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The digital economy has introduced new ideas and methods for the high-quality development of agriculture, becoming a driving force for enhancing agricultural production efficiency. This manuscript utilizes balanced panel data from 1,503 counties and employs the three-stage DEA-Malmquist method to measure agricultural total factor productivity (hereinafter referred to as ATFP). Fixed effect models and mediation models are used to explore the impact and mechanisms of digital rural development on ATFP. The research findings indicate that both ATFP and digital rural development are increasing, although regional disparities exist. The eastern region has higher levels of digital rural development and ATFP compared to the central and western regions. Analysis using fixed effect models and mediation models shows that digital rural development has a significant positive effect on ATFP during the sample period, with rural inclusive finance and human capital playing a mediating role. The impact of digital rural development on ATFP varies across regions. It is more prominent in main grain-producing and main grain-consuming areas, and less significant in balanced production and consumption areas. Geographically, the impact is stronger in the eastern region than in the central and western regions. When categorized by the type of agricultural production, the impact is significant in livestock areas, while relatively smaller in planting industry areas. Based on these findings, it is recommended that local areas tailor their approach to digital rural construction and formulate agricultural production policies that leverage regional strengths and address weaknesses. Additionally, promoting the development of rural inclusive finance, cultivating digital talent, improving talent introduction policies, and expanding the rural digital talent pool are suggested to build momentum for agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital plays a crucial role in regional innovation and economic progress, which has increasingly been highlighted in research. However, rising housing costs in cities can push talent away, causing brain drain and hindering local innovation. Within this context, China has seen widespread adoption of talent housing policies (THPs) aimed at providing housing assistance for the high-skilled labor force, although the ramifications of these initiatives remain largely underexplored. Based on labor force heterogeneity, this study investigates the effects of THPs targeted at high-skilled labor on the mobility of both high- and low-skilled workers and their consequent impact on regional innovation. Our findings reveal that while THPs bolster the local pool of highly skilled human capital and attract more low-skilled workforce, enhancing regional innovation through labor–skill complementarities, they concurrently elevate housing costs for low-skilled laborers, reducing their long-term settlement intensions and potentially hindering a city's innovation trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop an overlapping generations model to explore the role of grandparents in grandchildren's education and its impact on human capital growth. We examine the quantity–quality (Q–Q) trade-off faced by parents in choosing the number and education of children, incorporating an active role for grandparents. Findings underscore the significance of the elderly in human capital accumulation, fertility, and economic growth. When grandparents invest more time, resources are freed, fostering greater human capital growth and mitigating the effects of the Q–Q trade-off. • Overlapping generations models can model active aging. • The trade-off between quantity and quality of children is a crucial topic in human fertility theories. • Active aging can influence the educational process. • Grandparents can play a fundamental role in educating their grandchildren. • Grandchildren with a higher level of education imply a higher human capital and foster economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some theories suggest that ethnic minority students who anticipate discrimination in the labour market may invest more in easily observable human capital, such as education, to signal their productivity to employers. Empirical research has been hampered, however, by a lack of direct information on anticipated labour market treatment. We link ethnic minority student expectations of facing discrimination in the labour market to subsequent performance in high-stakes certificated national exams in England. Our findings suggest that anticipating labour market discrimination is associated with better exam performance, consistent with the view that students are seeking to counteract potential future penalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We build an endogenous growth model featuring a new mode of human capital accumulation in a data economy. Data are generated as the byproducts of economic activities and then used by consumers for human capital accumulation apart from education. Although we find similar growth patterns compared with those in the related literature, economic growth is further accelerated by the new use of data factor. Quantitative analyses suggest that although the accumulation of human capital is promoted by the increasing importance of data, this promotion is not unlimited since data may over-absorb resources and crowd out education. In the transition dynamics, we see that consumers suffer temporary welfare loss. However, as data become a key factor in human capital accumulation, welfare ultimately increases. Our paper provides a first view of the effect of the data factor in the process of human capital accumulation. • Digital economy promotes economic growth through human capital accumulation. • A model is built to incorporate data into human capital accumulation. • The promotion effect of data on human capital accumulation is not unlimited. • In transition dynamics, consumers may face temporary welfare loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secular stagnation hypothesis suggests that population aging (65+) places a drag on long-run growth, but this assertion remains a matter of debate. To address this issue, we use a panel of OECD countries for the years 1975–2014 to estimate the relationship between the old-age dependency ratio (population 65+/population 15–64) and secular growth (10- and 20-year intervals). Our empirical evidence clearly shows that the old-age dependency ratio has a negative effect on growth, confirming the demographic implications of the secular stagnation hypothesis. We also propose an overlapping generations model that explains this pattern in the data. Within this framework, optimizing households invest in their children's human capital and save for retirement. We show that an increase in the old-age dependency ratio reduces productivity through a reduction in human and physical capital as more resources are transferred to the elderly. This reduction in productivity results in slower growth and secular stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children sleep less on days with longer daylight duration. • Sleeping longer improves selected general developmental, behavioural and health outcomes in children and adolescents. • Sleeping more increases children's BMI scores, mainly by increasing the risk of being overweight. • The results indicate a null or relatively small positive impact of sleeping longer on cognitive skills. Children and adolescents spend more than one-third of their time sleeping. Yet, we know little about the causal impact of sleeping on their development. This paper is the first to exploit variation in local daily daylight duration measured on pre-determined diary dates across the same individuals through time as an instrument in an individual fixed effects regression model to draw causal estimates of sleep duration on a comprehensive set of child development indicators. Applying this model to about 50 thousand time use diaries from two cohorts of Australian children spanning over 16 years, we first document that children sleep substantially less on days with longer daylight duration. Our results show that sleeping longer improves selected general developmental, behavioural and health outcomes in children and adolescents. By contrast, sleeping more statistically significantly increases the BMI scores, mainly by increasing the risk of being overweight. Moreover, while the impact of sleep duration on general and behavioural outcomes is more pronounced for females or older individuals, the effect on BMI is largely driven by males. The results indicate a null or relatively small positive impact of sleeping longer on cognitive skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically, in standardised tests, girls underperform boys in mathematics while boys underperform girls in reading. Can these educational inequalities be driven by specific testing practices? This study addresses this question by innovatively using data from the largest worldwide standardized test and exploiting the random variation in the format of the tests assigned to students. I find that there is a noticeable widening of the gender gap when a larger share of questions is multiple-choice, rather than filling-the-gap questions. A 10 percentage point increase in the share of multiple-choice questions inflates female under-performance in mathematics by 0.025 standard deviations and male under-performance in reading by 0.035 standard deviations. This accounts for nearly one-quarter of the overall gender disparity found in these subjects. I provide suggestive evidence that ruling out alternative options, rather than coming up with an entire answer, may contribute to cognitive information overload among students with lower confidence levels (generally girls in mathematics and boys in reading). These cognitive loads, in turn, have implications for a student's future level of effort and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Green energy, human capital, and load capacity factor nexus is analyzed. • Human capital and green energy stimulate the load capacity factor. • Load capacity curve is valid in the context of ASEAN. • Economic globalization and population density reduce the load capacity factor. • Policies are directed to achieve SDGs 13 and 7. Climate control is one of the important targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which along with other SDGs plays an imperative role in environmental sustainability strategies. Recently, studies on the driving forces of climate change and environmental quality focus on using environmental indicators like CO 2 and ecological footprint (EF). Evidently, CO 2 emissions have been criticized on the ground that they cannot indicate environmental deterioration to a large extent. EF also focuses only on the consumption of resources and overlooks biocapacity (supply side). The adoption of green energy, which is the fundamental agenda of SDG 7, is the most practical solution toward energy transition and controlling fossil fuel consumption. Also, human-induced environmental challenges require considering factors like education and awareness to cultivate a green society. Against this background, this study employs the load capacity factor (LCF), which considers both supply and demand sides to gauge the environmental quality, and inspects the human capital (HUC), green energy (GEN), and environmental quality nexus using the data from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 1986 to 2018 in the context of the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis. Results of the cross-sectionally augmented ARDL, robust to heterogeneity, fractional integration, endogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence (CSD), established that the load capacity curve holds in the context of ASEAN. Thus, achieving a higher income level will support ASEAN to expand LCF and increase environmental quality. HUC is found to expand LCF and promote environmental quality. Similarly, green energy is found to stimulate LCF. However, population density and economic globalization expand environmental deterioration. The paper is concluded by providing detailed policies to enhance environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper analyzes long-term impacts of electoral violence on health and education. • Areas exposed to violence in Kenya suffer inflation and fall in annual consumption. • Children and adolescents exposed to violence have stunted height as adults. • The sons of those exposed to violence during growing age also have stunted growth. • No long-term impact on education is found as violence peaks during school holidays. This paper examines whether prenatal, childhood, and teenage exposure to electoral violence has any long-term effects on height and human capital in Kenya. First, using the difference-in-difference estimator, we show that areas impacted by electoral violence see increases in local food prices and a decrease in annual nightlight, suggesting important local consumption shocks. We then identify people exposed to such violence using a nationally representative survey and take advantage of the temporal and spatial variation of electoral violence in Kenya between 1992 and 2013. Using coarsened exact matching, we find that exposure to electoral violence between prenatal and the age of sixteen reduces adult height. Previous research has demonstrated that protracted, large-scale armed conflicts can cause significant nutritional shocks and pass down stunting effects to descendants. In line with these studies, we find that the low-scale but recurrent electoral violence in Kenya has impacted the height-for-age of children whose parents were exposed to such violence while they were growing up. Only boys exhibit this intergenerational effect, possibly due to their increased susceptibility to malnutrition and stunting in Sub-Saharan Africa. The fact that most electoral violence in Kenya occurs over the school holidays may help explain why, in contrast to previous studies on large-scale conflicts, childhood exposure to electoral violence has no lasting impact on educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most migration studies and theories focus on understanding the initial migration of people from their home country. Less attention has been paid to the factors influencing immigrants' preferences to either permanently settle in the host country, return to their home country or move onwards to another destination. Understanding the characteristics and motives of those who aspire to leave the host country is, however, valuable for both host and home countries to formulate appropriate and effective policies in order to retain their valued immigrants or citizens and foster their successful (re-)integration. This paper provides a comprehensive global analysis of the characteristics and circumstances that shape first-generation immigrants' aspirations to stay, return or migrate onwards, based on individual-level data from the Gallup World Polls across 138 countries worldwide between 2009 and 2016. Our study reveals that immigrants' stated preferences are strongly influenced by demographics, human and spiritual capital, as well as by soft factors, such as social ties and sociocultural integration, while economic factors have a more feeble influence. Changes in circumstances in the home and host countries are also important determinants of locational aspirations. Some interesting exceptions to our results stand out when we differentiate home and host countries by their economic development levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Croatia's growth over the past two decades is deeply related to the dynamics of international trade. Under the premise that what is bought and sold in global markets reflects the economy's fundamentals, we show that the rate of growth compatible with equilibrium in the balance-of-payments, i.e. the dynamic Harrod trade multiplier, is a good predictor of the country's actual long-run growth rate. For this purpose, we apply a state–space model and the Kalman smoother to obtain time-varying parameter estimates of the exports and imports functions. We use these estimates to investigate the determinants of international non-price competitiveness. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) and Weighted Average Least Squares (WALS) techniques are combined to tackle model selection uncertainty. It is shown that R&D investments and human capital accumulation are the most important explanatory variables. The success of the European Union's (EU) integration process depends on the capacity of its new members to achieve a balanced-growth path. Being the last country to join the union, the experience of this single country is particularly relevant to understand possible development alternatives for the region. We conclude by highlighting the policy relevance of our findings to the evaluation of Croatia's catching-up performance as part of the EU. • Croatia's growth is deeply related to the dynamics of international trade. • We apply a state–space model to estimate the trade-multiplier for this country. • We show it is a good predictor of the actual long-run growth rate. • Estimates are used to investigate the determinants of international non-price competitiveness. • R&D, human capital, and demography are the most important explanatory variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the era of common prosperity, this paper seeks to explore the influence of human capital on the urban-rural income gap in China. To accomplish this, this paper utilizes panel data encompassing 31 provincial-level administrative regions spanning the years 2000 to 2019. Employing a combination of econometric techniques, including 2SLS, Difference-in-difference models, moderating effects models, and the spatial Durbin model, this paper investigates various facets of human capital and its impact on the urban-rural income gap. The key findings of this paper are as follows: (1) The relationship between human capital and the urban-rural income gap exhibits a U-shaped pattern. (2) The college enrollment expansion policy leads to the widening of the urban-rural income gap in China driven by factors related to the scale, quality, and inequality within higher education. (3) The digital economy plays a positive moderating role in the U-shaped relationship between human capital and the urban-rural income gap. (4) Human capital's impact on the urban-rural income gap demonstrates a significant spatial correlation, displaying a U-shaped spatial spillover effect. Drawing from the aforementioned findings, this paper offers valuable policy implications to guide policymakers in their efforts to foster the attainment of common prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Carbon footprint is creating a distressing situation and requires substantial solutions. • Eco-friendly ICT and renewable energy reduced carbon footprint. • Financial development and human capital correlated negatively with carbon footprint. • Unidirectional causal link between GDP and FDX with carbon footprint. • Bidirectional causal link between EICT, REU, and EDU with carbon footprint. • EICT, REU and EDU can lead to diminish carbon footprint in the long run. The issue of environmental pollutants has gained significant global attention due to its detrimental impacts, leading to the need to address various SDGs outlined by the United Nations. The successful implementation of energy sources is intricately connected to these goals, making it imperative to coordinate efforts in the development of new technologies. However, the commitments made by the parties involved in the Paris Accord to achieve high decarbonization targets have triggered a growing debate on whether existing environmental policies are sufficient in fostering technological advancements by 2030, in order to meet these targets. This study aimed to examine the impact of economic growth, financial development, eco-friendly ICT, renewable energy, andhuman capital on lowering carbon footprint in the world's top polluting economies from 1993 to 2020. To accomplish this objective, a comprehensive investigation was conducted, employing contemporary econometric approaches such as CS-ARDL. Robust estimations of long-run effects were ensured through the utilization of AMG and CCEMG econometric techniques. Notably, a panel causality test revealed the presence of a bidirectional causality relationship between renewable energy, environmental technology, and carbon footprints. Conversely, a unidirectional causality relationship was identified between economic-growth and financial development with carbon footprints. The findings of this study indicate that eco-friendly ICT have the potential to effectively alleviate pollution. Consequently, financial development, renewable energy, and environmental technology are postulated as potential solutions for reducing carbon emissions within the examined timeframe. Finally, the study concludes by offering additional policy recommendations aimed at addressing this pressing issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the effect of land titling on investment in human capital. We first develop a theoretical model of the investment in the presence of property rights to agricultural land and then test the predictions of the model regarding the schooling decisions of households using data from Mexico's PROCEDE land titling program. Using the staggered introduction of land titling, we find that ownership tilted the balance in favor of investment in human capital in the form of schooling. Titling decreased the hazard rate of dropping out of school by 14% for children between the ages of 6 and 18. Additionally, including the effects of the contemporaneous conditional cash transfer program further reduced the hazard rate of dropping out by 34%. We find that these results hold even when the head of the household changes or migrates. Titling has a significant effect on female children but not on extremely poor families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Maternal depression significantly impacts child school readiness. • First diagnosis during pregnancy has largest effect on vulnerability. • Effects are attenuated when confounding factors are included. • Child health during childhood has large effects on school readiness. This study investigates the impact of the timing of initial exposure to maternal depression on a comprehensive measure of children's school readiness that incorporates multidimensional developmental domains underlying school adaptation and later success. The Early Development Instrument scores of 59,413 children were linked to their mothers, who were observed from five years before the child's birth to the child's fifth birthday. Exposure to maternal depression was associated with developmental vulnerability in emotional, physical, social, and cognitive domains, and the effects were strongest if the child was first exposed during pregnancy or the preschool period. When controlling for health at birth, health of the child during early childhood, mother's health prior to pregnancy, and the family environment however, the effects of exposure to maternal depression were attenuated. Thus, although maternal depression is a risk factor for children's school readiness, their health and environment compound this effect. A number of different stratifications, variable definitions and robustness checks support the reliability of the findings. The results suggest that mitigating the effects of maternal depression on school readiness is important at any age, and that the programs to address this are likely to lead to improvements far beyond those for maternal depression alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Industrial robots can significantly promote firm productivity. • The main mechanism comes from the improvement of human capital structure and innovation of firms. • Industrial robots are more likely to increase the total factor productivity of non-state owned and small-scale firm. • Industrial robots are more likely to increase the total factor productivity in firms that have political affiliations and low market concentration. • Industrial robots are more likely to increase the total factor productivity in firms that low financialization, and high managerial competence. Industrial robotics has become a driving force in the development of high-quality manufacturing enterprises. This paper investigates the impact of industrial robotics on the total factor productivity of enterprises and its mechanism of action through the use of data from A-shares of Chinese companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges from 2007 to 2019. We found that the use of industrial robots significantly increases the total factor productivity of enterprises, findings that still hold when Bartik instrumental variables are constructed. The mechanism of action suggests that industrial robot application improves both the human capital structure and the innovation capability of enterprises, thus increasing total factor productivity. Heterogeneity analysis shows that industrial robot applications are more likely to increase total factor productivity in firms that are non-state-owned and small scale and have political affiliations, low market concentration, low financialization, and high managerial competence. The findings of this study will help to accurately assess the productivity effects of industrial robotics, and the government should continue to promote the integration of industrial robotics and manufacturing development and actively cultivate independent innovation capabilities and professional skills in the field of industrial robotics in order to increase total factor productivity in enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation can drive corporate value and enhance competitiveness. Due to the high risks, long-term nature, and exclusivity of innovative projects, it is difficult for companies to meet R&D (Research & Development) investment needs through internal funding. An IPO (Initial Public Offering) represents the first major liquidity event in a firm's lifecycle since founders and initial investors realize value from the sale of their equity stakes and consequent diversification of ownership. Firms raise funds from investors in the capital market through initial public offerings (IPOs), which serve as an essential means of corporate financing. Based on this, this paper investigates the effects of going public on innovation using the Difference-in-Differences approach. The treatment group comprises public firms on the ChiNext stock market between 2010 and 2016. As a control group, non-listed firms submitted IPO applications to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) but failed during the same period. Consequently, the final data is collected from 2007 to 2019, encompassing the three years pre and post-IPO periods. We find going public can prompt corporate innovation, and this positive effect is achieved through three channels: alleviating financing constraints, accumulating human capital, and mitigating agency problems. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive relation is more pronounced in non-high-tech firms, higher competitive industries, weaker intellectual property protection firms and the growth-stage firms. Taking into account the characteristics of IPO, we find that the promotion of corporate innovation is more pronounced in samples with pre-IPO venture capital or private equity investments and lower levels of underpricing during IPO. Additionally, the increased innovation induced by IPO positively impacts long-term value and total factor productivity. The analysis reveals a complex trade-off between public and private ownership. It enriches the research on the impact of IPO behavior on innovation and provides new empirical evidence to improve the multi-level capital market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional manufacturing industry is China's second-largest source of carbon emissions, and the successful completion of dual carbon target depend on the traditional manufacturing industry's ability to reduce emissions. This paper constructs the evaluation index system to analyze the driving factors and green coupling level of the digital economy enabling the green development of traditional manufacturing industry from three aspects: industry digitalization capacity, socio-economic benefits capacity and ecological resources carrying capacity based on the theory of social shaping of technology. From the perspective of regional economic development, this paper constructs the spatial Durbin model and threshold regression model to analyze the mediation effect and spatial spillover mechanism of the digital economy empowering the green development of traditional manufacturing industry. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2020, the empirical analysis show that digital economy has the positive impact on the green development of traditional manufacturing industry through the digital innovation, industrial upgrading and human capital. At same time, the digital economy has a positive spatial autocorrelation pattern of the green development of traditional manufacturing industries with "high in the eastern and low in the western of China" from the global Moran index. Through the policy test of carbon-trading pilot programs by the difference-in-differences model, the digital economy has a non-linear impact on the intensive production of traditional manufacturing industry, which green finance activate the new impetus of market and the data element resources enhance industrial coordination development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we employ firm-level panel data from China to study how the human capital characteristics of a firm's leadership affect R&D investment. One novel feature of this study is that we include human capital traits of both the CEO and the Board of Directors, as well as their interplay. Human capital is measured with various experiences to capture observed and unobserved traits. Using various econometric techniques, we find that both CEO's and BOD's human capital characteristics have a significant impact on R&D investment. CEOs' innovation experience and overseas experiences promote innovation, while their production experience hinders it. The education and government experiences of board directors show different impacts on R&D investment. Moreover, the human capital traits of CEO and BOD influence each other and thus jointly affect innovation. The effects of leadership human capital on R&D investment are more profound in tech-intensive and smaller firms than in traditional or larger firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The ARDL cointegration technique was applied for the Brazilian context in the very long-run (1822–2019). • We focus on three main determinants of Brazil's economic growth, namely human capital, structural change, and institutional quality. • The research provides policy suggestions for promoting economic growth in Brazil through human capital accumulation and industrialization. A growing body of empirical literature has considered very long-time horizons when studying the sources of a country's economic growth. Nevertheless, the growth experiences of emerging economies (EEs) have been overlooked. This study examines to what extent human capital, structural change, and institutional quality contribute to the economic growth of one of the largest EEs in the world, Brazil, between 1822 and 2019. Resorting to the ARDL cointegration technique, the results suggest that years of schooling (human capital) have a positive and long-lasting impact on Brazil's economic growth. Moreover, there is solid evidence that sectoral changes toward more advanced and sophisticated manufacturing basis is growth-enhancing in the country. Finally, institutional quality does not constitute over the very long-run, a significant booster of Brazilian economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the import and export trade data of 29 provinces and cities in China from 1997 to 2017, this paper studies the impact of trade on China's labor demand elasticity, and whether the impact will be affected by the level of domestic human capital. The results show that: import is conducive to improving the labor demand elasticity, and export is conducive to reducing the labor demand elasticity. Moreover, with the improvement of domestic human capital level, the weakening effect of export on the labor demand elasticity is strengthened, and the improving effect of import on the labor demand elasticity is weakened. The reason is that the improvement of the level of human capital can reduce the demand elasticity of domestic and foreign consumers for domestic products by improving the cost performance of products, and can also reduce the factor substitution elasticity of labor force. Therefore, the improvement effect of import on the demand elasticity of labor force is weakened, and the weakening effect of export on the demand elasticity of labor force is strengthened. It can be seen that the improvement of domestic human capital level is conducive to the labor force to deal with the employment security problem in the trade liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the asymmetric impact of renewable electricity energy usage and industrialization on the environmental sustainability of South Africa. The load capacity factor (LF) is a more extensive measure of environmental deterioration when compared to carbon emissions and the ecological footprint, which cover a range of both the demand on and supply of nature. The series dataset used for the empirical analysis spans between 1990 and 2019. The study also investigates the effect of human capital, industrialization, and economic growth on load capacity factor. The result of the NARDL estimator reveals that the increase in renewable electricity energy usage increases LF in the long and short term. However, the decline in renewable electricity energy usage has a neutral impact on LF. Furthermore, the results indicate that industrialization and economic growth impact LF negatively. Lastly, human capital improves environmental quality due to the increasing effect on LF. The spectral Granger causality approach outcomes show that all the parameters can forecast load capacity factors in the long term. Some policy implications, restrictions, and potential future study pathways have been explored in light of this paper's results. • The nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag is employed. • Asymmetric impact of renewable electricity consumption on environmental sustainability. • A broad environmental indicator is used, load capacity factor. • The positive change in renewable electricity consumption promotes environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current