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This paper aims to analyse empirically the association between flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), net official development assistance (ODA) inflows and trade-related illicit financial outflows.

With this purpose, a linear model was estimated, using different panel-data estimators, and using a database for a sample of 49 countries spanning the period 2008–2017. The used measure of illicit financial outflows was based on the estimates by Global Financial Integrity of deliberate misinvoicing in merchandise trade.

Research findings show a significant and positive association between changes in both relative lagged net FDI flows and relative FDI outflows (as % of gross domestic product) and changes in the ratio of trade-related illicit capital outflows to total trade. However, these positive associations were only observed in the case of low-income countries. Also, the positive association of net ODA inflows on the IFFT outflows were restricted to the cluster of lower-middle-income countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to empirically estimate the association between FDI and ODA flows and trade misinvoicing at a macroeconomic level. Research findings may contribute to substantiate the concerns expressed in previous research about the potential unintended effects of aid on illicit capital flight in the case of lower-middle-income countries. They also shown that FDI flows could be an additional conduit for trade-related illicit financial flows in these countries

The paper aims at addressing the following research questions: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency? And which pillars of institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

By specifying a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method where GHG emissions are considered as the bad output and the GDP is referred as the desirable one, the work computes the environmental efficiency into the appraisal of a production function for the European countries over three decades.

According to the countries' performance, the findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries. In this environmental context, the role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries.

This article attempts to analyze the role of different dimensions of institutional quality in different European countries' performance – in terms of mitigating GHGs (undesirable output) – while trying to raise their economic performance through their GDP (desirable output).

1. The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

2. We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

3. The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

4. The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of financial access, financial depth, financial efficiency and financial stability pillars on income inequality and poverty among a panel of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

This paper captures cross-sectional dependence among the income groups through the dynamic common correlated effect approach for a data set of 28 selected SSA countries from 2000 to 2017.

This study reveals that the financial development pillars exert positive and significant impacts on income inequality across the income groups. The results show that the effects of the financial development metrics on poverty are different across the income groups. The results also indicate that the pillars improve poverty reduction for low- and lower-middle-income countries. However, there is a minimal effect on poverty reduction in upper-middle-income countries. The differences among these income categories suggest the need for policymakers to account for income levels when prescribing policies that could engender financial development and poverty reduction in the region.

This paper examines the effects of financial development on both income inequality and poverty by using the newly developed World Bank financial development strategic metrics. It captures cross-sectional dependence in the full sample of selected SSA countries and their income categories.

The paper validates the threshold argument in the informality–poverty nexus. Recent literature and policy have argued the existence of a threshold in the relationship.

The study adopts dynamic panel threshold analysis, estimated within the framework of system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) to control for endogeneity and simultaneity. Data from 40 selected sub-Saharan African countries between 1991 and 2018 are used for the study.

Empirical results confirm the existence of an average threshold of 31% share of informality in GDP. Also, the paper finds that threshold of informality that addresses mild and severe poverty varies between 24.32 and 36.75%.

The work is limited to African economies. Evidence from other emerging and developed economies is suggested for further research.

Overall, the empirical results indicate a threshold in the informality–poverty nexus. Therefore, an excessive informality level does not benefit the African growth process. Policymakers and governments are advised to operate within the bounds of the threshold of informality that reduces poverty and improve the African economic growth process.

The paper is the first study to provide empirical findings on the nonlinear and threshold argument in the informality–poverty nexus, as far as the authors know.

The purpose of this study is to propose an improved framework for managing Private Participation in Infrastructure ICT (PPI-ICT) projects in the context of developing countries as the requirements to manage them are different in several aspects.

The framework has been proposed based on an exhaustive literature review and statistical analysis of the PPI-ICT projects’ data set using logistic regression, F-test and student’s t-test. The proposed framework was also applied to the PPI-ICT projects.

The framework is an extension to NTCP (novelty, technology, complexity and pace) approach by including extrinsic factors such as income of the country, climate risk, religious diversity, political stability, regularity quality and control of corruption. The proposed framework was used to analyze project characteristics and their external conditions in the context of developing countries. Based on the analyses, the authors have presented a detailed set of recommendations for project managers, practitioners and governments to improve the success rate of these projects.

The major contribution of this study is the framework, which encompasses the NTCP model as well as extrinsic characteristics of PPI-ICT projects. The proposed framework is meant to assist the project managers to comprehend the project characteristics and its external environment to identify an adequate approach for managing projects successfully.

Known as the major capital providers in Belt and Road countries and the largest carbon emitter in the world, what role China's outward direct investment (ODI) plays in carbon neutralization has become a matter of concern. This study aims to measure the impact of China's ODI on the carbon emissions of Belt and Road countries.

Based on an econometric model and an inter-regional input–output model, a new model measuring the carbon emission effects of ODI is developed.

The empirical results show that (1) in general, China's ODI generates an emission-reduction effect in Belt and Road countries; (2) The relationship between the emission-reduction effect and income level of host countries shows an approximate inverted U-shaped trend; and (3) China's ODI generates stronger emission-reduction effects on capital-intensive industries.

This study quantitatively measures the scale of carbon emission-increase and reduction effect, which is relatively lacking in previous studies. This study explores the heterogeneity from the perspectives of regions, countries and industries. The authors have compiled an inter-regional input–output table for the Belt and Road countries for 2014 to provide a broad basis for the study of related issues.

