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This study intends to investigate public debt sustainability across 29 Sub‐Sahara African (SSA) economies, employing various econometric specifications, for the sampled years 1996–2020. The study employs Bohn's (Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint? Journal of monetary Economics, 54(7), pp.1837–1847.) framework of sustainability as the baseline model to assess public debt sustainability across the sampled Sub‐Sahara African economies. As additional tests of public debt sustainability in order to support the baseline findings, the study also employs panel unit root and timeseries unit tests. The baseline findings from the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions show that public debt is sustainable across the panel of SSA economies. The positive and statistically significant response of primary balance under the Bohn's framework of sustainability manifest that the intertemporal budget constraint is not violated in the sampled economies. The consistency in the estimates under the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions also show that the estimates are robust throughout the estimation process. Also, utilizing the panel unit root test for public debt sustainability, the findings show that public debt is stationary over the sampled years which implies that intertemporal budget constraint holds and that public debt is sustainable across the sampled SSA economies. However, the timeseries analysis indicate that although majority of the SSA economies have sustainable public debt ratios, four countries namely Uganda, Sudan, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire have unsustainable public debt ratios. The study has important policy implications in terms of prudent public debt management and fiscal management for the sampled SSA economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of banks has been widely researched using accounting ratios, Tobin's Q and market returns and less emphasis has been given to productivity measures. The productivity growth of banks is captured through Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI). The study then investigates the impact of intellectual capital on the productivity of banks in Pakistan. Value-added The intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) approach is employed to examine the intellectual capital of banks. Data is obtained from annual reports of 20 banks listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for 10 years (2007-2016). The panel corrected standard error approach is used for estimating the panel regression model. The findings provide evidence that the VAIC, human capital efficiency (HCE) and structural capital efficiency (SCE) has a positive impact on productivity growth (MPI). On the other hand, capital employed efficiency (CEE) has no significant impact on productivity growth. The VAIC approach may be useful for the banks and policymakers in a knowledge economy to integrate the intellectual capital in the decision-making process. Our results also suggest that banks in Pakistan shall increase spending on intellectual capital particularly on human capital and structural capital to elevate the intellectual capital of banks and subsequently get benefits in terms of increased productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) approach is a relatively new and promising field of the prediction of stock price behavior. Neural networks approach is a mathematical model, flexible enough to accommodate both linear and non-linear aspect of stock returns. This paper applies the ANN to asset pricing models. It is found that the optimum number of neurons does not follow some mathematical rule rather it is based on the presentiment of the researcher to apply an exhaustive search for the number of optimum neurons. Another important finding is that the difference of errors between the testing and training dataset is minimum and the networks are not suffering from the over-fitting phenomenon. The predicted value of high beta portfolios is better than the low beta and mid beta portfolios. This finding reinforces the investment principle that the market compensates the high-risk portfolios more than other classes. The paper concludes that the proposed model achieves a significant improvement in the return on investment and the investors can magnify their profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total factor productivity growth has played a significant role in uplifting the economic development process of nations in recent years. This paper uses the recently published data of Penn World Table (PWT, 9) for six emerging economies (China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan) to establish a relationship between the growth of total factor productivity and its various determinants. Panel data econometric techniques are employed and the data utilized were spanning from 1955 to 2012. We found that growth of real GDP and human capital are positively and significantly related with the growth of total factor productivity. Similarly physical capital stock is although positively impacted the growth of total factor productivity but however this relationship is not significant statistically. Lastly, an inverse and significant relationship is observed between employment level and total factor productivity growth for the selected emerging economies. The study concludes that relatively richer and highly educated economies have improved their productivity while employment level has adversely affected the growth of TFP. The results of the study imply that economies should focus on income and human capital increasing policies and further to translate the benefits the focus should be on efficiency of labor rather increasing