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The paper aims to investigate the effect of GDP growth on crime and to test the hypothesis of nonlinearity. Additionally, we estimate the interaction between GDP and income inequality and examine its impact on the relationship between GDP and homicide rates.

The study utilizes panel data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), spanning the period from 2000 to 2018 and estimates dynamic panel GMM models.

We found a nonlinear relationship between GDP and homicide rates, indicating a dual effect of GDP on the occurrence of lethal crimes. Moreover, income inequality conditions the effect of GDP on homicide rates, exerting a significant influence. We conclude that in contexts characterized by high levels of income inequality, GDP growth is more effective in reducing crime, as there is greater potential for improvement.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing insights into the complex nonlinearity between economic conditions, income inequality and homicide rates.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between financial inclusion and financial stability in South Asian countries.

To measure the financial inclusion, a multidimensional time-varying index is constructed following the Human Development Index method. The long-run relationship between financial inclusion and financial stability is examined by using the panel cointegration test, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares approaches to show the long-run elasticity of explanatory variables on dependent variables. Further, Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test is used to find the direction of causality between financial inclusion and financial stability. Data set is of annual frequency of seven countries for the period from 2004 to 2018.

The empirical findings of this study confirm that financial inclusion has a positive and statistically significant impact on financial stability. These results suggest that South Asian countries can attain long-run financial stability by improving the coverage of financial inclusion. Further, panel causality test shows a unidirectional causality from financial inclusion to financial stability.

The major limitation of the study is the availability of time series data for all important variables. Various socioeconomic variables can be used to measure financial stability, but this study included only the Z-score as the proxy for financial stability. Due to the data constraint, this study is unable to use the time series econometric analysis.

As the study confirms that financial inclusion is one of the main drivers of financial stability, it is suggested that the policymakers should emphasize on financial sector reforms to enjoy financial stability in the long run, especially in developing countries. So governments and policymakers of study countries need to address the issues involved in access to financial services to increase financial stability. Furthermore, it is also important to remove limitations of access to formal financial services for marginalized sections of the society with proper supervisions.

This is a new contribution on the present topic. This study has constructed a new multidimensional financial inclusion index (FII) following the Human Development Index method for South Asian countries based on annual data and using ten indicators of formal financial services related to availability, accessibility and usage. To the best of the authors’ knowledge and information, this is the first study on South Asian countries to construct and apply the new multidimensional FII. Further, the study examines the long-run elasticity of financial inclusion on financial stability employing FMOLS and DOLS approach.

Tests a new series of models which attempt to describe the relationship between advertising and sales. Describes an attempt to obtain information of this kind by investigating the effect of advertising on sales and brand shares. States that a number of researchers are now attempting to develop models to explain the workings of the market for a particular product. Emphasises that the prime area of interest of the study is the effect of advertising on sales and brand shares. States the study does not have the objective of constructing a complete marketing model involving all the variables that are thought to influence a brand's share of a product. Concludes that many results herein are disappointing, but it is perhaps too optimistic to expect the models dealt with earlier to be successful.

This paper aims to highlight the relevance of examining education and skill job‐worker mismatches as two different, although simultaneous, phenomena of the labor market. Most previous literature does not take into account skill mismatch, and a number of papers deal with both kinds of mismatches as equivalent.

Spanish data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) survey for the year 2001 are used to examine the degree of statistical association between both education and skill mismatches, and to estimate wage equations as well as job satisfaction equations, considering satisfaction with pay, with the type of job and overall job satisfaction, in order to analyze the consequences of both types of mismatches from the workers’ viewpoint.

The statistical analysis shows that education and skill mismatches are weakly related in the Spanish labor market. The econometric analysis reveals that skill mismatches appear as key determinants of workers’ job satisfaction, while education mismatches have much weaker impacts, if any, on workers’ job satisfaction; however, both skill and education mismatches have negative impacts on wages.

The analysis points out that the research strategy that considers education mismatch as a proxy for the study of the effects of skill mismatch is rather weak because skill and education mismatches appear to capture different aspects of the accuracy of the job‐worker pairing, and, therefore, they have separate consequences for workers, both in monetary and non‐monetary terms. Skill mismatches are perceived by workers as a much more relevant problem than education mismatches. The wage and job satisfaction consequences of skill mismatches are strongly negative; to the contrary, education mismatches show much weaker effects.

The paper emphasizes that neglecting the effects of skill mismatch along with those of education mismatch in the analysis of the monetary and non‐monetary consequences of inadequate job‐worker pairing can lead to erroneous interpretations of the facts.

The purpose of this research is to test for price threshold effects in the demand for high-involvement services for small businesses.

The authors use a stated preference choice-based conjoint study of small business telecommunications demand. Using survey data, individual-level parameter estimates for a demand model are achieved via the Hierarchical Bayes method of estimation.

