The recent interest rate policy decisions of the South African Reserve Bank have been criticized significantly by left-leaning political parties and civic society organisations for being anti-poor, anti-labour, and pro-capital because of their implications for household debt. Existing literature has established that interest rates and house prices are insignificant determinants of household debt dynamics in South Africa. Taking advantage of additional data for the period 2013-2022, and contrary to the previous studies, the paper maintains that house prices and the central bank policy rate play a crucial role in household debt dynamics. Applying a Markov Switching regression to quarterly data for the period 1981Q1 to 2022Q1, the paper finds that house prices and the policy rate have a significant influence on household debt dynamics. It establishes the existence of a ‘house price boom, low policy rate burden’ regime and a ‘high policy rate burden, low house price’ regime. The coexistence of the ‘house price boom’ and the ‘low policy rate’ explains the debt euphoria characterised by significant household leveraging.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and elucidate the effect of the announcement of winning a US federal contract by pharmaceutical companies, traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange on the share prices. The analysis is based on a sample of 327 event days from 12 pharmaceutical companies listed on the NASDAQ market for a given period (2010 – 2021). The sample is analysed by using the event study methodology and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in order to examine the abnormal returns and cumulative abnormal returns during an event window of 10 days before the event and 10 days after the event. While prior researchers have identified significant positive abnormal returns following different types of contract announcements, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature by exploring the specific impact of the public contract in the pharmaceutical market on market shares. By investigating this unique aspect, the research fills a gap in previous studies and enhances our understanding of the relationship between public contract announcements and market performance. The data collection utilises secondary data from the official open data source of US federal spending information and daily stock prices. The collected data is analysed quantitatively using event study methodology, allowing for statistical examination of abnormal returns, such as ANOVA analysis, t-statistic, beta index, time series analysis and linear regression. The research findings indicate a significant impact of public contract-winning announcements on cumulative abnormal returns, suggesting a positive reaction from the market. However, average abnormal returns within the event window were positive but not statistically significant. These results imply that winning a government contract has a limited impact on the stock market. The implications of this research highlight the importance of public contract announcements in the pharmaceutical industry and their influence on share prices. The findings provide valuable insights for investors and stakeholders, aiding decision-making processes related to investment opportunities and market performance.

The study explores online consumers’ impulse buying intentions and behaviors on live streaming platforms. Unlike traditional shopping modes, the development of real-time video streaming provides online consumers with a distinct approach to interacting with live streamers and browsing online products in real-time, potentially causing their impulse buying intentions. To understand online consumers’ impulse buying intentions and behaviors, the paper establishes the research model based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model and analyses influencing factors from attitude, subject norm and perceived control aspects. Through the data analysis based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the research results show that, three factors positively affect online consumers’ impulse buying intentions and lead to their final behaviors. Meanwhile, control variables, including gender, age, and income level, demonstrate insignificant effects across the model. Unlike existing literature, the current study displays the distinct features of live streaming platforms and discovers online consumers’ impulse buying intention based on the TPB model. The results are helpful for related scholars and departments to pay more attention to the live shopping environment and understand online consumers’ impulse buying issues.

Based on the income poverty level differences and multi-dimensional poverty perspective in China, this paper compares the performance of education poverty alleviation, employment poverty alleviation, and industry poverty alleviation. The hypothesis was tested by quantile regression and ordered probit model. The results show that: in the short term, the effect of poverty alleviation through education is not significant; however, the effect of poverty alleviation through employment and industry is significant, increasing the income of poor households to a certain extent. The effect of poverty alleviation through employment is high. In the long term, the effect of poverty alleviation through industry is good. For the deep poor households, the effect of poverty alleviation through employment is more significant in the short term. For the marginal poor, only industry poverty alleviation has a significant effect on poverty alleviation. Education poverty alleviation and industry poverty alleviation are conducive to improving multi-dimensional poverty. In the alleviation of multi-dimensional poverty, employment poverty alleviation and education poverty alleviation have a certain synergy.

