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This paper investigates the threshold impact of government debt on economic growth in the presence of fiscal consolidation in South Africa from 1979 to 2022. The autoregressive threshold regime (TAR) model and two-stage least squares (2SLS) are used. The contribution of the paper is on the estimation of the threshold of government debt using the first difference, dummy variables, and the TAR in the presence of fiscal consolidation in South Africa. The TAR provides evidence with the consideration of fiscal consolidation, there is evidence of the U-shape impact of domestic government debt on gross domestic product per person. At a high threshold, there is evidence of an S-shape impact on gross domestic product per person when there is a range threshold. Overall high domestic government debt harms gross product per person and results in fiscal consolidation not being able to stimulate gross domestic product per person. It is recommended for fiscal authorities to not use fiscal consolidation when the domestic government debt is above 60% in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper for the first time calculates the historical regional GDP (rGDP) for an Eastern European country by using the methodology of Frank Geary and Tom Stark [2002. Examining Ireland's post-famine economic growth performance. The Economic Journal, 112(482):919–935]. The estimates cover the period 1925–1935 and are made for the historical Latvian regions Kurzeme, Vidzeme, Zemgale, Latgale, and Riga as well as within the contemporary NUTS3 units. The results are compared with the GDP disparity of the NUTS3 regions of the restored independent Latvia (2001–2016). The main findings are that the sigma divergence remained stable. Direct comparisons of regional growth rates indicate that economically more advanced regions were more sensitive to business cycles than less advanced regions. Hence, sigma divergence seems to prevail in times of high growth and convergence in times of low growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many developed countries around the world, the connection between immigration and crime has been a subject of discussion. The indigenous populations of the most advanced nations usually held the opinion that immigration fuels delinquency. Therefore, this paper provides an empirical connection between immigration and crime in the period 1988-2018 across 30 OECD countries. For empirical analysis, advanced panel econometric approaches are used which can address both heterogonous coefficients and cross-section dependency. The findings show that no statistical evidence exists to relate an increase in the number of immigrants to the rise of any kind of crime. If there is we found a significant negative association between immigrants and only one of the six kinds of crime studied. Moreover, an increase in foreign prisoners (FP) reduces all kinds of crimes. While an increase in the real gross domestic product (RGDP) only increases property crimes. The increase in M25–29 only increases serious assault (SA) out of six crime types analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the beginning of the twenty-first century, governments have tried to attract companies by offering different tax incentives or even changing their entire tax regime. Among the countries that have attracted foreign investments we have countries in Eastern Europe which enjoyed the benefits of the Single European Market and the stability that an EU membership brings. Given the importance of foreign capital we focus our paper on the factors the impact FDI and GDP. The main objective of the paper was to assess the impact of taxation on the GDP and FDI but our analysis has allowed to also view the impact of other factors such as infrastructure, unemployment, cost of doing business and labour force. We have selected 11 countries of the 13 New Member States that have joined the EU after 2004 and looked at data for the years 2005–2015. To see which factors influence the GDP and FDI, we have used the method of panel least squares. The results of our analysis show that taxation does play a role in the increase of the GDP and the attraction of FDI. Nevertheless, it is not the main factor and countries should not only rely on reduction of fiscal pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to analyze the determinant of economic growth in the region of East African countries from 2002 to 2018. In order to investigate empirically the key determinants of economic growth in East African countries, this study used a dynamic panel model. To improve efficiency, Generalized Moments Method (GMM) estimators are used. Based on panel data from the East African countries during the 2002–2018 period, this study, therefore, estimated the determinants of economic growth in the region. The result suggests that government expense, government revenue, volume of imports and exports of goods and services significantly contribute to the economic growth of the countries. However, the consumer price index, current account balance, gross government debt, and foreign direct investment lead to negative economic growth. The paper has three policy implications; first, promoting open trade and ensuring peace and stability in the region is a paramount policy to enhance the economic growth of the region. East African Countries should move forward in creating stability regionally and internally within the countries. Second, countries in East Africa are recommended to strengthen and sustain their policies on government expenses, government revenue and revise their policies on government debt, inflation and current account balance. Major reforms are required in foreign direct investment and general government debt within the region. Third, to address obstacles in trade, climate change and the tax collection system, political and economic integration is fundamental to the region and to making the region competitive in the international trade arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of public debt on fiscal balance. This study uses the standard debt equation in a fiscal reaction and impulse response functions framework to assess the trajectory of public debt and its sustainability within the Sub-Sahara region from 1980–2017. From the estimations of the fiscal reaction function, the lagged primary balance significantly affects the fiscal deficits of Sub-Saharan African countries. Also, public debts to the gross domestic product beyond a threshold of fifty percent are positive and significantly associated with the primary balance. Fiscal deficits contribute to increases in the debt stock of about 120% over the ten-year for the Sub-Sahara region. The results imply that fiscal governance is required to constrict fiscal deficits whenever debt stock levels approach a certain threshold and growth. Therefore, stakeholders should implement enhanced fiscal policy rules on fiscal balance, public debts, and economic growth to improve debt sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sar-Cov-2 pandemic that began