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As population grows considerably in the world, the correlation between intensity of population in urban areas and energy intensity becomes an important issue in energy field. This paper aims at examining the effects of urbanization on energy intensity for 10 Asian countries by employing annual data from 1990 to 2014. The Asian countries are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. To this end, the paper, first, follows cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity tests. Then, the paper conducts unit root and cointegration tests, cointegration analyses and causality analyses. Finally, the paper estimates the short run parameters as well as long-run parameters to capture the possible dynamic relationships among variables. This paper, thus, employs energy intensity as dependent variable and GDP per capita, the square of GDP per capita, urbanization, and ruralization as regressors within the relevant models and explores that there exists a long-run relationship of energy intensity with GDP per capita, the square of GDP per capita, urbanization, and ruralization in panel data. The paper, later, observes additional explanatory variables of export, renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption, and, concludes that (i) the urbanization variable has significant influences on energy intensity in the short-run and long-run, (ii) despite the some differences in cross-sectional estimations, the Asian panel data, overall, yield negative impact of urbanization on energy intensity. The latter output indicates that the urbanization path increases the energy productivity in Asian panel models. Within this scope, the paper presents some policy proposals related to the reduction of energy intensity in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper examines whether recently introduced “village funds,” one of the largest microfinance programs ever implemented, improve access to finance. Village funds are analyzed in a cross-sectional approach in comparison to competing financial institutions. We find, first, that they reach the target group of lower income households better than formal financial institutions. Second, village funds provide loans to those kinds of borrowers who tend to be customers of informal financial institutions. Third, village funds help to reduce credit constraints. Thus, village funds provide services in the intended direction, albeit to a seemingly limited degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many low and middle-income countries in Asia experience greater food availability as their economies grow, potentially solving previous problems of undernutrition. However, economic growth may not sufficiently reduce undernutrition and instead increase over nutrition, creating a double burden of malnutrition. In this paper we investigate one of the most prevalent and seemingly paradoxical manifestations of the double burden, a stunted child and an overweight mother (SCOM) living in the same household. We use household-level data from 11 Asian countries from 2005 to 2018, as well as macroeconomic data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the GDP growth of these countries to estimate which household-level and macroeconomic factors predict SCOM. We also determine the relative predictive power of our variables for SCOM and investigate if predictors of SCOM also predict other forms of malnutrition. We find that the predictive power of household-level factors for SCOM is comparatively more important than that of macroeconomic variables. Additionally, we explore the effect of including population subgroup-level trends in maternal overweight and child stunting on the predictive power of our macro-level and household-level variables. The increasing prevalence of SCOM is driven by a rise in maternal overweight, coupled with stagnant rates of child stunting, but remains a unique phenomenon that differs from other indicators of malnutrition. This supports explanations that suggest increasing consumption of high-energy but low-nutrient foods is the underlying cause of SCOM, leading to weight gain in adults and stunting in under-five children. • Increasing rates of Asian households with overweight mothers and stunted children. • A nutritional transition in the wake of economic growth an often-conjectured driver. • Known household-level determinants confirmed in large cross-country dataset. • Both growth and household-level determinants are predictors of the double burden. • Household-level factors with greater direct predictive power than economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]