Can foreign aid free the press?

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
NABAMITA DUTTA ◽  
CLAUDIA R. WILLIAMSON

AbstractCan foreign aid help free the press? Aid may boost press freedom by incentivizing government to reduce media regulations and provide financial support for infrastructure. Alternatively, foreign aid may prevent press freedom by expanding the role of the state and promoting government over private enterprises. We contend that the magnitude of foreign aid's influence is conditional on the existence of democratic checks. Using panel data from 1994 to 2010, we find evidence suggesting that aid significantly increases press freedom in democracies but insignificantly relates to press freedom in autocracies. Collectively, the results suggest that a standard deviation increase in aid to a country at the mean level of democracy increases press freedom by approximately a 1/20th standard deviation. Overall, the findings suggest that donors should be cautious as most aid recipients are not democratic and aid leads to only relatively small marginal improvements in press freedom.

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1753-1796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Heblich ◽  
Alex Trew

AbstractWe establish a causal role for banking access in the spread of the Industrial Revolution over the period 1817–1881 by exploiting unique employment data from 10,528 parishes across England and Wales and a novel instrument. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in 1817 finance employment increases annualized industrial employment growth by 0.93 percentage points. We establish the role of structural transformation as an underlying growth mechanism and show that banking access: (i) increases the industrial employment share; (ii) stimulates urbanization; and (iii) fosters inter-industry transition to high TFP, intermediate and capital-intensive sub-sectors.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edwin Baker

The essay concerns the manner private power threatens the proper democratic role of the press or mass media. But first, Part I examines two preliminary conceptual matters involved in locating this discussion in the context of a conference on private power as a threat to human rights: 1) the relation of human rights to private power in general. This relation is complicated due to fact that human rights can themselves be seen as the assertion of private power against government or against collective power while, depending on how conceptualized, human rights can be improperly threatened by private power even while private power operates in a generally lawful manner; 2) involves the relation of press freedom and human rights. Here I argue that human rights are ill-conceived if offered as embodying any particular right in respect to the press—more specifically, I argue that a free press is not a human right—but argue instead that an ideal media order that is embodied in a broad conception of free press provides the soil in which human rights can flourish and the armor that offers them protection. Both government power and private power are necessary for and constitute threats to these supportive roles of a free press.Political-legal theory—or in constitutional democracies, possibly constitutional theory—should offer some guide to how the tightrope between government as threat and government as source of protection against private threats ought to be walked. That is, the goal is to find both proper limits on government power and proper empowerment of government to respond to private threats. Part II examines the variety of private threats to the proper role of the press. It focuses on two forms of threats: first, market failures that can be expected in relatively normal functioning of the market; second, problems related to the purposeful use of concentrated economic power. Responsive policies are multiple—no magic bullet but varying different governmental (as well as private) responses are appropriate. However, Part III illustrates this point by considering only two types of governmental policies, both of which I have recently been involved in advocating: first, government promotion of dispersal of concentrated power by means of ownership rules and policies; second, tax subsidies in the form of tax credits for a significant portion of journalists salaries as a means to correct for underproduction of journalism on theory that this journalism generally produces significant positive externalities.


Author(s):  
Satino Satino ◽  
Yuliana Yuli W ◽  
Iswahyuni Adil

Law Number 40 of 1999 concerning the Press is one of the legal regulations that have a role in efforts to realize a good life together. The struggle of the Indonesian press to achieve freedom was finally achieved after the enactment of Law Number 40 of 1999 concerning the Press. The purpose of this study is to find out how the freedom and role of the press in law enforcement are reviewed from the perspective of Law Number 40 of 1999, concerning the press. This study uses a sociological juridical method, the results of research conducted on real facts in society with the intent and purpose of finding facts, then proceeding with finding problems, ultimately leading to problem identification and leading to problem solving. The results of the research include the press trying to carry out its functions, rights, obligations, and roles, so the press must respect the human rights of everyone. The press has an important role in realizing Human Rights (HAM), as guaranteed in the Decree of the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia Number: XVII/MPR/1998. Based on the results of the research above, it is necessary to uphold the freedom of the press in conveying public information in an honest and balanced manner and that freedom of the press is not absolute for the press alone, but to guarantee the rights of the public to obtain information. what happened in the context of realizing press freedom as contained in Law/040/1999 concerning the Press.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 537-560
Author(s):  
Inma Martínez-Zarzoso ◽  
Jennifer Phillips

AbstractThis paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of environmental standards by studying the role of income inequality and freedom of the press. Given that evidence of the environmental Kuznets curve has only been found for some countries, it is thus crucial to investigate whether other factors besides income per capita levels may be affecting countries' decisions to pass environmentally-friendly legislation. We investigate the effects that inequality and freedom of the press have on environmental stringency for a sample of OECD and BRIICS countries and a global sample of 82 countries using data over the period 1994–2015. We hypothesize that the more unequal a society is, and the greater the oppression of the press is, the less stringent environmental policies are. The results partially confirm our hypothesis. In particular, lack of press freedom is negatively correlated with environmental stringency, whereas inequality shows a non-linear effect only for non-high-income countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 00087
Author(s):  
Tatyana Solovyova ◽  
Danil Zyukin

The study analyzes the aspects that determine the change in the role of the state and the form of its impact on the agricultural sector in the context of the impact of the pandemic on all socio-economic processes in the country. The article reveals the importance of implementing the import substitution program from social and economic positions for Russia. A complex of adverse consequences brought by the pandemic to the public life and economy of the country is given, which determines the change in the role of the state in matters of regulation and direct financial support of agricultural production. The article discusses the advisability of using "helicopter money" as a way to help the population in difficult social conditions and at the same time as a way to stimulate effective demand for essential domestic products, including food products. In the context of a pandemic, the necessity of payments to support direct agricultural producers to maintain their financial stability is substantiated, the calculation of which is recommended to be tied to the arable land area and livestock population. The study provides a list of basic principles that are recommended to be applied when using instruments of direct financial support and regulation from the state. It is important to ensure not only the survival of agribusiness in the current conditions, but also to create opportunities for maintaining investment activity in the implementation of large projects, as well as to ensure the maintenance of the level of intensification in the current production cycle.


