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The purpose of this paper is to explain the African socio-economic development and policy design problems using the new institutional economics methodology. The paper emphasizes the importance of carefully considering the policy environment setting before changing the rules of the society (institutional change) and making policy choices.

A conceptual approach is used to explain why major economic development policies fail in Africa and the developing world as a whole. To illustrate policy-environment-dependent institutional and policy change decision making, examples of potential institutional and policy changes are examined for Ghana’s financial, retail, and land resource sectors.

It is argued that the concept of institutional efficiency must be looked at quite differently from the Pareto-optimal concept in the neoclassical economic theory. This is because institutional analysis leans more toward normative rather than positive economics. The paper explains the counterintuitive findings that although the African business environment is low on trust due to high ethnic diversity, African business depends more on trust than contracts –weak enforcement of institutions accounts for such twists. Potential institutional changes that can help address specific socio-economic developmental challenges are suggested based on the characteristics of the African business environment.

The paper lays bare several research hypotheses that can now be tested using the available data. These include hypotheses that strong economic growth precedes growth in the stock market activity (not the other way round); an asymmetric Tobin tax that taxes conversion into foreign currencies more than conversion into local currency reverses local currency depreciation; and for import-dependent countries, strengthening the local currency provides a positive shock to local production and budget balance.

The paper illustrates the pitfalls associated with blanket application of theoretical frameworks without proper contextualization. A promising way out for weak African economies is to adapt the theoretical economic predictions to local environments and help refine general economic theory through their experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new way of explaining participation in the informal economy as resulting from the asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of a society’s formal institutions (government morality) and the norms, values and beliefs of the population that constitute its informal institutions (societal morality). The proposition is that the greater the asymmetry between government morality and societal morality, the greater is the propensity to participate in the informal economy.

To evaluate this institutional asymmetry theory, the results are reported of 1,306 face-to-face interviews conducted during 2013 in the UK.

The finding is a strong correlation between the degree of institutional asymmetry (measured by tax morale) and participation in the informal economy. The lower the tax morale, the greater is the propensity to participate in the informal economy. Using ordered logistic regression analysis, tax morale is not found to significantly vary by, for example, social class, employment status or wealth, but there are significant gender, age and spatial variations with men, younger age groups, rural areas and Scotland displaying significantly lower tax morale than women, older people, urban areas and London.

Rather than continue with the current disincentives policy approach, a new policy approach that reduces the asymmetry between government morality and societal morality is advocated. This requires not only changes in societal morality regarding the acceptability of participating in the informal economy but also changes in how formal institutions operate in order for this to be achieved.

This paper provides a new way of explaining participation in the informal economy and reviews its consequences for understanding and tackling the informal economy in the UK.

This research aims to develop a model that may be used to determine the effective adaptive measures to implement in a system affected by climate change.

The three primary dimensions of the model were individually investigated and then the linkages among them were developed. Specifically, the nature of climate change was examined and the issues emerging from the changes were analyzed. Next, an intensive study of system vulnerabilities was conducted, and the third factor in the model, risk, is then explored. Afterwards, the conceptual framework, which is the foundation of the climate change vulnerability risk model, was devised and the model created.

The model is a three‐dimensional matrix with the nature of climate change, vulnerabilities, and risks as its chief dimensions. It identifies the four natures of climate change, namely: variability, intensity, frequency, and quantity and the vulnerability types to be socio‐economic, biophysical, technological, and institutional. Meanwhile, risks are classified as income, biodiversity, health, mortality, and infrastructure risks.

The research is the first phase of a three‐stage study on the linkages among climate change, vulnerability, and risks. It is the development stage of the framework that exemplifies the interrelationships among these variables and is the basis of the statistical and econometric analyses in the later stages.

The climate change vulnerability risk model was developed to act as an analytical guide in understanding the effects of climate change to systems. The model may be used to determine the effective adaptive measures to apply in the system, through a comparative analysis of the variables in the matrix.

The study aims to investigate the appearance of corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSER) practices in a context where economic, communal and political institutions are highly central and competing with each other.

