Moving opportunities : The impact of mixed-income public housing regenerations on student achievement

The author acknowledges financial support from the Royal Economic Society, United Kingdom and Queen Mary College.I use mixed-income public housing regenerations in London as a natural experiment to identify how schools affect low-income students’ educational achievement when affluent households flow into their neighborhood. I compare student achievement in schools in the same neighborhood located at different distances from a regeneration before and after its completion. I employ a grandfathering instrument for enrollment in treated schools to address potential endogenous mobility. Students exposed to regenerations have higher test scores at the end of primary school. I estimate that schools explain 65–81% of the overall achievement effects, which are mediated by changes in the student body’s composition.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A framework for audit quality: Critical analysis

Audit quality plays an essential role in maintaining an efficient market environment. External audits performed in accordance with high quality auditing standards provide a fundamental contribution in the implementation of accounting standards by reporting entities. This paper analyze the critical view of previous literature on audit quality and deeply examines the standard setters proposal on audit quality in order to verify if they created a coherent approach that could be used in the generation of a unique Audit quality framework. A specific focus is on the PCAOB and IAASB projects on audit quality that try to identify the purpose, characteristics, and indicators of the audit quality, setting off two different perspectives in the audit quality debate. At the end of the review and of the analysis, we deem that regulators and academic researches should consider also the pivotal role of the stakeholders to link the audit quality not only to input, process or output issues, but also to those audit quality drivers outside the direct control of audit firms

Corporate governance, risk disclosure practices, and market liquidity: Comparative evidence from the UK and Italy

Research Question/Issue: This paper examines the influence of corporate governance on risk disclosure practices in the UK and Italy and also studies the impact of those practices on market liquidity. Research Findings/Insights: We find that governance factors principally influence the decisions of UK (Italian) firms over whether to exhibit risk information voluntarily (mandatorily) in their annual report narratives. When we distinguish between firms with strong and weak governance (in terms of board efficiency) in each country, we find that the factors that affect mandatory and voluntary risk disclosure appear to be driven more by strongly governed firms in both countries. Furthermore, strongly governed firms in the UK tend to provide more meaningful risk information to their investors than weakly governed firms. In Italy, however, we find that strongly rather than weakly governed firms exhibiting risk information voluntarily rather than mandatorily improves market liquidity significantly. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This paper emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between mandatory and voluntary risk disclosure when studying the impact of corporate governance. Our findings differ across strongly and weakly governed firms, in terms of both the factors that influence risk disclosure practices and the exact informativeness of those practices. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The results support the current regulatory trend in risk reporting within the UK that emphasizes the importance of directors and encourages rather than mandates risk disclosure. However, the results generally signal a need for further improvements in the Italian context. Our evidence also supports the value of the confidence in the UK governance system, compared to that in Italy, which motivates British firms to provide highly informative risk information more often than Italian firms

Colonic polyps: inheritance, susceptibility, risk evaluation, and diagnostic management

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third-ranked neoplasm in order of incidence and mortality, worldwide, and the second cause of cancer death in industrialized countries. One of the most important environmental risk factors for CRC is a Western-type diet, which is characterized by a low-fiber and high-fat content. Up to 25% of patients with CRC have a family history for CRC, and a fraction of these patients are affected by hereditary syndromes, such as familial adenomatous polyposis, Gardner or Turcot syndromes, or hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer. The onset of CRC is triggered by a well-defined combination of genetic alterations, which form the bases of the adenoma-carcinoma sequence hypothesis and justify the set-up of CRC screening techniques. Several screening and diagnostic tests for CRC are illustrated, including rectosigmoidoscopy, optical colonoscopy (OC), double contrast barium enema (DCBE), and computed tomography colonography (CTC). The strengths and weaknesses of each technique are discussed. Particular attention is paid to CTC, which has evolved from an experimental technique to an accurate and mature diagnostic approach, and gained wide acceptance and clinical validation for CRC screening. This success of CTC is due mainly to its ability to provide cross-sectional analytical images of the entire colon and secondarily detect extracolonic findings, with minimal invasiveness and lower cost than OC, and with greater detail and diagnostic accuracy than DCBE. Moreover, especially with the advent and widespread availability of modern multidetector CT scanners, excellent quality 2D and 3D reconstructions of the large bowel can be obtained routinely with a relatively low radiation dose. Computer-aided detection systems have also been developed to assist radiologists in reading CTC examinations, improving overall diagnostic accuracy and potentially speeding up the clinical workflow of CTC image interpretation

imaging biomarkers in upper gastrointestinal cancers

In parallel with the increasingly widespread availability of high performance imaging platforms and recent progresses in pathobiological characterisation and treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies, imaging biomarkers have become a major research topic due to their potential to provide additional quantitative information to conventional imaging modalities that can improve accuracy at staging and follow-up, predict outcome, and guide treatment planning in an individualised manner. The aim of this review is to briefly examine the status of current knowledge about imaging biomarkers in the field of upper gastrointestinal cancers, highlighting their potential applications and future perspectives in patient management from diagnosis onwards

The determinants and use of risk disclosure quality: Evidence from an emerging market

