This research focuses on the digital transformation of retail banking in New Zealand, focusing on the challenges and opportunities elderly customers face. The banking industry is undergoing unprecedented change as technology evolves and customer needs change. However, elderly customers face physical and security challenges associated with digital transformation and lower acceptance of new technologies. This paper analyses the characteristics and needs of elderly customers, investigates the different needs of elderly and young customers, and recommends relevant solutions and suggestions. This investigation is based on secondary data, and recently published articles from various sources were used to collect information. In the wave of digital transformation, banks not only need to strive to provide convenient, safe, and high-quality services, but also need to innovate continuously to meet the needs of all customers and enhance their trust and satisfaction. This report provides exclusive digital service suggestions and solutions to help banks better meet the needs of elderly customers.

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 the information content of selected US industries focusing on the dynamic linkages among these industries, the stock market and a number of fundamental variables. The period of investigation spans from January 1960 to December 2021. The empirical strategy includes several methodologies such as regressions, vector autoregressions and volatility models. The idea is to investigate the dynamic linkages among these series at both the mean and the volatility levels. The results point to significant industry returns’ explanatory power for many predictors of economic activity including the stock market. Further, time-varying analysis of the linkages among the industries and the stock market’s returns reveal that certain industries such as Oil and Financials provide consistent information leadership over other industries and across decades. Further, upon assessing the industry–market return volatility spillovers, it was found that a market risk–return profile may not always be economically significant and timely for investors. Finally, crises, financial or otherwise, affect industries but to differing degrees.

With the continuous advancement of technological revolution and industrial transformation, digital finance supported by big data and artificial intelligence has become an important engine for promoting carbon neutrality. We measured the industrial structure transformation index (ISU) of 30 provinces in China, and discussed the spatial spillover effect and transmission mechanism between digital finance and ISU using the spatial Durbin model. The research results demonstrate that the digital finance development can significantly improve the local ISU. Interestingly, the impact of digital finance on the ISU of adjacent areas has a significantly negative spatial spillover effect, which still exists under the different spatial weight matrix. Digital finance can improve ISU by improving green technology innovation, upgrading industrial structure, and alleviating capital allocation. We also found that the higher degree of marketization and environmental regulation can increase the positive influences of digital finance on ISU. This research proves the effectiveness of the digital finance in improving energy efficiency, and it encourages policymakers around the world to rely on digital finance to promote ecological governance and achieve high-quality economic development.

The integration of digital technology and traditional finance has further achieved the goal of low-cost and sustainable financial services and contributed to high-quality economic development. Based on the data from 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2021, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of digital finance on the urban-rural income gap. The results show that digital finance can significantly narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents. The quantile test shows that the greater the urban-rural income gap, the stronger the role of digital finance in narrowing the urban-rural income gap. The threshold effect test shows that the narrowing effect of digital finance on the urban-rural income gap will first increase and then weaken with the continuous improvement of the development level. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the secondary indicators of digital finance can significantly narrow the urban-rural income gap, and the effect of depth of usage is the most obvious. Moreover, digital finance has a significantly stronger effect on narrowing the urban-rural income gap in the eastern region than in other regions. Therefore, we should vigorously promote the development of digital finance and give full play to its effectiveness in narrowing the urban-rural income gap.

The use of All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) has gained considerable attention within the recreation industry. The incorporation of ATVs into tourism and recreational activities has demonstrated substantial economic potential for local economies. However, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the economic impact of ATV recreation. This paper conducts an extensive review of existing literature from 2004 to 2022, evaluating the economic impact of ATVs on local economies in the United States. The review aims to identify commonalities and disparities among existing economic impact studies and assess whether these studies have included costs associated with ATV-induced environmental, societal, and public health damages in their economic assessments. To this end, there is a scarcity of scientific peer reviewed journal articles that exclusively focus on the economic impact of ATVs. As such, we reviewed a total of seven publications comprising reports. The results of our analysis shed light on similarities and differences in aspects of resident and non-resident ATV spending, type of ATV expenditures, and the approaches used to evaluate economic impact assessment. The findings indicate that existing studies have assessed the economic impact of ATVs solely based on gross expenditures, lacking comprehensive inclusion of the costs associated with ATV damages to the environment, society, and human health. This study advocates for the need for a more comprehensive consideration of both benefits and costs in the economic impact of ATVs to assist ATV business managers, policymakers, and researchers in making informed decisions and planning future programs.

