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Fluctuation in agriculture is a matter of concern in the recent year. The present study analyses the cross-country fluctuations in agricultural production and the factors affecting the fluctuation in agricultural production. The study aims at studying the fluctuations of crop production, fertiliser consumption, arable land, land under cereal production, and agricultural machinery at the global level. The present study used the Cuddy Della Valle Index and a multiple regression model to analyse the fluctuations in agricultural production across countries. The entire study is divided into four sub-periods: 1981–1990, 1991–2000, 2001–2010, and 2011–2020. Several fluctuations in crop production, fertiliser consumption, arable land, land under cereal production, and agricultural machinery were observed in the study over the period. Different levels of instability were observed over the period of time.

Given the importance of mass media in forming consumer attitudes, exploring the main trends in the media discourse on sustainability is of great interest to businesses, policymakers and researchers. This study investigates the discourse on sustainable consumption in major national newspapers in four European countries (Germany, Italy, Norway and Romania), using food consumption as the specific topic. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the issues reported in the newspapers related to the concept of sustainable food from the longitudinal and comparative perspective and identifies the dimensions of sustainability reported in the examined newspapers that are associated with sustainable food in the four different countries. This study adds to the understanding of how the sustainable food concept has developed in Europe over time and highlights the factors that have influenced the development of this concept. The information gaps in the common understanding of the sustainable food concept are pointed out through this research, therefore illustrating how to enhance consumer awareness about this issue.

The aim of this article is to identify the main mechanisms leading to the NEET status in Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria. It does so by highlighting the differences amongst them and verifying how place of residence effectively affects the connected propensity to this status after having controlled for many personal characteristics through a series of probit models. Furthermore, multiple correspondence analyses produce profound understanding of the NEET phenomenon and associated determinants. The results highlight the need to plan support actions tailored to specific NEET characteristics. Whilst the degree of urbanization impacts upon the NEET status throughout Romania and Bulgaria, Italy shows a strong divide between the North and the South. However, in all three countries there is a need to improve the education system and stimulate higher levels of education as the main measure of NEET prevention.

PurposeThe Zhang–Markusen (Z-M) inverse U-shape theory uses education as a human capital variable to investigate the impact of educational attainment on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to a country. The objective of this research is to empirically test this theory in a cross-country framework.Design/methodology/approachFixed effect panel regression has been used to test the Z-M hypothesis for 172 countries for the period 1990–2015. For the purpose of this study, countries were divided into four groups as per the World Bank classification: Low-income economies, lower middle-income countries, upper middle-income economies and high-income economies.FindingsThe findings of this study reinforce the proposition that macroeconomic factors are the major determinants of FDI inflows into various countries. The authors find that the size of the market measured by gross domestic product (GDP), the growth potential of the market measured by real GDP growth rate and the availability of infrastructure are the major factors that enhance the attractiveness of a country as an FDI destination.Originality/valueThough the Z-M theory has been empirically tested in cross-country frameworks, no consensus has been reached. Thus, it is interesting to look again at the validity of the Z-M hypothesis using data covering longer and more recent periods. The study includes both macroeconomic and human capital determinants of FDI, so as to arrive at a comprehensive model explaining the FDI flows into various countries.

Tempers flared in Europe in response to the 2015 European Refugee Crisis, prompting some countries to totally close their borders to asylum seekers. This was seen to have fueled anti-immigrant sentiment, which grew in Europe along with the support for far-right political parties that had previously languished. This sparked a flurry of research into the relationship between immigration and far-right voting, which has found mixed and nuanced evidence of immigration increasing far-right support in some cases, while decreasing support in others. To provide more evidence to this unsettled debate in the empirical literature, we use data from over 400 European parties to systematically select cases of individual countries. We augment this with a cross-country quantitative study. Our analysis finds little evidence that immigrant populations are related to changes in voting for the right. Our finding gives evidence that factors other than immigration are the true cause of rises in right-wing voting.

Using cross‐country data, we find little evidence that economic openness has an impact on the level of nationalism in countries. We use three waves of the World Values Survey from 1999 through 2014 combined with data on economic openness from the Penn World Tables. Across all three waves, we find no statistically significant relationship between economic openness and nationalism. However, there is evidence for a negative association between economic openness and nationalism from 2001 to 2007 and a positive association between 2007 and 2014. This corresponds to the rising nationalistic and anti‐trade sentiment evident throughout the world despite the general trend of increasing economic openness.

