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In the era of rapid technological progress, the influence of dizitalization on different aspects of international economic activity can’t be overstated. The aim of this article is to conduct a comprehensive comparative study of digitalization’s impact on global goods and services markets, with a specific focus on advanced and developing economies using multiple linear regression. The research methodology involved comprehensive data collection for 35-38 advanced economies and 52-66 developing economies depending on the availability of data. The analysis included depended variables (18 export and import goods sectors and 18 export and import services), independent variables (digitalization, consisting of ICT deployment, ICT export and import, ICT investment variables), control variables such as GDP growth, CPI, trade openness, exchange rate and political stability. The findings demonstrate the ICT infrastructure and ICT exports positive impact on export of technology-intensive goods, such as ores and metals, machinery and equipment, and tools and devices in advanced economies. Digitalization’s positive impact on trade in goods appeared weaker in developing economies, potentially due to lower levels of ICT adoption or differing export focuses. ICT export has positive impact on financial services imports, indicating a reliance on imported financial services while exporting ICT capabilities. The model shows a high success rate depending on variables. The study highlights digitalization’s varied impact on advanced and developing economies, emphasizing its importance for trade, competitiveness and policymakers in the global market.

Purpose: The assessment of the linkage between quality and several SDGs is crucial due to the significant impact quality has on multiple dimensions. This study employs a comprehensive methodology to elucidate the various dimensions of quality. Additionally, it examines the relationship between quality and multiple SDGs, a topic that has not been previously investigated. Design/Methodology/Approach: The question arises here that how maintaining quality leads to sustainability; well this question is answered in this study through a content analysis of previous studies and showing the importance of theme quality in various aspects of sustainability like TBL, sustainable development goals (SDGs), etc. Findings: Quality has proven to be an admirable approach towards sustainability. The risen need for sustainability has brought many perspectives of the world. It can be environmental, social and economic and further these aspects have their own areas for improvement. The complexity of the structure of sustainability requires a basic common area to be focused on, and in this study, quality has proven to be one. Implications: Through the SDGs it can be derived that each goal had an area where quality needed to be worked on. The several zones of quality are interlinked. Quality of life will automatically improve the education, health water and sanitation services. Therefore, the focus should be laid on attaining sustainability through quality. Quality is achieving excellence in something or a substance that satisfies the requirements needed from it or the resources are utilised effectively and efficiently. Originality/Value: This study uses a holistic approach in which dimensions of quality have been explained and further the linkage of quality with different SDGs was assessed which has not yet been explored earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews and updates the indicator system constructed by previous scholars. The update of the index includes: Firstly, the latest data of 2021 is added to the original data of 1990–2020. Secondly, the World Bank's indicator system has been restructured and optimized, for example by removing duplicative and unimportant indicators. To demonstrate the characteristics of the updated national ESG indices, this paper conducts a preliminary analysis of the ESG performance of 19 members of the G20 and draws the following conclusions: In general, the national ESG performance of all G20 countries has increased from 1990 to 2021. China has experienced the largest growth, jumping from last to first place in the East Asia group, which is strongly correlated with regulators' aggressive pursuit of high-quality development through environmental regulation and the Chinese government's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. ESG development has been slow in India and South Africa, where racial issues, social inequality and government corruption continue to constrain ESG performance.

A substantial part of production and trade now takes place through global value chains (GVC), making it an essential conduit of knowledge spillover and technology transfer. Yet, extant studies examining how countries become productively efficient and catch-up to the global efficiency frontier through international trade have ignored the possible role of GVC in fast-tracking this process. This paper provides the first empirical evidence that fills this knowledge gap. We propose a two-stage empirical strategy to this end. First, we use a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to compute a measure of productive efficiency—defined herewith as a country's relative productive efficiency to the global productive efficiency frontier. Second, we use the productive efficiency index as an outcome variable in a reduced-form equation that controls for GVC participation and its interaction with country characteristics that influence the gains from GVC participation. In addition to using the panel fixed effect method, we estimate the reduced-form equation with the difference-GMM to address endogeneity issues, and the Tobit and Fractional Response models to address the bounded nature of the productive efficiency index. We find strong evidence suggesting that GVC participation enables technology-lagging countries to become more productively efficient as well as catch-up to the global efficiency frontier. We also find that the productive efficiency and catch-up gains from GVC participation accrue more strongly to countries that have a high human capital stock, a well-functioning financial market, maintain stable macroeconomic conditions, and specialize in downstream activities in the value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the progressive development of the ESG concept, this paper measures the sovereign ESG index of 171 countries worldwide over the period 1990–2020 by employing the entropy weight method based on relevant indicators from the World Bank's Sovereign ESG Database. The graphical analysis of the index leads to the preliminary conclusion that countries with higher economic levels tend to start earlier and focus more on ESG development, while low-income countries invest less in sustainable development and may have focused their development on the economy in the early stages of globalization. This research aims to contribute a set of instrumental data reflecting the current status and evolution of global sovereign ESG development, and to provide an important reference for studies related to sovereign ESG development and indicator system design.

