A stochastic and time-delay evolutionary game of food safety regulation under central government punishment mechanism.

Food safety is a pressing issue affecting public health, and strengthening food safety regulation has become a widespread consensus. This study addresses the three-party game involving food production enterprises, third-party testing agencies, and government regulatory authorities. Considering the influence of random disturbances and time delays on the strategy-choosing and behavioral evolution of game players, a three-party stochastic evolutionary game model for food safety regulation with time delays is established. The stability of the model is analyzed by using Lyapunov's method, and the strategy evolution of the game players is investigated while combining numerical simulations. The study shows that the net benefit of the players' expected strategies is key in determining whether the overall game system can reach the optimal equilibrium. The level of penalties imposed by the central government on local government regulators is key to food safety. The main factors influencing the strategy-choosing of game players are the level of penalties imposed by the local government regulators on third-party testing agencies, together with the supervision costs of the local government regulators. Random disturbances have a certain impact on strategy-choosing of the game players, with a greater impact on testing agencies, followed by food production enterprises, and a weaker impact on government regulatory authorities. The time delay factors exhibit a certain delay effect on the evolutionary path of strategy-choosing among the game players, which aligns with the actual situation. The findings of the study have implications for food safety regulation.

Effect of institutional quality on FDI inflows in South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays a pivotal role in the economic development of countries and institutional quality encompassing aspects such as political stability, regulatory environment, and the rule of law, plays a vital role in attracting and retaining foreign investment. This study investigates the impact of institutional quality on the level of FDI inflows in the South Asian and Southeast Asian countries over the period 2002-2019. We have constructed an institutional quality index by using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on six governance indicators. Iterated generalized least squares (I-GLS) in the fixed effect model has been employed for the estimation of the results. The results show that the institutional quality index has a positive and significant impact on the FDI inflows in both the regions. This implies that an ideal governance system comprising of low corruption, political stability, absence of violence, voice and accountability, regulatory quality and proper judicial system helps to attract FDI inflows in the South Asian and Southeast Asian countries. It also has positive spillovers to other economic activities such as GDP growth, international trade and financial development that are vital for economic growth and development.

Capital flight from BRICS nations: Does every cloud have a silver lining?

This study investigates the potential determinants of capital flight from BRICS countries. We use the residual method to estimate capital flight and employ GMM testing approach. We find a surge in the volume of capital flight from BRICS especially in the aftermath of global financial crisis. The empirical results suggest that, past values of the capital flight, real GDP growth rates, exchange rate depreciation, unemployment rate, business confidence index and financial stability indicator as significant factors causing resident capital outflows from BRICS nations. These findings call for an effective policy framework by the fiscal and monetary authorities.

A blend of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on economic growth of India: The role of disaggregate energy sources.

India, with its rapidly growing economy, has an increasing demand for energy consumption. This study thus adds to the energy-economic growth literature by exploring the effect of renewable (hydro and nuclear) and non-renewable (coal and oil) energy consumption by different sources on the economic growth of India, spanning from 1985 to 2021. The ARDL estimator is used to assess the short- and long-run growth effectiveness of the explanatory variables, while the variance decomposition analysis (VDA) is employed to examine the degree to which one variable can explain the change in variance of another variable. Among the renewable energy sources, hydro-energy consumption is found to be impeding economic growth, while nuclear energy is found to be inducing India's economic growth in the long run. Furthermore, among the non-renewable energy sources, oil consumption is found to be impeding the economic growth, while coal consumption is observed to be augmenting India's economic growth in the long run significantly. The findings reveal that non-renewable energy use plays a crucial role in the economic growth of India; thus, from a policy standpoint, this study recommends the government to invest more in the advancement of the renewable energy sector in order to balance the energy mix and achieve sustainable economic growth.

Pandemics, economy and health in Asia-A scenario of post 2020.

