Search

This study aims to accentuate the role of financial development, renewable energy consumption, and information and communication technology (ICT)-oriented strategies to achieve inclusive growth in 21 Asian economies from 1995-2019. The long-run findings of panel linear ARDL reveal positive but insignificant responses in inclusive growth to financial development. Whereas, the estimates of panel NARDL depict that financial development positive and negative movements boost inclusive growth significantly. Interestingly, both techniques provide significant but contradictory outcomes for the effects of renewable energy on inclusive growth. Moreover, the results confirm that the individual impact of financial development and ICT increases but their interaction decreases inclusive growth. It indicates that ICT fails to complement the financial sector in enhancing inclusive growth. Therefore, the study recommends improving ICT infrastructure through the appropriate investment so that it could complement the financial sector effectively to achieve inclusive growth. It implicates for the stakeholders to boost the efficiency of the financial intermediaries and equitable access to digital finance and clean energy to attain inclusive growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saudi Arabia is the leading economy in the Arabian Gulf region; it accounts for a significant amount of remittance outflow (RMO) to the rest of the world. The objective of the study is to investigate the impact of remittance outflow on the economic growth (EG) of Saudi Arabia by utilizing time-series data from 1985 to 2019 controlling trade, labor force, human capital, and physical capital. It employs the non-linear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) model, cointegrating regressions, and vector error correction (VEC) Granger causality check to accomplish the study. The outcomes of the NARDL exercise confirm a cointegrating association among variables and reveal that RMO has mixed but negative resultant impacts on the EG in the short run, while in the long run, EC growth is augmented if remittance outflows decline. Both trade and labor force positively contribute to EG, while neither human nor physical capital significantly influences the latter. The cointegrating regression outcomes precisely authenticate the NARDL findings and acknowledge their robustness. Moreover, the VEC Granger causality test also supports the NARDL outcomes. The outcome suggests that the policymakers may allure the expatriates through pragmatic labor laws, policies, and smart incentives to direct their savings to domestic consumption and investments. Moreover, the quality of education in general and tertiary education, in particular, needs to be upgraded in the real sense to develop the practical skills and efficiency of the Saudi labor force so that they can replace the expatriates. This will eventually reduce outbound remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of carbon emissions, renewable energy consumption, FDI, and exports on economic growth in BRICS countries from 2000 to 2018. The study uses other variables such as interest rates, labor force, trade openness, and gross domestic savings to determine the long-run relationship among variables. We employ several econometric techniques, such as ARDL, pool mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and the Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality tests, to draw empirical inferences. The estimation of the PMG model indicates that carbon emissions, renewable energy consumption, exports, FDI, and savings have a significant positive long-run impact on economic growth, while interest rates and trade openness affect economic growth negatively. FMOLS and DOLS results also confirm the robustness of PMG long-run results. Moreover, the Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality results indicate a bi-directional causal relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth and between economic growth and foreign direct investment, also one-way causality from exports and labor force to economic growth. It implies that an increase in carbon emissions and FDI leads to an increase in economic growth, also increase in economic growth, the CO2 emissions and FDI increase in BRICS economies. Finally, the current study recommends a vital policy that the primary focus should target toward promoting renewable energy consumption, FDI, exports, and savings to boost economic growth in BRICS countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, the relative socio-economic importance of land-based sectors has declined in comparison to non-land-based businesses such as tourism, food and beverage activities. However, policy implementation and research have primarily focused on the economic contributions of land-based businesses, leaving businesses outside these sectors and in rural areas, referred to as non-land-based businesses, largely overlooked. Therefore, this study aims to examine the importance of non-land-based businesses and the key determinants of the relationships between non-land-based businesses and land-based (farming, forestry and landed estate) sectors in rural Scotland. Through a survey of 1500 businesses whose primary focus is not agriculture, forestry or landed rural estates in four Scottish regions, the key findings of the logit model reveal that businesses located in rural areas are more likely to have relationships, both direct (supplying or purchasing goods/services) and indirect, with farming, forestry and landed estate sectors than their urban counterparts. Focusing on rural businesses, the results show that business size, sectors, business age, exporting, importing and business constraints related to cash flow, digital connectivity and government financial support significantly influence their relationships with land-based sectors. The results of crosstab analysis also reveal differences in business performance, business challenges related to Brexit and future plans between non-land-based rural businesses having relationships with land-based sectors in different rural classifications: accessible/remote small towns, accessible rural areas and remote rural areas. The paper concludes with policy recommendations to support rural businesses and future land-based and non-land-based sectors in rural Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important factor in determining the success of a small-scale broiler farm is its economic viability and efficiency. During times of trouble for the industry, the idea receives more attention. The conceptual considerations of economic sustainability and efficiency are frequently quite constrained, according to the difficulties raised in this study and by other authors. There is a lack of information about South Africa's small-scale broiler production's economic viability and effectiveness. Furthermore, it is clear that small-scale broiler producers have the ability to increase their economic efficiency. By reducing the mortality rate, feed conversion rate, and production duration, both their technical and financial efficiency could be improved. Profitability in the production of broilers will be considerably increased by lowering the cost of these variable inputs, particularly feed and day-old chicks. Additionally, raising the education level, capacity utilization ratio, and broiler production would all contribute to raising the farms' efficiency levels. To ensure effective resource use and to maximize practicable profit, small-scale broiler producers who are not operating close to the profit frontier must make efforts to reduce both technical and allocation inefficiencies. Collectively, all these measures would ensure the economic sustainability of small-scale farmers in South Africa would be met. Moreover, the sustainability of small-scale broiler producers can be achieved if