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Energy poverty is a global phenomenon, but its prevalence is enormous in most African countries, with a potential impact on quality of life. This study aims to investigate the impact of energy poverty on the shadow economy.

The study uses panel data from 45 countries in Africa over a period of 1996–2018. Using panel cointegrating regression and panel vector auto-regression model in the generalized method of moments technique.

This study provides that energy poverty deepens the size of the shadow economy in Africa. It also documents that there is a bidirectional causality between shadow economy and energy poverty. Therefore, the two variables can predict each other.

The study suggests that lack of access to clean and modern energy services contributes to the depth of the shadow economy in Africa. African authorities are advised to strengthen rural and urban electrification initiatives by providing adequate energy infrastructure so as to reduce the level of energy poverty in the region. To ensure energy sustainability delivery, the study proposes that the creation of national and local capacities would be the most effective manner to guarantee energy accessibility and affordability. Also, priorities should be given to the local capital mobilization and energy subsidies for the energy poor. Energy literacy may also contribute to the sustainability and the usage of modern energy sources in Africa.

Previous studies reveal that income inequality contributes to the large size of shadow economy in developing economies. However, none of these studies analyzed the role of energy poverty and its implications for underground economic operations. Inadequate access to modern energy sources is likely to deepen the prevalence of informality in developing nations. Based on this, this study provides fresh evidence on the implications of energy deprivation on the shadow economy in Africa using a heterogeneous panel econometric framework. The study contributes to the literature by advocating that the provision of affordable modern energy sources for rural and urban settlements, and the creation of good energy infrastructure for the firms in the formal economy would not only improve the quality of life but also important to discourage underground economic operations in developing economies.

The shadow economy (SE) has been a serious issue with varied dimensions in all countries that significantly affect economic growth. Therefore, all countries have made an effort to tackle the SE by pursuing several measures. This study aims to investigate the impact of financial markets (stock and bond) in reducing the SE while considering the role of country risk (political, economic and financial) in N-11 countries.

The study employed first-generation methodological techniques, including a unit root test to identify stationarity in the series, a panel cointegration test and panel autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) to estimate long-run and short-run relationships. Finally, the Granger causality is applied to determine the direction of the causal relationship.

The study explored that country risk factors are crucial in reducing the size of the SE. Moreover, the significant moderating role of country risk factors in the financial market development and SE nexus suggests that by controlling the country's risk, financial market development can negatively affect the SE.

Due to the availability of data, the study used data, ranging from 1995 to 2015, because the tax burden data is available from 1995 while the maximum data for the SE is available till 2015, using Medina and Schneider's (2019) data estimates for the SE.

The previous studies have focused explicitly on the role of financial institutions' development in the SE. To the best of the author's knowledge, no previous study is attempted to investigate the role of financial markets (bonds and stock) in the size of the SE. Furthermore, previous studies have ignored the important role of country risk factors in the size of the SE. This study investigates the impact of country risk on the SE and the moderating role of country risk in the development of financial markets and the SE nexus.

This paper aims to explore how the role of the perception of good public governance reduces tax evasion (TE). Besides, this study investigates whether the nexus of public governance and TE differs between developed and developing economies.

Apart from the ordinary least squares (OLS) model, this study uses the linear mixed modeling technique. The World Governance Indicators and the multiple causes estimation (MIMIC) method are used to measure public governance. The shadow economy is used as a proxy for TE.

The results show that people's perceptions of public governance and the quality of government institutions are core elements that influence tax-evasion behavior. Besides, the rule of law (RoL) and political stability (PS) significantly impact tax-evasion behavior in developing countries. Nevertheless, the RoL, the control of corruption and PS are the most critical tax-evasion determinants among public governance indicators for developed countries. Regulatory quality shows a substantial positive relationship with TE in developed but not developing countries.

This paper provides a guide for policymakers on reducing tax-evasion behavior by paying more attention to maintaining the RoL and PS and fighting corruption. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of people's perceptions of the government's pursuit of the above policy-related improvements, which, in turn, affect their tax behavior.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the role of people's perceptions of improvements in public governance and how this can reduce TE behavior in developed and developing economies. Unlike prior studies, this study used the linear mixed model method, which is more advantageous than OLS and produces robust estimators.