For demand for small business telecommunications services, the authors find very strong positive impacts of nine-ending and zero-ending prices on the demand for a common bundle of telecommunications services (wired telephone service, broadband internet, and cellular telephone service), even at prices so high a shift in the left-most digit does not occur.

The advertising, brand, or product manager or statistician who assumes threshold effects are not extant in high-involvement service demand may find conventional demand estimation methods lead to erroneous conclusions and less effective pricing strategies.

In the statistical literature on price-ending effects on product demand, most products for which demand is modelled are low-involvement consumer products priced at less than ten monetary units per unit of product. There is a lacuna in this price-ending effects literature regarding small businesses and high-involvement services offered at three-digit prices via monthly subscription. This research indicates that testing for threshold effects should be de rigeur in the methodology of demand estimation for telecommunications or other high-involvement services.

This paper aims to explain and present a theoretical framework for providing people with savings to finance two sectors: profitable investment and Gharz-al-Hassane. To do this first, assumptions and presumptions of the theory and framework are expressed, and then the effect of belief on this behavior is explained. Subsequently, this theoretical framework is evaluated in an empirical research.

The theoretical framework is explained by mathematical and logical methods. The experimental study is carried out using real data of 500 households from Zahedan (Center of Sistan and Baluchestan Province of Iran). Data were collected using questionnaire and were analyzed using statistical and econometric methods.

The result indicates that demands of Iranian people are not met within the framework of official markets. This disparity in supply and demand has led to the actions of people outside the formal framework, and so, banks and financial institutions cannot exploit the supply of people’s savings. On this basis, key factors determining people supply in a variety of markets are religious belief, age, income, education level, religious experience and so on, which should be considered in designing the Islamic banking and financial tools.

Today, economics and marketing have shown that an enterprise needs to meet customer demand to succeed. In the field of Islamic banking and finance, financial firms and banks should know this too. However, there are not many research studies in this area.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explain access to formal and informal credit in agriculture of Vietnam; and to compare the effectiveness between regular econometrics and machine learning techniques.

The multinomial logit (MNL) regression model and the random forest (RF) technique are employed for comparison purposes. To avoid heteroskedasticity, the robust covariance matrix is computed to estimate the sandwich estimator which in turn provides an asymptotic covariance matrix for biased estimators. Additionally, multicollinearity is tested among independent variables with variance inflation factors less than 3. Adequacy approach and sensitivity analysis are used to determine relevant levels of predictors. For models comparison, statistical evaluation metrics including Cohen’s κ, mean absolute error, root mean squared error and relative absolute error are employed.

The discrepancy between sensitivity analysis and adequacy approach revealed that MNL is more compatible for explaining determinants of credit participation. Due to insignificant differences in the evaluation metrics between models, the winner of choice is undetermined. Among other determinants, collateral, farmsize, income, procedure, literacy and all risk variables stand out to be critical factors when deciding borrowing schemes. While financially literate farmers tend to acquire loans from both sources, borrowing decisions against different risk sources depend on risk type and famers’ own desire to borrow.

Results of the MNL model are more consistent with literatures, which reinforce the role of collateral in the local credit scheme. Besides, financial literacy and farmers’ perception on different risk sources also influence how farmers’ borrowing strategies vary among sources.

The purpose of this paper is to report empirical evidence regarding the risk management practices of banks operating in Bahrain.

A sample of bankers was surveyed through a questionnaire and the results used to examine if the risk management practices are significantly associated with the type of bank (conventional or Islamic) and if those practices are positively affected by understanding risk, risk management, risk identification, risk assessment analysis, risk monitoring and credit risk analysis. Several statistical and econometric methods were used to the test the hypotheses.

Banks in Bahrain are found to have a clear understanding of risk and risk management, and have efficient risk identification, risk assessment analysis, risk monitoring, credit risk analysis and risk management practices. In addition, credit, liquidity and operational risk are found to be the most important risks facing both conventional and Islamic banks. Furthermore, the risk management practices are determined by the extent to which managers understand risk and risk management, efficient risk identification, risk assessment analysis, risk monitoring and credit risk analysis. Islamic banks are found to be significantly different from their conventional counterparts in understanding risk and risk management. The levels of risks faced by Islamic banks are found to be significantly higher than those faced by conventional banks. Similarly, country, liquidity, and operational, residual, and settlement risks are found to be higher in Islamic banks than in conventional banks.

The results may have been influenced by the current economic global crisis. Although the response rate is very high, there is no evidence of non‐response bias, and there is high internal consistency within the responses. The reliance on survey methodology introduces the possibility that respondents expressed their beliefs and did not necessarily describe their actions.

Bankers, depositors, investors and regulators are likely to benefit from the results of the study when taking decisions related to the banking industry.

This is the first published attempt to investigate empirically the risk management practices of banks operating in Bahrain and to compare the practices of conventional and Islamic banks.