All things being equal, and in a truly democratic world, one will expect that the fact that women are the majority in almost every single community of the world should guarantee them at least equal control or ownership over resources and enjoy most of the rights and privileges in that particular community. But things seem not to be working that way as evidence from the literature shows that women are always relegated to the background when it comes to the issue of control or ownership over, and sometimes even access to property in most societies which include the right to own and use land. This undoubtedly has a consequence on the productive and overall development of such a community. In recent times, the issue of gender discrimination, disparities, and inequalities has attracted the attention of researchers over the past decade with enormous literature in this area. There are, however, few studies that provide a comparative analysis of the situation between two or more countries. This paper seeks to fill this void of knowledge based on a review of relevant literature on land rights with an emphasis on the situations in Kenya and Tanzania. The results have shown the prevalence of four types of land rights such as communal property rights, non or open-access property rights, state or crown property rights, and private property rights. The results have further indicated that the controversial land rights of Kenya have led to the reduction in the lands of certain groups of people, increasing land disputes, and also discriminating against women in their land rights. In the case of Tanzania, there were several cases of bias against women concerning the ownership of land, especially under the customary system of Tanzania. Issues of discrimination against women were also identified in the inheritance laws of the land which is a paramount feature within the norms and cultures of the people of Tanzania. The lack of equal access to land by women in both countries is found to harm productivity in several sectors of their economies, especially in agriculture. Policymakers are therefore admonished to ensure equal access by both genders to land as this will lead to efficiency in the management and usage of land which is certainly good for sustainability in the development of any economy.

Based on fully considering the actual differences in statistical indicators between Hong Kong, Macao, and the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta, this paper constructs a high-quality urban development evaluation system that is suitable for the actual development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The Entropy Weighted TOPSIS two-step method is used to process data and systematically investigate the changes in the high-quality development index of 11 cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 2013 to 2020. The study found that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has thoroughly implemented the new development concept, and the level of high-quality development has continued to improve. The profound integration effect of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has appeared, and it has promoted the high-quality development of the region in coordination. The construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has strongly promoted the great practice of "one country, two systems" to achieve stability and prosperity.

The Human Development Index (HDI) aims to present a more robust picture of a country’s development status than that suggested by national income per capita. The HDI aggregates dimension indices based on transformed measures for the core values of health, education, and income per capita. Assumptions are made regarding the upper and lower bounds used to re-scale each core value into its dimension index, as well as the functional form used to create the HDI. The treatment of income in the HDI’s construction suggests incompatibilities with its underlying capability theory, which stresses the importance of individuals’ abilities to make their own consumption and life choices. We examine the currently formulated HDI, as well as two influential proposed alternatives which generalize the aggregation functions of the pre-2010 HDI formulation and the current HDI, in light of recent empirical research into the relationship between well-being and income. We use underlying data for 2016, a representative year, to examine distributional changes as well as specific country rankings. We find that the income bounds used to calculate the income dimension index in the HDI should be changed. We also suggest that the three aggregation formulations, along with prominent descriptions of the assumptions and consequent implications of each approach, should be disseminated for policymakers and the public to consider.

To make an assessment of ratemaking proposals, this article proposes that regulators should consider applying a logical decision-making process, such as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), that selects or modifies those rate mechanisms that come closest to achieving the public interest, as defined by regulators. MCDA seems like an fitting tool to improve regulatory decisions by making more explicit the relationship between different rate mechanisms and the public interest. This article provides a simplified version of MCDA to demonstrate how regulators can apply this tool to evaluate new rate mechanisms in terms of the public interest. As far as the author knows, the MCDA methodology applied to utility ratemaking has not appeared in the literature. While regulators may not want to or lack the resources to execute all the steps presented in this article, MCDA can provide direction to regulators in evaluating different rate mechanisms and ultimately reaching decisions that are more rational and aligned with the public interest. After all, evaluating rate mechanisms is one of the major functions of utility regulators. Doing it wrongly can have a consequential effect on society’s welfare.