energy structure of most economies must be upgraded to a renewable energy source (RES) to help mitigate ecological dilapidation and achieve sustainable development goals. The transition to RES has recently received attention from energy experts, international bodies and environmental scientists. However, there is contrasting evidence on what factors affect the evolution and deployment of RES, especially from the perspective of emerging African economies. Hence, the current analysis sought to explore the influence of economic development (ECD), carbon emission (CEM), human capital (HUC), financial development (FID), and the country's risk factors, such as political risk (POR) and institutional quality (INQ) on the development of RES. The research employed a panel dataset from 1990 to 2020 and used the newest estimation approach of Cross-Sectional Augmented autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) to establish the long-run connection among the variables. The study confirmed the prevalence of the "energy-led ECD hypothesis". In addition, the empirical findings indicated that RES deployment could be facilitated through ECD, CEM, FID and HUC. Moreover, the country's risk factors, which include POR and INQ, had an inverse connection with the deployment of RES. Lastly, there is a unidirectional causality between CEM, FID, HUC, INQ and RES, while a directional causality exists between ECD, POR and RES. The paper highlights a variety of policy angles to help with the expansion of RES in emerging regions. • The study confirmed the prevalence of the "energy-led ECD hypothesis. • RES deployment could be facilitated through ECD, CEM, FID and HUC. • POR and INQ, had an inverse connection with the deployment of RES. • A directional causality exists between ECD, POR and RES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Uses new data on epidemics from the African meningitis belt to examine the effects of epidemics on economic outcomes. • Finds that high, unexpected levels of meningitis, reduce child health outcomes, especially in periods when the WHO does not declare an epidemic year. • The effects are reversed when the WHO announces an epidemic, and children born in areas with high levels of meningitis during a declared epidemic year have better health outcomes. They are less stunted and less underweight. • Results also show suggestive evidence for crowd-out of routine vaccination during epidemic years. • Finds evidence that the influx of health aid in response to WHO epidemic announcements partly explains this reversal or epidemic effect. Epidemics can negatively affect economic development unless they are mitigated by global governance institutions. We examine the effects of sudden exposure to epidemics on human capital outcomes using evidence from the African meningitis belt. Meningitis shocks reduce child health outcomes, particularly when the World Health Organization (WHO) does not declare an epidemic year. These effects are reversed when the WHO declares an epidemic year. Children born in meningitis shock areas in a year when an epidemic is declared are 10 percentage points (pp) less stunted and 8.2 pp less underweight than their peers born in non-epidemic years. We find evidence for the crowd-out of routine vaccination during epidemic years. We analyze data from World Bank projects and find evidence that an influx of health aid in response to WHO declarations may partly explain these reversals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous literature has paid much attention on the effects of trust as an informal institution on economic growth and corporate behavior, it is unclear whether and how the trust affects the corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this study, we use CEOs' early experiences on trust to assess the effect of CEO's personal trust on CSR based on a difference-in-differences design. We find that CEOs with low trust levels are more inclined to be socially responsible. Mechanistically, CEOs are willing to take the initiative to fulfill their social responsibility due to risk aversion and concern for corporate development brought about by poor trust. After excluding competing explanations for the effects of early experience on human capital accumulation and health endowment, the results on the impact of trust on CSR remain robust. The inhibitory effect of trust on CSR is more pronounced in conditions of higher levels of external corporate governance, low financing constraints, and low analyst attention and among state-owned enterprises. The findings of this paper emphasize the important role of informal institutions in CSR performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with absolute poverty, relative poverty is more concerned about social equity. Network poverty alleviation is one of the effective ways to bridge the urban–rural digital divide and solve relative poverty problem. Existing studies have confirmed the positive role of Internet use on the alleviation of relative poverty among farmers, but there is much less study analyze the differences in the influence of Internet use on the relative poverty among farmers with different income structure. In this study, we use the data from China Family Panel Studies and use the Probit model for benchmark regression to study the influence of Internet use on rural household relative poverty. Also, we use the redefinition of core variables to conduct robustness tests and use instrumental variables to deal with endogenous issues. The empirical results show that Internet use significantly reduces the probability of farmers falling into relative poverty, and Internet use has a better effect on poverty reduction for full-time farmers than part-time farmers and non-farmers. Further the analysis of the impact mechanism finds that Internet use could impact the relative poverty of rural households through its effects on their information channels, human capital and social capital. Then, we analyze the differences in the impact mechanisms of Internet use on different types of farmers and find that the mediating effect of information channel was not significant for full-time farmers; while for part-time farmers, enhancing human capital play a more important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the paper is to assess the state and changes of innovativeness of Poland in 2011–2022. According to the study, innovation in Poland still remained low, although it was slightly improving. The results of this study can be used as an instrument in setting the direction of the country's innovation policy to support the increase of its innovativeness. Knowing the innovation strengths of the Polish economy, such as trademark protection and human capital, allows for their further strengthening. In turn, the identification of weaknesses and barriers to innovation growth (including significant underinvestment in research and innovation activities, little cooperation between R&D and business, and an unfavourable climate for innovation) allows them to be reduced and transformed from barriers into growth drivers, resulting in a significant improvement in Poland's innovativeness, the consequence of which will be closing the gap dividing it from the EU average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays managers need knowledge of current technological trends in order to be able to make strategic decisions, accurately predict the future, and make the best use of the existing opportunities for the development of their companies. Industry 5.0 poses new challenges in the area of people management, including those related to workforce skills required by employers and necessary in the near future in the efficient management of companies, their effective operation, and a competitive advantage in the market. The concept of Industry 5.0 requires companies and managers to change their attitude to employees. Their new modus operandi should cover new requirements regarding workforce skills and new ways of attracting and retaining human capital equipped with adequate skills. The aim of this article is to present workforce skills identified by managers from three European countries (Portugal, France, and Greece) as particularly important in Industry 5.0. The research methods used in the study are a literature review and 12 individual in-depth interviews conducted in 2023 (four interviewees from each country covered by the study). The analysis of literature and the interviews conducted by the author reveal that workforce skills in Era 5.0 are moving in the direction of soft skills and can be divided into four groups: problem-solving, working with people, technology use and development, and self-management. Workforce skills in Industry 5.0, especially those related to managing multicultural teams, is a research area which has not been extensively studied so far. Even though the study described in the article is only qualitative and conducted on a small sample, its results justify recommending further in-depth studies and can be used by companies to improve their search for employees who possess skills which correspond to the requirements of Industry 5.