This study aims at evaluating the technical efficiency (TE) of healthcare systems in the Arab region and exploring the key factors that affect the efficiency performance.

The study applies a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to a sample of 20 Arab countries. In the first stage, a DEA model is used to calculate the TE scores of the examined healthcare systems in 2019 and 2010, following both the output and input orientations of efficiency. In the second stage, a censored Tobit model is estimated to investigate the determinants of healthcare efficiency.

DEA results of 2019 indicate that achievable efficiency gains of the Arab countries range from 0.4% to 16% under the output and input orientations, respectively. Six countries are efficient under both orientations. Although the average efficiency scores of the Arab countries have deteriorated between 2010 and 2019, Djibouti and Sudan had the greatest efficiency improvements between the two years. Bahrain, Mauritania, Morocco and Qatar proved to be efficient in 2010 and 2019 under the two orientations of efficiency and according to the two DEA specifications followed. The Tobit model reveals that corruption and government health expenditure tend to have an adverse impact on healthcare efficiency.

The author evaluates healthcare efficiency and healthcare's efficiency determinants in the Arab countries. Regardless Arab countries' diversity, these countries are facing common health challenges, including diminishing role of governments in healthcare financing; increased out-of-pocket healthcare spending; poor healthcare outputs and prevalence of health inequities resulting from weak governance institutions. Comparing the efficiency of healthcare systems between 2010 and 2019 gives insights on the potential impact of the Arab spring uprisings on healthcare efficiency. Moreover, examining the determinants of healthcare efficiency allows for better understanding of how to improve the efficiency of healthcare systems in the region.

This paper illustrates the socio-political nature of accountings, referring to the partial privatisation of the monopoly telecommunications organisation in a lower-middle-income country.

Actor-network theory and an ANTi-history approach are used to trace circumstances and occurrences. Empirical materials include official documents, print media and retrospective interviews with organisation employees ten years on from the privatisation.

Proponents of privatisation used retrospectively constructed historical accounts to problematise the natural monopoly of telecommunications and the government organisation administering it. A restructuring programme followed. Proponents addressed controversies pertaining to the programme thus garnering widespread support for complex and controversial changes. Proponents produced and reproduced accounting artefacts as evidence in these processes of history reconstruction, consequent changes and restoring stability to telecommunications in its reconfigured commercial domain. The proponents used selective, controversial accounting evidence to problematise the government organisation's existence, then to mobilise various actors to reduce and close the controversies previously aroused and reinstate stability in a partially privatised telecommunications company. Although no longer having a monopoly this company still dominates. Dissenters did the same but with little success.

The findings demonstrate the importance of tracing the socio-political process of arriving at the dominant outcome about the past. This assists in making sense of present circumstances and re-imagining the future.

The study demonstrates that, during controversial circumstances, taken-for-granted history, as well as what is thought to have not existed in the past, support the dominant network in gaining advantage over their opponents and black-boxing their perspectives of how things should be.

This study aims to examine foreign direct investment (FDI) factors and develops a rational framework for FDI inflow in Western European countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria.

Data for this study were collected from the World development indicators (WDI) database from 1995 to 2018. Factors such as economic growth, pollution, trade, domestic capital investment, gross value-added and the financial stability of the country that influence FDI decisions were selected through empirical literature. A framework was developed using interpretable machine learning (IML), decision trees and three-stage least squares simultaneous equation methods for FDI inflow in Western Europe.

The findings of this study show that there is a difference between the most important and trusted factors for FDI inflow. Additionally, this study shows that machine learning (ML) models can perform better than conventional linear regression models.

This research has several limitations. Ideally, classification accuracies should be higher, and the current scope of this research is limited to examining the performance of FDI determinants within Western Europe.

Through this framework, the national government can understand how investors make their capital allocation decisions in their country. The framework developed in this study can help policymakers better understand the rationality of FDI inflows.

An IML framework has not been developed in prior studies to analyze FDI inflows. Additionally, the author demonstrates the applicability of the IML framework for estimating FDI inflows in Western Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to calculate the financial inclusion index and analyze its dynamics in developing countries.

The authors use the two-stage principal component analysis (PCA) method and consider financial technology innovations to improve the accuracy of the financial inclusion index.

The authors found a downward trend in the financial inclusion index in most developing countries over the study period. The authors also found that a high financial inclusion index is linked to high scores in the Doing Business and high business climate regulation ranking. In addition, the authors observed that the rates of low financial inclusion in developing countries are due to low utilization of and unequal access to financial services.

The analysis suggests that policymakers in developing countries could invest in digital infrastructure to extend access to financial services in remote areas. They could also encourage financial innovation, particularly in financial technologies, by adopting flexible regulatory frameworks. Promoting the financial inclusion of marginalized groups through targeted initiatives tailored to their needs is another solution. They could also encourage the use of financial services by raising awareness and educating populations through training programs. Finally, to improve the business climate, governments could simplify administrative procedures and promote transparency and legal stability.

Unlike previous studies, the use of the two-stage PCA method and the consideration of financial technology (Fintech) innovations such as mobile money in the determinants of the financial inclusion index improve the accuracy of the index.