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Disasters and armed conflict often co-occur, but does that imply that disasters trigger or fuel conflict? In the small but growing body of literature attempting to answer this question, divergent findings indicate the complex and contextual nature of a potential answer to this question. The purpose of this study is to contribute a robust cross-country analysis of the co-occurrence of disaster and conflict, with a particular focus on the potential role played by disaster.

Grounded in a theoretical model of disaster–conflict co-occurrence, this study merges data from 163 countries between 1990 and 2017 on armed conflict, disasters and relevant control variables (low human development, weak democratic institutions, natural resource dependence and large population size/density).

The main results of this study show that, despite a sharp increase in the co-occurrence of disasters and armed conflict over time, disasters do not appear to have a direct statistically significant relation with the occurrence of armed conflict. This result contributes to the understanding of disasters and conflicts as indirectly related via co-creation mechanisms and other factors.

This study is a novel contribution, as it provides a fresh analysis with updated data and includes different control variables that allow for a significant contribution to the field.

The study aims to explore the validity of the modern renewable energy-environmental Kuznets curve (REKC) while considering the relevance of financial development in the consumption of modern renewable energy in East Africa Community (EAC). Modern renewable energy in this study includes all other forms of renewable energy except traditional use of biomass. The authors controlled for the effects of urbanization, governance, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade openness.

Panel data of the five EAC countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda for the period 1996–2019 were used. The analysis relied on the use of the autoregressive distributed lag–pooled mean group (ARDL-PMG) model, and the data were sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI), World Governance Indicators (WGI) and International Energy Agency (IEA).

The REKC hypothesis is supported for modern renewable energy consumption in the EAC region. Financial development positively and significantly affects modern renewable energy consumption, whereas urbanization, FDI and trade openness reduce modern renewable energy consumption. Governance is insignificant.

The concept of the REKC, although explored in other contexts such as aggregate renewable energy and in other regions, has not been used to explain the consumption of modern renewable energy in the EAC.

This paper aims to examine how the volatility of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows affects the volatility of corporate income tax revenue.

The study has used an unbalanced panel data set of 129 countries over the period 1981–2016 and the two-step system generalized methods of moment approach to perform the empirical analysis.

The main findings are that FDI volatility enhances the volatility of corporate income tax revenue in less advanced economies, but reduces it in relatively advanced countries. The positive corporate income tax revenue volatility effect of FDI inflows is far higher in non-tax haven countries than in tax haven countries. Additionally, FDI volatility exerts a higher positive effect on corporate income tax revenue volatility as countries experience greater dependence on natural resources. Finally, the positive effect of FDI volatility on corporate income tax revenue volatility is further amplified by higher FDI volatility.

One important limitation of the present analysis is the use of aggregate FDI inflows because of the lack of data over a long period on greenfield FDI inflows and cross-border mergers and acquisitions FDI inflows. Therefore, an avenue for future research could be to explore separately the effect of the volatility greenfield FDI inflows and the volatility of cross-border mergers and acquisitions FDI inflows on the volatility of corporate income tax revenue, when long-time series data (covering many countries) would be available.

These outcomes particularly shed light on the role of FDI volatility on the volatility of corporate income tax revenue, particularly in countries that are highly dependent on natural resources. Foreign capital flows, notably FDI flows, play an essential role for countries’ economic development through, inter alia, technology transfer, jobs creation and economic growth. Policymakers should aim to attract FDI, while also reducing their volatility, by designing and implementing policies and measures (such as those in favor of business environment improvement, property rights enforcement and political stability) that would assure foreign investors of the continuous high returns of their investments.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time this topic is being addressed empirically in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the trend of life expectancy in Bangladesh and find the effect of eliminating the causes of diseases on life expectancy statistics.

Data consisted of 1,530 deaths in 2000, 1,582 deaths in 2004 and 1,514 deaths in 2008 that were collected from the Health and Demographic Surveillance System of International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh. Trends in life expectancy after eliminating the cause of diseases were examined by a Single Decrement Life table.

The expectation of life for both male and female presented differing patterns. Results showed that life expectancies were greatly reduced in the presence of all groups of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the community, whilst life expectancies were significantly improved if all NCDs within all disease groups were completely eliminated. The life expectancies in the presence of NCDs showed lowest expected years among all the present diseases groups and the life expectancies eliminating NCDs showed highest expected years among all the eliminating diseases groups. The results indicated that 10.99 years of life would be added to life expectancy at birth for the male population and 8.82 years for the female population in 2008 if NCDs were eliminated.

The findings of this study provide useful information which could contribute to a more effective allocation of targeted funding for developing public health programs. Lowering mortality by eliminating major groups of diseases results in higher life expectancy ratings. Specifically, the relative impacts of eliminating cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases, as compared with eliminating neoplasms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a curvilinear effect of legislative constraints on foreign debt.

A cross-sectional, time-series data analysis of 68 developing countries during the period from 1981 to 1999 was performed.

Foreign borrowing is most likely to increase at both low and high levels of legislative constraints, while it is most likely to decrease at moderate levels.

The paper is a first-cut empirical analysis of a curvilinear relationship between legislative constraints and foreign debt.