Theoretically, the study draws upon the institutional logics perspective and the theoretical concepts of logics centrality and compatibility to understand how higher-order institutions interact with mundane CSER practices observed at the case company's micro level. Empirical data were solicited in an Egyptian village community, where fishing, agriculture and especially salt production constitute the main economic activities underlying its livelihood. A combination of interviews, informal conversations, observations and documents solicits the required data.

Thereby, this study presents an inclusive view of CSER as practiced in developing countries, which is based not only on rational economic perspectives – as is the case in developed and stabilised contexts – but also on social, familial and political aspects that are central to the present complex institutional environment.

The reported findings in this study highlight the role of non-economic (societal) logics in understating CSER in African developing nations.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of remittances on economic growth in MENA region. More precisely this study tries first to explore the short-run and the long-run relationship between remittances and economic growth. Second, the authors address how the local financial development and institutional environment influence a country’s capacity to take advantage from remittances.

The panel data unit-root test as well as the panel data co-integration is used for the purpose of the long-run remittances growth relationship and the IV technique with GMM option is adopted to study the short-run link.

This paper provides empirical evidence that remittances have a positive effect on economic growth in the long run and a negative effect in short run. The short-run effect of remittances on economic growth is conditional. In fact, it depends in the levels of financial development and institutional quality, respectively.

As practical implications, policy interventions, to improve the functioning of governance institutions, enforcing regulation and political stability, enhancing financial system and socio-economic environment are also crucial for increasing the benefit effects of remittances.

The research is an extension of previous evidence in two ways; the authors have examined the long-run and short-run remittances-growth relationship in the first time. In the second time, the authors have explored the conditional remittances-growth relationship in MENA countries. Specifically, the authors have examined whether the remittances-growth nexus is affected by financial development and institutional quality levels in MENA countries.

Since the early 1990s, Brazil has adopted an experimental approach to environmental management. Its reforms continue to this day and have produced robust water-management policies. This article reveals the different positions, the power structures involved, and the result of the disputes and agreements concerning the social construction of legitimate environmental behaviour in jeans manufacturing.

Comparative case study. Data collection for this research started in 2017 and ended in 2020. The data were gathered by concentrating on a few cases in two clusters. The author visited public agencies, trade associations, and firms of all sizes and levels of specialization in the industry and conducted semi-structured interviews with them. The intention was to acquire systemic and deep knowledge of the local industry.

The article's findings demonstrate a divergence in typologies that reflects the ecological limits in the use of natural resources, law-enforcement policies, and firms' legal status. The article extends our understanding of the ability of organizations to respond to institutional pressures to become sustainable. This study's findings provide insights for policy design in times of increasingly catastrophic pollution in regions that are immersed in global competition.

The study focuses only on two industrial textile clusters in Brazil, which may not be representative of the wider industry in the country or in other regions. The findings may not be generalizable to other industries or locations with different ecological limits, legal frameworks, and firm structures.

The article's practical implications include the need for tailored regulatory frameworks, effective law enforcement policies, promoting a culture of environmental responsibility among businesses, and collaboration among stakeholders in promoting sustainability. Policymakers, regulators, and businesses in industrial textile clusters in Brazil and other regions facing similar ecological and regulatory challenges can use these insights to develop more effective policies and practices that balance economic growth with environmental sustainability.

State actors emerge as the most important stakeholder group in forging the upgrading of water-management systems and technology. The optimal solution to the problem is cross-institutional and multilevel collaboration and coalitions between the different authorities and organizations involved who need to pay due attention to the relevant ecological limits and social needs. Only when this multilevel collaboration is achieved and maintained will the state's agents be able to collaborate with industrial actors and society at large.

The article examines the various factors that influence water usage and analyses the dynamics of change in two distinct locations in an emerging market. It demonstrates that, despite the existence of the same regulatory framework in both locations, different outcomes can arise due to the construction of diverse coalitions between social actors.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0154

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether formal State Business Relations (F-SBR) lead to economic growth and which institutional variables are responsible for their success in achieving this.

Following a theoretical analysis, several hypotheses are presented, and a number of different regression models are being used to test the hypotheses.

