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The consumption patterns of beer, wine and spirits in the UK are analysed to find reasons for the rapid growth in recent years of wine consumption. Data are presented together with the demand model and estimation results. Consumption of the three beverages is simulated to see the effect of various levels of tax and the effects of changes of preference over time. Growth in income, changing preferences and lower tax rates are found to be possible causes for the growth in wine consumption and the corresponding fall in spirits consumption.

We compare environmental impacts associated with incoming foreign direct investment versus domestic capital in China. We use aggregate data on Chinese provinces’ economic and pollution indicators to explore the effects of the financial origin of fixed capital. Our simultaneous models consider three prime channels through which these effects work: economic scale, sectoral composition, and pollution intensity. Results show that emissions associated with foreign financed capital are lower than with domestically financed capital for some but not all of the considered types of pollution.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the agriculture-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in South Asian economies (SAE).

This study employs econometric techniques, including Westerlund cointegration tests, cross-sectional augmented distributive lag model (CS-ARDL) and Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) causality tests to investigate the relationship between renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, agriculture, economic growth, financial development and carbon emissions in SAE from 1990 to 2019.

The CS-ARDL test outcome supports the presence of the agriculture-induced EKC hypothesis in SAE. Additionally, through the application of the DH causality test, the study confirms a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption (REC), fossil fuel consumption (FFC), economic growth (GDP) and squared economic growth (GDP²) to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

This study proposes that future research should extend comparisons to worldwide intergovernmental bodies, use advanced econometric methodologies for accurate estimates, and investigate incorporating the service or primary sector into the EKC. Such multidimensional studies can inform various methods for mitigating global climate change and ensuring ecological sustainability.

Environmental degradation has been extensively studied in different regions and countries, but SAE face significant constraints in addressing this issue, and comprehensive studies in this area are scarce. This research is pioneering as it is the first study to investigate the applicability of the agriculture-induced EKC in the South Asian region. By filling this gap in the current literature, the study provides valuable insights into major SAE and their environmental challenges.

The British government takes equity issues formally into account in its appraisal of social projects and policies. However, evidence on which the measured distributional welfare weights are based is neither broad enough nor sufficiently reliable. This paper seeks to address these issues by considering a wider body of evidence.

An important component of the welfare weight measure advocated by HM Treasury is the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption (e). A critical review of existing evidence on e is provided with a view to establishing priority areas for further research. New measures of e are presented based on revealed social values as indicated in specific government policies relating to both foreign aid and proposed income‐related fines for offences. Behavioural evidence based on demand analysis using a co‐integration approach is also presented.

The results for e are sensitive to the estimation approach adopted. While the evidence based on a revealed social values approach including modified tax‐based results suggests that e is close to unity, the measure currently used by HM Treasury, demand analysis suggests an e value close to 1.5. The evidence based on lifetime consumption behaviour is sensitive to model specification and needs updating.

Modified tax‐based findings on e are presented along with new evidence based on alternative revealed social values approaches. The new evidence from demand analysis is based on an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to co‐integration. This paper will be of interest to academics specialising in welfare economics and to practitioners involved in social project appraisal.

This paper sets out to estimate discount rates for EU members, on a consistent time preference basis, for application in the appraisal of social projects. The value of the discount rate can have an important influence on the allocation of funds between short‐term and long‐term uses.

A key component of the social discount rate is the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption (e) and it is estimated from OECD data relating to marginal and average rates of income tax. A tax model based on the principle of equal absolute sacrifice of satisfaction is employed.

The estimated discount rates, based on social time preference, mostly lie in the range 3‐5.5 per cent. The main source of variation in rates is differential growth in per capita consumption. Estimates of e are reasonably consistent and for 15 of the countries they lie in the range 1.3‐1.6.

For more comprehensive tax information, then additional data from each country's tax authority are required. The research on estimates of e and social time preference rates can be extended to cover non‐European countries.

In the interests of a consistent equitable treatment of future generations, member countries of the EU should employ the same methodology in estimating social discount rates.

This paper applies a practical tax‐based approach to the estimation of e for a large number of European countries. The paper will be of interest to academics specialising in welfare economics and to practitioners involved in social project appraisal.

This study examines the relationship between Australia's stock market and the five largest international markets for the period 1991 through 2001. Preliminary findings, using correlation statistics, indicated potential benefits to international diversification for the Australian investor. Further analysis, conducted in the VAR framework using the Johansen cointegration method, found that the Australian market has short and long run linkages with the United States, while tests with other markets found little evidence of interdependence. Moreover, only the US market was found to Granger‐cause the Australian market.

The growth of the Indian economy is accompanied by the rising trend of energy utilisation and its devastating effect on the environment. It is vital to understand the nexus between energy utilisation, climate and environment degradation and growth to devise a constructive policy framework for achieving the goal of sustainable growth. This study aims to analyse the long- and short-run association and direction of association between energy utilisation, carbon emission and growth of the Indian economy in the presence of structural break.

The study probes the association and direction of association between variables at both aggregate (total energy utilisation, total carbon emission and gross domestic product [GDP]) and disaggregates level (coal utilisation and coal emission, oil utilisation and oil emission, natural gas utilisation and natural gas emission along with GDP) over the time period of 50 years, i.e. 1971–2020. Autoregressive distributed lag model is used to examine the association between the variables and presence of structural break is confirmed with the help of Zivot–Andrews unit root test. To check the direction of association, vector error correction model Granger causality is performed.

Aggregate carbon emissions are affected positively by aggregate energy consumption and GDP in both short and long run. Bidirectional causality exists between total emissions and GDP, whereas a unidirectional causality runs from energy consumption towards carbon emission and GDP in the long run. At disaggregate level, consumption of coal energy impacts positively, whereas GDP influences coal emission negatively in the long run only. Furthermore, consumption of oil and GDP influences oil emissions positively in the long run. Lastly, natural gas is the energy source that has the fewest emissions in both short and long run.

There is a rapidly growing body of research on the connections and cause-and-effect relationships between energy use, economic growth and carbon emissions, but it has not conclusively proved how important the presence of structural breaks or changes within the economy is in shaping the outcomes of the aforementioned variables, especially when focusing on the Indian economy. By including the impact of structural break on the association between energy use, carbon emission and growth, where energy use and carbon emission are evaluated at both aggregate and disaggregate level, the current study aims to fill this gap in Indian literature.

Migrants’ remittances to Egypt have increased considerably in both size and importance over the past 40 years. This increase has made Egypt one of the top remittance recipients in the world and the leading recipient country in the Middle East. As migrant remittances are one of Egypt's main sources of foreign capital, this study aims to identify the impact of these remittances on economic growth.

The study collects annual data on migrant remittances sent to Egypt during the period 1980–2017. The study uses the Augmented Dickey–Fuller test and Johnsen's Co-integration test to establish long-run relationships between variables. Then, a vector error correction model (VECM) is used to combine long-run and short-run dynamics, and a Granger causality test is performed. Finally, diagnostic tests of the VECM are conducted.

Results reveal that migrants’ remittances to Egypt are countercyclical in the sense that they have a long-term negative impact on economic growth. These results are determined by the Granger causality between migrants' remittances, inflation rate and imports.

The study can help policymakers to develop appropriate policies to turn migrants' remittances into a reliable source of capital that could result in a stable economic growth.

Although various empirical studies have examined the growth effect of remittances, most of them are based on cross-country data. This study contributes to the field by attempting to close a gap in the literature by empirically analyzing the impact of remittances on a single country over a long period.