in 2019 has significantly affected the global economy and, in particular, those of African countries. This paper analyzes possible intervention channels by African states to put their economies back on a sustainable growth path once the health crisis is under control. The paper proposes workable macroeconomic channels for these countries' recovery from post-pandemic periods by using historical data to conduct empirical analyses. The paper employs World Bank data and ILOSTAT for 54 African countries within the period 1990–2018. We use a post-Keynesian framework and the difference and system generalized method-of-moments to show that wages drive African economic dynamics in the short run. This is particularly true for Sub-Saharan African countries. In addition, foreign output, proxied by European Union output, has a positive and significant impact on Sub-Saharan African economies in the short and long run. The results highlight strategic policy measures for recovering African economies, including improving wages and deepening international economic relations, particularly with the Eurozone countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses high-growth firms in Slovenia over two three-year periods: 2007-2010 and 2011-2014. The analysis has been carried out for four stylised facts on high-growth firms established in the literature: (1) growth-rate distributions are heavy-tailed; (2) different growth indicators select different high-growth firms; (3) a small share of high-growth firms generates a large share of jobs; and (4) high-growth firms are not more common in high-tech industries. The results find the growth-rate distributions to be heavy-tailed, but also somewhat asymmetric and thicker than the Laplace tails. The paper shows that different indicators indeed select different high-growth firms, which is especially evident when comparing employment- and revenue-based selected firms. Furthermore, Slovenia has a smaller share of high-growth firms compared to more developed countries like the United Kingdom and Sweden; however, this smaller share of firms does contribute to a large share of jobs created, but the effect is not as large as in more developed countries. The analysis also confirms the significant effect of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises on overall job creation. Finally, only a small portion of high-growth firms can be found in high-tech sectors in Slovenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers are reluctant to change immediately their consumption patterns when confronted with budgetary changes, in spite of fluctuating economic conditions. Their reluctance evokes the notion of hysteresis used by economists to describe the persistent influence of past economic events. The importance of hysteresis in economic research represents a natural consequence of the development of economic sciences and of the pursuit of understanding economic systems' evolution by taking into account their 'memory', their conscience of the past. The present paper represents an attempt to review some of the most relevant approaches to hysteresis in economics and to emphasise the impact of the phenomenon on macroeconomic consumption in Romania. The paper aims at reviewing the application of hysteresis to economic models, and subsequently at constructing a two-phase research on households' individual final consumption in Romania during 1990 and 2016, employing both the unit root and the so-called 'true' approach to hysteresis. The research results indicated the existence of hysteresis at the macroeconomic consumption level, thus revealing several implications for economic policy, inaccessible through the standard economic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic value added in exports has lately become a key measure of a country's global competitiveness. This paper analyses the potential drivers of the differences in domestically generated value added in exported goods between 'new' (CEE-10) and 'old' (EU-15) countries. The analysis focuses on the role played by intangible investments, human capital and foreign direct investment. By studying export performance at the industry level for the period 2000-2011, this paper finds that differences in the share of domestically generated value added depend on investments in intangible capital, in particular investments in research and development. CEE-10 countries suffer from a distinct lack of investments in intangible capital, which is currently only sufficient to enable their mere participation in global value chains. Further, inward F.D.I. causes a reduction in demand for domestic inputs for both groups of countries and hence lowers D.V.A. in exports, while CEE-10 countries are also found to be upgrading global value chains by undertaking outward F.D.I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper purposes to discover the reasons that impact the working capital management (WCM) of Indian-listed manufacturing firms. The study uses a panel data set of 291 firms covering years from 2011 to 2020. The authors use working capital requirement (WCR) and cash conversion cycle (CCC) as proxies for working capital management and assess the effect of operating cash flow (OCF), performance as return on assets (ROA), valuation as Tobin's Q (TQs), size, age, growth opportunities, leverage, and economic condition as the gross domestic product (GDP) over them. We use OLS and GMM estimators for the analysis of the study. Indian listed manufacturing firms' cash conversion cycle (CCC) has been found to be positively correlated to their firm value, performance, and leverage. At the macro level, CCC is positively correlated to GDP. Further, CCC has been found to be negatively correlated with growth opportunities, operating cash flow, firm size, and age. The working capital requirement (WCR) of the firms, on the other hand, is positively associated with performance, firm age, and value, while it is negatively related to OCF, growth opportunities, leverage, size, and GDP. Our study adds uniqueness to the existing works on working capital in many ways. First, to our knowledge, very few studies exist to measure working capital management in the Indian context using two proxies WCR and CCC of working capital as dependent variables. Second, we used both OLS and GMM estimators to measure the explanatory variable's effect over WCR and CCC which provided a more valid result. Third, we used eight factors as explanatory variables that provide a wider scope to explain the working capital management of Indian listed firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devaluation of the currency has been stipulated and utilized increasingly as a stabilization device in developing countries. The Ethiopian government employed a devaluation policy to improve the export performance of the country. However, various literature demonstrates that the devaluation of the Ethiopian Birr (ETB) has an ambiguous effect on the country's export performance. Therefore, the prime objective of the study was to investigate the effect of domestic currency devaluation on