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The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that contribute to the number of reported coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths among low-income and high-income countries, and to understand the sources of differences between these two groups of countries.

Multiple linear regression models evaluate the socio-economic factors that determine COVID-19 deaths in the two groups of countries. The Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition is used to examine sources of differences between these two groups.

Low-income countries report a significantly lower average number of COVID-19 deaths compared to high-income countries. Community mobility and the easiness of carrying the virus from one place to another are significant factors affecting the number of deaths, while life expectancy is only significant in high-income countries. Higher health expenditure is associated with more reported deaths in both high- and low-income countries. Factors such as the transport infrastructure system, life expectancy and the percent of expenditure on health lead to the differences in the number of deaths between high- and low-income countries.

Our study shows that mobility measures taken by individuals to limit the spread of the virus are important to prevent deaths in both high- and low-income countries. Additionally, our results suggest that countries with weak health institutions underestimate the number of deaths from COVID-19, especially low-income countries. The underestimation of COVID-19 deaths could be affecting a great number of people in poverty in low-income economies.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on COVID-19 and its relation to socio-economic factors by examining the differences in reported between deaths between rates in low-income and high-income countries.

Existence of working poverty reduces the effectiveness of the strategy of “increasing employment to reduce poverty”. Developed countries are already concerned about it but insufficient attention has been made by developing countries. Focusing on developing countries this study identifies (1) the effects of trade openness (TO) on working poverty and (2) whether the working poverty trap exists or not in developing countries. Both objectives are also analyzed for three subsamples of low income, lower-middle income and upper-middle income developing countries.

Panel data for 98 developing countries over the period of 2000–2016 have been collected for the study. Fixed effect and GMM methods are applied for static and dynamic analysis, respectively.

The study finds that TO significantly reduces working poverty rate (WPR) (mainly driven up by upper-middle income developing countries). The positive association between WPR with its previous year's rate proves the existence of working poverty trap.

The study's outcome is subject to selected time, countries and methods. Future research should use more improve methods and should identify the channels through which TO could affect working poverty.

Middle income and upper-middle income developing countries should increase TO to reduce the working poverty. Low income developing countries that have the highest working poverty should search the way to derive beneficial effects of trade on working poverty.

Working poverty is not only a developed country issue rather it is a global phenomenon. Hence, it is expected that the study will raise the social consciousness about this phenomenon in developing countries too.

The study fulfills the gaps of identifying the effects of TO on working poverty and existence of in-work poverty trap in developing countries.

Despite the extensive debate on the impact of bank competition on risk-taking, there is no evidence of its role in procyclicality of loan-loss provisions (LLPs). The purpose of this study is to find out what is the role of competition in the procyclicality of LLPs.

Using over 70,000 bank-level observations in 103 countries in 2004–2015 and the LLPs model, this study interacts competition with business cycle to check what is the effect of competition on procyclicality of LLPs.

This study finds that intense competition is associated with more procyclicality of LLPs. Increased procyclicality of LLPs in a more competitive environment is binding for high-income countries. The opposite effect is shown for low-income countries.

Future research can be extended by testing the role of additional factors – such as regulations, supervision or institutional protection of shareholders' rights, in the association between procyclicality and competition.

The main message of this paper is that the competitive environment changes the procyclicality of LLPs. The results are important from the point of view of the COVID-19 pandemic because government interventions during lockdowns will affect competition in the banking industry and in other industries of the economy.

This paper contributes to the extant research in three dimensions. First, it shows that competition is an important factor behind procyclicality of LLPs. Second, it adds to the research on the links between competition and financial stability. Third, it shows that the link between competition and procyclicality of LLPs depends on the economic development of the country in which the banks are located.

This study examines the effect of digitalization on poverty and income inequality in developing countries. The study answers the question of whether digitalization is a way for developing countries to get out of poverty and income inequality.

The study uses data from 17 developing countries with data from 2005 to 2021. The study employs fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), with an augmented mean group (AMG) for robustness. Digitalization, as the variable of interest, is proxied by the digitalization index (DI), constructed using principal component analysis (PCA). The dependent variables are poverty and income inequality, which are used in different models.

The evidence indicates that digitalization decreases poverty and income inequality in developing countries. These findings are justified when we use the AMG estimator, but the strength of the coefficients and significance levels are higher in the FMOLS and DOLS estimators. The results of the control variables also show that human development (LHDI), CO2 emissions and foreign direct investment (FDI) have decreasing effects on poverty and income inequality. Thus, digitalization is a good option for developing countries to get out of poverty and income inequality to achieve sustainable development goals (1&10).

This study provides rigorous empirical evidence on the effect of digitalization on poverty and income inequality in developing countries. Unlike the previous studies on developing countries, this study used a DI to proxy digitalization. In addition, the authors use FMOLS and DOLS estimators, with an AMG estimator for robustness, to provide long-run coefficients.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2023-0586

This study aims to systematically review the economic complexity literature to advance the knowledge on its contribution to building regional competitiveness.

In this study, we did a systematic review of 111 relevant papers. In this regard, we did a thematic analysis on all the collected papers, which led to a two-level processed approach. In the first level, the contributions of the reviewed articles have been classified into three main streams. In the second level, the findings under each contribution category are analyzed and explained. This approach led to a thematic network demonstrating economic complexity and the dynamics of regional competitiveness and a set of managerial and policy implications. We followed a multiple processed approach for the systematic review of 95 papers that reveals considerable contributions in three categories, including measurement techniques, criticisms and exploratory studies.

