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The market-based monetary policy framework has been favoured by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) economies. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effect of monetary policy channels on the sectoral value added and sustainable economic growth in ECOWAS. Data from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund over 2013–2019 were sourced for thirteen member countries. ECOWAS is found to have very high inflation level, interest and exchange rates.

The study adopted the Driscoll–Kraay fixed-effects ordinary least squares regression (OLS) estimator.

The findings revealed that while the effect of monetary policy channels on the agricultural sector value added is largely heterogenous and significantly in-elastic, the one on the industrial and services sectors are overwhelmingly homogeneous and negative, but insignificant for the services sector. Moreover, the effect of monetary policy channels on sustainable economic growth is also homogeneously asymmetric, with imminent stagflation, while the interactive effects of monetary policy channels are heterogeneous on sustainable economic growth and economic sectors. Therefore, an inflation targeting monetary policy stance is generally recommended with prioritised exchange rate stabilisation amid sufficient fiscal space.

This is amongst the first studies to investigate monetary policy channels, sectoral outputs and sustainable growth in the ECOWAS region with a rigorous analysis and found implications for policy.

This paper analyzes the impact of macroeconomic variables such as real exchange rate, exchange-rate volatility, and economic growth of the UK and Norway on Norway’s bilateral trade flow to the UK via maritime and other transport modes. The first two models considered trade volume (import and export) via only maritime transport, while the third and fourth models considered trade volume via modes other than maritime transport. The empirical validity of the Marshall-Lerner condition is tested to see whether a devaluation of the real exchange rate improves the trade balance in the long term. In addition to the long-term relationship among variables, short-term effects are also evaluated. The results show that the real income of Norway and its trading partner (the UK) is the main determinant of bilateral trade flow via maritime and other transport modes. Moreover, the results indicate that in the long run, the Marshall-Lerner condition is satisfied only for bilateral trade via modes other than maritime transport.

This paper investigates whether a J-curve can be detected in the time series data on China’s bilateral trade with the G-7 countries. It utilizes cointegration and causality tests to ascertain both the long-run relatedness, and the short-run dynamics, between the real exchange rate, national income, and the trade balance. There is some evidence that a real depreciation eventually improves the trade balance with some countries. But there is no indication of a negative short-run response which characterizes the J-curve.

In this paper we examine the validity of the J-curve hypothesis in four Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) over the 1980–2017 period.

We employ the linear autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model that captures the dynamic relationships between the variables and additionally use the nonlinear ARDL model that considers the asymmetric effects of the real exchange rate changes.

The estimated models were diagnostically sound, and the variables were found to be cointegrated. However, with the exception of Malaysia, the short- and long-run relationships did not attest to the presence of the J-curve effect. The trade flows were affected asymmetrically in Malaysia and the Philippines, suggesting the appropriateness of nonlinear ARDL in these countries.

The previous research tended to examine the effects of the real exchange rate changes on the agricultural trade balance and specifically the J-curve effect (deterioration of the trade balance followed by its improvement) in the developed economies and rarely in the developing ones. In this paper, we address this omission.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of innovation indicators: Internet usage, patent rights, innovation in exporting countries and innovation in the importing country on the export competitiveness of firms in the East African Community (EAC).

The study adopted the structural gravity model and the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood a nonlinear estimation method that was applied in STATA on balanced panel data from 2007 to 2018. Data were obtained from World Bank International Trade Center and World Bank development indicators.

Results show that innovation in the importing country, innovation in the exporting country and patent rights of exports are positive and significant predictors of export competitiveness in developing countries. While Internet usage is an insignificant predictor in the EAC.

There is a need to examine the complicated nature of the EAC economy to further this study's findings.

Exporting countries need to take deeper reforms as regards structural transformation to enable firms to integrate into the Global Value Chains (GVCs) to enable them to increase their productivity by reviewing the existing policies to match the changes in the market.

This study explains the complex dynamic interactions of technological innovation indicators in the EAC using quantitative data and that this interaction has an effect on the export competitiveness in import-oriented countries with less harmonization in their trade policies.

