Search

Reducing energy intensity and coping with climate change are important policy issues that face all countries. This study examines the impact of business cycles (recessions and expansions) on energy intensity in sixteen emerging countries in 1990–2014. We find that during periods of economic expansion (recessions), business cycles reduce (increase) energy intensity. We also study the moderating effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) between business cycles and energy intensity and find that FDI lowers (raises) energy intensity in countries with high (low) level economic development. In addition, this study finds a nonlinear relationship between business cycles and energy intensity. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.

This paper deals with issues arising in Solow's growth model when contrasted with Marx's schemes of expanded reproduction. More specifically, we argue that Solow's growth model lacks the crucial dynamic features of capital accumulation derived from the long-term movement of the rate of profit, which are well integrated in classical political economy. Classical economists discussed the attainment of the stationary state of the economy as a result of a falling rate of profit eliminating net investment. In Solow's growth model, however, the seemingly stationary state is proved to be a ‘saddle’ point, an aspect that has not received appropriate attention in the extant economic growth literature. By contrast, in Marx's analysis of absolute overaccumulation resulting from the falling profit rate the system is driven to a turning point and the conditions for major institutional changes that may lead to a new period of economic expansion are set.

The drive toward the attainment of sustainable environment globally through clean energy development or energy efficiency is not more desirable than in the 21st century, thus the existential policy moderations of economic, trade and security mechanisms. On this premise, and foremost in the literature, the current study examined the country-specific (for the United States) and the driving impacts of economic policy uncertainty, trade policy and national security on the development of cleaner energy sources by using quarterly frequency time series data for period 1990:Q1-2018:Q2. By employing economic expansion as additional factor, the study implemented the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds Testing approach to reveal interesting results: (1) there is a significant evidence that economic expansion, economic policy uncertainty (EU), trade policy (TP), and national security (NS) exhibits long term properties in common, (2) the increase in economic expansion and NS effectiveness significantly yields more cleaner energy development, and (3) a more tightened TP and high EU are statistically significant and detrimental to the development of clean energy. The Granger causality evidence substantiates the role economic expansion, TP, EU and national security in renewable energy development. Generally, the study posits cleaner and energy efficiency policy directive for policymakers in the United States and other countries of interest from the framework of climate action and sustainable development.

A crime epidemic appears to have erupted in many advanced economies, raising questions on whether higher unemployment leads to greater incidence of crime. In this paper, we establish a robust connection between unemployment and crime, considering both violent and non-violent crimes, in a 4 variable time-varying VAR setting in identifying four shocks: unemployment, output, migration fear, and crime shocks. Using data from France and the UK over the time period 1975Q1 to 2013Q4 and 1983Q1 to 2018Q2 respectively, we find significant positive effects of unemployment shocks on crime rates in both countries, particularly so during the times of economic contraction. We also find that crime rates decline during times of economic expansion (in response to a positive shock in GDP growth). Considering shocks in migration fears, we find that migration fears are fuelling higher incidence of crime in France, whereas unemployment shock continues to drive crime rates in the UK. Undertaking further analysis for a single country at quarterly frequency for the UK, and with panel data from 24 countries at annual frequency over the period 1998 to 2016, we support our main hypothesis that higher unemployment rate tends to increase non-violent crime. Our results imply that maintaining stable economic activity is critical in order to stabilize incidence of non-violent crime. These findings have political significance, given the recent unprecedented levels of concern and uncertainty about migration in European countries.

This paper endeavors to shed light on the asymmetric heterogeneous relationship between energy use and economic growth in nineteen selected African countries from 1971 to 2014. We employ, to this end, a nonlinear panel autoregressive distributed lag model and an asymmetric panel causality test. The empirical results suggest that the relationship between energy use and economic growth is asymmetric and depends on the phases of economic cycle. Firstly, in periods of economic expansion, positive shocks on energy use have a positive and significant effect on economic growth in the long-run but have a weak positive effect in the short-run. Negative shocks on energy use have a negative and significant effect on economic growth in the long-run but a positive and significant effect in the short-run. Moreover, in periods of economic expansion, economic growth tends to react more to a decrease in energy use than to an increase in energy use. Secondly, in period of economic contraction, positive shocks on energy use accentuate the negative variation of economic growth in the long-run while in the short-run, economic contraction is resorb by negative shocks on energy use. Thirdly, net energy-importing economies located in North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa are the most subject to energy asymmetric shocks. For net energy-exporting countries, the asymmetric relationship between energy use and economic growth is mixed. We also find that negative changes in economic activity lead to negative variations of energy use. Fourthly, positive and negative shocks on the cyclical components of energy use and economic growth do not have, over the time, the same correlation with positive and negative shocks of one or other of the variables. From the research that has been carried out, it appears that sound economic policy decisions require information on the asymmetric linkage between energy use and economic growth.

Which factors have driven fiscal revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa in the long run? We address this question by studying quantitatively the long-term relationship between fiscal outcomes, economic expansion and external dependency in four francophone West African countries – Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal – between 1893 and 2010. Using panel co-integration modelling we find a long-term relationship between, on the one hand, tax revenue and local economic development, proxied by international trade, and, on the other hand, tax revenue and developments of the economy and taxation in the former colonizing power France. The results indicate that economic expansion has been a significant factor in driving the long-term development of tax revenue in West Africa, just as it was in historical Europe, but also point to the historical vulnerability and external dependency of the fiscal systems of the four West African countries. We suggest that the wider implication of these results is that they point to the importance of deepening our understanding of how domestic contexts interact with external economic and institutional external forces to shape African fiscal systems, in contrast to factors such as inter-state warfare that are ubiquitous in narratives of historical European taxation and state development.

