scholarly journals Foreign aid, oil revenues, and political accountability: Evidence from six experiments in Ghana and Uganda

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon de la Cuesta ◽  
Lucy Martin ◽  
Helen V. Milner ◽  
Daniel L. Nielson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Revenue Sources ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Oil Revenues ◽  
Indirect Route

Abstract Foreign aid may act much like oil money in reducing voters’ willingness to demand accountability from their government, enabling corruption, clientelism, and repression. This is an important causal mechanism connecting public budgets to quality of governance. Yet other scholarship counters that aid is more beneficial than oil, either indirectly because of donor oversight or directly because aid is more likely to produce citizen pressures on governments. Empirical work on the topic employs observational data at the national, macro level, and has left the question unresolved. At the micro level, in some countries citizens have experience with aid revenues and oil funds, thus possessing information about the political implications of these different revenue sources. This article provides the first experimental tests of the direct mechanism linking aid and oil revenues to demands from citizens for greater political accountability. We report the effects of randomly assigned treatments identifying aid funds compared to oil money on behavior of citizens in six survey and lab experiments in Ghana and Uganda. We find no differences in accountability pressures when subjects are randomly assigned to aid or oil conditions in any experiment, including a survey-based field experiment in Uganda that employed very strong information treatments on the extent of aid and oil funds. Though little evidence suggests that either windfall necessarily reduces accountability demands from baseline in a meaningful way, citizens’ actions for aid money were statistically indistinguishable from oil revenues across all experiments. Aid may well have governance effects through the indirect route of donor oversight, but the results presented here suggest no evidence that aid, compared to oil, directly induces greater accountability demands among citizens.

The Social Consequences of Phubbing

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariek Vanden Abeele
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Expectancy Violations ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Comprehensive Literature Review ◽  
The Social

Recent empirical work suggests that phubbing, a term used to describe the practice of snubbing someone with a phone during a face-to-face social interaction, harms the quality of social relationships. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this chapter presents a framework that integrates three concurrent mechanisms that explain the relational impact of phubbing: expectancy violations, ostracism, and attentional conflict. Based on this framework, theoretically grounded propositions are formulated that may serve as guidelines for future research on these mechanisms, the conditions under which they operate, and a number of potential issues that need to be considered to further validate and extend the framework.

scholarly journals Defining and Measuring News Media Quality: Comparing the Content Perspective and the Audience Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122199966
Author(s):  
Philipp Bachmann ◽  
Mark Eisenegger ◽  
Diana Ingenhoff
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Content Quality ◽  
Media System ◽  
Evaluative Criteria ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Multimethod Approach ◽  
Media Systems ◽  
Measurement Approach

High-quality news is important, not only for its own sake but also for its political implications. However, defining, operationalizing, and measuring news media quality is difficult, because evaluative criteria depend upon beliefs about the ideal society, which are inherently contested. This conceptual and methodological paper outlines important considerations for defining news media quality before developing and applying a multimethod approach to measure it. We refer to Giddens' notion of double hermeneutics, which reveals that the ways social scientists understand constructs inevitably interact with the meanings of these constructs shared by people in society. Reflecting the two-way relationship between society and social sciences enables us to recognize news media quality as a dynamic, contingent, and contested construct and, at the same time, to reason our understanding of news media quality, which we derive from Habermas' ideal of deliberative democracy. Moreover, we investigate the Swiss media system to showcase our measurement approach in a repeated data collection from 2017 to 2020. We assess the content quality of fifty news media outlets using four criteria derived from the deliberative ideal ( N = 20,931 and 18,559 news articles and broadcasting items, respectively) and compare the results with those from two representative online surveys ( N = 2,169 and 2,159 respondents). The high correlations between both methods show that a deliberative understanding of news media quality is anchored in Swiss society and shared by audiences. This paper shall serve as a showcase to reflect and measure news media quality across other countries and media systems.

