The present study examines import determinants of Pakistan with the top 28 trade partners from 2002 to 2018. To achieve this objective, the augmented gravity model of trade has been applied by incorporating both time-variant and time-invariant variables. In addition, the analysis quantifies the impact of free trade agreements (FTA) signed by Pakistan with China and other trade partners. The results show that along with income and distance, FTA, common language, and common border plays an essential role in imports of Pakistan with its main trade partners. In addition to identifying trade determinants, the impact of adherence to a particular trade agreement was also examined. The results indicate that FTA signed by Pakistan with China and other trade partners has created trade opportunities for participating countries, highlighting the importance of trade liberalization for the long-run development of the country.
Urbanization has been argued to be having an impact on several other development challenges. To this end, this paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature by exploring the effect of urbanization and its' magnitude on poverty, both in the short run and long run in Nigeria. The macroeconomic analysis was conducted using data from 1982 to 2017 which was obtained from the World Bank. Bound Test and autoregressive distributed-lag (ARDL) estimation techniques were used to test the existence of a cointegration relationship and to estimate the short and long-run effect of urbanization and other variables on poverty reduction. Results from the study and an economic standpoint, provide strong evidence that urbanization remains an important factor in poverty reduction in Nigeria. The analysis further shows that while international remittances have a positive and significant effect, foreign aid and government expenditure have significant negative effects on poverty reduction in the long-term period. While findings from this study suggest that urbanization remains a valid tool in the fight against poverty, the need for sustainable urbanization policies and efforts by the Nigerian government is highly imperative.
The threat posed by climate change has become a reality in the public sphere. This research looks at how financial inclusion affects carbon dioxide emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2004 to 2017. The panel autoregressive distributed lag and panel granger causality approaches are used to determine if financial inclusion reduces CO2 emissions in Sub-Saharan African countries. The PARDL results demonstrated that, over time, financial inclusion, GDP per capita, industrialization, and trade openness have a substantial beneficial influence on carbon emissions in SSA countries. The result suggests that these considered variables contribute significantly to CO2 emissions while urbanization and energy intensity reduce CO2 emissions in SSA. Financial inclusion and other control variables have no significant impacts on carbon emission in SSA in the short run. The findings of the granger causality test further confirm the direction of causality, revealing that financial inclusion, GDP per capita, industrialization, energy intensity, and trade openness, granger cause carbon emission in SSA countries. Meanwhile, carbon emission does not granger cause any of the considered factors. The study concludes that financial inclusion increases carbon emission in SSA countries, given the poor state of financial inclusion. Our findings advocate for a policy framework that would focus efforts on connecting financial inclusion measures with environmental legislation across SSA nations.
Many emerging economies, particularly oil-rich countries such as Nigeria, have neglected the key drivers of growth, and consequently resulting in a decline in investment and employment. In the midst of this, the current study sought to examine the extent to which foreign direct investment and oil revenue impact Nigerian economic growth. The estimation was done using ordinary least squares (OLS) techniques, and the Granger causality test was used to determine the direction of causality between FDI, oil revenue, and economic growth using annual time series data from 1991 to 2019. Hence, recognising that annual time series are high-frequency data, all the variables were subjected to OLS assumptions. The empirical findings revealed that FDI and oil revenue significantly impacted growth. Accounting for the impact of economic activities reflected in the role of financial inflow and outflow on economic growth, a significant and positive relationship was found. This implies that international monetary transactions between entities captured in the current account balance are key determinants of growth in Nigeria. Further evidence revealed that variables such as real exchange rate, inflation and interest rates significantly determine economic growth in Nigeria. As such, this finding was further supported by their interactive effects, revealing an inverse and significant influence on economic growth. The Granger causality results show bidirectional causality between oil revenue and growth, as well as between oil revenue and foreign direct investment in Nigeria. The robustness test, which employs GDP per capita and GDP growth as proxies for economic growth, is consistent with empirical evidence. As a result, FDI and oil revenues are important drivers of Nigeria's growth, ceteris paribus.
This study aimed to validate the I-ADAPT scale to assess the individual adaptability to work within the Romanian population. Both a pilot study and a main study were conducted on a total sample of 966 Romanians. Following the application of standard scale validation procedures, the results of our study indicated that the I-ADAPT measure of work adaptability has good psychometric properties on the Romanian population. Our findings provide evidence that I-ADAPT continues to explain the unique variance in adaptability to work even if work patterns in the Covid-19 pandemic context moved more and more from a traditional to a virtual work environment. ROa I-ADAPT measure has excellent properties concerning convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. One main finding was that the “Physical” dimension of adaptability to work had no empirical support in the Romanian population. Moreover, our results indicate that the “interpersonal adaptability” and the “cultural adaptability” dimensions cannot be empirically separated in the Romanian population. To our knowledge, this is the first validated instrument that can be used to assess the individual adaptability of Romanians in the context of work. Our study is relevant for decision-makers in Romania and such actors in other EU-member countries where Romanians represent the largest group of working-age EU citizens.