Generating output growth by adding more inputs into the production process may not be sustainable in the long run for any economy, given the limited resources. On the other hand, if productivity growth dominates the production process, it will generate more output without excessive increase in input use. Hence, this paper examines whether the output growth in Indonesia’s manufacturing sector is excessive inputs driven or productivity driven. Productivity driven growth is measured by Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth, which is decomposed into its major components of technological progress and technical efficiency within the framework of varying coefficients stochastic frontier analysis (VSFA) using Indonesia’s annual Large and Medium Manufacturing Industries Survey data over the period 2002–2014. The measurement of the components of TFP growth not only provides more insights and better understanding of the dynamic nature of the production processes, but also has important policy implications. The mean TFP growth during the period 2002-2014 was estimated to be 4.3 per cent and was mostly contributed by technological progress experienced by firms. The policy implication is that technical efficiency could still be improved for the selected technology to reap the full benefit of increasing output from the chosen technology.

The rapid growth of renewable solar and wind energy necessitates extensive, long-term energy storage solutions to stabilize the electric grid and address the intermittent nature of these sources. In the absence of cost-effective long-duration, large-scale (LDLS) energy storage, there is a risk of increased disruptive blackouts and brownouts as intermittent energy sources approach 50% of electricity generation. Our analysis underscores volumetric energy density as a pivotal determinant in LDLS energy storage solutions, which is particularly crucial during periods of diminished renewable resource availability, such as the rainy season. Despite emphasis on conventional electric batteries and mechanical storage technologies such as compressed air and pumped hydro for LDLS, their costs pose a significant obstacle to widespread adoption, especially in emerging economies. In this study, we present a groundbreaking approach to LDLS: on-demand electricity generation from carbon-neutral renewable oil, known as "green oil," leveraging Reliance’s innovative catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction (R-CAT-HTL) technology. Our investigation evaluated two distinct sources of green oil production: organic waste streams (e.g., municipal solid waste, agricultural-waste, etc.) and on purpose production of algal biomass. We demonstrate that burning renewable green oil to produce electricity offers a cost-effective solution for large-scale (GWh) long-duration (many days) energy storage, ensuring the stability, reliability, and resiliency of the electric grid. We also demonstrate that minimum 14 days, ideally 30 days energy storage is needed for continuous uninterrupted service, especially critical for manufacturing facilities. Through a meticulous levelized cost of storage (LCOS) analysis comparing green oil with other LDLS technologies reported in literature, we demonstrate the cost effectiveness of green oil. In this model, green oil serves as stored energy, functions akin to a battery and is efficiently converted into electricity through conventional reciprocating engines or next-generation more efficient turbines. Our findings suggest that green oil derived from diverse organic sources is the most economically viable option for GWh-scale storage, particularly when storage requirements extend beyond a single day. This research thus presents a transformative cost-effective solution to the pressing challenge of LDLS energy storage, accelerating a sustainable and resilient energy future.

The digital transformation provides an opportunity for the development of a green and low-carbon economy. This study used panel data collected from 30 Chinese provinces between 2011 and 2018, and assessed the impact of digitization (Dig) on environmental efficiency (EE). Quantile regression is employed to scrutinize the evolution of the marginal effect. From the perspectives of population and institutional factors, this study empirically investigates nonlinear relationships and potential mechanisms using Hansen threshold and mediation models. The findings reveal several key insights. Overall, levels of digitization and environmental efficiency (EE) are increasing with regional dispersion expansion, indicating a “polarization” characteristic. The impact of digitization on EE exhibits noticeable stage and regional heterogeneity. Analysis of population factors reveals that population structure, population size, and human capital trigger a sharp “marginal increase” of positive effects with single thresholds of 0.8155, 7.2284, and 11.0497, respectively. Analysis of institutional factors highlights the significance of fiscal policy quality (tax proportion), education expenditure, and tax system structure as important intermediaries. Finally, this paper presents corresponding policy implications.

