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This study aims to analyze the impact of ICT, renewable energy consumption, and financial development on CO 2 emissions in selected developing countries of East and South Asia. Using panel data spanning 1985-2020, Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator is used to analyze the short-run and long-run effects. Results suggest that ICT and financial development positively contribute to the degradation of the environment in the long run, while their impact on CO 2 emissions is insignificant in the short run. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption affects environmental quality positively in both the long run and short run. It is also examined that economic growth affects CO 2 emissions positively but the squared economic growth reduces CO 2 emissions which validates inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis. The empirical findings of the Granger Causality test suggest unidirectional causality from ICT and financial development to CO 2 emissions, while a bi-directional relationship is found among renewable energy and CO 2 emissions. Results imply that governments in these countries need to invest in renewable energy to control environmental degradation., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the nexus between natural resources, gross capital formation, globalization, and economic growth in the developing countries from European, Asian, African, and American continents. It adopted the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) approach to test this relationship for the period from 1980 to 2018. Results suggest that natural resources and globalization have a positive impact on economic growth in European, Asian, and American countries, while capital formation negatively affects growth. In African countries, the effect of globalization and gross capital formation is positive, but natural resources have a negative impact on GDP. Evidence from all continents illustrate that there is bidirectional causality between globalization and economic growth. Also, there is bidirectional causality detected between capital formation and growth in Europe and Asia and between natural resources and growth in Asia and America, while there is unidirectional causality from GDP to natural resources in Europe, from capital formation to GDP in Africa and America, from GDP to natural resources in Europe, and from natural resources to GDP in America. Based on these results, it can be said that new growth models can no longer be independent of natural resource rents and globalization., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature.)

This article provides an update on the global cancer burden using the GLOBOCAN 2020 estimates of cancer incidence and mortality produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Worldwide, an estimated 19.3 million new cancer cases (18.1 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) and almost 10.0 million cancer deaths (9.9 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer) occurred in 2020. Female breast cancer has surpassed lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer, with an estimated 2.3 million new cases (11.7%), followed by lung (11.4%), colorectal (10.0 %), prostate (7.3%), and stomach (5.6%) cancers. Lung cancer remained the leading cause of cancer death, with an estimated 1.8 million deaths (18%), followed by colorectal (9.4%), liver (8.3%), stomach (7.7%), and female breast (6.9%) cancers. Overall incidence was from 2-fold to 3-fold higher in transitioned versus transitioning countries for both sexes, whereas mortality varied <2-fold for men and little for women. Death rates for female breast and cervical cancers, however, were considerably higher in transitioning versus transitioned countries (15.0 vs 12.8 per 100,000 and 12.4 vs 5.2 per 100,000, respectively). The global cancer burden is expected to be 28.4 million cases in 2040, a 47% rise from 2020, with a larger increase in transitioning (64% to 95%) versus transitioned (32% to 56%) countries due to demographic changes, although this may be further exacerbated by increasing risk factors associated with globalization and a growing economy. Efforts to build a sustainable infrastructure for the dissemination of cancer prevention measures and provision of cancer care in transitioning countries is critical for global cancer control., (© 2021 American Cancer Society.)

