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Social media networks make their services freely available to all users. Users pay for the service received with the time and attention taken by the advertisements. This chapter argues that social media platforms are a unique form of monopoly driven by “the more the merrier” effect (i.e., network effects) in users' consumption. These monopolies exercise market power, not by charging higher prices to users but by “tying” larger amounts of advertising to their content. Traditional antitrust instruments designed to address excessive pricing and reduced output by monopolies need to be reframed to tame the attention economy problems in the social media industry. This chapter discusses five antitrust instruments grouped in three categories: structural, behavioral, and market-based remedies. Market-based solutions are the least explored in the literature, despite being the most promising instruments to lower the attention costs imposed on users, while preserving the economies of scope in production and the network effects in consumption, and possibly maintaining free access to social media, as we know it today.

This study aims to explore the potential of Islamic climate finance in Indonesia and to map Islamic climate finance based on Islamic finance instruments, both commercial and social.

The analysis was conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, between October 2022 and June 2023. This study adopted a qualitative interpretive approach in two phases. The first phase was desk-based research which focused on document analysis such as official documents, scientific publications, non-governmental organization publications and company reports in Indonesia. This analysis was conducted to identify significant milestones in developing green and eco-friendly finance that used Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia. The second phase consisted of interviews with essential Islamic climate finance project actors, such as green sukuk publishers, zakat and waqf collection agencies, stakeholders, capital market regulators, Shariah supervisory boards and Islamic finance experts.

The main finding of this study is that the development of Islamic green finance in Indonesia can occur through various channels, including greening Islamic capital markets, greening Islamic social finance, Islamic green finance and developing green banking services for the unbanked to support financial inclusion. Green sukuk, or Islamic bonds, are key financial instruments in Islamic green finance. They are used to fund projects in areas such as clean energy, mass transit, water conservation, forestry and low-carbon technology. These green financing initiatives also include socially responsible investments that are designed to improve the lives of people and communities.

First, the availability of data on Islamic green finance practices in Indonesia may be limited, making it difficult to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape. Second, cultural and religious factors may play a role in the adoption and implementation of Islamic green finance, and these factors may vary across different regions in Indonesia.

The exploration and clustering of Islamic climate finance based on Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia can lead to the development of more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices in the financial industry.

This study serves as a pioneering effort to explore the potential and clustering of Islamic climate finance based on Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia.

This study aims to shed light on the challenges and obstacles (organizational, economic, legal and legislative) to the issuance of Islamic Sukuk in Palestine.

The descriptive analytical approach was adopted to collect data through a questionnaire that was distributed to a simple random sample of (500) male and female employees working in those banks.

The study concluded that the issuance of Islamic Sukuk in Palestine suffers from economic, legal and legislative challenges and obstacles. This includes the lack of interest in using it as a suitable financing tool to finance various economic projects, as it requires the presence of investors with high financial solvency in light of the low contribution of Palestinian legislation and laws to facilitate and encourage their issuance. Hence, there are no regulatory challenges or obstacles.

Few studies examine the issuance of Sukuk in the Palestinian environment, despite the attempts of the Palestinian Monetary Authority to develop Islamic financing instruments.

The necessity of subjecting the issuance of Islamic Sukuk in Palestine and all Islamic financing products to a unified body It is also important to work on spreading the Islamic financing culture related to their issuance, given its positive role in developing and providing the necessary funding for various projects.

The study identifies the level of challenges and obstacles facing the issuance of Islamic Sukuk in Palestinian banks by studying the organizational, economic, legal and legislative dimensions. The study attempts to explore this through the respondents’ opinions. It also focuses on emphasizing the role of this performance in economic development and supporting the elements of investment as a desirable financing alternative.

This paper aims to improve the debate linking the business models of banks to their riskiness by checking if diversification exerts different impacts on the probability of bank distress depending on the level of capital buffers.

The paper focuses on a sample of listed bank holding companies observed between 2007:Q3 and 2022:Q4. The authors use three subindexes of bank diversification. The authors estimate a dynamic model specification using a system generalized method of moments with robust standard errors and consistent estimators under heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation within a panel. Sensitivity and robustness checks are performed.