Abstract According to the leading German economic research institutes, the German economy is experiencing a drastic slump as a result of the corona pandemic. In order to slow down the wave of infection, the state has severely restricted economic activity in Germany. As a result, GDP is expected to shrink by 4.2% this year. The recession is leaving clear traces on the labour market and the national budget. At its peak, the unemployment rate will soar to 5.9% and the number of short-time workers to 2.4 million. This year, the fiscal policy stabilisation measures will lead to a record deficit in the general government budget of 159 billion euro. After the shutdown, the economy will gradually recover. Accordingly, the increase in GDP next year will be strong at 5.8%. This forecast is associated with considerable downside risks, e.g. because the pandemic can be slowed faster or because the recovery of economic activity will be less successful than expected or there may be a new wave of infection.

Aim/purpose – The main aim of the present paper is to identify the problem of uncertainty and risk in research carried out by the Nobel Prize Laureates in Economic Sciences and its analysis by disciplines/sub-disciplines represented by the awarded researchers.

The aim of the paper is to identify and assess the role of economic sciences in relation to competitiveness and globalisation, two basic concepts of the market economy. This role is to explain and interpret their essence but also to determine their potential practical usefulness, primarily in the context of economic policy development. The considerations mentioned in the article are, as a rule, of a general and universal nature and do not relate especially to any particular countries or groups of countries. The basic method employed in the study is a critical analysis of the subject literature. The paper consists of an introduction, three sections, and conclusions. Section 1 contains a basic discussion of the subject of economic sciences and describes their four features: cognitive productivity, practical usefulness, dismal nature and beauty. Section 2 presents the contribution of economic sciences to understanding and interpreting the phenomenon of competitiveness. Section 3 focuses on defining and elucidating the idea of globalisation and an examination of its most important aspects. The paper ends with eight conclusions formulated on the basis of this discussion.

The article considers crises of globalization: the 1840s, the 1870s, the Great War, the Great Depression, the Great Inflation (1970s), the Global Financial Crisis (2008) and the Great Lockdown (2020). Each led to a reshaping of the institutions that supervised or regulated economic development globally but also nationally. In each case, a series of questions are answered: what were the origins of the crisis, what were the monetary and fiscal policy responses, how did the crisis affect the drivers of globalization, trade, migration and capital flows? And how did these different challenges affect governance and views of politics? The article concludes that supply shocks are most easily dealt with by inflationary mechanisms, allowing groups to gain some apparent compensation for their losses through the supply shock. But the resulting mobilization into groups also strains social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between selected ease-of-doing-business indicators and foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa. Using a panel of 45 sub-Saharan African countries covering the period 2004–2018 and the system generalized method of moments estimation technique, the paper reveals that ease-of-doing-business indicators play a significant role in attracting foreign direct investment to the sub-region. Specifically, a percentage point improvement in the ease of starting a business in sub-Saharan Africa results in a 0.79 percentage point increase in foreign direct investment. Moreover, a percentage point improvement in tax administration, coupled with the existence of an optimal tax rate, increases foreign direct investment inflows by 0.17 percentage point. This paper contributes to the empirical literature by proposing a new model that incorporates the quantitative effects of ease-of-doing-business indicators on foreign direct investment. These findings underscore the need for policymakers to operationalize business friendly policies that permit and promote private sector development in order to attract multinational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic represents a major challenge for the world economy. While a detailed longer-term diffusion path of the new virus cannot be anticipated for individual countries, one may anticipate international supply shocks and declining GDP growth in many OECD countries and China in 2020; and one should expect falling asset prices in Asia, the United States and the European Union plus the United Kingdom – except for the price of risk-free government bonds. In the course of 2020/21 the US, the EU and the UK, as well as other countries, will face both an increasing number of infected patients as well as a higher case fatality ratio. Health care expenditures in the US could increase more than in the Eurozone and the EU in the medium term, a development that undermines the international competitiveness of the United States. The analysis suggests that per capita income is a positive function of the effective trade openness and of the new Global Health Security Index indicator from the NTI/Johns Hopkins University. A rising health care-GDP ratio in the US is equivalent to a rising US export tariff. As regards the coronavirus challenge, the ratio of acute care beds to the elderly in OECD countries shows considerable variation. Due to international tourism contraction alone, output growth in the Eurozone, the US and China can be expected to fall by about 1.6% in 2020. The COVID-19 challenge for the US Trump Administration is a serious one, since the lack of experts in the Administration will become more apparent in such a systemic stress situation – and this might well affect the November 2020 US presidential election which, in