The paper finds that F-SBR with high government representation and business participation are likely to increase investment flows as well as help overcome some burdensome institutional settings. This could be done thanks to building trust, enhancing information exchange and better policy formulation. Despite of its suggested trust-building capacity, F-SBR seem to fail to function in cultures where trust in governments is low, since trust is a key issue for cooperation as that expected in F-SBR. On the other hand, collective but also non-hierarchical cultures that foster cooperation seem to help in the success of F-SBR. Accountability to the public and openness to various societal groups as well as good regulatory quality would help F-SBR in leading to better economic outcomes.

This paper, thus, suggests supporting the establishment of F-SBR with high official representation and business participation because of their positive economic value. It also suggests that voice and accountability and regulatory quality are important institutions for the realization of better economic outcomes from F-SBR.

The theoretical and empirical approaches used in this paper are what make it a novel endeavor in this field. Much of the suggested hypotheses were hardly discussed thoroughly elsewhere in the literature on F-SBR. Moreover, the proxy used for F-SBR, constructed by the interaction term of government official representation and the level of business representation, made it possible to conduct empirical testing on a global level, something barely done in works on F-SBR experiences worldwide. The obtained results supported some of the arguments uttered in the literature while raising questions on others, opening the field for future research on the matter.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of Public Private Dialogues (PPD) on cronyism accounting for various cultural and governance institutions.

It proposes a number of hypotheses on: whether PPD characterized by high official representation and business representation, through mainly building trust, succeed in minimizing cronyism; whether certain cultural and governance institutions help PPD in achieving this; and in cultural settings which are originally inducing cronyism whether PPD help in minimizing cronyism. These are tested empirically using an ordinary least squares multivariate panel regression.

High official representation and high business people’s participation in PPD were found to help in minimizing cronyism in different cultures. This is arguably attributed to building trust in cultures characterized by having low general trust and low trust in governments. Accountability and transparency are significantly assisting PPD in this regard. Yet, PPD do not always succeed in taming cronyism, and in particular in ethnic fractionalized societies and societies having high collective cultures.

The biggest challenge this research faced was estimating a proxy for PPD. Better data on business associations’ participation worldwide are needed to construct a more developed proxy.

PPD with high business participation and government representation should be encouraged. The same is true for reform leading to higher levels of transparency and accountability.

Constructing a proxy for PPD that allowed meta-analysis; and investigating theoretically and empirically the effect of the interaction of PPD with various institutions on cronyism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether substantial differences in institutional environment in China lead to different levels of demand for political connection.

Using a data set of 296 listed private sector enterprises (PSEs) in China, the authors empirically investigate the effects of institutional environmental factors upon political connection.

The authors find that the lower the level of regional property right protection, the more powerful the government intervention, and the slower the economic development, the more motivated the PSEs were to build relationship with the government via partial state ownership. However, the degree of local corruption was not correlated with the demand for political connection. The authors also find that partial state ownership in PSEs exerted a positive effect on performance.

Deviating from previous literature that has been mostly concerned about the economic consequences to firms caused by political connections, this paper examines the reasons for political connection among Chinese PSEs. The authors introduce a new dimension of political connection, namely, partial state ownership in PSEs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutionalization of screening and metrics in conventional finance and reflect upon the implications for Islamic finance.

The study involves the analysis of archival data, interviews and fieldwork with current impact investors in North America and the European Union to trace the historical development of impact investing screening and metrics.

First, the paper explores how conventional investors have applied positive and negative screens in the creation of their values/mission-based investment strategies. This is followed by a historical analysis of the development and implementation of impact metrics and regulatory frameworks that influenced the growth of conventional impact investing. The possible benefits of learning from these experiences for the Islamic finance industry are then considered. The paper concludes with an analysis of the potential value of mission/values-based investing for the economic development of the Middle East and North Africa region.

Though not a comprehensive study of institutionalization, this study supports recent calls for more intentional use of capital for blended returns within Islamic markets. To support these initiatives, it provides scholars and practitioners with multiple recommended points of entry into this growing market.

There has been scant organizational research examining the development of best practices within the impact investment community and how these might be applied to other contexts such as Islamic finance.