We study the asymmetric responses of hedge fund return moments—especially higher moments as measured by return co-skewness and co-kurtosis—to macroeconomic and financial shocks depending on the phase of the business cycle. Similarly to previous papers on hedge fund systematic market risk (beta), we find that hedge funds seem to monitor their return co-skewness and co-kurtosis. The response of their return moments to VIX shocks—our indicator of macroeconomic and financial uncertainty—is particularly important, hedge funds reducing their beta and co-kurtosis and increasing their co-skewness following a (positive) VIX shock. Overall, the representative hedge fund tends to behave as an insurance seller in economic expansion and as an insurance buyer in recession or crisis. Finally, VIX shocks contribute to increase systemic risk in the hedge fund industry.

People with disabilities face substantial barriers to sustained employment and stable, adequate income. We assess how they and their families fared during the long economic expansion that followed the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, using data from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) and the March CPS annual income supplement. We find that the expansion bolstered the well-being of people with disabilities and, in particular, their labor market engagement. We also find that federal disability benefits fell during the expansion. On balance, our results suggest that sustained economic growth can bolster the labor market engagement of people with disabilities and potentially reduce their reliance on disability benefits.

This paper revisits the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) irrelevance hypothesis from a multi-country perspective, investigating country-specific adjustment to external world shocks across a panel of 17 advanced economies from 1979 to 2019. To quantify world shocks, a broad set of real commodity prices are used to proxy global demand pressures. I then document a robust threshold in policy rates lying between 2.5% and 3.5%, below which global demand spillovers to domestic financial markets and economic activity rise substantially. These magnified spillovers near the ZLB persist after controlling for the post-2008 period, economic boom-bust cycles, secular time trends, and commodity exporters. Estimates from a threshold-augmented VAR further show that global demand shocks near the ZLB induce magnified financial and real adjustment along with rising real interest rates. Meanwhile, the economic expansion associated with a 1 percentage point drop in idiosyncratic long-term bond yield innovations offsets completely the average impact of global demand spillovers near the ZLB. This suggests that magnification near the ZLB is relevant, yet potentially countered by endogenous unconventional monetary policies targeting long-term yields over the same period.

We evaluate the effects of structural tax reforms on government spending efficiency in a sample of OECD economies over the period 2007-2016. After calculating input spending efficiency scores, we assess the relevance for efficiency of narrative tax changes in a panel setup. We find that: i) input efficiency scores average around 0.6-07; ii) increases in the tax rates are reflected in falling public sector efficiency; iii) such negative effect is significant for PIT and VAT; iv) controlling for endogeneity, increases in tax rates are still associated with lower public sector efficiency, mainly in PIT; v) increasing tax bases for PIT and VAT improve public sector efficiency; vi) in economic expansion periods, increasing CIT base and reducing PIT rates, positively affect public sector efficiency; ix) in recessions, efficiency improves when PIT and VAT bases increase and CIT rate increases.

The U.S. economy shows a contrasting difference in cyclical properties between low- and high-income groups. Income shares of the bottom three income quintiles are procyclical; while those of the next 35 percent are countercyclical. However, the income share of the very top five percent income group is acyclical over the business cycle. This study attempts to explain the cyclical behavior of the income distribution over the business cycle, particularly focusing on the top five percent income earners' share, using a heterogeneous agent model featuring an extensive labor supply margin and a choice to become an entrepreneur. The model economy successfully reproduces the acyclical behavior of the income share of the top five percent income earners as well as the overall cyclicality of income shares of the income groups. In an economic expansion, relatively more people in the low income groups newly begin employment as workers, which raises the income shares of the bottom three quintiles and lowers the income shares of the top two quintiles, while at the top, relatively more people become entrepreneurs, which offsets the decline in the income share of the high-income earners from the workers' side

China’s real estate has been a key engine of its sustained economic expansion. This paper argues, however, that even before the Covid-19 shock, a decades-long housing boom had given rise to severe price misalignments and regional supply-demand mismatches, making an adjustment both necessary and inevitable. We make use of newly available and updated data sources to analyze supply-demand conditions in the fast-moving Chinese economy. The imbalances are then compared to benchmarks from other economies. We conclude that the sector is quite vulnerable to a sustained aggregate growth shock, such as Covid-19 might pose. In our baseline calibration, using input-output tables and taking account of the very large footprint of housing construction and real-estate related sectors, the adjustment to a decline in housing activity can easily trim a cumulative 5-10 percent from the level of output (over a period of years). Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

This study examines the effect of lottery characteristics on analysts’ earnings forecasts. We find that analysts are more optimistic for lottery firms. The optimism of earnings forecast decreases with analysts’ general and firm-specific experience. Information uncertainty would enhance the effect of lottery characteristics on analysts’ earnings forecast bias. Market states and investor sentiment positively affect the effect of lottery characteristics on analyst optimism. Moreover, the level of optimism on lottery stocks increases during economic expansion. Our findings suggest that behavioral biases, rather than rational incentives, explain the optimism of analysts’ earnings forecasts for lottery stocks.