strategies that build local capacity and that empower them to sustain high levels of productivity are provided. In addition, the efficient use of resources will ensure that productivity is enhanced, and might increase profitability. It is therefore important to ensure that small-scale broiler producers achieve maximum profit for a given set of inputs. Approaches in assessing the farm-level profitability such as cost-benefit and gross margin analyses can be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought-tolerant maize varieties (DTMVs) offer hope as an adaptation strategy for farmers facing increasing frequency of droughts in sub-Saharan Africa. Adoption of these varieties also offers hope to enhance sustainability in the agricultural production system. However, these varieties are not yet widely cultivated, and the potential economic benefits not fully understood. This study examines the scalability of DTMVs in Tanzania under three scenarios: (1) scalability conditional on knowledge of DTMVs; (ii) scalability conditional on (physical) seed availability in addition to awareness; and (iii) scalability conditional on seed affordability in addition to awareness and (physical) seed availability. The study uses household production and consumption data from major regions in Tanzania. The results from the economic surplus model indicate that by 2032, the adoption of DTMVs could generate between US$ 373 million and US$ 499 million in cumulative benefits for both producers and consumers. Such benefits could potentially lift up to 1.6 million people out of poverty by 2032. It is estimated that consumers would get 40% of the benefits and producers 60%, with the largest benefits occurring in the major maize-producing regions of Mbeya, Rukwa, Ruvuma, Mwanza, Arusha, and Kagera. Consumers in Dar es Salaam would also benefit significantly from the price reductions resulting from increased production. The largest returns on investment would occur in Dodoma, Geita, Simiyu, Singida, and Kagera. These findings justify the investment of both public and private funds to support the scaling of DTMVs in Tanzania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the prior literature on the energy consumption-economic growth linkages, this paper aims to quantify the asymmetric impact of unpredictable variations in energy use on GDP (gross domestic product) volatility across the high- and low-volatility regimes in the United Kingdom. For this purpose, the paper utilizes quarterly and monthly data on energy consumption and real GDP, covering the period from 1960 to 2013. To obtain the regime-dependent conditional volatility series, we estimate the two-state Markov regime switching ARCH model. We find significant evidence of the presence of regime shifting in behaviour of both underlying volatility series. By estimating the Markov regime switching model, we find that not only the current (contemporaneous) but also the past (intertemporal) volatility shocks in energy utilization are significant in explaining the output dynamics. Yet, we show that the impact of energy consumption volatility is quite asymmetric, depending on the intensiveness of volatility. Specifically, we show that although the effect of energy consumption volatility on GDP volatility is statistically insignificant in the low-volatility regime, in the high-volatility regime, it appears highly significant. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that controlling unwanted variations in energy usage would be useful in stabilizing real sector of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global warming issue arises from climate change, which draws scientists' attention toward cleaner energy sources. Among clean sources, renewables and nuclear energy are getting immense attention among policymakers. However, the significance of nuclear energy in reducing CO2 emissions has remained ambiguous, necessitating further research. Therefore, the present study draws impetuous attention to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals-7 (affordable clean energy) & 13 (climate change mitigation) by looking at the relationship between energy mix (fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear), economic growth, technological innovation, and CO2 emissions in Mexico from 1980 to 2019 using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. In addition, to assess the direction of causality, this study applied wavelet techniques and spectral causality. The findings affirm that renewable and nuclear energy use and technological innovation tend to curb CO2 emissions, whereas fossil fuel consumption and economic expansion trigger CO2 emissions. The study lends support to the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) phenomenon in Mexico. The FMOLS and DOLS tests show that our long-run estimates are reliable. In different time scales, the wavelet coherence result is also consistent. Finally, the results of the spectral causality approach demonstrate a significant causal association between the variables tested at various frequencies. As a result, in order to achieve SDGs 7 and 13 and support an environmentally friendly ecosystem, Mexico's energy mix must be changed to renewables and nuclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable economic development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is a significant part of China's regional development strategy. The article selects panel data from 11 provinces of the region from 2004 to 2020 and constructs a spatial economic model and a threshold effect model to investigate the impact of energy development and technological innovation on the real economy of this region. The result indicates that technological innovation plays a significantly beneficial role in supporting the development of the local real economy, while its spatial spillover effect to neighboring provinces is not significant. Energy development has a significant negative impact on both the local real economy and that of the neighboring provinces. Such impact is shaped by the threshold effect of the level of technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly urbanising. This urbanisation may contribute to socio-economic development as more people participate in the urban economy. Nevertheless, rapid urbanisation is not always sustainable. Primary cities often grow fast, leaving secondary towns lagging behind with weaker economies. Viable strategies for sustainable urbanisation may therefore also need to focus on developing secondary towns. Nevertheless, very few studies, hitherto, have assessed the (relative) importance of secondary towns in urbanisation process in Sub-Saharan Africa. We aim to address this gap by studying the patterns and explanatory factors of urban population growth in Uganda. Based on a longitudinal analysis of population rank-size distribution, we show that the population distribution gap between secondary towns and the primary city is widening. Nevertheless, statistical analyses further indicate that secondary towns with above 50 000 inhabitants have the highest population growth rates. This indicates that future investments should aim at upgrading socio-economic infrastructures in secondary towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth of structural mass and energy reserves influences individual survival, reproductive success, population and species life history. Metrics of structural growth and energy storage of individuals are often used to assess population health and reproductive potential, which can inform conservation. However, the energetic costs of tissue deposition for structural growth and energy stores and their prioritization within bioenergetic budgets are poorly documented. This is particularly true across marine mammal species as resources are accumulated at sea, limiting the ability to measure energy allocation and