This paper examines the conditional effectiveness of foreign aid for economic growth. Theoretically, I argue that to maximize the chance to stay in office, the leaders of a large winning coalition will spend the aid money as intended, to provide public goods, which aids economic growth. On the other hand, leaders of a small winning coalition will spend the money on private goods, which is less effective for growth. To test this argument, I construct a panel data set for 28 Asian countries (1990-2010) and apply the generalized method of moments. I find that the interaction between ODA and coalition size significantly affects economic growth. Broadly, for large winning coalitions, growth rate increases with higher ODA, while for small winning coalitions it decreases with higher ODA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground source heat pumps (GSHP) are a very efficient system for space heating and cooling, and it was established in 1904. GSHPs can minimize the environmental effect of buildings by using the ground as a renewable energy source. The ground will act as a heat sink or heat source. The research collection aims at finding the various possible opportunities for the effective integration of shallow geothermal energy (SGE) to decrease the fossil energy in the built environment and to reduce emission associated with it. The direct utilization of SGE using a ground source heat pump (GSHP) has been reviewed in detail for global north and global south countries, with a primary focus on heating application. The punctual information of results of various authors have been extensively summarized. This review discusses the GSHP installation status, SGE availability, GSHP system simulation, feasibilities, and performance. Worldwide more than one million GSHP systems have been installed, and the system is prevalent in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Most of the systems are installed for heating-dominated buildings in the global north. This paper also contains the research details pertaining to the last two decades about refrigerants and compressors for the development of GSHP. Finally, the feasibility study and the performance of the GSHP unit for different climatic conditions are reviewed and it is found that the technique is more feasible for cold and dry climatic conditions. This paper highlights the recent research findings and a potential gap in the above components for further research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a multifaceted global health problem disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The Capturing data on Antimicrobial resistance Patterns and Trends in Use in Regions of Asia (CAPTURA) project was tasked to expand the volume of AMR and antimicrobial use data in Asia. The CAPTURA project used 2 data-collection streams: facility data and project metadata. Project metadata constituted information collected to map out data sources and assess data quality, while facility data referred to the retrospective data collected from healthcare facilities. A down-selection process, labelled "the funnel approach" by the project, was adopted to use the project metadata in prioritizing and selecting laboratories for retrospective AMR data collection. Moreover, the metadata served as a guide for understanding the AMR data once they were collected. The findings from CAPTURA's metadata add to the current discourse on the limitation of AMR data in LMICs. There is generally a low volume of AMR data generated as there is a lack of microbiology laboratories with sufficient antimicrobial susceptibility testing capacity. Many laboratories in Asia are still capturing data on paper, resulting in scattered or unused data not readily accessible or shareable for analyses. There is also a lack of clinical and epidemiological data captured, impeding interpretation and in-depth understanding of the AMR data. CAPTURA's experience in Asia suggests that there is a wide spectrum of capacity and capability of microbiology laboratories within a country and region. As local AMR surveillance is a crucial instrument to inform context-specific measures to combat AMR, it is important to understand and assess current capacity-building needs while implementing activities to enhance surveillance systems., Competing Interests: Potential conflicts of interest. A. Clark reports receiving funds for their institution from the CAPTURA grant. A. T. A. reports being an employee of Brigham and Women's Hospital since September 2022 and a consultant since 2021 and working as a consultant for the CAPTURA project from September 2021 to March 2022. A. S. reports receiving compensation from the Public Health Surveillance Group. W. M. reports receiving financial support from the International Vaccine Group, UKAID, and a subgrant for CAPTURA work. B. D. reports receiving compensation from the Public Health Surveillance Group. D. M. A. reports receiving financial support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on genomic surveillance of AMR and the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance. J. S. reports a subcontract for salary support and travel from the International Vaccine Institute. E. E. reports being a consultant with the International Vaccine Institute since April 2021 and staff and consulting funds from the WHO WPRO, ABD, FHI, and UNICEF. P. G. reports receiving compensation from the Public Health Surveillance Group. All other authors report no potential conflicts. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America.)

This paper analyzes the total trade openness, goods trade openness and service trade openness of developing countries with different incomes in Asia. After that, the relationship between trade and economic growth is analyzed in a cycle from 2004 to 2020. A total of 663 sample sizes from 39 countries were used for the fixed-effect regression analysis of the development of Asian countries; at the same time, income levels were divided into low-middle-income countries, high-middle-income countries, and high-income countries to distinguish the economic impact of trade openness at different income levels. growth impact. Countries and high-income countries are returning independently. The results show that the total openness of product and service trade in emerging countries at different income levels has a positive impact on economic growth. Therefore, on the basis of the regression results, this paper puts forward targeted economic suggestions in combination with developing countries with different income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on public attitudes to the death penalty has been predominantly understood through single nation-states, especially within the USA. Examinations of international differences in citizens' support for the death penalty have been scarce, particularly among continents with a high volume of retentionist nations (e.g. Asia). In this paper, we draw on a dataset of 135,000 people from across 81 nations to examine differences in death penalty support. We find that residents of retentionist nations are generally more supportive of the death penalty than those from abolitionist nations. But this general difference masks important differences both within and between countries. At the country-level, residents of abolitionist nations with autocratic political systems and those with higher homicide levels were more likely to support the death penalty than residents of other abolitionist nations. At the individual level, greater support for a strong dictatorial-type leader and perceptions of political corruption are associated with increased support for the death penalty, but only in abolitionist nations. By contrast, more frequent religious worship, perceived egalitarianism in a nation, and support for the political performance of government reduced death penalty support in abolitionist nations but