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 research paper examines changes in patient care management in acute care hospitals between 2001 and 2011. During this time, there were two opposing factors at play: the competition effect of the reform and the policymaker’s decision to reduce public hospitals across France. By studying the trends, it is evident that there has been a significant overall shift in patient care management during this period. This change could be attributed to the global competition effect and the concentration of in-patients in specific public facilities. Through the difference-in-difference method, the study analyzed time variations in the intensity of local competition. It was found that local competition had a negligible impact on patient care management. Additionally, the study revealed that there was a significant positive competition effect on high-technical procedures for the private sector, which is in line with the market segment where private sector hospitals have a leadership position and the pro-competitive reform intensified this position. The study also uncovered a negative competition effect on the length of stay for public hospitals. Prior to the implementation of the DRG-based payment reform, public sector hospitals were paid a global budget. However, after the reform was implemented, they had to shorten the length of stay to increase the number of stays. For-profit hospitals have always been paid based on the number of stays. The results are robust and consistent when alternative measures of local competition are used.

Trust beneficiary protection constitutes an important legal system in the trust industry. This paper, based upon the study approach of the “Theory of Law and Finance”, establishes the trust beneficiary protection index of China. We also test the influence of trust beneficiary protection on the performance of trust companies. As indicated by our study’s results, an “inverted U-shaped” relationship exists between the degree of trust beneficiary protection and the performance of trust companies. In a period when the trust law system has not yet been well established, strengthening trust beneficiary protection could help facilitate the growth of trust company performance. However, this facilitation effect gradually diminishes as the trust law system becomes more perfect. This in turn means that, after reaching a certain peak, conferring the beneficiary with more rights of supervision and participation would cause the performance of trust companies to decline. Improving regional legal environments could also help facilitate the growth of trust company performance. In addition, this facilitation effect is subject to the influence of the nature of trust company controllers. In trust companies controlled by local state-owned capitals, we find that the facilitation effect of the improvement of regional legal environments on trust company performance is inhibited. In trust companies controlled by non-state-owned capitals, however, the facilitation effect of the improvement of regional legal environments on trust company performance is enhanced.

College choice and choice of major are the most important decisions for future earnings. It is still unclear, however, what makes a greater difference—college or major—or whether a choice of college matters more for some majors, but not the others. Using cross-classified models and College Scorecard data, I show that a discipline is more consequential for future earnings than a college. The effect of STEM is substantial but is less pronounced at institutions with higher overall median earnings. The effect of college selectivity on earnings is more pronounced for non-STEM disciplines. Institutional characteristics—such as tuition, shares of graduates receiving different forms of financial aid, institutional size and location, and type of college—correlate with earnings of graduates. Racial and gender composition of an educational program correlate with expected earnings of its graduates even after control for other institutional and disciplinary characteristics. Models presented here provide a better understanding of the effect of college and major choices on future earnings.

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.

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.

This study empirically examines the effect of corporate governance on the relation between CEO power and firm leverage. Results from OLS and industry fixed effects regressions show that CEO power is positively associated with firm leverage. However, this association is driven by the strength of corporate governance as powerful CEOs tend to choose higher levels of debt only when corporate governance is strong. When corporate governance is weak, CEO power does not seem to have any effect on firm leverage. Overall, results indicate that strong corporate governance mitigates the severity of manager-shareholder conflicts and induces powerful CEOs to choose higher leverage.

This study explores the cause and effect of endogenous risk aversion in land pricing, where state intervention through taxation remains a general practice. Using a consumption-based asset pricing model incorporating taxation, it is shown that high taxation, due to the indexation effect, supporting land prices and reducing individuals' risk expectations, could lead to an endogenous decrease in risk aversion, which could result in market dysfunction because risk aversion plays a key role in the market mechanism. China, with its wholly state-owned land and the general use of land sales to cover financial deficits, is a typical case for empirical tests. The tests confirm that there, the rise in land prices was driven by the increase in reserve prices set by local governments, a strong means of taxation, and not by the market, indicating the endogenous decrease in risk aversion.