Ethiopian major primary export commodities by employing time series data for the period 1987 to 2020. With the help of Johansen's co-integration and vector error correction modelling, the impact of the devaluation of the real effective exchange rate on major export commodities was assessed in the long run as well as in the short run. The study found that the devaluation of the real effective exchange rate has a positive and significant relationship with the values of major export commodities in the long run. This implies that the decrease in the value of the domestic currency promotes exports in the long run. Other variables like foreign direct investment, with an expected positive sign, and real gross domestic product (with a negative sign), are also found to be statistically significant in explaining exports in the long run. The findings of this paper suggest that policy intervention in the form of devaluing the domestic currency could be effective in improving export performance given that the effect of inflation on output is controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underlying complexity of urban space can be manifested by its fractal forms and scaling statistics. This paper examines these characteristics at the intra-urban scale through the lens of clustered street junctions (including road ends) in two Chinese metropolitan areas: Beijing and Shenzhen. We derived the cluster sets with Euclidean distance thresholds starting at 100 meters (m) and ending at 1000 m, and outlined each cluster using a concave-hull method to maintain their original irregular shapes. Within each delimited cluster, we examined four urban attributes: gross domestic product, number of street nodes, polygon area, and population. Our analysis revealed that power law distribution applied to almost every cluster set in terms of the four attributes, but varied from one attribute to another or from city to city, represented primarily by fluctuated power law exponents and ht-index values whose profiles along with the cluster growth can effectively characterize the urban structure. Additionally, we computed the spectrum of intra-urban scaling exponents with cluster size increments, contributing new insights into the allometric relationships between urban configuration and function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides, for the first time, the analysis of the quality of the GDP growth and inflation forecasts by multiple forecasters for the Croatian economy. Forecast data of 6 different institutions in the 2006–2015 period are analysed. Efficiency and biasedness test are conducted following the Davies and Lahiri econometric framework based on a three-dimensional panel dataset which includes multiple individual forecasters, target years and forecast horizons. In order to assess directional accuracy we follow the approach by Pesaran and Timmermann. Based on MAE values we find the forecasts to be accurate on a scale comparable to the European Commission's forecast reported in 2016 for the EU and the euro area. GDP growth forecasts exhibit a strong bias related to a notable tendency to over-predict GDP growth. In the case of inflation forecasting the bias is still present for all forecasters, albeit less pronounced and not statistically significant for all of them. There is evidence of forecast inefficiency regarding both analysed variables. Overall, inflation forecasting presents less of a challenge due to specific monetary policy strategy and inaccurate national accounts data accompanied by extended revision process of the GDP data by the government's statistics office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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With the development of China's economy, more and more energy consumption has led to serious environmental problems. Faced with the enormous pressure of large amounts of carbon dioxide ( C O 2 ) emissions, China is now actively implementing the development strategy of low-carbon and emission reduction. Through the analysis of the influencing factors of C O 2 emissions in China, five key influencing factors are selected: urbanization level, gross domestic product (GDP) of secondary industry, thermal power generation, real GDP per capital and energy consumption per unit of GDP. This paper applies the Elman neural network optimized by the Firefly Algorithm (FA) to forecast the C O 2 emissions in China. And the results show that the performance of the FA–Elman is better than the Elman neural network and Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), verifying the effectiveness of the FA–Elman model for the C O 2 emissions prediction. Finally, we make some suggestions for low-carbon and emission reduction in China by analysing key influencing factors and forecasting C O 2 emissions using the FA–Elman model from 2017 to 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though India's GDP growth rate remains high at 7.7 in 2017, there are growing concerns of poverty, malnutrition and how to bring about a holistic process of growth. Alongside this, is the all-encompassing question of what sufficient growth strategy will uplift the nutritional intake of the country. Is there any association across economic enhancement and proper nutritional intake? The current paper examines the direction of causality across economic growth and nutrition intake in India using time series econometrics. The important variables used in the study are real GDP per capita, per capita calorie intake and real food prices. The results suggest that economic growth Granger-causes nutritional intake however nutritional intake does not Granger-cause economic growth in India. The post-sample variance decompositions indicate that income is the main cause of increased calorie intake in the long-run. The model estimated shows stable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-run economic growth represents a precondition for the development of the Western Balkans countries. Continuous investments are required to achieve high rates of economic growth, while investments sources are national savings and foreign investments. The national savings level in the Western Balkans (W.B.) is not sufficient to finance radical changes, so external sources, in particular foreign direct investment (F.D.I.), are necessary for the development, as well as the official development assistance (O.D.A.). In view of the European intentions for the Western Balkans Region and the level of economic relations with the European Union, this paper seeks to explore the European Union (E.U.) investments and W.B. development. Results of the panel analysis and V.A.R. model show a statistically significant relationship between G.D.P. per capita and the length of the road network and E.U. investments. This confirms the significance of these development variables for the inflow of investment from the E.U. Panel analysis, explanatory variables of trade openness and signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the E.U. did not prove to be significant for E.U. investments inflow. A statistically