increased support in retentionist nations, while belief in individual responsibility and critical views towards ethnic minorities increased support for the death penalty across both abolitionist and retentionist nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As of 1997, less than one-third of developing countries included rubella vaccine in their national immunization programme. In countries that have achieved high coverage of measles vaccine, an ideal opportunity exists to include control of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) in enhanced measles control activities. Data on the burden of congenital rubella syndrome are important to guide rubella vaccination policies., Methods: We reviewed the literature to identify studies of rubella antibody prevalence in developing countries that were conducted on populations with no major selection bias, prior to wide-scale rubella vaccination in the country. We used a simple catalytic model to describe the age-specific prevalence of susceptibility to rubella virus infection in given populations. Estimates of the incidence of infection among pregnant women were calculated using expressions for the average prevalence of susceptibility to infection and the incidence of infection during gestation. To estimate the number of cases of CRS, we assumed an overall risk of 65% after infection in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy and zero risk thereafter. These estimates were derived for each country for which data were available, then for each World Health Organization region, excluding Europe., Results: The estimated mean incidence of CRS per 100,000 live births was lowest in the Eastern Mediterranean region (77.4, range 0-212) and highest in the Americas (175, range 0-598). The mean of the estimates of the total number of cases of CRS in developing countries in 1996 was approximately 110,000. The range was, however, very wide, from as few as 14,000 to as many as 308,000 cases., Conclusions: Congenital rubella syndrome is an under-recognized public health problem in many developing countries. There is an urgent need for collection of appropriate data to estimate the cost-effectiveness of a potential global rubella control programme.

Objective: The objective of this paper was to analyze the bidirectional relationship between financial development and economic growth for a dataset of Latin American and Asian developing countries between 2001 and 2019. Method: This research employed an empirical approach to analyze the statistical relationship between financial development and economic growth, by presenting an estimation of a system of simultaneous equations for a panel of Asian and Latin American countries using 3SLS. Main Results: The results presented in this research provided evidence that financial development does not appear to have a significant impact on economic growth, although growth appears to have a significant and positive influence on financial development. Moreover, the results also suggested that regulatory quality and domestic credit directed to the private sector have a positive effect on economic growth, while urbanization and education showed a negative influence on growth. The estimated model also indicated that urbanization has a positive influence on financial development while foreign direct investment presented a negative effect on the development of the financial sector. Relevance / Originality: Most of the research agenda on the topic of finance and growth has focused on identifying correlation or causality between these variables, with little attention given to the simultaneous relationship between them. This is still a clear gap in economic literature. Following this premise, the objective of this paper was to analyze the bidirectional relationship between financial development and growth by estimating a system of simultaneous equations using the Zellner and Theil’s (1962) 3SLS methodology. In this sense, the main contribution will be given empirically, based on data and analysis from emerging countries in Latin America and Asia. The fact that financial development has an influence on growth and growth plays a role on the development of the financial sector indicates a simultaneous relationship between these variables. Another relevant contribution is to update the debate on financial systems and economic development for emerging countries, highlighting institutional aspects and financial cycles. Theoretical / Methodological Contributions: The main contribution of this study is in the empirical strategy, whose results dialogue with part of the literature on the financial system and development presented along the text. That is, this research explored the statistical relationship between economic development and financial development for a sample composed by twenty-two Asian and Latin American emerging countries, using a simultaneous equations model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how business founders influence the performance of family firms in developing countries in Asia. Design/methodology/approach: The pooled ordinary least squares regression is used on a sample of 134 public listed family firms from four developing countries in Asia during the period 2004–2014. This study also conducts sub-period analyses where the study period is divided into three sub-periods, i.e. before, during and after the global financial crisis (GFC). Findings: This study finds that founder-led family firms outperform family firms led by nonfounders for the full study period. The results for the sub-period analyses also show that founder-led family firms outperform nonfounder-led family firms for the pre-crisis and during crisis periods. Finally, this study finds no evidence supporting the superior performance of founder-led family firms post-GFC. Originality/value: Because family firm is one of the most fundamental forms of business organization in the world, policymakers have great concerns about how business founders influence the performance of these firms. Nonetheless, the existing research on family firms is chiefly concentrated on developed countries but there is a paucity of studies being conducted in the context of developing countries. Moreover, previous research has only considered the performance of these firms during normal or turbulent times but no prior studies have compared the firm performance during normal, turbulent and recovery periods. It is the aim of this paper to address these research gaps by using a new and more recent set of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of economic globalization, the internationalization trend of energy security issues has become increasingly prominent. This paper adopts the natural discontinuity grading method to classify the energy security status of 102 countries into five categories: Best, Better, Good, Poor and Worse types; reveals the dynamic evolution characteristics and main formation mechanisms of world energy security; and puts forward the game focus of future energy geopolitics. The results show that: (1) during 1995-2019, global energy security presents local turbulence and an overall "J" shaped trend; (2) the global energy security pattern coincides with the international geopolitical order. The countries with the "Best" energy security are found in Western Europe and North America while the countries with "Poor" or "Worse" energy security are located in Asia and the less developed regions of Africa; (3) the main reason why developed economies have better energy security is due to their high energy use efficiency, while developing countries lag behind mainly because of their lower innovation capacity, lower productivity and lower disposable income; and (4) the global energy security landscape is expected to be affected by the changing US-China relationship, coercive energy transition and the uncertainty of the political environment.