The long-term low level of residents' property income is not only detrimental to the wealth accumulation of farmers, but also aggravates the urban-rural income imbalance. This paper uses an empirical approach to explore the mechanism of digital literacy's impact on farm households' property income. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) Digital literacy and its sub-dimensions can significantly increase the level of farmers' property income, with the strongest contribution of digital information acquisition literacy. (2) Digital literacy has a greater boosting effect on the property income of farm households with low education level heads, low physical capital households, and villages with better economic development. (3) Digital literacy increases the property income of farm households mainly through expanding social capital and improving risk preferences. The innovation of this paper is to construct a digital literacy evaluation index system based on a micro perspective that fits the behavioral characteristics of farmers, and reveal the impact and mechanism of digital literacy and its sub-dimensions on farmers' property income. This study expands the theoretical research related to digital literacy and farmers' property income, and provides a scientific basis for the choice of strategies to enhance the digital literacy of the majority of farmers, which is important for promoting wealth accumulation of farmers and achieving common prosperity.

The dynamic patterns of technology adoption among firms clustered by size are investigated to assess the implications arising from the digital divide. Using data from the “Survey on the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Enterprises (IUTICE)" dataset for 2003-2022, provided by the Portuguese Institute of Statistics, the research centers on three key variables – internet connectivity, website presence, and computer usage – which are examined across a spectrum of firms’ scales, shedding light on the evolving trends in technology adoption. Employing a combination of descriptive statistical analysis, trend assessment, and cross-sectional comparisons, this research shows noteworthy insights. Interestingly, the adoption rates for all three technology variables exhibit a consistent upward trajectory, indicative of a movement towards digitalization within the business landscape. Smaller firms have demonstrated notable strides, manifesting a reduction in the technology adoption disparity relative to their larger counterparts. The findings underscore the influential roles played by resource constraints and digital competencies in shaping technology adoption trajectories, and their correspondence with the Resource-Based View (RBV) framework underscores the role of organizational resources and capabilities on the digital divide. The ramifications extend beyond individual firms, resonating with the global scholarly discourse and advocating for equitable integration of technology. As firms, irrespective of size, grapple with the challenges posed by the digital era, this study provides deep insights that can guide the formulation of strategies aimed at cultivating an inclusive and technologically empowered business environment.

The rise of privately issued digital currencies, which primarily serve as alternative investment assets poses a challenge to the traditional financial instruments traded in the financial market. This study examines the dynamic relationship between the major privately issued digital currency (Bitcoin) and two financial market securities in Nigeria. The paper employed Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model and presents three relevant findings. First, the impulse response function indicates the absence of a significant response of the Nigerian financial market to shocks emanating from the Bitcoin market, implying lower connectedness between the two markets. Secondly, the outcome of the variance decomposition reveals a lower contribution of Bitcoin to changes in stock prices and treasury bills, however, stock prices and treasury bills contributed higher impact to each other compared to the contribution of Bitcoin. Thirdly, a weak bi-directional causality between the Bitcoin and treasury bills was observed and a uni-directional causality running from treasury bills and stocks, implying the existence of portfolio rebalancing from the fixed income to the equities market. Despite the weak connection between digital currency and the financial market, the paper recommends that the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission should maintain monitoring the development of crypto exchanges and continue reviewing the existing policy restricting cryptocurrency transactions through banks to avoid its unsavoury effects.

Triggered by the rising demand, a complex aircraft production network has been evolving during the past half century. In order to analysis the spatial-temporal evolution of this network, this paper establishes a novel and complex data by collecting 1774 major global aircraft manufacturers' production relationship from Jane's All the World' s Aircraft Development & Production (1965-2021), and visualizes the spatial temporal characteristics of the global aircraft production network by using Social Net Analysis method. The characteristics are summarized as follows: (1) the main aircraft firms from 48 counties form a complex production network centered on the United States, Europe and China; (2) The production network remains diffusion during 1965-2005, but it retracts after 2005, which documents evidences of de-globalization trend in the aircraft industry; (3)AVIC, Airbus, Boeing, Textron, Lockheed, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Sikorsky, Bell, and Embraer are all ranked high in the study period and play the role of leading firms in the production network and drive the cooperative connections of other companies.

