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With China’s economic growth slowing down and the growth rate of fiscal revenue decreasing, the pressure on local government debts is further increasing. Under this background, it is of great significance to clarify the relation between local government debts and China’s economic growth in order to give full play to the positive role of local debts in stabling growth. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Therefore, this paper explores the impact of Chinese local government debt on economic growth from theoretical and empirical aspects, respectively, and compares the regional differences between different debts and economic growth dynamics.

In the theoretical model part, this paper constructs a three-sector dynamic game model, under the two circumstances of whether local government is subject to debt constraints, and examines the relation between local government debt and economic growth and other variables through numerical simulation. Research shows that when the government is not constrained by debt, there is an inverted “U” relation between government debt and economic growth. When the government is constrained by debt, the economic growth rate gradually decreases as the government debt increases.

In the theoretical analysis part, this paper tries to estimate the amount of local debts under different calibers and examines the impact of different types of local government debts on China’s economic growth and their regional differences. The results show that excessive accumulation of government hidden debts in the eastern region is not conducive to economic growth, while explicit debts in the central and western regions significantly contribute to local economic growth. The results of empirical analysis are basically consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model.

Despite being a viable source of funds, African sovereign bond markets are relatively underexplored. The empirical literature fails to consider the impact of exclusively macroeconomic factors and the volatile contexts in which African markets operate. The purpose of this paper is to fill the vacuum by proposing a context-sensitive theoretical framework. The study targets, specifically, macroeconomic factors and assesses the extent to which they affect bond market development.

Using panel data on sovereign bond markets from 26 African economies, the study extends previous methodologies used in similar studies by accounting for downside risk in a generalized method of moments (GMM) framework and employing tighter robustness measures.

This study finds that inflation, domestic debt, external debt, GDP at PPP, fiscal balance and exports are important macroeconomic drivers of sovereign bond market development in African emerging economies.

While GMM estimation is beneficial in the presence of endogeneity between the dependent variables that are instrumented with lagged independent variables, it guarantees consistency but, not unbiased estimations.

Market-oriented government funding with well-defined debt management strategies must be implemented to support the development of sovereign bond markets. External debt must be set at a sustainable level, and government should be dedicated to the confirmation of this. Furthermore, inflation rates must be kept low and stable.

If policymakers are to take this study seriously, bond markets may begin to be viable sources of funds for African emerging economies.

This study introduces a methodology for measuring bond market development that considers the systemic volatility in emerging markets and proposes a theoretical framework for African emerging economies. In addition, the authors identify a new macroeconomic determinant of bond market development in the region.

The authors explore the relationship between the exchange rate, bond yield and the stock market as well as the effect of capital market dynamics on the exchange rate before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors employ a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) methodology using daily data of the Indonesian economy over the period 2012–2021.

Whilst, over the full sample period, the authors find no cointegration between the exchange rate, the 10-year bond yield and stock market, for the COVID-19 period, evidence of cointegration is present. Furthermore, the results suggest that asymmetric effects are evident both in the short as well as the long run.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the relationship between the exchange rate, bond yield and the stock market as well as the effect of capital market dynamics on the exchange rate before and during the COVID-19 pandemic has been explored in the case of the Indonesian economy.

More and more statistics have repeatedly shown that as the economic development has entered the New Normal, the Chinese fiscal system has experienced tremendous changes. Although chance cannot be ruled out, much of those changes indicate trends, and they can even be said to be the result of the law of economic development. These trends and changes have repeatedly demonstrated that, as a reflection and an inevitable result of the economic developing speed shift, structural adjustment and energy conversion, the Chinese fiscal system, far from the conventional operating state, has progressed on a new path. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper systematically analyzes several new trends and changes in the Chinese fiscal system under the New Normal. First, revenue growth has experienced a sharp downward trend, while the tax elasticity coefficient has declined rapidly. Second, fiscal expenditure has risen against the tendency, while the rigidity of expenditure has kept on increasing.

Considering the present fiscal and taxation system reform with the analysis above, it can be seen that if the reform’s progress for the past two years is slower than expected – thus, preventing the effects of all aspects from a timely achievement – then, in the recent period, the agreement on the fiscal and taxation system reform will be reached and challenges entirely different from the past, including sharp slowdown in revenue growth rate, fiscal expenditure rising against trend and increases in fiscal deficit and government debts will be faced. The factors encouraging the reform are gathering gradually. The growth of the strength to push the reform forward is speeding up. And the pace of the reform in relevant areas is quickening.