prioritization. We reviewed the literature on marine mammal growth to summarize growth patterns, explore their tissue compositions, assess the energetic costs of depositing these tissues and explore the tradeoffs associated with growth. Generally, marine mammals exhibit logarithmic growth. This means that the energetic costs related to growth and tissue deposition are high for early postnatal animals, but small compared to the total energy budget as animals get older. Growth patterns can also change in response to resource availability, habitat and other energy demands, such that they can serve as an indicator of individual and population health. Composition of tissues remained consistent with respect to protein and water content across species; however, there was a high degree of variability in the lipid content of both muscle (0.1–74.3%) and blubber (0.4–97.9%) due to the use of lipids as energy storage. We found that relatively few well-studied species dominate the literature, leaving data gaps for entire taxa, such as beaked whales. The purpose of this review was to identify such gaps, to inform future research priorities and to improve our understanding of how marine mammals grow and the associated energetic costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the impact of government effectiveness on trade and financial openness in 35 selected countries around the globe. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach was applied in the study using the generalized quantile panel regression approach to analyze the impact of identified variables in these selected countries. Panel quantile models with high estimation performance are preferred in the presence of excessive deviations and in cases where the normal distribution is invalid. Findings/results: The empirical findings indicate that selected countries with above-average governmental effectiveness, that is, with a well-established state bureaucracy and a historically strong state tradition, will further increase their activities toward international integration through financial and trade openness. Practical implications: This study aims to provide valuable information that governments and regulatory authorities can benefit from in their decision-making processes. Originality/value: In this study, it is preferred to use the trade openness of countries as the share of exports in total world exports and financial openness as the ratio of capital flows to world flows. In this way, these variables will provide new information to analyze the influence of government effectiveness. Implementing the generalized quantile panel regression technique can also be expressed as an innovation in this field of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petty commodity production (PCP) is a key reality of contemporary capitalism. Deceptively simple, it is shrouded in synonyms, debates and neglect. This essay covers its definitions and roles in agrarian change. Four aspects relevant to critical agrarian studies are introduced: its gendering, persistence, 'unviability' and roles in the wider economy. Three debates are summarised: PCP versus peasants, exploitation versus conflict over appropriated surplus, simple reproduction and PCP expansion. Last, PCPs' relations to the state and PCP politics are reviewed with material mostly drawn from South Asia. PCP remains a form of contemporary capitalism that must not be ignored either analytically or politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines causal relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and economic growth in Tanzania during 1990–2020. As financial development and trade were not incorporated in extant studies, we included them as intermediate variables because of their intermediation role in this study. FDI inflow is considered an important economic growth catalyst in developing economies. Neoclassical growth theories claim that it enhances economic growth by augmenting capital stock and technology. According to the neoclassical theories, FDI does not enhance the long-run growth rate but instead is related to the level of output. However, empirical evidence is rather mixed, with some supporting the neoclassical theoretical views on economic growth, while others opposing them. We employ the autoregressive distributed lag model and Granger causality tests to analyze the relationship. The results indicate that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables under considerations in Tanzania. Furthermore, the finding reveals positive and statistically significant unidirectional causality running from FDI inflow to economic growth in Tanzania in the long and short run. Hence, we conclude that Tanzania should emphasize FDI-led growth policies to enhance economic growth to realize the desired economic objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the institutional quality effects on the foreign direct investment (FDI)–regional integration nexus in the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). The novelty of our approach extends the regional integration theory in Africa by employing the Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII) and utilizes a dynamic panel data model based on the one-step system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) estimation to explore the institutional quality effects on the relationship between FDI location advantages and inflows and dimensions of regional integration. Our study highlights macroeconomic integration as the strongest indicator of regional integration as well as the most crucial determinant of FDI in CEN-SAD. We also discovered that FDI inflows into the lower-middle income countries (LMICs) were only slightly higher than in low-income countries (LICs). Our results infer that institutional reforms augment FDI location advantages and enhance FDI inflows irrespective of the level of integration in the Community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures are currently being implemented in the agricultural sector across the globe. Questions have been raised about the distributional and spatial impacts of agricultural emissions mitigation policies, especially at the local level. This study examines the local impact of a low-income farming sector, beef farming, in a typical Irish beef farming county, County Clare. Input-output analysis reveals that Clare beef farmers purchase the vast majority of farm inputs within the county, with intra-county suppliers providing 90% of their inputs and overheads. We examine the impact of reducing the size of the beef herd in Co. Clare as a direct consequence of meeting national GHG emissions targets by 2030. Taking direct, indirect, and induced effects together, there is an €18.4 million reduction in economic activity in 2030 following the decrease in the beef herd with €14.72 million of that reduction taking place within the Mid-West region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a general description of small family farms in Indonesia. Building on a literature review, it sheds light on the significant role of small family farms in Sustainable Development Goals, family farms in Indonesia and their challenges, as well as on the impact of investments oriented to farmers for food security. The reviews indicate that enabling family farmers to fulfill their roles can affect the acceleration of progress across crucial elements of Sustainable Development Goals. Key challenges faced by the farmers include low technology implementation, limited access to finances, farm size fragmentation, infrastructure and market linkage, the climate factor, and availability and accessibility of fertilizers and seeds. In conclusion, this paper highlights the importance of investment in small family farms for improving access to financial services and public goods, strengthening market linkages, enhancing productivity through research and extension, and