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Enhancing agricultural productivity in developing countries is crucial for attaining the sustainable development goal 2.4 by 2030 through integrating information and communication technology (ICT) and renewable energy. Thus, this study investigates the role of ICT, renewable energy, and agricultural credit in enhancing agricultural productivity in developing countries from 2000 to 2021. This study has used the 'Driscoll-Kraay and the Method of Moments Quantile Regression' for robust empirical analysis. The estimated results indicate that renewable energy, ICT, and agricultural credit can enhance agricultural productivity in developing countries. The robustness analysis, however, indicates that the moderation effects of the interaction of ICT with renewable energy and agricultural credit with ICT and renewable energy have a weak and insignificant effect on agricultural productivity over the increasing quantiles. From a policy viewpoint, it is suggested that coherent and effective policies be implemented to encourage the advancement of formal credit institutions to bridge the gap between farmers and lending institutions offering flexible lending options to farmers. Thus, this helps farmers to access and deploy modern technologies and renewable energy in the agricultural field, which ensures sustainable agricultural practices to foster agricultural productivity while enriching environmental quality in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One possible way to achieve environmental sustainability is by addressing the issue of rising CO2 emissions, which significantly cause climate change by intensifying the greenhouse gas effect. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which substantially contributes to global CO2 emissions, necessitates a paradigm shift towards using clean energy sources and promoting green innovations to ensure environmental sustainability. Thus, this study aims to inspect the role of renewable energy use, green technology innovation, political stability, and fiscal decentralization in attaining environmental sustainability by limiting CO2 emissions for seven OECD economies from 2000 to 2019. This study has employed the 'Cross-Sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Augmented Mean Group Estimator' for robust empirical analysis. The results indicate that renewable energy use, political stability, and fiscal decentralization can mitigate CO2 emissions and ensure environmental sustainability in OECD economies. In contrast, green technology innovation exhibits an insignificant effect on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the moderation effects of fiscal decentralization and political stability exhibit a negative relationship with CO2 emissions. Notably, this study advises OECD nations to encourage regional cooperation to ensure political stability and devolution of fiscal powers to promote green innovation and renewable energy use to achieve sustainable goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BRICS nations as emerging economies have undergone a substantial structural transformation; however, achieving economic growth while sustaining the ecology is a pressing challenge for these economies. Nonetheless, one of the possible ways to achieve ecological sustainability is to promote clean energy use and green innovation backed by a strengthened political system. Thus, this study assesses the effect of disaggregated clean energy use (hydro and nuclear energy), green technology innovation, and political stability on the ecological footprint in BRICS countries from 1993 to 2022 while controlling for the impacts of natural resources rent, population growth, and GDP per capita. Using dynamic fixed effect and CS-ARDL estimators, the outcomes reveal that hydro and nuclear energy use and political stability induce the ecological footprint in BRICS countries. However, the empirical findings indicate that green technology innovation substantially reduces the ecological footprint. Therefore, from a policy perspective, the study encourages policy coordination among BRICS countries to embrace targeted policies to strengthen regulatory frameworks, promote innovations in technological know-how, and encourage the utilization of clean and sustainable energy to foster environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Since the last decade, debates regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the forms of transfer, i.e. in the form of in-kind or cash transfers, have been gaining momentum. This paper aims to explore the preferences revealed by the beneficiaries, the role of contextual conditions in moulding these preferences, factors associated with the transfer scheme that defines the preferences and the rationale behind such responses. Design/methodology/approach: The study conducted involves primary data collected from an Indian state, Odisha. 308 beneficiaries of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) were interviewed concerning specific objectives in a rural district (Mayurbhanj) and another highly urbanised district (Khordha). Findings: The comparative results show that the strength of the contextual conditions significantly influences the preferences of the beneficiaries in the rural district as compared to the effect on the beneficiaries of the urban district. Education seems to have an insignificant impact in rural areas. However, income and standard of living have positive significant effects on shaping the preferences for cash or in-kind transfers. Originality/value: Examining the strength of the contextual conditions and emphasising beneficiaries' perspectives would stimulate a better understanding of the implementation of the proposed quasi-Universal Basic Income. The study would hence, be instrumental in dealing with the transition towards cash transfers in the Indian context where the co-responsibility of both stakeholders, the government and the beneficiaries, should be given equal weightage. