Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Women In China, Between Confucius And The Market, Tonia Warnecke, Alain Blanchard

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Efficiency, Firm-Size And Gender: The Case Of Informal Firms In Latin America, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

The paper extends the female under-performance hypothesis to informal or unregistered firms in two developing countries, Argentina and Peru. Specifically, results show that for a sample of informal firms, average productivity of labor and firm-size measured by monthly sales and employment are smaller for female-owned compared with male-owned firms.

Gender And Informality In Latin America (Short Note), Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Recently collected data on informal or unregistered firms in Argentina and Peru show significant differences between male and female-owned firms in certain firm characteristics and performance measures. Compared with male-owned firms, female-owned firms are smaller in size as measured by total monthly sales and also less efficient as measured by the average productivity of labor. Female-owned firms are less likely to use equipments such as machines and vehicles, although this is not the reason for their lower efficiency. Some of the commonly held views including lower education among women entrepreneurs, fewer numbers of owners among firms that have a female …

Sociology, Economics, And Gender: Can Knowledge Of The Past Contribute To A Better Future?, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

This essay explores the profoundly gendered nature of the split between the disciplines of economics and sociology which took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing implications for the relatively new field of economic sociology. Drawing on historical documents and feminist studies of science, it investigates the gendered processes underlying the divergence of the disciplines in definition, method, and degree of engagement with social problems. Economic sociology has the potential to heal this disciplinary split, but only if the field is broadened, deepened, and made wiser and more self-reflective through the use of feminist analysis.

Gendered Vulnerabilities After Genocide: Three Essays On Post-Conflict Rwanda, Catherine Ruth Finnoff

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation addresses gendered vulnerabilities after the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. It consists of three essays, each focusing on the experience of women in a particular aspect of post-conflict development. The first essay analyzes trends in poverty and inequality in Rwanda from 2000 to 2005. The chapter identifies four important correlates of consumption income: gender, human capital, assets, and geography, and examines their salience in determining the poverty of a household and its position in the income distribution. The second essay is an econometric examination of an important health insurance scheme initiated in post-conflict Rwanda. Employing logistic regression techniques, …

Getting Past 'Rational Man/Emotional Woman': Comments On Research Programs In Happiness Economics And Interpersonal Relations, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Orthodox neoclassical economics portrays reason as far more important than emotion, autonomy as more characteristic of economic life than social connection, and, more generally, things culturally and cognitively associated with masculinity as more central than things associated with femininity. Research from contemporary neuroscience suggests that such biases are related to certain automatic processes in the brain, and feminist scholarship suggests ways of getting beyond them. The “happiness” and “interpersonal relations” economics research programs have made substantial progress in overcoming a number of these biases, bringing into consideration by economists a wide range of phenomena which were previously neglected. Analysis from …

An Essay On The Nature And Significance Of Deception And Telling Lies, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

A lie is an expression at deviance with the truth known or honestly believed by someone with an intention to deceive others for certain purpose, social or personal. An ability to lie might be evolutionary in nature possibly to help in survival, since it is found in the non-human world also. In the biological perspective, each individual is at war against all others. Thus viewed, lies are the cardinal virtues for survival and, by implication, the carriers of evolution. In the human world, lying is morally blameworthy in a relatively un-obscure way. There may be cases of lying to which …

The Effects Of Marital Status & Gender On Health Care Insurance Coverage In The United States, Jessica S. T. Kong

Honors Projects

Having health insurance is a crucial factor for many to sustain life in America. This study examines the demographic determinants of health care coverage within the United States with a focus on how gender and marital status influence the likelihood of having health insurance. Using the human capital theory and the theory of statistical discrimination, it is predicted that married females will have a higher probability of being insured than divorced and separated females. Also, divorced males are predicted to have a higher probability of coverage than divorced females. The data for this research is retrieved from the United States …

Gender And Informality (A Short Note), Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

For a sample of informal firms in Burkina Faso, Cameroons, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar and Mauritius, this note compares male and female owned businesses. The results provide mixed evidence on a number of hypotheses discussed in the literature for firms in the formal sector. First, the female under-performance hypothesis is confirmed, but only for firm-size. For firm-efficiency measured by the average productivity of labor, we find little difference across male and female owned businesses. Second, consistent with the view that women may face glass-ceiling in getting managerial positions, we find that women managers in our sample have less experience …

Gender And Firm-Size: Evidence From Africa, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

A number of studies show that relative to male owned businesses, female owned businesses are smaller in size. However, these studies are restricted to the formal or the organized sector. Also, with some exceptions, they focus on the developed countries. This paper explores the gender and firm-size relationship for a sample of informal or unregistered firms in six developing countries in Africa including Burkina Faso, Cameroons, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar and Mauritius. We find strong evidence that female owned businesses are smaller than male owned businesses.

[Data and Stata do files included]

Home-Based Informal Businesses And The Gender Dimension, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Anecdotal evidence suggests that working from home makes it easier to balance work and family life. This is particularly attractive to women, who are viewed as primary caregivers in the family in most developing countries. However, there is some concern in the literature that family responsibility may detract from doing business, leading to fewer hours of operation and lower efficiency for home-based businesses run by women. The present paper tests these hypotheses using data on informal or unregistered firms in five African countries. We find strong evidence that female entrepreneurs have a greater proclivity compared with male entrepreneurs to work …

Shaping Economic Practices In China’S Post-Command Economy Period: The Interaction Of Politics, Economics And Institutional Constraints, Tonia Warnecke, Alain Blanchard

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Publications

Although much has been published on China's economic transition, less research has focused on how Chinese culture and the Communist political system have interacted to shape the new Chinese economy. In this paper, we argue that China's post-command economy period reflects not only the 'new' infusion of neo-liberal ideology into the country, but also the consistent filtering of economic practices through a historical and complex institutional arrangement of cultural and political norms. The tensions between neo-classical free market principles and the overarching authority of the Communist state explain the variety of institutional constraints on actual economic practices in China. While …

Do Ugly Criminals Receive Harsher Sentences? An Analysis Of Lookism In The Criminal Justice System, Kelly Beck

Business and Economics Honors Papers

For many years, researchers have attempted to find a link between beauty and labor market outcomes. Although many important findings have been noted in these studies, the beauty analysis utilized was a subjective measurement. This subjective method, while important, may have external factors creating bias in the rating itself. In this study, the impact of beauty is applied to criminals and their sentences. Using a computer based symmetry measurement tool, an objective beauty measurement will be utilized. This study will seek to uncover whether or not criminals who are less attractive, measured through facial symmetry, receive harsher prison sentences than …