Incorporating socioeconomic and environmental considerations into energy decisions is necessary when tackling climate change and accelerating green growth. In this work, we propose a novel extension of the multi-factor energy input-output model to support evidence-informed energy policy-making and green growth planning through the introduction of eight different multipliers and two green growth indexes. We demonstrate the approach through application at the national scale in Canada. In particular, we quantitatively assess the extent to which changes in final demand impact the domestic and imported primary (and renewable) energy flows, CO2 emissions, economic expansion, and energy job earnings. The results point to a potential path of green growth in Canada, prioritizing activities that generate economic and job growth at minimal environmental pressure (i.e., fewer CO2 emissions). Economic activities that are critical for stimulating green growth in the short to medium run are identified, and recommendations are made regarding a longer structural change path for improving the supply chains of other economic activities. This work provides insights to decision-makers seeking strategies (e.g., policy reforms or targeted public expenditure strategies) to accelerate green growth planning on a national scale.

WOS: 000429754100040 The purpose of this study is to examine the causal relationships between tourism development and economic growth. For this purpose, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) technique was employed to analyze the casual link between tourism development and economic growth in seven European countries. The results showed that there is bidirectional causality between growth in tourism receipts and economic growth, suggesting that economic growth and tourism development are interdependent and that tourism development stimulates economic growth and vice versa in these countries. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed within the realms of growth, conservation, feedback, and neutrality hypotheses. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of a statutory minimum wage. I demonstrate by means of a medium-scale DSGE model, which I estimate with US data, how the minimum wage impacts aggregate variables. The model framework enables me to take into account various general-equilibrium effects that the minimum wage can potentially trigger. Under the estimated stance of monetary policy, the model predicts that the minimum wage has a negligible effect on the macroeconomy. However, if the Federal Reserve conducted highly dovish monetary policy, the federal minimum wage would substantially affect the macroeconomy. A minimum-wage hike would even cause an economic expansion. The paper also examines the possibility of indexing the minimum wage to an inflation measure. It compares the indexation to price inflation with the indexation to wage inflation. By considering an alternative estimated model, I present evidence that performance standards are an important adjustment channel through which firms react to changes in the minimum wage.

Although the recent economic expansion and redistributive fiscal policies implemented in Latin America since the turn of the century have raised the wellbeing of the population, the private monetary transfers from immigrants to their relatives back home are proving to be one of the most stable drivers of this change. This paper uses a new dataset for 18 Latin American countries covering the 2000–2013 period to examine the effectiveness of international remittances in reducing poverty and inequality. Dynamic panel data results using a number of measures for remittances indicate that increases in remittances have a negative and statistically significant impact on overall poverty and inequality in the region, even if it exacerbates moderate poverty. Such effect is robust to alternative remittances measures used to control for endogeneity concerns. In particular, remittances seem to have a stronger effect in countries receiving smaller amounts and in countries with a larger share of its population working abroad. Regional differences also affect the impact that remittances have on the wellbeing of the population, but financial development is found to have a limited impact on the effectiveness of remittances on poverty and inequality.

Resilience is essential to better withstand adverse shocks and reduce the economic costs associated with them. We link resilience to the quality of countries’ economic structures. The paper finds robust evidence that sound labour and product markets and conditions for doing business increase the resilience towards adverse shocks and reduce the incidence of crises more generally. In the presence of a common shock, a country with weak economic structures can on average suffer up to twice the output loss in a given year compared to a more adaptable economy. From a policy perspective, this implies the need to push forward structural policies in countries with lower quality economic structures to increase resilience in case of future shocks. We also suggest how a monitoring process towards more resilient economic structures could look like.

Non-ferrous metals are important basic raw material in the urbanization and industrialization process, the sustainable development of non-ferrous metal industry (NMI) is important for China's economy development. To clarify the decoupling status and its driving factors of China's 29 NMIs, this paper integrated Tapio index and a comprehensive decomposition approach to estimate the decoupling degree and further decompose the decoupling index of China's NMI. The results indicate that during 2004–2017, China's NMI experienced five different decoupling statuses (i.e., weak decoupling, expansive coupling, expansive negative decoupling, strong decoupling, and strong negative decoupling) and dominated by weak decoupling. View the whole study period, the decoupling relationship gradually towards to a lower decoupling level. Energy-saving technology progress was a dominant contributor facilitated decoupling process, while energy-saving technology gap change impeded the decoupling process in most industries except four manufacturing and rolling processing industries. Potential energy intensity also was an important factors facilitated decoupling process in most industries. Additionally, production technology change played a mild role in promoting decoupling process in most NMIs. Briefly, the decoupling process and its driving factors were distinctly various among 29 different NMIs, thus the decoupling policies should be established and implemented tailored to their characteristics.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) such as access to clean energy (SDG-7), responsible energy consumption (SDG-12) and sustainable economic growth revolves around the subject of human development that resonates with (SDG-8), and among others. Based on these highlights, this study examines sustainable development for the panel of selected Sub-Sahara African countries that are largely plagued with huge energy deficit (energy poverty) and setback in technological innovation. This study leverages on panel econometrics strategies to explore the hypothesized relationship between the outlined indicators for the period 2000–2016 in Sub-Saharan African countries. Empirical results show that human development index (HDI), economic expansion, access to clean energy. and technological innovation exhibits long-run equilibrium relationship. Subsequently, the finding revealed that economic expansion, access to energy and technological innovation in the sampled countries spur higher HDI indices. That is, a 1% increase in economic growth increases HDI by 0.040% and 0.017% in the short and long run respectively. Thus, we can infer that enhanced sustainable economic growth leads to higher HDI indices which encompases higher literacy rate, better income level and increase life expectancy in both short and long run. In contrary, access to clean energy in the selected blocs dampens HDI index in the short run but the effect is statistically positive (desirable) in the long run.