Despite the growing concern about security breaches and risks emerging from Shadow IT usage, a type of information security violation committed by organizational insiders, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. By integrating the dual-factor theory, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and social control theory, this research aims to examine facilitating and deterring factors of Shadow IT usage intention.

An online survey was performed to obtain data. As this study aims at investigating the behavior of organizational insiders, LinkedIn, an employment-oriented network site, was chosen as the main site to reach the potential respondents.

The results show that while performance expectancy, effort expectancy and subjective norms considerably impact intention to use Shadow IT, personal norms and sanctions-related factors exert no influence. Besides, an organizational factor of ethical work climate is found to significantly increase individual perceptions of informal controls and formal controls.

This work is the first attempt to extend the generalizability of the dual-factor theory and UTAUT model, which primarily has been utilized in the context of system usage, to the new context of information security. This study is also one of few studies that simultaneously take both organizational and individual factors into consideration and identify its impacts on user's behaviors in the information security context.

This paper embarks on revealing the main factors behind the intentions of youth in Lithuania to get involved in bribery.

A questionnaire survey of 432 respondents served as a source of primary data. The structural equation modelling – partial least squares techniques was employed as a main research tool.

It was revealed that youth in Lithuania display a high value congruity with their counterparts in Western Europe and a relatively reluctant to offer bribes. It can be stated that youths’ positive attitude towards some shadow economy activities is a forced response to government failures, rather than an intrinsic motivation created by cultural legacy or psychological issues.

It is one of the first scientific attempt to investigate reasons behind the formation of the positive attitude towards bribery and intentions to get involved in bribery among the youth.

This article analyzes the impact of monetary policy on income inequality across 16 advanced economies. The author investigates three key points: (1) the relationship between domestic monetary policy and domestic income inequality, (2) the spillover effect of USA monetary policy (including quantitative easing) on international inequality and (3) the quantitative influence of the monetary policies of both the USA and the Eurozone on the formation of domestic income inequalities.

The author employed the Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model, which uses Vector Autoregressive with Exogenous Variables (VARXs) models of each economy to build an integrated system that enables us to evaluate individual responses to global shocks.

The author's analysis reveals that (1) contractionary monetary policy exacerbates domestic inequality and (2) USA monetary policy, including quantitative easing, affects international inequality. Furthermore, the author's variance decomposition analysis highlights that USA monetary policy is especially influential on income inequality in Norway and Sweden. Additionally, the cointegrating analysis confirms that monetary policy's impact on inequality persists in the long term.

Most of the studies focused on investigating domestic economies as closed economies. However, the author's approach differs in that the author uses the GVAR, which treats all economies as open. This allows us to incorporate the world economy into the domestic dynamics and connect the economies using bilateral trade. Another advantage of the GVAR is that it captures spillover effects by modeling each economy and constructing the international economy.

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the shadow economy on three sustainable development indicators while considering the moderating effect of the governance quality, and to highlight the non-linearity of the considered relationship.

A sample of 82 countries covering the period from 1996 to 2017. The dynamic first-differenced generalized method of moments (FD-GMM) panel threshold model is implemented to control for non-linearity.

The shadow economy hinders sustainable development in countries with low-governance quality, while the opposite result holds in countries with high-governance quality. The critical thresholds triggering the switch from one regime to another vary across the sustainable development indicators. Boosting growth requires enhancing the legal system and the economic dimension of governance, while promoting environmental quality requires the implementation and enforcement of specific environment-friendly regulations.

The study addresses non-linearity and the moderating effect of governance quality. The use of six governance indicators allows to gauge the ability of each governance dimension to curb the negative effects of the shadow economy. Considering the three objectives of sustainable development allows to identify specific policy recommendations for each of them.

In pursuit of good governance and better allocation of resources, corruption and informal economy are of interest to policymakers and citizens alike. The impacts of military spending on the informal economy are scant. Moreover, the effects of an external factor, such as corruption that moderates this relationship, have largely been neglected in previous studies. Hence, this paper investigates how corruption moderates the effects of military spending on the informal economy in 30 Asian countries from 1995 to 2017.

