Search

This research aims to quantify the linear and non-linear relationship between debt and economic growth in selected developing economies. Based on theoretical arguments and annual data considerations in modelling the debt and growth as a complex relationship across countries, our panel methodology is based on the fixed effect technique. Our core finding indicates that government debt lowers the GDP in selected developing economies. We also find that the urban population is a key factor that improves economic growth. Moreover, government expenditures on health and industrialization are helpful to enhance the growth of the economies. Our study also suggests increased exports, industrial development, and investment in education for growth. We also propose certain supporting strategies to reduce the adverse effects of debt-growth relation in the considered economies. Given developing economies’ status, the prerequisite for broad, dynamic and rule-based debt policy is of paramount importance, ensuring the factual choices among numerous possibilities, addressing financial constraints and ensuring intergenerational welfare impact.

Education and health are considered a cornerstone for obtaining targeted development in any society. Moreover, both sectors promote prosperity greatly. In this changeable epoch, people are thought out as the real wealth of any nation and this wealth with good human capital serves the economy very efficiently and productively. This research study aims to analyse how Development Assistance Committee (DAC) aid commitment for education along with institutional quality is effective for the human development of selected Asian economies. A panel data set over 2011–2018 is used for this analysis in Asian countries. GMM results show a significant and positive relationship between aid commitment for education and the human development of these economies. A more interesting result is that financial development seems to boost up human deployment in the selected Asian economies. The development of the textile industry is significantly influenced by education, especially considering the effects of OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Aid Commitments for education on human development in Asian countries. There is a dire need to reconsider more allocation of resources and aid to education and health to utilize these inflows at the maximum level for targeted development.

The main aim of this research paper is to examine the linkage between safety training, safety rules and procedures, safety performance and protection against hazards in Pakistani construction companies related to its effects on the textile industry. The primary responsibility of the organization is to provide a safe workplace to the workers where workers do their work safely. The current study examines the relationship between safety training, safety rules & procedures and safety performance. A total of 450 workers from 15 companies participated in the study. A questionnaire survey was used to collect the data. The findings revealed that both safety training and safety rules and procedure were significantly and positively associated with safety compliance. The results propose that construction companies should give proper training to their worker in order to avoid any bad incidents. Similarly, adequate safety rules and procedures are essential for a safer work environment. The textile industry is a very important sector in Pakistan with a significant impact on employment and the labour market.

This paper investigates the benefits of forming an internationally diversified portfolio in the stock markets of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan using the stock market indices data from April 2013 to March 2020. The portfolio comprises of three stock market indices from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The goal is to identify financial opportunities for traditional clothing industry in South Asia. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are neighbouring countries in South Asia. Tradition, culture and specific ethnic elements influence traditional clothing in the case of the selected country cluster consisting of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Our empirical results indicate that internationally diversified portfolio does not reduce the risk due to global market integration in the background. Furthermore, ARCH and GARCH models reveal that large change in conditional variance is followed by large changes in conditional variance whereas small change in conditional variance is followed by small changes in conditional variance.

This research study explores the diversification opportunity among 18 European stock market indices for the sample period from January 2001 to December 2019. However, financial education plays an important role in the development of the textile industry, considering the dynamics of the companies listed on the European stock exchanges. The correlation matrix, pairwise cointegration and Johansen cointegration reveal that selected 18 European stock market indices do not reduces the portfolio risk because exhibit higher positive correlation among them, and their movement pulsed in tandem. Potential investors are attracted by high investment opportunities in order to maximize their return based on portfolio diversification. Financial education can effectively contribute to the sustainable growth of the textile industry in Europe. This empirical research provides an integrated perspective on the long-term evolution of certain major European stock exchange indices. The findings have significant implications for investors interested in selecting these European stock indices in order to diversify their portfolio risk. Our study also imply that selected stock indices have been strongly affected by similar political and financial belies across Europe thus, eliminating the possibility of portfolio risk diversification.