scholarly journals The Effect of Process Parameters in Helical Rolling of Balls on the Quality of Products and the Forming Process

Materials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janusz Tomczak ◽  
Zbigniew Pater ◽  
Tomasz Bulzak
Keyword(s):  
Metal Flow ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Rolling Process ◽  
Helical Rolling ◽  
Forming Process ◽  
University Of Technology ◽  
Quality Of Products ◽  
Skew Rolling

This paper presents selected numerical and experimental results of a skew rolling process for producing balls using helical tools. The study investigates the effect of the billet’s initial temperature on the quality of produced balls and the rolling process itself. In addition, the effect of billet diameter on the quality of produced balls is investigated. Experimental tests were performed using a helical rolling mill available at the Lublin University of Technology. The experiments consisted of rolling 40 mm diameter balls with the use of two helical tools. To determine optimal rolling parameters ensuring the highest quality of produced balls, numerical modelling was performed using the finite element method in the Forge software. The numerical analysis involved the determination of metal flow kinematics, temperature and damage criterion distributions, as well as the measurement of variations in the force parameters. The results demonstrate that the highest quality balls are produced from billet preheated to approximately 1000 °C.

Testing the Accuracy of Surface Roughness Measurements Carried out with a Portable Profilometer

2015 ◽  
Vol 637 ◽  
pp. 69-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Stępień
Keyword(s):  
Surface Roughness ◽  
Measurement Accuracy ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Evaluation Procedure ◽  
Human Errors ◽  
Modern Manufacturing ◽  
Machine Parts ◽  
Roughness Measurements

Surface roughness is a factor that has a vital influence on overall quality of machine parts. This is the reason why proper measurements of surface roughness are a matter of great importance in modern manufacturing technology. Nowadays portable profilometers are common instruments to be used under industrial conditions. Measurements with such instruments can be affected by numerous factors, for example environmental changes, human errors of an operator, etc. This paper discusses problem of an evaluation of measurement accuracy of portable profilometers. It also describes the evaluation procedure and presents results experimental tests.

Research Note: Women's Experience of the Mother Role

1993 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pat O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Medical Records ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Women's Experience ◽  
Mother Role

Despite the feminist critique of the assumptions implicit in the ideology of motherhood, relatively little empirical work has been done on women's own experience of this role. This research note uses data from a small scale intensive study of 51 married or cohabiting mothers aged 20–42 years old, whose oldest child was 15 years old, and who were randomly selected from medical records in a lower middle class area of North London. Building on Boulton's (1983) conceptualization, it differentiates between three aspects of this role (namely their commitment to it; its perceived identity enhancing/ destructive character and the positive/negative quality of their interaction with their children). These women's experience of the mother role was then assessed on these dimensions – using rating scales and anchoring examples (which are illustrated here). This research note suggests that even within this relatively homogenous lower middle/upper working class sample, the experience of motherhood was extremely varied: with less than half of the sample experiencing it positively at all three levels. An attempt is made to explain this variation.

Can foreign aid motivate institutional reform? An evaluation of the HIPC Initiative

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh Tam Schlosky ◽  
Andrew Young
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Institutional Quality ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hipc Initiative

Purpose A number of political economy concerns are associated with the provision of foreign aid to developing economies. These concerns suggest that foreign aid is likely to have harmful effects on a recipient’s institutional quality, and that attempts to give aid conditional on policy and institutional reforms are unlikely to succeed. Established in 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative is a comprehensive, structured attempt to provide multilateral foreign aid conditional on reforms in recipient countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate its effectiveness at affecting institutional reform in participating countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors document how participating countries fared in terms of the quality of their policies and institutions. The authors employ the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index as a measure of economic institutions, and the Freedom House political rights (PR) and civil liberties indices as measures of PR and protections. Based on these measures, the authors report unconditional statistics (e.g. average changes) and also regressions of changes in the measures on HIPC Initiative aid allocations and other controls. Findings The authors find that most participating countries experienced either meager increases or outright decreases in institutional quality. The regression results provide no evidence that the Initiative affects meaningful reforms. Originality/value The potential for foreign aid to have deleterious effects on the institutional quality of recipient countries has been of increasing concern to students of economic development. Such effects can have important implications for entrepreneurial activity in these countries. The HIPC Initiative is specifically designed to acknowledge and, indeed, overcome these concerns, leading to actual increases in institutional quality of recipient countries. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to assess whether the promise of the HIPC Initiative is being fulfilled.