Utilizing a daily data of 29 Asian Economies from June 2021 to June 2022, this study investigates the impacts of economic growth, health infrastructures and Government measures on COVID-19 cases. Our results demonstrate that GDP, Government intervention, testing and vaccination exert positive impacts on COVID-19 cases. We incorporate factors like weather to know how temperature impacts COVID-19 Cases. Our results demonstrate that magnitude of COVID-19 cases goes on upward fashion in winter days more. With reference to co-morbid conditions like diabetes, we notice that people with diabetes are more vulnerable to the infections, however due to the greater behavioral response, we obtain a negative association between co-morbid conditions and new COVID-19 cases. However, the intensity of COVID-19 cases is decimated with the improvement in health facilities and behavioral changes. Besides basic regression estimates, our instrumental variable estimates hold true in the line of regression results while underlying the relation with the COVID-19 cases. Interestingly, our results from alternate specification ensures that high human development with greater openness has resulted in more COVID-19 cases. Overall, our study belies the fact that vaccination and higher govt intervention can prevent COVID-19. Rather, a comprehensive policy is recommended on cross-country basis to overcome such challenge.•The Study analyzes the relation among COVID-19, economic growth and health infrastructure on a daily basis from June 2021 to June 2022 for 29 Asian Economies•Our empirical strategy involves regression followed by robustness tests of instrumental variable regression model.•Results show that higher growth, human development, lesser vaccination and trivial govt intervention post 2020 have resulted in more COVID-19 cases.

Assessing the role of green economy on sustainable development in developing countries.

Purpose: Over the last few years, the green economy (GE) notion has been realized as a key tool for achieving sustainable development (SD) in both developing and developed nations. Therefore, the current study tries to investigate the role of GE in achieving SD in developing countries. Through empirically examining the relationship between the GE and three different dependent variables which are GDP per capita, total unemployment rate, and poverty level, using cross-sectional data for 60 developing countries in 2018. Design/methodology/approach: Applying generalized least square (GLS) approach. The four dimensions of the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) are the key independent variables that measure the accomplishment of nations in aspects of the global green economy. Findings: The empirical results showed the existence of a positive statistically significant relationship between the GE and GDP per capita and the level of total unemployment, while there is a negative statistically significant relationship between the GE and the poverty rate in developing countries. Implication policy: This study recommends that both the private and public sectors continue to endorse and adopt GE in the future for SD, job creation, and poverty alleviation.The original value of the study: It is the first research for developing countries that explores the relationship between GE and SD using three indicators of SD using a GLS approach according to our information. Also, this study categorized the dataset of the developing countries based on their income level for addressing the heteroskedasticity problem.

Cash transfers and human capital outcomes of children in LMICs: A systematic review using PRISMA.

With an increasing shift towards cash transfers and the proposition of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a policy alternative to replace the existing schemes, there has been a rising discussion about the success and failure associated with cash transfers. Therefore, this article carries out a systematic review using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis) to draw inferences and generate evidences with respect to the influence of cash transfers on two aspects of human capital outcomes of children, viz., child health and nutrition, and educational outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Forty four studies were selected on the basis of a four-stage procedure that checked for identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion. The results indicate that majority of cash transfers based on conditionalities, like mandatory attendance in healthcare organisations and educational institutions, proved to be effective in the selected countries. While 7 studies (16%) showed no changes in the outcomes, 5 (11%) depicted negative impact and the rest (73%) presented a positive result. The selected studies suggest that a strong supply-side mechanism in place in LMICs, ensure functional and quality services at health centres and schools in the respective regions and reflect overwhelming outcomes. Furthermore, incentive design, anticipated termination, and supply-side interventions would be instrumental in avoiding a crisis or shock in the economic sense to recipient households.

Asian logistics industry efficiency under low carbon environment: policy implications for sustainable development.

Logistics is a crucial part of every business. The logistics sector not only contributes significantly to Asian economies but also has far-reaching effects on ecological and social concerns. Therefore, it is important to examine the factors that can affect the logistics performance of the country. Hence, the primary objective of the study is to estimate the impact of CO2 emissions, ICT, and human capital on the logistics performance of the 20 Asian economies. In order to investigate the relationship between the variables, we have employed the OLS, 2SLS, GMM, and panel quantile regression. The estimates of CO2 emissions and GHG emissions are significantly negative in 2SLS and GMM methods, implying that environmental pollution hurt logistic performance. The estimates of ICT and education are positively significant, suggesting that increased use of internet and higher education rate are crucial in improving logistics performance. In the panel quantile regression model, the estimates of CO2, internet, and education are insignificant at most quantiles except at a few higher quantiles. Thus, governments should invest in the development of efficient logistics infrastructure to achieve sustainable development.

Toward a sustainable growth path in Arab economies: an extension of classical growth model.