significant relationship does not exist between the unit labour costs and investments from the E.U. when applying a causality test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the governments spending - economic growth nexus and examine the asymmetries in the adjustment process between the two in the Croatian and Slovenian economy. The baseline relationship model between the variables of interest is grounded on the assumption of Wagner's Law and Keynesian hypothesis. A possible nonlinear asymmetric effect of governments spending and GDP toward their long-run equilibrium is tested for each case. The test results indicate the presence of nonlienarity in the relationship between public spending and GDP in Croatia and Slovenia as well. Eventually, country specific threshold cointegrating relationship between the considered variables are estimated and tested. The results reveal well suited threshold vector error correction model with significantly different error correction adjustments in normal and stress regimes for each of the two sample country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the main economic factors that are influencing the competitiveness of Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) countries. The research was carried out on a sample of ten countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia), over the period 2004-2016. These countries were grouped by their stage of economic development, respectively: efficiency driven economies, in transition between efficiency and innovation and innovation driven economies. An econometric analysis on panel data was used, considering as a dependent variable the competitiveness of a country, quantified by the Global Competitiveness Index. As independent variables, we took into account a set of seven macroeconomic and business environment indicators which could have an impact on a country's competitiveness. The results obtained show important differences between countries, but also some resemblance. Although all the considered countries are emerging ones, the factors that have a significant influence on the competitiveness differ significantly. Thereby, if for efficiency-driven countries, G.D.P., inflation rate, trade, labour productivity and costs are important determinants of competitiveness, for innovation-driven countries the determinants of competitiveness are: G.D.P., inflation rate, tax rate, F.D.I., trade and costs. As regards the C.E.E. countries in transition only G.D.P., inflation rate and labour productivity are determinants of competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a methodology to determine access routes to places with difficult access, situated outside the regular transport network. To determine the optimum route, the existing road network was used, along with terrain passability maps, as well as high-resolution digital terrain models together with the traction parameters of the vehicle to enable conducting a detailed analysis of micro-relief and excluding inaccessible areas. The research was extended to include a comprehensive analysis of terrain accessibility for areas located in the vicinity of the capital cities of three European countries on various levels of economic development: Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. The degree of development of the analysed area was determined with the use of the gross domestic product (GDP), human development index (HDI), and the road quality coefficient. The case study presented in the paper illustrates the practical application of the developed methodology that was implemented to a real crisis situation. Access routes were determined for a MAN TGM 15.290 vehicle that went to take part in emergency action in buildings situated approximately 500 m away from paved roads. The developed methodology may be widely used in crisis management, where the emergency actions often require rescue units to access remote places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the strongly asymmetrical distribution of the population, quality of life and economic development in Portugal. It identifies homogeneous areas supported by an analysis of competitiveness, cohesion and environmental quality dimensions. Drawing on a multivariate approach, its findings reveal differences in terms of development across the country. The study identified groups of regions with common characteristics that go beyond the standard north-south or coastal-inland distinctions. Metropolitan areas and export-oriented regions are clearly distinguishable from the remainder of the country. Economic agglomeration indicators, as gross domestic product per capita, population density, resident foreign population and youth index, among others, are those that reveal greater diversity across the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to research whether the varieties of capitalism impact the relationship between social capital and inequality in developed economies (coordinated and liberal economies) and Latin America (hierarchical economies) in the period from 2000 to 2016. To do that, the study uses a panel analysis of developed economies and Latin America, that is, a fixed effect panel static analysis. The model includes one dependent variable (Gini index) and ten independent variables (generalised trust, informal economy, years of schooling, union density, market capitalization, annual gross domestic product, gross domestic product per capita, health expenditure, feminine labour force, and gross capital). The findings show that the relationship between inequality and social capital is negative and significant and that hierarchical economies (Latin America) amplified such a relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian region has passed a long and rocky road during the past several decades to establish itself as the second leading regional biotech market globally. China has become the second largest pharmaceutical market while Japan holds a strong second position as the global hub for medical devices development and innovation. Pharmaceutical expenditure continues to outpace real GDP growth in most of these countries. The trend is likely to be continued for a decade ahead, driven by a myriad of factors ranging from aging populations, rapidly growing welfare and increased citizen expectations raising demand for novel medicines and technologies. Satisfaction of these unmet needs in terms of supply is coming from the large multinational companies in wealthier among these societies. Domestic born and largely state-owned manufacturing industries continue to play a crucial role in an array of middle-income countries. Global biotech hub of Singapore is hosting over 1.5 times more headquarters of large pharmaceutical companies than Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong combined together. Japanese Takeda, Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo and Otsuka and Chinese Sinopharm, Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals Corporation, SPH and Yunnan Baiyao are now enlisted in leading Top 25 pharmaceutical companies rankings as