The long-term extensive economic development has caused China's resource and environmental problems, especially the resource misallocation. The way China prioritises its limited resources is being significantly impacted by the rise of the digital economy and the interconnectedness of new technologies and the real economy. This paper quantitatively examines the linear and nonlinear impacts and mechanisms of digital development represented by internet development. With a series of empirical tests, we found that the internet development has significantly inhibited the resources misallocation, and the conclusion is still valid in the robustness test with internet popularization and internet infrastructure as the core explanatory variables. In addition to the marketization, internet development can further inhibit resource misallocation by promoting financial development, openness, urbanization and industrial structure. The findings of threshold regression suggest that the inhibitory effect of internet growth on resource misallocation becomes more visible as the degree of financial development and industrial structure increases; with the higher degree of urbanisation and marketization, although the internet development has always played an inhibitory role on resource mismatch, the inhibitory effect first increases and then decreases; with the improvement of openness, the hindering impact of internet growth on resource mismatch becomes more visible as the degree of financial development and industrial structure increases.

Credit markets around the world are undergoing digital transformation which has led to the rise in FinTech and BigTech lending. FinTech and BigTech lending is the provision of credit by FinTech and BigTech providers who have more capital, cutting-edge IT systems, worldwide recognition, greater online presence and are able to handle more big data on computers and mobile phones than traditional banks. FinTech and BigTech lending is growing in importance, but the determinants of FinTech and BigTech lending have received little attention in the literature. This study investigates the determinants of FinTech and BigTech lending. The study focused on the effect of financial inclusion and financial development on FinTech and BigTech lending. Using data for 18 countries from 2013 to 2019 and employing the difference-GMM and 2SLS regression methods, the findings reveal that financial inclusion and financial development are significant determinants of FinTech and BigTech lending. Financial development is a positive determinant of FinTech and BigTech lending while financial inclusion has a significant effect on FinTech and BigTech lending. Also, FinTech and BigTech lending lead to greater banking sector stability and also poses the risk of rising nonperforming loans. There is also a significant positive correlation between financial development and FinTech and BigTech lending. These findings add to the emerging literature on the role of FinTech and BigTech in financial intermediation. This research is significant because it provides insights into the role of financial inclusion and financial development in the digital transformation of credit markets.

With the development of information technology and its application in environmental governance, the role of the internet in improving energy efficiency and reducing energy-saving potential (ESP) has attracted more attention. In this study, the slack-based model (SBM) and the unexpected model, along with the entropy method, were applied to measure China's energy-saving potential and internet development. Further, we empirically analyzed the direct effect, mediating effect, threshold effect, and regional heterogeneity of the internet on ESP. Our conclusion shows that there is a significant spatial correlation between internet penetration and ESP. Internet penetration has become an important tool for reducing ESP, but this effect shows regional heterogeneity. Human capital accumulation, financial development, and industrial upgrading are important influencing mechanisms, but indirect effects are weaker than direct effects. The impact of internet penetration on ESP is non-linear, and for improving human capital accumulation, financial development, and industrial upgrading, the role of internet popularization in energy conservation is more obvious.

This study investigates the impact of institutions and public agricultural Research and Development (R&D) on agricultural productivity in low- and middle-income countries. The paper employs panel data with fixed-effects models, spanning 12 years and including 49 low-and middle-income countries. Agricultural productivity is measured by cereal yield, while institutional factors are assessed through four key indicators: judicial independence, property rights protection, contract enforcement, and impartial public administration. Public agricultural R&D investments serve as the measure for agricultural R&D. The findings show that property rights protection positively influences agricultural productivity, whereas legal contract enforcement has a negative impact across these countries. Additionally, public agricultural R&D significantly and positively affect productivity in Asia and the LAC regions, but not in sub-Saharan Africa.

The digital economy industry plays a transformative role in reshaping the global production networks, the local division of production, and the integration and innovation of business forms. However, to what extent the industry enables the high-quality development and upgrading of urban economies is unclear. Based on the census data of digital economy enterprises in Hangzhou in 2008, 2013 and 2018, this paper verifies the characteristics of the digital economy industry and its enabling mechanism for high-quality urban economic development. It is found that: firstly, the digital economy industry has three main forms for the economy, namely, the sharing, scale and scope economy. Secondly, the industry has four major mechanisms to improve the quality of urban economies. That is, it can restructure the global industrial division of labor and value chains, promote the transformation of scale economy from the supply side to the demand side, enable the softening and servitization of industrial structure, and generate the scale of economies. This paper thus contributes to understanding the evolution of enterprise organizational structure and industrial competitiveness and the endogenous technological change under the digital economy.

