Objective: The paper, specifically examines whether the recently formed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can potentially facilitate minimising the constraints to renewable energy goods exports at the regional level in Asia. Data, Methodology and Findings: Using the panel data from 11 RCEP members from 2006 to 2014, this study has applied the ‘meta frontier stochastic gravity frontier’ methodology and confirms that the establishment of RCEP has the potential to improve trade in renewable energy commodities within the RCEP region. Policy Implications: The policy implication is that when countries work together, it will lead to enormous benefits for national, regional, and worldwide prospects of a more sustainable energy future. Practical Policy Implications: In terms of practical policy implications, the developed RCEP member countries should actively engage in promoting R&D activities and protecting intellectual property rights concerning renewable energy production, which are essential for countries to integrate with the world market and to lift the export frontiers of both the developed and developing RCEP member countries to reach the unrestricted export of renewable energy technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the everyday ways of life across the world. The objective of this study is to understand the impacts of nationwide lockdown restrictions on female workforce of New Zealand. To conduct this study three subsets were selected: working mothers, essential workers and women in high-risk industries. New Zealand has a gender segregated workforce, and more women on the frontline as essential workers who faced risks from COVID-19. A quantitative approach based on secondary data published by the Government of New Zealand was employed in this study. The analysis was carried out under three themes: family wellbeing, essential workers and women in high-risk industries. All the themes point to the fact that the working women of New Zealand indeed have been critically impacted compared with working men.

This paper presents an operational framework for assessing the trajectories of production, energy, emissions, and capital accumulation to ensure the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The framework combines widely used methodologies (STIRPAT, system dynamics, and optimization) to simulate the pathways of variables until a target year. The CO-STIRPAT dynamic system allows us to identify the spillover pathways from carbon policy to economic growth based on output optimization principles; to conduct a more systematic analysis of the interconnections between the main drivers that determine carbon emissions; to develop a cost-effective climate policy mix that is a backbone for the right combination of carbon pricing, energy efficiency, and carbon intensity; and to assess NDC targets with respect to ambition gaps, implementation gaps, and feasibility.

This paper attempts to introduce an overlapping generations structure into Paul Krugman's "The world's smallest macroeconomic model" (Krugman (1999)) to examine the implications of fiscal policy, particularly fiscal deficits, in a framework suitable for policy analysis. In that paper, Krugman argued that under the price rigidity assumption, a shortage in the money supply leads to underemployment and recession, so increasing the money supply would eliminate underemployment and restore full employment. But how can the money supply be increased? I show that in order to restore full employment out of a recession, a fiscal deficit is needed to increase the money supply. I also show that in a growing economy, fiscal deficits are necessary to maintain full employment at constant prices or inflation. Fiscal deficits are not only effective in pulling the economy out of recession, they are even necessary for growth to continue without recession or inflation. The fiscal deficit in this paper represents the difference between government spending and government revenues. If this difference is positive, we say that the government is in deficit. Krugman's original model is a one-period static model. I intend to extend this model to a dynamic overlapping generations model.

In this paper I will show that budget deficit (or fiscal deficit) is necessary to achieve full employment under constant prices or inflation, using a model of endogenous growth in which consumers hold money for the reason of liquidity and live forever. Budget deficit need not be offset by future budget surpluses. I consider the continuous time case by taking the limit of the discrete time case when the time interval approaches zero. A continuous time dynamic model seems to be more general than a discrete time model. When the actual budget deficit is greater (smaller) than the value which is necessary and sufficient for full employment under constant prices, an inflation (a recession) occurs. The main argument of this paper is that a growing economy requires the continuation of budget deficit, and that we should not think of paying off the resulting government debt with taxes.

This study examines the role of news sentiments in the GCC equity markets’ connectedness. We collected news titles for the period from 22nd June 2006 until 31st December 2020 from Gulf News, which is the most widely read English newspaper in the Arab World. We filter these news titles using a carefully designed list of keywords that capture public sentiment on matters related to financial markets. Next, we classify the news titles to compute the geographically distinguished sentiment indexes that allow for a detailed analysis of the source of news sentiment spillovers to compare the impact of domestic versus regional sentiments on the equity markets of GCC countries. Our quantile regression results reveal that equity markets in the GCC are most sensitive to news sentiments when underperforming. Moreover, our results from the connectedness approach suggest that the UAE equity markets are most influenced by domestic sentiments, whilst the KSA equity market is most influenced by regional sentiments from the other GCC countries. Mixed results are found for other countries. The time-varying component of this study also shows that the influence of news spillovers intensified during the major crises events, including the COVID-19 outbreak.