We examine turn of the month effect for the Macedonian Stock Exchange using daily return data utilizing OLS and pooled regression analysis for the 10 components of the MBI10 index. We find that for most of the individual stock returns the coefficients of the turn-of-the-month effect are all positive indicating the presence of the turn-of-the-month effect. When the data is pooled, we obtain even stronger results. The study confirms that the turn-of-the-month effect holds for Macedonian Stock Exchange which has not been examined before. Therefore, on average, the daily return over the turn-of-the-month effect period is significantly higher than the daily return over the rest-of-the-month period and hence providing room for more investment opportunities.
This study empirically examined the role of the country’s absorptive capacity on the impact of domestic investment on economic growth in the selected five African countries over the study period of 1970 to 2019. In specific, the study examined the impact of domestic investment on economic growth from two models, without the country’s absorptive capacity and with the country’s absorptive capacity. Further, a robust linear ordinary least squares (OLS) methodology including static panel OLS and panel cointegration estimators was employed. The study found that only changes in financial development and infrastructures positively cause changes in the domestic investment-economic growth nexus in the short run while in the long run, trade openness enhances the positive impact of domestic investment on economic growth in African countries. In addition, the study found that domestic investment retards economic growth without the country’s absorptive capacity in the short run and long run respectively in African countries. Therefore, the study recommended that policymakers should invest heavily in infrastructure and financial development systems as well as encourages trade openness for a stable domestic investment-economic growth nexus in African countries.
This paper is aimed to examine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment inflow on Trade (Export, Import) in Turkey. The study copes the time span from 2006 Q2 to 2019 Q4. The time series datasets, those are retrieved from CBT and FRED database are used in applied econometrical methods such as ADF, PP, Zivot Andrews Unit Root Tests, ARDL bounds testing approach, and the Granger Causality tests, to accomplish the statistical part of the research. Based on the findings, it was supported that there was a positive relationship between FDI and Trade. Additionally, the outputs of Granger causality test indicated that there is a unidirectional causality running from FDI to Trade (Export and Import).
The digitalization of the economy and society in the context of Industry 4.0 affects the labor market. New jobs are being created with new personnel requirements. At the same time, digitalization processes affect countries and sectors of the economy in different ways. The number of employed is declining in some sectors and increasing in others. The ratio of people employed in different industries also differs from country to country. As the digitalization of production relations intensifies, transformation processes in the labor market will increase. In the context of the actualization of digital changes in modern society, the aim of the article is to analyze the labor market under the digitalization of economic relations. The World Development Indicators (WDI) and Digital Intelligence Index (DII) were used to realize the purpose of the study. The study covers 89 countries for 2019. Correlation analysis, standardization, cluster analysis and analysis of variance were used as methods in the research. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were obtained. A strong relationship was found between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and DII for the whole sample. The cluster analysis process found that the variables form three clusters with values of most indicators by group: at the high, the average and the low levels. Plots of mean and confidence intervals for the variables in each cluster were also plotted. Correlation coefficients were calculated for each cluster. It was found that each group has its own internal patterns.
In general Women belonging to villages tend to spend the maximum of their time in household activities without any hesitation. In return, they don't receive any merits or credits from the family and society. This paper aims in conducting detailed research work based on, the understanding found among women folk belonging to lower-middle-class women and poor income about the need for financial inclusion. The study was carried out in Ludhiana, Punjab among women from low-income and lower-middle-class households. Out of 1000 approaches, 757 respondents replied (75%). Later the data were organized and analyzed for the results. To make the work stronger a conceptual framework was framed. The tests like one-way ANOVA and Post-Hoc tests were also carried out. The outcomes showed that there are major differences seen when women are empowered and occupied they are reflecting positively on financial inclusion.
The concept of convexity plays an important role in the study of economics and consumer theory. For the most part, such studies have been conducted on the assumption that consumer preferences are a binary relation that is complete, reflexive and transitive on the set X of consumption choices. However, each consumer is a biological being with multidimensional physiological needs so that possible consumptions from different dimensions cannot be compared by using preferences. By removing that unrealistic assumption, this paper examines how the various concepts of convex preferences and relevant properties can be re-established. We derive a series of 10 formal propositions and construct 6 examples to show that (a) a weighted combination of two possible consumptions is not necessarily comparable with any of the consumptions; (b) not every convergent sequence of a consumer’s preferred consumptions asymptotically preserves that consumer’s preference preordering; (c) not all preferences satisfy either positive multiplicativity or additive conservation; (d) three types of preference convexities – weak convexity, convexity and strong convexity – can all be introduced into general convex spaces. This paper concludes with some research topics of expected significance for future works.
