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This study illustrates the economic and financial dynamics of the sector, analysing the evolution of the main ratios of profitability and financial structure of 1,559 Italian real estate companies divided into the three macro-regions: North, Centre and South, in the period 2011–2020. In this way, it is also possible to verify the responsiveness to the 2020 pandemic crisis.

The analysis uses descriptive statistics tools and the ANOVA method of analysis of variance, supplemented by the Tukey–Kramer test, to identify significant differences between the three Italian macro-regions.

The study shows the increase in profitability after the 2008 crisis, despite its reverberation in the years 2012–2013. The financial structure of companies improved almost everywhere. The pandemic had modest effects on performance.

In the future, other indices should be considered to gain a more comprehensive view. This is a quantitative study based on financial statements data that neglects other important economic and social factors.

Public policies could use this study for better interventions to support the sector. In addition, internal management can compare their company's performance with the industry average to identify possible improvements.

The research analyses an economic field that employs a large number of people, especially when considering the construction and real estate services covered by this analysis.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a quantitative analysis of industry dynamics, with comparative information that can be deduced from financial statements over the years.

The purpose is to market a reinterpretation of Brazilian economic history highlighting the importance of non-tradable goods to understand major historical developments such as the lack of industrialization in the mining boom; the rise and contribution of industries to development in the early 20th century; indexation as hyperinflation in the late 20th century; growth and cycles in the early 21st century.

Section 2 introduces analytical perspectives on the relationship between non-tradables, transport costs and external shocks. Section 3 presents a historical overview of the gold and coffee cycles in the Brazilian economy, which highlights the crucial role played by transport costs in the genesis of industrialization. Thus, in a more precise way, industrialization was not an import substitution process but the substitution of non-tradables by the domestic tradable manufactures.

Section 4 shows that Brazilian statistical records and historiography disregard this characterization and, to that extent, underestimate economic growth in the primary export phase (1872–1920) and overestimate growth rates in the industrialization period (1920–1940). Section 5 shifts to the end of the 20th century to analyze the relationship between non-tradables, indexation and hyperinflation. Section 6 concludes with a brief discussion of the role played by the terms of trade and non-tradables in the unfolding of the 2014 economic crisis.

Distance from international markets and a continental geographic size made transport costs in Brazil historically prohibitive: the relevance of non-tradables in the Brazilian economic history. While the theme is not new, it seldom received proper attention in the historiography.

The choices that international students make regarding abroad study destination selection or leave the host country after graduation are influenced by a variety of factors that are both related to positive and negative aspects of the host country.

This study builds on the push-pull factor theory and examines the factors that influence international students' decision to choose abroad study destination (Finland) or leave the country after their graduations. The data were collected through an online survey of 195 international students currently studying in Finland and were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. This method offers a flexible and robust approach to test relationships, particularly in situations where sample size and the conceptual model are small and complex.

The results show that international students' choice of study destination (Finland) is influenced by the host country's quality of life, academic excellence and economic factors such as salary and benefits. Unfamiliarity with the culture and language barriers have a negative impact on their decisions to stay in the host country after graduation.

By utilising a comprehensive analysis of both push and pull factors in relation to the host country, this study unveils a novel perspective in the field of international student mobility. The results provide insights to the institutional leaders and policymakers into how to attract and retain international students by focusing on the factors that matter most to international students. To attract more international students, higher education institutions (HEIs) should include career development activities, e.g. job fairs, language training, scholarships and internships in their curriculum. Moreover, it provides recommendations on how to create a welcoming and supportive environment that promotes academic excellence and career development.

Due to high demand for international talents and skilful workforces, many countries around the world, especially the ageing populations are now looking for new ways and strategies to attract more international talent. Drawing on push-pull factor theory, integrated with theory of reasoned action (TRA), this research examines international students' intention to stay or to leave the host country after completion of the students' studies.

A conceptual model has been proposed and evaluated aimed at understanding the factors that influence the decision-making of international students studying in Finland. Data were collected from a sample of 292 international students in Finland and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data and examine the relationships between various constructs in the model.

The SEM results show that several factors influence students' decision to stay or leave the host country after graduation. Aspects related to host country, institutional and economic factors and social influence (norms) directly impact students' attitude towards staying. In addition, attitude towards staying not only has a direct impact on the intention to stay, but also mediates the relationship between different pulling factors and students' intention to stay in the host country. Moreover, challenges and barriers (such as local language, challenge of finding employment and challenge of assimilating into the community or making friends) have a negative impact on the decision to stay in the host country.

This study uses push-pull theory in the Finnish context, contributing to the growing body of literature on international education policies and practices. The findings highlight the need for a more holistic approach to supporting international students, one that considers the students' unique needs and experiences in the host country and provides the students with the necessary resources and support to succeed.

Since its development by Tinbergen (1962), the gravity model of international trade has widely been applied to analyse the effect of various factors on trade relationships between countries. Past studies on trade gravity vary not only in the mix of model variables but also in how they have come into the analysis. This study reviews existing literature on bilateral trade with an aim to identify influential predictors such as changes of trade policy and national development strategy and highlight important yet understudied factors such as transport and logistics infrastructure, and sustainable development. To demonstrate the needs to examine these critical factors across industry sectors, the study presents the case of textiles and clothing (T&C) production and trade between China and its trading partners as an illustration. Through the literature review, it shows how the gravity model can be applied to address current issues in international trade arena such as the potential trade war between the US and China, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and other important factors shaping global T&C trade. This study offers future research directions for analysis of global trade in the T&C industry and contributes to the wider literature of international business and trade.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an evaluation model to determine the relative weights of key factors influencing international market development (IMD) success through analysis network process (ANP) during group decision-making. An empirical case of the Taiwan bulk shipping industry is used to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

The literature review is performed to generate 20 key success factors (KSFs) along with four factor categories in IMD (such as organizational capability, environmental scanning, international strategy and internationalization behavior). Then, ANP is applied to develop an evaluation model that prioritizes the relative importance linking the above four factor categories with 20 evaluated KSFs.

