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1 – 10 of 154Radwa Ahmed Abdelghaffar, Hebatalla Atef Emam and Nagwa Abdallah Samak
The purpose of this study is to investigate the nexus between financial inclusion and human development for countries belonging to different income groups during 2009–2019, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the nexus between financial inclusion and human development for countries belonging to different income groups during 2009–2019, and whether this relation differs across these groups.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper constructs an index of financial inclusion (IFI) for different income group countries employing dynamic panel data models estimated by generalized method of moments (GMM) to analyse the relation between financial inclusion and human development.
Findings
Financial inclusion in low and lower-middle-income countries has higher effect on human development than in high and upper-middle income countries.
Research limitations/implications
The study examines the effect of IFI on the human development index (HDI) at the aggregate level. Future research can tackle the IFI effect on every component of HDI and other aspects of financial inclusion could be incorporated like financial technology.
Originality/value
The originality lies in constructing an index for financial inclusion using the most recent data for a wide range of countries, in addition to examining the impact of financial inclusion on the human development levels of different income groups allowing for more accurate analysis tackling the differences in terms of adopted policies across various income groups; unlike other studies that are carried out on a one country basis or only across one or two country groups that do not allow for comparison across various groups of countries.
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Banna Banik, Chandan Kumar Roy and Rabiul Hossain
This study aims to investigate the consequence of the quality of governance (QoG) in moderating the effect of healthcare spending on human development.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the consequence of the quality of governance (QoG) in moderating the effect of healthcare spending on human development.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a two-step Windmeijer finite sample-corrected system-generalized method of moments (sys-GMM) estimation technique on a panel dataset of 161 countries from 2005 to 2019. The authors use healthcare expenditure as the main explanatory variable and the Human Development Index (HDI) as the dependent variable and also consider voice and accountability (VnA), political stability and absence of terrorism (PSnAT), governance effectiveness (GoE), regulatory quality (ReQ), rules of law (RLaw) and control of corruption (CoC) dimensions of governance indicators as proxies of good governance. The authors develop a new measure of good governance from these six dimensions of governance using principal component analysis (PCA).
Findings
The authors empirically revealed that allocating more healthcare support alone is insufficient to improve human development. Individually, PSnAT has the highest net positive effect on health expenditure that helps to increase human welfare. Further, the corresponding interaction effect between expenditure and the Good Governance Index (GGI) is negative but insignificant for low-income countries (LICs); negative and statistically significant for sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies and positive but insignificant for South Asian nations.
Originality/value
This study is an in-depth analysis of how governance impacts the effectiveness of healthcare expenditure to ensure higher human development, particularly in a large panel of 161 countries. The authors have developed a new index of good governance and later extended the analysis by separating countries based on the income level and geographical location, which are utterly absent in existing literature.
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Amira Mohamed Emara and Nashwa Mostafa Ali Mohamed
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between global economic fluctuations and human development through four transmission channels (foreign direct investment (FDI)…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between global economic fluctuations and human development through four transmission channels (foreign direct investment (FDI), official development aid (ODA), remittances and export earnings) in Egypt as an open developing economy, in the period 1990–2015.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a vector autoregressive model, which implies examining the impulse response functions and variance decompositions.
Findings
The results indicate that human development is negatively affected by global economic fluctuations through the four channels, namely, ODA, FDI, export earnings and remittances. In addition, the most effective transmission channels are FDI in the short run and export earnings in the long run.
Originality/value
While a large body of literature addresses the direct impact of business cycles and economic shocks on human development, only some studies focus on the indirect impact. The contribution is to identify the indirect impact of global economic fluctuations on human development in a developing economy, considering four transmission channels and to determine the most important of these channels. Moreover, using the human development index is an addition in this paper as most previous literature depends on other human development indicators such as children’s health, employment and schooling.
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This study aims to examine the influence of socioeconomic development on inflation in South Asia using the foreign exchange rate and money supply as control variables.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the influence of socioeconomic development on inflation in South Asia using the foreign exchange rate and money supply as control variables.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses annual panel data for five South Asian economies, namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the period 1990–2018, applies cointegrating regression techniques, namely, the panel dynamic ordinary least square (OLS) and fully modified OLS estimators to examine the long-run relations and conducts the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test to detect the direction of causality among variables.
Findings
The cointegrating regression estimations have documented that the socioeconomic development proxied by the human development index (HDI) has no significant impact on inflation. Although economic development represented by gross domestic product (GDP) growth causes inflation, socioeconomic development represented by HDI has no impact on inflation and has demonstrated as a better macroeconomic indicator, and thus creates no inflationary pressure in the economy. The foreign exchange rate has a positive impact on inflation. The broad money supply has the usual positive effect on domestic inflation that endorses the monetarist view about prices. The Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test has confirmed several unidirectional causalities: inflation causes HDI, money supply causes both inflation and HDI and the foreign exchange rate causes HDI.
