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AbstractThe increase in religion-related conflicts around the world emphasizes the urgent need for a better understanding of the role of religion and religious freedom on socio-economic development, both theoretically and empirically. While studies on the role of religion on economic development have existed as early as Weber (1905), there is a dearth of studies on the effect of religious freedom on economic growth, and the existing studies overlook possible negative impacts on economies by unrestricted religious freedom. Drawing on institutional theory, we propose that different types of religious restrictions can exert either positive or negative effects on economic growth. We test our propositions using a comprehensive dataset on religious freedom covering 198 countries for seven years from 2007 to 2013.

This commentary is based on a recent study we conducted on the relationship between regime type, corruption, and economic development. We build a theory that links corruption and regime type to economic growth and test it on 158 countries, using multiple databases including Polity IV, transparency international, the World Bank, and others. We first distinguish three regime types, autocracy (dictatorship), anocracy (countries in early stage of democratization), and mature democracy. We found that when autocratic countries begin democratize, corruption usually gets worse. As the infant democracies mature, corruption decreases.

ABSTRACTManuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: Effective corporate governance requires accurate and reliable financial information. Historically, each nation has developed and pursued its own financial standards; however, as financial markets consolidate into a global market, there is a need for a common set of financial standards. As a result, there is a movement towards harmonization of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) throughout the global economy. While there has been considerable research on the effects of IFRS adoption, there has been relatively little systematic study as to the antecedents of IFRS adoption. Consequently, this study seeks to understand why some economies have quickly embraced IFRS standards while others partially adopt IFRS and still others continue to resist.Research Findings/Results: After controlling for market capitalization and GDP growth, we find that foreign aid, import penetration, and level of education achieved within a national economy are all predictive of the degree to which IFRS standards are adopted across 132 developing, transitional and developed economies.Theoretical/Academic Implications: We found that all three forms of isomorphic pressures (i.e., coercive, mimetic, and normative) are predictive of IFRS adoption. Consequently, institutional theory with its emphasis on legitimacy‐seeking by social actors was relatively well supported by our data. This suggests that the IFRS adoption process is driven more by social legitimization pressures, than it is by economic logic.Practitioner/Policy Implications: For policy makers, our findings suggest that the institutional pressures within an economy are the key drivers of IFRS adoption. Consequently, policy makers should seek to influence institutional pressures that thwart and/or enhance adoption of IFRS. For executives of multinational firms, our findings provide insights that can help to explain and predict future IFRS adoption within economies where their foreign subsidiaries operate. This ability could be useful for creating competitive advantages for foreign subsidiaries where IFRS adoption was resisted, or avoiding competitive disadvantages for foreign subsidiaries unfamiliar with IFRS standards.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop the theoretical linkage between culture and economic growth and empirically test the relationship by measuring culture and how it affects labor productivity.


Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a cross-section study of developing countries and regresses economic productivity growth on a set of control variables and cultural factors.


Findings
It is found that three cultural factors, economic attitudes, political attitudes, and attitudes towards the family, affect economic productivity growth.


Originality/value
Many economists ignore culture as a factor in economic growth, either because they discount the value of culture or because they have no simple way to quantify culture, resulting in the role of culture being under-researched. The study is the first to extensively examine the role of culture in productivity growth using large-scale data sources. The authors show that culture plays an important role in productivity gains across countries, contributing to the study of the effects of culture on economic development, and that culture can be empirically measured and linked to an activity that directly affects the economic growth – labor productivity.

ABSTRACTManuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: Why do firms in China, which has a higher level of economic development, communicate less CSR than firms in India? We use a model that includes country‐, industry‐, and firm‐level factors to predict CSR communications intensity, a proxy for CSR activities.Research Findings/Insights: Using data on 68 of the largest multinational companies in China and India, our study shows that Indian firms communicate more CSR primarily due to a more rule‐based, as opposed to relation‐based, governance environment. Firms in the manufacturing industry tend to communicate more CSR. Firm‐level characteristics such as size, duality of CEO and board chairperson, and percentage of external members on the board also have a significant influence on CSR communications.Theoretical/Academic Implications: The main theoretical contribution of our study is to bring a three‐level perspective, relying not only on firm‐ and industry‐specific factors, but also on the governance environment, to the study of firms' CSR behavior. We show that the national governance environment dominates the national income level in affecting CSR communications intensity. We demonstrate that the macro institutional environment in a country strongly affects firm CSR behavior. Our findings suggest that CSR should be studied by considering multilevel antecedents.Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our study suggests that in order to improve the CSR of firms, policy makers in India and China must first try to improve public governance at the national level. Executives doing business with Chinese and Indian companies need to better understand the contrasting governance and their effects on the CSR practices in each country. For the international community and those concerned about product safety and other social issues related to China and India, our findings suggest that improvement will not be immediate since the governance environment changes relatively slowly.