This paper utilizes the GMM estimation technique, which allows cross-sectional dependence and slope homogeneity in panel data analysis, to examine the moderating role of corruption on the relationship between military spending and the informal economy.

Empirical findings from this paper indicate that an increase in military spending declines the informal economy while corruption increases it. Interestingly, the negative effects of military spending on the informal economy will mitigate with a greater degree of corruption in the Asian region. We also find that enhancing economic growth and attracting more FDI has reduced the informal economy in Asian countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study conducted to examine the moderating role of corruption on the military spending – informal economy nexus. Thus far, this approach has not been investigated in the existing literature, particularly for Asian countries.

This study aims to explore the determinants of public debt in selected South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries for 19 years, from 2001 to 2019.

Using ordinary fixed and random effect models, the authors examine the role of internal and external factors in determining the composition of public debt. Furthermore, for robustness, they compare the results with two-stage least square (2SLS) regression estimates after considering the problem of endogeneity, overidentification, under-identification and weak instruments.

The findings show that among the selected macroeconomic variables, inflation, exchange rate and broad money have significant negative effects on the debt-GDP ratio. In contrast, military spending, corruption and interest rates appear to positively influence the same as per 2SLS results. From the policymaking perspective, SAARC countries should focus more on reducing military spending and make a concerted effort to augment investments in productive projects. Further, with strong fiscal consolidation and institutional quality, it is important to mitigate the frequent occurrence of corruption conundrums in emerging economies for the development of a transparent economic system.

The study is distinct from previous studies in two ways. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies focusing on SAARC countries in the context of public debt. Second, the study expands the existing literature on public debt by taking into account both external and internal debts to decipher the within-country and cross-country determinants of debt accumulation. More specifically, this model considers accountability and transparency in the public sector, cross-border security challenges and benefits of globalization by including explanatory variables such as corruption, military expenditure spending and capital inflows.

After analyzing these uncountable benefits of digital or cashless payment, many European countries like Sweden, Finland and Canada has been trying to convert their payment system into cashless. Following these developed countries, the Bangladesh Government has taken a decision to transfer society as a cashless society by using information technologies for adopting the fourth industrial revolution over the world. Digital payment system is among the various options available for transforming a cashless society. First, this empirical study presents demographic information and digital payment characteristics on the basis of income levels. This study identifies influential factors of adopting digital payment systems. Finally, this study aims to justify how digital payments transform the Bangladeshi economy into a cashless society in developing countries.

The study was administered to a sample of 1,000 Bangladeshi customers who had engaged in online banking transactions for the purpose of acquiring items and services through both social media platforms in Google Form format and face-to-face interactions in hard copy format. Among these, 647 questions were deemed usable and were used for data analysis, where the response rate was 68%. The SmartPLS is used to create and validate the structural equation modeling model presented for the research, as well as to evaluate the hypothesized correlations between the different constructs.

This cross-sectional study conducted the extended technology acceptance model (TAM) with perceived security (PS) and personal innovation (PI) variables to identify the influencing adoption factors of digital payment systems. This study finds that perceived ease of use, PI and perceived usefulness have a favorable impact on individuals’ attitudes toward adopting digital payment methods (DPMs). The study also indicated that PS did not influence negatively the adoption of digital payment system. Besides this, the adoption of digital payment will help to transform society into a cashless society in the future.

Increasingly prevalent across the nation. Several variables are required to facilitate the transition toward a cashless society. This study exclusively focuses on DPMs. Additionally, the data has been obtained exclusively from a single urban area. The adoption of DPMs has become increasingly prevalent across the nation.

This study would help policymakers, marketers and bankers understand which factors affect digital payment infrastructure expansion. So, they can produce digital payment apps that are compatible with different devices, have fast transactions, are user-friendly, easy to use and highly secure to maintain good attitudes toward digital payment systems.

Few studies have examined how DPMs affect cashless societies in developing countries like Bangladesh. According to researchers, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore how digital payments affect cashless society in Bangladesh and raise awareness about it.

The study extended the TAM model to PS and PI. This paper is also unique in the conceptual arguments and the subject theme of the research area.