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.

This study empirically examines the influence of corporate financialization on trade credit financing, focusing on non-financial companies listed in China's A-share market from 2010 to 2022. The results indicate that as corporate financialization increases, companies will obtain less trade credit financing. Further incorporating moderating factors like market position and financing constraints, we find that a higher market position effectively mitigates the negative impact of corporate financialization on trade credit financing, whereas higher financing constraints exacerbate the adverse effects of corporate financialization on trade credit financing. Additional analysis shows that corporate financialization negatively affects trade credit financing by crowding out main business performance and increasing operational risks. Moreover, corporate financialization more strongly inhibits trade credit financing in state-owned companies.

With the advancement of science and technology and the advent of the digital economy, the digital economy has become a new driving force for economic development, and the digital economy industry at home and abroad is facing new opportunities for survival and development. However, due to the special development model and profit mode of the digital economy industry, the traditional performance evaluation method is no longer applicable, so it is particularly important to improve the previous performance evaluation method. This paper first adjusts the customer value assessment (CLV) model according to the characteristics of the digital economy industry, and then analyzes the traditional EVA based on the adjusted user value assessment (ULV) model of the digital economy industry. The performance evaluation system is improved, and the representative enterprises of Alibaba, JD and Pinduoduo in the digital economy industry are selected for performance evaluation and analysis, and the user value performance evaluation model of the digital economy industry is integrated, innovated and standardized, in order to provide reference and reference for the follow-up research and practice of performance evaluation in the digital economy industry.

The development of digital economy is becoming an important path to promote the kinetic energy of China's tax revenue development. Based on the panel data from 2011 to 2018, this paper uses Gini coefficient to analyze the regional differences of China's digital economy, and uses fixed effect model, spatial Durbin model, multi-period double difference model and other empirical methods to examine the tax effects of digital economy development. The results show that the regional disparity is the main reason for the regional disparity of digital economy development in China. The development of digital economy directly increases the tax amount of local digital industry, and at the same time it also radiates and drives the increase of local total tax revenue; The tax effect of digital economy has a negative spatial spillover, showing a "siphon effect" to neighboring areas; Mechanism analysis shows that the development of digital economy mainly promotes the increase of local tax revenue through growth effect.

The Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule aims at reducing the cost of healthcare in the United States by making information about the prices of medical services more readily available to market participants. The economic rationale is that higher price transparency should reduce the level and the dispersion of prices by disincentivizing hospitals from charging higher prices than possible. Using data on 3789 prices for three diagnostic imaging procedures and on the compliance with the rule for 86 acute care hospitals in the Greater Los Angeles area, we test the hypothesis that price levels and price dispersion are lower among hospitals that are more compliant. We do not reject this hypothesis, although we do not observe strictly decreasing relationships in all analyses. Prices are lower at hospitals with high or medium compliance than at hospitals with low compliance, but there is not a clear difference between hospitals with high and hospitals with medium compliance. Prices are less dispersed among hospitals with high compliance than among hospitals with low compliance, but the evidence for hospitals with medium compliance is less clear. We conclude that high compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule implies lower prices and less price dispersion among hospitals.

Renewable energy has become a crucial topic in recent years as the world is moving towards environment friendly and sustainable energy sources. The aim of this research paper is to analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of renewable energy resources such as geothermal, hydro, solar and wind energy in comparison to typical and traditional energy resources such as oil and coal. This paper focuses on the current state of renewable energy adoption, the benefits and drawbacks of all types of renewable energy resources, and the challenges faced in implementing renewable energy on a large scale. Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper discusses the methodologies and results of various studies conducted to understand the potential of renewable energy sources by secondary means. This research paper also presents an original analysis of renewable energy data to identify the most efficient and cost-effective renewable energy source. The results of this study indicate that renewable energy sources can be an effective and efficient replacement for traditional energy sources, but they face significant challenges in adoption and implementation. The study concludes with recommendations for future research and policy changes that can support the growth of renewable energy sources.

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.

