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The chapter investigates the relationship between environmental management practices (EMPs) and financial performance (FP).

The study is based on a sample of 187 SMEs and uses data on six EMPs (energy, water, waste, material, emissions, and biodiversity) collected through a self-administered questionnaire from owner-managers of SMEs. Ordinary least squares regression is employed to model the hypothesized paths.

The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between EMPs (energy, water, and material) and FP. There is also a significant positive relationship between an aggregate EMP measure and FP. However, other EMPs (waste, emissions, and biodiversity) are not significantly associated with FP. Overall, these results provide empirical support to the mostly normative suggestion that the conflicting results on the environmental management and financial performance relationship are partly due to the EMP measure used.

The study is based on cross-sectional data, and therefore, it is impossible to determine any changes over time. Longitudinal studies could help confirm the relationship between EMP and FP over a longer period. From a policy perspective, this results mean that the Ghanaian EPA must monitor more closely for violations of laws and regulations relating to waste, emissions, and biodiversity since SMEs do not have incentives to manage these impacts without commensurate return.

The study contributes by documenting evidence of the relationship between multiple measures of EMP and FP. This unlike most existing studies has enabled us to report evidence of how each EMP measure affects FP differently and where win–win opportunities are for SMEs. Thus, the win–win opportunities are associated with some EMP measures but not all.

For the last two decades economics literature and debates have increasingly referred to institutions as the answers to the long-lasting queries regarding how stock market performance rises and what policies can be implement to encourage best outcomes in terms of stock market performances in Malaysia so that the analysis of the institutional basis under which any stock market functions has now converted an essential issue of investigation. This study attempts to capture the relationship between stock market movements and institutional quality (IQ) using autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach, over 33 years during the period of 1984–2016. The finding suggests that IQ positively and significantly affects stock market performance. Moreover, it is also showing that there is, in fact, a causal relationship between institutions and stock market performance. The findings are robust to changes in specification and a host of transparency measures.

This chapter offers an empirical examination of the impact of World Governance indicators (WGIs) on stock market development. The understanding is based on the premise of institutional economics that strong institutional governance, in terms of laws and regulations, results in positive developments in financial institutions.

The data which covers the years 1996–2016, include all world countries where a stock market operates. The authors use standard statistical tools that include Johansen co-integration test, linearity, normality tests, and regression analysis, together with discriminant analysis as a robustness check.

The empirical findings show that (a) a negative association exists between Voice and Accountability and stock market development, (b) a positive association exists between each of Political Stability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption, and stock market development for most World’s regions stock markets, (c) both Voice and Accountability and Political Stability indicators are the major influential indicators for the stock market development across world stock markets.

This chapter offers quantitative evidence about the benefits of strong institutional governance to stock market development. In addition, the chapter offers significant guidelines to policymakers regarding the institutional factors that can be enhanced to promote stock market development.

This study explores how tourist xenophobia (TXO) and residents’ acceptance of tourists changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. If tourists feel TXO when travelling abroad during the pandemic, then, as residents in their home country, they may not welcome other tourists. Previous research on xenophobia in tourism has focused on tourists’ perspectives, but few studies have examined residents’ perspectives. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the influence of TXO on residents’ acceptance during COVID-19 in Japan. The national government required residents to stay at home and avoid unnecessary outings while implementing a campaign to promote the tourism industry by subsidising travel expenses. Analysis of data from residents in tourist destinations showed that TXO negatively influences residents’ acceptance of tourists and their travel intentions. There was a significant covariance between travel intention and tourist acceptance. Thus, TXO affects tourist intention and residents’ acceptance. Destination managers must explain to residents the importance of attracting tourists to boost the economy and mitigate xenophobia. Mitigating residents’ xenophobia and welcoming tourists are crucial for becoming a sustainable tourist destination in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) era of the pandemic.

Football is a popular sport among young people across Africa, incited by the heavy presence of European football that has become central to youth cultures, everyday social routines, forms of consumption and opportunities for establishing social status. A growing body of evidence suggests increasing trends in harmful gambling behaviours in African youth, while the proliferation of football betting particularly remains a critical potential risk for negative mental health outcomes among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter draws on original empirical data from a web-based cross-sectional survey to examine the prevalence estimates and associations of socio-demographic and behavioural factors with football betting among young adults attending university in Ghana. It draws on a multivariable logistic regression model to assess the associations with football betting. Our findings point not only to the growing salience of football betting among male demographics, but also the role of peer culture, alcohol and media as predominant sources of participants' initiation of football betting. Moreover, participants indicated the motive ‘to make money’ as their single major motivation, which raises the prospect that football betting is used as a means to mitigate the adverse effects of unemployment. Overall, the study points to a need for harm prevention strategies that align more closely with public health approaches focused on students, their families, their communities and their universities/schools.

Purpose: This paper examines for the first time inequality of opportunity for income in Africa, by analyzing large-sample surveys, all providing information on individuals’ parental background, in five comparable Sub-Saharan countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, and Uganda.

Methodology/approach: We compute inequality of opportunity indexes in keeping with the main proposals in the literature, and propose a decomposition of between-country differences that distinguishes the respective impacts of intergenerational mobility between social origins and positions, of the distribution of education and occupations, and of the earnings structure.

Findings: Among our five countries, Ghana in 1988 has by far the lowest income inequality between individuals of different social origins, while Madagascar in 1993 displays the highest. Ghana in 1998, Ivory Coast in 1985–1988, Guinea in 1994, and Uganda in 1992 stand in-between. Decompositions reveal that the two former British colonies (Ghana and Uganda) share a much higher intergenerational educational and occupational mobility than the three former French colonies. Further, Ghana distinguishes itself from the four other countries, because of the combination of widespread secondary schooling, low returns to education, and low income dualism against agriculture. Nevertheless, it displays marked regional inequality insofar as being born in the Northern part of this country produces a significant restriction of income opportunities.

Originality/value of paper: By providing the first figures for five countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper allows enlarging the sample of international comparisons in the study of inequality of opportunity. It also reveals some suggestive evidence regarding the long-term origin of intergenerational mobility differences, and in particular the colonial legacy of school extension and of dualism against agriculture.