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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of capital market liberalization on audit reporting and pricing. The authors use the announcement of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program in China as a shock to capital market liberalization.

The authors use the difference-in-differences method to study the difference in changes in the frequency of modified audit opinions and audit fees between the treatment group and the control group.

This study finds that capital market liberalization increases reputational and litigation risks for auditors and leads to more conservative audit reports. In addition, capital market liberalization stimulates the management of eligible firms to improve the information environment, helps to reduce information asymmetry and decreases audit fees. Specifically, the authors identify the channels of active foreign institutional investors as a new governance mechanism through which capital market liberalization impacts eligible firm and auditor decisions.

This study complements the literature by showing that capital market liberalization may bring a new and strong governance mechanism for eligible firms and auditors.

This study may provide new references for active foreign institutional shareholders as a new and strong governance mechanism in weak institutional regimes such as China, auditors’ optimization decisions when litigation risks increase and management’s improvements in the information environment under the monitoring of foreign institutional shareholders.

Overall, this study contributes to the literature by showing that capital market liberalization can bring a new governance mechanism for the management of eligible firms and auditors in a weak institutional environment. Foreign institutional shareholders may be superior to the domestic market forces and other corporate governance in the role of monitoring the management of eligible firms and auditors.

This paper investigates the impact of trade liberalization measured by trade openness (OPN) and tariffs on women empowerment measured by the gender gap index and gender development index, for two groups of Arab countries divided based on their income levels using annual data for the period 1995–2020. The study also considers other factors that may influence the gender gap, such as GDP growth and the female unemployment rate. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues and explorers whether the effects of trade liberalization differ based on the countries' income levels.

This study employs the fully modified ordinary least squares (FM-OLS) regression model for heterogeneous cointegrated panels to examine the impact of trade liberalization on women empowerment. The study constructs an empirical two regression model of women empowerment measured by the gender gap model and gender development model for the two groups of higher-income countries and lower and middle-income countries.

The authors’ findings reveal that the impact of OPN on the gender gap varies between the two groups of Arab countries where more OPN within the higher-income group may increase the gender disparity, while it may reduce disparity within the lower and middle-income countries. In addition, GDP growth may reduce the gender disparity, while female unemployment raises the gender disparity between the two groups of countries in the long run. Findings also reveal that more OPN, tariffs and female unemployment may reduce gender development within the two groups, but more GDP growth may support the gender development in the long run.

This paper not only assesses the impact of trade liberalization on women empowerment generally, but also assess the women empowerment via two indices that are the gender gap and gender development in Arab countries which is – to the knowledge of the researchers – not yet investigated; further it explores if the effects of trade liberalization differs based on the countries' income levels.

This paper aims to reexamine the relationship between financial openness and financial development in Ghana.

The study applied maximum likelihood estimation and autoregressive distributed lag approach and tested Granger causality using quarterly data from 1990:1 to 2020:4.

This study revealed a long-run equilibrium relationship between financial openness and development, indicating that financial openness is a critical factor in Ghana’s financial development. Therefore, the study recommends with caution that policies aimed at promoting financial openness could be an effective way to encourage sustainable financial development in Ghana, as financial openness alone may not bring the desired outcome.

The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the link between financial openness and financial sector development in Ghana. Future research could delve deeper into the mechanisms through which financial openness affects financial development, exploring potential channels and transmission mechanisms.

The findings suggest that policymakers, particularly the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana, should prioritize policies aimed at promoting financial openness. This includes continued efforts toward financial liberalization and creating an environment conducive to domestic and international financial transactions. Moreover, policies aimed at increasing trade openness, boosting real GDP and maintaining moderate real interest rates are essential for fostering financial sector development.

Enhancing financial sector development can have significant implications for society, including increased access to financial services, improved economic opportunities and enhanced overall economic stability. By promoting financial openness and development, policymakers would contribute to poverty reduction, job creation and overall socio-economic development. The study bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing empirical evidence supporting the theoretical proposition that financial openness stimulates financial sector development.

This study fills a crucial gap in the literature on the effects of financial openness on Ghana’s financial sector development. It focuses on Ghana, which liberalized its financial sector in 1988 as part of the overall economic reforms in 1983, and this justifies the starting point of this paper in 1990, as there are no adequate data before 1990. The study uses principal component analysis to construct an index that measures financial development. The study considers the recent financial crises in Ghana in 2017 and underscores the importance of understanding the link between financial openness and financial development, which becomes useful for policymakers and researchers studying financial system development in sub-Saharan Africa which includes Ghana.

There is no single undertaking regulating food assistance at the international level. International food assistance is regulated by a patchwork of rules emanating from different institutions and normative arrangements. This study aims to explore how international law shapes international food assistance. How is international law regulating food assistance, considering this patchwork of institutions and norms? What dominant narratives enshrined in legal agreements shape the evolution of international food assistance?

