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The purpose of this paper is to present a review of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Aid for Trade (AfT) inflows and recommend new areas of interest concerning the initiative other than its effect on trade performance.

This paper reviews a sample of 55 studies over the past 11 years. Besides, this paper categorised the reviewed empirical studies into three groups: the works concentrating on the trade performance effect; the works focusing on other economic factors effect; and the works concerning the allocation effect of these inflows. This paper also offers a detailed analysis of the multiple empirical methods, sources of data, coverage of the countries and forms of AfT inflows used in the reviewed literature.

Key findings indicated that AfT has overall produced a successful impact as reported by most studies. Moreover, it has been highlighted that the effectiveness of AfT may differ relying on multiple indicators: the category of AfT disbursements; income of the recipient country; the recipient country's geographical region; the amount of aggregate AfT as well as its main categories; the policy regulation and institutional quality of the recipient country; and the degree of liberalisation in the recipient country.

This paper is special in that it is the first to publish a comprehensive narrative analysis of 55 empirical pieces of evidence on the effectiveness of AfT over the past 11 years. It is also the first paper to review the previous literature regarding the effectiveness of AfT inflows on other non-trade outcomes, as well as trade outcomes in one single study. The outcome of the survey reveals new areas of interest in the effectiveness of AfT aside from trade performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost effectiveness of the existing conservation grant disbursement mechanism in George Town, Penang. It reports the effect of disclosure of conservation preferences by the conservation agency on the conservation cost.

A test bed laboratory experiment is reported on, in which house owners competed in a sealed bid auction to obtain conservation subsidies/grants. In one treatment, owners knew the preference of, or priority given by, the regulator to certain types of conservation efforts, whereas in the second treatment, the regulator concealed this priority.

The results showed that owners tailored their applications to the given priority rather than to the true conservation costs in the preference‐known treatment group. Although the selected conservation works did not differ significantly between the two treatments, owners misrepresented their true conservation costs.

Given the lack of consensus of the tool to measure ex post conservation value, the study relies on conservation efforts/works to disburse subsidy/grant. Allocative efficiency can be enhanced if this information is available.

The presented results suggested that concealing priority information could be used to improve the cost‐efficiency of existing disbursement policy.

Drawing from the problems of asymmetry information between house owners and conservation agency, the study provided evidence in support of the idea that disbursement of conservation fund was based on the conservation efforts/inputs. In terms of costs, not disclosing the preferences information could encourage competition and reduced conservation costs.

This study aims to examine how aid for trade policy and regulations (AfTPR) contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.1 (sustain per capita economic growth) and whether the effectiveness of AfTPR is conditional to the stable political environment.

This paper uses a widely accepted endogenous growth framework and applies panel data fixed effects and two-step difference and system generalized method of moments estimation strategies on panel data of 50 developing countries over 2005–2017.

The findings of the study confirm that aid to trade policy promotes sustainable economic growth in developing countries, but this category of development assistance is only effective and significant for low and lower middle-income (LLMI) economies. The positive and significant effect of AfTPR in upper middle-income countries is conditional to their level of political stability. Under a stable political situation, the positive effect of AfTPR on sustainable growth remains almost same for the LLMI countries, whereas for the upper middle-income countries this growth effect reached almost double.

International trade is considered as a driver for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, whereas aid for trade is acknowledged for its prospective contribution toward achieving these goals. The findings have dominant policy implications for the international development organizations and donors, which recommend that it is more desirable to transmit aid toward developing and implementing trade policy and regulations as per capita economic growth improves in the aid recipient countries.

According to the authors’ knowledge, no prior study empirically analyzes the effect of AfTPRs on SDG target 8.1.

Innovation in digital technologies has been the main force in promoting growth and inclusion. However, the impact of such innovations remains ambiguous. Within this context, this study aims to analyze the distribution of digitally empowered peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in Indonesia.

This study uses a quantitative approach to estimate the impact of technological innovation in promoting economic development. In particular, this study employs empirical panel data from 135 financial technology (FinTech) companies from 2015 to 2019 and use the dynamic panel threshold regression approach. This study collects secondary data to build the estimated model.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this study’s evidence suggests that there is a delayed effect between the contribution of P2P lending by FinTech firms on economic growth in the country. While the immense growth of FinTech seems promising, the findings indicate that FinTech is far from its optimal point. This study calculates the optimal combination between productive and consumptive lending and between Java and non-Java. In view of this finding, this study proposes strategies to effectively distribute lending and bring about the expected benefit to the economy.