Background/Objectives: Many economies are on the trajectory of alternative growth drivers other than conventional capital and labor. Access to credit facilities is a pertinent indicator of economic growth. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs-8) agenda, the national goal for sustainable development for most economies and Arab economies is no exception. Therefore, the current study adopts a traditional growth model by exploring the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, credit for private sectors, ratio of exports, real GDP, and per labor force participants for selected Arab economies annually from 2001 to 2020. Research design: This study leverages the Fourier Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) unit root test and second-generation panel econometrics as estimation techniques, such as Westerlund and Edgerton panel cointegration test, and the use of two estimators, namely the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated error mean group (CCEMG), to obtain robust results. Findings: Empirical findings from Westerlund and Edgerton panel cointegration tests validate the long-run equilibrium relationship among the outlined variables. Further empirical results indicate that the share of exports is negatively significant with economic growth in countries such as Kuwait, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Jordan. Additionally, savings and labor force participation have a positive relationship with economic growth in individual countries such as Algeria and Bahrain. As per the panel, there is no significant relationship between labor force participation and economic growth. This indicates that the skilled labor force enhanced economic growth. Conclusions: These findings come with inherent far-reaching policy suggestions for economies and panels. Further details on country-specific policy actions are presented in the concluding section.

Nexus between environment regulation, FDI, and green technology innovation in OECD countries.

To achieve the goal of "sustainable development," a crucial way is promoting green technology innovation. This paper examines the nexus between environment regulation, FDI, and green technology innovation in OECD countries from 1998 to 2018. The study uses a pooled mean group, random effect model, and GMM model to analyze the relationship empirically. A Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causal test also tests the causal relationship between variables. The result indicates that environment regulation significantly relates to green technology innovation and encourages the economy to adopt green technology innovation. This result further explained FDI exerts a negative effect on green technology innovation. The findings suggest that there is a need to execute a proper effective environmental policy, especially concerning FDI, to gain the spillover effect on promoting green technology in the host country, specifically in OECD countries. This study provides policy implications to effectively formulate environmental regulation and FDI inflow to gain technology spillover to promote green technology.

Designing hydro-energy led economic growth for pollution abatement: evidence from BRICS.

Overutilized hydro-energy production through non-sustainable mode is detrimental for both the economy and the environment. Intermittent consumption of hydro-energy from non-sustainable production methods may induce deleterious impacts in terms of rapid pollution in the economy. This paper investigates the impacts of hydro-power consumption upon pollution for 5 BRICS countries from 1965 to 2019. Our balanced panel model shows that infrequent usages of hydro-power consumption led to more pollution over the year. This relation is also further explained by considering several macroeconomic factors, in the context of the growth scenario. Our empirical findings show that an increase in population and consequent rise in per capita income have exhibited positive impacts on pollution. Even, improved industrialized led production and investment in these economies contribute heavily towards pollution and declined environmental standards. Our results further state that intermittent usages of natural resources by population in terms of rising ecological footprint have resulted in higher emission intensity over the year. These findings underscore how rising hydro-power energy consumption has led to the rising pollution amidst the growth scenario in BRICS economies.

Assessing the effect of climate change and financial development on agricultural production in ASEAN-4: the role of renewable energy, institutional quality, and human capital as moderators.

This paper examines the effect of climate change and financial development on agricultural production in ASEAN-4, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand from 1990 to 2016. Further, we explore the role of renewable energy, institutional quality, and human capital on agricultural production. Since the shocks in one country affect another country, we use second-generation modeling techniques to find out the relationship among the variables. The Westerlund (2007) cointegration tests confirm long-run relationship among the variables. The results from cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model reveal that climate change negatively affects agricultural production; on the other hand, renewable energy, human capital, and institutional quality affect positively agricultural production. Moreover, renewable energy utilization, human capital, and intuitional quality moderates the effect of carbon emission on agricultural production. In addition, a U-shaped relationship exists between financial development and agricultural production, suggesting that financial development improves agricultural production only after reaching a certain threshold. Hence, this study suggests that ASEAN-4 countries must adopt flexible financial and agricultural policies so that farmers would be benefitted and agricultural production can be increased.

The energy consumption-environmental quality nexus in BRICS countries: the role of outward foreign direct investment.