This empirical study investigates the leverage effect in six Eastern European countries under normal and non-normaldistribution densities for the sample period from January 2020 to August 2020. We find three countries, Bulgaria, CzechRepublic and Russia which are subject to ARCH effect whereas Poland, Romania and Hungary do not exhibit ARCHeffect in daily stock returns. Further, our study finds leverage effect, where past bad news affects is asymmetrical, pastnegative returns cause more volatility in current stock returns as compared to past positive returns, in three EasternEuropean countries. Based on the AIC and BIC model selection criteria we find that the non-normal student t-distributionand GED produce reliable estimates for Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Poland, respectively. The autocorrelation functionQ1 statistic confirms the insignificance of autocorrelation in residuals of TGARCH model. The impact of stock marketdynamics on other industries, such as pharmaceutical industry, textile and clothing industry, automotive industry issignificant, especially in the conditions of COVID-19 pandemic

Following the work of Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart (1997), Signals Extraction Approach has been adopted with some extensions for South-East Asian (SEA) region to investigate the performance of the technique as an Early Warning System (EWS) during Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) and Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This approach is very original in the context of investigating the impact on the dynamics of the textile industry in South-East Asia. Two additional approaches namely Signal to Noise Balance (STNB) and Kuipers Score (KS) have also been utilised. Outcome suggested that variables performed well both during AFC and GFC. However, predictive ability of variables was less during GFC compared to the AFC indicating that there may exist some complex phenomenon which requires composite statistical methods.

This study has attempted to investigate the consequences of CO2 emissions on infants’ health in Pakistan over the period of 1975 to 2013. Several economic factors have been employed in our analysis and the estimates show insignificant impact of CO2 emissions in affecting children mortality. Increasing health facilities lowers children mortality over a short period were also observed but the relationship inversed in the long-run. In short-run, urbanization appeared as a decreasing factor to children mortality. While income inequality remains inversely related with children mortality. Both poverty and fertility are found enhancing factors to children deaths. The poor sector of the economy seemed to observe higher children mortality due to inadequate health facilities and low standards of living. Overall, we have observed greater impact of economic factors in explaining children mortality than CO2 emissions in case of Pakistan. These issues have a significant impact on the representative industries in Pakistan, such as the cotton textile and traditional clothing industry (apparel manufacturing).

COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the economies around the world and the economic fallout from preventive measures such as lockdown is enormous. It has massive repercussions for the sharing economy as well. This research paper empirically analyses the impact of lockdown restrictions on five major sectors of the sharing economy such as ride-hailing, accommodation, freelance work, entertainment and delivery services. To evaluate this impact, we employed the difference-in-difference estimation technique using the Google trends data for selected countries. Daily search data of 2019 and 2020 is reindexed to examine the change in search patterns that occurred after lockdown. The empirical results show that transportation and accommodation sectors are negatively impacted by COVID-19 related lockdown while the other sectors of the sharing economy such as freelance work, streaming services and online deliveries are seeing a surge in searches. The findings of this study provide vital insights into the economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 related lockdown. We have highlighted the sectors that are booming during pandemic thus the sharing economy platforms and government have opportunities to invest in these sectors to jump-start the economy. The recently unemployed gig workers can also be employed in these sectors to address the problem of unemployment.

Local apparel and textile manufacturing industry in Taiwan is a sector of great importance for sustainable economicgrowth. A stock market is an effective barometer indicating the economic health of a country and Taiwan is a case evenmore special. However, is Taiwan a black swan phenomenon for local apparel and textile manufacturing industryconsidering its economic growth and financial perspectives? In addition to existing literature, this research articleprovides a new robust nonlinear regression-based model for stock exchange prediction for Taiwan stock market. Thefinancial data series used for the econometric analysis include the period from January 2000 to July 2018 for 13 mainstock markets from countries all around the globe, such as: Taiwan, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Canada, USA,Japan, Germany, France, UK, India, and China. The final multiple regression equation provides a new prediction modelfor Taiwan’s main stock market index. A sustainable economic growth in Taiwan is necessary to achieve major objectivessuch as social justice, poverty alleviation and natural environment protection. The stock market in Taiwan plays anessential role in order to stimulate economic growth and technological progress by attracting foreign investment andforeign capital. In a globalized economy, the inter-linkages between stock markets are complex and can significantlyinfluence Taiwan’s sustainable development.

