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Since the last decade, debates regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the forms of transfer, i.e. in the form of in-kind or cash transfers, have been gaining momentum. This paper aims to explore the preferences revealed by the beneficiaries, the role of contextual conditions in moulding these preferences, factors associated with the transfer scheme that defines the preferences and the rationale behind such responses.

The study conducted involves primary data collected from an Indian state, Odisha. 308 beneficiaries of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) were interviewed concerning specific objectives in a rural district (Mayurbhanj) and another highly urbanised district (Khordha).

The comparative results show that the strength of the contextual conditions significantly influences the preferences of the beneficiaries in the rural district as compared to the effect on the beneficiaries of the urban district. Education seems to have an insignificant impact in rural areas. However, income and standard of living have positive significant effects on shaping the preferences for cash or in-kind transfers.

Examining the strength of the contextual conditions and emphasising beneficiaries' perspectives would stimulate a better understanding of the implementation of the proposed quasi-Universal Basic Income. The study would hence, be instrumental in dealing with the transition towards cash transfers in the Indian context where the co-responsibility of both stakeholders, the government and the beneficiaries, should be given equal weightage.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0158

This study aims to examine the effects of climate change and agricultural technologies on crop production in Vietnam for the period 1990–2018.

Several econometric techniques – such as the augmented Dickey–Fuller, Phillips–Perron, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test, variance decomposition method (VDM) and impulse response function (IRF) are used for the empirical analysis.

The results of the ARDL bounds test confirm the significant dynamic relationship among the variables under consideration, with a significance level of 1%. The primary findings indicate that the average annual temperature exerts a negative influence on crop yield, both in the short term and in the long term. The utilization of fertilizer has been found to augment crop productivity, whereas the application of pesticides has demonstrated the potential to raise crop production in the short term. Moreover, both the expansion of cultivated land and the utilization of energy resources have played significant roles in enhancing agricultural output across both in the short term and in the long term. Furthermore, the robustness outcomes also validate the statistical importance of the factors examined in the context of Vietnam.

This study provides persuasive evidence for policymakers to emphasize advancements in intensive agriculture as a means to mitigate the impacts of climate change. In the research, the authors use average annual temperature as a surrogate measure for climate change, while using fertilizer and pesticide usage as surrogate indicators for agricultural technologies. Future research can concentrate on the impact of ICT, climate change (specifically pertaining to maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation), and agricultural technological improvements that have an impact on cereal production.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how climate change and technology effect crop output in Vietnam from 1990 to 2018. Various econometrics tools, such as ARDL modeling, VDM and IRF, are used for estimation.

Green sukuk (Islamic bonds) is one of Islamic financial instrument as an alternative financing source for supporting green finance projects in several sectors such as renewable energy or climate change problems. The aim of study is to present an understanding of the issues, explore the lesson for government policy and identify the potential for future studies directions.

This study conducted a literature review on green sukuk or Islamic bonds based on eight journal databases. The authors have carried out a strict selection of journals that are only indexed by Scopus and are protected from predatory journals.

This study has selected 7 of 118 published articles on green topics. This study has found that 50% of green sukuk research is dominated by a theoretical qualitative approach. While research that uses a quantitative or empirical approach is still below 30%, followed by using mixed methods. This study finds that research discusses green sukuk on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or environmental issues, especially climate change, COVID-19 issues and green financial reporting. In addition, in the existing literature, this study found that green sukuk has main advantages instead of green bonds where green sukuk must comply with sharia principles, namely, being free from usury, interest and uncertainty.

This study analyzes two important implications, namely, first, the implications of government policies regarding the potential for issuing green sukuk in supporting all programs on the agenda for the 2030 SDGs, especially controlling and preventing the adverse impacts of global climate change; second, the implications for further research, further researchers can refer to the results of this review to make it easier to find new research things about the relationship of green sukuk with SGDs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first review paper that structurally reviews the previous literature on green sukuk (Islamic bonds) based on reputable publisher journals that have been indexed by Scopus.

Considering the evolving importance of green finance, this study uses climate-related development mitigation finance as a proxy of green finance and investigates the impact of green finance on ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental quality along with the influence of economic growth, renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization across 47 developing countries over the period 2000–2018.

After finding the presence of cross-sectional dependency among variables, the second-generation panel unit root test was employed to detect the order of integration among the variables. Since all the variables were found to be stationary, Westerlund cointegration technique was employed to detect the long-run relationship among the variables. Then, the long-run elasticity among the dependent and independent variables was tested using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and pooled mean group–autoregressive distributed lag (PMG–ARDL) approaches.