It is argued in this paper that agriculture plays a here-to-for unrecognized role in the process of structural change. In very poor countries agriculture is the key sector in the economy and agricultural prices greatly influence the overall price level in such an economy. It is hypothesized that if agricultural productivity grows faster than manufacturing productivity this will, under certain conditions, cause the price of the former to fall relative to the latter which in turn implies that the overall price level in the economy should fall, ceteris paribus. This results in a fall in the real effective exchange rate, ceteris paribus. This decline increases the competitiveness of producing tradable goods, in particular manufactured goods. Thus the process of structural change (shifting employment and resources out of agriculture) becomes easier. These hypotheses are empirically analyzed utilizing a data set for twelve Asian countries for an extended time period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, inequality has been rising in Europe, North America and parts of Asia. How does our understanding of global inequality dynamics change if coverage is extended to the rest of the developing world? To rebalance the perspective on global inequality trends, this paper surveys data and literature on recent inequality trends in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It finds that in these regions there are more countries with falling than rising inequality over the past 20 years, as measured by Ginis of income or consumption inequality. At the global level, therefore, there are signs of inequality convergence, as inequality has been falling in countries with high inequality in the 1990s (particularly Latin America), and rising in historically low-inequality countries. We discuss the political and economic drivers of inequality decline in countries with a steady fall in the Gini. This suggests some common trends across the globe, including the role of democratisation, the rise of new social movements, and the expansion of education and social safety nets and favourable commodity prices, in reducing income disparities. This paper calls for more country-level comparisons of inequality trends, to highlight the multiplicity of paths in this latest phase of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar cooking is one of the significant applications of solar thermal conversion systems. In some of the developing countries of Asia and Africa, firewood was the only cooking option. Hence, outdoor solar cookers have gained popularity in such places due to household air pollution caused by the former. With the onset of urbanization, few developing countries have adopted kerosene, coal, and liquified petroleum gas in place of firewood, which in turn leads to the emission of harmful gases in the kitchen. On the other side, solar cooking has poor social acceptance in developed countries as it is an outdoor activity i.e. under the sun. Hence, a detailed review concerning the outdoor (in general) and indoor (in specific) solar cookers have been presented in part I of this paper: "Sustainable mechanism to popularize round-the-clock indoor solar cooking – Part I: Global status." It reveals the importance of indoor solar cooking and the dearth of relevant experimental and numerical studies. Such a system is also essential to popularize solar cooking in developed countries (wherein electric cookers have already gained momentum). Hence, the present study proposes a passive indoor solar cooking system that can perform round-the-clock indoor cooking. The hypothesis of the proposed passive indoor solar cooking system, which is based on a coupled natural circulation system, is experimentally investigated with relevant assumptions. It yields the desired output and can perform efficiently without heat input, replicating off-sunshine hour cooking. Later, the experimental results are used to validate a numerical model (Ansys Fluent), which is further extended to replicate a practical system. Upon defining the appropriate boundary conditions, the numerical results depicted repetitive boiling (1 l of water for nine times) in the time range of 680–1500 s with heat load (daytime operation) and 700–1000 s without heat load (replicates off-sunshine hour cooking). Thus, the focused design is quite feasible, and with further recommendations being invoked, the evolution of a sustainable mechanism for round-the-clock indoor solar cooking is apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have investigated the association between health status and economic growth, between health status and international trade. Advancing on earlier work, this paper incorporates unemployment rate, population growth rate, income inequality, institutional indicators and indicators related to infrastructure along with growth and trade indicators, and uses dynamic panel technique in order to find the behavior of population health status in developing nations. The present study aims to provide new evidence regarding health status determinants and how they are related to the population health status in developing countries. This study is provided new evidence on this relationship for 51 developing countries during the period 1980-2018. Apart from this, we have tested the sensitivity of the estimates in our empirical analysis using three clusters of countries, namely, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Overall, our results suggest that improvement of health status can be achieved from either an increase in per capita income or from the perspective of international trade or in the