The aim of this research study is to examine the impact of domestic portfolio diversification strategies in Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) on Canadian textile manufacturing industry in order to obtain attractive investment opportunities. Dissipation of benefits of globally diversified portfolios due to overwhelming convergence among the international and regional stock markets around the globe have given rebirth to the idea of domestic portfolio diversification particularly after the global financial crisis of 2008. Textile industry in Canada is challenging but can achieve higher performance based on Toronto Stock Exchange behavior. Therefore, this is a complex applied research focused on investigating TSX as standalone stock market for domestic diversification opportunities. For this purpose, correlation coefficients, pairwise cointegration, multiple cointegration and causality of sectors in TSX have been examined. The empirical results show that majority of the sectors in TSX do not share high correlation with each other and they are also not highly cointegrated. These empirical findings indicate that TSX presents attractive opportunities for domestic portfolio diversification.

The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between stock market performance and country level governance indicators. A good quality of governance in a country ensures effective implementation of laws which can protect the investor and improve stock market performance and vice versa. Our study utilises annual stock returns and country level governance indicators for 25 developed countries from 1996 to 2018. The fixed effect estimation suggests that stock market performance and governance indicators share a positive relationship. Our findings suggest that high quality of governance is associated with higher returns on stock. Institutional quality is a preconditioned for financial developed that set the direction of change to reduce transaction costs and agency costs and make profitable projects available to firms that subsequently leads to higher demand for equity financing. These findings have significant implications for stock market policymakers and standard asset pricing models that only include market risk factors to predict future expected stock returns.

This research is the earliest attempt to understand the impact of inflation and the interest rate on output growth in the context of Pakistan using the wavelet transformation approach. For this study, we used monthly data on inflation, the interest rate, and industrial production from January 1991 to May 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected economies around the world, especially in view of the measures taken by governmental authorities regarding enforced lockdowns and social distancing. Traditional studies empirically explored the relationship between these important macroeconomic variables only for the short run and long run. Firstly, we employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration test and two causality tests (Granger causality and Toda–Yamamoto) to check the cointegration properties and causal relationship among these variables, respectively. After confirming the long-run causality from the ARDL bound test, we decomposed the time series of growth, inflation, and the interest rate into different time scales using wavelet analysis which allows us to study the relationship among variables for the very short run, medium run, long run, and very long run. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT), the cross-wavelet transform (XWT), cross-wavelet coherence (WTC), and multi-scale Granger causality tests were used to investigate the co-movement and nature of the causality between inflation and growth and the interest rate and growth. The results of the wavelet and multi-scale Granger causality tests show that the causal relationship between these variables is not the same across all time horizons, rather, it is unidirectional in the short-run and medium-run but bi-directional in the long-run. Therefore, this study suggests that the central bank should try to maintain inflation and the interest rate at a low level in the short run and medium run instead of putting too much pressure on these variables in the long-run.

This paper investigates the determinants behind persistent and prolonged stays under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program and its effectiveness, using panel data consisting of 70 countries that have requested IMF support multiple times, during the period 1980–2018. By employing panel survival analysis, we conclude that weak economic indicators, e.g., current account deficit, high debt service ratio, low GDP, are the main reasons that force a country to reach out to the IMF support program. We further extend our analysis to investigate the effectiveness of the IMF program by dividing our sample into two groups, based on income level. To overcome the issue of endogeneity, we implement the panel instrumental two-stage least squares (2SLS) fixed-effect model. In the light of our analysis, we find a contemporaneous positive impact of the IMF fund program on the economic growth of upper middle-income countries, while, for low-income countries, its contemporaneous impact is insignificant, but becomes visible over time.

