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The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) calls for far-reaching changes to the way economic activity will occur in EU digital markets. Before its remedies are imposed, it is critical to assess their impacts on individual markets, the digital sector, and the overall European economy. The European Commission (EC) released an Impact Assessment in support of the DMA that purports to evaluate it using cost/benefit analysis.

An economic evaluation of the DMA should consider its full impacts on dynamic competition. The Impact Assessment neither assesses the DMA's impact on dynamic competition in the digital economy nor evaluates the impacts of specific DMA prohibitions and obligations. Instead, it considers benefits in general and largely ignores costs. We study its benefit assessments and find they are based on highly inappropriate methodologies and assumptions. A cost/benefit study using inappropriate methodologies and largely ignoring costs cannot provide a sound policy assessment.

Instead of promoting dynamic competition between platforms, the DMA will likely reinforce existing market structures, ossify market boundaries, and stunt European innovation. The DMA is likely to chill R&D by encouraging free riding on the investments of others, which discourages making those investments. Avoiding harm to innovation is critical because innovation delivers large, positive spillover benefits, driving increases in productivity, employment, wages, and prosperity.

The DMA prioritizes static over dynamic competition, with the potential to harm the European economy. Given this, the Impact Assessment does not demonstrate that the DMA will be beneficial overall, and its implementation must be carefully tailored to alleviate or lessen its potential to harm Europe’s economic performance.

Today, many industries are implementing creative approaches in response to increasing environmental awareness. It is of great importance to answer the question of whether the military sector, one of the most important sectors, can support renewable energy (RE) adaptation. This study aims to examine how military spending affects the supply of RE in 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations as well as the regulatory function of factors such as innovation, international trade and oil prices between 1990 and 2021.

The study examines the effects of military spending, income, green innovation, international trade, oil prices and the human development index on the supply of RE using various econometric approaches, which are the cointegration test, moments quantile regression and robustness test.

The findings demonstrate that all factors, excluding military spending, quite likely affect the expansion of the renewable supply. Military spending negatively influences the RE supply; specifically, a 1% increase in military spending results in a 0.88 reduction in the renewable supply. In addition, whereas income elasticity, trade and human development index in OECD nations are higher in the last quantiles of the regression than in the first quantiles, the influence of military spending and innovation on renewable supply is about the same in all quantiles.

OECD nations must consider the practical implications, which are essential to assess and update the military spending of OECD countries from a green energy perspective to transition to clean energy. Based on the study’s overall findings, the OECD countries should incorporate the advantages of innovation, economic growth and international trade into their clean energy transition strategies to lessen the impact of military spending on renewables.

The study aims to fill a gap in the literature regarding the role of military expenditures in the RE development of an OECD country. In addition, the results of the methodological analysis can be used to guide policymakers on how military spending should be in the field of RE.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between government spending, public debt and the informal economy. In addition, this paper investigates the moderating role of public debt in government spending and the informal economy nexus.

By utilizing a data set spanning from 2000 to 2017 of 32 Asian economies, the study has employed the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS). The study is also extended to consider the marginal effects of government spending on the informal economy at different degrees of public debt.

The results indicate that an increase in government spending and public debt leads to an expansion of the informal economy in the region. Interestingly, the positive effect of government spending on the informal economy will increase with a rise in public debt.

This study stresses the role of government spending and public debt on the informal economy in Asian nations. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study pioneers to explore the moderating effect of public debt in the public spending-informal economy nexus.

Parental job loss has been shown to have a negative impact on a large number of children's outcomes, in particular for low-income children. Given the amount of time freed up by loss of employment and the fact that active time with one's children appears to be a productive input in their human capital production function, increases in the time parents spend with their children have the potential to positively impact a child or to counteract other negative consequences of parental job loss. This chapter studies how low- and higher-income parents change their time investment in their children when faced with job loss. Using national time-diary data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) linked to longitudinal labor market data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), I find that parents spend almost 15% of the time freed up by job loss – roughly 3.5 additional hours per week – actively with their children. Low-income parents invest their freed-up time no differently from higher-income parents. While mothers who lose their job respond by spending more time actively with their children, this adjustment is much smaller for fathers. This suggests that differential adjustments in time investment may play a role in the impact maternal versus paternal job loss has on children's outcomes.

Consumers can spend their disposable income on hedonic consumption or save for the future. Their preferences were altered by the prolonged life and livelihood-threatening experiences of the pandemic. This paper aims to study the spillover effect of the pandemic experience on consumer savings attitudes and hedonic purchase preferences in the new normal.

The authors conducted 35 in-depth interviews with consumers in India. The data were analysed thematically.

The results showed that when fear of life and negative emotions of the pandemic persisted, consumers became short-term focused, moved towards materialism and increased hedonic spending. Alternatively, individuals who faced substantial financial hardships resorted to an increased preference for savings. The relationship between changes in savings orientation and hedonic consumption was found to be moderated by consumer's individual differences in financial vulnerability and life history strategies.

As the trend towards increased hedonic consumption and preference for luxury products continues, the study findings can be used to devise effective marketing strategies to tap the emerging segment of mass luxury consumption.