The empirical findings suggest the presence of long-run relationship among all the variables, namely, ecological footprint, green finance, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization for the selected developing countries in the sample. Furthermore, economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization, all have a positive and significant impact on the ecological footprint, whereas renewable energy consumption and green finance have a significant and negative impact on the ecological footprint, which supports the view that environmental quality is improved with the greater use of renewable energy technologies and allocation of greater amounts of more green finance.

The empirical results of this study offer policymakers and regulators some implications for environmental policy for protecting the countries from ecological issues.

The aim of this study is to examine the nature and determinants of stock market integration between India and other Asia–Pacific countries (Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Taiwan) over the period 1991–2021.

Unit root tests, the dynamic conditional correlation-Glosten Jagannathan and Runkle-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (DCC-GJR-GARCH), pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and random effects models are employed for the analysis.

The empirical results show that the DCC between each pair of sample countries is less than 0.5, indicating weak ties between the pairs of sample countries. Also, the DCC between India and other Asia–Pacific stock markets is positive and low, implying low level of integration. The correlation between India and China stock markets is found to be the highest, implying significant level of integration. The main reason for it would be strong economic linkages and bilateral trade relationship between India and China. Moreover, gross domestic product (GDP), interest rate (IR), consumer price index (CPI)-inflation and money supply (MS) differentials are the major driver of stock market integration between India and other Asia–Pacific countries.

The findings of the study have important implications for investors, portfolio managers and policymakers. It is found that the DCC between India and other Asia–Pacific countries (considered in the study) except China is low, which indicates weak ties between the pairs of sample countries. This implies that the Indian stock market provides good investment opportunities for foreign investors. Also, investors and portfolio managers can attain more diversified benefits and can minimize country risk by investing across Asia–Pacific countries. Further, knowledge about the factors that integrate the Indian stock market with the other Asia–Pacific stock markets will help policymakers frame suitable economic and financial stabilization policies.

This study contributes to the extant literature: first, by examining the linkages of Indian stock market with other Asia–Pacific countries; second, although previous studies confirmed the existence of linkages among the various stock markets, few researchers pay attention to the factors driving the process of stock market integration. This study provides additional evidence by examining the significant macroeconomic factors driving the process of such integration in the Asia–Pacific region considered under the study.

Green sukuk (GS) is an emerging financial tool that has gained momentum in recent years owing to increased attention being given to Islamic finance, socially responsible investing (SRI) and sustainability agendas. Yet, GS studies are fragmented, dispersed and lack comprehensive reviews. As a response to this gap in academia, this paper aims to synthesize the knowledge on GS into thematic clusters, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the subject and offering guidelines for future research.

This study implemented a systematic literature review approach to analyse studies on GS that were published prior to and including June 2023. The PRISMA 2020 protocol was used in the sample selection process. A total of 62 peer-reviewed journal articles from six databases were identified and categorized into various themes.

The results suggest that previous research has predominantly focused on the areas of GS advantages, drivers, market development and potential sectors, along with challenges and recommendations to improve the market. However, it was found that some other aspects, including GS pricing, performance and purchasing intention, require further research attention. The analysis also indicated that the use of theories in the GS context was limited, with only five theories employed in just four out of the 62 articles examined. Moreover, this paper’s findings revealed that the studies employing quantitative and empirical analysis methods were limited to four articles. Geographically, most of the studies were conducted in Indonesia and Malaysia, while other countries with high-potential markets (e.g. GCC) had limited GS practices and studies.

The results of this study have several practical implications. For investors, a review of GS will provide greater insight into the understanding of the GS market, helping them make better investment decisions. For policymakers, this paper empowers them with the knowledge to make informed decisions regarding GS markets by highlighting key recommendations identified in the literature. Finally, the proposed guidelines can be used in future research.

While Green Bonds have received significant attention, there is a dearth of research on GS and those that exist are fragmented. A systematic literature review is necessary to identify knowledge gaps for future research.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate corruption in the context of India, spanning the period between 1988 and 2021. Additionally, it aims to provide an in-depth comprehension of the factors that drive its prevalence and to propose policy directives for addressing these underlying issues.