The study investigates (i) the time-varying and directional connectedness of nine equity sectors through intra- and inter-sector volatility spillover periods and (ii) assesses the impact of state variables on aggregate volatility spillovers. The study finds about 76% of volatility linkage is associated with cross-sector volatility transmissions. Aggressive sectors, which are sensitive to macroeconomic risk, play the net volatility transmission role. Defensive sectors that are largely immune to macroeconomic risk play the net volatility receiving role. The intensity and direction of volatility transmissions among the sectors vary with economic expansion and recession periods. Over time, some sectors switching from net transmitting to net receiving role and vice versa. Macro and financial market uncertainty variables significantly impact volatility spillover at lower volatility spillover (economic expansion period) and higher volatility (economic recession periods) volatility spillover quantiles. Political signals are seemingly more imprecise and uninformative during economic expansion or low quantiles, intensifying volatility spillover. Overall, the causal effects of macro, financial, and policy uncertainty variables on aggregate volatility spillover are asymmetric, nonlinear, and time-varying. The study's result supports the cross-hedging and financial contagion views of volatility transmission across nine US equity sectors.

The triple components of energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and economic expansion are important to achieving sustained economic activity and sound ecological advancement. This study aims to estimate the impact of wide-ranging parameters on environmental circumstances in South Asian countries. This analysis required two approaches: 1)quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) as an econometric model, and 2) data envelopment analysis (DEA) non-parametric comparable composite index to examine concurrently South Asian nations' data for the 2000–2018 period. The underscored category of the parameters were grouped into four key indices, namely financial, fiscal, human, and energy. The DEA's mathematical composite findings reveal varied circumstances regarding environmental self-maintenance in South Asian nations. India and Pakistan are doing quite well; Afghanistan is abysmal. In addition, the QARDL approach findings reveal that energy use and fiscal indicators abate pollution. Furthermore, the correlation between fiscal decentralization and ecological attributes is strengthened by the excellent level of institutions and human capital progress. There is a unidirectional impact emanating from fiscal devolution, gross domestic product, human capital, eco-innovation, and institutional excellence on carbon dioxide pollution, although different from the other correlations obtained.

The study examines the impact of free zones exports and investments on economic growth in Ghana. A vector error correction model (VECM) was employed to ascertain the impact of the Free Zones Programme on economic growth in Ghana on a quarterly time series data spanning 1998–2015. The results show that both free zones exports and free zones investments have significant negative relationship with economic growth. Trade openness also has a significant negative relationship with economic growth but insignificant positive relationship with investment and export. The study concludes that the Free Zones Programme has not served its purpose of promoting economic growth in Ghana. It is universally known that the concept of free zones is actually a second best option and as such is not meant be a lasting policy for promoting economic growth. For this reason, given the negative effect the programme has had on economic growth, the Government of Ghana should scrap it and possibly look at opening up the whole country, especially in terms of infrastructure and other incentives for all firms, so that economic activity can freely take place in every corner of the country to realise balanced and more sustainable growth of the economy.

Jacks et al. (2011) offer an alternative to price gaps to quantify trade costs. Implementing a method which consists in deducing international trade costs from trade flows, they argue that the reduction in trade costs was the main driving force of trade growth during the first globalization (1870-1913), whereas economic expansion was the main driving force during the second globalization (1950-2000). We argue that this important result is driven by the use of an ad hoc aggregation method. What Jacks et al. (2011) capture is the difference in the relative starting trade of dyads experiencing faster trade growth in the first and second globalization. More generally, we cast doubts on the possibility to reach conclusions of such nature with a method that infers trade costs from trade flows, and then uses these costs to explain trade flows. We argue that it can only rephrase the information already contained in openness ratios.

This paper addresses the Brazilian productive structure and the major economic policies undertaken in the face of the international economic crisis. Input-output techniques are applied to Brazilian national accounts and present a picture of the potential role of different sectors in the recovery of the economy. Considering the country’s economic performance at the time, post-2008 economic policies adopted in Brazil are discussed, with emphasis given on the tax break policy, inserted into a broader policy scope. Results show that industrial sectors have stronger linkages in terms of production and employment maintenance in the economy but have been losing ground in the productive structure. Among them, there is evidence in favour of supporting more some sectors, such as the automobile and the construction industries, rather than others, such as white goods appliances and furniture, but especially the need of recovering industrial development as a whole for sustained economic growth.

Utilizing a panel data, I examined herd behavior in capital structure of firms for four major US industries (Manufacturing, Construction, Wholesale and Services), specifically regarding their propensity to exhibit herd behavior around industry median capital structure and industry-leader capital structure respectively. I followed existing methodology in the extant literature by using cross-sectional absolute dispersion (CSAD) to detect industry-wide herding and industry leader-follower herding, as well as the herding behavior during economic expansion and contraction during the sample period 1996–2015. Using industry median capital structure measurement, statistically significant evidence of herding in Services industry is found in the bear market, whilst statistically significant evidence of herding in the bull market is found in Manufacturing industry when industry-leader capital structure measurement is used. Given the relatively high procyclical nature of services industry, it is not all surprising that corporate financial managers may herd around industry median capital structure during economic contraction for reasons such as indemnity against suboptimal performance and reputational costs. On the other hand, in a bull market coupled with information asymmetry, firms may engage in free-riding and this might explain herd behavior exhibited by manufacturing industry. Regarding inter-industry herd behavior, all three industries are found to herd around the Wholesale industry; two are found to herd around manufacturing and construction industries. With the exception of manufacturing industry, none of the other three industries exhibit within-industry herding behavior using both industry median and industry leader capital structure measurements.