The answer to how to stop economic growth must be political rather than economic. Economic growth made by men has an impetus which can only be stopped by a deliberate choice. It takes national and international decisions to stop it. In order to organize a moratorium on economic growth (which eventually must lead to a stop on growth) I suggest to create blocks of nations in the world. The European Union can function as a model for such a block. The E.U. is on its way of becoming a supra-national government which was created to ensure a level playing field for its members. Now it is meant to create economic growth for its members, in the future its administration should be used to stop it. Blocks should agree on the targets to reach a durable economy. Globally or between certain more advanced blocks a date should be set to stop economic growth after that date. Each block should implement the goals to reach a durable economy and prevent products reaching its market that violate the goals of durability. Blocks in developing countries cannot be expected to stop economic growth. They need that growth for two reasons. Eventually they must reach the level of existence in the more advanced block and secondly they must have the time to improve the standard for durability of their products. They need the aid of the developed countries to reach a higher but also more durable level of production, but this aid comes with a quid pro quo, In the meantime they must do their utmost to stop wars in their regions and conduct a responsible population-policy to reduce the growth of their population and let it reduce on the long term.

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.

The expansion of urban infrastructure is an important indicator of agglomeration and a major factor in the deterioration of the urban environment. The investment in urban infrastructure is accompanied by the sealing of ground. The implementation of effective policies to reduce the practice of sealing ground is impeded by the existence of conflicting interests and fiscal disincentives. A significant challenge is the dearth of policy-relevant information. Conventional analysis considers urban outcome indicators in proportion to population and neglects non-linear distribution patterns, thus obscuring global regularities that contain important information. The study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of urban imperviousness through the lens of urban scaling. The present study employs Germany as a case study to examine the extent to which the parameters of the scaling function differ between two types of cities. District Affiliated Cities (DACs) and Administrative City Districts (ACDs), which are afforded greater fiscal autonomy. The analysis indicates that the amount of sealed land exhibited a notable increase between 2006 and 2018 in the ACDs. Calibration of the scaling functions for cities with the actual coefficient of the DAC control estimate and a global orientation exponent (5/6) resulted in a 16% reduction of sealed ground. In conclusion, urban scaling laws offer a valuable tool for analyzing the complex dynamics of urban imperviousness and its control costs, thereby contributing to the formulation of more effective urban policies and planning.

Digitalization is nowadays one of the fastest developing processes. The adoption of digital technologies can provide innumerous opportunities for the organizations to evolve and gain competitive advantage by leveraging of technologies to respond to dynamic expectations and demands. Information about the country digitalization level is essential to decision makers in both public and private organizations. It can present insights on which areas need the most investment, and furthermore to gain feedback on the outcomes of these investments. For companies, it can create a certain predictability on which products and services will be required the most. To assess the evolution of this process in different countries, various indexes were proposed and employed by different corporations. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) and ICT Development Index (IDI) are used by public organizations. Digitalization Index (DiGiX) and Cisco Digital Readiness Index (CISCO) are used by private companies. Comparing two sectors highlights the most common factors of digital evaluation. Indexes are analyzed thoroughly by their structure, coverage, weights, methodology and ranking. The result of the practical work is a equivalence table which shows the percentage of their similarity. Additionally, a new digitalization index is proposed, based on the result of the previous comparison, which can be applied to analyze both public and private sector of the country’s digitalization level.

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.