The decision about the timing of retirement and actual retirement age is based on financial factors as well as personal characteristics and country-level macro indicators. The goal of this research is to examine the associations between the mentioned factors and actual retirement age while focusing on similarities and differences between European countries. The data came from 34,478 respondents in 20 countries who participated in waves 2, 4 and 5 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Using Ordinary least squares regression models, we explored associations between actual retirement age and personal as well as the country-level variables. Results reveal that higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP), higher pension spending, being a male, and being self-employed were found to be associated with higher actual retirement age, while being a female, civil servant, having fair or poor health, and secondary education were found to be associated with lower actual retirement age. The effect of net household wealth and GDP were not consistent across countries. The contribution of our study is the ability to make predictions about actual retirement age based on each country’ GDP per capita, thus adding the country variables to the individual characteristics and improving our understanding concerning actual retirement age. The different effects of wealth and GDP across countries suggest that policymakers should take into account the specific effect in their country to better assess the implications of different policy measures on the actual retirement age.

The cross-country relationship of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case and death rates with previously measured income inequality and poverty in the pandemic's first wave is studied, controlling for other underlying factors, in a worldwide sample of countries. If the estimated associations are interpreted as causal, the Gini coefficient for income has a significant positive effect on both cases and deaths per capita in regressions using the full sample and for cases but not for deaths when Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD sub-samples are treated separately. The Gini coefficient for wealth has a significant positive effect on cases, but not on deaths, in both sub-samples and in the full sample. Poverty generally has weak positive effects in the full and non-OECD samples, but a relative poverty measure has a strong positive effect on cases in the OECD sample. Analysis of the gap between COVID-19 first-wave cases and deaths per capita in Canada and the higher rates in the United States indicates that 37 percent of the cases gap and 28 percent of the deaths gap could be attributed to the higher-income Gini in the United States according to the full-sample regressions.À partir d’un échantillon formé de différents pays à l’échelle de la planète, cette recherche étudie la relation entre d’une part les taux de cas d’infection et de décès liés à la maladie à coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) lors de la première vague pandémique et d’autre part, l’inégalité des revenus et la pauvreté mesurées précédemment, en tenant compte d’autres facteurs sous-jacents. Si les associations estimées sont interprétées comme causales, le coefficient de Gini pour le revenu a un effet positif significatif sur les cas d’infection et de décès per capita pour les régressions utilisant l’échantillon complet et sur les cas d’infection, mais non sur les décès, lorsque les échantillons des pays membres et des pays non membres de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économique (OCDE) sont traités séparément. Le coefficient de Gini pour la richesse a un effet positif significatif sur les cas d’infection et non sur les décès dans les deux sous-échantillons et dans l’échantillon complet. La pauvreté a, en général, de faibles effets positifs dans l’échantillon complet et dans celui des pays non membres de l’OCDE, mais la mesure de la pauvreté relative a un effet positif élevé sur les cas d’infection des pays membres de l’OCDE. L’analyse de l’écart entre les cas d’infection et de décès per capita dus à la COVID-19 lors de la première vague au Canada et les taux plus élevés aux États-Unis indique que 37 % de l’écart des cas et 28 % de l’écart des décès peuvent être attribués à un plus haut Gini des revenus aux États-Unis selon les régressions de l’échantillon complet.

Globalisation, human capital, and institutions have been widely recognised in the literature to be causally important for economic development. Most of the available studies, however, treat measures of these determinants either separately or as substitutes. In this paper, we study the income effects of border openness to migration, education, and the rule of law (our proxies for globalisation, human capital, and institutions, respectively). Using cross-country data covering all regions of the world, and employing instrumental variables for all three factors, we establish that they each have a robust, positive, and strong association with economic development. We then consider whether there are any useful interrelations between the three factors in explaining income. On the interaction effects, the results show that the impact on income of: (i) migration can be materially affected by cultivating good institutions but this effect is not dependent on the education level; (ii) education is important irrespective of the levels of migration and institutions; and (iii) institutions is significantly improved by raising the level of education but is not influenced by migration level. Our paper makes a significant contribution as the first investigation into the effects of migration, education, and institutions jointly and as complements.