Author(s):  
Viktoriia Ahapova

The present article investigates the link between economic growth, namely GDP per capita, and the media activity represented with the indicator of the press freedom alongside other factors such as infrastructure, institutional conditions, and foreign direct investments. A panel of 179 countries was used for the period from 2000 to 2015. In particular, we run two panel data analysis models, fixed effects and random effects models, and examined their output with Hausman’s specification test, which pointed the fixed effects model as more efficient for the presented data set. However due to the presence of serial correlation, heteroskedastic, and cross-panel dependence, a Prais-Winsten regression with panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) was implemented. The comparative analysis of models of four country groups, divided by GNI per capita, was conducted. Both statistically significant correlation coefficients and models’ output provided evidence of an association between economic growth and the press activity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-377
Author(s):  
Tuan Viet Le

This article studies the relationship between freedom of press and equity returns in emerging markets. While research has shown that asymmetric information is one reason for high volatility and one type of risk in financial markets, the role of press in reducing that risk has not yet been studied thoroughly. The article attempts to bridge that gap and investigates how a free and unbiased press affects excess returns in stock market. Using the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM), Fama-MacBeth’s methodology, and dataset from16 emerging economies from 1986 to 2000, this research is able to show that cross-country excess returns are significantly related to the degree of press freedom.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karey O'Hara ◽  
Austin Grinberg ◽  
Allison Mary Tackman ◽  
Matthias R. Mehl ◽  
David Sbarra

This study examined the association between naturalistically-observed in-person contact with one’s ex-partner and separation-related psychological distress (SRPD). 122 recently separated adults were assessed using the Electronically Activated Recorder (Mehl, 2017) on three occasions across five months. The association between in-person contact with one’s expartner, as a between-person variable, and concurrent SRPD was not reliably different from zero, nor was the time-varying effect of in-person contact. However, more frequent in-person contact with one’s ex-partner predicted higher SRPD two months later, above and beyond the variance accounted for by oncurrent in-person contact, demographic, relationship, and attachment factors. Follow-up analyses yielded that this effect was only present for people without children; a one standard deviation increase in in-person contact offset and slowed the predicted decline in SRPD over two months by 112%. Our discussion emphasizes new ways to think about the role of interpersonal contact in shaping adults’ psychological adjustment to separation over time.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Steel ◽  
Daphne Taras ◽  
Allen Ponak ◽  
John Kammeyer-Mueller

We investigated the causes and impact of procrastination on “slippery deadlines,” where the due date is ill-defined and can be autonomously extended, using the unique applied setting of grievance arbitration across two studies. In Study One, using 3 years of observed performance data derived from Canadian arbitration cases and a survey of leading arbitrators, we examined the effect of individual differences, self-regulatory skills, workloads and task characteristics on time delay. Observed delay here is a critical criterion, where justice is emphasized to be swift and sure. Multilevel Modeling established trait procrastination as a substantive predictor of observed delay, equivalent to the environmental contributors of expediting the arbitration procedure or grievance complexity. Also, despite substantive negative consequence of delay for both arbitrators and their clients, arbitrators who scored one standard deviation above the mean in procrastination took approximately 83 days to write their decisions compared to the 26 days for arbitrators one standard deviation below the mean. In Study Two, we conducted a replication and extension survey with a much larger group of American arbitrators. Consistent with Temporal Motivation Theory (TMT), trait procrastination was largely explained by expectancy, value, and sensitivity to time related traits and skills, which together accounted for majority of the variance in trait procrastination, leaving little left for other explanations. For example, perfectionism connection to procrastination appears to be distal, being largely mediated by each of TMT’s core variables. Finally, procrastination was largely synonymous with a deadline pacing style, indicating that observed delay can be used as a proxy for procrastination as long as little or no prior work was done (e.g., a u-shaped pacing style is not synonymous). In all, our results indicate that procrastination is rampant in the workplace and has seriously detrimental effects.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-162
Author(s):  
Lamia Salman Abdul Ali ◽  
Ali Hamed Ghaleem Al-Zuhairi

The of Consideration cognitive Skills as important skills that help the leaders in organizations to achieve Working procedures by adapting with Dynamic External environment , then ach ieve the Superior performance and Excellence on the rest of the organizations .Upon that basis crystallization the intellectual and practical sides of this study for clarification the philosophy of the role of cognitive Skills in achieve Superior performance , and attempt to find solutions for the prevailing problem in Ministry of Science and Technology that namely incapacity for Superior performance .It has been relying on curriculum of Empirical Study as curriculum help to deep comprehensive analysis for study problem , In addition to relying on Questionnaire for collecting of the basic data .In addition to relying in statistical side on the Quintet scale addition to Statistical tools that concern with the Mean Weighted ,standard deviation , Percentage Weighted , The coefficient of variation and The correlation coefficient . The most important conclusions that the study reached in the practical side that: there are a good interest by leaders in dimensions of cognitive Skills, and weak interest by them in dimensions of the Superior performance. Based on that the study recommends for increase the interest in dimensions of cognitive Skills, and focus on dimensions of the Superior performance.


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