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Heterogeneity among corporate governance practices in emerging economies presents new challenges to researchers and business practitioners. Prior research in international business and comparative corporate governance has considered this practice heterogeneity in emerging markets as an outcome of institutional voids or deficiencies to be addressed. In contrast, we propose viewing the variety of governance practices as the outcome of an innovation process that aims to better align the prototypical best practices and the idiosyncratic institutional or industry contexts. We argue that companies in emerging countries innovate their governance practices by combining different elements of external and internal governance systems using local embeddedness and global agency. Our examples of governance innovations in the emerging markets of China and Korea illustrate that this focus on embeddedness and agency offers insights into the salience and applicability of different types of governance innovations, from decoupling of local practices from global rules to experimentations with governance practices by change agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wealth ownership is a critical component of economic well-being, and wealth in early adulthood provides important clues about the trajectories along which individuals move throughout their lives. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we find an association between growing up rural and adult wealth that varies across the components of wealth. We also find that growing up rural has unique implications for young adult wealth ownership that differ from growing up in other geographic regions, particularly in urban areas. Our results highlight an important outcome that is conditioned by growing up rural and underscores the importance of context for understanding how families save and accumulate wealth.

The authors investigate whether net worth poverty (NWP) reduces children's well-being. NWP-having wealth (assets minus debts) less than one fourth of the federal poverty line-is both theoretically and empirically distinct from income poverty (IP) and is the modal form of poverty among children. Data come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its Child Development Supplement on children ages 3 to 17 years observed between 2002 and 2019. The authors use linear mixed-effects models to investigate the associations among NWP, IP, and four cognitive and behavioral outcomes. NWP reduces children's cognitive scores and was associated with increases in both problem behavior scores. Negative associations for NWP are similar in magnitude to those found for IP. Much of the NWP effect operates through asset deprivation rather than high debt. The results illustrate the potential risks many children, previously overlooked in studies of IP, face because of wealth deprivation.

Recent controversies about wearing masks and getting vaccinated to slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 highlight the potential for individual rights and decision making to create widespread community-level outcomes. There is little work demonstrating the collective spillover effects of pandemic mitigation efforts. The authors contribute by visualizing the proportion of unvaccinated people who would become infected at different combinations of mask wearing and vaccination in a hypothetical community. A common pattern emerges across all assumptions: below some joint threshold of mask and vaccination rates, almost all unvaccinated people will eventually become infected, and beyond that threshold there is a steep drop leading to widespread community-level protection. What differs across settings is the timing and shape of the drop-off after crossing the threshold. The authors conclude that masking and vaccination are sensible and in the best interest of the population.