Asset and income diversification increase the probability of distress in low-capitalized banks during normal periods (excluding periods of crises and high uncertainty). Concerning crisis periods, a marginal increase in asset diversification during the global financial crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis induces a more important increase in the probability of failure of well-capitalized banks relative to low-capitalized ones. Contrary to the results obtained for the GFC period, well-capitalized banks were found to pursue more careful funding diversification in reaction to the sudden increase of uncertainty during the Russia–Ukraine war.

Prudential supervision should concentrate on well-capitalized banks to encompass unexpected excessive risk-taking during crisis periods. Regulatory requirements should constrain fragile banks to avoid pursuing assets and income diversification strategies that increase earnings volatility.

The main originality of this paper is to consider the interaction between three different dimensions of bank diversification and capital regulation during stable and unstable periods using the marginal effect analysis. Moreover, this paper uses, initially, the GFC as the reference crisis period to study the impact of capital buffers and diversification interactions on the probability of bank distress. Then, the authors extend the observation period until 2022:Q4 to include two additional major events, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

This study aims to investigate the implications of natural gas rents and institutions as co-drivers of economic growth, focusing on the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with panel data between 2001 and 2021.

This research paper uses a specialised two stage estimator, the panel instrumental variable technique (panel IV), which takes care of the potential endogeneity issues in the model.

The findings show that natural gas rent significantly impacts the economic growth of the GECF. On average, natural gas rent increases the sample’s growth rate by about 2.634% percentage points in the short run. The result indicates that the qualities of institutions (political and economic) have a significant positive long-term effect on the economies of the GECF. In addition, the study’s energy price volatility positively correlates with the countries’ growth.

There might be a need to investigate the effects of natural gas rents and institutions as co-growth drivers in each country within the GECF. The likelihood exists that the impact of natural gas rents and institutions on economic growth at the country’s level may differ from the outcome of such an experiment on the group level. Because of space and time limitations, this study could not carry out the specific country’s investigation of natural gas rents and institutions as a co-growth driver. That limitation may constitute further study to advance this study to a new height.

With good institutions, natural gas rent is likely to be an alternative growth driver for some economies that rely on fossil fuels like oil as a growth driver. By extension, the GECF has the potential to rival Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the global energy market, particularly in achieving Sustainable Development Goal number seven. In essence, evidence in this study suggests that natural gas rent has long-term positive effects on the growth of the GECF, conditioned on good institutions. Moreover, the drive of global energy consumption towards sustainable energy usage is an economic blessing for the GECF. By extension, the demand for natural gas would continue to rise, creating opportunities to improve natural gas rents. By implication, the GECF would continue to benefit from the pursuit of sustainability as the world shifts towards energy consumption with less CO₂.

Firstly, this study models the qualities of institutions for the GECF. Secondly, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine natural gas rents and the qualities of institutions as co-determinants of economic growth among the GECF (a potential cartel).

This study aims to investigate the impact of pollution control bonds (PCBs) on overinvestment within utility firms.

This empirical study analyzes a data set comprising 215 US energy firms observed from 2011 to 2021, using the ordinary least square regression with standard errors adjusted for firm-level clustering.

The study reveals a negative relationship between PCBs and overinvestment, indicating that PCBs are an effective tool in curbing excessive investment. Additionally, it demonstrates that chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence diminishes the influence of PCBs on overinvestment. These findings remain robust across various metrics for measuring overinvestment and CEO overconfidence, as well as when alternative estimation methods are used. These results align with insights derived from agency theory and upper echelon theories.

Regulators are encouraged to actively promote the use of PCBs as a financing tool for environmentally focused initiatives. To achieve this, regulatory bodies should enhance their presence within the utility sector, particularly in regions grappling with higher pollution levels. This requires the implementation of strategic policies and regulatory frameworks aimed at mitigating excessive investments. Simultaneously, policymakers should take proactive measures to introduce financial instruments designed to optimize investment efficiency, thus facilitating eco-friendly projects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper holds the distinction of being the first to examine the impact of a specific type of green bond, namely, PCBs, on overinvestment. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on personality traits, particularly within the context of the upper echelon theory, by investigating the moderating influence of CEO overconfidence.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance of the banking sector from the prospective of emerging countries.