Purpose This study aims to propose a model to examine the relationships between e-government development, cybersecurity commitment, business usage and economic prosperity of the country. Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the country-level variables to explain the second-order impact of e-government development through the mediating role of cybersecurity commitment. Findings Findings suggest that e-government development demonstrated a stronger association with cybersecurity commitment and business usage. There is preliminary evidence that the improvement of cybersecurity measures initiated by e-government development will drive business usage and improve macroeconomic conditions. Research limitations/implications This paper has constructed a theoretical model and validated it using publicly available archival data. Further, this study hypothesizes and demonstrates empirically the direct, as well as indirect relationships between e-government development, cybersecurity commitment, business usage and economic prosperity. To summarize, the study unearths the role of a nation’s cybersecurity commitment and how it is associated with other macro parameters in a country. Originality/value As an initial step, the present study highlights the pivotal role of e-government and its positive influence on cybersecurity commitment at the country level. Further, this study also recognizes the role of cyber commitment to boost information communication and technology usage in business, the use of e-government services for the profitability of the business and effectively influence economic prosperity.

We examine the strength and nature of firm aspiration and expectation as strategic mediators in the association of risk antecedents and firm risk, after exploring the possible impact of such antecedents on firm aspiration, and firm aspiration’s preliminary influence on firm risk. Empirical literature is mostly silent about risk antecedents of firms in an emerging market or cross-country context, and to the best of our knowledge, the mediators proposed in this study are yet to be explored. We report strong significant positive mediating effects of firm aspiration and expectation in association of risk antecedents and firm risk. Our results also validate that all studied risk antecedents, except corporate governance- composition, significantly influence aspiration and expectation mediators and firm risk in line with our hypotheses. Our results also hold true after controlling for firm-level and country-level heterogeneities and conducting two additional robustness tests.

This study examines how family ownership and family-aligned board and management as well as government and foreign shareholdings influence profitability, valuation, and credit risk of banks in emerging economies. It is based on fixed effect regressions to analyse an unbalanced panel dataset on 546 bank-year observations from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, and Indonesia covering a period of 7 years (2009-2015). Overall, the estimation results suggest that family ownership and family-aligned board and management are positively associated with bank performance and negatively associated with credit risk. In addition, ownership concentration has an inverse relationship with bank profitability and valuation. Moreover, foreign ownership and government shareholding show a positive association with bank performance and a negative association with credit risk. Altogether, the study results are consistent with the arguments of stewardship theory and resource-based view. The estimation results have policy implications for corporate governance reform in relation to family ownership and control as well as government and foreign ownerships in concentrated banking systems in emerging economies.

Previous tourism-uncertainty assessments have employed annual or quarterly time-series, which tends to suppress the often critical short-run deviations of uncertainty. This paper utilizes higher fr...

This study aims to identify the factors affecting students’ satisfaction with online learning, examine the relationship between satisfaction and continuance usage intention, and explore the direct ...

The increased interest in the topic of climate change (IC) on the part of the general public can be demonstrated by the fact that the number of search queries on Google with the topic "climate change" has doubled over the past five years. All this creates a field for the study of public opinion on the problem of IC. However, at the moment, there is a gap in the Russian literature in the study of this topic from the point of view of the social sciences; most of the works are devoted to the causes and consequences of this phenomenon from the standpoint of natural sciences and economics. The study aims to identify the differences in the nature of the impact between the "usual" socio-demographic characteristics and other characteristics of the inhabitants of European countries on attitudes towards climate change. The aim of the study is to assess the ability of "familiar" socio-demographic characteristics in comparison with "unusual" characteristics to explain attitudes towards climate change and to differentiate countries by the nature of the impact of these characteristics. The scientific significance of this work is to determine the place of "habitual" socio-demographic characteristics in the study of attitudes towards climate change. From an applied point of view, the nature of the influence of "familiar" socio-demographic characteristics is important when targeting a certain group of people (most often it is determined by such characteristics) in the framework of environmental measures.

We analyse the long-run intergenerational correlation of employment in Europe, providing cross-country evidence. Using the 2011 special module on Intergenerational Transmission, from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we analyse the correlation between the current employment status of respondents, and that of their parents when respondents were 14 years old, in nine European countries. Estimates show that the intergenerational correlation of employment varies across countries and by gender, and is, in most cases, small or non-statistically significant.