Despite some critiques and the undertaken evolution in measurement techniques of complexity, economic complexity has become a well-known method mainly for regions' competitiveness dynamics. Our review demonstrates a nested network of economic complexity dynamics that drives policy advice concerning countries' status in their development path. The provided set of policies includes guidelines for underdeveloped and developing countries and general policy implications, applicable for all regional contexts for building competitiveness dynamics.

This research contributes to the literature on competitiveness from the window of economic complexity. The study allows a deep understanding of regions' productive structure role in their development and competitiveness. A set of policies for building regional competitiveness is provided concerning the study's findings. The literature gaps are identified, and future research ideas are provided for using economic complexity methodologically and logically to boost regional competitiveness.

In this paper, we aim to assess insurance demand across selected Asian and OECD countries during the period of the global financial crisis.

We collected data from 55 emerging Asian and OECD countries during the period of the global financial crisis. Our methodology relies on panel regressions. Separate models are run for the Asia/OECD economies and a follow-up distinction between high/low-income regions is also made.

We find that global financial crisis affects negatively the general insurance demand particularly in high-income region. Higher dependency ratio in Asia tends to decrease insurance demand, whereas education in case of Asia positively influences insurance demand indicating that higher literacy rate can be helpful to capture the potential customers. Our results further reveal that life insurance is an important driver for insurance demand in OECD countries, whereas general insurance demand is higher in the Asian economies.

A limitation of this study is that data sets employed do not differentiate between different life and general insurance products.

This study is helpful for regulators, policymakers and insurance providers to evaluate, assess and monitor insurance demand in relevant countries.

This is one of the pioneering studies that have assessed insurance demand among emerging Asian and OECD countries during the period of the global financial crisis.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2019-0523

This paper establishes an association between income and the likelihood of seeking medical treatment for Covid-19 symptoms in some countries. We provide an explanation for this income effect based on the stringency of government response to the pandemic and the unequal distribution of agency among social classes.

The paper makes use of data from the Six-Country Survey on Covid-19 to establish the existence of an income effect on health utilisation, and from the Oxford Covid-19 Government response tracker to show that this income effect is associated with the stringency of governmental response to the pandemic. Data from the 2011/12 “Health and Healthcare” round of the International Social Survey Programme is used to show that this income effect cannot be explained by pre-existing patterns. An explanation for the link between government stringency and the income effect is advanced on a theoretical basis.

The authors find in Britain, the US, and – with greater uncertainty – in Japan that individuals who experience potential Covid-19 symptoms are less likely to seek medical treatment if they have a lower income. The authors also show that governments in these countries adopted a less stringent response to the pandemic than the countries in our sample which do not exhibit an income effect – China, Italy and South Korea. The authors argue that laissez-faire policies place the burden of action upon the individual, activating underlying differences in agency between the social classes, and making (high) low-income individuals (more) less likely to seek medical attention.

Since there was not a direct measure of agency in the data, it could not be empirically verified that agency mediates the effect of government stringency on health utilisation. Further research could make use of datasets which incorporate such a measure, if they become available. It could also extend the geographical scope of the findings, to see if the income effect manifests in other countries which adopted a laissez-faire response to the pandemic.

Governments should intervene more stringently during pandemics to minimise inequality in health outcomes.

This paper establishes an association between the stringency of government response to the Covid-19 pandemic and income inequality in health utilisation. This contributes to scholarly and policy debates around health inequality in the area of social epidemiology, and the sociology of inequality more generally. It is also of relevance to the general public, in the context of a deadly pandemic.

The paper outlines and examines a social‐institutional conception of income inequality or economic distribution. The fundamental proposition of this conception is that income inequality/distribution is far from being the outcome of the operation of strictly market laws or economic forces but rather one of institutional arrangements or social structures. Of the latter particularly important have shown to be the institutional structure of the economy, particularly labour markets, as well as the degree of democracy of political systems. The results suggest transcending single‐factor economic explanations and predictions of income inequality, as implied in the Kuznets curve and its ramifications, in favour of an alternative multilevel sociological approach.

Trade in food and other agricultural products is increasingly important across East and Southeast Asia, where high-income Asian economies have driven significant agricultural expansion, and the People's Republic of China's (PRC) momentous growth promises more stimulus to agro-food activity in the region. The PRC is expected to become a net importer of agro-food in the coming decades, which will have significant implications within the region. As its middle class continues to emerge, the resource intensity of food consumption (e.g., meat and dairy) will lead to net imports and require expansion of agricultural capacity elsewhere. Because low-income Southeast Asia is generally seen to be well below its agro-food potential, this situation suggests a significant opportunity for self-directed poverty reduction through regional agro-food market expansion. This chapter reviews the history of high-income Asia and the PRC's emergence in the region's agro-food markets. Finally, the Greater Mekong Subregion's role is analyzed for the potential of Asian agro-food trade to contribute to poverty reduction.

This research explores how skill proficiencies are distributed between low-income and not-in low-income groups using the results of a highly complex survey of the information-processing skills of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65. We find that having measures of skills enhances our understanding of the correlates of low income. Skills have an independent effect, even when controlling for other known correlates of low income, and their inclusion reduces the independent effect of education and immigrant status. This result is relevant for public policy development as the knowledge of the skills profile of the low-income population can inform the design of efficient and effective programmes.