Self-employment is often associated with entrepreneurship and regarded as a driver of innovation, job creation and economic growth. As such, many countries have policies to promote and support self-employment. One mechanism for self-employment to drive job growth is for sole traders to become an employer through hiring employees. However, there are few studies that investigate if solo self-employment helps the transitions into employership. Using the Understanding Society data, this study shows that in the UK labour market solo self-employment does not work as a ‘steppingstone’ to employership. This raises the question why self-employment should be promoted through public policy as in the UK and many other developed countries.

In the context of the continuous deepening reform of the foreign investment negative list system and the increasing pressure on financial risk prevention and resolution, it is of great significance to study the impact of the foreign investment negative list system on banking risks. This study is conducted on the basis of systematically sorting out the mechanism of the foreign negative list system affecting the risks of domestic banks. Based on the panel data of 27 provinces (cities, districts) in China from 2006 to 2016, and comprehensively adopting the synthetic control method, the difference-in-difference (DID) model, mediating effect model, and other methods, this article systematically examines the impact of the foreign negative list system on Shanghai banking risks. The study found that the implementation of the foreign investment negative list system has significantly reduced the credit risk of the Shanghai banking industry, and this reduction effect has gradually strengthened over time. Additionally, the implementation of the foreign investment negative list system will also significantly reduce the liquidity risk of the Shanghai banking industry; However, the effect of this positive influence is short-lived and subsequently weakens. The analysis of the mechanism of action indicates that the foreign investment negative list system primarily reduces the risk of Shanghai's banking industry by stimulating the inflow of foreign capital and reducing government intervention. However, the effect of improving the level of the rule of law to mitigate commercial bank risk is not apparent. Regarding other influencing factors, the growth of local government financial resources and the increase in new loans have significantly reduced banking risks, while the rise in residents' leverage has substantially increased the level of banking risks.

Excessive volatility in financial markets can disrupt economic activity, affect investor and consumer confidence, and potentially lead to financial crises in an economy. Due to this backdrop, this study examined the link between asset class volatility and the output gap in Nigeria. The asset classes were categorized into stock, crude, gold, and bitcoin. The study adopted the GARCH and Bayesian VAR approach and found that all share index has an initial negative impulse with output gap while other asset classes have a positive impulse on output gap. The outcome of this study revealed to both policymakers and economists the potential risks and vulnerabilities of asset class volatility in the economy. Based on this result, recommendations are made amongst which is the strengthening of the Nigerian stock market to help with the inflationary pressures this is because the Nigerian stock market hurt the output gap also, the government should prioritize investing in crude, gold, and bitcoin to push the actual output to full capacity, which brings about employment.

Poland has experienced a very sharp rise in income and wealth inequality after the economic transition. We measure the relative persistence of income inequality and intra-generational income mobility in Poland during the period 2008-2015. Our research is based on the panel survey data, our subsample includes 501 households. To measure the persistence of income inequality we calculate Shorrocks’s R coefficient. We find that if inequality is measured by the Gini index the relative persistence of income inequality in Poland is similar to Western Europe. In the case of the Theil index and the Mean Log Deviation (MLD), the relative persistence is higher than in a majority of Western Europe countries and similar to the United Kingdom or the United States. The income distribution in Poland is rather stable. Income mobility is lowest at the bottom and at the top of the income distribution. In the middle (3rd) quintile upward mobility is higher than downward mobility. The short-term income mobility in Poland has not changed during and after the Great Financial Crisis and is still medium in comparison with the rest of Europe.

The digital economy based on digital technology is an important force for high-quality economic growth and industrial transformation, and has great potential for value creation. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2017, this paper uses entropy method to calculate the industrial green transformation (IGT), and empirically analyzes the impact of Digital economy on IGT. The DE can significantly reduce IGT of local and neighboring areas after excluding the influence of macro system factors and replacing the spatial weight matrix. The DE can indirectly reduce the IGT by accelerating the accumulation of human capital, and green technology innovation. The impact of digital economy on IGT is a non-linear relationship. With the further improvement of environmental regulation, financial development and intellectual property protection, the role of digital economy in IGT is more obvious. To this end, it is necessary to speed up the construction and improvement of digital infrastructure, build an integrated layout of "digital infrastructure", give full play to the radiating role of the digital economy, and implement differentiated development paths based on regional comparative advantages.