With respect to the final weights for factor categories, “international strategy” and “environmental scanning” are the two most important criteria, followed by “organizational capability” and “internationalization behavior”. The results also showed that by reviewing the global weights of the 20 KSFs of IMD, “service as competitive advantage”, “market potential” and “risk taking” have the highest rankings.

The findings indicate that firm expansion into international markets typically depends on a successful international strategy. Hence, to enhance their global market competitiveness, Taiwan bulk shipping firms should focus their efforts on planning international market entry strategy and prioritizing shipping services with high-potential target markets.

Theoretically, the study results can provide both theoretical basis and empirical evidence, indicating the relative weights and priorities of KSFs of IMD for the Taiwan bulk shipping industry. From the managerial perspective, the analytical results can help managers focus on main factors and identify the best policy to improve their IMD practice and performance.

Outsourcing is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of pharmaceutical supply chain management (PSCM), and many pharmaceutical companies engage in international outsourcing of services (IOS) to survive in global highly competitive business. Since the key success factors for both domestic & international alliances are partnership characteristics and strategic fit management, but there is no empirical research on this issue in Thai pharmaceutical partnership offshore outsourcing. Therefore, this survey of Thai and foreign companies, both contract providers (CPs) and contract manufacturers (CMs), seeks to indicate significant relationships among both outsourcing strategic fit and partnership types, including outsourcing performance outcome. This research is two-fold. First, the partnership types (Type I, II, & III), the strategic fit types (low fit, moderate fit, and good fit), and their correlations are analyzed. And second, their outsourcing performance (company revenues and growth rates) are presented. The results showed that the most of the Thai pharmaceutical outsourcing manufacturing are classified as the partnership Type II, as well as the moderate strategic fit, and strongly support the relationship between the two models. Both of the companies’ revenue and growth rate could predict the companies’ performances outcome for each of partnership and strategic fit types. However, it is not necessary that the most integrative type of partnership, Type III, will be always the best, because it depends also on the strategic fit between each pair of partners as well.

This study examines whether international tourism demand in the Visegrád countries is influenced by countries' risk rating on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, as non-economic factors relating to ESG risks have been ignored by previous researches on determinants of international tourism demand.

The study investigates panel data for the Visegrád countries comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia over the period 1995–2019. Recently developed techniques of augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimators are employed so as to take care of cross-sectional dependence, nonstationary residuals and possible heterogeneous slope coefficients.

The regression estimates suggest that besides economic factors, the perception of international tourists regarding ESG risk is another important determinant of international tourism demand in the Visegrád countries. The study also established that income levels in the tourists' originating countries are the most critical determinant of international tourism demand to the Visegrád countries.

The research outcomes of the study include the need for the Visegrád countries to direct policies towards further mitigating their ESG risks in order to improve future international tourism demand in the area. They also need to ensure exchange rate stability to prevent volatility and sudden spikes in the relative price of tourism in their countries.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of global macro and other risk factors of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)- and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ)-listed shipping companies’ stock returns from January 2001 to December 2019.

The methodological design includes multi-factor regressions for individual companies, augmented versions of these regressions to examine the likely impact of additional factors and finally panel regressions to assess the impact risk factors on all companies simultaneously. Estimations are done via ordinary least squares and the generalized method of moments.

Multi-factor model results showed that some of the US-specific and global macro risk factors surfaced as statistically significant for most of the companies and appeared to exhibit a consistent pattern in the way they affected shipping stocks. Thus, these companies’ exposures emanate mostly from the general US market’s movements and to a lesser extent from other firm-specific factors. Second, from the results of panel specifications, this study observes that domestic risk factors such as unemployment, inflation rates and industrial production growth emerged as significant for the NYSE-listed companies. As regard, the NASDAQ-listed ones, it was found that Libor and the G20 inflation rate were also affecting their stock returns.

Companies examined are listed only in the US’s NYSE and NASDAQ. Hence, companies listed elsewhere were excluded. It may be concluded that these US exchange-listed companies abide mostly by domestic fundamentals and to some extent to selected global factors.

The significance of the findings in this study pertains to global investors and shipping companies’ managers alike. Specifically, given the differential sensitivities of the shipping companies to various risk factors (and the global business cycle, in general), it is possible to view the shipping companies’ stocks as a separate, alternate asset class in a global, well-diversified portfolio. Thus, such a broader portfolio would permit investors to earn positive returns and reduce overall risk. Managers of shipping companies would also benefit from the findings in this study in the sense that they should better understand the varying exposures of their companies to changing global and domestic macro conditions and successfully navigate their companies through business cycles.

Research on the global shipping industry has lagged behind and was mainly concentrated on the investigation of the sources of shipping finance and capital structure of shipping companies, investment and valuation, corporate governance and risk measurement and management. Empirical research on the potential micro and macro determinants of the stock returns of shipping companies, however, is scant. This paper fills the gap in the literature of identifying and evaluating the various macroeconomic, US and international risk, factors that affect shipping companies’ stock returns in a highly financially integrated world.