Consumption and fiscal policy

This paper uses the life-cycle approach to derive an equilibrium intratemporal efficiency condition which relates the marginal utility of consumption of nondurable goods and services to the marginal utility of consumption of services from durable goods. Given this condition and the assumption that marginal utilities are affected by the level of public spending, a long-run relationship between components of private consumption and public expenditure is then postulated. The application of cointegration analysis to UK data supports the existence and uniqueness of such a long-run relationship, and estimates based on the error correction approach produce results which suggest that (i) a change in public spending has different effects on components of private consumption in the short-run, and (ii) the entire burden of long-run substitution falls on nondurable consumption.     

Impact of instrumental ties,tacit knowledge sharing and affective commitment on absorptive capacity – an empirical study of pharmaceutical companies

Absorptive capacity construct has gained importance since last two decades especially in knowledge intensive environment. The companies invest their time and resources to achieve strategic goals and thus enhance their absorptive capacity in order to deal with new knowledge requirements. Companies largely focus on the macro level processes and mechanisms which are external to their boundaries and ignore the intra company factors critical to absorptive capacity. This study explores the impact of human behaviours related to instrumental ties (INST), affective commitment (AFC) and tacit knowledge sharing (TKS) on absorptive capacity (ACAP). Results of this study based on sample from pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan show significant contribution of human behaviour in development of absorptive capacity. The employees’ behaviours may not be ignored by decision makers in pharmaceutical companies while formulating knowledge strategies.     

Big data tools for Islamic financial analysis

Behavioural science states that emotions, principles and the manner of thinking can affect the behaviour of individuals and even investors in their decision making on financial markets. In this paper, we have tried to measure the investor sentiment by three means of big data. The first is based on a search query of a list of words related to Islamic context. The second is inferred from the engagement degree on social media. The last measure of sentiment is built, based on the Twitter API classified into positive and negative directions by a machine learning algorithm based on the naive Bayes method. Then, we investigate whether these sensations and emotions have an impact on the market sentiment and the price fluctuations by means of a vector autoregression model and Granger causality analysis. In the final step, we apply the agent‐based simulation by means of the sequential Monte Carlo method with the control of our Twitter measure on Islamic index returns. We show, then, that the three social media sentiment measures present a remarkable impact on the contemporaneous and lagged returns of the different Islamic assets studied. We also give an estimation of the parameters of the latent variables relative to the agent model studied.     

How effective is central bank communication in emerging economies? An empirical analysis of the chinese money markets responses to the people’s bank of China’s policy communications

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Central banks, in both developed and developing economies, are responding to the increased demand for transparency in monetary policy formulation and...     

Education stock and its implication for income inequality: The case of Asian economies

This study develops a quadratic relationship between education and income inequality among Asian developing economies for the period from 1960 to 2015. Panel cointegration and fully modified OLS is applied for the estimation of long‐run coefficients. The results show that initial, primary, secondary, and tertiary enrollment increases inequality. However, the effect of education on income inequality becomes negative after a certain threshold level (i.e., 97.5% for primary, 43.5% for secondary, and 11% for tertiary). Thus, this result proves the Kuznets phenomenon of an inverted U‐shape relationship for primary, secondary, and tertiary enrollments.     

Exploring factors relating to extinction disclosures: What motivates companies to report on biodiversity and species protection?

This paper seeks to contribute to the existing business strategy and the environment literature by investigating the disclosure practices of biodiversity/extinction (B/E) and threatened species. We use greenwashing theory to understand global companies' motivation to report on B/E information. Data are collected from 200 Fortune Global companies for 3 years. We develop our comprehensive 53 disclosure index and create and test OLS regression model to measure the relationships between B/E disclosures and its determinants factors including environmental performance, industry sector, country, assurance, environmental awards, presence of biodiversity partners, and the number of species' related disclosure. Our results reveal that there are positive significant relationships between B/E disclosure and assurance provided by the Big 4: gaining an environmental award, companies from high biodiversity risk sectors, developing countries, presence of biodiversity partners, and how many specific biodiversity words are published in companies' reports. On the other hand, there are positive insignificant relationships between B/E disclosure and assurance: poor performers and the number of species disclosed in companies' reports. Our findings have important implications for regulators and policymakers. Our evidence appears to be robust when controlling for possible endogeneities.     

Fiscal and External Deficits Nexus in GIIPS Countries: Evidence from Parametric and Nonparametric Causality Tests

International Advances in Economic Research - This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal and external deficits in five European Union countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and...     

Using S&T foresight to augment organizational tool kits: a Canadian institutional-entrepreneurial experiment

This paper will explore recent Canadian federal experience in developing S&T foresight and creating knowledge sharing networks aimed at creating integrative capacities and convergent domains that involve fusions of several disciplines. More specifically, the paper will report on the experience of the Office of Technology Foresight (OTF) at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and its federal partners (science based departments and agencies – SBDAs) as they carried out a major S&T Foresight Pilot Project (STFPP) to elaborate prospective R&D opportunities and challenges in preparation for contingencies that may have to be confronted in the 10–20 year time horizon of 2015–2025. STFPP reports are posted at: http://www.techforesight.ca