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This article aims to investigate how institutional characteristics affect the level of financial development of economies collectively and compare between developed and undeveloped economies.

A dynamic panel with 131 countries, including developed and developing ones, was utilized; the estimators of the generalized method of moments system (GMM system) model were selected because they have econometric characteristics more suitable for analysis, providing superior statistical precision compared to traditional linear estimation methods.

The results from the full panel suggest that concrete and well-defined institutions are important for financial development, confirming previous research, with a more limited scope than the present work.

Limitations of this research include the availability of data for all countries worldwide, which would make the research broader and more complete.

A panel of countries was used, divided into developed and developing countries, to analyze the impact of institutional variables on the financial development of these countries, which is one of the differentiators of this work. Another differentiator of this research is the presentation of estimates in six different configurations, with emphasis on the GMM system model in one and two steps, allowing for comparison between results.

This paper aims to investigate the nonlinear effects of bank regulation stringency on bank lending in 23 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 1997–2017.

This study employs the dynamic panel threshold regression (PTR) model, which addresses endogeneity and heterogeneity problems within a nonlinear framework. It also uses indices of entry barriers, mixing of banking and commerce restrictions, activity restrictions and capital regulatory requirements from the updated databases of the World Bank's Bank Regulation and Supervision Surveys as measures of bank regulation.

The linearity test results support the existence of nonlinear effects in the relationship between bank lending and entry barriers or capital regulations in the selected SSA economies. The dynamic PTR estimation results reveal that bank lending responds positively when the stringency of entry barriers is below the threshold of 62.8%. However, once the stringency of entry barriers exceeds that threshold level, bank credit reacts negatively and significantly. By contrast, changes in capital regulation stringency do not affect bank lending, either below or above the obtained threshold value of 76.5%.

These results can help policymakers design bank regulatory measures that will promote the resilience and safety of the banking system but at the same time not bring unintended effects to bank lending.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the nonlinear effects of bank regulatory measures on bank lending using the dynamic PTR model and SSA context.

Purpose: This chapter examines the effect of COVID-19 on the stock market volatility (SMV) in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), Sri Lanka.

Need for the Study: The study is necessary to understand investor behaviour, market efficiency, and risk management strategies during a global crisis.

Methodology: Utilising daily All Share Price Index (ASPI) data from 2 January 2018 to 31 August 2021, the data are divided into subsamples corresponding to the pre-pandemic period, the pandemic period, and distinct waves of the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic is investigated using the Mann–Whitney U test, the Kruskal–Wallis test, and the Exponential Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) model.

Findings: The pandemic considerably affected CSE – the Mann–Whitney U test produced different market returns during the pre-COVID and COVID eras. The Kruskal–Wallis test improved performance during COVID-19 but did not continue to do so across COVID-19 waves. The EGARCH model detected increased volatility and risk during the first wave, but the second and third waves outperformed the first. COVID-19 had a minimal overall effect on CSE market results. GARCH and Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models identified long-term variance memory and volatility clustering. The News Impact Curve (NIC) showed that negative news had a more significant impact on market return volatility than positive news, even if the asymmetric term was not statistically significant.

Practical Implications: This study offers significant insight into how Sri Lanka’s SMV is affected by COVID-19. The findings help create efficient mitigation strategies to mitigate the negative consequences of future events.

The purpose of this study is to provide new insights into the relationship between fiscal policy and total factor productivity (TFP) while accounting for several economic and econometric issues of the phenomenon like non-stationarity, fiscal feedback effects, persistence in productivity, country heterogeneity and unobserved global shocks and local spillovers affecting heterogeneously the countries in the sample.

The paper is empirical. It builds an Error Correction Model (ECM) specification within a dynamic heterogeneous framework with common correlated effects and models both reverse causality and feedback effects.

The results of this study highlight some new findings relative to the existing related literature. The outcomes suggest some relevant evidence at both the academic and policy levels: (1) the causal effects going from fiscal deficit/surplus to TFP are heterogeneous across countries; (2) the effects depend on the time horizon considered; (3) the long-run dynamics of TFP are positively impacted by improvements in fiscal budget, but only if the austerity measures do not exert slowdowns in aggregate growth.

The main originality of this study is methodological, with possible extensions to related phenomena. Relative to the existing literature, the gains of this study rely on the way econometric techniques, recently proposed in the literature, are adapted to the economic relationship of interest. The endogeneity due to the existence of reverse causality is modelled without implying relevant performance losses of the models. Moreover, this is the first article that questions whether the effects of fiscal budget on productivity depend on the impact of the former on aggregate output growth, thus emphasising the importance of the quality of fiscal adjustments.

Using the theoretical framework of the substantive economy, this study aims to point out the main aspects of the substantive mode of operation that help the integration of disadvantaged people while at the same time shedding light on the barriers that hinder economically efficient functioning in a market economy.

Research focuses on Hungarian rural work integration social cooperatives, which are engaged in producing activity by the employment of disadvantaged people. In the research, mixed methods were applied: results of a questionnaire survey covering 102 cooperatives, as well as 20 semi-structured interviews and experiences from the field. A total of 17 indicators were used to explore the substantive operational features, promoting mechanisms and problems in the following areas: organisational goals and outcomes; integrating roles and functions; productive functions; and the embeddedness of cooperatives.

As for results, substantive operational mechanisms and tools that support the integration of disadvantaged people have been identified such as mentoring, social incentives, the ability to create local value or the expansion of local community services. At the same time, several barriers have been detected that make it difficult to operate economically, such as cooperatives being a stepping stone for workers, excessive product heterogeneity or the lack of vertically structured bridging relationships.

The value of the study is to counterpoint the mechanisms promoting social purposes of work-integration social cooperatives and the obstacles to their long-term sustainability within the framework of the substantive economy, to better understand their functioning and the less quantifiable factors of their performance.

Environmental degradation resulting from human activities may adversely affect human health in multiple ways. Until now, policies aimed at mitigating environmental problems such as climate change, environmental pollution and damage to biodiversity have failed to clearly identify and drive the potential benefits of these policies on health. The conducted study assesses and demonstrates how specific environmental policies and instruments influence perceived human health in order to ensure input for a data-driven decision process.

The study was conducted for the 2004–2020 period in European Union (EU) countries with the use of dynamic panel data modeling. Verification of specific policies' impact on dependent variables allows to indicate this their effectiveness and importance. As a result of the computed dynamic panel data models, it has been confirmed that a number of significant and meaningful relationships between the self-perceived health index and environmental variables can be identified.

There is a strong positive impact of environmental taxation on the health index, and the strength of this relationship causes effects to be observed in the very short term, even the following year. In addition, the development of renewable energy sources (RES) and the elimination of fossil fuels from the energy mix exert positive, although milder, effects on health. The reduction of ammonia emissions from agriculture and reducing noise pollution are other health-supporting factors that have been shown to be statistically valid. Results allow to identify the most efficient policies in the analyzed area in order to introduce those with the best results or a mix of such measures.

The results of the authors' research clearly indicate the health benefits of measures primarily aimed at improving environmental factors, such as environmental taxes in general. The authors have also discovered an unexpected negative impact of an increase in the share of energy taxes in total taxes on the health index. The presented study opens several possibilities for further investigation, especially in the context of the rapidly changing geopolitical environment and global efforts to respond to environmental and health challenges. The authors believe that the outcome of the authors' study may provide new arguments to policymakers pursuing solutions that are not always easily acceptable by the public.