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The purpose of this paper is to review the investment-savings, liquidity-money (IS–LM) model used in the traditional macroeconomic theory as an important tool to analyze the dynamics of product and money market. The IS curve represents product market equilibrium condition and the LM curve represents money market equilibrium condition. However, the traditional IS–LM model was formulated mainly keeping in mind the dynamics of the product and money markets of developed economies. Thus, there was an urgent need to explore the pre-established IS–LM model in the light of existing enormous, illicit underground economies prevalent all around the world.

In this paper, an exploratory attempt has been made to review the IS–LM model in the light of various illicit practices and by incorporating some assumptions that are relevant to this discussion. In this model, IS_il curve could be defined as a locus of points each representing a combination of evaded tax and output of the illicit economy that will keep the illicit economy in equilibrium and, the LM_il curve could be defined as a locus of points each representing a combination of illicit supply of money and output of the illicit economy that will keep the illicit economy in equilibrium.

This paper is aimed at analyzing the traditional IS–LM model from a different perspective, namely, the pervasive underground economy thriving all around the world regardless of the stages of growth and development. A sincere attempt has been made to keep the assumptions simple and closest to the real-world scenario as well as pertinent to the logic of economic theory. In this paper, two major factors of illicit practices, i.e. tax evasion and bribery, are given prime importance and the discussion is focused on those two factors of corruption.

This paper has been prepared keeping in view the standard technical procedures and findings that are described in the relevant academic materials like textbooks and journal publications (mentioned under the “References” column). The analysis and findings appearing in the article are based on logical explanations and are completely free from plagiarism.

Terrorism finance (TF) has been aptly termed as the lifeblood of terrorism. TF provides funds for terrorist activities. Terrorists mobilize funds by using the formal banking system, informal value-transfer systems, hawalas, Hundis, and the oldest method of asset transfer. They may raise funds from legitimate sources, such as personal donations and profits from businesses and charitable organizations, as well as from criminal sources, like the drug trade, the smuggling of weapons and other goods, fraud, kidnapping, and extortion. Countering the financing of terrorism is a far greater challenge throughout the world. The objectives of the chapter are as follows: (1) to identify the different sources of terrorism financing, (2) to analyze various ways of moving terrorism funds globally, and (3) to examine the initiatives taken to counter terrorism financing.

The aviation industry has started environment friendly and also conventional energy independent alternative energy dependent designs to reduce negative impacts on the nature and to maintain its future activities in a clear, renewable and sustainable way. One possible solution proposed is solar energy. Solar-powered aerial vehicles are seen as key solutions to reduce global warming effects. This study aims to simulate a mathematical model of a solar powered DC motor of an UAV on MATLAB/Simulink environment.

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is a critical term in photovoltaic (PV) array systems to provide the maximum power output to the related systems under certain conditions. In this paper, one of the popular MPPT techniques, “Incremental Conductance”, is simulated with solar-powered DC motor for an UAV design on MATLAB/Simulink.

The cascade structure (PV cell, MPPT, buck converter and DC motor models) is simulated and tested under various irradiance values, and results are compared to the DC motor technical data. As a result of that, mathematical model simulation results are overlapped with motor technical reference values in spite of irradiance changes.

It is suggested to be used in real time applications for future developments.

Different from other solar-powered DC motor literature works, a solar-powered DC motor mathematical model of an UAV is designed and simulated on MATLAB/Simulink environment. To adjust the maximum power output at the solar cell, incremental conductance MPPT technique is preferred and a buck converter structure is connected between MPPT and DC motor mathematical model. It is suggested to be used in solar-powered UAV designs for future developments.

Material properties, such as shear and compressive strength of masonry, have a crucial impact on the seismic analysis results of masonry structures. Considering that most of the historical buildings are masonry structures, the damage caused by obtaining shear strengths with known methods exceeds acceptable limits. Instead of traditional shear strength index tests, this paper presents a test technique that has been developed which causes less damage to the structure, to obtain mechanical properties in masonry structures.

A new approach to shear testing and a test probe has been developed to minimize the destructive effects of mechanical in situ testing on masonry structures. The comparison of the results obtained with reduced destruction level using the novel shear strength index test probe with those obtained from the traditional method is addressed. Masonry specimens were tested in the laboratory and in situ tests were carried out on 12 historical buildings.

Test results obtained from the proposed probe shear strength index test were consistent with the results obtained from the conventional shear strength test both at the laboratory setting and in situ. Although a large number of data is needed for the validation of a method, satisfactory agreement with the conventional shear strength index test method was obtained.

The authors believe that the proposed method would give the opportunity to collect more mechanical strength data with much less destruction. The experimental work in the laboratory and in situ tests and their comparisons are the supportive and original values of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the levels and determinants of net asset value (NAV) premiums/discounts for publicly traded Australian Real Estate Investment Trust (A-REIT) market during the last decade. A-REITs were severely affected by the global financial crisis as S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT index-listed property stocks experienced 47 per cent discount to NAV, on average, in 2008–2009 crisis. Since 2013, A-REIT sector has exhibited a strong recovery from the financial crisis and traded at high premiums to date. Understanding the relationship between pricing in the public and private real estate markets has taken on great importance as A-REITs continue to trade at significant premium to NAV unlike their counterparts in the USA and Europe.

