Search results

Using composite indices, the paper examines the nexus between militarization, globalization and liberal democracy. The democratic peace theory, the conflict inhibiting effects of international trade – a key and dominant facet of globalization – and the democracy promoting globalization hypothesis form the theoretical underpinnings of the empirical investigation.

To probe into the issue at hand, the paper adopts a dynamic panel VAR estimation procedure. Given the usual data constraints, the sample consists of 113 countries, and the estimations span the period 1995–2019.

The findings from the dynamic panel VAR estimations suggest the presence of a negative and statistically significant nexus between the level of globalization and the level of militarization. No statistically traceable nexus between globalization and liberal democracy was found.

The findings offer empirical support to the hypothesis that the strong links of interdependence shaped by globalization reduce the need for military preparedness. The results lead to a tentative inference in favor of the doux commerce thesis. Nonetheless, given that the estimations span a historically specific period – the entire post-bipolar era – the inferences that stem from the findings should be treated with caution.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the composite indices Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) militarization index, the globalization index of the Swiss Economic Institute (Konjunkturforschungsstelle) (KOF), LibDem, polyarchy have not hitherto been jointly used in previous studies to examine the nexus between militarization, globalization and liberal democracy.

Globalization, the ever-increasing worldwide flow of ideas, practices, and material objects resulting in increasing interdependency between people and nations across the globe, has numerous interrelated economic, political, cultural, ideological, environmental, and technological facets.

In an effort to make the elusive and multifaceted concept of globalization more tangible and measurable, different instruments have been developed, usually in the form of “indexes” based on quantitative data. These indexes mainly result in rankings of individual cities as well as whole countries with respect to their supposed level of globalization. Some items of the existing indexes to measure the level of globalization of nation states or cities refer to phenomena that are to some extent visually observable, but many aspects and manifestations of globalization escape these rather crude operationalizations.

Visual approaches to globalization help to enrich and complement the more abstract and mainly quantitatively supported discourses around this multifaceted phenomenon. They may provide valid and unobtrusive ways to assess and understand the impact of culture and cultural exchange in the daily lives of inhabitants of cities around the world and add a unique “localized,” cross-cultural empirical perspective to the many divergent views and discussions about the presumed beneficial or detrimental nature of these processes. An ‘in situ’ visual approach to globalization may help to uncover the “real life” impact and the specific contexts of these processes at different locations. This chapter discusses different options for researching globalization and cultural change in cities.

This study examines whether the gains from export sophistication is conditional on the level of globalisation. Previous studies have shown that the impact of export sophistication on growth varies depending on the level of a country's economic development. The authors argue that globalisation plays an important role in influencing the gains from export sophistication, mainly through the competition and scale effects. The competition effect disincentivises domestic firms to engage in export markets, while the scale effect incentivises knowledge accumulation and innovation.

The authors employ data from 163 economies from 1995 to 2018. The authors re-estimate values for export sophistication using ordinary goods from 1995 to 2018 and estimate a growth model using the generalised method of moments (GMM) to control for endogeneity and simultaneity issues.

The results show that the gains from export sophistication and globalisation is greater for economies with higher levels of economic development compared to economies with low levels of economic development. Moreover, the authors find that the gains from export sophistication are conditional on the level of globalisation. The authors’ results show that the marginal impact of export sophistication diminishes as developing economies become more globalised, while advanced economies gain more from export sophistication when globalisation precedes at a higher level.

Previous studies have generally examined the conditional growth effects of export sophistication on trade, economic development and other structural factors. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of globalisation, and the authors exploit the multidimensional concept of globalisation to test the hypothesis.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0001.

The study's objective is to examine the relevance of globalization in affecting the size of the shadow economy in selected African nations.

To do this, the authors employ the KOF globalization index and implement both static and dynamic common correlated mean group estimators on a panel of 24 African nations from 1995–2017. This technique accommodates the issue of cross-sectional dependence, sample bias and endogenous regressors. Panel threshold analysis is also conducted to establish the nonlinearity between globalization and the shadow economy. To examine the causality between the variables, the study employs Dumitrescu and Hurlin's panel causality test.