Since the contribution of P2P lending on economic development has not reached its optimum, the findings expose the limitation of current technological innovation in the financial sectors. In this sense, P2P penetration on the financing market needs encouragement. The calculations for optimal allocation between productive and consumptive and between Java and non-Java provide guidance to policymakers. This study helps practitioners to shape strategy and to begin experimenting with different approaches to distribute loans effectively.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no empirical studies that examine the impact of emerging FinTech companies in promoting economic growth and financial development. The findings close this research gap, especially in regard to innovation management literature, and provide insights for practitioners, policymakers and regulators.

Zakah is an important ethico‐economic institution in the Islamic code of life. It provides a mandatory mechanism for sharing societal resources in a Muslim community. It redistributes income and wealth, plays an important role in poverty alleviation, and thus can contribute to grassroot development. This paper analyzes Zakah's role in this context, and suggests how this institution can be made an instrument of self‐reliance and sustainable development of those who live below poverty line.

This study examines the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) power, institutional investors and their interaction on green financing provided by Bangladeshi financial institutions and the moderating effect of government policy and CEO political connections on these relations.

We employ ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and interaction terms among variables of interest for the empirical analysis.

Green financing decreases with CEO power, implying that CEOs of this country’s financial institutions are averse to green loans, whereas institutional investors increase green financing extended by these institutions. The government policy, which includes financial incentives for complying financial institutions, strengthens institutional investors' positive impact on green financing, but it does not change CEOs' aversion to green loans. Institutional investors have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between green finance (GF) and CEO power, but this positive moderating effect is negated in banks where the government owns a stake, possibly because CEOs of state-owned financial institutions are politically connected, which reduces institutional investors’ influence over them.

This study is unique in that it is the first to examine how the interaction among different stakeholders affects green financing in a unique setting. As the literature is almost silent on this topic, the findings of this paper are expected to raise policymakers’ awareness of the obstacles that hamper the efforts of developing countries to go green.

This chapter probes into what happens to the beneficiaries of special provisions while they are pursuing higher education within the existing structured inequalities of caste, culture and economic diversities in the era of liberalization, globalization and privatization. Structured inequalities cannot be remedied only through corrective measures given the disadvantageous situation. Traditional factors limit the influence of modern factors such as skills, knowledge, competition and performance. Higher education in India fails to equip students to completely overcome the limits and constraints of the caste system that lead to several handicaps in social life as well as in higher education. Still, there is no viable alternative to higher education to this significant section of the Indian population – the scheduled castes – as a means to achieve social mobility in a closed society like India. Hence, it is pertinent also to understand and draw experiences of such supportive mechanisms like the Post Matric Scholarship scheme at the higher education level provided to such section(s) of Indian society.

Zakat is an effective Islamic social financial tool that could be used to eliminate global poverty. The pandemic has turned back the world's poverty clock and as such, more work is required to bring equitable and shared prosperity to the world. International organizations that serve humanity could be used as intermediaries of zakat to reach out to those categories of legal recipients of zakat who are most deserved of such assistance, but who are unidentified and unreachable by the zakat organizations. This is with the ultimate objective of enhancing the effectivity of zakat as a social finance tool. However, using international organizations as zakat intermediaries is not a straightforward issue and limited literature are available on the matter to understand the contemporary practice and challenges in this regard. As such, using a qualitative research approach, this chapter sheds light on the issues revolving around the internationalization of zakat by looking at the existing practice of it by identifying the challenges in doing so. This chapter proposes a way to resolve the existing issues in internationalization of zakat by leveraging on blockchain technology where a proposition is made to introduce a crypto zakat platform. This chapter also reveals that in contemporary times, there are three ways in which international organizations have been involved as zakat intermediaries: by creating a zakat fund for specific purpose; by receiving zakat money to be distributed to transform the societies in countries other than where the zakat was collected; and by creating partnership with zakat organizations to use zakat money in the respective country in which zakat was collected. It is anticipated that soon the stakeholders of zakat would join hands with international organizations to effectively manage zakat to alleviate poverty in the world exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.

Green Sukuk (GS) is a recent innovation that has the potential to serve humankind in sustainable development. However, its potential can only be achieved if the proceeds of GS are used for the priority areas needed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out, using selected GS issued to determine whether the proceeds of GS are actually given to the needed areas.

This is qualitative research utilizing case studies where the “priorities given” areas are observed through information collected from the library that consists of primary and secondary sources, such as statutes, books, articles and internet sources, while “priorities needed to issue GS” areas are determined through information collected from Al-Quran and Hadiths to derive conclusions.

The outcome of this study reveals some untouched areas that needed immediate attention where GS can be implemented. This study recommends implementing GS for the plant, agriculture, forests, road, water, animal and others. One example in this regard is to create “forest sukuk,” which is a tool for financing forest preservation.

It is anticipated that, via the outcome of this research, GS issuance frameworks can be enhanced, especially in revising the areas in which Sukuk proceeds can be used, and it will provide guidance to the potential GS issuers to choose financing projects.