turn, would itself have considerable impacts on the UK and the EU27 as well as EU-UK trade negotiations. Integrating the health care sector into macroeconomics, which should include growth analysis, is an important task. The role of health quality - and health insurance coverage - for endogenous time horizons and economic welfare, respectively, is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the co-movement and causality relationship between prices of crude oil, precious metals, and agricultural commodities. We use a novel approach called wavelet coherence analysis, which allows the measurement of co-movements in the time–frequency space based on the daily prices of commodities. We decompose data from September 1986 to September 2017 into 12 levels and 5 subperiods to find more generalized and convincing results. We confirm that commodity prices are in-phase and co-move. Particularly, the coherence is the largest in the long term and rises sharply in the mid-term during the crisis period. The heterogeneous directions of arrows provide strong evidence that the causality relationship between commodity prices varies over time for different frequencies. We find that the mixed commodities portfolio can provide diversification benefits in the mid-term horizons. The findings of this study can guide investors who want to benefit from diversification while investing in commodity markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advancements affect economic growth, income distribution and levels of unemployment. However, quantifying the pace of technological diffusion is problematic. This paper develops a new measure of technological progress by estimating the high-skill content of imports using industry-level, bilateral trade data. Intuitively, during periods of trade liberalization, a higher skill content embodied within imports will lead to a faster change in the arrival rate of new technologies. Trade accelerated since the 1980s and with that came a diffusion of new technologies into developing countries. By utilizing the industry-level trade data in conjunction with the high-skill factor content of each industry, a measure of technological diffusion is developed using a theoretically consistent gravity model. This measure is highly correlated with other measures of technological progress and provides a new data set for a large number of both developed and developing countries. How the high-skill content of imports increased is analyzed for countries across the development spectrum. This measure of technological progress is applied to income inequality. It significantly increases inequality, consistent with theoretical expectations, and provides an additional avenue in how to measure technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special Drawing Rights are reserve assets which ought to provide liquidity in times of a country's financial distress. It is a potential claim on freely usable currencies of International Monetary Fund member countries. This article examines the possible effects of a global Special Drawing Rights implementation by the International Monetary Fund in case of a collapse of one of the major currencies. The question addressed is if a distressed fiat currency can be bailed out effectively by triggering the designation mechanism to the International Monetary Fund member countries The results indicate that the liquidity benefit per created Special Drawing Rights unit would proportionally increase with the rate of money supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-examines the relationship between the liberal democracy and the free market with special regard to changes caused by globalization. It concludes that the logic of market mechanisms poses a threat to democracy, while the extension of democracy would inevitably limit the freedom of the market and curb capital accumulation. The globalized free market and liberal democracy contradict each other, and their tandem may be the most developed form of capitalism, but not of human society in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Joseph A. Schumpeter is classified as a pioneer of evolutionary economics in a wide sense and of entrepreneurship and innovation management in a narrower sense, Schumpeter is less known for his contributions in the area of scientific methodology and history of science. The paper deals with methodological premises in Schumpeter’s scientific positioning. In 1908, in his Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie, Schumpeter developed and pioneered his methodological individualism which is very much acknowledged. However, comparing these early positions with methodological writings in his History of Economic Analysis (1954) shows that he has not really shifted from methodological individualism to an institutional perspective that addresses the academic interplay and sees economic action rooted in historical predispositions, paths and social constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the pattern of settlements, investor wins and state wins in investor-state dispute settlement cases, focusing on the impact of arbitration rules, the resources and experience of the litigants, the type of treaty breach under investigation, and the pattern of state intervention. Logistic regression results show that settlements are more likely when investors do not disclose their allegations publicly, when the host state has been involved in a greater number of past cases, and when the respondent state has a higher control-of-corruption rating. Panel awards to investors are more likely in cases of alleged direct expropriation and less likely for indirect expropriation. Panel decisions favoring the state increase with higher per capita income and rule-of-law ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the interrelationships of the global macro assets is crucial for global macro investing. This paper investigates the local variance and the interconnection between the stock, gold, oil, Forex and the implied volatility markets in the time/frequency domains using the wavelet methodology, including the wavelet power spectrum, the wavelet squared coherence