per their annual net revenues in 2020–2021. Global industry landscape is evolving with ever more Asian companies obtaining the sharp innovative competitiveness leading development of cutting-edge medical technologies. Asian societies demand for pharmaceuticals and medical services continue to be characterized with unmet needs and striving to increase supply capacities. Financial obstacles of affordability of life saving medicines to the ordinary citizens shall be gradually overcome with an array of reimbursement strategies and extended insurance coverage policies. Observing the broad landscape throughout Asian region, we may witness that optimism in terms of domestic real GDP growth and consecutive biotech industry forecasts remains firmly rooted in years to come. Biosimilars are not a focus of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to research, theoretically and empirically, the impact of institutional reforms on economic growth in transition countries (new European Union members) and Croatia, in the period from 1996 to 2012. In order to prove the hypothesis, we will use panel analysis of transition economies and Croatia, namely the Arellano–Bond dynamic panel analysis. The analysis includes two dependent variables (gross domestic product per capita [G.D.P./p.c.]and the share of export in G.D.P.) and five independent variables (total Heritage Index of Economic Freedom, Worldwide Governance Indicators (W.G.I.) government effectiveness indicator, W.G.I. rule of law indicator, corruption perception index and the index of institutional reforms in transition countries). The results show that there is a significant positive impact of institutional reforms on the economic growth of transition countries and Croatia, which creates preconditions that are essential for the future growth rate of the Croatian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Poverty is a global socio-economic phenomenon. It is always a problem in all countries include developing countries and developed countries. In Vietnam, the poverty rate has been decreasing while the urbanization has happened rapidly over the past 20 years. Handling the dual problems of urbanization and poverty is important to be able to attain sustainable development. Therefore, this study is to analyze the impact of urbanization on poverty reduction in Vietnam. Using Driscoll and Kraay's method and D-GMM method to estimate the provinces' panel data in the period 2006–2016, we confirm that there exists a U-shape relationship between the level of urbanization and the poverty level in Vietnam. Moreover, the estimated thresholds of urbanization from the perspective of poverty reduction are 40.19% and 43.68% in the static and dynamic model, respectively. In addition, our results exhibit that the gross regional domestic product, human capital, and agricultural value have the effect of reducing poverty, but government spending and export value increases the poverty rate in Vietnam. The paper has relevant implications for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically visualizes the spatial patterns of the inter-provincial electricity flows in relation to the distribution of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita using spatial geographical information system (GIS) and cartograms. It highlights how developed provinces in eastern China are net importers of electricity from western and central China, which creates a west-east power transmission pattern and helps deepen the regional economy disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bivariate conditionally specified distribution is one in which the dependence relationship between the two random variables is accomplished by defining the distribution of one of the random variables, given the other. One such conditionally specified model is called the pseudo-exponential distribution, where both the marginal distribution of one and the conditional distribution of the other, given the first, are exponential. In this paper, a variation of this conditioning regime is introduced, and its characteristics are contrasted with the original. An example is used to demonstrate the applicability of the new model. Per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of a nation's total annual production of goods and services, divided by its population. Two variations of both the original and the new conditioning regime are applied to GDP and infant mortality data across nations and territories. Possible generalizations are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local regression has an advantage over global regression by allowing coefficients that qualify variables relationships being heterogeneous, where such varying regression relationships are nonstationarity. Spatiotemporally Varying Coefficients (STVC) model is the first Bayesian-based local spatiotemporal regression approach, intending to simultaneously detect spatial and temporal nonstationarity for heterogeneous response-covariate variables relationships, through separately estimating posterior local-scale coefficients over different space areas and time frames. In this paper, we first presented a general Bayesian STVC modelling paradigm as a specification guide to show its commonality in broader geospatial research. Then, we employed it to solve a real-world issue concerning spatiotemporal healthcare-socioeconomic relations, for which we derived data of county-level hospital beds number per capita, as well as data of related socioeconomic factors in northeast China during 2002–2011. Results showed that the STVC model surpassed all the other comparative regressions, in terms of both Bayesian model fitness and predictive ability. Globally, resident savings, financial institutions loans, GDP, and primary industry were identified as key socioeconomic conditions affecting healthcare resources in Northeast China. Temporally, with Time-Coefficients (TC) plots, we found that after 2011, GDP and primary industry would further help improve the overall healthcare level of northeast China. Spatially, with Space-Coefficients (SC) maps, we could directly identify the relative contribution of four socioeconomic covariates' impacts on healthcare within each administrative county. Bayesian STVC model is an essential development and extension of the local regression family for exploring the spatiotemporal heterogeneous variables relationships, especially under Bayesian statistics, as well as GIScience and spatial statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates causal relationships between gross domestic product (GDP) and the number of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) controlled for unemployment rates (UNR) within Slovenia and Croatia. Macro-economic time series data on GDP, SMEs and UNR are analysed in a unit root framework and applied regression analysis. These processes are known as the Johansen co-integration test and Granger-Causality-test. The results show that UNR, GDP and SMEs did not have causal relationships in Croatia between January 2008 and December 2013. UNR and SMEs have a bidirectional