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper complements the literature on the determinants of financial development by offering one of the first studies on the effect of women's political empowerment on financial development. Across a sample of 43 African countries over the period 1996–2018, the main results show the positive effect of women's political empowerment on financial development. Our disaggregated analysis shows that women's political representation promotes both components of financial development; however, with a stronger effect for financial institutions. This result remains valid when we consider the subcomponents of these two indicators. Furthermore, the analysis of transmission mechanisms shows that control of corruption, democracy and human capital are the channels through which women's political empowerment affects financial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, most countries have shown keen interest in achieving spectacular economic development through diversifying and sophisticating their export growths. This growth uprising process requires energy consumption. Amid this scenario, this study delves into whether the disaggregate energy consumption (renewable and non-renewable) promotes export diversification and sophistication strategies in OECD countries during 1990–2019. The contribution of this study is to construct two novel indices, e.g., export diversification and sophistication and incorporate them into the study model as the dependent variables. Moreover, using the CS-ARDL approach, the study finds that disaggregate energy consumption contributes to spurring export diversification and sophistication for the OECD countries where non-renewable energy consumption's influence is more potent than renewable energy. Besides, the regressors, such as FDI, human capital, and institutional quality, also promote export diversification and sophistication in the OECD countries. Finally, this research validates the findings yielded from the CS-ARDL method by employing the System GMM (SGMM) approach due to the endogeneity issue appearing in the panel data. This study puts notable policy recommendations based on explored findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Macroeconomic determinants of ecological footprint in top nuclear energy nations. • Nuclear energy, military expenditure and human capital help to reduce the environmental decay. • The N shaped EKC hypothesis is valid for the top nuclear energy nations. Regardless of the ongoing debate, the shape of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis plays a critical role in determining the dynamic relationship between environmental sustainability and economic activities across different nations of the world. It is widely accepted that with cleaner fuel options (i.e., nuclear and renewables), economic amelioration will have the least negative environmental externalities. Banking on this matter, it is anticipated that the top nuclear energy-producing nations might have obtained environmental sustainability amid the eye-catching incessant economic amelioration. In other words, we expect that there exists an inverted U-shaped EKC among these nuclear energy-rich nations. However, the hypothesis that an N-shaped EKC does not exist among these nations is yet to be scrutinized. To address this research gap, we have deployed annual time-series data from 1990 to 2018 and adopted the novel Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Approach. The results unearth that the N-shaped EKC hypothesis is valid in the case of the top nuclear energy-producing nations, revealing that the energy sector that is fueling the economic growth among these nations is still highly dependent on fossil-based sources. We also noted that nuclear energy generation ameliorates environmental quality among the designated countries. Additionally, the empirical results further delineate that military spending and human capital are negatively associated with ecological footprint among the selected nations, revealing that national security and education can help reshape, rebound and restore the biocapacity surplus among the designated countries. We propose that the chosen nations develop a more biased energy mix structure with more nuclear and renewable energy sources in the basket to keep the growth process untapped. By doing this, the N-shaped EKC can be avoided. Further policy insights have been made in the relevant section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing carbon crisis threatens sustainable development. This paper verifies that the rise of green finance contributes to overcoming this challenge. The benchmark results show that green finance can directly drive decarbonization of the economy. High-level openness, government support, human capital and urbanization are prerequisites of this effect, and green finance is more effective in promoting decarbonization in areas with high carbon intensity. Moreover, green finance drives economic decarbonization by promoting economic growth, technical innovation, industrial upgrading, and renewable energy transition. Internet availability, financial level and higher education have moderating roles in boosting this effect. Furthermore, the implementation of green finance policy also contributes to decarbonization. The robustness of the basic result is proven with several methods, thus strengthening the reliability of the basic conclusion in this paper. Based on the above main findings, targeted policy recommendations concerning how to further develop green finance are proposed in this paper. • Green finance can directly drive economic decarbonization. • Some high-level external circumstances are the prerequisite of that effect. • Green finance can drive economic decarbonization through mediating paths. • Moderating paths are Internet availability, financial level and education. • Green finance policy makes contributions to the economic decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even in the modern era with increasing globalization and technological innovation, the issue of energy poverty is still debatable in many parts of the world. Unlike developed countries, developing countries struggle to satisfy the growing energy demand. To evaluate the role of financial inclusion and its impact on energy poverty in six representative emerging economies including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Russia from 2004 to 2019, this paper examines the role of the composite risk index (a combination of political, economic, and financial risk), investment in energy with public-private participation, gross domestic product, human capital, globalization, and renewable energy. This study first constructed a multidimensional index to measure the weighted average energy poverty and composite energy poverty index along with a novel index for financial inclusion. Moreover, this study uses novel panel data approaches such as Westerlund's cointegration and cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags model (CS-ARDL). The study established long-run cointegrating relationship between energy poverty and its detereminants, i.e., financial inclusion, globalization, investment in energy, human capital index, income and composite risk index. The empirical results found that financial inclusion, renewable energy electricity, globalisation, income, human capital index and energy investment are the key determinants of energy poverty in emerging economies. Furthermore, financial inclusion is found to curb energy poverty. Human capital index and globalization also help to reduce energy poverty. Given the empirical results of the nexus and impacts of financial inclusion on energy poverty using the multidimensional proxies, the study provides critical implications to researchers and policymakers in mitigating the consequences of energy poverty and the development of financial systems and their co-movement with energy poverty-related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyze the impact of religious fundamentalist-motived policy of the Taliban on long-term human capital development. • We find a large negative impact of their rule on educational attainment and literacy rates, especially among women who were school-aged during this period. • We also find school-aged women during their rule made