https://dspace.aua.am/xmlui/handle/123456789/61 The College of Business and Economics (CBE) at the American University of Armenia (AUA) is the leading business school in the region and has catered to Armenian and international students, business corporations, and communities for the past 20 years. 2026-04-17T09:57:28Z https://dspace.aua.am/xmlui/handle/123456789/2417 Are all deposit products in the microfinance world created equal? Grigoryan, Aleksandr; Khachatryan, Knar; Hartarska, Valentina; Mersland, Roy Building on the economies of scope framework, we estimate how the use of mandatory deposits alone in credit-only microfinance institutions (MFIs) or in combination with voluntary deposits in credit-plus-deposit MFIs is associated with the performance of MFIs in terms of financial sustainability, breadth, and depth of outreach. We account for MFIs’ double bottom line with the seemingly unrelated regressions method and use data from 544 MFIs worldwide for the period 2000–2015. We show that, for credit-only MFIs, mandatory deposits are associated with improved depth of outreach to the poor. For credit-plus-deposit MFIs, we find a trade-off: mandatory deposits are associated with a decrease in financial sustainability but an increase in breadth of outreach. We also analyze the moderating role of mandatory deposits. High-risk loans collateralized by mandatory deposits are more likely to reach poorer clients in credit-only MFIs and help to reach more borrowers in credit-plus-deposit MFIs, but at a higher cost. Focusing on Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), a unique type of social enterprise, the article explores the following questions: When firms diversify their service portfolio by introducing new services, how do economies of scope work? How does service diversification fit into the business model of social enterprises and affect their financial and social performance? Emerging Markets Finance and Trade Journal, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2024.2413172 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://dspace.aua.am/xmlui/handle/123456789/2335 Multidimensional deprivation from labor market opportunities in Armenia: evidence from 2018 and 2020 Khachatryan, Knar; Grigoryan, Aleksandr This paper explores the multidimensional deprivation from labor market opportunities in Armenia by constructing a Quality of Employment measure. Using Labor Force Survey datasets for the years 2018 and 2020, we conduct a comparative analysis for a group of job-separated individuals. The identified dimensions of deprivation from labor market opportunities prior to and after the onset of COVID-19 are reasons for separating from a job, reasons for not looking for a job, and main obstacles in finding a job. These dimensions enable to study employee-level (supply factors) and job-related characteristics (demand factors). Our study shows that demand factors are the primary drivers of amplified deprivation in times of the pandemic. Also, we observe that the gender gap in the labor market deprivation has been increased during the pandemic, further amplified for married women. Interestingly, gender gap in deprivation is invariant to the occupational composition. This article was published in the "Comparative Economic Studies", a Journal of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published online on 17 February 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-023-00206-w 2023-02-17T00:00:00Z https://dspace.aua.am/xmlui/handle/123456789/2287 Immigration, social networks and occupational mismatch Alaverdyan, Sevak; Zaharieva, Anna In this study we investigate the link between the job search channels used to find employment and the probability of occupational mismatch. Our specific focus is on differences between natives and immigrants. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 2000–2014). First, we document that referral hiring is the most frequent single channel of generating jobs in Germany; in relative terms referrals are used more frequently by immigrant workers compared to natives. Second, referral hiring is associated with the highest rate of occupational mismatch among all channels in Germany. We combine these findings and use them to develop a search and matching model with two ethnic groups, two search channels and two occupations. Our model predicts that higher rates of referral hiring produce more frequent occupational mismatch of the immigrant population compared to natives. This prediction and the underlying mechanism of the model are confirmed by the data. The American University of Armenia (AUA) Manoogian Simone College of Business and Economics (CBE) Assistant Professor Dr. Sevak Alaverdyan, jointly with Dr. Anna Zaharieva, chair of Labour Economics, Bielefeld University, Germany, published a study titled “Immigration, Social Networks, and Occupational Mismatch’’ in Economic Modelling (Volume 114, September 2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2022.105936 2022-09-01T00:00:00Z https://dspace.aua.am/xmlui/handle/123456789/2148 Global gender gap in unpaid care: why domestic work still remains a woman's burden / Gender gap in unpaid domestic care in Armenia: new evidence in light of the COVID-19 pandemic Griogryan, Aleksandr; Khachatryan, Knar; Babych, Yaroslava In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic numerous reports point to the fact that women are mainly shouldering the burden of increased domestic care duties. But even before the pandemic struck, women performed more than two thirds of the unpaid domestic care work in both developing and developed countries. The lack of gender parity in the distribution of domestic work is associated with significant economic inefficiencies, as well as considerable social and economic consequences for women – affecting their bargaining power within the household and their labor market outcomes in particular. In the brief I review the literature on both the economic and sociological factors which perpetuate the pattern of gender disparity in unpaid domestic care work. I also summarize the “recognize, reduce and redistribute” policies which could be adopted to help address the problem. We provide new evidence on the gender gap in unpaid domestic care in Armenia, using individual level data from 2018 and 2020. Our study confirms the existence of gender inequalities in the provision of unpaid domestic care. In particular, we show that the existing gender gap increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to men, women were more likely to separate from their jobs to provide unpaid domestic care. Moreover, among women the proportion of those who separated from a job specifically for the reason of providing unpaid domestic work was larger than among men. While universally recognized policies are important to mitigate gender imbalances in unpaid domestic care in Armenia, the current situation in the country requires an additional set of measures to be taken. In particular, policies should aim at preventing mass emigration from the country and supporting companies located in remote areas which are primarily gender-balanced, but particularly sensitive to lockdowns and other measures countering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Aleksandr Grigoryan and Dr. Knar Khachatryan have contributed to the Forum for Research on Gender Economics (FROGEE) Policy Brief: “Global Gender Gap in Unpaid Care: Why Domestic Work Still Remains a Woman’s Burden.” They explored the gender gap in unpaid domestic care in Armenia by providing new evidence in light of the COVID19 pandemic. The researchers used the Armenian Labor Force Survey (LFS) 2018 data and the data from November 2020 collected by the Paul Avedisian Center for Business Research and Development (CBRD) of AUA. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z