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Existence of working poverty reduces the effectiveness of the strategy of “increasing employment to reduce poverty”. Developed countries are already concerned about it but insufficient attention has been made by developing countries. Focusing on developing countries this study identifies (1) the effects of trade openness (TO) on working poverty and (2) whether the working poverty trap exists or not in developing countries. Both objectives are also analyzed for three subsamples of low income, lower-middle income and upper-middle income developing countries.

Panel data for 98 developing countries over the period of 2000–2016 have been collected for the study. Fixed effect and GMM methods are applied for static and dynamic analysis, respectively.

The study finds that TO significantly reduces working poverty rate (WPR) (mainly driven up by upper-middle income developing countries). The positive association between WPR with its previous year's rate proves the existence of working poverty trap.

The study's outcome is subject to selected time, countries and methods. Future research should use more improve methods and should identify the channels through which TO could affect working poverty.

Middle income and upper-middle income developing countries should increase TO to reduce the working poverty. Low income developing countries that have the highest working poverty should search the way to derive beneficial effects of trade on working poverty.

Working poverty is not only a developed country issue rather it is a global phenomenon. Hence, it is expected that the study will raise the social consciousness about this phenomenon in developing countries too.

The study fulfills the gaps of identifying the effects of TO on working poverty and existence of in-work poverty trap in developing countries.

This study aims to examine the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the case of 100 developed and developing nations by taking into account the role of institutional quality (IQ). Using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions only in the developed world but not in the developing nations. It is also revealed that control of corruption plays a vital role in reducing CO₂ emissions in high income countries. Furthermore, rule of law is found to have a beneficial effect on the environment in all countries except for low income countries. Overall, our results confirm the importance of IQ in reducing CO₂ emissions. Additionally, foreign direct investment contributes to CO₂ reduction in rich countries while deteriorates the environmental quality in developing nations. Trade openness was shown to exert a positive impact on environmental quality in developing countries. These findings can be of great importance to policy makers of different income groups in designing appropriate economic and environmental policies toward the dual goals of high growth and low pollution.

This study aims to empirically analyze the symmetries and asymmetries among the critical factors affecting building information modeling (BIM) implementation between countries with different income levels. To achieve that aim, the study objectives are to identify: critical factors affecting BIM implementation in low-, lower-middle-, upper-middle- and high-income countries; overlapping critical factors between countries with different income levels; and agreements on the critical factors between countries with different income levels.

This study identified potential BIM implementation factors using a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) professionals. Then, the factors were inserted into a questionnaire survey and sent to AEC professionals in Afghanistan, India, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. The collected data was analyzed using the following techniques and tests: mean, standard deviation, normalized value, Kruskal–Wallis, Dunn and Mann–Whitney.

Five critical factors overlap between all countries: “availability of guidelines for implementing BIM,” “cost-benefit of implementing BIM,” “stakeholders’ willingness to learn the BIM method,” “consistent views on BIM between stakeholders” and “existence of standard contracts on liability and risk allocation.” Also, the criticality of the factors often differs between income levels, especially between low- and high-income countries, suggesting a significant gap between low- and high-income countries in BIM implementation.

This study differs from prior works by empirically analyzing the symmetries and asymmetries in BIM implementation factors between countries with different income levels (i.e. low-, lower-middle-, upper-middle- and high-income countries).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gender wage gap, productivity level of labor force and international trade for a sample of 13 developing upper-middle income countries over the period 2001 to 2015.

According to different statistical tests such as F-Limer test, the proper method for estimating this model is panel regression analysis. The Hausman test was handled to realize the fixed or random effect characteristics of this data. The final result of this test shows that the data follow some kind of random behavior which makes the panel regression model, random effect a suitable method for estimating this data.

The regression results showed that women’s (and men’s) employment in this sample has a positive relationship with their wages. Results showed that labor force’s productivity level affects their wage, and therefore, productivity difference between women and men is impressive on the gender wage gap. The significant finding is about international trade. While international trade has a positive effect on the wage rate of both genders, this effect is stronger for the female labor force. As a result of a stronger effect of international trade on the female labor force, a negative effect of international trade on the gender wage gap is observed.

Productivity variables are not available for this sample countries, so the author creates a new variable which is going to be used as a proxy for productivity. The author divides value added in each section (Agriculture, Manufacture, Industry, Service) by the total number of employees in that section; then for calculating the productivity rate of women, the author multiplies the result by the percentage of the employed women in that sector; for the productivity of men in that sector, the author multiplies the result by the percentage of men employed in that sector.

This paper contributes to the available studies by selecting a new sample of developing countries with upper-middle income level and also by introducing a new variable which is useful for measuring labor force productivity level.

This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the financial development in the Middle East and Central Asia (MECA) and examines its impact on its economic growth.