The results show that globalization reduces the size of the shadow economy. The results of the nonlinear analysis suggest a U-shaped relationship. Overall globalization has a threshold impact of 48.837%, economic globalization has 45.615% and political globalization has 66.661% while social globalization has a threshold value of 35.744%. The results of the panel causality show that there is a bidirectional causality between the two variables.

The results suggest that the government and other relevant authorities need to introduce capital controls and other policy measures to moderate the degree of social, political and cultural diffusion. Appropriate policies should be formulated to monitor the extent of African economic openness to other continents to maximize the gains from globalization.

Apart from being the first study in the African region that evaluates the relevance of globalization in controlling the shadow economy, it also analyzes the dynamics and threshold analysis between the two variables using advanced panel econometrics which makes the study unique. The study suggests that globalization tools are useful for affecting the size of the shadow economy in Africa. This study provides fresh empirical evidence on the impact of globalization on the shadow economy in the case of Africa.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between energy consumption, agricultural economic growth and globalization in Turkey by using data from 1980 to 2018.

The Lee-Strazicich LM breakpoint test was used to test the stationarity of the variables. The presence of the long-run relationship between the variables was examined by using the Maki cointegration test. The dynamic ordinary least squares method was used to estimate the long-run coefficients of the model. The direction of causalities was determined using the Toda–Yamamoto causality test.

Research results showed that consuming energy on average of 14,460 GJ/hectare has returned $1,612 agricultural gross domestic products (GDP)/hectare per year. Turkey’s energy consumption (EC), GDP and globalization index (GI) from 1980 to 2018 increased by 2-fold, 3-fold and 1.5-fold, respectively. Research results also showed that Turkey’s EC was affected by GI and GDP.

The study suggests using environmentally friendly energy inputs and conscious consumption to reach growth targets and to reduce the pressure of intensive energy use on natural resources. Further research is needed for exploring the causality and relationship between EC and GI and along with other variables in the agricultural sector.

The study contributes two contributions to the existing literature. The first contribution is to examine the neglected relationship between GI and EC and GDP in Turkey. The second is that the EC data for Turkish agriculture used in the study were calculated by the authors.

The role institutional quality plays in the rising pace of globalization and its associated health effects remain unclear in the literature. This study, therefore, empirically examined the moderating role of institutional quality on the globalization-health outcomes nexus in Nigeria, a country with a relatively weak health system.

The study employed Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) to estimate the empirical models. The Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) and Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR) techniques were thereafter used to check the consistency and robustness of our results. Annual time-series data spanning from 1984 to 2020 were sourced from the World Development Indicator, KOF Globalization Index, International Countries Risk Guide (ICRG) and Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin databases.

The results revealed that overall globalization and its three dimensional components (economic, political and social globalization) adversely affect life expectancy in their separate models, but increased life expectancy significantly after their interaction with government effectiveness. Also, real GDP, health aids, government recurrent health expenditure are other determinants of life expectancy in Nigeria.

The Nigerian government should put in place appropriate mechanisms directed toward building and sustaining government effectiveness. This will help mitigate the negative effects of globalization and utilize its net positive benefits to improve life expectancy in Nigeria.

The research is the first to comprehensively examine the moderating impact of institutional quality on the nexus between overall globalization as well as its three dimensional components (economic, political and social) on health outcomes in Nigeria.

The aim of this study is to analyze which socioeconomic factors (economic, demographic, and political) most commonly affect the social expenditure of the European Union (EU) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

A panel data fixed-effects model is employed for 34 OECD and 23 EU countries between 2000 and 2020.

Results indicate that, in all country groups, economic factors have the most significant influence on social expenditures, with income being the primary determinant, particularly in EU countries. The negative impacts of unemployment and inflation underscore the importance of counter-cyclical measures adopted by countries to maintain stability in their social expenditures. The most influential demographic factor is found as the old-age-dependency ratio. While the rule of law affects social expenditure positively, government effectiveness and female labor force participation affect it negatively. The positive effect of Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) indexes shows the globalization effect, which can be attributable to the compensation hypothesis.