Many startups look for venture capital (VC) funding to grow their business. Anecdotally, in the Southeast Asia context, startup founders who attended an elite institute of higher learning have greater access to this kind of capital, but this has not been demonstrated quantitatively. We look at a dataset of nearly 800 startups in Southeast Asia who have received VC funding in the last 5 years and look for any correlation between the founder's educational background and the amount of VC funding received. We find that founders who have obtained a postgraduate degree from an elite university receive significantly more VC funding than those who graduated from other universities. Furthermore, this effect is only seen at later stages of funding, not at the seed stage. Potential reasons for this effect could be from stronger signaling of business acumen or technical skill; or better access to funding networks.

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.

This paper examines impacts of China’s financial liberalization policy on income inequality, through three channels: financial scale, financial structure and financial efficiency, an empirical analysis based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 1996 to 2013 is conducted. The results confirm the Kuznets effect between financial scale, financial structure and income inequality. As the size of the financial sector expands, the financial structure is tilted toward direct financing, and the income gap among residents will experience a "reverse U-shaped" trend that rises first and then falls. Most of China has not yet passed the turning point, and is still in the upper bound of the "inverted U-shaped" curve. Financial liberalization policies will continue to exacerbate income inequality. The impact of financial efficiency on income distribution is quite different in different regions of China. After dividing the whole China into three regions according to the degree of economic development, it is found that the financial efficiency of the eastern and western regions has a Kuznets effect on the income gap, but compared with the eastern region, more provinces and cities in the western region have entered the stage of reducing the income inequality, and the financial development has a great impact on the western region. The effects of financial development on central China are weak, and income inequality increases with financial efficiency.

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.

This paper empirically investigates the relation between firm performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the need and likelihood of external financing to test the predictions of agency and stakeholder theories. Empirical results from Logit, Linear Probability Model, OLS and Firm fixed effects regressions indicate that CSR is negatively related to the likelihood and level of external financing. Further analysis indicates that CSR has a negative and significant effect on both net equity issued (NEI) and net debt issued (NDI), the two components of external financing. Overall, the empirical results support the predictions of agency theory.

Consideration of optimal commodity storage with different discount rates. Finding that, even with a lower discount rate than private storage, optimal government-financed storage may not narrow price fluctuations compared with optimal privately financed storage because a government has to choose a probability of buffer stock failure greater than zero to economize on storage costs that could conceivably become very large. There is no presumption that government financed storage would be larger, with narrower intervention bands and more stable prices, than with privately-financed storage. The welfare enhancing effect of government financed storage compared to private storage is therefore indeterminate.

The very nature of work, labor market composition, and skill requirements are severely affected by technology-driven transformations currently underway with the 4^th industrial revolution (4IR). The effect of 4IR technologies on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the contribution of TVET to the labor market is explicit. The paper presents the findings of a study that investigated whether TVET institutions are prepared to face the challenges of 4IR. The data for the study were collected by surveying 428 teachers from 15 countries in Asia and the Pacific engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at the tertiary level. The findings of our study undoubtedly bring greater attention to the initiatives of TVET in these countries in preparing the workforce for job roles necessitated in the 4IR. The findings can also be used to frame policy recommendations for the growth of economies.

High levels of trust are positively correlated with increased collaboration, prosocial actions, and heightened adherence to preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies on trust during the pandemic have primarily focused on either cross-sectional data or its impact in conjunction with other related variables, such as political party affiliations or vaccine availability. In this study, we employed a national survey panel comprising data from 760 individuals interviewed at three intervals between July 2020 and January 2021. We used pooled datasets, panel datasets, and dependent variable lags to control for time-invariant unobservable variables and endogeneity. Our findings reveal that trust in government influences individuals’ behavior when they are requested to follow public interventions. Notably, trust in local government is associated with increased adherence to COVID-19 preventive behaviors, similar to the effect observed with an annual income exceeding $100,000.