The author uses the concept of “regime complex”, which allows analyzing partially overlapping and nonhierarchical regimes governing a particular issue, shedding light on the narratives and institutional arrangements that lead to the consolidation of international rules. The author identifies two main regimes that govern international food assistance: the food assistance regime and the food trade regime.

The author shows that using the “regime complex” concept clarifies the evolution of international food assistance, highlighting that international law is a crucial element in shaping international food assistance and showing that the two main institutional regimes governing it interact and shape rules along three main themes: the centrality of donor States’ self-interests, the relationship between international food assistance and trade liberalization and the goal of achieving food security for the beneficiaries.

Using the regime complex concept, the author brings new light on the broader institutional and legal framework influencing the governance of international food assistance, showing that different regimes take part in its shaping.

This paper documents a robust empirical regularity: higher trade openness is associated with a lower unemployment rate. This paper also examines whether or not the effects of trade liberalisation depend on countries' income levels. Further, the dynamic causation between trade openness and unemployment is also examined.

In order to obtain insight into the openness–unemployment nexus, following empirical methods were utilised - static panel models, dynamic panel models and a novel panel Granger causality approach proposed by Juodis et al. (2021).

Results suggest that openness negatively affects unemployment; the extent to which trade liberalisation affects unemployment depends on the income level of each country. The Juodis, Karavias, and Sarafidis (JKS) test confirmed that the past values of trade openness, inflation, foreign direct investment and gross domestic product per capita contain information that helps to predict unemployment in a more robust manner. To simply put, opening upto trade may eventually become a requirement for creating more job opportunities, but this alone may not be enough. The extent to which nations benefit from trade liberalisation is largely dependent on the overall economic conditions and their capability to move up the income scale.

A major difference between this study and those performed previously is that this study does not only examine the impact of trade openness on unemployment, but also investigates whether the unemployment effect of liberalisation is affected by countries' income levels – an issue that has received little attention in the past. Additionally, the unique panel non-causality approach put forth by Juodis et al. (2021) is used in the first instance to look into the causal link between trade openness and unemployment. This method has advantages in that the method enables capturing Granger-causality in homogeneous or heterogeneous panels amongst multiple variables.

In the current study, corporate investment is examined by using a user cost of capital model for two important Latin American economies: Brazil and Mexico. In this paper, a dynamic user cost of capital model is employed. The extended model also accounts the investment model with the convex adjustment cost. Moreover, the link between structural change, financial liberalization and investment is also investigated. The present study, therefore, sheds new lights on the investment behavior of the Latin American emerging markets.

The differenced generalized method of moments approach is employed to control the endogeneity, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation for modeling the corporate investment over 20 years for both countries.

The findings indicate that the dynamic user cost of capital-based investment model explains the corporate investment in Brazil and Mexico. Especially, the interest rate and depreciation explain the investment behavior of nonfinancial firms in both countries. At the same time, structural change and financial liberalization do not have a significant impact on interest rates, an important user cost of capital.

This is the first study examines the corporate investment using dynamic user costs of capital approach for an emerging market. The user cost of capital-based investment models is clearly understudied models for emerging markets. This study is particularly important for emerging markets as investment models need to have a theoretical background.

En el presente estudio se examina la inversión empresarial utilizando un modelo de coste de capital del usuario para dos importantes economías latinoamericanas: Brasil y México. En este trabajo se emplea un modelo dinámico de coste de capital para el usuario. El modelo ampliado también tiene en cuenta el modelo de inversión con el coste de ajuste convexo. Además, se investiga la relación entre el cambio estructural, la liberalización financiera y la inversión. El presente estudio, por tanto, arroja nueva luz sobre el comportamiento de la inversión en los mercados emergentes latinoamericanos.

Se emplea el método GMM diferenciado para controlar la endogeneidad, la heteroscedasticidad y la autocorrelación en la modelización de la inversión empresarial a lo largo de 20 años en ambos países.

Los resultados indican que el modelo dinámico de inversión basado en el coste de capital para el usuario explica la inversión empresarial en Brasil y México. Especialmente, el tipo de interés y la depreciación explican el comportamiento de la inversión de las empresas no financieras en ambos países. Al mismo tiempo, se constata que el cambio estructural y la liberalización financiera no tienen un efecto significativo sobre los tipos de interés, que es un importante coste de uso del capital.

Este es el primer estudio que examina la inversión empresarial utilizando un enfoque dinámico basado en los costes de capital para un mercado emergente. Los modelos de inversión basados en los costes de uso del capital son claramente modelos poco estudiados para los mercados emergentes. Este estudio es especialmente importante para los mercados emergentes, ya que los modelos de inversión deben tener un trasfondo teórico.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospective analysis of the Russian criminal legislation in the field of protection of economic relations in the transitional period of the economy.

Based on historical, as well as general scientific research, methods (induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis and historical) and private scientific methods for studying criminal law phenomena (formal-logical, statistical and document research method), the author managed to identify a number of patterns in the development of the Russian criminal legislation in the context of the chosen economic model.

