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Since the institutionalization of microcredit as the flagship poverty alleviation program, its potential has been under constant scrutiny by practitioners and researchers. This article extends previous work by analyzing two issues: (a) whether microcredit has the potential to alleviate poverty and (b) whether the conclusion drawn from the first issue is sensitive to interest rate variations. We first theoretically show that there is reason to believe that microcredit has the potential to change the fortunes of poor communities. However, the direction of the change in fortunes is uncertain and depends on how costly microfinance institutions’ financial services are perceived by the poor. We then test these theoretical assertions against data collected from 568 individuals from Northern Pakistan. By comparing various sub-groups using Ordinary Least Square and Binary Logistic regression analysis, our results reveal that higher interest rates more than offset the positive effects of microcredit on clients’ income. We also discuss policy implications of the findings. JEL Classification : I30, G21, C61, E64.

Five main risk factors of fintech lending enterprises are empirically analysed by using the duration analysis model. The main findings are: Technology does not cause a significant increase in enterprise risk, the main reason is that although technology brings new types of risk, namely, technical risk, but it eliminates the human errors and moral hazards in a certain extent. There is debate on the role of regulatory policy on corporate risk, 'market failure theory' and 'regulatory failure theory', the empirical results show that the institutionalization of regulatory is more conducive to reducing risk than the frequently issuing 'new regulatory policies'. As for the debate about whether large or small enterprises carry greater risks, the empirical evidence shows that the failure risks of large enterprises are only 79% of the risks of small enterprise. Another important finding is that the risks of listed companies or venture capital-controlled enterprises are far less than that of private enterprises, which suggests that the institution is very important to reduce risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of risk and competition on the profitability of the Pakistani banking industry. Data are retrieved from the annual statements of banks, the Ministry of finance Pakistan and the World Bank covering the period of (2007-2017). Two steps Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) with the collapse command is used as an estimation technique to overcome endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and autocorrelation problems. The results of the study showed that the liquidity risk has positive while credit risk, insolvency risk and competition hurt negatively the profitability of Pakistani banks. The results of the study also revealed that capitalization, size, taxation and GDP growth rate positively affect the Banks' profits while banking sector development and infrastructure negatively affect banking profitability in Pakistan. The operational cost management positively affects net interest margins but negatively affects ROA and PBT in the Pakistani banking industry.

This study investigates the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on customer loyalty and explores the role of customer engagement. The moderating role of gender is also examined. A total of 348 valid responses collected via the intercept approach from life insurance customers in Ghana were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results suggest that CSR dimensions (economic, environmental, and social responsibility) positively impact customer loyalty. Also, the results indicate a partial mediating influence of customer engagement between CSR dimensions and customer loyalty. Further, the results establish the moderating effect of gender between economic and environmental dimensions of CSR and customer engagement. However, the study finds no moderating effect of gender between the social dimension of CSR and customer engagement. The study provides an empirical basis for CSR strategies that can drive customer engagement and customer loyalty in the insurance sector in many economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work is devoted to the study of the impact of external control on the strategies of pollutant discharge enterprises and government regulators in the field of environmental protection. The authors construct a model of the relationship between these entities. It is an evolutionary game in which the players are entities that generate pollutants and the government departments that implement pollution supervision. The choice of strategies of both of these entities and the evolutionary stability of the system controlled by different regulatory efforts, i.e., a third party, are analyzed. The authors then verify the evolutionary paths and evolutionary results of the model under different conditions using simulation analysis based on this model. The conducted research shows that the weak power of third-party supervision is not enough to promote the evolution of the behavioral decisions of the government and enterprises. An appropriate increase in the power of third-party supervision will change the choice of the government and enterprises strategies in the short term; however, due to the mutual influence of the strategies between both sides of the game, in this situation, the evolutionary system does not pursue a stable state. The strong power of third-party supervision will push enterprises to choose a pollution control strategy, change the intensity of government supervision, and replace government supervision to a certain extent. It is an interesting example of modeling the relationship of this system on the basis of evolutionary game theory. The findings can be regarded as a theoretical reference for environmental pollution control of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene oxide (GO) possesses some unique properties, which allow its technological applications in many fields (energy storage, microelectronic devices, and chemical sensors). It can also be used as a sensitive layer in the development of the chemical acoustoelectronic sensors. We characterized the produced GO films by measuring their structural properties, permittivity, and longitudinal/shear elastic moduli. For the first time, we determined the longitudinal and shear elastic moduli of a GO film under study to be 12.3 ± 0.1 MPa and 3.0 ± 0.1 MPa, respectively. The density of the GO film is equal to ∼850 kg m−3. The permittivity of the GO film was found to be 21 for a frequency f = 20 Hz. The obtained results may be used in further application of GO films in acoustoelectronic sensor devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of the sustainable development of public health in China, academic circles have little to do with the unique hierarchical medical system and online appointment diagnosis system in China's medical system. Therefore, based on the medical situation in Shanghai, China, in addition to the traditional dimension of medical expenses, this paper fully considers the impact of the current hierarchical medical policy, constructs a selection model for medical treatment behavior under the hierarchical medical system and online appointment diagnosis system, and carries out simulation analysis through the cellular automata grid dynamic model. This paper finds that the time-cost-oriented medical treatment behavior of Chinese patients will have different distribution under the current hierarchical medical system and online appointment diagnosis system. (1) When the medical treatment system neither allows online appointment nor referral, a large number of patients congregated in high-grade hospitals, with the most unreasonable distribution. (2) With the implementation of the system of allowing referral and online appointment, patients are gradually diverted to lower-grade hospitals or off-peak hours, and the distribution is relatively improved. (3) If the medical treatment system allows both referral and online appointment, the distribution of patients is the most reasonable. Therefore, China's current hierarchical medical system and online appointment diagnosis system will, to a considerable extent, become a policy tool that affects patients' choice of hospitals and an effective means to achieve the rational allocation of existing medical resources, which will play an important role in the sustainable development of public health in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes of density and elastic modules due to water vapor adsorption are measured for graphene oxide film at room temperature. Dominant mechanism for acoustic wave humidity sensing by the film is shown to be related with variation of its electric conductivity. Basing on the data, super high sensitive humidity sensor employing high-order Lamb wave with large coupling constant, standard lithium niobate plate, and graphene oxide sorbent film is developed. The minimal detectable level of the sensor is as low 0.03% RH, response times are 60/120 s, and reproducibility is ±2.5%. The sensor is completely selective towards H 2 , CO, CH 4 , NO, O 2 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]