This research article examines the profitability on the momentum portfolios in the case of the emerging stock market of India, i.e. Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Sustainable investing integrates environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics into investment decisions. Risk management is one of the most significant ranking factors determining the adoption of corporate strategies based on sustainable investing. A sustainable stock market provides a transparent and effective solution to inherent challenges related to environmental, social, economic and corporate governance issues. The theoretical and empirical analysis conducted in this research article reveals the status of BSE of India in this regard. A company's sustainable market orientation is very important for future developments. The practical significance of this research paper is to investigate the profitability of momentum strategies in Bombay Stock Exchange of India, which is an emergent market. Moreover, the presence of short term momentum effect on Indian stock market is basically an anomaly caused by behavioral and risk-based portfolio construction factors. On the other hand, momentum strategies is a reliable alternative with strong empirical evidence to both fundamental approaches of classical finance, namely efficient market hypothesis (EMH) and behavioral finance paradigm.

Health has vital importance in maintaining economic development since it is essential for, and a result of, economic development. This indicates that health makes a large contribution in achieving sustainable development and health outcomes. The significance of health is shown in the millennium development goals (MDGs) and in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), where four of the seventeen objectives focus on improving health outcomes (UN, 2021). As compared to other countries, some Asian countries are still worse off regarding health outcomes and are facing challenges in achieving positive outcomes for such goals. This study mainly focuses on identifying the link between public health expenditures and health outcomes in nine Asian economies from 2000 to 2018. The study implements fixed effects panel data estimations by using the Hausman specification test to identify the fixed effects model as the suitable estimator for the study. The empirical results from the fixed effects technique show that immunization, GDP per capita, trade openness, and utilization of basic water service facilities improve under-five and infant mortality in Asian economies. However, ecological footprint increases under-five and infant deaths by damaging the environment.

International audience; This study examined the diversification opportunities within sectors of Colombo Stock Exchange by measuring co-integration among sectors. Those sectors of CSE which are not integrated with others offer good diversification opportunities. Moreover, the study also applies Granger Causality Test to determine which sectors of CSE cause other sectors. This helps an investor informing a diversified portfolio. This study employed daily closing indices of all sectors listed in Colombo Stock Exchange during the period from 1-12-2003 to 31-8-2016. Multivariate Co-integration and Pairwise Co-integration Tests are applied to determine integration among sectors and Granger Causality to determine causal relation among these Sectors of CSE. Stationarity by unit root test revealed that the fourteen sectors are selected for running cointgeration at Level 1. Findings examined that no sector is integrated with other sectors. Thus, CSE provides excellent diversification opportunity to the investors. From an investor point of view, the findings of the study are helpful for a well-diversified portfolio by selecting stocks from those sectors which are not integrated with other sectors and minimize the unsystematic risk. This study significantly contribute the existing literature particularly those investors who want to diversify their portfolios domestically rather internationally.

The objective of this paper is to find short-term momentum effect in stock markets of the Middle East and to examine whether short-term momentum profits can be explained by risk-based CAPM model. Seven major stock markets from the Middle East were selected. Short-term momentum effect was found in all seven stock markets and CAPM does not adequately explain the short-term momentum profits but momentum portfolio returns are statistically significant. This paper is first attempt to bring major stock markets of the Middle East together and examine them for the short term momentum effect phenomenon. Future research should include more stock markets in order to have a better understanding of Middle Eastern stock markets.

The main objective of the paper is to seek the source that can explain the momentum profits because the source of momentum profits has been disputed. The secondary objective of the paper is to affirm the findings of the author about the presence of the short term momentum effect and to reaffirm the notion that CAPM cannot explain the momentum profits supported by a large number of authors. For the primary objective, a set of variables has been chosen, that fall under the category of “Business Indicators”, to explain the momentum profits. It is found that a variable “Starting a Business” could explain the source of the momentum profits whereas other variables may have a negligible or no influence over the momentum profits. It is also reaffirmed that a short term momentum effect has been found in 14 stock markets and the CAPM could not explain the momentum profits. This study is not conclusive due to the limitation of data but it does give a source of the momentum profits and it sheds light on the future research about the sources that can explain momentum profits in a great detail.