Green innovation, driven by China's new development concept, plays a crucial role in high-quality economic development. In line with the green development trend, businesses increasingly prioritize whether their corporate environmental responsibilities (CER) can effectively enhance corporate green innovation (CGI) levels. This paper examines the influence and mechanism of CER on CGI using a dynamic perspective, drawing from 1,640 manually-collected panel data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies between 2010 and 2017. The primary findings indicate that the impact of CER on CGI possesses phase-specific characteristics and a dual effect of "crowding in" and "crowding out." The current phase of CER negatively affects green innovation, while the lag phase has a positive effect. CER's impact on various CGI types is heterogeneous: specifically, it follows an "inverted-N" trajectory (inhibition-promotion-inhibition) for "strategic green innovation" and has a promotional effect on "substantive green innovation," which is stronger and has a longer time lag. The mechanism analysis reveals that financing constraints play a critical mediating role. A heterogeneity analysis based on multiple dimensions (ownership, industry, and location) suggests that CER has a more significant driving force for CGI among state-owned firms, high-polluting industries, and enterprises in inland areas. Finally, the paper presents corresponding suggestions for government and corporate entities.

In this work we aim to identify potential determinants and seek to predict terrorism attack. Thus, to eliminate uncertainty linked to explanatory variables we used the BMA method. We show that, contrary to expectations terrorism in MENA region is no longer purely of economic origin but mainly due to political problems, education, financial development and countries’ demographic characteristics. Likewise, we find that national, international and global terrorism are not of same origins even they present many common roots. In the end, we show that it is possible to predict majority of attacks based on a small number of indicators measuring political risk, financial development and income inequalities.

Financial literacy seems to be more important and focused than ever. Several recent studies have found that Portugal is at bottom of the table compared to the Eurozone countries regarding financial literacy. As it’s a key factor in the development of a country, it appears to be crucial to understand what people know about financial matters when they complete compulsory schooling. With a sample of 296 Portuguese students who enrolled in the polytechnic higher education system for the first time, we studied if they understand simple concepts related to financial issues (such as loans), as well as whether they are aware of the risk of not recovering the money invested that is embedded in some of the most talked-about and common financial products that are available in the market. This last objective seems to be relevant since a lot of fraudulent schemes involving teenagers, young adults, and financial markets have emerged in recent years. From the results, some disturbing conclusions can be drawn. For instance, more than two-thirds of the sample do not know what Euribor is (similar result regarding Spread). About a third of the simple do not understand inflation’s consequences. 16,9% do not know what term deposits are, and derivative products and saving certificates are seen as very alike regarding the risk they represent. Students who chose a business-related course as their first choice when applying showed a higher level of financial literacy, although it is still low compared to what one would expect.

Green credit policy (GCP) relies on financial means to promote environmental governance. Whether it can achieve the goals of economic development and environmental protection, especially in the context of different institutional supplies, remains to be scientifically tested. Based on the implementation of China’s Green Credit Guidelines in 2012, this study uses panel data of Chinese companies from 2009 to 2019 to explore the influence of GCP on green technology innovation and the role of institutional supply in it. The results show that GCP is instrumental in promoting green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, and the promotion effect is heterogeneous based on green patent types, firms’ ownership, and regional financial development levels. Further analysis finds that the supply of environmental protection systems by local governments can strengthen the green innovation effect of GCP. However, the institutional supply of innovation has not yet released a promotional effect. This paper finds that green credit can be used as an environmental governance tool and provides inspiration for local governments to issue environmental protection policies scientifically.

This research paper investigates the policy impact of tariff, interest rate, and political stability on balance of payments among three income groups classified by the World Bank. The global panel data is taken from the World Bank from 2002 to 2022 and divided into three groups based on the classification on per capita income into High Income, Upper middle income, and Lower middle-income countries. This study explores how these variables impact balance of payments in different economic conditions and if their impact is different. The study employed in this paper is the Panel Least Squares, Fixed Effects Regression, GMM and Dumitrescu panel granger causality tests. The findings do confirm that these variables indeed have unlike impacts in the selected groups and the importance of tariff and interest rate as a policy tool cannot be sidelined. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between macroeconomic variables within each income group also highlighting the importance of political stability for economic outlook.

This study provides insight into CEO compensation dynamics in the public sector and private sector publicly listed firms in New Zealand. This research uses descriptive statistics, OLS regression, and the difference-in-difference method to analyze the compensation-performance relationship for the period 2005 to 2012. Our findings show that CEOs in the private sector publicly listed firms are receiving higher remuneration benefits. Our results suggest that firm sales and past compensation are the most important determinants of CEO cash-based as well as total compensation. Firms with a larger board size and the presence of a formal remuneration committee are likely to provide higher cash compensation than those without.