Ecological modernisation in the form of support to the notion of green growth remains the dominant discourse in environmental policy globally. Still, questions of limits to economic expansion and growth on a planet with finite natural resources have been at the core of environmental discourses at least since the 1970's. A recent effort by Stoknes and Rockstrom (2018) seeks to unite notions of ecological limits with the concept of green growth by proposing genuine green growth as denoting a situation when growth respects planetary boundaries. Focusing on recent trajectories in emissions intensity, they highlight Nordic countries including Denmark as examples of such genuine green growth. In this article, we demonstrate that the specific conceptualization of genuine green growth and resulting claims about the Nordic countries rest on particular assumptions, specifically concerning national-level carbon accounting frameworks and the size of the remaining global carbon budget. By opening up these assumptions for analysis we illustrate the partiality and potentially misleading nature of the conceptualization of GGG.

This study explores the applicability of conventional environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) with an extension for the case of emerging industrialized economies, comprised of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, and Turkey, for annual time frequency from 1995 to 2016. This study is distinct from that already documented in the extant literature by extending the traditional EKC phenomenon by accounting for the combined impact of institutional quality and renewables in E7 blocs. The countries under review are known to be emerging and still at their scale stage of their growth path. As such, the need to explore the theme is pertinent for stakeholders. Empirical framework is built on second-generational panel econometrics strategies that consist of Augmented Mean Group, Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimator, Driscoll-Kraay and Dumitrescu and Hurlin Causality analysis, which is superior to first-generation methods. Our study validates the EKC phenomenon in E7, i.e., where emphasis is placed on economic expansion relative to the quality of the environment. The EKC phenomenon is validated by the deteriorating effect of fossil-fuel energy consumption in the bloc. However, renewables are seen as a panacea to reduce pollution emission as renewable energy exerts a negative and statistical relationship with CO2 emission over the sampled period. Additional results show that weak institution also dampens the quality of the environment in E7. These outcomes are suggestive to policy makers to reinforce their commitment to the quality of the environment in terms of growth and energy transition from fossil fuel to clean energy sources. Further policy prescriptions are presented in the concluding section.

In 2016 and as part of its commitment under the 2015 Paris Agreement, China submitted its First Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), outlining its ‘best efforts’ to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017, the country accounted for 26% of global carbon emissions, stemming mostly from coal-based electricity generation and mining. The United States, by comparison, accounted for nearly 14%, and the European Union, almost 10%. In view of this disparity and the significance of China's contribution to achieving global emissions targets and sustainability, we revisit its First NDC. We argue that, while China is set to meet its non-fossil fuel targets, progress on its fossil fuel targets is stymied by continual coal development, which has negative implications for the Paris 2 °C limit. We contend that the country's focus on carbon-intensive economic expansion is a major barrier to greater climate ambition, especially when considering its growing portfolio of overseas investments in fossil fuel-dependent sectors. In bringing together disparate arguments from across the energy policy literature and looking ahead to its Second NDC, we conclude by making four recommendations for increasing China's climate ambition and centering a just transition to clean energy.

In China, green credit aims to guide the flow of credit funds by regulating the quantity and price of credit, so as to support the development of green industries and curb the emission behavior of polluting enterprises. Based on the behavior of microeconomic entities we construct a Dynamic Stochastic Genernal Equilibrium (DSGE) model to analyze the output and welfare effect of green credit in China. Specifically, the incentive green credit is taken as an example to carry out an empirical study, and we further quantitatively measure the output and welfare effect of green credit under different environmental regulations. We find that both price-based and quantity-based green credit have obvious output, environment, health and utility welfare effect, which is conducive to the green upgrading of industrial structure and can achieve a win-win situation of output and environment in China. However, there are some differences in transmission mechanism and utility welfare. In addition, in the short term, the environmental tax regulation inhibits the economic expansion effect of green credit, and in the long term, this inhibitory effect gradually disappears. The DSGE comprehensive evaluation framework constructed in this paper expands the application scope of DSGE model, and provides a quantitative theoretical model for the mechanism analysis of China’s green credit policy and similar policies. Furthermore this study provides theoretical and quantitative basis for the formulation of green credit policies and the improvement of macro-control policies in China.

This study, which considers both energy input and CO2 emissions, develops both theoretical and empirical models to account for the sources of China's economic growth from 2000–2013. The proposed models decompose China's economic growth into five components: the technological change effect, the industrial structure effect, the regional balance development effect, the management effect, and the production factors effect. The empirical results show that during the sample period, the production factors effect increased from approximately 70% in 2001 to nearly 99% in 2010, indicating that economic growth in Mainland China relied heavily on factor accumulation, which was not sustainable. Fortunately, this situation has gradually improved since 2011 because of technological progress and industrial structure optimization. However, the current total-factor productivity in Mainland China remains relatively low because of an inefficient industrial structure, regional balance development, and management inefficiency. In other words, there is a great deal of room for further industrial structural optimization, regional balance development, and management improvement to realize further sustainable economic growth. Because the causes of total-factor production inefficiency and the distribution of economic growth potential show a distinct spatial difference, the focuses for the Chinese provinces to achieve sustainable economic growth should be quite different in the future. Based on the results of this study, recommendations have been made for the Chinese provinces to realize further sustainable economic growth.