relationship in Slovenia with a greater number of SMEs per capita than in Croatia. During their economic recovery period between January 2014 and December 2017, Slovenia and Croatia have experienced the causal unidirectional relation from SMEs to GDP as a positive signal under seen to policy makers on usefulness of investment in SMEs during economic prosperity. The results of a vector autoregressive model suggest a 1% change in the number of SMEs in Croatia decreases GDP in the time of crisis by almost 1.8%. For Slovenia, there is no statistically significant cointegration vector pertained to SMEs-led growth. Finally, the unidirectional causality relation from SMEs to UNR is statistically significant for Slovenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport is one of the most essential sectors of the EU member state economies. Measurement of the efficiency of transport operations seems to be interesting from the perspective of both the economy as a whole and individual companies operating in the transport sector. The largest proportion of freight transport in the European Union is done by road. The purpose of this paper is to determine the efficiency of road and rail freight transport in old and new European Union countries based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. To that end, the authors present a literature review reflecting the current state of research on the importance of transport and its development in relation to the economy and environmental problems. Additionally, the methods of data analysis and variables are described. The empirical part is divided into a presentation of DEA results and correlation between the transport efficiency, gross domestic product (GDP), and CO2 emissions results. Moreover, spatial analysis was used to characterize road and rail transport efficiency in EU member states. The last section gives a summary of the study, and the obtained results are compared with data from the literature review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically examines whether and to what extent gender equality in education, economic activity, and employment affects the financial and economic well-being of African and Asian countries. Based on data collected from ILOSTAT and World Bank, we perform Pooled Ordinary Least Square, Fixed Effect, and Random-effect regressions on a sample of thirty-four countries over the period spanning from 2000 to 2019. Overall, our evidence reveals a relationship between gender equality and financial and economic well-being. Gender parity in education, economic activity, and employment appears to have a positive effect on the overall health of the countries analysed, considerably increasing their economic growth measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and financial growth measured by the level of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The finding of this study provides further support to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDGs) aimed at empowering women and achieving gender equality by acting on education and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the behavior of private consumption in Cote d'Ivoire under the permanent income hypothesis using annual data for the period 1970–2016. The first objective is to test the validity of the permanent income hypothesis in Cote d'Ivoire. Our second concern is to investigate the reason explaining the rejection of this hypothesis. The data consists of real household consumption, real gross domestic product, and the real interest rate on deposits. The empirical analysis uses the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model proposed by Shin et al. This approach allows us to simultaneously test the short and long run nonlinearities through positive and negative partial sum decompositions of income. The results suggest that the absolute income hypothesis is valid rather than permanent income hypothesis. Also, there is evidence pointing to the rejection of the permanent income hypothesis-driven by the presence of liquidity constraints rather than myopia. As policy implications, the lending conditions of banks should be relaxed to increase the accessibility of households to credits. In addition, private consumption can be increased through income or consumption tax reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant boom occurred in the Indian financial market and growth in the post-liberalization era. This motivates us to analyze the impact of stock market and credit market (two components of financial market) for the growth of financial market. This paper attempts to show the linkage between stock and credit markets and their impact on the Indian economy taking the period after post-liberalization. The period of analysis is from 1994 to 2010; we identify the three variables as stationary and find a relationship between the financial market and gross domestic product (GDP) and a long-run effect of lagged differences in credit market on GDP. It has been inferred that stock market development has larger and more significant long-run mutual effects on economic growth than credit market development in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the gross domestic product growth rates of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China in an empirical examination to determine whether an integrated time series should be differenced before it is used for forecasting. The results reveal that Mallows model combination (M.M.A.) of original and differenced series is a better choice than just differencing the series only if the perturbation instability measure is more than 1.25 for autoregressive (A.R.) model, and 1.105 for moving average (M.A.) model and autoregressive fractional integrated moving average (A.R.F.I.M.A.) model. Furthermore, it is found that M.M.A. performs better in forecasting with better model stability for the case of M.A. and A.R.F.I.M.A. than A.R. However, M.M.A. is very sensitive in financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-life insurance prices may fluctuate due to economic and/or institutional factors; occasionally, the changes are cyclical. While the majority of previous studies relating to insurance price dynamics adopt data from developed economies, this paper uses data from China to provide new evidence. This study tests the long-term and short-term effects of real gross domestic product (GDP), interest rate and rate of stock market return on the prices of different lines of non-life insurance, i.e., property-liability insurance and personal accident insurance. The results indicate that the price dynamics of property-liability insurance are generally similar to those of developed countries, except for the effect of GDP, while price determination of personal accident insurance seems to be affected by a wider range of economic and institutional variables and has its own features. The price dynamics of non-life insurance in China have been identified as being connected to the country-specific economic and institutional environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to