Although it is well-established that female participation in study abroad programmes is higher than the male participation, less is known about how this gap has changed over time. Using student-level data from the nationally representative surveys of three European countries (France, Germany and Italy), this paper begins by examining changes in the relationship between gender and participation in study abroad programmes between the beginning of the 2000s and the mid-2010s. It then explores to what extent these changes can be explained by different characteristics of men and women. The results suggest that in none of the countries there is evidence of a systematic decline over time in women's over-representation in study abroad programmes. However, the size of the gap is consistently significantly reduced (or even the sign of the gap reversed) once gender differences in observable traits are accounted for. Field of study and academic performance are important factors contributing to the gender disparity in study abroad.

In light of increasing environmental stress and its likely implications for migration patterns, we conduct a cross-country individual-level analysis of the impact of self-reported exposure to environmental stress on people's migration intentions and their destination choice. We simultaneously model intentions to migrate domestically and internationally for 90 countries worldwide in 2010. We find that self-reported exposure to environmental stress increases the probability to intend to migrate both domestically and internationally in the coming year. In absolute terms, the largest impact is obtained for domestic migration, but controlling for the fact that this is the most common form of migration anyway, environmental stress particularly raises intraregional migration intentions. Overall, the effects on migration intentions to the different destinations are strongest in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, while in high-income countries, and in Europe particularly, environmental stress appears to spur only domestic migration intentions.

Nuclear power has always been a controversial issue since it was discovered as a source of power for civil use. Despite being a global phenomenon, nuclear power is viewed differently around the world, and consequently, different discourses have had different outcomes. This study does a comparative analysis of nuclear power discourses between India and Russia, two countries of distinct political systems. This study analyses the media coverage and content of the main discourse themes in India’s and Russia’s print media from March 2011 to March 2019. The study finds that in both countries, despite their different political set-ups, nuclear power discourse has a pro-nuclear character.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of monetary policy instruments under dollarization in association with economic growth and inflation using 30 countries from 2000 to 2016. The estimation r...

This article discusses about the analysis of interregional cooperation of Russian Federation, United States of America, People`s Republic of China, European Union and Uzbekistan. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has created a regulatory framework for interregional cooperation which has achieved certain results in development of relations between the regions, based on the specific interests of each country.

Central to economic development is entrepreneurship. Using an agency theory lens, we seek to better understand how national policy can spur entrepreneurship. Guided by capitalist and socialist logic and ideals we investigate the direct and joint effects of market freedom and social spending national policies. In drawing from a sample of 19 countries spanning 2004–2010, we find that neither market freedom nor social spending alone positively impacts entrepreneurial activity; however, an interaction exists, as entrepreneurial activity is bolstered when enhancing market freedom and social spending complement one another. Findings suggest mixed national policies that combine market freedom and social spending are best positioned to spur entrepreneurship.

This study estimates the effect of foreign aid on corruption using a Two-Step Least Squares method. We address endogeneity using instrumental variables that capture geographical and cultural proximities between donor and recipient countries. Based on a panel framework of 122 countries for the period 2005–2017, we find no significant impact of foreign aid on corruption. Our benchmark results remain insignificant even after checking with respect to different samples, estimation techniques, and the types of aid.

This paper analysed the effects of taxes and benefits on income inequality and poverty in Latin America. The study used an exploratory research design, with both linear and nonlinear regression models. The paper found that both direct and indirect taxes have no direct influence on income inequality and poverty in a short-term. Significantly, the social spending is found to reduce both poverty and inequality. The paper concluded that, taxes –benefits system in Latin America is effective to eradicate income inequality and poverty, but it is ineffective to reduce the poverty rate and income inequality amongst the countries. The paper recommended that the countries in Latin America should set the policy priority on increasing the social spending in term of direct benefits, in-kind benefits and contributory pensions and subsidies as found to have a linear relationship with the income inequality and poverty.

Using cross-country data for 1999–2019, we investigate how bank capital structure and institutional environment affect bank competition. Banks with a higher Tier 1 ratio have greater market power, ...

Using dynamic panel data techniques, we find that a country's corporate governance practices have a positive effect on the sophistication of its exported products. We also find that higher dispersion of governance across firms leads to lower economic complexity.

Measures of national financial inclusion mostly focus on traditional financial services and ignore the role of digital finance. We incorporate several digital elements of financial inclusion and co...