This paper follows a rational approach to explain variations in NAV premiums and explores the company-specific factors such as liquidity, financial leverage, size, stock price volatility and portfolio diversification behind the A-REIT NAV premiums/discounts. The study specifies and estimates a model of cross-sectional and time variation in premiums/discounts to NAV using semi-annual data for a sample of 40 A-REITs over the 2008–2018 period.

The results reveal that A-REIT premiums to NAV can be explained not only by the liquidity benefit of listed property stocks but also positive financial leverage effect. During the past decade, A-REITs have followed an aggressive approach in financing their growth by using borrowed funds to purchase assets as the income from the property offsets the cost of borrowing and the risk that accompanies it. Debt-to-equity ratio has to be considered as an important source of NAV premiums as highly geared A-REITs that favoured debt financing over equity financing traded at significant premiums to NAV of their underlying real estate assets.

The paper includes implications for the REIT market investors. The regression analysis shows that specialty A-REITs with a focus on creative market niches traded at higher premiums compared with other property stocks, especially in the post-GFC recovery period. Specialty REITs are more highly valued by the market than their traditional specialised counterparts (e.g. office and retail REITs), and those pursuing a diversified strategy.

This paper presents an Australian case study as the A-REIT market provides a suitable environment for testing the effect of financial gearing on the REIT premium to NAV. The study provides empirical evidence supporting the importance of debt-to-equity ratio in explaining the variation in A-REIT NAV premiums.

Examines the fourteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

This paper argues that the current framework permitting humanitarian transactions into sanctioned and conflict environments needs re-thinking and updating.

This paper is based on in-depth interviews conducted with banks, humanitarian actors, regulators and government officials. It incorporates a review of relevant literature and has involved extensive field-based observations including with jurisdictions experiencing conflict or subject to sanctions.

This paper finds that a recalibration of the sanctions architecture is required and that a new equilibrium needs to be created to ensure the ability of international banks to support permissible humanitarian and development payments. It further sets out that the foreign policy intention of economic sanctions, when combined with licensing complexity and other risk factors, such as terrorist financing, are not achieving their intended goals.

Assessment on the strategic importance of ensuring access to financial services for jurisdictions subject to sanctions and in conflict.

Examines the fifthteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

The goal of the study is to examine the effects of news sentiment and topics dominating in the news field prior to the initial public offering (IPO) on the IPO underpricing.

The authors’ approach has several steps. The first is textual analysis. To detect the dominating topics in the news, the authors use Latent Dirichlet allocation. The authors use bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) pretrained on financial news corpus to evaluate the tonality of articles. The second is evaluation of feature importance. To this end, a linear regression with robust estimators and Classification and Regression Tree and Random Forest are used. The third is data. The text data consists of 345,731 news articles from Thomson Reuters related to the USA in the date range from 1 January 2011 to 31 May 2018. The data contains all the possible topics from the website, excluding anything related to sports. The sample of 386 initial public offerings completed in the USA from 1 January 2011 to 31 May 2018 was collected from Bloomberg Database.

The authors found that sentiment of the media regarding the companies going public influences IPO underpricing. Some topics, namely, the climate change and environmental policies and the trade war between the US and China, have influence on IPO underpricing if they appear in the media prior to the IPO day.

The puzzle of IPO underpricing is studied from the point of Narrative Economics theory for the first time. While most of the works cover only some specific news segment, we use Thomson Reuters news aggregator, which uses such sources The New York Post, CNN, Fox, Atlantic, The Washington Post ? Buzzfeed. To evaluate the sentiment of the articles, a state-of-the-art approach BERT is used. The hypothesis that some common narratives or topics in the public discussion may impose influence on such example of biased behaviour like IPO underpricing has also found confirmation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the social-cognitive antecedents of an entrepreneur’s internationalization intent and a firm’s behavior. Building on the insights of social-cognitive psychology, the author develops a conceptual model linking an entrepreneur’s positive orientation, self-efficacy beliefs, internationalization intent and actual behavior of the firm.

The author tests this model with a sample of 310 Polish firms (including 241 domestic and 69 international new ventures), drawing on data collected first in 2006 and then in 2007.

The author finds that self-efficacy mediates between positive orientation and internationalization intent, and that an entrepreneur’s internationalization intent predicts a firm’s behavior (i.e. foreign market entry). Moreover, firm age moderates the relationship between an entrepreneur’s positive orientation and internationalization propensity among new ventures.

Overall, the findings demonstrate that social-cognitive theory is useful in predicting new venture internationalization.

Based on the findings, the author recommends that managerial education in international management combines the development of “formal” skills and cross-cultural competencies with experiential and vicarious learning.

The study combines insights from psychology and international business, thus responding to numerous calls for a more interdisciplinary and cognition-oriented focus on the international behavior of firms.