At present, global warming poses the greatest threat to the planet's ecosystem. China is the greatest CO2 emitter, expected to account for roughly 33% of overall emissions in 2021, and this has caused authorities to express significant concern in the most latest Paris accord, when they decided to cut global emissions to a particular level. In comparison, 55% of China's power in 2021 appears from coal. As a result, investigating the ecological elements that affect China's CO2 output is essential. This analysis utilizes the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique to investigate the relationships concerning fossil fuels, renewables, and economic growth from 1990 to 2021. According to the data, using fossil fuels to generate energy and increase GDP significantly increases CO2 emissions. Yet, the use of renewable energy reduces CO2 emissions both in the long run and in the short term. Overall, the outcomes imply that using renewable energy sources is key to reaching sustainable environmental goals and deters the usage of fossil fuels in the energy mix. This study suggests that China take into account empirical findings and undertake long-term initiatives to reduce carbon emissions in favor of sustainable environmental outcomes.

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.

This paper evaluates the fit-for-purpose of the monetary policy measures implemented by the Bank of Ghana in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the effectiveness of the BoG’s policy interventions in the context of vector autoregressions augmented with macroeconomic and financial indicators. We demonstrate that the BoG’s monetary policy measures have had nominal, real, and financial effects. The monetary interventions have been successful, as evidenced by the gradual reduction in the sovereign spread, improved financial stability, and increased real economic activity. Our findings suggest that balance sheet actions are less effective and should be moderated in the conduct of monetary policy in jurisdictions without zero lower bound constraints. However, the analysis indicates that in times of crisis, central banks should deploy both standard and non-standard tools to stabilize dysfunctional financial markets and avoid a deflationary spiral. The historical and variance decomposition of the data reveal that monetary policy shocks have historically made the largest contributions to the targeted macro-financial aggregates during the pandemic episodes.

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.

This paper attempts to introduce an overlapping generations structure into Paul Krugman's "The world's smallest macroeconomic model" (Krugman (1999)) to examine the implications of fiscal policy, particularly fiscal deficits, in a framework suitable for policy analysis. In that paper, Krugman argued that under the price rigidity assumption, a shortage in the money supply leads to underemployment and recession, so increasing the money supply would eliminate underemployment and restore full employment. But how can the money supply be increased? I show that in order to restore full employment out of a recession, a fiscal deficit is needed to increase the money supply. I also show that in a growing economy, fiscal deficits are necessary to maintain full employment at constant prices or inflation. Fiscal deficits are not only effective in pulling the economy out of recession, they are even necessary for growth to continue without recession or inflation. The fiscal deficit in this paper represents the difference between government spending and government revenues. If this difference is positive, we say that the government is in deficit. Krugman's original model is a one-period static model. I intend to extend this model to a dynamic overlapping generations model.

This study examines the role of news sentiments in the GCC equity markets’ connectedness. We collected news titles for the period from 22nd June 2006 until 31st December 2020 from Gulf News, which is the most widely read English newspaper in the Arab World. We filter these news titles using a carefully designed list of keywords that capture public sentiment on matters related to financial markets. Next, we classify the news titles to compute the geographically distinguished sentiment indexes that allow for a detailed analysis of the source of news sentiment spillovers to compare the impact of domestic versus regional sentiments on the equity markets of GCC countries. Our quantile regression results reveal that equity markets in the GCC are most sensitive to news sentiments when underperforming. Moreover, our results from the connectedness approach suggest that the UAE equity markets are most influenced by domestic sentiments, whilst the KSA equity market is most influenced by regional sentiments from the other GCC countries. Mixed results are found for other countries. The time-varying component of this study also shows that the influence of news spillovers intensified during the major crises events, including the COVID-19 outbreak.