and phase difference, the wavelet multiple correlation and cross-correlation. The univariate analysis reveals that, in some crisis periods, underlying asset markets present the same pattern in terms of the wavelet power spectrum indicating high volatility for the medium scale, and that for the other market stress periods, volatility behaves differently. Moreover, unlike the underlying asset markets, the implied volatility markets are characterized by high power regions across the entire period, even in the absence of economic events. Bivariate results show a bidirectional relationship between the underlying assets and their corresponding implied volatility indexes, and a steady co-movement between the stock index and its corresponding fear index. Multiple correlation analysis indicates a strong correlation between markets at high scales with evidence of a nearly perfect integration for a period longer than a year. In addition, the hedging strategies based on the volatility index lead to an increase in portfolio correlation. On the other hand, the results from multiple cross-correlations reveal that the lead–lag effect starts from the medium scale and that the VIX (stock market volatility index) index is the potential leader or follower of the other markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our network analysis of 40 developed, emerging and frontier stock markets during the 2006–2014 period, we describe and model volatility spillovers during both the global financial crisis and tranquil periods. The resulting market interconnectedness is depicted by fitting a spatial model incorporating several exogenous characteristics. We document the presence of significant temporal proximity effects between markets and somewhat weaker temporal effects with regard to the US equity market — volatility spillovers decrease when markets are characterized by greater temporal proximity. Volatility spillovers also present a high degree of interconnectedness, which is measured by high spatial autocorrelation. This finding is confirmed by spatial regression models showing that indirect effects are much stronger than direct effects; i.e., market-related changes in ‘neighboring’ markets (within a network) affect volatility spillovers more than changes in the given market alone, suggesting that spatial effects simply cannot be ignored when modeling stock market relationships. Our results also link spillovers of escalating magnitude with increasing market size, market liquidity and economic openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the role of energy consumption on environmental degradation under multivariate framework for emerging and frontier Asian markets. We have included CO 2 emission, GDP and population growth with energy consumption as additional determinants of environmental degradation. The application of panel unit root test suggests non-stationary properties of included variables however we report significant co-integration among these variables. Furthermore, presence of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) was detected using the application of fully modified OLS and dynamic OLS. Level of energy consumption tends to increase environmental degradation thereby confirming the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH). Bidirectional causality was also observed between CO 2 emission and economic growth. Results of this study are variable to different countries and present sound economic policy implications for the improvement of environmental standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Chinese leaders endeavor to maintain the international environment aligned with their strategic aim of realizing the 'dream of national rejuvenation,' the remarkable increase in China's capabilities, coupled with uncertainty in the global economy and the ambivalent attitude of the USA toward the international order, poses fresh challenges to Beijing's foreign policy. The present paper argues that a lexicographic preference for the mitigation of the risk of pushback against China's core interests underpins the Belt and Road Initiative. Pursuing a strategy of credible reassurance commensurate to the shift in the distribution of power in China's neighborhood and globally, President Xi Jinping's administration has been cultivating a form of connective leadership that commits China to the encapsulation of the Belt and Road Initiative for transregional connectivity into its own national development strategy, generating an octroyé, non-hegemonic, type of international social capital, and integrating the existing order without corroborating the position of its founder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific research contributes to sustainable economic growth environments. Hence, policy-makers should understand how the different inputs-namely labor and capital-are related to a country's scientific output. This paper addresses this issue by estimating output elasticities for labor and capital using a panel of 31 countries in nine years. Due to the nature of scientific output, we also use spatial econometric models to take into account the spillover effects from knowledge produced as well as labor and capital. The results show that capital elasticity is closer to the labor elasticity. The results suggest a decreasing return to scale production of scientific output. The spatial model points to negative spillovers from capital expenditure and no spillovers from labor or the scientific output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

the purpose of this paper is to show how the intromission of the Investigation Development and Innovation (I&D&I) model has changed the structure of the international trade. During the first decade of the 21st Century, most of the goods exported come from the creativity and technological development as variables of endogenous production. The countries that lead the investments in I&D&I have not only achieved better internationalization but also great success in transforming comparative advantages into competitive ones; such is the case of countries in the UE, Asia and the U.S that lead the worldwide exportation rates.