This study investigates the conventional and Islamic equity market reaction towards terrorism events in Pakistan from 2009 to 2016 using OLS regression and GARCH (1, 1) models. The prospect theory and efficient market hypothesis are the relevant theories. Findings indicate that conventional and Islamic equity market reaction towards terrorism events is very short lived and markets recovers quickly. This study also documents the market reaction to terrorism events based on the target type, location and during the Islamic calendar months. The impact of different target types and different event locations on the conventional and Islamic equity markets varies. The equity markets in Pakistan responds negatively to the attacks on educational institutes and businesses whereas positively to attacks on armed forces’ facilities. Furthermore, conventional equity market responds negatively to terrorist attacks in Karachi and positively to attacks in financial cities and FATA. Interestingly, Islamic equity market responds positively towards the attacks in financial cities and FATA, however, with very minute reaction magnitude. The findings of this study are useful for the investors to manage their portfolios by considering magnitude and direction of market reaction towards terrorism based on the target type, location and Islamic months. Overall, this study concludes that conventional and Islamic equity markets reaction towards terrorism is very minute; however, the conventional and Islamic equity markets reaction varies based on target type, event location and different Islamic calendar months. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that equity markets recover very soon, therefore, markets are efficient in observing these shocks.
Abstract A clear manifestation of the technological revolution 4.0 in the context of digitalization of the economy is the use of digital, electronic, or IT-oriented versions of financial reporting. Today, the harmonization of national accounting systems and the formation of financial statements around the world is carried out through the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards by moving to the preparation of financial statements in a single electronic format – eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The introduction of a new financial reporting system in XBRL format requires appropriate understanding and some practical adaptation. At the same time, the study of the use of the concept of “taxonomy financial reporting” in scientific works remains insufficiently developed. The article aims to study the quantitative and qualitative structure of the documentary flow of scientific periodicals on the keywords “taxonomy financial reporting”. The method of bibliometric analysis was used to conduct the study. The source of the bibliometric analysis of the documentary flow of scientific periodicals are publications from the scientometric database Scopus in the period between 2001-2021. As a result of the selection, data were obtained on scientific articles that were exported for processing into the computer program R (bibliometrics package). According to the results of quantitative analysis, 156 publications were received, the vast majority of which were scientific articles. It was found that the main areas of research on the taxonomy of financial reporting are: taxonomies, XBRL, financial reporting, and administrative data processing. The largest clusters appear around these keywords. It has been established that scientific cooperation on this topic is becoming closer, which contributes to the formation of geographical clusters, the three largest of which are united around the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The current study observes the link between export levels, GDP growth, gross savings, lending interest rates, and real interest rates. This study's evaluation approach combines an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), and Arrellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond estimation to observe the connection among export level, GDP growth, gross savings, lending interest rates, and real interest rate as a component of financial liberalization in the case of Kosovo over 12 years from 2009 to 2020. The findings reveal that GDP growth and lending interest rates have a positive impact on the level of export growth. However, as a component of financial liberalization, real interest rates have a negative impact on the level of exports. Whereas econometric analyses revealed that gross savings were insignificant. The negative relationship between the real interest rate and the level of exports represents that real interest rates restricted the financial possibility for businesses to maximize the level of exports throughout the research period. Due to the limited number of observations, this study is limited to analyzing the long-term correlations between the factors that characterize financial liberalization and export progress in the context of Kosovo. To meet the objective of growing exports, policymakers must design policies to enhance the financial system and invest in infrastructure development to encourage the business sector that exports its products or services.
Energy is one of the most important resources needed for growth, and consumption is an indicator to measure the development of a country. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is among the sub-regions in the world with the lowest energy use per capita and one of the reasons for this is the energy price dynamics that have affected energy policy that can engender sustainable economic growth. The main objective of the study is to assess the nature and determinants of energy price dynamics in SSA using 21 countries with a complete dataset between 1980 and 2017 on variables such as energy consumption, exchange rate, and inflation rate, while energy price index and federal fund rate are also included as exogenous variables. EGARCH is used to derive the nature of energy dynamics, while panel-ARDL is used to investigate the determinants of energy price dynamics. The results show that energy price dynamics are asymmetric in nature, while the federal fund rate and exchange rate remain the most important factors influencing energy price dynamics in the sub-region. The finding is contrary to the symmetric energy price obtained by some previous authors who used oil price to proxy energy price. This study used aggregated values of energy prices, which include renewable and non-renewable energy. The implication of the findings is that currency devaluation and rise in federal fund rate aggravate the dynamics in energy piece and this causes much more macroeconomic instabilities in SSA. It is recommended that SSA countries should be cautious to embrace currency devaluation policy, and should reduce dependency on the importation of renewable energy products.
