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Purpose: This research aims to inspect the existence of the “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) in the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and urbanization throughout 1972–2018 for Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: For time series analysis, Phillips and Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root tests are used to confirm the level of integration. For robustness, Kim and Perron (2009)’s structural break unit root test is employed, which identifies the order of integration in the presence of structural break years. Further, combined cointegration analysis is performed to confirm the existence of a long-run association between underlying variables. Furthermore, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis is employed for the robustness of the cointegration approach. Findings: The cointegration analysis confirms the existence of a long-run association among variables. The authors find a positive and significant impact of urbanization, FD and foreign development on environmental degradation in the long run. Similarly, only FDI increases environmental degradation in the short run. In addition, the authors find an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental quality which, further, confirms the presence of EKC in Pakistan. Originality/value: This research contributes to applied economics in many ways: the combined effect of urbanization, FD, FDI and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission is checked simultaneously. To avoid ambiguity, this study constructs the FD index through the principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, the role of structural breaks has been considered through the analysis. Novel Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration analysis is employed to detect the existence of long-run relationships among underlying variables.

Purpose: Governance quality has been a dominant factor to formulate policies for the development of financial institutions in the world. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of governance quality on financial institutions along with globalization in the case of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: Time series data from 1996 to 2018 are considered for analysis. The NG-Perron is applied to check the order of integration. In addition, Kim and Perron (2009) structural break unit root test is used to identify break years. The autoregressive distributive lags (ARDL) bound testing approach is used to detect the long-run association among governance quality, financial institutions and globalization. Findings: The results of unit root analysis show that all series are stationary at a different level of integration, I(0)/I(1). However, the long-run association is detected in the presence of break years. The authors find a positive impact of governance quality to determine financial institutions in the long-short-run. Similarly, globalization also enhances financial institutions but only in long run. Originality/value: This study fills the gap in the economic literature by exploring the linkages between the financial institution and disaggregated governance indicators in the case of Pakistan. Moreover, a role of structural break is also captured during analysis. This study also opens some new insights for policymaking.

AbstractCOVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the economies around the world and the economic fallout from preventive measures such as lockdown is enormous. It has massive repercussions for the sharing economy as well. This research paper empirically analyses the impact of lockdown restrictions on five major sectors of the sharing economy such as ride-hailing, accommodation, freelance work, entertainment and delivery services. To evaluate this impact, we employed the difference-in-difference estimation technique using the Google trends data for selected countries. Daily search data of 2019 and 2020 is reindexed to examine the change in search patterns that occurred after lockdown. The empirical results show that transportation and accommodation sectors are negatively impacted by COVID-19 related lockdown while the other sectors of the sharing economy such as freelance work, streaming services and online deliveries are seeing a surge in searches. The findings of this study provide vital insights into the economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 related lockdown. We have highlighted the sectors that are booming during pandemic thus the sharing economy platforms and government have opportunities to invest in these sectors to jump-start the economy. The recently unemployed gig workers can also be employed in these sectors to address the problem of unemployment.

AbstractThe aim of this article is to examine the relationship between stock market performance and country level governance indicators. A good quality of governance in a country ensures effective implementation of laws which can protect the investor and improve stock market performance and vice versa. Our study utilises annual stock returns and country level governance indicators for 25 developed countries from 1996 to 2018. The fixed effect estimation suggests that stock market performance and governance indicators share a positive relationship. Our findings suggest that high quality of governance is associated with higher returns on stock. Institutional quality is a preconditioned for financial developed that set the direction of change to reduce transaction costs and agency costs and make profitable projects available to firms that subsequently leads to higher demand for equity financing. These findings have significant implications for stock market policymakers and standard asset pricing models that only include market risk factors to predict future expected stock returns.