investing beyond the farm through a rural non-farm economy and a territorial development perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the effect of financial development on major economic indicators, i.e., economic growth, inflation, and employment by applying System GMM estimation technique for a panel of 120 countries for the period 1997 to 2017. Four distinct proxies of financial development are used, i.e., private sector credit, liquid liabilities, money and quasi money, and bank credit. The results contradict the traditional supply-lending hypothesis and reveal negative impact of financial development on economic growth. Moreover, financial development is found to be positively associated with inflation and employment growth. It is suggested that there is need to reform and strengthen the supervision of financial intermediaries to ensure sound prudential lending practices. Furthermore, more credit needs to be allocated to highly productive firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity in agriculture tends to grow slower than in other sectors. This is a stylized fact that has resulted in a persistent productivity gap, generalized over time and across countries. This paper explores the evolution of this gap from an international perspective, identifying patterns in both developed and developing countries. Empirical regularities are discussed in the light of a literature review on the causes of the gap and its socio-economic effects. Reflections on the nature of the productivity gap often merge with considerations on its social implications and on the policies that should be implemented to deal with it. We refer to this wider political economy issue as the 'farm problem', and argue that it has not been given a satisfactory solution, neither in rich nor in developing countries. Although in some industrialized countries the discharging of the countryside has acted as a major source of convergence, there has not been a general reduction in the productivity gap between agriculture and the rest of the economy worldwide, nor are there compelling reasons to assume that this will happen in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed negative economic consequences on the global economies and Nigeria inclusive. In response, Nigeria has launched the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) to leverage the potential gains of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) to accelerate agricultural performance in the post-COVID-19 era. Thus, this paper investigated the potential impact of AfCFTA on the performance of the agricultural sector in Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 era focusing on Agricultural output, trade and employment within the framework of a small macro-econometric model. The study used secondary data from 1970 to 2018 for a within-sample forecast and a twelve-year out-of-sample forecast spanning from 2019 to 2030. Two simulation experiments based on AfCFTA tariff reduction lines were conducted. Findings revealed that with tariff reduction under the AfCFTA, there is an increase in agricultural output, exports, employment, and the share of agriculture to GDP growth, as well as actual private consumption in Nigeria. The study concludes that if the AfCFTA is implemented, it will boost agricultural sector performance in Nigeria during the post-COVID-19 era. Based on these findings, the study recommended that the country implement mechanisms to overcome the challenges militating against agricultural production and exports in the economy to maximize the potential gains that AfCFTA provides. The government should also streamline its expenditures and invest hugely in infrastructural facilities such as roads, electricity, and expansion of sea-port facilities, communication networks and earth-dams to encourage dry-season farming activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional industrialisation and integration form part of the economic policy priorities of a number of countries in Southern Africa and of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Manufacturing can be seen as a key driver of domestic and regional industrialisation and growth, given its ability to exhibit high backward and forward input-output linkages. While most input-output research for African countries explores domestic input-output linkages, this paper investigates inter-country intersectoral linkages among five Southern African countries for the years 2000 and 2015. We find that linkages tend to be highest in the manufacturing sector, particularly in 'food and beverages', across the countries in the study. We also find that the highest inter-country linkages are found between neighbouring countries. These findings suggest that regional growth may benefit from promoting manufacturing, especially agro-processing sectors. Regional integration may benefit from a specific focus on bilateral relationships between neighbouring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various factors determine and affect economic growth, one of which is exports. Trade theory also states that exports increase the growth of the domestic economy in various ways. For this reason, the effect of exports on economic growth is a long-term area of research. In addition to the studies examining the effect of foreign trade on economic growth in the literature, some studies investigate the effects of economic growth on export capacity. These studies suggest that the export-based economic growth hypothesis is valid when the causality relationship between exports and growth is from exports to growth, and the growth-led export hypothesis is valid when it is from growth to exports. To this end, the primary purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of the new economic model for Turkey in two different periods. In this context, this study comparatively focuses on the 1999:Q1–2013:Q4 and 2014:Q1–2021:Q4 periods to test the validity of the export-led growth hypothesis and the growth-led export hypothesis. According to the analysis results for the 1999:Q1–2013:Q4 periods, only the growth-led export hypothesis is valid, and a 1% increase in the economic growth rate in this period increases exports by 0.42%. Considering the 2014:Q1–2021:Q4 period, the hypotheses of "Economic growth is not the cause of exports and exports are not the cause of economic growth" are rejected, and according to these test results, it was determined that both the export-led growth hypothesis and the growth-led export hypothesis are valid. In the results of this period, a 1% increase in economic growth rate increases exports by 0.38%, and a 1% increase in exports increases economic growth by 1.36%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farms in Poland come in a wide variety of sizes, and the effect of farm size on the profitability of labor has not been sufficiently investigated. This paper takes a fresh look at the model for labor profitability determinants of family farms in Poland in relation to their economic size. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that determine the labor profitability index in farms of various economic size classes (classes ES1–ES5). In the analysis of factors shaping the profitability of labor in family farms, a panel analysis was applied. Family farm income expressed per family labor unit was adopted as the dependent variable. The following variables were used as explanatory variables: (1) macroeconomic index of price relations ("price gap"); unemployment; average monthly gross wages and salaries; inflation; (2) technical-agricultural production efficiency index; (3) microeconomic ratio of total assets to agricultural land; technical equipment for work; land-to-labor ratio; debt ratio, subsidy ratio, and investment effort. A diversified influence of selected factors determining the level of profitability of labor in agriculture in particular groups of farms was found. The econometric models developed also indicate different strategies that are adopted by farmers on various farms. There is no single solution here; strategies for improving the profitability of work must take into account the specificity of a given entity. The models estimated indicate the necessity of using other mechanisms and tools of agricultural policy for farms of various economic sizes. It should be expected that, in the future, there will be a dichotomous development of farms. Medium-sized farms will become larger and economically effective, and smaller farms will perform residential functions, with the disappearing function of agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental hazards resulting from the excessive application of pesticides and fertilizers have been an inevitable agricultural production issue in various countries around the world. New technologies and policies are constantly trying to improve their application efficiency. This paper utilizes panel data of the provincial level in China from 2009 to 2019 to empirically study the effect of green finance reform policies on the chemical fertilizer application intensity (FAI) and pesticide application intensity (PAI). Standard difference-in-differences (DID), synthetic DID, difference-in-difference-in differences (DDD), and spatial DID models are constructed for specific empirical analysis. The findings can be concluded as follows: (1) A unit of the green finance reform policy reduces FAI by 0.0144 and PAI by 1.7921 by promoting green technology innovation. (2) Government financial extractive capacity hinders the reduction effect of green finance on PAI. (3) Coastal geographical location is conducive to reducing PAI through green finance reform. (4) FAI and PAI show positive spatial autocorrelations, and the influence of green finance reform overflows to surrounding areas. The research results can provide policy references for countries around the world to promote the green development of agriculture and reduce environmental pollution., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The environment-growth literature mainly relies on reduced-form approaches and overlooks the environmental role of technological changes and structural effects of growth. Providing comprehensive evidence on the decomposed environment-growth linkages also demands accounting for the distributional heterogeneity. Accordingly, we examine the decomposed structural effects of economic growth on GHG emissions in the presence of renewable energy and institutional quality in 29 Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) using different panel estimation approaches. Based on the panel MM-Quantile Regression model, which allows for unobserved distributional heterogeneity, our findings invariably confirm that economic growth in EMEs creates positive scale and composition effects —an increase in the scale-and composition-induced economic growth tends to worsen environmental pressures. In contrast, growth appears to reduce emissions through its technique effect. Renewable energy and Institutional quality are also negatively related to GHG emissions, with the impacts being stronger in lower-emitting countries. These results are robust to alternative panel regression models considered in the paper. Further, the impacts of all variables are heterogeneously distributed across different GHG emission levels. The negative moderating role of renewable energy and institutional quality in the growth-GHG emissions linkage strongly suggests that EMEs need to accelerate their green growth transition by expanding the share of renewable energy technologies and improving their institutional frameworks. [Display omitted] • We study the scale, composition and technique effects of growth on GHG emissions. • We also examine the moderating role of renewable energy and institutional Quality. • We apply a panel MM-Quantile Regression to account for distributional heterogeneity. • All variables have heterogeneous impacts across different levels of GHG emissions. • Emerging Market Economies need to accelerate their green growth transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustaining entrepreneurship in resource‐constrained and institutionally weak emerging markets (EMs) poses theoretical and practical challenges. We address some of these challenges by adopting a middle‐range theoretical approach and proposing the concept of 'entrepreneurial adaptation' (EA). Complementing the concept of entrepreneurial mindset and subsuming those of strategic orientation and adaptive capabilities, we posit that EA consists of a set of cognitively derived, action‐oriented strategic entrepreneurial choices that foster certain dimensions of adaptive capabilities which in turn sustain entrepreneurship in EMs. We empirically test our hypotheses on a proprietary survey‐based dataset of 219 Indian firms and contribute to the extant literature by proposing a model of EA, besides suggesting an alternative bridge to the two disciplines of entrepreneurship and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the relationship between financial development and economic growth in different time horizons for Turkey. In this study an ensemble of wavelet analysis and Granger causality test were used. PSC was used to represent financial development and GDP was used to represent growth. The annual data used are for the period 1961-2018. The result obtained for a one year period shows that the demand-following hypothesis is valid for Turkey. Financial development is the Granger cause of growth and positively affects growth. The financial sector should be supported for growth in the short term. While there is no causal relationship for the 2-4 year period, bidirectional causality relationships were determined for the periods of 4-8 years, 8-16 years and 16-32 years. Because variables are a Granger cause of each other and affect each other in a positive direction supporting the financial sector is a preferable policy when the purpose is to achieve growth in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses migration to rural areas in Africa and its relation to the emergence and development of new towns and urbanism. New conditions of mobility and the establishment and development of newly urban and proto-urban areas call for a reassessment of mobility and settlement dynamics. Changing contexts of urban-rural relations with important societal implications, new transformations and reconfigurations of urban forms call for analyses beyond rural exoduses, unequal territorial development, or the primacy of major cities. In Angola, urban construction, namely of the new 'centralidades'—emergent new cities made of blocks of buildings and respective infrastructure in vacant areas in the countryside—attempts the creation of cities before the agglomeration of population or the undertakings to attract migration, other than just housing. This intentional urbanisation is thus characterised by hesitant settlement, which this article analyses using empirical material collected in a variety of Angolan centralidades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates empirically changes in domestic summer tourism demand following the Covid-19 pandemic in 305 regions across six European countries (Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden) based on official data. Five different groups of NUTS 3 regions are identified in accordance with a typology suggested by the OECD where density and connectivity are aspects of importance. Dynamic panel data estimations show that large metropolitan regions experience strong decreases in demand (approximately 30 per cent) both in July and August 2020. There are, however, clear differences between the Northern and Southern European countries. In the North, the remote regions encounter an increased demand that