Current societal challenges related to retirement planning, healthcare systems’ evolution and environmental changes require households to pay a closer attention to their personal finances. This in turns calls for the associated industry to transform and scale. To do so, the personal finance industry could potentially leverage artificial intelligence tools for which there has been increasing levels of chatter. However, there is, to my knowledge, little consensus on whether or not those tools are appropriate given the challenges ahead. The literature review at the heart of this article first suggests that the stream of personal finance where transformation is more than needed is the one pertaining to investments, rather than the ones associated to loans, insurances or payments. Second, the productivity levers fueling the transformation of this branch are yet more driven, as of today, by simple digitalization notions rather by the usage of A.I. instruments. Over the next couple of years, more attention should thus be paid to use/business cases associated to investment products and the digitalization of their distribution chain.

This study employs empirical analysis using an econometric model that examines the interdependence among environmental degradation, exports, and economic development with energy use. It also provides an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for selected South Asian economies utilizing time-series data. The findings reveal a long-term, stable equilibrium link between energy demand and pollution. There exists a positive relationship between structural factors and pollution. Moreover, this study constructs a model of exports and pollution from an interdependent perspective. The three perspectives are tested: the scale and structure of energy consumption considering the twin constraints of export-trade and pollution, and the scale of pollution in export-trade constraint. These results show that the increase in energy use leads to higher CO2 emissions amidst export volume. However, in the presence of income, the scale of effect lowers a little. The analysis also supports the presence of Kuznets curve for south-Asian economies. The results imply substantial scope for development in the energy use and pollution structure within South Asia's current export trade process. This development can be attained by regulating energy use and enhancing system efficacy without necessitating changes to the scale effect or structural effect.

This paper examines the link between informality and corruption, two interlinked phenomena that have negative impacts on economic development. The paper presents a neoclassical model simulation that illustrates how informality can drive corruption in the economy, emphasizing the incentives for corruption in an economy with informal and formal sectors. The model provides insights into the mechanisms that promote corruption and how policymakers can reduce it through formalisation. The paper reviews the existing literature on informality and corruption, highlighting the empirical evidence and theoretical models that support the relationship between the two. The research finds that countries with larger informal sectors tend to have higher levels of corruption. The study contributes to the ongoing debate on how to reduce corruption and promote formalisation, which are crucial for sustainable economic growth.

Carbon emissions trading is an important part of emission reduction policy tools, and manufacturing is the foundation of a strong country. This paper explores the impact of carbon emissions trading pilot on the high-quality development of manufacturing industry by using the double difference method. It is found that carbon emissions trading can significantly promote the high-quality development of manufacturing industry, in which the government's will of ecological environment governance, technological progress and industrial structure rationalization have significant intermediary effects. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact of carbon emissions trading on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry is most significant in the western region. Accordingly, the study proposes suggestions on how to further improve China's carbon emissions trading market and realize the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.

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.

Overall development of a country largely depends on the economic policy instruments particularly fiscal and monetary policy to streamline the development and continue the developmental progress. These two policies have significant effects on long-term growth. It is noticed that policy adoption and reforms in both fiscal and monetary policies undertaken by Southeast Asian nations during the 1960s through 1990s have contributed to their advancement. This paper discusses the strategies for flourishing as emerging economies. Examples from Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are highlighted in this study. It is found that prudent fiscal and monetary policy, effective discounting and interest rate; modernized tax system and most importantly policy regime are the contributing factors of these emerging economies. However, in spite of high-income growth and development because of supportive these policy initiatives, administrative and politico-economic constraints challenged the path of economies. Long-term development strategies are suggested to sustain the growth and continue the development pace.

Based on China's 30 provincial panel data from 2006 to 2018, this paper uses the spatial Durbin model to empirically study the influence path and transmission mechanism of financial development on regional technological innovation, and introduce digital finance environment, marketization degree, and government environmental management as an adjustment variable to verify its regulating effect on financial development and regional technological innovation. The study found that the overall promotion of digital finance to local technological innovation is not significant. Besides, the characteristics of ownership discrimination and weak risk appetite in the bank's medium and long-term credit market have led to its failure to promote regional technological innovation. In contrast, the stock market and bond market in direct financing channels have enhanced local innovation capabilities. When the external environmental system is used as the adjustment variable, the results show that an excellent digital finance development, marketization degree, and government environmental management can effectively and positively regulate the effect of financial development and technological innovation.