The major economies of East Asia, namely Japan and the Four Asian Tigers, have always prioritized the WTO-led multilateral trade liberalization over other trade arrangements primarily due to their unique economic structure with a high dependency on the world’s major markets such as the US. Along the same line, even the huge blow from the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 only managed to trigger a few initiatives to aide East Asian regional integration while being led by different centering bodies, APEC and ASEAN. These dispersed efforts naturally resulted in no realistically significant achievements in the light of ‘integration’ until the present day. Under these circumstances, East Asia now faces a second opportunity to achieve its economic independence from the extra-regional influences via regionalization: the 2009 Global Credit Crunch. This paper hereupon critically reviews the actual progress and the likely impacts of the current global recession on the East Asian region.

A better understanding of the determinants of demand through accurate estimates of the elasticity of import demand can help policymakers and exporters improve their market access and competitiveness. This study analyzed the EU's demand for imported potato from major suppliers between 1994 and 2018, with the aim to evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato.

This study adopted an import-differentiated framework to investigate demand relationships among the major potato suppliers to the EU's. To evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato on the EU market, expenditure and price demand elasticities for various suppliers were calculated and compared.

The empirical results indicated that as income allocation of fresh potatoes increases, the investigated EU markets import more potatoes from other suppliers compared to imports from Egypt. The results show that EU importers may switch to potato imports from other suppliers as the import price of Egyptian potatoes increases, which enter the EU markets before domestically produced potatoes are harvested.

Due to data unavailability, the present study relied on yearly data on quantities and prices of EU potato imports. A higher frequency of observations should allow for considering seasonal effects, and thereby providing a more transparent picture of market dynamics and demand behavior of EU countries with respect to potato import from various sources of origin.

The study used a system-wide and source differentiated approach to analyze import demand. In particular, the empirical approach allowed for comparing different demand models (AIDS, Rotterdam, NBR and CBS) to filter out the superior and most suitable model for that data because the suitability and performance of a demand model depends rather on data than on universal criteria.

This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of organizational strategies, attitudes and supports that can help people with intellectual disabilities to access competitive jobs through supported employment.

A multiple case study was carried out based on an intentional sampling involving the coworker mentors of six people with intellectual disabilities currently working in standardized environments. Semi-structured interviews were performed with the participants, and an inductive thematic analysis was used for data analysis.

The study identified five critical factors in the work of people with intellectual disabilities in standardized work environments, which potentially could act as facilitators or as obstacles, depending on how they were managed. The study also identified two key factors that acted mainly as facilitators and one as an obstacle.

The study reveals the existence of factors that sometimes act as facilitators and sometimes as obstacles, depending on how they are managed by the company leaders or the disabled worker himself.

This chapter deals with the perception of (sensed) discrimination and the coping strategies of Russian-speaking female scholars in Germany and applies an intersectional approach between culture, migration, gender and social background. Based on telephone interviews, the study aims to contribute to the discussion on discrimination in research environments and individuals’ professional integration by exploring narratives of migration and work in 13 women who migrated from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to Germany from 1990s to 2010s. Based on the findings, the author derives implications for policy and practice, such as a recommendation to implement introductory conversations with newcomers to reduce culture clash in competitive work contexts.

Most of the major Islamic countries’ stock exchanges have not been able to perform at the same pace with the major emerging countries’ stock exchanges since the mid of 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of stock market liberalization on cost of capital as one of the crucial driver to stock market development and physical investment growth in emerging Islamic countries.

This study employs static panel data techniques on the sample of seven emerging Islamic countries over the years 1989-2008.

The findings of this study suggest that stock market liberalization significantly reduces cost of capital in the stock markets of sample Islamic countries, which carries policy-oriented implications. Reduction in the cost of capital increases the number of exchange-traded companies, profitability of projects and aggregate investment level; therefore, the study findings are highly concerned by the economic policymakers, corporations and investors alike.

In the literature, different proxies are employed to measure stock market liberalization and cost of capital as well. Due to data limitations, this study could not employ different proxies for both, especially for stock market liberalization, for robustness purpose. That limitation further restricted the coverage of Islamic stock markets and time period. Therefore, generalization of the study results for overall Islamic stock markets can be slightly drawn.

The paper provides further understanding regarding the effects of SML on cost of capital, thereby indirectly on the stock market development, in the context of EIC.