presence of strong institution and better health infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After adopting the Paris Agreement, many countries (including developing countries) have started to develop targets aimed at achieving net-zero emissions to realize a "decarbonized society" in response to the 1.5 °C target. Effective plans and actions need to be urgently developed on how to achieve the ambitious targets associated with these targets, but not many countries have developed long-term strategies to achieve net zero emissions. The Asia–Pacific Integrated Model (AIM) team has been working with researchers and policymakers in Japan and other Asian countries to develop a long-term strategy toward a decarbonized society. Asia is a region with diverse countries, and there are many different pathways to achieve decarbonized societies. This paper presents the process of developing a long-term strategy for several Asian countries based on our experiences to date and discusses challenges and solutions, including how to use the AIM models in the policy-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a model for how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic output in developing countries can be assessed with a new approach. Existing models lack sectoral granularity in developing countries, which can, however, be obtained through inputoutput modelling by changing the social accounting matrix to simulate a COVID-19 economy. Results have been estimated for 65 sectors and 141 regions which correspond to the Global Trade Analysis Project's data. The analyses showed that the average impact in Africa and Asia on industry output is -2.6 per cent and -2.9 per cent, respectively. It is estimated that tourism and services are the most heavily impacted sectors, between -15 per cent and -19 per cent for hospitality, recreation, and other service activities, and between -4 per cent and -7 per cent for transport services. The model is a first attempt at estimating impact at this level of granularity per country and sector, which by triangulation with empirical data can be used to make substantiated management or policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the levels and trajectories of physical rehabilitation needs across five resource-poor world regions, against global and key country-specific benchmarks. This comparative, secondary cross-region analysis uses data from the Global Burden of Diseases study 2017 [1990–2017], specifically varied metrics of the Years Lived with Disability (YLD) measure from the health conditions likely benefiting from physical rehabilitation. All the resource-poor world regions had significant increases (p < 0.01) in the absolute, relative, and percentage of physical rehabilitation needs [1990–2017]. Nonetheless, The Asia-Pacific region stood out with the greatest YLD Rates (i.e., per population size) in 2017, the greatest growth in YLD Rates since 1990 (38%), and an exponential growth in the rehabilitation-sensitive YLD Rates. The Asia-Pacific region also had the greatest portion of their YLDs coming from rehabilitation-sensitive conditions (72% in 2017), closely followed by the Latin America & Caribbean (67%). Nonetheless, in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, we observed the greatest percent increases in the portion of physical rehabilitation needs among all YLDs, out of lower initial values. An overall growth but differential patterns were observed in the evolution of physical rehabilitation needs across the resource-poor world regions. Asia-Pacific and Latin America & Caribbean regions had over than two-thirds of their non-fatal health loss arising from conditions sensitive to physical rehabilitation, and important growths in rehabilitation need indicators have been observed also for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The scale-up and strengthening of rehabilitation services and resources should be informed by needs-based data. The needs-based data from this study can inform trans-national developments and the planning of rehabilitation resources, inclusively at the world-region level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts the nexus between immigration and over-education to an updated test, capitalizing on the authors' access to rich Belgian matched employer-employee data for the period 1999–2010. These data enable the authors to i) measure over-education with higher precision, ii) examine the heterogeneous effects of workers' birth countries, and iii) test the role of key moderators. Using ordered probit estimates, the authors highlight that workers born in developing countries (especially in Asia and North Africa) are much more likely to be over-educated than their opposite numbers born in developed countries. However, the results also show that this gap in over-education is entirely driven by tertiary-educated workers. Gender-based differences in immigrants' penalties, in contrast, are found to be quite modest overall. In line with statistical discrimination, results further show that tenure has a moderating effect on the likelihood for immigrants born in developing countries to be over-educated and that citizenship acquisition is also associated with improved job matches for those immigrants. Finally, regarding the role of firm characteristics, the authors find that the likelihood for immigrants from developing countries to be over-educated is significantly smaller in bigger firms and when working conditions are collectively renegotiated at the firm level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the empirical literature on financial market