Agricultural productivity-environmental sustainability nexus through the lens of digitalization and energy intensity in BRICS countries

The agricultural sector holds paramount implications in the economies of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries. Nevertheless, the escalating effect of climate change shows a significant and alarming threat to the actual environmental conditions required to sustain agricultural production. This study examines the potential contribution of demographic dividends, digitalization, and energy intensity in facilitating the attainment of environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity by BRICS economies from 1996 to 2020. The study first tested cross-sectional dependence, then unit roots, cointegration, and long-run elasticities using suitable econometric approaches to explore possible links between the study variables. The empirical results from the long-run estimators stated that digitalization improves agricultural production and the environment; contrarily, demographic dividend and energy intensity contribute to environmental degradation. Furthermore, the long-term improvement of agricultural production is supported by demographic dividend, GDP per capita, energy intensity, and digitalization. Also, the study reached a broad inference emphasizing bidirectional causal associations between demographic dividend, energy intensity, GDP per capita, the environment, and agricultural production. In conclusion, the study has identified robust policy options for BRICS economies that can serve as valuable guidance for policymakers in making informed decisions and implementing effective practices.     

Pre-revolutionary Iranian economic policy making : An optimal control based assessment

An optimal control macroeconomic model of the Iranian economic is developed in order to evaluate the government's economic policies over the 1972–1977 period. The main results of the study indicate that, after 1973, Iranian planners should have focused on shorter-run stabilization issues and contributed more actively to the budgetary decision-making process. This conclusion is true with regard not only to the longer-run supply effects of the government's programmes, but also to the shorter-run stabilization difficulties posed by the rapidly accelerating level of expenditures.     

Challenges of Fiscal Policy in Emerging and Developing Economies

This article presents a systematic analysis of the availability and use of fiscal space in emerging and developing economies. We report two major results. First, emerging and developing economies built fiscal space in the run-up to the Great Recession of 2008–2009, which was then used for stimulus. Since then, fiscal space has shrunk and remains narrow as these economies have taken advantage of historically low interest rates. Second, fiscal policy in emerging and developing economies has become countercyclical (or less procyclical), i.e., “graduated,” since the 1980s, as most clearly demonstrated during the Great Recession. The move towards graduation is most pronounced for those economies with greater fiscal space, which suggests that fiscal space matters for a government’s ability to implement countercyclical fiscal policy.     

Public Investment Criteria in Overlapping Generations Models of Open Economies

This paper derives criteria for worthwhile public investment in an overlapping generations model of an “almost small” open economy- an economy with access to external funding at a given interest rate, but with some influence over its temporal terms of trade. If the economy is dynamically efficient (i.e. the interest rate exceeds the growth rate), committed to free trade, public investment is debt financed and lump sum taxes are feasible, two results follow. First, the “social opportunity cost of public funds” will exceed the government's borrowing rate because of the adverse effect of government borrowing on the terms of trade. Second, the marginal rate of return on worthwhile public investment will be greater than the social opportunity cost of public funds if public and private investment are complements (substitutes) and the tax on capital is below (above) the rate that minimizes the steady state burden of servicing the debt. JEL Code: F21, H43     

Implementing the nash extension bargaining solution for non-convex problems

Conley and Wilkie (1993) introduced an axiomatization at the Nash extension bargaining solution defined on a domain of comprehensive but not necessarily convex problems. In this paper we present a non-cooperative game which implements the Nash extension solution in subgame perfect equilibria in the limit as the discount rate applied between rounds of play vanishes.     

Restructuring Public Transit Systems: Evidence on Cost Properties from Medium and Large-Sized Companies

This paper analyses the cost structure of a sample of local public transport companies operating in medium and large urban centres in Italy in order to identify the proper network configuration for the service. Technological characteristics of public transit systems are analysed by estimating both variable and total cost function models. The evidence shows the presence of short-run and long-run economies of scale, as well as of economies of network density. This suggests that a suitable network design should at least include a large urban centre, while a regulatory policy aimed at fragmenting the served area would imply an efficiency loss.      

Asian medical marketing,a review of factors affecting Asian medical tourism development

Recently, medical tourism has been considered as a profitable economic sector in developing countries. In this study, we have reviewed articles from 2000 to 2017 on medical tourism marketing in Asian countries. We have found that perceived service quality and satisfaction are the most important factors to attract medical tourists. Moreover, a lack of factors like coordination among medical market stakeholders, medical services quality, insurance coverage, and effective laws are the major barriers to medical travel cited in studies. The results suggest that more specific models should be presented for Asian medical marketing, especially in niche markets of this industry.     

Rent-seeking under a weak institutional environment

This paper investigates the role of the institutional environment on economic performance when the state intervenes to correct market failure. Results demonstrate that in the presence of weak institutions rent-seeking plays a crucial role for achieving second best resources allocation.     

Government size and economic growth in emerging market economies: a panel co-integration approach

A significant positive influence of both government size and domestic investment on economic growth is found in the long run during 1970–2006 for a sample of 19 emerging market economies, employing panel co-integration testing and estimating the parameters using dynamic ordinary least square method, for all the indicators, excepting the case when one chooses general government final consumption expenditure as a percentage of GDP a measure of government size and gross capital formation as a percentage of GDP a measure of domestic investment, with per capita GDP a proxy for economic growth. The findings corroborate the argument that diverse results of the earlier studies are due to different measures adopted.     

Does foreign bank penetration affect the risk of domestic banks? Evidence from emerging economies

We investigate whether foreign bank penetration affects the risk of domestic banks in emerging economies. By using bank-level data from 35 markets during the period of 2000–2014, we find significant evidence that the risk of domestic banks increases with the presence of foreign banks in the host economy, and this finding is shown to be consistent in a series of robustness tests. We also find that the incidence of such effects is more pronounced for domestic banks which are less efficient and less based on traditional activities. Foreign banks exert more pronounced impacts on domestic banks’ risk when they enter the host market via M&A, as opposed to greenfield investments, and when they belong to foreign conglomerates which provide strong internal support.