is partially offsetting losses in the large metropolitan regions. This pattern cannot be found in the South. The decline in domestic tourism flows to the major metropolitan areas is also more pronounced in the South of Europe, approximately 50 per cent per summer month compared with 20 per cent (July 2020) and stagnation (August 2020) in the North regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of urbanization, cities need more external resources to meet their ultimate demand, which leads to the transfer of land use function between urban and rural areas. How to measure the urban–rural land use coupling remains to be studied. In addition, due to the difficulty in evaluating the unequal development and coupling between urban and rural areas, resource-consuming regions often evade their responsibility for environmental pollution, resulting in unfair allocation of invested resources. Therefore, a framework for the allocation of resources invested in ecological governance was built from the perspective of urban–rural land use coupling. This framework made clear the urban–rural coupling and applied Gini coefficient to judge the overall imbalance in the region. According to the unbalanced structure of the region, the allocation framework based on the location quotient was used to redistribute the resources invested in ecological governance, and the attribution of responsibility was made clear, which can promote regional fairness. The main conclusions are: (I) Taiwan's overall urban–rural coupling is 8.3, that is, every hectare of land development in Taiwan requires 8.30 hectares of ecological land to meet development needs. The urban area needs to rely heavily on the ecological resources provided by the rural area. (II) The environmental problems of the urban area need to be solved by the urban area itself, while the rural area requires the urban area to be responsible for its ecological governance, and it needs to be responsible for the resource consumption of the external systems. This research provides a new perspective for the research on urban–rural coupling and resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African nations have, with the passage of time, over‐relied on remittance inflow to augment domestic savings for growth and development. Although remittance—both as a viable investment financing option and as a growth complementary factor—helps drive growth and development, concerns of fading altruism exist. As regards altruistic giving, decreasing external financing options might overwhelm growth and development. We argue that the altruistic connection, which has been the bedrock of sending remittances to African countries, could eventually fade into oblivion. We assigned numerical weights to establish the influence of remittances on the future of African economies. We took cognizance of endogeneity of regressors and accounted for cross‐sectional dependence. We found a positive relationship between remittances and financial development besides the influence of exchange rate, technological change, inflation and population on the latter. African governments, donors, investment partners and the society at large should be concerned about fading altruistic connections from old and young African migrants. Altruism could be a springboard to the diversification of external capital sourcing and creation of a migrant policy that puts Africa at the forefront of development ahead of seeking increased worker remittances from abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has analyzed the consumer demand and expenditure structure of commodities concerning the income of the sampled households using the Extended Linear Expenditure System Model. Budget shares and expenditure elasticities were estimated for household consumption categories allowing for a comparison of expenditure elasticities between the two seasons. Expenditure elasticities for consumer expendables, durables, and transport were highly elastic. Tradable and non-tradable non-farm goods are highly expenditure elastic indicating that an increase in household income will result in a proportionately greater increase in expenditure on it. Increased expenditure on non-tradable goods and services may stimulate local production and create new employment and enterprise opportunities, while the increased expenditure on tradable goods represents a leakage of income from the local economy. An increase in farm incomes has the potential to stimulate economic growth through the stimulation of increased local production of non-farm goods and services. Increased income will also result in increased expenditure on goods not locally produced, which means leakage of income from the local economy. Increased production is limited by factors such as insecure tenure and cash flow problems that are amplified by high transaction costs associated with obtaining credit. Better access to credit would improve cash flow problems somewhat, but transaction costs need to be lowered through the improvement of physical and institutional infrastructure. Demand-led growth needs to be strengthened with the production of goods not currently produced. Processing raw food materials into more convenient items would encourage increased local expenditure with increased income and possibly reduce the leakage of income from the local economy. The diversification into non-farm activities such as product processing requires investment and poses a risk. Insecure tenure creates a disincentive to investment as producers are not guaranteed the benefits from their investment. Public policy should focus on alleviating tenure security and institutional infrastructure to strengthen the potential for demand-led growth. These results may be valid for any underdeveloped/developing agrarian regions or economy of the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study the impact of inclusive finance on agricultural green development, This paper uses both static panel and dynamic panel (system GMM model) estimation methods to make empirical analysis of the impact of inclusive financial development on agricultural green development. The results both find that there is a significant positive correlation between the level of inclusive financial development, real GDP per capita, the proportion of the added value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery in GDP and agricultural green development. This paper puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions to promote agricultural green development, including vigorously developing inclusive finance, promoting economic growth, promoting the development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and increasing environmental protection expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural households in developing countries often depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. However, many also pursue off‐farm economic activities either to complement their farm income or because they lack access to agricultural land. Rural off‐farm employment is often informal and temporary. Searching for jobs can be associated with high transaction costs, which may be a constraint on some households' participation in off‐farm employment. The increasing spread of mobile phones may help to reduce these transaction costs. Here, we test the hypothesis that mobile phone ownership increases rural households' participation in off‐farm employment and—through this mechanism—also improves household income. We use nationally representative panel data from rural India and regression models with household fixed effects to control for confounding factors and unobserved heterogeneity. We find that mobile phone ownership is positively associated with the likelihood of participating in various types of off‐farm employment, including casual wage labour, salaried employment and non‐agricultural self‐employment. This