contagion in Asia during the 1997-98 financial crises with respect to existing tests of contagion. Empirical evidence shows that contagion affects both developed and emerging markets and does not seem to vary with the relative fundamental economic health or trade and financial linkages of the Asian economies. Contagion occurs across both asset types and geographical borders and tends to have larger effects in equity markets than in currency and bond markets. There is evidence to support the hypothesis that contagion is regional and transmitted through developed markets. A discussion of the behavior of correlation coefficients in the presence of contagion and financial crises suggests that they are not a reliable metric for detecting contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of Aid for Trade has been widely discussed since the WTO launched the aid for trade initiative in 2005. Using a comprehensive panel data from 143 developing countries provided by the OECD, this research assesses the effect of Aid for Trade policy and regulation on exports. To observe regional implications, the independent variables were interacted with regional dummies. Empirical findings show that Aid for Trade in trade policy and regulation has a significant positive effect on the exports of Asian countries. After looking at transition economies in Asia, this paper suggests that aid for trade policy and regulation such as government led initiatives can have a positive effect on the trade performance and regional integration of transition economies in the Greater Mekong Subregion or the CLMV Countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualising giving as a broad category encompassing philanthropy, charity, humanitarian aid and gifts, this Special Issue brings together researchers whose ethnographic and theoretical work examine different forms of transnational giving in the historical and contemporary Global South. In this Issue we contend that the Global South should not be seen as a passive recipient of these transnational welfare-oriented giving but as the site where their full social and religious meanings and moral obligations are actively realised or constructed. Through nuanced ethnographic and multi-sited research across Asia, Africa, and North America, articles in this Issue explore how the transnational scale of operability attaches newer meanings to belonging even as it shapes the subjectivities of actors and communities (givers and receivers) partaking in this process. We explore how gifts travel spatially and histories of transnational giving have contributed to the framing of communal histories, cementing of global connections and the creation of relationships of dependency as well as forging of new transnational solidarities. Moreover, we investigate how transnational giving also inflects the relationship between citizens and the state and (re)shapes national political communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-movement (synchronicity) in food-inflation rates among emerging and developing countries in Asia is partly due to common rainfall shocks – a result which the paper terms the 'monsoon effect'. Economies with higher trade integration and co-movement in nominal effective exchange rates also experience greater food-inflation co-movement. In the context of the growing literature on the globalization of inflation, these results suggest that common weather patterns are partly responsible for any role played by a so-called 'global factor' among inflation rates in emerging and developing economies, in Asia at least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper analyses the association between participation in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and structural change as measured by the reallocation of labor towards sectors with higher productivity levels and growth rates. • The analysis looks into 40 Developing Economies (DEs) from the regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America during the period 1993–2015. • The evidence so far does not indicate any significant association between participation in GVC-related trade and growth-enhancing structural change in DEs. • Rather, we find some weak evidence suggesting that participation in GVC might be associated with the increasing concentration of labor in sectors experiencing declining productivity growth rates/ and or falling share of employment in sectors experiencing positive productivity growth rates in DEs. Multiple studies on economic transition have argued that participation in Global Value Chains (GVCs) can facilitate the process of structural transformation in developing economies by reallocating labor from less productive to more productive sectors. However, there is a dearth of empirical work investigating the claim. We analyze forty countries from the regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America over the period 1993–2015 to explore the relationship between GVC participation and structural transformation in developing economies. We do not find any significant association between participation in GVCs and structural transformation, as measured by the reallocation of labor towards sectors with higher productivity levels. Rather, we find some evidence that participation in GVCs might be associated with the increasing concentration of labor in sectors experiencing declining productivity growth and /or falling employment in sectors witnessing positive productivity growth, thus contributing towards hindering the process of successful structural transformation in developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]