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0158 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One possible way to achieve sustainable economic growth is by limiting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The developing countries, in particular, which significantly contribute to global carbon dioxide emissions, need a paradigm shift towards sustainable production and consumption to achieve economic growth while ensuring environmental sustainability. This study thus analyzes the role of green technology innovation, green finance, renewable energy use, institutional quality, and agricultural value added in attaining environmental sustainability by abating CO2 emissions for 25 select developing countries from 1998 to 2019. This study uses the Driscoll‐Kraay and two‐step SGMM estimators to assess the impact of independent variables on the response variable, acknowledging the endogeneity problem in the model. The empirical findings reveal that green finance, green technology innovation, and institutional quality induce CO2 emissions, whereas agricultural value‐added and renewable energy use are observed to have detrimental effects on CO2 emissions. Moreover, the moderation effect of green technology innovation and institutional quality with green finance is observed to have a weak and insignificant impact on CO2 emissions. The study thus recommends that developing countries enforce policies to promote investments and innovation in the clean energy sector to attain sustainable development goals by mitigating carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for attaining 'sustainable development goals (SDGs)', especially 'SDG‐13', which addresses the policy towards lessening the risk of climate change, is impossible without abating CO2 emissions, which are a major contributor to climate change globally. Thus, this study inspects the decisive role played by renewable energy use, green finance, and political stability in achieving SDG‐13 by abating CO2 emissions for 14 emerging economies from 1990 to 2021. We have used the cross‐sectional autoregressive distributed lag and method of moments quantile regression estimators to analyse the impact of explanatory variables on the dependent variable, considering the probable endogeneity issue in the model. The outcome of the study signifies that renewable energy consumption and green finance substantially reduce CO2 emissions, whereas political stability is observed to have a positive impact on CO2 emissions. Moreover, the moderation effect of political stability and green finance is found to substantially reducing carbon emissions. This study thus suggests that emerging economies need a stronger political system to promote green financing and renewable energy consumption to attain SDGs by addressing climate change policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the direct and interactive effect of digital payments through institutional quality, consumption expenditure, and bank credit on economic growth for 25-member countries of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) for 2012–2020. Using the Fixed Effect with Driscoll-Kraay Panel Corrected Estimators, it finds that a rise in digital payments positively impacts economic growth. The interaction effect of digital payments with other variables does not promote economic growth. To address differences among the selected countries and to have a robust analysis, the paper classified the selected countries into quantiles based on the GDP per capita level using the Bootstrapped Panel-Quantile Regression (BPQR) method. The BPQR confirms the positive relationship among digital payments, institutional quality, and consumption expenditure with economic growth, whereas credit impacts it negatively. Control variables, such as inflation, exchange rate, health, and unemployment, behave as per economic theories related to economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing demand for digitalization in different economic sectors has garnered considerable attention from researchers to explore the effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on economic growth. In this study, we explore the direct and indirect effects of ICT on economic growth, through its interaction with institutional quality, financial development, research and development (R&D) expenditures, and foreign direct investment (FDI), for 13 emerging economies from 2000 to 2020. We find that ICT use has a significantly positive effect on economic growth. It is found that the interaction effects of ICT with financial development and R&D expenditures are favorable to economic growth, whereas ICT does not act synergistically with institutional quality and FDI. This implies that the emerging economies should increase R&D expenditures on ICT services and increase digitalization of the financial sector, along with advancing their ICT infrastructure, strengthening the institutional quality, and encouraging more FDI inflows to maintain their growth momentum. Abbreviations: ICT: nformation and Communication Technology; IMD: International Institute for Management Development; SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals; OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; SAARC: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa; MNCs: Multinational Companies; MENA: Middle East and North Africa; UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; ITU: International Telecommunication Union; IIEP: International Institute for Educational Planning; MSCI: Morgan Stanley Capital International; WDI: World Development Indicator; R&D: Research and Development; FD: Financial development; FDI: Foreign Direct Investment; IUIT: Individuals Using Internet; MBCS: Mobile Cellular Subscriptions; TO: Trade Openness; IQ: Institutional Quality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]