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.

Green innovation, as a sustainable development approach, can synergistically promote high-quality economic and social development. We select China's A-share-listed manufacturing corporations from 2011 to 2021 as the research sample to empirically study the impact of executive academic experience on green innovation in manufacturing corporations. Further, we test the relationship between executive academic experience and green innovation in manufacturing corporations under the mediating role of corporate social responsibility and the moderating role of heterogeneous environmental regulations. The study shows that (1) executive academic experience helps to promote green innovation in manufacturing corporations; (2) executive academic experience is conducive to promoting the fulfillment of social responsibility by manufacturing corporations; (3) corporate social responsibility plays a mediating role between executive academic experience and green innovation in manufacturing corporations; (4) environmental regulation positively moderates the relationship between executive academic experience and green innovation in manufacturing corporations, and both formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation positively moderated the promotion of green innovation in manufacturing corporations by executive academic experience.

Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2019 for a total of 9 years, this paper uses the entropy method to construct a comprehensive measure of the digital economy and common prosperity. We theoretically analyzed the impact mechanism of the digital economy on common prosperity using the econometric model. The study found that the digital economy can significantly promote the realization of common prosperity. The digital economy has a significant impact on the development and sustainability of common prosperity. The results of the impact mechanism show that the digital economy promotes common prosperity by increasing entrepreneurial activity. Heterogeneity research shows that the role of digital economy in promoting common prosperity changes with different regions. Specifically, the digital economy in the central and western regions can significantly promote the realization of common prosperity, but this impact is not significant in the eastern region. From the regression results of the digital economy, we can see that industrial digitalization and digital infrastructure play a greater role in promoting common prosperity. Economic openness affects the promotion of digital economy to common prosperity. The conclusion of this work provides an important research reference for the development of digital economy and the realization of common prosperity.

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.

Objective: The paper, specifically examines whether the recently formed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can potentially facilitate minimising the constraints to renewable energy goods exports at the regional level in Asia. Data, Methodology and Findings: Using the panel data from 11 RCEP members from 2006 to 2014, this study has applied the ‘meta frontier stochastic gravity frontier’ methodology and confirms that the establishment of RCEP has the potential to improve trade in renewable energy commodities within the RCEP region. Policy Implications: The policy implication is that when countries work together, it will lead to enormous benefits for national, regional, and worldwide prospects of a more sustainable energy future. Practical Policy Implications: In terms of practical policy implications, the developed RCEP member countries should actively engage in promoting R&D activities and protecting intellectual property rights concerning renewable energy production, which are essential for countries to integrate with the world market and to lift the export frontiers of both the developed and developing RCEP member countries to reach the unrestricted export of renewable energy technology.

The issue of food security has become a global challenge, and it is therefore crucial to seek measures to ensure food security. As an emerging economic model, the digital economy is regarded as the most effective tool for the modernization of agricultural development. As a large food-producing country, China faces serious problems of agricultural non-point source pollution and food loss and waste. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of digital village construction on food security. We measure the level of digital village construction and food security by entropy method and use the spatial Durbin model to analyze them. In this paper, we found that digital village construction facilitates food security not only in the region but also in neighboring regions. In addition, we found that the promotion effect is significant in main grain producing regions, while the opposite result is found in non-main grain producing regions. We hold that the application of the digital economy in the countryside has played an obvious role in promoting food security in main grain producing provinces, and provides important experimental evidence for reference to ensure food security in the future.