The extensive, interdisciplinary nature of construction supply chains make them prone to inefficiencies at organisational interfaces. Inefficiencies are accentuated by the project-centric delivery paradigm, and complex logistics systems between multiple stakeholders. They manifest as a multitude of concurrent activities, processes, and systems both on and off-site. Transportation is the largest component of the logistics domain. Transport operations are inherently fragmented, intrinsic to every business, while vehicle ownership and deployment is typically externalised. Differentiated waste removal and materials delivery further disintegrate the already fragmented construction supply chain. Inefficiencies from the insularity of the planning process across segmental boundaries aggregate incrementally, with impacts visible at the macro level. Re-configuration of activities, resources and actors are acknowledged strategies for optimising logistics and transportation function. This paper investigates the impact of three integration strategies on a manufactured construction products supply chain efficiency. These strategies include vertical integration of distribution, integrated planning for transport operations, and integration of reverse logistics into operations. Sustainability impacts are evaluated according to domestically determined monetary parameters in order to benchmark performance at the business and national scale.

The paper addresses the alternative policy options available to address the question of lives versus livelihood in an SIRD model augmented with a macroeconomic structure. An important contribution of the paper lies in designing the policy of lockdown dependent on the extent of the constraint on the health facilities. The paper supplements the literature with a less stringent version of the lockdown policy, viz. soft lockdown policy which is shown to be more attractive from a public policy standpoint and has actually been practised in many countries across the globe during the recent pandemic. Finally, the optimal policy derived on the basis of the level of lockdown and adjustment of the binding constraint on health facilities depends on the objective of policy makers contingent on the relative weights of lives versus livelihood.

Following the seminal paper on Optimum Currency Areas (OCA) by Mundell (1961) a wealth of literature has been published on the business cycles synchronisation and its main determinants. This work provides a systematic review of this research field both at country-level synchronization and regional level. The paper aims to evaluate the contribution of the related literature’s methodologies to the measurement of the business cycle and the estimation of the level of synchronization. The discussion of the collected papers is expected to substantially assist researchers, practitioners, and policy makers keen to employ themselves in the area of business cycles synchronisation.

We examine the relationship between labour market flexibility, as measured by employment protection legislation (EPL), and long-term economic growth in developed economies from 1995 to 2022. We consider conflicting viewpoints on whether rigid labour market regulations hinder or promote economic growth. Employing a cross-country regression model, controlling for factors including initial GDP per capita, capital formation, human capital, research and development, and indicators of macroeconomic performance, we find that only initial income level and capital formation significantly influence long-run growth in real per capita GDP. EPL has no significant impact in the long run, challenging the pre-2000 advocacy of labour market deregulation by major international organisations. We conclude that policy should focus on supporting the investment decisions of the private sector without distorting market mechanisms.

Nigeria, as an import-dependent economy, has seen its inflation rate rise over the years, which might be ascribed to structural causes and imported consumer products. The Autoregressive distributed lag model was used to determine the competitiveness of domestic and foreign prices. In the short run, domestic and international pricing complement each other, but in the long run, they may achieve some level of competitiveness. The currency rate has a considerable and beneficial impact on consumer spending. The result could also be explained by customers' high desire for foreign items.

In an effort to provide policy recommendations for Nigeria's transition to full-fledged inflation targeting, this study examines Ghana's monetary policy frameworks (monetary aggregates targeting and inflation targeting) using ARDL bounds test for cointegration and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) on annual time series data spanning 1965 to 2022 obtained from the Bank of Ghana database and the World Bank database on World Development Indicators. The results demonstrate that monetary aggregates targeting has not been successful in both the short-run and long-run periods in moderating and stabilizing inflation; however, inflation moderated under inflation targeting in both the short run and the long term. This indicates that inflation targeting proves to be a superior monetary policy framework for inflation control.

This paper employs a two-way fixed effects model and uses panel data from 31 provinces of China between 2012 and 2022 to empirically analyze the impact of digital inclusive finance on China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI). The study finds that, overall, the development of digital inclusive finance in China significantly promotes OFDI. Its sub-dimensions, including coverage breadth and usage depth, have a significant positive impact on OFDI across Chinese provinces. Further analysis reveals that the sub-dimensions of usage depth, such as credit and payment, also have a significant effect on OFDI in various provinces. In addition, the control variable of economic development level significantly positively influences OFDI in China. Regional regression results indicate that the development of digital inclusive finance in central and western China significantly promotes OFDI in these regions, while the effect is not significant in the eastern region. Policy Recommendations: China should accelerate the development of a digital inclusive finance system and promote financial innovation. It is crucial to focus on the coordinated development of various digital inclusive finance indicators, narrow the financial service gap between regions, and thus foster the long-term development of China's outward foreign direct investment.