The authors use a Panel Data Regression Analysis on a sample of 21 countries in MECA for the period 2008–2018.

Using the financial development indices and subindices retrieved from IMF, the study finds that the whole region has a below average index compared to other developing regions. However, this hides a great deal of variation across MECA countries. Surprisingly, financial development does not necessarily contribute to economic growth. It seems that some developing countries are still not predisposed to benefit from financial development due to several obstacles.

The authors recommend policymakers and regulators in MECA to promote financial stability and keep inflation in check so that economic agents can reap the fruits of financial development and foster economic growth. Policymakers should also stimulate competition in the financial sector, build skillful human capital, attract foreign direct investments, strengthen supervision and forensic audit and more importantly reinforce the independence of central banks.

The authors mitigate the shortcomings of single indicators as proxies for financial development by using the IMF Financial Development index that captures the depth, access and efficiency of both financial institutions and financial markets. The authors employ lower-middle-, upper-middle and high-income country groups to test the magnitude of income level on the relationship between financial development and economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that are significant in contributing to the per capita income growth of countries that are experiencing or have experienced the lower-middle and upper-middle income traps.

The study comprises 85 countries over the period 1960 to 2017 spanning across three income groups: lower-middle, upper-middle and high. A panel data structure was used to run a fixed effect and random effect estimation on three models of income groups. The Hausman specification test, which was used for further statistical fitness, confirmed the appropriateness of fixed effect over the random in explaining the estimation of factor variables.

The results show that unemployment is a pervasive problem that negatively affect countries at all income levels. Foreign direct investment and population of dependents are associated with economic progression of countries that have experienced or are experiencing the lower-middle income trap. Furthermore, rising income inequality and foreign aid assistance are detrimental to countries that have experienced or are experiencing the upper-middle income trap. Moreover, income inequality, disproportionate urban population and rising dependent population are damaging for high income countries that never experienced any of the middle-income traps. Conversely, openness to trade, inflation and exchange rate volatility had limited capacity in explaining growth dynamics.

This study could not incorporate geopolitical, demographic, geographical and other such exogenous factors, which could have episodes of influences on the economic development of countries. These were outside the study's realm of quantitative analysis.

This paper contributes to existing literature by providing an empirical cross-sectional comparative analysis of countries belonging to different income groups. The prevailing literature lacks such a cross-tabulated presentation of factors affecting countries that avoided the middle income trap and those that could not.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nexus between financial inclusion and human development for countries belonging to different income groups during 2009–2019, and whether this relation differs across these groups.

The paper constructs an index of financial inclusion (IFI) for different income group countries employing dynamic panel data models estimated by generalized method of moments (GMM) to analyse the relation between financial inclusion and human development.

Financial inclusion in low and lower-middle-income countries has higher effect on human development than in high and upper-middle income countries.

The study examines the effect of IFI on the human development index (HDI) at the aggregate level. Future research can tackle the IFI effect on every component of HDI and other aspects of financial inclusion could be incorporated like financial technology.

The originality lies in constructing an index for financial inclusion using the most recent data for a wide range of countries, in addition to examining the impact of financial inclusion on the human development levels of different income groups allowing for more accurate analysis tackling the differences in terms of adopted policies across various income groups; unlike other studies that are carried out on a one country basis or only across one or two country groups that do not allow for comparison across various groups of countries.

The purpose of this paper is to primarily investigate the ability of independent central banks (central bank independence (CBI)) to improve fiscal performances in Africa, accounting for election years, and also to examine whether the effectiveness of CBI in improving fiscal performance is enhanced by higher political institutional quality.

Using recent CBI data from Garriga (2016) on 48 African countries, 90 other developing countries and 40 developed countries over the period 1970–2012, the authors apply a two stage system GMM with Windmeijer (2005) small sample robust correction estimator to examine the impact of CBI and elections on fiscal policy in Africa, other developing countries and developed countries.

The authors provide evidence that unlike in other developing countries and developed countries, CBI does not significantly improve fiscal performance in Africa. However, the effectiveness of CBI in improving fiscal performance in Africa is enhanced by higher levels of institutional quality. Although elections directly worsen fiscal performance in Africa, institutional quality enhances CBI’s effect on improving fiscal performance in election years across Africa, other developing countries and developed countries.

The findings of the study are significant as they provide insight into the benefits of having strong institutions to complement independent central banks in order to control fiscal indiscipline in election years.

The study is the first among the studies of CBI-fiscal policy nexus, to measure fiscal policy using net central bank claims on government as a percentage of GDP. In addition to the use of fiscal balance, this study also uses cyclically adjusted fiscal balance as a measure of fiscal policy. This is a critical channel through which independent central banks can constrain government spending. It also compares findings in Africa to other developing countries, noting some differences.