Practical implications
The study has practical implications for policymakers in South Asia, to improve HDI, particularly GDP per capita, education and health-care facilities to realize continuous socioeconomic development, which will take care of inflation. Moreover, these counties may follow a conservative monetary policy to control inflationary pressure in their economies.
Originality/value
The study is original and claims to be the first to examine the impact of socioeconomic development on inflation. The findings have socioeconomic values regarding controlling inflation in South Asia.
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This paper aims to analyze and evaluate the arguments provided in Gema Dari Menara that aim to justify Islamic prohibitions. The first part of this paper will attempt to indicate…
Abstract
This paper aims to analyze and evaluate the arguments provided in Gema Dari Menara that aim to justify Islamic prohibitions. The first part of this paper will attempt to indicate that the arguments concerning Islam’s prohibition of certain activities are surprisingly secular in their justification, in the sense that their reasoning rests on mundane empirical considerations rather than lofty theological exhortations. For instance, pre-marital sex must be prohibited because it would “ruin one’s personality and community”, Bruneians should not gamble because people who do so “forget their own responsibilities”, and alcohol should not be consumed because it can “ruin a sound mind and one’s personality”. These justifications do not appeal to the divine but instead refer to phenomena that can be observed, measured, and quantified. The second part of this paper will consider the implications of trying to justify absolute religious prohibitions through secular considerations. It will be argued that in doing so the film opens itself to empirical queries that must be addressed for the film to have its desired effect. This paper ultimately draws attention to some of the challenges facing religious apologetics as the social sciences gain prominence.
Suhasini Gupta, Pradeep Kumar Sahoo and Kirtti Ranjan Paltasingh
This paper investigates the deterrence effect of development on crime against women in India. Specifically, the authors examine the deterrence effect of the composite development…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the deterrence effect of development on crime against women in India. Specifically, the authors examine the deterrence effect of the composite development index, i.e. Human Development Index (HDI), along with other variables acting as development indicators such as women’s employment, the relative strength of women in the police force, urbanization, etc., on crimes against women.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a fixed effect within-group (WG) panel regression model and pooled regression model on the data of 28 states over 20 years from 2000 to 2019. For checking the robustness of the results, the authors use the estimation from the system generalized method of moments.
Findings
The results confirm the deterrence effect of development as measured by the HDI and female labor force participation on various crimes against women. In addition, female feticide representing the socio-cultural attitude toward women turned out to be another significant determinant of almost all types of crime against women. Further, the study also finds the deterrence effect of variables such as police expenditure, the relative strength of women in the police force, urbanization and arrest rate on various crimes against women.
Originality/value
This research paper is unique because it tries to examine the deterrence hypothesis of development by taking a composite index of development, i.e. HDI and other variables at the state level in the Indian union.
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Amin Pujiati, Triani Nurbaeti and Nadia Damayanti
This paper aims to identify variables that determine the differing levels of environmental quality on Java and other islands in Indonesia.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify variables that determine the differing levels of environmental quality on Java and other islands in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a quantitative approach, secondary data were sourced from the Central Statistics Agency and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The data were obtained through the collection of documentation from 33 provinces in Indonesia. The analytical approach used was discriminant analysis. The research variables are Trade Openness, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), industry, HDI and population growth.
Findings
The variables that distinguish between the levels of environmental quality in Indonesian provinces on the island of Java and on other islands are Industry, HDI, FDI and population growth. The openness variable is not a differentiating variable for environmental quality. The most powerful variable as a differentiator of environmental quality on Java Island and on other islands is the Industry variable.
Research limitations/implications
This study has not classified the quality of the environment based on the Ministry of Environment and Forestry's categories, namely, the very good, good, quite good, poor, very poor and dangerous. For this reason, further research is needed using multiple discriminant analysis (MDA).
Practical implications
Industry is the variable that most strongly distinguishes between levels of environmental quality on Java and other island, while the industrial sector is the largest contributor to gross regional domestic product (GDRP). Government policy to develop green technology is mandatory so that there is no trade-off between industry and environmental quality.
Originality/value
This study is able to identify the differentiating variables of environmental quality in two different groups, on Java and on the other islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
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Francisco Javier Ayvar-Campos, José César Lenin Navarro-Chávez and Víctor Giménez
This paper aims to review the efficient use of economic and social resources to generate income and, at the same time, reduce the concentration of wealth in the 32 states of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the efficient use of economic and social resources to generate income and, at the same time, reduce the concentration of wealth in the 32 states of the Mexican Republic during the period 1990-2015.
Design/methodology/approach
Data envelopment analysis with the inclusion of a bad output was used to diagnose the efficiency of Mexican entities, and the Malmquist–Luenberger index was applied to understand how this efficiency evolves.
Findings
The results clearly show that only 3 of the 32 units studied generated and distributed wealth efficiently, while the other 29 must increase their level of income and its distribution.
Originality/value
According to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that performs a temporal analysis of the efficiency in the generation of Human Development Index using bad outputs and the Malmquist–Luenberger index.
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