PurposeThis article analyses the new venture creation by patient innovators in 40 countries examining the effects of the four macro-level factors on entrepreneurship, adding a fifth sector-specific (healthcare) factor.Design/methodology/approachBy applying the statistical tool of principal component analysis, we find a clustering behavior of health user entrepreneurs across countries, indicating that common macro-level conditions affect this phenomenon in a nonlinear way.FindingsHealthy user innovators are more likely to become entrepreneurs in those countries where creativity, economic opportunities and business environment are increasing from the lower level until a certain threshold. After that level, user entrepreneurship seems to be not relevant.Originality/valueWe contribute to the extant literature about macro-level determinants of entrepreneurship by exploring how much such conditions impact on the decision to create new firm by user innovators.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows dynamics indicate that its new wave is efficiency-seeking and, thus, the recent literature emphasizes the host countries knowledge role and productive capabilities. This paper holds forth the new factor of economic complexity, which is an indicator of national productive capabilities and knowledge. Two proxies are used to measure the countries economic complexity, including economic complexity index (ECI) and economic sophistication (EXPY). The results indicate that economic complexity is one of the main determinants of FDI inflows with statistically and economically robust positive effects on FDI inflows to host countries. Furthermore, our findings explain why countries with equal human capital endowment have different performances in FDI attraction.

In this study, we examine the role of export diversification in the convergence of per capita income (output). By applying the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to a panel dataset consisting of 95 countries, we find evidence of both absolute and conditional divergence for the full sample and the subsamples based on income and regions. Thus, our findings suggest that, although high export diversification boosts the per capita income (output), it does not significantly reduce per capita income (output) gap between rich and poor countries.

This study analyzes the main factors affecting economic growth through regression models and carries out empirical analysis on different periods before and after the economic crisis. The results show that the increasing of trade, urban population growth rate, and inflation rate will lead to an increase in economic growth, but unemployment rate has a negative influence on economic growth.

The current COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to examine the utility of Internet search data in disease modelling across multiple countries. Most such studies typically examine trends within only a single country, with few going beyond describing the relationship between search data patterns and disease occurrence. Google Trends data (GTD) indicating the volume of Internet searching on 'coronavirus' were obtained for a range of European countries along with corresponding incident case numbers. Significant positive correlations between GTD with incident case numbers occurred across European countries, with the strongest correlations being obtained using contemporaneous data for most countries. GTD was then integrated into a distributed lag model; this improved model quality for both the increasing and decreasing epidemic phases. These results show the utility of Internet search data in disease modelling, with possible implications for cross country analysis.

This paper studies how the number of categories exported by countries is related to the level and the volatility of the exchange rate. The results show that export variety is positively related to a weaker exchange rate and negatively related to exchange rate volatility. These relationships appear to be stronger for goods with higher technological intensity. Using data for a long panel of countries, the paper investigates these relationships using a methodology that allows for heterogeneous coefficients across countries and discusses two sources of bias that are often overlooked.

Objectives: HIV self-testing (HIVST) offers a promising approach to increase HIV diagnosis and advance progress towards the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets. We aimed to understand patterns of HIVST awareness and utilization in nine sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, with the goal of identifying populations to target in disseminating this technology. Design: A cross-sectional study. Methods: We pooled individual-level population-based data from nine Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in SSA conducted 2015-2019 (Burundi, Cameroon, Guinea, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe). Primary outcomes were HIVST awareness and utilization. We used logistic regression with survey fixed effects to explore the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and these outcomes. Models were adjusted for sex, age, rural/urban residence, education, wealth, and marital status. We accounted for complex survey design. Results: The study sample included 177 572 people (66.0% women, mean age 29 +/- 10 years), of whom 86.6% [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 86.4-86.7] were unaware of HIVST, 11.7% (95% CI 11.6-11.9) were aware of but never used HIVST, and 1.7% (95% CI 1.6-1.8) had used HIVST. In adjusted models, women were less likely to be aware of HIVST [odds ratio (OR) 0.75, 95% CI 0.71-0.79], but more likely to have used HIVST (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.03-1.32) compared with men. Rural residents, those who were least educated, and poorest were less likely to have heard of or used HIVST. Conclusion: HIVST awareness and uptake were low. Rural, less educated, and lower income populations were least likely to have heard of or used HIVST. Efforts to scale-up HIVST in these settings should aim to reach these less advantaged groups.