Foreign direct investment (FDI) is widely viewed as a key driving force behind China’s exceptional growth performance in the last four decades. This paper investigates several questions posed by China’s success in capturing gains from FDI. What explains that success? Can other countries replicate it, or is it unique to China? What lessons are from China for other countries? China indeed has advantages in attracting FDI such as huge market and cheap labor, the well-designed policy and strategy, however, seem to play more important role in the successful story. Our empirical estimates support on four hypotheses: FDI and GDP growth in China positively interact each other; FDI is helpful to China’s technological progress, FDI promotes China’s industrial development, and FDI stimulates China’s manufactured exports.

This study considers the effects of disclosure conditions on firms' investment decisions when facing an identical competitor in multiple markets. Assuming that there are congestion costs between multiple investments to reduce marginal cost for each market, this study focuses on the cases where the disclosure conditions may differ by market. Like previous studies on single Cournot competition, these results show that firms invest more in the observable investment markets than in the unobservable markets under symmetric disclosure conditions. However, firms invest more in the unobservable market if there are asymmetric disclosure conditions.

There is a considerable amount of debate on the impact of capital liberalization on economic performance. Using Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) estimation technique introduced by Zellner and Theil (1962), we synthesize studies on the determinants of governance and capital flows. We find evidence of a revolving door relationship. Foreign aid has a negative impact on governance and, thereby reduces capital inflows since bad governance hinders capital inflows. The need to fill the gap created by private capital outflows encourages inflow of foreign aid, which in turn harms governance. Therefore, capital liberalization could grease a revolving door and undermine economic development in the aid receiving countries.

The aim of this article is to model a negotiation between shareholders in high-technology-risk industries and local residents on the safety investments to be implemented. The methodology used is a Nash bargaining model, with a DE curve representing shareholders' dividend demands and an NS curve representing the safety demands of local residents' associations. The model is used to determine the level of safety investment required. One of the main results is that the estimation of a higher accident risk is accompanied by both a higher safety investment and a higher dividend payout. The most obvious implication of this result is that it is undoubtedly necessary to give greater weight to local residents in investment decision-making, in order to improve the well-being of all stakeholders.

In this study, the time-varying pattern of returns with the trading cost is assessed in light of sanctions on the Russia’s economy. The analysis is performed on the Moscow Exchange Index (MOEX) using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, Bayes’ Theorem technique, and vector error correction model (VECM). Firstly, the transparency of asset’s value in the same trading period was noted to execute the trade with a limited price impact. Thus, the liquidity seems not priced in returns. In addition, the posterior probability of the transparent asset’s value stabilized the market at a limited transaction cost. In this case, there is less likelihood of liquidity acting as a risk element in returns during the same trading session. These results correspond to the era without sanctions, as well as economic restrictions period. Before the economic restrictions, the execution of investment occurred on its real or close value due to the market transparency in the following trading period. This implies, that the past trading cost series is not priced in yields on investment. During the Russia-related sanctions, a higher price impact of transaction was noted due to the ambiguity in the future asset’s value. Therefore, the past liquidity series is a pricing element in the short run and long run. The analysis suggests a potential inference of trading cost to determine the yield on investment.

Spence’s signaling model (Spence, 1973) suggests that education can signal workers’ unobserved ability to employers thereby mitigating discrimination. There have been several studies concerning education’s impact on labor market discrimination against minority or disadvantaged groups. Our approach in this inquiry is unique in that we utilize the data of PhD recipients, a group of people with the highest education attainment, to test Spence’s theory. Another novelty of this paper is that in addition to examining possible discrimination against women and foreign-born, as has been done in previous studies, we further explore possible discrimination against the physically challenged individuals. Our baseline results show conflicting results that Ph.D. education can reduce discrimination against disability and foreign-born but not against gender. Further analysis by the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition shows that the wage gaps of gender and disability come more from the unobserved part than the explained part, while the foreign-born wage gap come more from the observable human capital differences. Since prejudice is an unobserved factor and we know that the disadvantaged groups are likely to suffer from prejudice (Oaxaca, 1973; Blinder, 1973; Montes-Rojas et al., 2017; Deshpande and Khanna, 2018), we conjecture that prejudice might be attributable to the unexplained part of the wage gaps. Furthermore, prejudice might be deeply rooted in one’s mind, thus difficult to remove even with the influence of education. Hence, our results reveal that it would be hard for Ph.D. education to eradicate the discrimination against gender and disability, but not against foreign-born.