reduced human-health investment in their children – e.g., lower vaccination rates and higher infant mortality rates. • This reduced investment is not explained by differences in family planning or the enforcement of more patriarchal family norms during Taliban occupation, but appears explained by the lack of knowledge in basic healthcare related to human capital development. • Policies motivated by even short-term dominance of religious extremism has persistent negative impacts on human capital formation and overall development. We analyze the impact of religious and culturally motived policy on long-term human-capital development. Exploiting the unexpected rise and fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and geographic variation in exposure to Taliban rule, we find a large negative impact of its rule on education and literacy rates among both men and women who were early-school-age under their rule. We also find that when those girls later became mothers, they reduced health investment in their own children– e.g., lower vaccination rates and higher infant mortality. Yet, this reduced investment is not explained by family-planning differences or the Taliban's enforcement of highly patriarchal norms. Rather it appears to relate to the lack of knowledge in basic healthcare, which is likely associated with the Taliban's role in depressing education and literacy. In sum, even short-term cultural/religious-related policies can have persistent impacts on long-term human-capital formation and overall growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wage gaps between various groups within economies are common and policy solutions to attenuate them can have different distributional effects within groups. We propose a model to think about how, when labour is relatively immobile but capital isn't, an economy with initial wage gaps between different groups can transition toward greater equality. We apply this framework to the French-English linguistic wage gap in Quebec (Canada) between 1970 and 2000 by looking at birth cohorts from 1910 to 1970. Our findings are consistent with our model: the closing of the wage gap was caused by a change, during the 1940s in compulsory schooling which shocked the initial equilibrium and led to cohort-specific dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand the long-term consequences and the possible channels (mainly, technological progress and human capital accumulation) through which a declining population may eventually sustain long-run economic growth and innovation in advanced economies, we build an endogenous, non-scale growth model with horizontal R&D activity and human capital investment. Population growth and per capita human capital accumulation are linked to each other by means of what in the paper is identified as the 'multiplicative effect' of population. As long as the strength of this effect exceeds a given positive threshold, population growth and per-capita income growth can be negatively correlated. This means that a negative rate of population growth can sustain a positive economic growth rate in the long run. • Human capital investment is embedded into an R&D-based endogenous growth model. • The law of motion of per-capita human capital includes a class-size effect. • Economic growth is simultaneously sustained by R&D– and human capital–investments. • Conditions are found for negative population growth to yield positive macro effects. • We challenge the idea that a declining population is always bad for long-run growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of risk, adoption costs and institutional development on the diffusion of technology. We take a comprehensive approach to examining this link, using a multi-sectoral approach that considers a wide variety of technologies. Using recently developed and more appropriate measures of diffusion, we find the impact of risk and other barriers is relatively weak in contrast to previous literature. Further, it is technology-specific and conditional on institutional development. There is a threshold level of development beyond which countries experience faster technological diffusion, but this is not universally the case. Particularly, for newly invented technologies in the information and communication sector, diffusion occurs faster in less developed countries. A key finding pertains to the learning-by-doing aspect of diffusion suggesting that technology-specific human capital development should complement reforms aimed at improving technological diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effect of broadband infrastructure construction on urban green innovation by taking the "Broadband China" exemplary cities policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employing a staggered difference-in-differences model. Using the panel data of 283 Chinese cities, the empirical results show that the "Broadband China" exemplary cities policy had a positive effect on urban green innovation, especially in the eastern and high-grade cities. The policy mainly promoted green innovation through two channels: enhancing the proportion of science and technology expenditure in fiscal expenditures and improving human capital. We further provide insights into the moderating effect on the relationship between the "Broadband China" exemplary cities policy and green innovation. We find that greater environmental regulation and intellectual property protection can strengthen the positive effect of the "Broadband China" exemplary cities policy on green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The helping-hand theory of government suggests that government can directly spur innovation by providing subsidies, tax credits, and bank loans. However, the existing literature largely ignores more indirect mechanisms such as when government attracts highly skilled foreign labor to work in local firms and thereby enhances the accumulation of corporate human capital. To fill this theoretical gap, we exploit a unique policy shock that began in 2008 when local governments issued highly skilled foreign labor introduction policies that attracted expatriate Chinese to return home to work. By using a difference-in-differences model, we find that the enactment of these policies promotes corporate innovation and the effect is more pronounced for companies previously lacking skilled employees. The results suggest that the upgrade of human capital serves as a channel for this effect. Moreover, the policy causes a greater innovation-incentive effect for those native companies that require more high-skilled labor, suggesting that the highly skilled foreign labor is complementary to that of locals. Last, we find that political connected non-state-owned enterprises whose senior executives have overseas experience benefit more from the policy. Our study provides policy implications by revealing an overseas talent-driven innovation development path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding pathways to enhance the resilience of farming systems (FSs) in Europe is key, given the increasing challenges threatening them. FSs are complex socio-ecological systems in which social and ecological components are strongly linked. Social actors have the capacity to shape the FSs' resilience, but there is a knowledge gap about how they can best do it. The aim of this paper is to analyse the roles played by the actors in FSs when dealing with challenges and assess how these roles may contribute to the resilience attributes (conditions that enable resilience) and resilience capacities (robustness, adaptability, and transformability). To this end, ten focus groups have been conducted across FSs in Europe. Results suggest that each actor in the FSs can shape and strengthen different resilience attributes which in turn result in combinations of resilience capacities that are specific to the FS. Thus, enabling resilience is best accomplished with actors taking different roles and jointly configuring the most adequate combination of capacities, which differs across FSs. This paper provides a set of resilience-enabling roles that delineate the pathways to make FSs more resilient. The diversity of actors and resilience-enabling pathways require flexible, coordinated and comprehensive policies that encompass the complexity of the socio-ecological systems. • Enabling resilience of farming systems is best accomplished with actors taking different roles. • Improving farming systems' resilience requires enhancing their transformability capacity. • The actors enhance resilience by reinforcing human capital, response diversity, social organization and learning. • This paper provides a set of resilience-enabling roles that delineate the pathways to make farming systems