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Beijing's influence in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is enduring and expanding, even amid the present decrease in China's loans to the region. Three interconnected elements contribute to Beijing's escalating significance: 1) A strategic emphasis on centrality through connectivity integrates African nations into the Beijing sphere, solidifying its pivotal role in the regional production network, extending economic and geopolitical reach, and securing vital resources while building political support; 2) Establishing institutional arrangements that are largely accepted by many African governments enhances Beijing's appeal as an attractive partner; 3) Power asymmetry positions China as a pervasive actor in the African political economy, wielding tools like debt, financial, and trade dependencies, once exclusive to Western powers (Lendzoumbou 2024). These mechanisms synergistically sustain China's influence in SSA amid the current cascade of crises. Keywords: China; SSA; connectivity; Western powers; power asymmetry; dependency, 1. Introduction China's economic miracle has endowed the nation with an expanding combination of hard and soft power, enabling it to project influence globally, particularly since President Xi assumed office [...]

Since early years, humans are migrating to ensure their survival or to improve their socio-economic position in society. In Pakistan, internal migration has not been given proper attention in policy making. Consequently, government is facing problems in managing the challenges and opportunities posed by internal migration. The present study attempted to analyse socio-economic factors that play crucial role in a household's decision to migrate internally by using data of Labour Force Survey 2020-21. In the questionnaire of labour force survey, there is a specific section related to migration. The migration is defined as 'households that has moved from one district to another district or to different country', it excludes the migration within district. The logit regression has been used to estimate the model. It has been found that more educated people particularly having professional and technical education tends to migrate. The internal migration increases with age, but after certain level it tends to start declining. It has also concluded that employment in public sector (due to job security or provision of housing facilities) motivate people to internally migrate. People belonging to middle income families are more likely to migrate in comparison to rich or very poor. Study confirms that search of better job opportunities and family compulsions are major factors in internal voluntary migration. However, law and order situations emerge as a significant factor in forced migration. As the internal migration are much higher than international migration so there is need that role of internal migration may be recognised in reducing poverty, employment and socio-economic development. Unfortunately, there exists lack of policy on internal labour flows. Most the labour force is not even registered at migration destinations. It is very crucial to calculate value of domestic remittances. It will be helpful in devising the policy to improve the status of internal migrants by providing them targeted technical and vocational education training so that they can get better job opportunities in destination places. JEL Classifications: R23, I23, E24 Keywords: Internal Migration, Education, Employment, INTRODUCTION Since early years of human settlement, they have been migrating in search of food, shelter, to escape impacts of changing climate and due to overpopulation in a particular area. [...]

Archaeologists of East and southern Africa have long been attracted to large urban centres, such as those on the Swahili coast, and to the circulation of imported goods. Here, the authors aim to refocus attention on the diversity of objects that were produced and transformed by the inland societies of East and southern Africa during the Middle Iron Age (AD 750-1250). Recognition of the remaking, bundling and repurposing of small, portable objects emphasises the innovative practices that helped to bestow power on their makers. A socially embedded approach to studying objects and practices re-presents African communities as innovators and active transformers of non-local objects, and facilitates new narratives about the political economy of Africa at that time. Keywords: inland East Africa, inland southern Africa, beads, cowrie shells, exchange, agency, innovation, Introduction Global scholarship on archaeology has invested heavily in debates about objects, their potential agency, and the implications for understanding past societies (Olsen et al. 2012; Knutson 2021). Regardless of [...]

Compared to the corporate bond and stock markets, investors prefer the CDS market to implement insider trading since the CDS market is less regulated and trading in this market on their private information is relatively easy without generating great transaction costs. Social networks, board networks in particular, are one of the central features of most economic activities and play an important role in information transmission. Therefore, investors are motivated to make use of the informational advantage gained from well-connected directors in the CDS market. In this paper, we investigate whether and how insider trading in the credit default swap (CDS) market is influenced by the corporate board network, formed by interlocking boards. We use CDS innovation as a proxy for the intensity of insider trading in the CDS market. To estimate the centrality of a firm position in the board network, we use the average quintile ranks of the four commonly used normalized board network centrality measures. We test our hypothesis based on a large sample of U.S. firms from 2004-2014 and find strong evidence that firms with a more centralized position in the board network experience a higher degree of insider trading in the CDS market. Our results suggest that the board network facilitates private information leakage to investors, resulting in more active informed trading in the CDS market. Moreover, such an association is more pronounced for firms with negative earnings news and for firms with weak corporate governance. In addition, using the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) as a quasi-natural experiment, we document that insider trading becomes less active after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act. Our results still hold when we repeat the baseline analysis using four centrality measures separately or when controlling for the number of banking relationships. Our results add both to the insider trading literature and the social networks literature by examining the relationship between board network centrality and insider trading behavior in the CDS market. The findings indicate that board networks could serve as a relationship network that transmits private information to outside investors. JEL Classifications: G12, G14, and G2 Keywords: Insider trading, Board networks, Credit default swap (CDS), Dodd-Frank Act Corresponding Author's Email Address: Email: xuexingnan96@163.com, INTRODUCTION Insider trading in the stock market has attracted much attention for the past decades (e.g., Finnerty 1976; Bhattacharya & Nicodano 2001; Chau & Vayanos 2008; Jayaraman 2008; Cziraki et [...]