Based on provincial panel data in China, this study is the first to investigate whether industry-university-research collaborative innovation (IURCI) can help to improve factor misallocation. It is found that IURCI can significantly improve capital misallocation and labor misallocation, and the effect has regional differences, which shows that the improvement effect is obvious in areas with factor under-allocation, such as the central and western regions, but not obvious in areas with factor over-allocation, which conforms to the rule of diminishing marginal returns. A regulatory effect model is built to explore the impact of regional heterogeneity, through which we find that after considering three external environmental conditions, including economic development level, academic research level, and marketization degree, the improvement effect of IURCI on factor misallocation undergoes significant changes. The research results show that to deepen the marketization reform of factor allocation, we can start with IURCI. The government should form a sustainable and normalized industry-university-research collaborative innovation ecological mode through pilot cases and adopt measures according to local conditions to ensure the efficient use and reasonable distribution of capital and human resources of enterprises, universities, and scientific research institutions.

As the COVID-19 epidemic swept the world in early 2020, it is worth watching how it affects the total factor productivity of enterprises. Based on the theory of information asymmetry and the data of A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2021, this paper conducts an empirical study on the relationship between COVID-19 and the total factor productivity of enterprises. The results show that the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic can significantly reduce the total factor productivity of enterprises, and the conclusion is still true after a series of robustness tests. Taking the financing constraint as an intervening variable, it clearly reveals a transmission mechanism, that is to say, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic exacerbates the financing constraint of the enterprise, thus it makes the total factor productivity of the enterprise reduce. It is further found that the above effects are more obvious for small and medium-sized enterprises and non-intelligent enterprises. Based on this, the government should implement some active economic development policies to create a free, relaxed and orderly market environment for enterprise financing. At the same time, enterprises should not only pay attention to digital and intelligent development, and transform into technology-intensive enterprises, but also strengthen the awareness of worry. Enterprises should store "more grain" for preparing for the cold winter.

As the underlying institutional design for enterprise risk management, it is important to study whether and how internal control affects enterprise technological innovation in the current context of increased economic policy uncertainty. Based on the principal-agent theory and information asymmetry theory, this paper explores the impact of internal control on corporate technological innovation using the listed company data from 2009-2019 CSMAR database, and obtains the following research conclusions: (1) the quality of internal control positively affects the corporate technological innovation. (2) The operational risk plays an intermediary role in the relationship between the internal control affecting the corporate technological innovation. (3) The degree of market competition positively moderates the impact of internal control on enterprise technological innovation. (4) Relative to non-stateowned enterprises and non-high-tech enterprises, the quality of internal control of state-owned enterprises and high-tech enterprises has a more significant impact on enterprise technological innovation. This paper enriches the consequences of the study of internal control on the one hand, and on the other hand, it provides a new perspective for improving technological innovation, and it provides certain guidance for further improving the level of corporate governance.

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.

Influenced by traditional notions of solidarity, when a province’s planning can be highly aligned with that of the central government, the province is perceived to be more collective and thus able to receive financial or resource favors from the central government. This consistency, as is often the case, reflected in doing the same thing as the central government. This situation may lead governors to ignore local economic performance and thus reduce regional innovation efficiency, as in the case of China’s Great Leap Forward. Likewise, it is possible to get better resources (energy or capital) by demonstrating managerial submissiveness, thus improving the regional innovation efficiency. Therefore, to verify the relationship between imitative governance and regional innovation efficiency, we collected relevant data from 31 major provincial administrative units in China, calculated the degree of imitative governance between provincial government work reports and central government work reports through text similarity, as well as utilized the SBM-DEA model to evaluate regional innovation efficiency. Meanwhile, we provide a new explanation of the phenomenon from the perspective of resource inclination. Finally, the empirical results show that imitative governance promotes local innovation efficiency and is moderated by resource inclination.

Public diplomacy is a significant factor in promoting policy communication, people-to-people bonds, and the protection of foreign assets between two nations, but there is little research on the economic worth of public diplomacy. Python was used to crawl the daily search frequency of "China", "African countries", and related terms to construct the heat index of China-Africa public diplomacy during 2011-2019, and a two-way fixed effect model was developed to examine the impact of public diplomacy on China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in Africa. The empirical results show that public diplomacy has a considerable favorable effect on China’s OFDI in Africa, and after a series of robustness tests, the basic conclusion still holds. Heterogeneity tests show the investment promotion effect of public diplomacy is more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa and that the promotion mechanism exhibits the characteristics of poverty alleviation and risk aversion. In addition, the promotion effect of public diplomacy on China’s OFDI becomes greater as time goes on. In terms of impact mechanisms, public diplomacy may promote OFDI by enhancing financing capacity and improving national governance. The research conclusion has policy implications for promoting China-Africa public diplomacy and investment cooperation in the new era.

