Does tourism reduce the shadow economy? An international evidence.

This paper investigates one of the positive contributions of tourism to the economy through the lens of its influences on the shadow economy. Specifically, our study analyzes the effects of five indicators of tourism consumption (including domestic tourism spending, international travel and tourism consumption, business tourism spending, leisure tourism spending, and outbound tourism spending on the percentage of shadow economy to GDP) in 129 economies between 1996 and 2015. We find interesting results that contribute to the existing literature about tourism economics. Firstly, the development of the inbound tourism industry reduces the shadow economy significantly, while outbound tourism causes higher underground economic activities. Secondly, the influence of tourism on the shadow economy is significant in both the short-run and long run with a stronger effect in the long run. Thirdly, the effect of tourism on the shadow economy is more significant in the 42 High-Income Economies and 54 Low and Lower-middle Income Economies, while it is less obvious in the 33 Upper-Middle Income Economies. These findings have been checked by a battery of robustness checks ensuring their statistical consistency.

Bank lending behaviour and macroeconomic factors: A study from strategic interaction perspective.

This study investigates the moderating role of strategic interaction on the relationship between bank lending and macroeconomic factors, using panel data on Vietnamese commercial banks over 2008-2018. We find that the effect of macroeconomic and monetary policy shocks on bank lending behaviour is less pronounced when banks engage in a less competitively aggressive environment. The study contributes to the literature of bank lending by incorporating macroeconomic environment and micro (strategic interaction)-level to analyze the lending behaviour of an individual bank. Since the analysis of macroeconomic factors alone is insufficient to explain the aggregate relationships in the model of banking, understanding the nature of strategic interaction is essential to predetermine how bank lending behaviour relates to the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.

Three Risky Decades: A Time for Econophysics?

The Special Issue comes out in the increasing accumulation of negative global tensions in many areas [...].

The energy consumption: the global contributions from financial development and institutions.

In a context of climate change and global warming, the literature paid more and more attention to the determinants of energy consumption. This article aims at examining the influences of the financial development and the institutional quality on the energy consumption in a global sample of 112 countries between 2002 and 2014. Our analysis is based on dynamic two-step system GMM estimations for three different energy consumption indicators-our findings are interesting. First, the financial development induces a higher energy consumption per capita; a higher energy consumption per output, and a lower renewable energy consumption. Second, the institutions have an insignificant positive influence on the energy use per capita and the energy use per output. Third, and this is our major contribution, the institutional quality can actually reverse the effect of the financial development. In other words, the effect of financial development on the energy use per capita is positive in weak institutional environment but it is negative when the latter is well developed. This article discusses these finding and their implications.

From Cubist Simultaneity to Quantum Complementarity.

This article offers a contribution to the history of scientific ideas by proposing an epistemological argument supporting the assumption made by Miller whereby Niels Bohr has been influenced by cubism (Jean Metzinger) when he developed his non-intuitive complementarity principle. More specifically, this essay will identify the Bergsonian durée as the conceptual bridge between Metzinger and Bohr. Beyond this conceptual link between the painter and the physicist, this paper aims to emphasize the key role played by art in the development of human knowledge.