association is larger in female‐headed than in male‐headed households. The estimates also show that mobile phone ownership is positively associated with household income, partly channelled through the off‐farm employment mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context and Purpose: In a context of recent introduction of Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus tick species in West Africa, the purpose of the authors is to estimate incidence density of cattle babesiosis either caused by Babesia bigemina or Babesia bovis, and cattle anaplasmosis. Incidence density represents how quickly a disease or a condition is occurring amongst a group of individuals at risk. Methods: The longitudinal and prospective study design took place in south, centre, east, west and north of Côte d'Ivoire. Cattle have been followed for 12 months. At the end of each month, each animal has been RT-PCR tested for new infection by Babesia bovis, Babesia bigemina, and PCR–RFLP tested for new infection by Anaplasma marginale. Results: Findings show for the study area that incidence densities of Babesia bovis, Babesia bigemina and Anaplasma marginale infections in Côte d'Ivoire are, respectively, 15.3 new infections [95% CI 13.1–17.88] per 100 cattle, 32.2 new infections [95% CI 28.5–36.3] per 100 cattle, and 25.9 new infections [95% CI 22.5–29.6] per 100 cattle. Conclusion: Finally, there is increasing of infection incidence density following the region distance from the coast or elevation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that 'city–county consolidation' has significant positive impacts on urban economic growth. Yet, the specific spillover effects on surrounding rural areas and the overall net impact on larger regions have not been fully investigated. We propose a difference-in-difference framework and find that consolidations have led to a significant loss of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in nearby rural areas. The backwash mainly comes from the reduction of rural industrial output. We also find that this policy has an insignificant impact at the prefecture level, suggesting such consolidations do not promote aggregate growth and that any gains in urban areas are offset by losses in surrounding rural regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the set targets of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to increase research and development (R&D) expenditures, this study probes the long‐term and causal association between renewable energy (RE), nonrenewable energy (NRE), economic growth (GDP), and ecological footprints (EFs) in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Empirical evidence is based on the panel data throughout the period 1990–2016 for the selected six ASEAN economies. The Westerlund co‐integration test confirms the long‐run association between R&D, RE, NRE, GDP, and EF. The results of Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) confirm the presence of EKC and show that R&D expenditures lower EF significantly. A 1% increase in R&D and RE decreases EF by 0.01% and 0.27%, respectively. Moreover, a 1% increase in GDP and NRE increases EF by 5.52% and 0.17%, respectively. This means that investment in R&D will enhance air quality by lowering EF in estimated panel countries. Moreover, NRE consumption and GDP increase EF. The panel causality results confirm the bidirectional association between GDP, RE use, R&D expenditures, and EF. To achieve a desirable goal of a clean environment, R&D expenditures hold a strong position for ASEAN countries. This finding should encourage governments to involve public and private investments in R&D programs for energy efficiency. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1313–1320. © 2021 SETAC Key Points: Investment in research and development will enhance air quality by lowering ecological footprints in estimated panel countries.The panel causality results confirm bidirectional association between GDP, renewable energy use, R&D expenditures, and EF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships and interactions between rural and urban spaces have long been of interest in the territorial sciences. However, the approaches taken to these questions have evolved in line with the changing characteristics of the two types of territories, reflecting new relationships and structures. From these premises, we update the concept of rural–urban interaction by means of an extensive bibliographic review, which, among other results, highlights: (1) the profound change that has taken place in recent years in rural–urban interaction through processes such as de-agrarianisation, the tertiarisation of the economy and improvements in transport and communication infrastructures; (2) the resulting obsolescence of earlier typologies and procedures focused on discrimination between rural and urban environments, rather than on the interaction between them; (3) the difficulty of establishing valid, widely applicable typologies, given the profound differences in terms of (a) the scale and content of the statistics available in each country and (b) the territorial background in terms of economic functions and the characteristics, ancient and modern, of human settlement; (4) the predominance of an urban-centric approach, to the detriment of more traditional rural functions, such as agriculture, the importance of which is diluted by its low relative weight in terms of employed population and contribution to GDP. Consideration of these findings leads us to propose a new approach to the question of rural–urban interaction, reflecting the multifunctionality of rural spaces, and we identify useful areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interrelation of ICT diffusion and financial development with economic growth in SAARC economies, by employing data for the time period 2000–2017. The empirical analysis is carried out using granger causality and cointegration techniques. First generation panel unit root tests namely LLC, IPS, ADF, and PP test were employed for this purpose. All the variables were found to be integrated of order one at first difference. Pedroni's cointegration test along with Kao's residual‐based cointegration test was used which reveals the presence of long‐run relationship among the variables. Further, cointegration coefficients are computed with the help of fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares method. While financial development, ICT diffusion, and trade openness were found to increase the growth rate, inflation exhibited negative impact on growth. Both short‐run and long‐run causality were examined using panel granger causality test which revealed unidirectional causality running from ICT diffusion and financial sector development to economic growth. However, the result of causation between financial sector development and the ICT diffusion was statistically insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the stage of high-quality economic development, sustainable economic growth is worthy of attention. The supporting role of financial development for sustainable economic growth will become more important. This article aims to identify the influence of financial development on sustainable economic growth and its impact mechanism. Based on measuring the level of sustainable economic growth, this article theoretically and empirically identifies the impact of financial development on sustainable economic growth and its mechanism by adopting the panel data from 283 prefecture-level and above cities in China. The empirical results show that financial development is conducive to improving sustainable economic growth through the mechanism of capital deepening and technological innovation. Furthermore, for type I large and medium cities, financial development is conducive to enhancing sustainable economic growth, while the effect is not