Based on 3GR model, the relationships between energy consumption, economic effect and technical effect of countries at different stage of development (developed, developing and the least developed countries) was figured out. Comparing the equivalent value of GREC, GREO and GREI during the period from 1996 to 2013, the diverse development laws in different kinds of countries was found. The following conclusions were obtained: (1) based on 3GR model, there is a liner relationship between GREC and GREO or GREI and an inverse relationship between GREI and GREO when the equivalent value of (1+GREOi) or (1+GREIi) or (1+GRECi) is a constant. (2) The equivalent value of GREO are in the following orders, developed countries < developing countries < the least developed countries, while that of GREI have the opposite orders. The orders of the equivalent value of GREC are developed countries, the least developed countries and developing countries from small to large. The least developed countries own the largest potential to realize further development whether in economic expansion, technical innovation or in optimize industrial structure while these potential in developed countries are the smallest and in developing countries are at the middle level; the development in developing countries shows the most growth going forward. (3) The change in energy consumption is codetermined by EO effect, EI effect and their interactive effect. EO effect shows the leading position among the three effects, especially in developing countries and the least developed countries. In developed countries, EC change, EO effect and EI effect are both change in a tight range. While in developing countries and the least developed countries, these ranges are rather large.

This study employs the linear and nonlinear ARDL cointegration methodologies to examine the potential symmetric and asymmetric responses of suicide rates to unemployment rates in the US from 1928 to 2013. Our results suggest that suicide rates are pro-cyclical with respect to the business cycle (measured by changes in the unemployment rate) after extensively controlling for divorce and fertility rates. Unemployment has symmetric long-run effects on the age-adjusted suicide rate and four age-specific (from ages 25–34 to 55–64) suicide rates, while the effect of an economic expansion on suicide rates for those aged over 45 is greater than the effect of an economic recession. These findings imply that the effect of an economic expansion on the decrease of the suicide rate is higher than the effect of an economic recession on the increase of the suicide rate for individuals aged over 45. Therefore, intervention designed to reduce suicidal behaviors should emphasize periods of economic recession more than periods of economic expansion for those of middle age and beyond.

Context Transnational alcohol corporations (TACs) employ a range of strategies to achieve their business objectives, including attempts to frame perceptions of their activities in media debates. TACs aim to achieve a favourable regulatory environment by presenting themselves as socially responsible actors. However, the need to secure financial investment means they must also emphasise their potential for growth. This article investigates tensions between these objectives in coverage of the global alcohol industry in the UK print media. Methods This article examines coverage of the world's four largest TACs in five British daily newspapers and one industry publication between March 2012 and February 2013. 477 articles were identified for analysis through keyword searches of the LexisNexis database. Thematic coding of articles was conducted using Nvivo software. Findings Two conflicting framings of the alcohol industry emerge from our analysis. The first presents TACs as socially responsible actors; key partners to government in reducing alcohol-related harms. This is targeted at policy-makers and the public in an attempt to shape policy debates. The second framing highlights TACs' potential for economic growth by establishing new markets and identifying new customer bases. This is targeted at an audience of potential investors. Conclusions A fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of these framings, reflecting the tensions that exist between TACs' political and financial strategies. Alcohol industry involvement in policy-making thus involves a fundamental conflict of interests. Consequently, the UK government should reassess the prominence it currently affords to the industry in the development and delivery of alcohol policy.

Economic growth rate management is very important process in order to improve the economic stability of any country. The main goal of the study was to manage the impact of agriculture, manufacturing, industry and services on the economic growth rate prediction. Soft computing methodology was used in order to select the inputs influence on the economic growth rate prediction. It is known that the economic growth may be developed on the basis of combination of different factors. Gross domestic product (GDP) was used as economic growth indicator. It was found services have the highest impact on the GDP growth rate. On the contrary, the manufacturing has the smallest impact on the GDP growth rate.

We examine the determinants of return comovements of three different asset classes and provide critical insights on the key macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic factors which drive the asset return comovements during economic contraction and expansion regimes. We show that amongst the macroeconomic factors, interest rate and inflation have significant effect on the return comovements during the economic contraction regime whilst risk aversion significantly affects the return comovements during the economic expansion regime. The non-macroeconomic factors, output uncertainty, bond illiquidity and depth of recession contribute significantly in explaining the variations of return comovements for all asset pairs during both economic contraction and expansion periods except for real estate-based portfolios. Our results are robust to alternative model specification that uses regime switching MGARCH model.

Policy makers’ main interest is to avoid the problems resulting from the economic crisis. One way to avoid these problems is to stimulate economic growth as well as the necessary economic activity to reduce unemployment and to increase welfare. Specialized recent literature shows entrepreneurship as a key factor to enhance economic growth. Consequently, determining which economic policies could stimulate entrepreneurial activity and, indirectly, economic growth is relevant. This article's main goal is to analyze some of these policies’ effects on entrepreneurship and economic growth. To achieve this goal, the study performs an empirical analysis of 13 European Union countries, divided in two complementary methods: Partial Least Squares (PLS) estimation and fsQCA. fsQCA allows completing the results obtained by PLS estimation, by allowing to obtain causal recipes or sufficient conditions that help to determine the relevant relation between economic variables.