This study obtained balance sheet and income statement data for 173 banks in 20 emerging countries from the Bankscope database from 2005–2018. The CSR-related data were taken from the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database. Moreover, macroeconomic controls such as GDP per capita, inflation, and financial development are attained from the GFDD. The series of institutional quality indices (Political Stability, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption, Government Effectiveness, and Regulatory Quality) is obtained from the WGI. At the same time, national culture and bank regulation are attained from Hofstede Insights and Barth et al. (2013). We used the panel fixed-effects model in our baseline estimations, while 2SLS and GMM were applied to control for endogeneity.

The finding shows that CSR activities significantly improve bank performance, but the effect varies across the bank. Only environmentally friendly activities have shown a significant positive relationship with banking performance for CSR dimensions. However, the social and government dimensions did not significantly affect bank performance. Moreover, a sound institutional and regulatory environment and national norms play an important role in the nexus of CSR activities and bank performance.

This study provides empirical evidence that sheds light on CSR and bank performance in an emerging market context.

Cryptocurrency arose, and grew in popularity, following the financial crisis of 2008 built upon a promise of decentralizing money and payments. An examination of the history of money and banking in the United States demonstrates that stable money benefits from strict controls and commitments by a centralized government through chartering restrictions and a broad safety net, rather than decentralization. In addition, financial crises happen when the government allows money creation to occur outside of official channels. The US central bank is then forced into a policy of supporting a range of money-like assets in order to maintain a grip on monetary policy and some semblance of financial stability.

In addition, this chapter argues that cryptocurrency as a form of shadow money shares many of the problematic attributes of both the privately issued bank notes that created instability during the “free banking” era and the “shadow banking” activities that contributed to the 2008 crisis. In this sense, rather than being a novel and disruptive idea, cryptocurrency replicates many of the systemically destabilizing aspects of privately issued money and money-like instruments.

This chapter proposes that, rather than allowing a new, digital “free banking” era to emerge, there are better alternatives. Specifically, it argues that the Federal Reserve (Fed) should use its tools to improve public payment systems, enact robust utility-like regulations for private digital currencies and limit the likelihood of bubbles using prudential measures.

This study examined how economic freedom and its related components, such as open markets, regulatory efficiency, rule of law and the size of government, affect bank risk behavior, focusing on the Japanese context.

The study employs a two-step GMM framework on the annual data of Japanese banks ranging from 2005 to 2020 to empirically test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we also use the ordinary least square method to ensure the robustness of our mainline findings.

The finding suggests that economic freedom increases the banks' risk-taking, thus making them fragile. The results also highlight that out of the four main subcomponents of economic freedom, regulatory efficiency and government size increase bank risk-taking, while the rule of law and open markets decrease banks' risk-taking. Additionally, we examine how the banks' specific characteristics affect the results by creating a subsample based on capitalization and liquidity ratios. Overall, the results are consistent with the baseline findings. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative proxy measures of risk.

The study's findings have several implications for regulators and policymakers. The results suggest that regulators and policymakers should reconsider their strategies for economic freedom to ensure that they promote stability in the banking system and reduce banks' risk-taking inclinations.

Although previous studies have examined the impact of economic freedom on bank stability and risk-taking, this study is the first to do so in the Japanese context, contributing to the literature by providing new insights and empirical evidence.

This study aims to investigate why anti-corruption statutes are not efficient in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum industry.

This study is a doctrinal legal research that embraces a point-by-point comparative methodology with a library research technique.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Finally, this study finds that anti-corruption organisations in Nigeria are not efficient due to non-existence of the Federal Government’s political will to fight corruption, insufficient funds and absence of stringent implementation of the anti-corruption legal regime in the country.

Investigations reveal during this study that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operations are characterised with poor record-keeping, lack of accountability as well as secrecy in the award of oil contracts, oil licence, leases and other financial transactions due to non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses contained in most of these contracts. Also, an arbitration proceeding limit access to their records and some of these agreements under contentions. This has also limited the success of this research work and generalising its findings.

This study recommends, among other reforms, soft law technique and stringent execution of anti-corruption statutes. This study also recommends increment in financial appropriation to Nigeria’s anti-corruption institutions, taking into consideration the finding that a meagre budget is a drawback.

This study reveals that corruption strives on feeble implementation of anti-corruption legal regime and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention. Corruption flourishes due to poor enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the absence of political will in offering efficient regulatory intervention by the government.

The study advocates the need for enhancement of anti-corruption agencies' budgets taking into consideration the finding that meagres budgets are challenge of the agencies.