Machine learning is playing an increasingly important role in the healthcare industry by transforming the way cancer is diagnosed and treated. By analyzing patient data, genomic data, and imaging data, machine learning algorithms can identify molecular signatures that distinguish cancer patients from healthy patients. Biomarkers that can accurately detect and diagnose cancer can be identified through analysis of these data sources. Additionally, personalized cancer therapies can be developed by identifying the most effective treatments based on individual patient characteristics and cancer type. Some of the machine learning techniques used for cancer biomarker discovery include deep learning and support vector machines, which can respectively identify complex patterns in data and classify data to identify relevant biomarkers. The benefits of using machine learning for cancer biomarker discovery are significant, including more precise and personalized treatments, improved patient outcomes, and the potential to transform cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, there are also challenges associated with using machine learning for cancer biomarker discovery, such as data collection and privacy issues, as well as the need for more powerful computational resources. This article explores the potential of machine learning in cancer biomarker discovery and argues that ongoing research in this field has the potential to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and treatment. Future research directions should focus on further developing machine learning algorithms and effective data collection and privacy protocols.

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.

In the past, investing in housing has served as an engine of growth for many economies as it is widely recognized that poor housing conditions can have significant negative impacts on human health, education, and economic opportunities. To assess the housing-related quality of life, indicators such as housing quality, housing environment, and cost burdens can be applied. However, recent studies indicate that materials used for construction are critical. Permanent materials, as opposed to temporary materials, typically offer a range of benefits in terms of durability, low maintenance, improved energy efficiency, increased property value, and better safety. The ultimate aim is to identify the key drivers of housing conditions in Cambodia, with a particular focus on materials and water quality, and the legal status of housing. To find the empirical relationship between economic, socio-economic, and demographic variables on the one hand, and variables measuring housing and living conditions in Cambodia on the other, the analysis employs Ordinary Least Squares and Methods-of-Moments regression modeling. Results indicate that high employment rates and entrepreneurship increase home ownership, and improve the quality of drinking water available. Furthermore, in addition to employment and entrepreneurship, the higher-performing construction materials can also be empirically explained by a bigger labor force and variables capturing the wider macroeconomic environment.

Forest resources, as one of the most important natural resources, have high ecological value. The calculation of their ecological value is an important part of improving the accounting of natural resources assets. Based on the analysis of the basic situation of China's forest resources, this paper starts from the economic theory of forest resources, discusses the principle of forest resources in national economic operation, analyzes the output, value, price and other issues of forest resources, and probes into the necessity of studying forest resources. Then, based on the purpose of compiling the balance sheet of natural resources, the forest resources accounting theory was studied from the aspects of subject and object, scope, table design and so on. On the basis of relevant theoretical research, the main ecological functions of different types of forest resources are discussed. In practical calculation, the parameters of some accounting methods are adjusted to adapt to the local situation. Some methods of ecological value calculation such as soil conservation and water conservation are put forward, and some ideas for further improvement are put forward. Finally, taking Qiandao Lake as an example, the ecological value of its forest resources is calculated. Through calculation, the annual soil conservation value of Qiandao Lake forest resources was obtained. Combined with the research conclusion and practice progress, the future research prospect is put forward.

The policy of ethnic equality and solidarity aims to narrow the ethnic gap and develop harmoniously. At the level of higher education, it should promote the equity of ethnic education. This paper uses the administrative data of undergraduate students from 2008 to 2015 in a liberal arts university in southwest China to study the differences, causes and dynamic trends in the scores of college students from different nationalities. The results show that compared with Han students, the average GPA of ethnic minority students is 0.13 points lower (equivalent to 0.23 and 0.3 standard deviations of the scores of ethnic minority and Han students), the fourth grade scores are 0.28 standard deviations lower, and 7.3% lower. This difference is more significant in the western region, especially in Xinjiang, Yunnan, Hubei and other provinces inhabited by ethnic minorities; Kazak and uygur are the nationalities with the biggest gap with han students; The difference between girls is more significant than that between boys. The "peer effect" and cultural distance between roommates are important reasons for this difference. Further analysis shows that although the ethnic differences in academic performance are gradually expanding, the growth rate tends to converge. The above conclusions are helpful to clarify the object and time of making national higher education policy, and also have important reference significance for primary and secondary education.

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 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.