This paper detects the direction of causality among carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth in Next 11 countries for the period 1972–2013. Changes in economic, energy, and environmental policies as well as regulatory and technological advancement over time, cause changes in the relationship among the variables. We use a novel approach i.e. time-varying Granger causality and find that economic growth is the cause of CO2 emissions in Bangladesh and Egypt. Economic growth causes energy consumption in the Philippines, Turkey, and Vietnam but the feedback effect exists between energy consumption and economic growth in South Korea. In the cases of Indonesia and Turkey, we find the unidirectional time-varying Granger causality running from economic growth to CO2 emissions thus validates the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, which indicates that economic growth is achievable at the minimal cost of environment. The paper gives new insights for policy makers to attain sustainable economic growth while maintaining long-run environmental quality.

Sustainable economic growth needs to be the primary objective of every government, including developing Asian countries, to improve the social welfare of the people. Therefore, to achieve the desirable level of sustainable economic growth, environmental degradation must be controlled without lowering real growth and the well-being of the society. This study empirically investigates the impact of environmental degradation by CO2 emissions on the economic growth of 11 Asian countries between 1990 and 2011. Based on the nature of the data, traditional panel estimation techniques encompassing fixed effects and random effects are employed, in which the results of Hausman's test and other tests show that the use of fixed effects is preferable over the random-effect estimator. Empirical results exhibit that environmental degradation has a significantly negative impact on economic growth. Empirical findings also suggest that environmental degradation should be regulated. Therefore, environmentally enlightened management policies for the decrease of CO2 emissions and fuel consumption by transportation and industries need to be pursued by Asian countries. The adoption of safe carbon emission cut-back policies is a promising path to sustainable economic growth.

This paper examines the long-run and causal relationships among energy consumption, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth for a sample of 12 selected Sub-Sahara African countries. It applies the bounds test to cointegration and Granger causality test to annual data covering the period 1971–2010. The empirical results are mixed across countries. In the long-run, energy consumption and economic growth are associated with increase in atmospheric pollution in most countries. Results from the Granger causality tests show evidence of economic growth causing CO2 emissions in the short-run in Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, implying that economic expansion cannot be achieved without affecting the environment. Evidence of reverse causality running from CO2 emissions to economic growth has been found for Gabon, Nigeria and Togo, indicating that environmental policies aiming at reducing air pollution may have adverse effects on economic growth. Moreover, bidirectional causality between economic growth and CO2 emissions has been found in the short-run for Nigeria and in the long-run for Congo and Gabon. In the long-run, energy consumption and economic growth cause CO2 emissions in Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Togo.

The paper analyses the importance of supply versus demand shocks on the global oil market from 1974 to 2017, using a parsimonious structural vector autoregressive moving average (SVARMA) model. The superior out-of-sample forecasting performance of the reduced form VARMA compared to VAR alternatives advocates the suitability of this framework. We specifically account for the changes in the oil market over three distinctive sub-periods - pre moderation, great moderation and post moderation periods, to provide a means of identifying the changing nature of shock transmission mechanism across times. The findings shed some light on the effects of supply versus demand related oil shocks under different economic environment. Oil supply shocks explain large fraction of the movements in the global oil market in the pre and post moderation periods, i.e. during the slower economic growth periods. The importance of global activity shock on oil price movements is obvious during the 2003-2008 boom period. The oil specific shock has an interesting transmission path on the global economic activity, where the global activity responded positively and negatively during the global economic expansion and contraction respectively, emphasising the precautionary nature of the shock.

Sub-Saharan Africa which is one of the main regions known for various sources of mineral and energy resources in the global market has experienced appreciable rates of economic expansion in the last 10 years. However, apart from the environmental consequences of generating energy, how uncertainties in the economy moderate the impact of energy generation on the environment is yet to be given desired attention. Hence, this study investigates the role of economic policy uncertainty in the energy-growth-emissions nexus for 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period from 1996 to 2014. Results from one-step system-GMM show that real GDP and generation of non-renewable energy both increases CO2 emissions. However, while economic policy uncertainty also propels high levels of emissions in the region, its moderation effect on the impact of both renewable and non-renewable energy generation leads to a reduction in emissions level in the region. This suggests an urgent need for the implementation of sound macroeconomic and energy policies in Sub-Saharan Africa to safeguard the energy sector from disruptions and to mitigate the resultant impact on the degradation of the environment in the region.

Recent empirical studies indicated that motorcycle ownership grows as a nation’s economy develops, but decreases once incomes have passed a threshold level. The aim of this study was to assess the impacts of relative improvements in road mobility over road accessibility (MPA) and income inequality on motorcycle to passenger car ownership ratio (MPC). Particularly, we investigated how the reverse U-shaped relationship between MPC and economic expansion varied in response to changes in the MPA and income inequality. A fixed-effects panel linear regression analysis was performed on a panel of 53 countries over the period of 1963–2013. This study highlights four key findings in relation to the impact of per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on MPC. Firstly, the effect of MPA on MPC differs by per capita GDP levels. Results indicated that a rise in MPA is likely to lead to increases in MPC at lower per capita GDP, specifically increases in the number of small power motorcycles, but lead to decreases in MPC once per capita GDP levels have exceeded US$3,081. However, as per capita GDP rises beyond US$44,767, an increase in MPA would lead to increases in MPC and one would expect increases in the number of high-power motorcycles. Secondly, there is a reverse U-shaped relationship between MPC and income inequality. That is, a rise in income inequality is initially accompanied by increases in MPC, but MPC decreases once per capita GDP levels have passed a specific level. Thirdly, under lower income inequality, there is a U-shaped relationship between MPC and per capita GDP, and fourthly, under higher income inequality, this relationship becomes reverse U-shaped.