The main purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze Positive and significant impact of defining employee performance criteria with the objectives: evaluation, empowerment and career development on the job performance of Keshavarzi Bank of Iran employees with regard to the mediating role of employee participation. The present study was based on the purpose of applied research and in terms of the method was a descriptivesurvey study. A questionnaire was used to collect research data. The statistical population of the present study consisted of senior and middle managers of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran who had at least 5 years of work experience. The number of these people in the initial studies was estimated at 483 and finally, using Cochran's formula, 215 people were selected as the sample size. After collecting data through a questionnaire, data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the development of performance criteria with the objectives of evaluating, empowering, and developing the career path of employees has a positive and significant effect on the job performance of employees of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran. Supplementary results also showed that employee participation in the relationship between the three objectives of developing performance criteria and job performance of employees has an effective mediating role, so this effect in the relationship between performance criteria to develop a career path and job performance of employees with the path coefficient of 0.684 is very obvious. Accordingly, it can be said that since employee participation is the basis for the development of service organizations such as banks, by implementing measures related to employee participation and benefiting from employees' opinions in formulating performance criteria, preparations for achieving an effective performance management system. And thus accelerated the movement of the Keshavarzi Bank of Iran on the path of development.
The paper explores the relationship between Central bank independence (CBI) and fiscal deficit in India. Moreover, the study tries to assess the impact of CBI on the levels of fiscal deficit. The study incorporates other variables like Gross Domestic Product, financial development, and trade openness to analyze their impact on the fiscal deficit. The study employed Auto-regressive distributed lag model (ARDL) Bounds test developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) to examine the long-run relationship between CBI and fiscal deficit. The study also employs a legal index for measuring CBI developed by Jasmine et al (2019) as well as an actual measure of independence developed by Cukierman (1992) to measure CBI in India. The study confirms the long-run relationship between the CBI and fiscal deficit as well as among other variables. An increase in the levels of CBI leads to falling in the levels of fiscal deficit. The other explanatory variables used in the study also confirm the long-run relationship and impact fiscal deficit negatively except for trade openness, which positively impacts the fiscal deficit.
Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are struggling with internal and external macroeconomic and social factors in their catching-up strategies to be closer, as economic wealth, to the Western developed European countries. In these ex-communist countries, institutional factors could be seen as critical for success in narrowing the income gap. The paper proposes an analysis of the impact of economic and financial development and globalization on the income gap in 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia) for the period of 1996 to 2019, taking into consideration institutional factors. The study analyses the variables: transition coefficient as a proxy for income gap, GDP per capita, KOF Financial Globalisation Index, Financial Development Index and World Bank Institutional Indicators in a panel approach methodology and estimation of FMOLS and DOLS equations. The paper’s findings show that all considered factors have a significant contribution to the income gap in the examined period of time. Economic and financial development, as well as institutional quality, is positively associated with the closing income gap, while globalization has a negative influence. It is also revealed the direction of the causality relationship between the considered variables: from economic and financial development, globalization and institutional quality to the income gap. These findings suggest some policy recommendations in support of the continuation of the European integration process.
In this article, we tackle the complex relationship between a triangle assessment: energy companies, investment portfolios, and the energy consumption sector. The first objective of this paper was to underline several important features of oil price evolution in the pandemic period, with a special focus both on the 2020 and 2022 periods, in order to reveal some aspects of new passengers’ cars registered, and some important energy sources worldwide. Second, it is highlighted several important features of energy-listed companies on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and of oil prices upon different operators. Third, we analyze important aspects of the influence of the crises regarding the energy industry and several important evolutions upon the stock market. The main findings of this study reveal the nexus between oil shock prices, the energy industry, and the stock market with an empirical focus on constructing an optimal investment portfolio’ by considering several consumption sectors. Future research on this topic will encounter consequently comparisons between several business models of different types of sectors.
This study attempts to examine the behavior of households in the Iranian economy within the framework of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with the changes made in the endogenous discount factor. To this end, this study will review the existing economic literature to introduce two dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models for the economy and define two scenarios: The first model is: the endogenous discount factor. The second model: the endogenous discount factor without internalization. Considering the second-order unconditional moments observed in the two models, we can say that the calculation of the equilibrium dynamics by solving the log-linear approximation associated with a set of equilibrium conditions provides obvious and defensible results. The predictions of both models indicate upward fluctuations in the consumption, output and investment variables. The model also predicts that the components of aggregate demand are in the direction of the trade cycle, and there is a correlation between the variables and GDP. Predicting the correlation of the model’s variables can be justified by the assumption of clear preferences and technologies. On the other hand, the main finding of this study is that in the second model, by changing the endogenous discount factor during the intermittent business cycles, the dynamic paths are almost the same. Still, the fluctuations and correlations of some components of aggregate demand will be different from the first model.