The study instead of relying on perception-based measures, takes a distinct approach by formulating a corruption index derived from reported instances, thus ensuring a more objective assessment. Furthermore, we employ stochastic frontier analysis to tackle the issue of under-reporting within the corruption index based on reported cases. Subsequently, an auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) methodology is applied to ascertain the principal drivers of corruption, encompassing both long and short factors.

This study reveals that corruption in India is notably influenced by economic growth and income inequality. Conversely, government effectiveness and globalization display a tendency to mitigate corruption. However, our rigorous analysis demonstrates that financial development does not wield a substantial influence in our study. Moreover, our inquiry uncovers a nonlinear relationship between economic growth and corruption. Additionally, we ascertain that the long run and short run impacts of corruption remain relatively stable across both models utilized in our study.

This study differs from previous research in the subsequent manners. Primarily, we employed an objective measure to formulate the corruption index, coupled with addressing the underreporting issues via stochastic frontier analysis. Moreover, this study pioneers the identification of a non-linear relationship between corruption and economic growth within the Indian context, a facet unexplored in previous investigations.

The study aims to evaluate and compare the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) performance utilising a sample of deals originating from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). In addition to nation-wise performance analysis, a further sub-sample analysis is conducted based on the target location (domestic and cross-border), development status (developed and emerging) and the acquired ownership stakes (majority and minority).

The final sample of the study includes 7,105 deals announced between 2000 and 2019. M&A performance is proxied by the abnormal returns earned over the select event windows. Multiple parametric and non-parametric tests are employed for testing the robustness.

The results indicate significant performance differences across BRICS markets, with the highest and lowest abnormal returns reported for Chinese and Russian acquirers, respectively. The disaggregated analysis also affirms the performance differences for the select sub-samples.

The study highlights the need for acknowledging and expounding the differences in M&As across emerging markets. Further, the results of the study provide a possible explanation of the disagreement over the M&A performance results reported in the previous literature.

Acknowledging and understanding the potential performance differences based on location, ownership strategies and development status can aid executives in sharpening decision-making and also help general investors.

The study contributes by examining a comprehensive sample of deals across five major emerging economies, as against the majority of previous studies which have their results based on either single nation samples or have utilised only a sub-sample of domestic or foreign acquisitions.

This paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review on the fintech services and financial inclusion of the developing nations that particularly focuses on lower middle-income group nations (LMIGN) and upper middle-income group nations (UMIGN) to highlight the research areas that have not received attention and present opportunities for future research.

This paper adopts a systematic approach to examine 65 research articles published from 2016 to 2021, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

The study identifies research gaps in two key themes: backward and outward linkages. In backward linkages, the literature on UMIGN should pay attention to the behavioural patterns associated with lending, investment and market provision-related fintech services. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between fintech services on the usage and quality dimension of financial inclusion in both LMIGN and UMIGN. For outward linkages, future research work should explore the role of fintech and financial inclusion in the development of LMIGN. This study provides valuable insights and guides future research directions by comprehensively mapping the existing studies.

This study does not use quantitative tools, such as meta and bibliometric analysis, to validate the findings.

This research paper offers new perspectives that introduce a novel framework for analysing literature on fintech, financial inclusion and its impact on the overall development of UMIGN and LMIGN.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied by businesses to optimize their processes and decision-making, develop effective and efficient strategies, and positively influence customer behaviors. Businesses use AI to generate behaviors such as customer retention (CR). The existing literature on “AI and CR” is vastly scattered. The paper aims to review the present research on AI in CR systematically and suggest future research directions to further develop the field.

The Scopus database is used to collect the data for systematic review and bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer tool. The paper performs the following analysis: (1) year-wise publications and citations, (2) co-authorship analysis of authors, countries, and affiliations, (3) citation analysis of articles and journals, (4) co-occurrence visualization of binding terms, and (5) bibliographic coupling of articles.

Five research themes are identified, namely, (1) AI and customer churn prediction in CR, (2) AI and customer service experience in CR, (3) AI and customer sentiment analysis in CR, (4) AI and customer (big data) analytics in CR, and (5) AI privacy and ethical concerns in CR. Based on the research themes, fifteen future research objectives and a future research framework are suggested.

The paper has important implications for researchers and managers as it reveals vital insights into the latest trends and paths in AI-CR research and practices. It focuses on privacy and ethical issues of AI; hence, it will help the government develop policies for sustainable AI adoption for CR.

To the author's best knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to comprehensively review the existing research on “AI and CR” using bibliometric analysis.