In the face of those trends and changes, on the one hand, the authors should deeply understand and accurately grasp them through a comprehensive summary and systematic analysis. On the other hand, a series of conventional ideas, thoughts and strategies should be adjusted comprehensively and duly. Taking a train of new ideas, thoughts and strategies, the authors ought to actively adapt to and initiate a new Chinese fiscal structure under the New Normal of China’s economy.

A country’s institutional environment influences every facet of its business. This paper aims to identify institutional factors (state ownership, government attention on employment and employees’ educational background) that affect the asymmetric cost behavior in China.

Using 2,570 listed firms’ data between 2002 and 2015, we use empirical models to explore the effects of state ownership, government attention on employment and employees’ educational background on the asymmetric cost behavior in China.

This study found that the asymmetric cost behavior of central state-owned enterprises (CSOEs) is greater than local state-owned enterprises (LSOEs). Meanwhile, the empirical results show that government attention on employment is reflected in five-year government plans, and employees’ educational backgrounds are positively associated with asymmetric cost behavior.

This study contributes to the economic theory of sticky costs, institutional theory and asymmetric cost behavior literature by providing evidence that shows how government intervention and employee educational background limit the flexibility of corporate cost adjustments. Additionally, this study provides guidance to policymakers by showing how government long-term plans affect firm-level resource adjustment decisions.

This paper is a survey of recent academic developments in the literature on green bonds, which have become an important financial instrument in socially responsible investment. This study provides a review of papers that study the market pricing of green bonds, the economic and environmental effects of green bond financing, as well as legal and institutional issues in the green bond market. The literature on market pricing focuses mainly on the existence of greenium, which represents the extent to which green bonds carry a price premium over otherwise identical non-green counterparts. The literature on the economic and environmental effects mainly concerns stock market reaction to green bond issuance and associated economic value implications to other stakeholders, as well as investment in green projects. This paper discusses current issues in the green-bond market and avenues for future research.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the correlation between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector to determine whether there is a crowding-out or crowding-in effect of credit supply to government on credit supply to the private sector.

The study used data from 43 countries during the 1980–2019 period. The study employed the Pearson correlation methodology to analyze the data.

There is a significant positive correlation between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector. There is also a significant positive relationship between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector, implying a crowding-in effect of government borrowing on private sector borrowing. The positive correlation between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector by banks is stronger and highly significant in the period before the Great Recession, while the positive correlation is weaker and less significant during the Great Recession, and the correlation further weakens after the Great Recession. The regional analyses show that the positive correlation between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector by banks is stronger and highly significant in the African region than in the Asian region and the region of the Americas.

There is no evidence on the correlation between credit supply to government and credit supply to the private sector during the Great Recession.

The unprecedented SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has further constrained the budgets of governments worldwide for delivering their much-needed infrastructure. Consequently, public-private partnerships (PPPs), with the private sector's investment and ingenuity, would appear to be an increasingly popular alternative. Value for money (VfM) has become the major criterion for evaluating PPPs against the traditional public sector procurement and, however, is plagued with controversy. Hence, it is important that governments compare and contrast their practice with similar and disparate bodies to engender best practice. This paper, therefore, aims to understand governments' assessment context and provide a cross-continental comparison of their VfM assessment.

Faced with different domestic contexts (e.g. aging infrastructure, population growth, and competing demands on finance), governments tend to place different emphases when undertaking the VfM assessment. In line with the theory of boundary spanning, a cross-continental comparison is conducted between three of the most noticeable PPP markets (i.e. the United Kingdom, Australia and China) about their VfM assessment. The institutional level is interpreted by a social, economic and political framework, and the methodological level is elucidated through a qualitative and quantitative VfM assessment.

There are individual institutional characteristics that have shaped the way each country assesses VfM. For the methodological level, we identify that: (1) these global markets use a public sector comparator as the benchmark in VfM assessment; (2) ambiguous qualitative assessment is conducted only against PPPs to strengthen their policy development; (3) Australia's priority is in service provision whereas that of the UK and China is project finance and production; and (4) all markets are seeking an amelioration of existing controversial VfM assessments so that purported VfM relates to project lifecycles. As such, an option framework is proposed to make headway towards a sensible selection of infrastructure procurement approaches in the post COVID-19 era.

This study addresses a current void of enhancing the decision-making process for using PPPs within today's changing environment and then opens up an avenue for future empirical research to examine the option framework and ensuing VfM decisions. Practically, it presents a holistic VfM landscape for public sector procurers that aim to engage with PPPs for their infrastructure interventions.