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This paper aims to examine the effects of interest-free and interest-based monetary policy on inflation and unemployment rates for two groups of countries where in one group, interest-free monetary policy (IFMP) was pursued, while in the other group, interest-based monetary policy (IBMP) was followed.

This study involves a sample of 23 developed countries divided into two groups. The authors measure economic performance by misery index (MI), and MI is calculated as unemployment rate plus inflation rate. A group of countries, where MI is lower, performs better compared to the other group where MI is relatively higher.

The results reveal that in group of 12 countries where IFMP is adopted, the MI is lower and thus performs better compared to a group of countries where IBMP is pursued.

The findings of this study have profound implications for the policymakers and government leaders who look for a solution to maintain both low inflation and unemployment rates. The findings in this study clearly portray that such ideal situations can only be achieved by pursuing IFMP. No wonder the countries which have been historically pursuing IFMP such as Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark have been able to contain both inflation and unemployment rates compared to their counterparts among the English-speaking countries.

This is one of the most recent tests on the differences in economic performance between IFMP and IBMP. These results have significant value for policymakers and central bankers who have been struggling to maintain lower MI for decades.

Climate change and its imminent threat to human survival adversely impact the agriculture sector. In an impoverished country like The Gambia, economic costs of climate change are colossal. This study aims to establish a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for The Gambia’s agriculture sector to examine the effects of climate change on crops, livestock and sea-level rise.

This study used a CGE model with other climate change impact models to compute the impacts of climate change on The Gambia’s agriculture sector. The social accounting matrix calibrates the results from the various models, thereby generating the baseline results which exemplify a “steady-state” and policy shock results illustrating the medium- and long-term effects of climate change on the country’s agriculture sector.

The baseline results indicate the status quo showing the neglect of the agriculture sector due to limited investment in the sector. Hence, the sector is the “hardest hit” sector as a result of climate change. When the model factored in climate change in the medium term (2055) and long term (2085), the macroeconomic indicators of gross domestic product, national savings, wages, disposable income and consumer price index deteriorated, elucidating the vulnerability of the economy to climate change. The consumption of groundnuts, cattle and fish will decline by 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, in the long term. However, the production of all agricultural commodities will decline by an average of 35% for the same period. The results for international trade show that exportation would decline while importation will increase over time. The general price level for agricultural commodities would increase by 3% in 2055 and 5% in 2085. Generally, the results manifest the severity of climate change in the agriculture sector which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. The impact of climate change would result in agriculture and economic decline causing hunger, poverty and human misery.

The caveat of this study revealed the nuances not captured by previous Gambian climate change studies, thus the novelty of the study.

This study aims to investigate the influences of global uncertainty indicators volatility on the domestic socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability in a sample of 54 developing countries.

The two-step system generalized method of moments estimator is recruited to deal with autoregression and endogeneity matter in our dynamic panel data. Seven different global uncertainty indicators (US trade uncertainty; world trade uncertainty; economic policy uncertainty; world commodities and oil prices; the geopolitical risk index and the world uncertainty index) have been mobilized and compared for their empirical impact on the economic (growth and GDP), social (the misery index and income inequality) and environmental (CO₂ emissions) vulnerabilities of nations.

Our empirical estimations suggest that the socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability cannot be solved through the same pattern: all decrease of a particular aspect will necessarily have a cost and an opposite influence on at least one of the other aspects of the nations' vulnerability.

The originality of this article is to combine these three dimensions of vulnerability in the same investigation. To our knowledge, our research is one of the few providing a joint analysis of the influence of global uncertainty on the economic and socioenvironmental countries' vulnerabilities – given the fact social, economic and environmental aspects are at the heart of the UN sustainable goals, our study can be seen as an investigation of the nations' capabilities to work proactively on meaningful sustainable goals in an increasingly uncertain world.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, tremendous changes have taken place in the US economy – the economic growth in the whole year of 2020 was negative, and though it enjoyed a significant rebound for the first half of 2021, the growth rate began to decline rapidly by the third quarter, and inflation suddenly rises rapidly, which after came the all-time highs of the “misery index” consisted of the inflation rate and unemployment rate. All signs indicate that the US economy will likely enter a “stagflation” crisis.

This paper analyzes the institutional and social contradictions in the United States during the neoliberal era from the perspectives of domestic social structure of accumulation (SSA) and international SSA based on the SSA theory.

The current risk of stagflation in the US economy is a concentrated outbreak of the long-term accumulated contradictions in neoliberal SSA under the impact of the epidemic, which is the product of the irreconcilable contradictions inherent in the capitalist mode of production.

Based on this analysis, the paper points out that with the deepening of the crisis, the neoliberal SSA is likely to end and a new SSA will be established gradually.

This paper aims to present a critical appraisal of Ghassan Kanafani’s short story “The Child Goes to the Camp” using the Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and Rose (2007) in an attempt to investigate the predicament of the Palestinians who were forced to flee their country and live in refugee camps as well as the various effects refugee life had on them.

Using the Appraisal Theory, and with a special focus on the categories of Attitude and Graduation, the paper aims to shed light on the plight of refugees through revealing the narrator’s suffering in a refugee camp where the most important virtue becomes remaining alive.

Analysing the story using the Appraisal Theory reveals the impact refugee life has left on the narrator and his family. This story serves as a warning for the world of the suffering refugees have to endure when they are forced to flee their war-torn countries.

Although Kanafani’ resistance literature has been studied extensively, his short stories have not received much scholarly attention. In addition, his works have not been subject to linguistic analysis. This study presents an appraisal analysis of Kanafani’s “The Child Goes to the Camp” in an attempt to investigate how the author’s linguistic choices are key to highlighting the suffering of the Palestinians, especially children, in refugee camps.