The focus of this paper is to evaluate similarities and differences between and within three regions: Africa, Asia, and Latin America/Caribbean. The five variables used (per capita GDP, remittances, openness, capital/labor ratio and freedom) broadly classify economic growth in these regions. For each of the five variables the null hypothesis is that the means of the three regions are equal. One-way analysis of variances is the tool of choice. Furthermore, the full samples are employed to test equality of the means between the three regions and all regions. The results show substantial gaps between the groups as well as factors under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Internet impacts trade in education. Divided into three time frames – 2000 to 2006, 2007 to 2012 and 2000 to 2012, data on 189 countries was used to compare the impact of different intensities of the Internet access on trade in education. This research uses the following methods to analyse data: pooled ordinary least squares regression, fixed-effects model and random effects model. Results suggest that the Internet facilitates trade in education, the impact of which is between 16.4% and 21% for every 0.01% increase in Internet access. Larger countries and countries that share a common language show a highly significant impact of the Internet on trade in education for all three time frames at 0.01%. However, economic health of a country does not necessarily imply greater trade. This study finds mixed results for fixed (wired) broadband over the three time frames. The results explain between 63.2% and 74.9% of the impact of the Internet on trade in education. Finally, the results of this study strongly suggest that improving Internet access in a country will stimulate trade in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth in China's domestic investment in recent decades has generated a large appetite for global goods, including from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper estimates the impact of changes in China's investment growth on SSA's exports. Although rising trading links with China have allowed African countries to diversify their export base across countries away from advanced economies, they have also led SSA countries to become more susceptible to spillovers from China. Based on panel data analysis, a one percentage point increase (decline) in China's domestic investment growth is associated with an average 0.6 percentage point increase (decline) in SSA countries' export growth. This impact is larger for resource-rich countries, especially oil exporters. These effects could be mitigated, however, to the extent that countries can reorient their exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interconnectedness of financial deepening and income inequality has been a highly controversial discussion which has not been concluded despite many empirical and theoretical studies up to date. One of the basic building blocks for many research designs is the reliance upon the Kuznets inverted U-shaped curve which postulates that in the first phase of economic growth income inequality increases, peaks and then decreases to a tolerable level in the later phase after a certain income level had been attained. The role of financial deepening in financing economic growth is an indispensable and necessary condition enabling us to easily draw an analogy between financial deepening and income inequality in a financial version of the Kuznets curve. In spite of 30 years of economic and financial reforms in China, which represents a fairly young history of economic growth and development, there are many indicators that Chinese experience significantly deviates from the presupposed inverted U-shaped curve trajectory and its final equalizing effect. This paper relies on financial deepening data measured by monetary aggregate M2/GDP and domestic banking credit/GDP ratios in its claim that they significantly correlate with rising income inequality. The author’s intention consists not in claiming that financial deepeningper secauses income inequality, but provides a political economy analysis of the specific institutional and power configuration which leads to their positive relationship. This configuration is determined by the prevailing banking model, thehukousystem, financial repression and the decentralized authoritarian system. On the other hand, the absence of inequality-narrowing institutitons further aggravate the problem. All the aforementioned factors are geared at avoiding mechanical and spurious claims that financial deepening increases or decreases income inequality across countries. A historical institutionalism approach to explain China’s path related to the Kuznets curve prediction shows the central validity of open and inclusive institutions in generating inequality-narrowing benefits of financial deepening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article uses the case study of coffee, tea and cocoa to analyse whether tariff escalation constitutes a barrier to market access that thwarts diversification efforts of developing countries into exports of value-added agricultural processed products. It also examines the extent to which non-tariff barriers act as market access barriers that constrain developing countries from developing their exports of agricultural processed products. Our analysis shows that tariff escalation is not the main barrier; rather it is the prevalence of non-tariff barriers (including domestic non-tariff barriers) that limits the ability of developing countries to increase their agricultural processed exports. This has important policy implications in terms of the emphasis that trade negotiators and policy planners should place on addressing non-tariff barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]