The underrepresentation of women at the top of math-intensive fields is controversial, with competing claims of biological and sociocultural causation. The authors develop a framework to delineate possible causal pathways and evaluate evidence for each. Biological evidence is contradictory and inconclusive. Although cross-cultural and cross-cohort differences suggest a powerful effect of sociocultural context, evidence for specific factors is inconsistent and contradictory. Factors unique to underrepresentation in math-intensive fields include the following: (a) Math-proficient women disproportionately prefer careers in non–math-intensive fields and are more likely to leave math-intensive careers as they advance; (b) more men than women score in the extreme math-proficient range on gatekeeper tests, such as the SAT Mathematics and the Graduate Record Examinations Quantitative Reasoning sections; (c) women with high math competence are disproportionately more likely to have high verbal competence, allowing greater choice of professions; and (d) in some math-intensive fields, women with children are penalized in promotion rates. The evidence indicates that women’s preferences, potentially representing both free and constrained choices, constitute the most powerful explanatory factor; a secondary factor is performance on gatekeeper tests, most likely resulting from sociocultural rather than biological causes.

/pdf/women-s-underrepresentation-in-science-sociocultural-and-2fj3bwaque.pdf

Women's underrepresentation in science: sociocultural and biological considerations.

Using multiple data sources, we establish that China's income inequality since 2005 has reached very high levels, with the Gini coefficient in the range of 0.53–0.55. Analyzing comparable survey data collected in 2010 in China and the United States, we examine social determinants that help explain China’s high income inequality. Our results indicate that a substantial part of China’s high income inequality is due to regional disparities and the rural-urban gap. The contributions of these two structural forces are particularly strong in China, but they play a negligible role in generating the overall income inequality in the United States, where individual-level and family-level income determinants, such as family structure and race/ethnicity, play a much larger role.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/111/19/6928.full.pdf

Income inequality in today's China.

Principles of Corporate Finance - 4/E

Religion has been shown to influence economic choices and outcomes in a variety of contexts. Honesty and risk aversion are two social norms forwarded to characterize the religious. Using the level of religious adherence in the county of a U.S. firm’s headquarters as a proxy for these religious social norms, we find that higher levels of religious adherence are associated with both a lower likelihood of financial restatement and less risk that financial statements are misrepresented because of overstated (understated) revenue/assets (expenses/liabilities). We also find that accruals of managers in areas of high religious adherence exhibit smaller deviations from expectations, and deviations, when they occur, tend to improve the time series mapping of accruals into cash flows. These results hold overall and separately for both Catholic and Protestant religious adherence. Further analysis reveals that the effects of religious social norms extend beyond accrual choices. We find that firms located in areas of high religious adherence are less likely to engage in tax sheltering, and are more forthcoming with bad news in their voluntary disclosures. Collectively, our results provide new evidence on the role of religion and social norms in corporate financial reporting.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2080169_code357514.pdf?abstractid=1444839&mirid=1

Religious Social Norms and Corporate Financial Reporting

Prior research documents that firms tend to beat three earnings benchmarks: zero earnings, last year's earnings, and analyst's forecasted earnings, and that there are both equity market and compensation-related benefits associated with beating these benchmarks. This study investigates whether and under what conditions beating these three earnings benchmarks reduces a firm's cost of debt. I use two proxies for a firm's cost of debt: credit ratings and initial bond yield spread. Results suggest that firms beating earnings benchmarks have a higher probability of rating upgrades and a smaller initial bond yield spread. Additional analyses indicate that (i) the benefits of beating earnings benchmarks are more pronounced for firms with high default risk; (ii) beating the zero earnings benchmark generally provides the biggest reward in terms of a lower cost of debt; and (iii) the reduction in the cost of debt is attenuated but does not disappear for firms beating benchmarks through earnings management. In sum, results suggest that there are benefits associated with beating earnings benchmarks in the debt market. These benefits vary by benchmark, firm default risk, and method utilized to beat the benchmark. Among other implications, this evidence suggests that the relative importance of specific benchmarks differs across the equity and bond markets.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID996104_code115273.pdf?abstractid=817624&mirid=1&type=2

Beating Earnings Benchmarks and the Cost of Debt

The numbers game.

Review of the year. Gutsiness, originality and a willingness to fight for justice were behind many of this year's triumphs in nursing.

Which way forward

The words 'fair' and 'fairness' have been on every politician's lips this week as the government seeks ways of saving public money without causing undue hardship among people in any particular section of society. Whether proposals to reform public sector pensions will produce a fairer system is open to debate.

Bridging the gender gap.

As Nursing Standard went to press, chancellor Alistair Darling was putting the finishing touches to his pre-budget report. Speculation was rife that he would announce efficiency savings - or cuts to use more direct language - across the public sector, including the NHS.

Graham Scott

Papers

The numbers game.

Review of the year. Gutsiness, originality and a willingness to fight for justice were behind many of this year's triumphs in nursing.

Which way forward

Bridging the gender gap.

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