Governments enforce inclusive and sustainable policies to boost economic activities and GDP, thus combating inflation and unemployment and regulating the labor market and socioeconomic problems about aging populations and women’s economic participation to control social expenditures. The rule of law and institutional quality will also boost economic growth.

This study focuses on the effects of social expenditures in a broader view within the framework of the three main factors (economic, demographic, political) and attempts to determine the key factors that account for the differences in social expenditure between the OECD and EU countries.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0384

This study clarifies the intricate nature of globalization's impact on unemployment rates in South Africa. Given the heterogeneous views on globalization's effect on economic development, this study aims to offer a nuanced perspective. Furthermore, it aims to explore the mediating role of entrepreneurial development in shaping the complex relationship between globalization and unemployment.

The study employs four key indicators to measure entrepreneurial development, globalization and unemployment rates in South Africa. Hierarchical regression is used to evaluate the relationship between globalization and unemployment rates, and how entrepreneurial development mediates this relationship. Additionally, both the Sobel test and bootstrapping analyses were employed to verify and validate the mediating relationship.

The study demonstrates that globalization constitutes a crucial determinant of (un)employment rates in South Africa. The study shows that entrepreneurial development, specifically in the context of established business ownership, but not total early-stage entrepreneurial activity, exhibits an inverse relationship with unemployment rates. Moreover, it was observed that the positive impact of globalization on entrepreneurial development in South Africa becomes evident as SMEs advance to the established stage.

The study's concentration on South Africa constrains the applicability of the results to other nations.

Based on the findings of this study, it is essential for emerging economies, such as South Africa, to take measures to foster a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem that can aid in the growth and international competitiveness of young SMEs.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study represents the first endeavor to analyze the potential impact of entrepreneurial development, as measured by both nascent and mature SMEs, on the correlation between globalization and unemployment.

This study aims to analyse the impact of digital divide (DD) on income inequality in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2004–2016.

In applying a finite mixture model (FMM) to a sample of 35 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, this study posits that DD affects income inequality differently.

The findings show that the effect of DD on income inequality varies across two distinct groups of countries, which differ according to their level of globalization. In addition, the study shows that most globalized countries are more inclined to be in the group where the effect of DD on income inequality is negative. The results are consistent with several robustness checks, including alternative measures of income inequality and additional control variables.

This study complements that extant literature by assessing linkages among the DD, globalization and income inequality in sub-Saharan African countries contingent on cross-country heterogeneity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of urbanization on energy consumption, including economic growth, globalization and “foreign direct investment (FDI)” inflow as control variables.

This study uses yearly panel data from 19071 to 2018 on five selected South Asian economies. It applies the “pooled mean group (PMG)” estimator and the “Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H)” panel causality test.

The PMG estimators reveal that urbanization causes energy consumption negatively in the long run because of an unusual and messy urbanization process. At the same time, it has no impact on the latter in the short run. Per capita income has both long- and short-run positive influences on energy use. Globalization causes energy consumption positively in the long run but does not affect it in the short run. FDI inflow has a strong positive impact on energy use in the long run and adverse effects in the short run. The Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality test reveals feedback relationships between “urbanization and energy consumption,” “globalization and energy consumption” and one-way causation from “per capita income to energy consumption.” It validates the findings of the PMG estimators.

The results of this study indicate that South Asia may focus on enhancing the availability of energy in the region and producing more renewable energy to add to its energy portfolio to meet growing energy demand, particularly among urban dwellers. Moreover, they should raise their real per capita incomes and augment the standard of living of low-income city dwellers to make urbanization more serviceable and comfortable.

This study is original. As far as the author is aware, this is a maiden attempt to investigate urbanization's effects on energy usage in South Asia in the preview of globalization and FDI.