significant for type II large and small cities. Therefore, the local government could promote financial supply-side reform and implement differentiated financial development strategies for sustainable economic growth from aspects of capital deepening and technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization is an important characteristic of African development and yet the structural transformation debate focuses on agriculture's relative merits without also considering the benefits from urban agglomeration. As a result, African governments are often provided conflicting recommendations on the importance of rural agriculture or urban industry. We develop dynamic economywide models for Ethiopia and Uganda that capture both traditional aspects of the debate (growth linkages and foreign trade) and benefits from urbanization (internal migration and agglomeration effects). Simulations suggest that urban agglomeration is an important source of long-term growth and structural transformation, but that investing in cities does not greatly reduce national poverty over the short-term. In this regard, agricultural growth is more effective, albeit with slower national growth. Given these trade-offs, we conclude that, while urbanization's benefits argue against an "agro-fundamentalist" approach to African development, the short-term imperative of reducing poverty necessitates further agricultural investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Irrigation & Drainage is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: This paper explores the relationship between inventory productivity and the likelihood of venture survival and then examines how financial constraints moderate the inventory productivity–survival linkage. Design/methodology/approach: Accelerated failure time (AFT) model is employed to study the link between inventory productivity and venture survival by using small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) data from Chinese Annual Survey of Industrial Firms (CASIF) database over the period 1999–2007. Findings: The paper demonstrates a converse U-curve relation between inventory productivity and venture survival. Additionally, financial constraints as the moderator weaken the marginal effect of inventory productivity on venture survival. Practical implications: Managers should pay more attention to the important inventory performance indicator: inventory productivity. In the context of prominent financing difficulties, managers should be rapid to adjust the competitive strategy and optimize the internal production process according to the inherent nature of risks in a friction environment, and thus generate resources that enterprises cannot raise in the financial market. Originality/value: This study may be the first to practically investigate the role of inventory productivity on venture survival and the moderating effect of financing constraints on this relationship. It adds to abundant articles as regards the interface between operation management and venture survival by exploring how financial constraints moderate the inventory productivity–survival linkage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ghana shows remarkable differences in employment and welfare between the southern and northern regions. The promotion of policy focus on the development of the northern regions requires the elaboration of specific databases describing the regional economies. Hence, this work outlines the construction of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana for the year 2015 with a high disaggregation of sectors, household income groups and education levels across 10 administrative regions. Linear multisectoral models have been applied to this SAM to estimate socio-economic impacts of potential final demand policies down to a regional level in the Ghanaian economy. Further on, the structural path analysis is used to investigate the role played by different agriculture commodities in transmitting income to different types of households. The results allow for an identification of the most suitable sectors to be promoted due to their ability to generate the highest increases in output, employment and value added in the rest of the economy, as well as those with a significant impact on household income generation. As a result, the primary sector will play a key role in the economic and employment growth of the country. Notably, sorghum and millet, pulses, tobacco, cotton and fibres can be considered favourable crops for development in the Northern region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We relate risk in the African financial system to its long‐run economic performance under structural changes and cross‐sectional dependence. To achieve this objective, we generate risk indexes from several measures of financial soundness. We find a long‐run relationship between financial risk factors and economic performance indicators. Financial risk factors induce about 3% fall in RGDPP in the long‐run. This impact is huge in Kenya, Nigeria, Madagascar, Mauritius and Rwanda, whereas a reduction in employment is more prominent in Kenya, Madagascar and South Africa in this order. The capital risk index is more relevant in explaining economic performance in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study empirically examines the association between electricity demand and economic growth in China in a time–frequency framework. Wavelet coherence analysis and phase difference methods are applied to find the co-movement and causality between variables using monthly data for 1999 to 2017 time period. The results of the wavelet power spectrum show that both series have high fluctuations at high frequencies. The findings of wavelet coherence reveal co-movements between electricity demand and economic growth at different frequency levels. However, this association is stronger at low-frequency levels. Evidence from the phase difference indicates that electricity is causing economic growth with a positive sign. The results of wavelet-based correlation also show a high correlation between these two variables. For robustness analysis, linear and nonlinear causality tests are applied to find causality between variables over time. Both linear and nonlinear causality tests reveal bidirectional causality between variables. It corroborates the result of wavelet causality that both variables cause each other at different frequency levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at developing econometric models to manage the price risk of Dry and Wet Cocoa beans with the help of ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) and VAR (Vector Auto Regressive). The monthly price of Cocoa beans is collected for the period starting from April 2009 to March 2020 from the office of CAMPCO Limited, Mangalore, and the ICE Cocoa futures price from the website of investing.com. The augmented dickey fuller test is used to test the stationarity of the series. The ACF and PACF correlograms are used to identify the tentative ARIMA model. Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Schwarz criterion (SBIC), Sigma square, and adjusted R2 are used to decide on the optional AR and MA terms for the models. Durbin–Watson statistics and correlograms of the residuals are used to decide on the model's goodness of fit. Identified optimal models were ARIMA (1, 1, 0) for the Dry Cocoa beans price series and ARIMA (1, 1, 2) for the Wet Cocoa beans price series. The multivariate VAR (1) model found that the US and London Cocoa futures prices traded on the ICE platform will influence the price of Dry Cocoa in India. This study will be helpful to forecast the price of Cocoa beans to manage the price risk, precisely for Cocoa traders, Chocolate manufacturers, Cocoa growers, and the government for planning and decision-making purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]