In particular, it is noted that during the period of the destruction of the planned economic model and the choice of ways for the development of the economy, as well as at the initial stage of the transition period of the economy in Russia.

The author singles out the following patterns of development of criminal legislation in Russia: a) under the influence of a sharp change in the economic model, risks in the sphere of protection of economic relations; and b) the tasks of criminal law in the field of protection of economic relations are changing significantly: from protecting the state monopoly in most areas of economic activity to protecting market economic relations.

Unlike the traditional growth model of emerging markets after economic liberalization, India’s inward foreign direct investment (FDI) surged paralleling its strong economic growth in the 2000s, despite the failure to establish a strong secondary sector. This creates an opportunity to deepen the conceptual and contextual understanding of the pivotal mechanisms that impel foreign multinational enterprises to invest into India and provides a natural setting to better understand the nature of its institutional, political and economic environment.

The authors develop a theory contextualized to Indian inward FDI patterns for the 2000–2017 period. The theoretical framework expands upon received investment motives, with explicit consideration given to the idiosyncrasies of developments in India’s recent macro and socioeconomic environment. The authors test the hypotheses using panel data from 134 countries that invested in India, using a Hausman–Taylor estimation.

The authors find that India’s transition toward a knowledge economy attracts asset augmenting rather than asset exploiting FDI. Investors appear to target long-term investments by gaining access to India’s digital capabilities, R&D, and growing talent base with a high degree of specialization within analytics, biotechnology, engineering, or pharmaceuticals. Foreign investors do not seem to be notably deterred by infrastructural challenges nor by legal and regulatory restrictions.

By providing a new perspective on India’s atheoretical economic development and FDI environment, this study offers a distinct point of comparison with regard to established hypotheses within the extant literature on FDI into emerging markets. Rethinking contemporary investment motive theory by introducing an adapted conceptual framework provides further opportunity to inform the understanding of firm strategies in similar environments.

South Asia is a region urgently seeking development, although it has failed in regional integration. It is the second least integrated region regarding the number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and can thus be recognised as a missing bloc in the global multilateral system. This study aims to focus on South Asian FTAs and explores the problems of the inter-relations and compatibility between the systemic and regional trade systems.

The study proposes a framework to benchmark the compatibility of South Asian FTAs with WTO rules. Primary data from 2000 to 2020, including descriptive analyses of reports, legal text of the FTAs, official documents and factual presentations, have been collected and analysed through thematic analysis using the proposed framework.

The study finds that, although South Asian FTAs meet most of the WTO requirements, they are not progressing toward facilitating and promoting trade. Data from 2000 to 2020 show us that South Asian FTAs have not significantly impacted trade between themselves. The study argues that, although South Asian FTAs fulfil some benchmarks, they show only a lukewarm interest in contributing to the international trading system as building blocs. It is therefore recommended that the case of South Asian trade liberalisation must be understood contextually and be given careful and exclusive attention by the WTO.

As such, this study is the first to claim that South Asian FTAs are not fully compatible with the WTO rules. They remain a missing regional bloc in the multilateral system, rather than a building bloc or a stumbling bloc, delaying the region’s opportunity to develop as a region and within the larger system.

The International Energy Agency states that the global energy intensity must reduce by 2.9% yearly before attaining Sustainable Development Goal 7.3 by 2030. However, the European Union (EU) seeking to attain a climate-neutral EU by 2050 shall require a substantial rate of reducing energy intensity. Consequently, this study aims to investigate how (clean) renewable energy, income, trade openness, technological innovation and nonrenewable energy consumption impact energy intensity for the EU countries.

The quantile regression, augmented mean group and causality techniques were used for analyses. Panel data for 26 EU nations over the 1990 and 2019 period was used.

The empirical evidence indicates that the variables have long-run equilibrium relationships. However, the analysis revealed that clean energy and income reduce energy intensity whiles trade, technological innovation and nonrenewable energy consumption increase energy intensity. An interactive term analysis shows that renewable energy and trade interact to reduce further, the negative effect of income on energy intensity. Causality results revealed a feedback connection between energy intensity and clean energy, income, trade liberalization as well as the interaction between income and trade liberalization. A one-way causality was obtained between energy intensity and technological innovation, nonrenewable energy consumption and the interaction between clean energy and income.

The results imply that EU countries stand to gain if more resources are committed to encouraging the production and consumption of cleaner/renewable energy. Advancement in policies that support renewable energy and facilitate green growth will help reduce energy intensity for the region. Trade policies that promote lower energy consumption should be strengthened.

The effect of renewable energy on energy intensity is assessed. The moderating impact of renewable energy and trade openness on the income–energy intensity relationship for the EU countries is examined. Moreover, this study uses the quantile estimation technique to assess the nonlinear effect of the explanatory variables on energy intensity.