This paper specifically underscores the disparities among various ESG rating systems in China, highlighting their varied interpretations and emphasis on corporate financial factors. Analyzing data on Chinese listed firms from 2009-2022, we observe that while company size and leverage ratio uniformly correlate with ESG scores across rating agencies such as Bloomberg, Huazheng, Wind, and Hexun, the influence of factors like return on assets, cash flow, company age, and Tobin's Q is markedly inconsistent among these agencies. For instance, while operational cash flow and company age are positively associated with ESG ratings from Bloomberg, Huazheng, and Wind, they hold an inverse relationship with Hexun's ratings. This divergence underscores the unique data collection, weighting, and evaluation methodologies employed by each rating system. The study emphasizes the criticality of comprehending the nuances of each rating agency's approach when interpreting ESG scores and crafting ESG strategies. Moreover, it advocates for integrating insights from multiple rating systems to cater to the diverse expectations of stakeholders.

Rental unaffordability is defined as spending more than 30% of a household’s gross income on rent. Post-pandemic inflation and interest rate increases have intensified rental unaffordability. This research examines rental affordability in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. It also explores the effect of renters’ “affordability knowledge” – defined as the expertise tenants have and use to make economical rental housing choices – on rent expenditure and affordability positioning and compares personal finances, economic perspectives, and demographics based on renters in affordable and unaffordable situations. The results show that nearly two-thirds of the renters studied are in unaffordable rental situations. Interestingly, affordability knowledge was found to reduce rent spent and increase affordability situations. Significant demographic differences were found between those in affordable and unaffordable rental situations, including rent spending, food spending, transportation spending, savings, perceived homeownership likelihood, and age. The research offers important insight into current rental affordability economics, recommendations for policymakers, and opportunities for real estate organizations.

This study aims to examine the effects of student loan debt on the decisions of U.S. married households to invest in stocks located in non-retirement accounts. Using longitudinal datasets from the 2011 to 2017 U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a fixed effects logit model, the results show mixed findings. The presence of student debt decreases the probability that married households will own stocks, but the amount of student debt does not show a statistically significant effect. The findings suggest that the incidence of student debt raises the perception of liquidity constraints and debt burden among married households.

In the behavioral domain, this study discloses the pattern between microblogging-opinionated information and yields on the investment. This phenomenon is particularly related to the political instability in the Pakistan’s economy through the multivariate techniques. Pre-political crisis, the pessimistic sentiments were priced in yields on the investment. In environments of political instability, the intensity of decline in yields was more responsive against an incline in the negative opinions. Meanwhile, the intensity of increase in returns was less responsive against an incline in the positive opinions. The findings were further supported by the Bayesian approach. Before the political instability takes place in the Pakistan’s economy, the occurrence of yields was noted in response to the bearish market period. Post-political instability, there was a higher posterior probability for occurrence of returns against the bearish market period. Conversely, a higher posterior likelihood was noted for occurrence of investment’s yields in response to the bullish market period, but this relevance was not completely probable. From the impulse response analysis, the response of returns was reported against the standard deviation shocks in the microblogging sentiment indicators. The analysis may have potential implications in terms of disclosing the investors’ behavior from a political perspective.

We quantify financial returns to backers in reward-based crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter and show that such investments provide profitable opportunities in addition to non-monetary benefits. The average unconditional annualized return is 11.5% and the average return on successful projects is 30%. Hence, backing money near the end of a campaign, when the probability of success is already high, is a profitable strategy. The most attractive is the Design category, where successful projects yield 73%, on average. Short-term projects are more profitable than long-term ones. Financial return is an important type of extrinsic motivation in reward-based crowdfunding, which has generally been neglected in academic literature. Reward-based crowdfunding outperforms other forms of crowdfunding and other common alternative investments.

In this paper, a portfolio analysis is carried out using the Sharpe ratio to identify the optimal market portfolio. The measure of investment performance with a Sharpe ratio is compared to results obtained with bootstrapped resamples of the Sharpe ratio. The results indicate that the choice of the market portfolio is highly affected by the uncertainty regarding the estimation of the expected returns and the variance-covariance matrix between the returns, that is, the estimation risk associated with these parameters.

Speeding up digital development and building "digital China" is an important strategic deployment of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and a concrete measure to promote the high-quality development of China's sports industry and national health. Based on provincial data in China from 2011 to 2019, an empirical model is used to analyze the relationship between digital construction, sports industry development and national health investment. The results show that digitalization is instrumental for sports industry development and the improvement of national health in China. Digitalization has promoted the healthy development of sports industry and national health by increasing the input of public science and technology.

Energy Performance Certificates are a key tool for achieving energy efficiency in the building sector. The existence of this type of legislation provides incentives for the energy renovation of buildings, increases energy-efficiency investments, and improves social welfare. At the same time, informational asymmetries are mitigated and energy consumption is reduced. However, the decarbonization of the building sector might influence regional energy poverty, especially because the rural energy poor are more vulnerable to energy price increases than their urban counterparts. Empirical research on rural-urban differences and the effects of Energy Performance Certificates is urgently needed, given the rising fuel prices and vulnerabilities of the energy market.