assess the impact of regulations (measured by the Fraser Institute index of economic freedom) on economic growth in the world as well as in EU and post-socialist countries. The method of the analysis is based on growth regressions where economic freedom is included in the set of explanatory variables, along with some other control factors. The dependent variable is gross domestic product per capita growth rate. In order to be robust to the selection of explanatory variables, the paper uses Bayesian model pooling applied to Blundell and Bond's generalized method of moments system estimator. Other contributions are: the use of ‘overlapping’ panel data in which subsequent observations cover observations from partly overlapping periods and the inclusion of nonlinearities. The results show that the level of and the change in economic freedom both reveal a positive and nonlinear relationship with economic growth. The same applies to most of the component indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the effect of a monetary policy shock in the euro area on the main Estonian economic and financial variables between 2000 and 2012. Using a standard structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model we find strong and persistent effects on Estonian GDP, private consumption, corporate investment, and imports. A monetary policy shock also has strong and sluggish effects on the housing loan and consumer credit interest rates. The estimated reaction of Estonian GDP and the GDP deflator-based inflation rate is about four times stronger than the reaction of euro area-wide aggregates. The strength of the impact depends on the inclusion of the data from the years of the recent financial and economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study analyses the linkages between macroeconomic and bank-specific determinants of non-performing loans (NPLs) and their impact on macroeconomic performance in the Baltic States using two complementary approaches. First, we examine the macroeconomic and bank-specific determinants of NPLs for a panel of 27 banks from the Baltics using annual data for the period 2005–2014. The most important macroeconomic factors are GDP growth, inflation and domestic credit to the private sector. As for the bank-specific determinants, we found that the equity to total assets ratio, return on assets, the return on equity and the growth of gross loans were of importance. Second, we investigate the feedback between NPLs and its macroeconomic determinants. The results suggest that the real economy responds to NPLs and that there are strong feedback effects from macroeconomic conditions such as domestic credit to private sector, GDP growth, unemployment and inflation to NPLs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate the influence of R&D expenditure on economic growth in the EU28 during the period of 2002–2012. For this purpose, we constructed a multiple regression model, which showed that,ceteris paribus, an increase in R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP by 1% would cause an increase of real GDP growth rate by 2.2%. This model takes into consideration actual financial crises and emphasises the negative influence of fertility rate in the EU28 on economic growth. We believe that the achieved research results can be beneficial to the economic policy makers in the innovation and demographic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasing numbers of economists and policymakers consider that reindustrialisation is a key factor in enhancing economic growth and a better standard of living in post-crisis Europe. Therefore, a new European Union industrial policy focuses on increasing manufacturing share in gross domestic product (G.D.P.). The assumption of recently developed theoretical models states that development of the financial sector is essential for economic growth and therefore for the growth of the manufacturing industry. The aim of this research is to examine the importance of the financial conditions in the process of industrialisation in Central and Eastern European countries. The results of a macro panel model that examines which factors influence the manufacturing value added as a percentage of G.D.P. suggest that the role of the financial sector is very important for the level of industrialisation in the analysed countries. The research is based on data collected from the World Development Indicators database published by the World Bank for the period from 2005 to 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of the South African rand/US dollar (ZAR/USD) exchange rate based on demand and supply analysis. Applying the EGARCH method, the paper finds that the ZAR/USD exchange rate is positively associated with the South African government bond yield, US real GDP, the US stock price and the South African inflation rate and negatively influenced by the 10-year US government bond yield, South African real GDP, the South African stock price, and the US inflation rate. The adoption of a free floating exchange rate regime has reduced the value of the rand vs. the US dollar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct comprehensive public sector balance sheets for Finland for 2000–2016 by complementing general government statistics with data on public corporations and pensions. These static balance sheets show that Finland's public sector net worth at end 2016 was −160 percent of GDP, after having registered considerable fluctuations previously, including due to asset holdings' sensitivity to equity valuations. We then expand the analysis to an intertemporal balance sheet by adding present value estimates of future fiscal flows. This allows performing fiscal stress tests and policy experiments. These suggest that Finland's public finances will remain sound if ongoing reform efforts to address aging pressures yield their expected savings. Under this assumption, intertemporal financial net worth (IFNW) of the public sector would exceed 50 percent of GDP – well within the 30–85 percent of GDP range derived in stress tests as the needed buffer to maintain positive IFNW in light of a severe shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The railway-road-inland waterway (IWW) transportation network in the Yangtze River basin was extracted using ArcGIS software and the triangular mesh covered the simulated region was generated using GIS software. The population density and gross domestic product were chosen as the characteristic economic variables, which were interpolated spatially into the mesh to analyse the origin-destination (OD) matrix of the coal transport network. Then, the multimodal transportation cost model was developed considering the detailed cost functions of railway, road and IWW. Finally, the coal transportation cost under different transportation allocation scenarios was calculated and compared to investigate the advantages and potential of the multimodal transportation mode in the Yangtze River basin. The cost analysis about the multimodal transportation system showed that the IWW mode has great potential to