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This paper aims to investigate prosperity–international tourism expenditure nexus to discover the prosperity sub-indices which affect tourism expenditure.

Using annual panel data for the sample period between 2009-2013 on 98 countries, this study implements a two-stage least squares estimation method with fixed effects specification in a panel regression analysis to find the relationships between international tourism expenditure and prosperity sub-indices.

The estimation results reveal a statistically significant relationship between the tourism expenditures of the citizens and prosperity, when prosperity is measured using its sub-indices, including Entrepreneurship and Opportunities, Government Efficiency, Education, Health, Safety and Security, Personal Freedom, Social Capital and Economy of the country. Education, Safety and Security and Health are the most significant factors which affect tourism expenditures of the country of origin.

To decrease the money outflow, policymakers may have plans to improve health infrastructure and, at the same time, increase quality of education and access to education in the country. Tourism policies which do not consider these prosperity sub-indices as explanatory variables may make mistakes in controlling actual tourism expenditures.

The paper’s originality lies in using new independent variables (prosperity sub-indices) in estimating tourism expenditure by using an appropriate panel data approach that deals with endogeneity problems.

International tourism and FDI inflows have generated detectable beneficial impacts on the economy of Estonia in the last decades. However, recently, poor international market conditions mostly caused by the trade war and COVID-19 pandemic have been a potential threat to these two factors. Besides, the poor performance of investments in recent years is behind the stagnation of productivity in Estonia. This study examines the dynamics of the effects of these factors on the rate of economic growth in Estonia and provides policy implications in line with sustained recovery.

A nonlinear ARDL technique is employed in this study to investigate the long-run effects of FDI and the degree of tourism specialization on economic growth rate.

Our findings indicate that the economic growth rate of Estonia in the long run has been positively affected by both the rate of FDI inflows and international tourism.

This is the first study that employs a non-linear approach to investigate the dynamics of long-run effects of FDI and tourism specialization on the rate of economic growth in Estonia and provides policy implications in line with optimal growth strategy considering the economic structure, the current level of productivity and available potentials in this economy.

This paper aims to study the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) channels in improving local firms' productivity. Two transmission channels of knowledge spillovers are empirically investigated. The study focuses on the role of high-growth firms (HGFs) that are assumed to have a higher absorptive capacity.

A threshold regression model that considers country and sector fixed effects is applied to investigate 8525 firms across 50 sectors in 12 developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region.

The author's findings indicate that first, larger firms with external market linkages are more productive. Second, high-growth enterprises are powerful engines of job creation; however, the firms do not outperform other firms in terms of capacity in absorbing FDI spillovers and do not have higher productivity.

The findings highlight the necessity of rethinking public policy priorities to support firm growth. Policies to maximize the gains from FDI spillovers are discussed.

This is the first study to investigate the strength of FDI spillover channels across different sectors, and the channels' impact on the productivity of local enterprises in the EAP region. This study also explores the potential role of high-growth firms (HGFs) in this interaction via job creation and improving output growth rate.

The incredulity among Muslim consumers due to fake and doubtful halal logos has led to some querying the halal compliance and halal integrity among food small and medium enterprises (SMEs). By using the traceability systems consumers may track and trace the movement of food products available in the market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence food SMEs’ intention to adopt a halal traceability system.

A structured questionnaire survey was developed and administered to a systematic random sampling of 260 food SMEs. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, Chi-square analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and logistic regression analysis.

The results revealed a strong correlation between the environmental aspect (EA) and perceived usefulness (PU) of a halal traceability system. Sales turnover, PU, perceived ease of use, technological aspect, organizational aspect and EA are the factors that influenced food SMEs’ intention to adopt a halal traceability system.

The context of this study is confined to the SMEs in the food industry in Peninsular Malaysia, thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings to other industries.

This study shows a halal traceability system facilitates food SMEs in enhancing their business and provides tremendous potential to further improve the halal industry in Malaysia.

The traceability system that is perceived to be easy and useful are the most influential factors toward the adoption of technology among food SMEs. Thus, this study confirms the growing importance of the halal traceability system in the food industry.

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 outlines sustainability as associated with peace, good governance and justice. The perception of international tourists about security measures and risks is a key factor affecting destination choices, tourist flow and overall satisfaction. Thus, we investigate the impact of armed forces personnel, prices, economic stability, financial development and infrastructure on tourism.

This research used data from 130 countries from 1995 to 2019, which were divided into four income groups. This study employs a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) technique and a novel tourism index comprising five relevant indicators of tourism.

A 1% increase in armed forces personnel expands tourism in all income groups – 0.369% High Income Countries (HICs), 0.348% Upper Middle Income Countries (UMICs), 0.247% Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and 0.139% Low Income Countries (LICs). The size of the tourism-safety coefficient decreases from high to low-income groups. The impact of inflation is significantly negative in all panels, excluding LICs. The reduction in tourism was 0.033% in HICs, 0.049% in UMICs and 0.029% in LMICs for a 1% increase in prices. The increase in the global tourism index is more in LICs (0.055%), followed by LMICs (0.024%), UMICs (0.009%) and HICs (0.004%) for a 1% expansion in the gross domestic product (GDP)/capita growth. However, the magnitude of the growth-led tourism impact is greater in developing countries. A positive impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow was found in all panels like 0.016% in HICs, 0.050% in UMICs and 0.119% in LMICs for a 1% increase in FDI inflow. The rise in the global tourism index is 0.097% (HICs), 0.124% (UMICs) and 0.310% (LMICs) for a 1% rise in the financial development index. The increase in the global tourism index is 0.487% (HICs), 0.420% (UMICs) and 0.136% (LICs) for a 1% rise in the infrastructure index.

Empirical analysis infers important policy implications such as (a) establishment of a peaceful environment via recruitment of security personnel, use of safe city cameras, modern technology and law enforcement; (b) provision of basic facilities to tourists like sanitation, drinking water, electricity, accommodation, quality food, fuel and communication network and (c) price stability through different tools of monetary and fiscal policy.

First, it explains the effect of security personnel on a comprehensive index of tourism instead of a single variable of tourism. Second, it captures the importance of economic stability (i.e., economic growth, financial development and FDI inflow) in the tourism–peace nexus.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of job security on doctors’ retention, with job satisfaction and job embeddedness as the mediators. In doing so, the authors seek to contribute to the existing literature by providing additional empirical evidence on the links between job security, job satisfaction, job embeddedness and employee retention by using social exchange theory.

An empirical study was conducted on doctors working in public hospitals in Pakistan. Data from selected public hospitals were collected using semi-structured questionnaires. The simple random sampling method was applied for participant selection and partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used for data analysis purposes.

The findings confirmed the direct and mediation relationships. Thus, all of this study’s hypotheses are supported. The results indicate that job security can improve doctors’ retention. Further, job satisfaction and job embeddedness play crucial roles in mediating the direct relationship.

This study elaborates job security in health-care sector of Pakistan and also provides empirical evidence of the antecedents and mediators of doctors’ intention to continue working in the health-care industry.