Investment funds are increasingly focusing on ESG issues, seeking to contribute to improving environmental, social, and governance concerns. ESG-focused investing involves promoting good ESG performance and may result in a decrease in expected financial returns. This may lead to a conflict between solely profit-focused shareholders and ESG-focused investors, who may respond accordingly. As such, a firm's ESG commitment may trigger several events that can affect the stock price. A firm's ESG commitment may increase its stock price; however, the end of such commitment may also positively affect the stock price. Hedge funds may consider this in their activism which may reshape the way hedge funds target firms and influence their actions accordingly.

Based on provincial panel data from 1998-2018, this paper estimates research and development (R&D) factors, and a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model is constructed to examine the effects of R&D factors on regional total factor productivity (TFP). The results show that both R&D capital stock and R&D personnel can significantly promote regional TFP, but the productivity-enhancing effect of R&D factors is different between regions. Specifically, R&D capital and R&D personnel can promote TFP in eastern and central provinces, and the promotion effect is not significant in western provinces. In addition, compared with investment-driven regions, innovation-driven regions are more likely to enhance TFP by R&D factors.

Liquidity can be a real phenomenon for execution of the financial holding. Its risk falls in debate to impose a conditional cost on the counterparty. The time-varying liquidity is often linked to the expected fundamental value of an investment. In this work, the microblogging-based informed transaction is examined as a determinant of the liquidity-facilitating cost. Most importantly, this study investigates the economic blockade era and post-pandemic uncertainty. The sentiment indicators were found to be determinants of liquidity. These findings were consistent in the post-pandemic period. However, the investor pessimistic sentiment was a priced risk factor in liquidity during the economic blockade period. Based on the Bayesian theorem, a relativeness was reported between sentiment indicators and the liquidity-facilitating cost. The same findings were depicted in environments of the pandemic era. Nevertheless, the posterior probability indicated an occurrence of the liquidity-associated cost in response to the pessimistic sentiments during the economic blockade period. This quantification may have potential implications in terms of exploring liquidity from the microblogging perceptive.

By an endogenous growth model with a two-period overlapping generations structure, I examine the existence of a budget deficit in an economy that endogenously grows by investments of firms. The consumers leave bequests to their descendants and hold money as a part of their savings. I use a Barro-type utility function, where people include the utility of their children in their own utility. The main results are as follows. 1) A budget deficit is necessary for full employment under constant prices. 2) Inflation is induced if the actual budget deficit is greater than the value at which full employment is achieved under constant prices. 3) If the actual budget deficit is smaller than the value which is necessary and sufficient for full employment under constant prices, a recession occurs. Therefore, a balanced budget cannot achieve full employment under constant prices. I do not assume that the budget deficit must later be made up by a budget surplus. I use a Barro-type utility function to prove the necessity (or inevitability) of a budget deficit instead of the neutrality of government debt. In the appendix of this paper, I show that if money, as well as goods, are produced by capital and labor, a budget deficit is not necessary for full employment under constant prices.

The objectives and tasks of the European Central Bank (ECB) are defined in Articles 2 and 3 of Protocol (No 4) on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the European Central Bank (ECB). While in Article 3,1° of this Protocol other tasks are mentioned, the prime objective of the ESCB and therefore of the ECB, is price stability. This concept was originally specified by the Executive Board of the ECB as an annual increase of less than 2% in the inflation rate over the medium term, measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area. This paper examines to what extent the ECB has been effective in realizing price stability over the period from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2022. Price stability is important for economic agents. It allows them to plan their savings, spending and investment eventually resulting in sustained economic growth.   Notwithstanding the commitment of large human and other resources and the use of unconventional monetary policies, the ECB did not realize its prime objective during a large part of this period. We conclude that putting too much confidence in DSGE-modeling as one of the methodologies to determine monetary policy, may have played an important role in the ECB not achieving its main statutory objective.

The Weibull distribution is extensively useful in the field of finance, insurance and natural disasters. Recently, It has been considered as one of the most frequently used statistical distributions in modelling and analyzing stock pricing movement and uncertain prediction in financial and investment data sets, such as insurance claims distribution. It is well known that the Bayes estimators of the two-parameter Weibull distribution do not have a compact form and the closed-form expression of the Bayes estimators cannot be obtained. In this paper and the Bayesian setting, it is assumed that the scale parameter of the Weibull model has a gamma prior under the assumption that its shape parameter is known. A simulation study is performed using random claims amount to compare the performance of the Bayesian approach with traditional maximum likelihood estimators in terms of Root Mean Square Errors (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for different sample sizes, with specific values of the scale parameter and shape parameters. The results have been compared with the estimated result via the maximum likelihood method. The result revealed that the Bayesian approach behaves similarly to the maximum likelihood method when the sample size is small. Nevertheless, in all cases for both methods, the RMSE and MAE decrease as the sample size increases. Finally, applications of the proposed model to the insurance claim data set have been presented.