the employment level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developing world in general is facing so many crucial problems including global warming in recent years. Global warming has multiple consequences on each segment of the society and therefore, its root causes are important to identify. The present study examines the impact of per capita income, trade openness, urbanization, and energy consumption on CO2 emissions. Countries located in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are considered in the study. The selection of the SAARC region is motivated by the diverse nature of its members and further lack of available empirical literature on the same relationship. Annual data from 1980 to 2016 are analyzed using appropriate panel data techniques. The results revealed the presence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in the SAARC region. Further, the introduction of cubic function into the model indicated that the shape of the EKC is N shaped. Besides, trade openness has negative while urbanization and energy consumption have impacted CO2 emissions positively. Moreover, the causality exercise explored a bidirectional causality between urbanization, energy consumption, per capita income, and CO2 emissions. Similarly, energy consumption, per capita GDP, and urbanization are also bidirectionally related. Further, a unidirectional causality running from CO2 emissions, urbanization, and energy consumption to trade openness is detected. Lastly, a unidirectional causality is witnessed from per capita income to energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Success of organizational initiatives for environmental sustainability hinges upon employees' proenvironmental behaviors. One of the contemporary important challenges faced by HR professionals is to ensure proper integration of environmental sustainability into human resource policies. The green human resource management (green HRM) has emerged from organizations engaging in practices related to protection of environment and maintaining ecological balance. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of green HRM practices (green recruitment and selection, green training and development, green performance management and appraisal, green reward and compensation, and green empowerment) on employee's proenvironmental behavior. Moreover, this study is going to test the mediating effect of proenvironmental psychological capital and the moderating effect of environmental knowledge on green HRM practices–proenvironmental behavior. Data from 347 employees working in coal generating, power industry, food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries were collected. Results revealed that green HRM practices positively affected employee's proenvironmental behavior, and proenvironmental psychological capital mediated this link. Employee's environmental knowledge moderated the effect of green HRM practices on proenvironmental behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the impact of intellectual capital on the financial performance of banks in Pakistan. Data is obtained from annual reports of banks. Value added Intellectual coefficient (VAIC) approach is employed to analyze the efficiency of banks. ROA is used to measure the financial performance of the banks. The intellectual capital (and its components human capital and structural capital) of banks have been analyzed and their impact on financial performance has been estimated using multiple regression techniques. The VAIC value of conventional banks is high as compare to Islamic banks. Human capital efficiency (HCE) is the main driver of the intellectual capital performance of banks operating in Pakistan. The findings show that VAIC is positively associated with ROA while three components of VAIC showed mix results on banks' performance. This study could not take into account different types of banks operating in Pakistan like foreign banks, specialized banks and microfinance banks due to the limitation of the data. Future study should therefore further improve on the aspect of different types of banks. The VAIC approach may be useful for the banks and policy makers in a knowledge economy to integrate the intellectual capital in the decision making process. This is one of the first studies in Pakistan that explores the impact of intellectual capital on the financial performance of banks in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study quantified and evaluated the presence of water pollution and its impact on the health of the adjacent human community. Water sampling and household surveying was carried out using a GIS approach using primary data. The quantification of health impact was based on the scientific tools of environment, economic theory, econometrics, and statistics. The focus of our study was the impact of lead (Pb) contamination of drinking water from industrial effluents on population health and utility in Dingi village, adjacent to an industrial estate in Haripur Pakistan. Results of the study showed varying Pb contamination beyond the safe limits set by WHO. Marginal willingness to pay based on probabilities of sickness, medical costs, and avertive costs was estimated at ﹩53 per household yearly. The opportunity cost of leisure (﹩22) and avertive measures (﹩54) were also estimated to fi nd the total economic cost born by households (﹩300). Total annual welfare loss of the Dingi community exposed to Pb contamination and its cost accounted for 4.26 million PKR (﹩42,000). This welfare quantification extrapolated to other villages can contribute to heavy monetary loss. Policymakers should pay special attention to such polluted areas to adopt mitigation measures to save public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]