This paper examines the role of outward foreign direct investment on energy consumption and environmental quality in BRICS from 1990 to 2019. Most of the previous research considered foreign direct investment mainly focused on the environmental impact on the host country effect and ignored the home country effect. Therefore, the current study examines the home country effect of environmental pollution. We use various methodologies like cross-sectional dependence and the Pesaran-Yamagata slope homogeneity for the diagnostic test. After confirming the diagnosis test, we employ second-generation panel unit root tests, which confirms that all elements are stationary at first difference. The pooled mean group (PMG), Westerlund cointegration, two-step generalised method of moments (GMM), panel fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) model have been used to determine the short-term and long-term association among the variables. The cointegration and PMG results confirm that the short-run and long-run association exists among the considered variables. The results reveal that developing countries produced environmental pollution at the early stage of development and checked in the long run. The study used the STIRPAT model to build an extended carbon dioxide emissions model by incorporating outward FDI, GDP per capita, and technology to achieve our objectives. The empirical results hold up the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, implying that outward FDI and energy consumption help expand greener technology to host countries' environmental improvement in the long run and confirm that an inverted U-shaped linkage exists. Hence, the study suggests that developing countries should pay more attention to sustainable development and technological development that encourages more eco-friendly and environment-friendly technology.

The intermittent effects of renewable energy on ecological footprint: evidence from developing countries.

This paper examines the relationship between renewable, non-renewable energy, natural resources, human capital, and globalization on ecological footprint from 1990 to 2016 for developing countries. We apply Westerlund co-integration technique to check the long-run relationship among the variables. The long-run elasticity of the model is analyzed through MG, AMG, and DCCE. For the robustness check of the long-run relationship among the variables, we use FMOLS and DOLS approach. The direction of causal relationship is determined through Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality test. Our findings revealed that economic growth, non-renewable energy, natural resource, and urbanization are inducing the ecological footprint of developing countries and reducing the environment's quality. To cope up with this situation, developing countries are bound to use more fossil fuel energy. The use of non-renewable energy consumption leads to increase the extraction of natural resources like coal and oil. However, renewable energy reduces the ecological footprint or improves environmental quality. Similarly, human capital and globalization have negative effects on ecological footprint. The results of causality test reveal that there are feedback effects between ecological footprint with economic growth, globalization, and natural resources. This study suggests that these developing countries should focus more on the investment in the renewable energy sector, improve quality education, and make stringent environmental policy for protecting the nations from ecological issues.

Infectious disease, human capital, and the BRICS economy in the time of COVID-19.

We develop empirical models using difference-in-difference method to find out how COVID-19 testing and infection rates impact the BRICS economy. Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections, However, economic development and population density are not found to be rather insignificant towards the COVID-19 testing rates. Hence, both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these developing economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector in the coming days.•Governments must give due stress to the health sector along with development irrespective of nature of the economy.•Our results show that strict government measures, areas of poor people and people with heart diseases have resulted in high COVID-19 testing due to the increasing infections.•Both from policy and pandemic perspectives, it is inferred that these BRICS economies need to divert more resources and infuse more investment in the healthcare sector.

ICT, foreign direct investment and environmental pollution in major Asia Pacific countries.

This paper examines the effect of ICT and FDI on environmental pollution in major Asia Pacific countries during the year 1990-2018. We use Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Dumitrescu-Hurlin Panel Causality for the estimation of the results. Our results suggest that ICT and FDI affect the carbon emissions or environmental pollution negatively. This implies that with the rise in ICT infrastructure and FDI inflows, environmental pollution decreases significantly in the long run. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality results suggest the existence of bidirectional causality among ICT and FDI which implies that increase in foreign investment leads to increase in ICT infrastructure and also, with increasing ICT infrastructure, the foreign investment increases in the Asia Pacific countries. On the policy forefront, the main focus should be targeted towards promoting FDI and ICT infrastructure in order to facilitate sustainable economic development in the Asia Pacific countries.

Effect of institutional quality and renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions-an empirical investigation for developing countries.

This paper investigates the role of institutional quality in moderating the impact of energy consumption on CO2 emission, with other variables such as trade, capital formation, FDI, financial development and population in 39 developing countries for 1995-2017. We use mean group (MG), augmented mean group (AMG), common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimator, dynamic system GMM, panel grouped-mean FMOLS and panel quantile regression for the empirical results. From the different estimation techniques, we find that institutional quality moderates energy consumption and strengthens its effectiveness in abating carbon emissions. The combined influence of institutional quality and sector wise energy consumption on emissions is significant and negative. Our finding also confirms the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the presence of institutional quality. Renewable energy consumption is also found to reduce emissions significantly in the long run. Given the importance of institutional quality and renewable energy in reducing CO2 emission, the policymakers need to improve the quality of institutions and deploy more renewable energy for final consumption to achieve long-term climate goals.