Green finance is an important driving force to promote green innovation and achieve green development. In order to deeply explore the internal relationship between green finance and green innovation efficiency, this paper selects China's provincial panel data from 2012 to 2023, uses the entropy method and super efficiency SBM model to measure the green finance development index and green innovation efficiency of each province, and on this basis, chooses to construct the spatial Durbin model with fixed effects for empirical analysis and effect decomposition. The results show that: (1) From 2012 to 2023, the development level of green finance and green innovation efficiency of China's provinces will increase year by year with the development of economic base; (2) The green innovation efficiency of provinces with better economic foundation and perfect infrastructure is also at a high level; (3) The level of green finance development, productivity, fiscal revenue and expenditure and urbanization not only have a direct effect on the green innovation efficiency of the region, but also have a spatial spillover effect on the neighboring regions.

This study examines the response of real stock returns to expected inflation and uncertainty as measured by state variable correlated with equity market volatility (EMV). Evidence reveals a significantly negative relationship between real stock returns and expected inflation for each country except some cases in India and Japan. Evidence indicates a negative relationship between real stock returns and uncertainty, which is measured not only by the impact of the Fed’s monetary policy uncertainty but also from various state variables that covary with EMV. These elements have not been explicitly incorporated into test equations in previous studies of the inflation-stock return relationship. The model is robust in its ability to test data for both advanced and emerging markets, level or the first difference of explanatory variables, and various categorical EMVs. Evidence shows that the Fed’s rate hikes respond to the inflation data, displaying a nonlinear impact on real stock returns.

In the dynamic landscape of exponential growth in the games industry, crowdfunding has emerged as an important funding method for indie games. Previous research has provided inconsistent results on the factors behind its success. This study closes this gap by examining which factors influence success and how success factors vary with different definitions of success and funding goals. The results show that caution is needed when interpreting the results as they depend on model specifications even within the same dataset. Furthermore, the study proposes a framework, supported by an empirical analysis of 1,967 campaigns, to increase the probability of crowdfunding success.

Recently, some authors have found derivations and applications of the golden ratio in economics science. Based on previous models of Financial Gravity (FG) and generalizing them, this paper proposes the maximization of pure flows after charges as a way for applying the golden ratio in the sales-costs of production ratio in competitive equilibrium, leading to an optimal unitary charge of 0.2361… with many economic applications in monetary economics as well as in finance, public economics and taxation, migration flows, VAT on goods and services and commercial trading. Other applications are also suggested for further research. This paper can be useful for mathematical and applied economists, public financiers, bankers and policy and lawmakers.

This paper shows mainly the following results. 1) The debt to GDP ratio cannot diverge to infinity, that is, fiscal collapse is impossible. The necessary condition for this result is that the propensity to consume from the asset is positive. 2) The divergence of the debt to GDP ratio is prevented by inflation when the interest rate on government bonds is considerably higher than the real growth rate, and the inflation rate which is sufficient to prevent divergence of the debt to GDP ratio is smaller than the interest rate on government bonds. Only an inflation rate slightly greater than the difference between the interest rate on government bonds and the sum of the real growth rate and the propensity to consume from the asset is required. This inflation is not caused by policy but occurs naturally.

As governments worldwide grapple with the urgent need to mitigate climate change, understanding the nuanced relationship between fiscal targets and environmental innovation is crucial for crafting effective policy frameworks. Green technological advancement stands as the cornerstone of enterprise competitiveness, driving improvements in both economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. Government fiscal policies play a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of green transformation within enterprises, particularly through the establishment of fiscal revenue targets. Drawing upon data from prefecture-level cities and enterprise records, this study employs empirical analysis utilizing a fixed effects model and instrumental variable method. Our findings underscore the significant impact of fiscal revenue target setting on the trajectory of green technological advancement within enterprises. Specifically, the imposition of fiscal revenue growth targets exerts a dampening effect on the propensity for green technological advancement among enterprises. Notably, this disincentive is particularly pronounced among state-owned enterprises, as well as those with lower and moderate returns on capital, and those characterized by labor-intensive operations. Furthermore, our research delves into the underlying mechanisms of this inhibitory effect. We ascertain that the pressure associated with fiscal revenue growth targets hampers corporate green technological advancement by amplifying tax burdens and exacerbating financing constraints. In light of these findings, our study not only contributes to the theoretical understanding of the interplay between government fiscal policies and corporate innovation but also provides empirical evidence to inform strategies aimed at reconciling the imperative of fiscal revenue growth with the imperative of fostering green technological advancement within enterprises. In the broader context of governmental efforts to address climate change, this research underscores the importance of aligning fiscal policies with environmental objectives.

The performance of the equity Australian Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) over the five-year period 2019-2023 is examined in this study. The empirical results show that, on average, the return of the examined ETFs has been positive over the study period. In addition, the ETFs has beaten, in raw return terms, the S&P/ASX 200 Index, which is a proxy for the entire stock market in Australia, in three out of five years during the study period. However, these ETFs have not achieved any statistically significant alpha against the market benchmark. Moreover, the results of a cross-sectional regression model show that performance is negatively related to the age of ETFs but positively to their size. Finally, when it comes to persistence, the empirical findings indicate that in most of the cases performance reverts from one year to another.