more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists have mainly focused on human capital accumulation rather than on the causes and consequences of human capital depreciation in late adulthood. To investigate how human capital depreciates over the life cycle, we examine how a newly introduced pension program, the National Rural Pension Scheme, affects cognitive performance in rural China. We find significant adverse effects of access to pension benefits on cognitive functioning among the elderly. We detect the most substantial impact of the program on delayed recall, a cognition measure linked to the onset of dementia. In terms of mechanisms, cognitive deterioration in late adulthood is mediated by a substantial reduction in social engagement, volunteering, and activities fostering mental acuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study how the impacts of initial unemployment conditions on labor market returns vary for US college graduates with different levels of cognitive and social skills. Using the NLSY79 whose respondents graduated from college between 1979 and 1989, I find that the cost of recessions is substantial and unequal. The different roles of skills in workers' careers explain a large degree of heterogeneity in the costs of labor market shocks at graduation. When a worker with higher social skills graduates in a recession, she widens her advantage mostly through higher academic attainment and mobility toward highly rated and high-skilled occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines if democracy reduces poverty in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1999–2018. For this purpose, we employ the Generalised Method of Moments. The results show that democracy is not directly associated with poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this observation hides important non-linearities and an interesting pattern of policy complementarities. Indeed, democracy is associated with poverty reduction in countries where economic growth is strong and human capital high. The robustness tests carried out do not change these results. This means that poor economic growth and weak human capital not only have a direct negative effect on the well-being of SSA countries, but also prevent the poor in those countries from benefitting the gains of democracy. Therefore, in order to reduce poverty in SSA, policy makers should continue the process of democratization while simultaneously adopting policies of economic development and human capital building. Democracy in isolation is useless for the poor in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Group of 20 (G20) economies has faced extensive energy consumption issues and lack of attention has been paid by the researchers towards the effectiveness of key driven factors REW energy consumption such as ecological innovation, trade openness and human capital. The study, thereby, examines the association between said constructs and provides evidences from G-20 economies covering the period from 1995 to 2019, hence addressing the literary gap. The study used multiple methods such as second-generation panel estimation method for unit root, CS-ARDL technique to find out the association among constructs in short and long run and AMG and CCEMG method for robustness analysis. Results revealed that eco-innovations, trade openness and human capital play significantly positive role in the adoption of renewable energy consumption in G-20 countries. These estimations are found to be robust in AMG and CCEMG analysis. Relevant policies are suggested to be made by practitioners based on the obtained results. • Renewable energy consumption improves the environmental conditions in the country. • Eco-innovation leads the industry towards renewable energy consumption. • Upsurge in Human capital significantly reduces environmental degradation. • Trade openness is the foremost factors that increase renewable energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• It explores the role of intergovernmental transfers in intergenerational mobility. • Intergovernmental transfers promote the equalizations of public goods across regions. • Transfers targeting equal fiscal capacities should boost intergenerational mobility. • It confirms intergovernmental transfers weaken the income persistence heterogeneously. • Furthermore, two mechanisms and two categories of transfers are also distinguished. Intergenerational income mobility has been widely concerned focusing mainly on the transmission mechanism within families. This paper turns to explore the structural determinants and pays special attentions to the role of intergovernmental transfer. Since the fiscal decentralization in 1990s, intergovernmental transfers become an increasingly critical part in Chinese fiscal system, balancing the fiscal capacities across regions and promoting the equalization of public goods. The question arises naturally as whether transfers targeting at equalization can boost intergenerational mobility. However, little work has investigated this intersection of studies and seldom is known about this question. This paper tries to shed some new lights. Through investigations, it confirms that intergovernmental transfers weaken the income persistence and the effect is especially significant for urban areas; the effects for the rural are mixed. Further explorations indicate that the special-purpose transfer payment has greater effects when measured during college period; notably, entering college may bring the rural children fundamental changes relative to other levels of education. In conclusion, the intergovernmental transfer system is relatively more pro-urban. To better fulfill the equalizing effect of the intergovernmental transfers on both static inequality across regions and dynamic inequality across generations, should the transfers be re-framed with cautions tilting more towards the rural.Meanwhile, the competitive behaviors and (dis)incentives of the local governments should also be taken into accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a shortage of research investigating the link between employee development practices and intellectual capital as mediated by knowledge management. The aim of the current research was to consider the influence of employee development practices on intellectual capital through knowledge management. Data were collected through an instrument distributed to a sample of 464 employees working at information and communications technology companies. The results indicate that employee development practices had significant effects on human capital, knowledge management, and social capital. The results reveal that knowledge management had a significant effect on human capital but not on social capital. Finally, the results show that knowledge management significantly mediated the impact of employee development practices on human capital. Additionally, implications for intellectual capital development, organizational strategy, and academic research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The study analyses the effectiveness of aggregate as well as sectoral foreign aid on growth and structural transformation for 32 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period from 2002 to 2019. For this purpose, a structural transformation index (STI) has been constructed using the value-added and employment shares of the economy. There is a lack of studies in the aid effectiveness literature that examine the effects of sectoral aid on overall growth and development of the economy. Comparing the effectiveness of different types of aid on growth and structural transformation is a novel approach. In this analysis, we also take into account the roles of institutional quality and human capital on aid effectiveness. To this end, we have used Driscoll–Kraay Fixed-Effect estimators, Fixed-Effects Panel Threshold regression and Method of Moments Quantile regression to analyse the effectiveness of aggregate and sectoral foreign aid. Our estimation techniques are robust to cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity. We find that both agricultural and social-sector aid have positive significant effects on growth but negative significant effect on structural transformation. This suggests that foreign aid should be increased in these sectors, conditioned by the level of institutional quality. Human capital is found to increase the effectiveness of foreign aid. Aid to economic infrastructure is the only type of aid which is found to increase structural transformation significantly. This study helps in designing aid allocation strategies, so as to promote both growth and structural transformation in the SSA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]