Purpose: Few studies have focused on emerging markets owing to difficulties in identifying the real effect of disclosures on these economies, where many institutional variables influence the growth of capital markets. This paper fills this gap by focusing on China, a country that has had a greater influence than others on worldwide economies in recent years. This paper investigates the main drivers for the quantity and the quality of risk disclosure, and further studies the impact of such disclosure on market liquidity. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprises all financial firms listed in the Shanghai A-shares market for the period 2013-2015. The quality of risk disclosure is measured through a multidimensional approach which encompasses three factors: quantity of disclosure, coverage of disclosure, and the semantic properties of depth and outlook. This paper utilises manual content analysis of annual reports to capture risk disclosure quality and quantity. To identify the main drivers for quality and quantity of risk disclosure and then to observe their impact on market liquidity, this paper uses ordinary least squares (OLS) and fixed-effects estimations. Findings (limit 100 words) Our study highlights that Quantity and Quality risk disclosure show a general positive interaction with size and book to market, a moderate negative interaction with capital structure and a marked negative interaction with the presence of board independent directors. These findings confirm that at this stage of Chinese market development, companies’ characteristics and market indicators can capture some of the risk disclosure configurations, while the corporate governance indicators do not provide significant results. When we reintroduced the previous analyses on a yearly basis, we find that limited role for risk disclosure in improving market liquidity over the crisis period (2014 and 2015), suggesting that our previous conclusion is mainly driven by 2013. Research limitations/implications: The sample of this paper is limited to financial firms in China. Further research is needed either to look at non-financial firms or to compare between these types of firms. The usage of manual content analysis limits our ability to investigate risk reporting drivers and its impact on market liquidity on a large scale. Further research is needed to study risk reporting practices in China over a longer period of time. This paper makes an important contribution to extant literature on risk disclosure by confirming the high tendency towards reporting information related to the past compared to the future. Practical implications: Our paper is likely to be of interest to investors, since there has been no significant previous research of the quality of risk disclosure practices in China. The importance of this paper stems from documenting several reporting incentives concerning not only firms’ quantity, but also firms’ quality of risk reporting. Collectively, our findings support activism for reforms and the enhancement of regulations in China in order to make the market more efficient. Originality/value (limit 100 words) This study provides new evidence on the impact of firm characteristics on risk disclosures and highlights the impact of risk disclosure practices on market liquidity of financial companies in China’s market. Furthermore, this paper confirms previous findings on the Chinese market (Ball et al., 2000; Zou and Adams, 2008) in which, given a decreasing but still strong state presence, there is higher stock volatility and weak corporate governance

Essays on the Economics of Education

The first chapter studies the impact of public housing regenerations on student achievement. In London, many public housing buildings have been demolished between 1999 and 2016 to pave the way for new developments with higher housing density. The programs gener-ated little displacement of children living in the buildings slated for demolition, and the new developments were targeted mostly by more affluent households. I find that local children exhibit higher math and language test scores at the end of primary school after the regener-ation. Gains are concentrated among students with a more disadvantaged background and low baseline achievement. The second chapter (joint with Erich Battistin) shows that grading standards for primary school exams in England have triggered an inflation of quality indica-tors in the national performance tables for almost two decades. The cumulative effects have resulted in significant differences in the quality signaled to parents for otherwise identical schools. We find large housing price gains from the school quality improvements artificially signaled by inflation, as well as lower deprivation and more businesses catering to families in local neighborhoods. The effects are persistent and identifiable through to the present day. The third chapter (joint with Elisabetta Pasini) examines a 2010 UK education reform that gave schools the option to become academies, independent entities funded by the central government. Once converted, schools choose between remaining standalone academies and joining an academy chain. This paper investigates whether different conversion models af-fect student achievement. We exploit administrative records for primary school-age students and use a grandfathering instrument for attending a converted school. We find that students in academy chains have better scores with respect to standalone academies. Survey data show that academy chains are more likely to make changes related to managerial practices, whereas standalone academies favor changes related to educational practices

Would incorporating blended learning in postgraduate accounting module impact on students' performance

The fast-growing development in information technology as well as rising students` expectation of more personalities and flexible learning approach forces Higher Education institutions to incorporate new ways of delivery. This can be difficult with more technical subjects such as accounting, where lecturers' expertise and guidance play significant role in students' success. The aim of this paper is to investigate if embedding some of the blended learning tools in post-graduate accounting module for non-specialists would impact on students’ performance. Two models have been created to examine relation between specific blended learning tools and performance in specific assignments as well as the final module scores. The preliminary results have revealed that student engagement with Moodle activates and time spent in MyAccountingLab have a positive impact on the students` overall performance. The time spend in practicing the pre-tests does not impact on students' quizzes results, however there is a direct correlation between score achieved in the pre-tests and final results in MyAccountingLab. In addition, there is no correlation between age or sex of students and neither final quizzes scores nor the overall module performance

Comparing Nuclear and Solar Energy: A Psychological Analysis of Preferences

openComprendere i meccanismi che guidano le decisioni relative alle fonti energetiche è fondamentale per promuovere una transizione verso un sistema energetico più sostenibile ed efficiente. All’interno dell’elaborato sono prima presentati i processi decisionali e l'effetto del framing, illustrando i fattori psicologici che influenzano le preferenze energetiche. Successivamente, attraverso un'analisi multidimensionale, la ricerca esamina le dinamiche decisionali e le percezioni legate alle fonti energetiche, focalizzandosi sull'energia nucleare e solare nel contesto del cambiamento climatico. Lo studio si basa su una valutazione congiunta e separata, nella quale vengono esplorate le complesse interazioni tra le due fonti di energia. Tramite un questionario strutturato, sono state analizzate le risposte degli individui su atteggiamenti, caratteristiche personali e comportamenti connessi all'energia. L'obiettivo primario di questo scritto è approfondire la comprensione dei processi decisionali e cognitivi che guidano le preferenze sulle fonti energetiche, contribuendo così a una visione informata e consapevole di questa cruciale tematica contemporanea