In this paper I first review the amazing progress that free market economic reforms have brought to the Chinese people after years of central control and suppression of markets. Thanks to greater economic freedom, economic growth increased sharply and hundreds of millions of people have been removed from poverty. By all accounts, however, economic freedom in China has a long way to go. The U.S. perspective should be that these market reforms continue. These further reforms toward economic freedom and economic growth in China will be beneficial to the United States. Such reforms would include a greater transparency about the monetary policy strategies, more openness of the capital accounts and less exchange rate and stock market intervention. Such economic reforms should be welcomed and encouraged by the United States and other countries.

This study empirically investigates the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for five Asia-Pacific countries over the 1965–2010 period by controlling other relevant economic variables. We use annual data and employ a bi-variate exponential GARCH in mean model (Nelson, 1991) [47] in which we incorporate economic uncertainty, real oil price and real exchange rate in addition to energy consumption and real GDP (real gross domestic product). Our empirical evidence suggests that these additional variables had a significantly negative effect on energy consumption and/or economic growth. After controlling for the effect of these variables, we find that there is a two-way Granger causality for economic growth and energy consumption for Philippines, a one-way effect of economic growth on energy consumption for Singapore, and that the neutrality hypothesis holds for the rest of the countries. Our result suggests that (1) it is very important to control for relevant economic variables when investigating the nexus between economic growth and energy consumption, and (2) even with a high level of similarity among the countries studied, the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth can be different, supporting the notion that idiosyncratic characteristics can be important in making energy and economic growth policies for the developing countries.

In nonlinear models, a typical way to determine the interaction effect between variables is to linearize the model for estimation purpose, add an interaction term, and then use the estimate of the parameter of the interaction term to determine the presence (or absence) and the extent of the interaction effect. In this paper, we show that in many cases such an approach is problematic. By design, non-linear models inherently include interactions, and as a result the interaction coefficient does not capture the full extent and complexity of the interaction effect. After exploring the complexities of interaction effects in non-linear models, we outline methods to estimate and understand the interaction effects in two widely used marketing models. We use 26 years of weekly US movie market data to test the interactions between critics' ratings and consumer sentiment about economic conditions on box office attendance. In addition to finding that movie attendance is counter-cyclical, an expected but not previously documented result, we also show, contrary to popular belief, that critics' ratings have larger impact during economic downturns than during periods of economic expansion.

The point of departure for the study of the impact of energy and environmental policies is the neo-classical theory of economic growth formulated by Cass (1965) and Koopmans (1967). The long-run properties of economic growth models are independent of energy and environmental policies. However, these policies affect capital accumulation and rates of productivity growth that determine the intermediate-run trends that are important for policy evaluation. Heterogeneity of different energy producers and consumers is critical for the implementation of energy and environmental policies. To capture this heterogeneity it is necessary to distinguish among commodities, industries, and households. Econometric methods are essential for summarizing information on different industries and consumer groups in a form suitable for general equilibrium modeling. In this paper we consider the application of econometric general equilibrium modeling to the U.S., the economy that has been studied most intensively. The framework for our analysis is provided by the Intertemporal General Equilibrium Model (IGEM) introduced by Jorgenson and Wilcoxen (1990). The new version of the IGEM presented in this paper is employed for the evaluation of proposed legislation on climate policy by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2011).

This study attempts to analyse the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Vietnam using the neoclassical Solow growth framework for the 1971–2011 period. The concept and methods of cointegration and Granger causality are used to establish the relationship between the variables of interest. Our results confirm the existence of cointegration among the variables. In particular, energy consumption, FDI and capital stock were found positively influence economic growth in Vietnam. The Granger causality test revealed unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to economic growth. Hence, Vietnam is an energy-dependent economy and any energy or environment policy drawn up in an attempt to conserve energy will jeopardise the process of economic development in Vietnam. For this reason, the renewable energy policy should be given attention to provide sufficient supplies of energy to speed up economic expansion. Investment in R&D may be required to incentivise private/public institutions to engage in this innovation, while the awareness for energy-saving policy among public could be integrated to meet social economic development.

The paper analyses the macroeconomic effects of foreign shocks in three South-East European (SEE) economies: Croatia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. In this regard, we investigate the transmission of several eurozone shocks (output gap, money market rates and inflation) on various macroeconomic variables in the aforementioned countries (output, inflation, money market rates and budget deficits). We trace the effects of foreign shocks on the basis of impulse response functions obtained from the Bayesian Vector Auto Regressions (VARs) separately for each country. The main findings from our study are: first, economic expansion in the eurozone has strong output and inflation effects on SEE economies, implying some degree of synchronization of business cycles; second, eurozone inflation is instantly and to a great extent transmitted to domestic inflation, suggesting that inflation in the SEE economies is mostly driven by foreign inflation; third, domestic money market rates are not closely linked with eurozone money markets; fourth, monetary policy in the SEE countries does not seem to be responsive to eurozone inflation shocks; and fifth, the fiscal authorities attempt to offset the spillover effects from both economic expansion and monetary tightening in the eurozone.