Environmental concerns are increasing and business firms are inclined towards adoption of eco-friendly products and services. They are hiring employees via set of green HRM practices and struggling to become an environmentally sustainable firm. Pakistani food industry is booming day by day. However, less is known about the green HRM practices executed in the fast food industry of Pakistan. Therefore, this research is interested in examining the impact of Green recruitment and selection, green training and development and green performance and compensation management on the P-O fit, affective commitment and green recovery performance in Pakistan’s fast food industry. The moderating effects of transformational leadership will be examined between Green HRM practices and green recovery performance. A sample of 408 employees who are working at different designations were selected to accomplish the purpose of the research. These managers will be selected through convenient sampling technique. There were 21 fast food restaurants (Burger Joints) selected from all over Karachi, few of them includes; KFC, Burger Lab, Burger O Clock, Vintage, Plan B and more. The collected primary data will be tested through the application of structural equation modeling technique. Smart PLS software is used to assess the objectives. The results of the study revealed significant association between Green R&S, Green T&D and P-O fit. A non-significant association is found between Green P& C and P-O Fit. The study affirmed that Affective commitment posit a direct influence on GRP. The Green R&S and Green P&C revealed insignificant impacts on the green recovery performance within the fast food industry. The indirect association was analyzed between P&C, P-O fit, AF and GRP and revealed an insignificant result. Likewise, an indirect association is found between R/S, P-O Fit, AF and GRP. The future researchers are recommended to analysis the remaining elements of GHRM and investigate their impacts on the fast food industry of Pakistan. There is a need to create awareness regarding green HRM practices and their influence on the Green recovery performance in Pakistan. Policy makers are recommended to develop such policies that promotes GHRM in Pakistan.

Economy has various stages which have been described as economic cycle and due to that the circulatory movement observed, some have faster cycle some have longer cycle which depends on numbers of factors and from that inflation is an important segment. Various terms have been described for inflation, in simple meaning when price of different commodities have been raised compared to previous stage due to depreciation of currency having lesser purchasing power. Perception of people towards inflation and its impact is the main crux of the study, because how the people think about technical terms is vital matter. The present study is based on primary data collected from 277 respondents through questionnaire from the Gujarat state India. The perception has been analysed from four statement have been asked in Lickert’s five scale form. The one-way ANOVA has been used to test the hypotheses and it has been found from that in first statement regarding price of commodity once increase then it will not decrease due to inflation has significant difference with place, education and age of the respondents and in rest three statement no significant differences have been observed.

This paper investigates the degree of inflation persistence across regions in Portugal by analyzing the Consumer Price Index (CPI) growth rates for NUTS II regions. The study employs the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test to determine whether the CPI data for Portugal is stationary or non-stationary. The results of the ADF test reveal that the IPC data for Portugal is non-stationary, indicating that inflation exhibits persistence in the long run. The study further assesses the persistence of inflation by estimating an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for each region. The Ljung-Box test is used to test for autocorrelation in the time series data, and the Hurst exponent is calculated to evaluate the presence of long-term memory in the time series data. The study finds that there is significant autocorrelation in the time series data for all regions, supporting the presence of persistence in inflation at the regional level in Portugal. The Hurst exponent also shows that the time series data for each region exhibits a high degree of persistence in inflation. Finally, the study applies the ARIMA model to each CPI division's data and uses the Ljung-Box test to test for autocorrelation in the time series data. The results show that some CPI divisions exhibited higher levels of persistence compared to others. For example, the "Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels" division exhibited high persistence, while the "Communication" division exhibited low persistence. This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring regional inflation persistence in Portugal and its implications for policymaking. The results provide insights into the inflation persistence patterns across regional levels in Portugal, by emphasizing the need to consider regional differences in inflation dynamics when formulating effective policy interventions. Understanding the persistence of inflation is crucial for policymakers to ensure price stability and sustainable economic growth.