Cristian Barra, Sergio Destefanis, Vania Sena and Roberto Zotti
This paper provides novel evidence on the role of gender in the performance of university students, which is particularly relevant to the debate on the performance of female…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper provides novel evidence on the role of gender in the performance of university students, which is particularly relevant to the debate on the performance of female students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
Design/methodology/approach
Our approach relies on the metafrontier approach proposed by Huang et al. (2014), which measures students' efficiency within a given faculty and the impact of the faculty’s technology on students’ efficiency. We use a sample of 53,159 first-year students in 8 faculties from a large university in southern Italy from 2002–2003 to 2010–2011.
Findings
Students’ efficiency is relatively low, reflecting an essential role of unobserved heterogeneity. The different technologies of somewhat similar faculties have minimal impact on efficiency. There is a performance gap against women in five faculties, which on average is strongest for the faculties in the pure and applied science area. This gap increases with the proportion of female students and decreases with female lecturers.
Practical implications
The metafrontier has the benefit of providing relevant policy information on the drivers of student success by relying on data that universities routinely generate and preserve.
Originality/value
The stochastic metafrontier approach allows us to separate the group-specific frontiers from the metafrontier, yielding a decomposition of the efficiency scores of various faculties into technical efficiency scores and technological gaps.
Details
Keywords
Cristian Barra and Roberto Zotti
This paper aims to explore the relationship between bank market power and stability of financial institutions in Italy between 2001 and 2012. The authors first test the existence…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between bank market power and stability of financial institutions in Italy between 2001 and 2012. The authors first test the existence of a U-shaped relationship between market power and financial stability. Second, they regress the market share indicator on bank risk-taking to underline whether financial stability is affected by increasing or decreasing the market power of banks. Third, they explore whether this relationship is affected by the size, level of capitalization and credit insolvency of banks.
Design/methodology/approach
Relying on highly territorially disaggregated data at labor market areas level, the authors estimate the impact of bank market power and other explanatory variables on a proxy of risk taking behavior such as the banking “stability inefficiency” derived simultaneously from the estimation of a stability stochastic frontier. Bank market power is taken into account through an individual measure based on loans. Financial stability is calculated through the Z-score. The authors use, as risk-taking measure, the stability inefficiency whose estimation approach is the stochastic frontier analysis.
Findings
The empirical evidence shows that the inefficiency of financial stability is found to be U-shaped related with respect to the measure of market power. Bank size is an essential factor in explaining the relationship between bank market power and risk-taking. Cooperative banks have fewer incentives to gain market power to better perform in term of risks. The reform of the cooperative banks that took recently place in Italy is not supported by the data.
Originality/value
The relationship between bank market power and financial stability has been analyzed using a rich sample of cooperative, commercial and popular banks in Italy over the 2001-2012 period. The authors rely on labor market areas being sub-regional geographical areas where the bulk of the labor force lives and works. The paper investigates the market power-stability link considering both cooperative and non-cooperative banks. Indeed, specific attention has been paid on cooperative banks because of their mission in favor of the local community as only few studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, examine cooperative banking.
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Roberto Zotti, Nino Speziale and Cristian Barra
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of religious involvement on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of religious involvement on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection effects explaining religious influence using the British Household Panel Survey data set.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to measure the level of religious involvement, the authors construct different indices on the base of individual religious belonging, participation and beliefs applying a propensity score matching estimator.
Findings
The results show that religious active participation plays a relevant role among the different aspects of religiosity; moreover, having a strong religious identity such as, at the same time, belonging to any religion, attending religious services once a week or more and believing that religion makes a great difference in life, has a high causal impact on SWB. The authors’ findings are robust to different aspects of life satisfaction.
Originality/value
The authors offer an econometric account of the causal impact of different aspects of religiosity finding evidence that the causal effect of religious involvement on SWB is better captured than through typical regression methodologies focussing on the mean effects of the explanatory variables.
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Tegan Piggford, Maria Raciti, Debra Harker and Michael Harker
Understanding the drivers of young adults' healthy food choices is vital to addressing the public health issue of obesity. The healthy eating motives that underlay such consumer…
Abstract
Purpose
Understanding the drivers of young adults' healthy food choices is vital to addressing the public health issue of obesity. The healthy eating motives that underlay such consumer choice behavior are particularly important to the well‐being of society. This research is novel in that it aims to investigate the food motives of young Australian adults in relation to five socio‐demographic factors, namely place of residence, gender, age, gross income and work hours. While overseas studies have examined some of these factors, the Australian context and its nuances is one that is notably absent. Thus, this research aims to provide meaningful contributions to the extant literature from an Australian perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
For this study of 18 to 24‐year‐old Australians, quantitative data from a total of 310 respondents (93.7 percent response rate) were collected using quota sampling.
Findings
The paper finds that gender and work hours significantly influenced food motives; however, place of residence, age and gross income while successful with young adults in other countries, did not influence healthy food choices in Australia.
Research limitations/implications
While the findings corroborate some aspects of overseas studies, they contradict others and also add new information. Collectively, they contribute useful insights for social marketing intervention strategies concerned with influencing food choice among young Australian consumers.
Originality/value
This study indicates that intervention campaigns that are based upon residence, age and gross income in relation to healthy eating, while possibly successful with young adults in other countries, are likely to be ineffective in Australia.