remain largely consistent, but we also note that women tend to avoid these sectors entirely. Our findings suggest that corruption acts as a significant barrier to female leadership.

Sludge is one of the most important yet underappreciated problems in modern society. Examples of sludge include unnecessarily complex paperwork requirements, hard-to-navigate documents and websites, long waiting time, and unfriendly or confusing staff interactions. However, little is known about whether some people are more vulnerable to and less accepting of some types of sludge than others. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey with 1,591 participants from Ireland, we show that people report being particularly vulnerable to outdated websites with broken links, unfriendly staff interactions, complex documents laden with jargon, and hard-to-navigate websites. These are also the types of sludge that are least acceptable. Less vulnerability is reported to long waiting times and requirements about having to provide private information. We find only minor differences in sludge perceptions depending on whether the sludge emerges in the public or the private sector. Moreover, people with poor mental health report being more vulnerable to and less accepting of sludge. Self-reported administrative literacy is related to less reported vulnerability, and the tendency to procrastinate and a lack of time and mental energy predict more reported vulnerability to sludge. Administrative literacy and a lack of mental energy also predict acceptability of sludge.

Sums of the ratings that judges assign to wines are a near universal method of determining the winners and losers of wine competitions. Sums are easy to calculate and easy to communicate, but seven flaws make sums of ratings a perilous guide to relative quality or preference. Stars & Bars combinatorics show that the same sum can be the result of billions of compositions of ratings and that those compositions, for the same sum, can contain dispersion that ranges from universal consensus to apparent randomness to polar disagreement. Order preference models can address both order and dispersion, and an example using a Plackett–Luce model yields maximum likelihood estimates of top-choice probabilities that are a defensible guide to relative quality or preference.