decrease the transportation cost of the coal within the OD matrix although the railway mode took at least 80% of the total transportation load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of events distributed over time which can be quantified as point processes has attracted much interest over the years due to its wide range of applications. It has recently gained new relevance due to the COVID-19 case and death processes associated with SARS-CoV-2 that characterize the COVID-19 pandemic and are observed across different countries. It is of interest to study the behavior of these point processes and how they may be related to covariates such as mobility restrictions, gross domestic product per capita, and fraction of population of older age. As infections and deaths in a region are intrinsically events that arrive at random times, a point process approach is natural for this setting. We adopt techniques for conditional functional point processes that target point processes as responses with vector covariates as predictors, to study the interaction and optimal transport between case and death processes and doubling times conditional on covariates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs correlation analysis and a fixed effects model premised on indexes extracted through principal component analysis to assess the effects of entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour, and entrepreneurial framework conditions (EFCs) on economic growth in BRICS economies. For purposes of effectiveness, a panel dataset for entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour, and EFCs indicators is pooled from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor website, and one for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, a proxy for economic growth, is sourced from the World Bank website over the period 2001-2021. The study reveals that there are statistically significant negative correlations between GDP per capita and 'entrepreneurial intentions rate', 'perceived capabilities rate', 'perceived opportunities rate', 'governmental support and policies', 'taxes and bureaucracy', 'governmental programmes', 'internal market openness', 'physical and services infrastructure' and 'cultural and social norms'. Furthermore, entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour positively impact GDP per capita, whereas EFCs have no significant influence on GDP per capita in BRICS economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission is a significant element of environmental pollution because of corrupt economic activities that requires regulators' focus and researchers' emphasis. Hence, the current research evaluates economic growth on CO2 emissions in Chinese economy. The article has taken six factors of economic growth on board along with sustainable innovation to predict CO2 emissions. Secondary data, in this regard, has been used which has been borrowed from World Bank from 1986 to 2020. Augmented Dickey-Fuller test is employed to scrutnize unit root, while QARDL model has been run to identify the association between the constructs. Findings revealed that factors such as gross domestic product, national income, human capital, employment ratio, inflation and exports signifies CO2 emissions, hence are corrupt the environment. While sustainability oriented innovation reduces the emissions. This study monitors the policymakers while formulating regulators related to reducing the level of CO2 emission using economic growth factors and sustainability-oriented eco-innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the long-run and short-run relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, exports, and economic growth in Sri Lanka over 1980-2016. The study implies Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to reveal the relationship between the variables. The study indicates that FDI inflows have a positive and significant relationship with economic growth in the long-run and short run. If FDI inflows increase, GDP growth will increase. But for exports, it has a negative and significant relationship with economic growth in the long-run. If exports increase, the GDP growth will decrease. Sri Lankan exports strongly depend on primary goods. There is a risk of finite resources and price volatility. It's not surprising for developing economy like Sri Lanka. Also, in the short run, exports have a positive and significant relationship with economic growth. If exports increase, GDP growth will increase significantly. The findings suggest that both FDI inflows and exports influence economic progress in Sri Lanka. Based on emerging market economies, FDI inflows are useful in improving the production process in the host country, and hereafter it will contribute to quality exports and the economic growth of Sri Lanka. Policymakers should emphasize to gear up all the barriers for the economic development of Sri Lanka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the influence of the real effective exchange rate (REER) and relative prices on South Africa’s import demand function both in the long run and the short run. The ARDL bounds testing approach is employed to test the long-run relationship hypothesis. The estimation of both the long-run and short-run import demand models is based on the ARDL error correction methodology. All the tests are applied to South Africa’s secondary quarterly data covering the period 1980Q1–2014Q4. Real GDP and Foreign reserves were also added to the models as control variables. The Bounds test proved cointegration and the results show that in the long run, South Africa’s import demand is negatively related to the REER, while being positively related to Real GDP (used as a proxy for national income) and relative prices. The coefficient of the relative price variable is greater than 1 in absolute terms, thus also confirming the Marshal Lerner condition. In the short run, import demand is found to be negatively related to the REER, while being positively related to Real GDP, relative prices and the stock of foreign reserves. The result gives hope that a policy aimed at depreciating the currency may help bring down the surge in import demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in recipient economies remains one of the hottest debates. As confirmed in the literature, many studies support the growth impact of FDI, but some do not. Cambodia, a war-torn economy, also depends on FDI as a driver of economic growth. In addition, the causal relationship between FDI and growth in Cambodia is not fully known. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to examine the causal link between the two variables over the period 1980–2014, using Granger causality test based on the vector error correction model. The empirical results provide strong evidence on the causal impact of FDI on Cambodia’s economic growth (GDP). However, the study does not confirm causality to run from GDP to FDI. This can be concluded that the growth impact of FDI is sufficiently supported in Cambodia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]