Despite ample work being conducted in the hedonic consumption domain, it has not been studied in conjunction with savings orientation, a significant determinant. This research links personal savings orientation with hedonic spending and substantiates that purchase decisions are cognitively weighted as a choice of discretionary spending against the opportunity to save.

The present study aimed to examine the effect of received remittance inflows on the price level ratio of the purchasing power parity conversion factor to the market exchange rate in 36 developed and developing countries from 2004 to 2020.

The panel data conducted a comparative analysis and used panel least squares, regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors of fixed effect, random effect, feasible generalised least squares and maximum likelihood robust least squares to overcome the heterogeneity issue. Furthermore, the two-step difference generalised method of moments to overcome the endogeneity issue. Diagnostic tests were used to increase robustness.

In the studied countries, there was a statistically significant negative relationship between received remittance inflows and the price-level ratio of the purchasing power parity conversion factor to the market exchange rate. This relationship explains why remittance flows depreciate the real exchange rate. The study’s results also indicated that attracting investments can improve the quality of institutions despite high tax rates, leading to low tax revenue.

The current study findings enrich the understanding of policies of how governments should minimise tariff rates on capital imports and introduce export-oriented incentive programmes. The study also revealed that Dutch disease can occur due to differences in the demand structure and manufacturing development policy.

Micro-businesses contribute to economic development by improving individual welfare. Women are the primary drivers and owners of such businesses in urban Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the poverty status and determinants among women-owned micro-businesses.

The basic study units were women who owned micro-businesses. A sample of 384 women-owned micro-business was chosen using a stratified and systematic random sampling technique. Thirty-six participants were purposely chosen for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The poverty head count, poverty gap and poverty severity indices were computed to estimate poverty status. The major determinants of women’s poverty were investigated using a logistic regression model.

The overall poverty incidence, gap and severity were estimated to be 24.27%, 3.85%, and 1.11% respectively, among the women who owned micro-businesses. Eight of the 14 poverty determinants, including age, dependents, savings, remittance and the number of days and hours women work in their businesses, were found to have a significant effect on women’s poverty. The results suggest that local governments, technical and vocational training institutions should work together to reduce the impact of poverty-aggravating factors on women and increase the contribution of women-owned micro-businesses to poverty reduction.

This study addressed the poverty status of women who run micro-businesses, which is a crucial issue in Ethiopia’s urban context. It adds new knowledge to the issue of gendered economic participation, poverty reduction and poverty determinants in the Ethiopian context.

Infection and cross-contamination have been massive concerns in the medical field. This study aims to investigate consumers’ awareness and their choices of endoscopes, which may deter them from the cross-contamination problem.

A discrete choice experiment survey was administered to 166 respondents in Penang, Malaysia. Participants were asked to make hypothetical choices and estimate their preference for endoscopes. The multinomial logit model was used to estimate the assumptions based on the stated preference data collected.

Only two-fifths of respondents are aware of their rights regarding endoscope selection. The findings are consistent with utility theory, where choices are made to maximise personal satisfaction. If given the choice, consumers preferred the single-use endoscope over the reusable or the doctor’s preferred endoscope. Price, insurance coverage and personal income are significant determinants of the consumer’s choice of endoscopes.

This study only investigates subjects living in Penang. Other possible important attributes to endoscope choices, such as environmental and device availability may be considered in future study.

The findings may create awareness among consumers about their rights when choosing medical devices. It may also improve health-care institutions’ (users’) and device manufacturers’ (industry players’) understanding of consumer needs and demands from socioeconomic perspectives.

The research offers insights into consumer rights and awareness of health-care services. Ultimately leading to better policy to protect consumers’ rights and safety.

This study contributes to the rare literature on consumer rights toward medical devices, in particular, the consumer’s awareness of the choice of endoscopes.

Generation Z continues to face several significant life events that have influenced how they address financial-related problems and manage their money. In addition to worrying about their incomes, access to affordable healthcare and higher education as well as poverty is perceived as the main financial-related issues of concern. COVID-19 might also have strengthened the financial-related awareness of Generation Z, as half of the Global Gen Z Study participants changed spending habits during the pandemic.

This study aims to understand how free-play credits affect risk-seeking behavior in slot players. Extant results suggest they encourage risk aversion, counter to the primary aim of increasing spend per visit. The results inform operators as to the effectiveness of what has become the primary play incentive for casino marketers within many of the world’s markets.

Within a quasi-experimental grouped design, 365 days of player-level performance data from four different casinos were analyzed to determine whether player losses (casino revenues) and time played differed on visits that included free-play redemptions from those that did not. Hypotheses were tested via paired-samples t-tests and Mann–Whitney U tests.

On balance, neither player losses nor time played were significantly different on the free-play visits. Neither the house money effect nor the endowment effect was supported. The results were most consistent with the prospect-theory-with-memory editing rule. No findings indicated increased risk-seeking behavior associated with the free-play offers.

Casino operators are afforded insight related to how costly free-play campaigns affect gaming spend and playtime. Both are critical to understanding the impact of free-play on the gambler’s experience.

The 365-day samples extended existing research by analyzing the impact of free-play offers on risk-taking behaviors within the scope of a perpetual/ongoing campaign. Comparisons of observed daily behavior/outcomes were made between separate tiers of like-kind gamblers from each of four different casinos. Quasi-hedonic editing rules were applied to a multistage decision framework.