GLOBALIZATION AND INFLATION: NEW PANEL EVIDENCE

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong-Hyeon Kim ◽  
Shu-Chin Lin ◽  
Yi-Chen Wu
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Panel Cointegration ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Heterogeneous Panel ◽  
Positive Effect

Recent empirical work on globalization and inflation analyzes multicountry data sets in panel and/or cross-section frameworks and reaches inconclusive results. This paper highlights their shortcomings and reexamines the issue utilizing heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that allow for cross-section heterogeneity and dependence. It finds that in a sample of developing countries globalization of both trade and finance, on the average, exerts a significant and positive effect on inflation, whereas in a sample of developed countries there is, on the average, no significant impact of openness. Neither type of openness disciplines inflationary policy. Despite this, there are large variations in the effect across countries, due possibly to differences in the quality of political institutions, central bank independence, the exchange-rate regimes, financial development, and/or legal traditions.

Do Foreign Aid Projects Attract Transnational Terrorism?

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Boutton ◽  
Henry Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
Transnational Terrorism ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
The Government ◽  
Project Level

AbstractGovernments and NGOs establish aid projects in order to improve the quality of life for local residents around the world. While recent news stories about aid workers being kidnapped or killed by terrorist groups are alarming, they mask a broader question: Are aid projects effective in promoting humanitarian aims and pacifying the areas to which it is sent? Or, conversely, does their presence actually attract more violence? Although humanitarian assistance is ostensibly non-political, aid projects themselves may make popular targets for terrorist groups. In addition to increasing resources available to plunder, aid provides an appealing foreign target, allowing terrorist groups to reach wider audiences with their attacks and to reinforce the narrative that the government lacks capacity to protect and provide for civilians. In this paper we combine subnational, project-level aid data with newly-assembled subnational data on transnational terrorism to explore terrorist targeting of aid locations. After presenting our matched-sample analysis of terrorist targeting of aid, we outline avenues for future inquiry using high-resolution, subnational data to investigate the strategic vulnerabilities of foreign aid projects.

scholarly journals ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT OF MACHINE FOR FORMATION OF ARTIFICIAL SHELL ON SEED VEGETABLE CULTURES

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.L. Rogovskii ◽  
L.L. Titova ◽  
V.I. Trokhaniak ◽  
L.I. Marinina ◽  
O.T. Lavrinenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Physical And Mechanical Properties ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Dynamic Mode ◽  
Seed Coating ◽  
Experimental Sample ◽  
Sowing Time ◽  
Seed Material ◽  
Internal Friction Coefficient

The article analyses the universalization of the seed material by its physical and mechanical properties by means of pre-sowing treatment, resulting in the formation of an artificial shell. As a result of the generalization, a technological scheme of obtaining an encapsulated seed and a design of a seed coating machine was proposed. A simulation model of the sowing accuracy process from the internal friction coefficient of seeds at different root mean square deviations of seed sizes is proposed. The regression equation for the influence of the dynamic mode of operation of the developed experimental sample of seed coating machine is established. According to the experimental studies’ results, the static and dynamic friction coefficients of the encapsulated vegetable seeds on the steel and plastic working surfaces of seed coating machine were established. Under the production conditions, experimental tests were conducted to compare the seedlings of untreated, coated, branded and encapsulated seeds of vegetables by the quality of prepared seed material and sowing time.

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