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This study investigates the effect of global and domestic uncertainty on the dynamics of portfolio investment in 21 economies (mostly advanced and larger emerging economies) from 2001–2016.

Specifically, the evolution of the net portfolio equity investment inflows (FPI net inflows) and the evolution of net portfolio investment (FPI net) are investigated in a context in which the degree and the volatility of domestic economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and world uncertainty index (WUI) varied. The authors provide an empirical analysis through the sequential (two-stage) estimation of linear panel data models for unbalanced panel data.

An increase in the degree and volatility of domestic EPU has a significant negative influence on FPI net inflows, while an increase in WUI has a significant positive one. Notably, a simultaneous increase in the domestic EPU and WUI enhances the net inflows of FPI, whereas a simultaneous increase in the volatility of these indicators reduces the net inflows of FPI. An increase in the degree and volatility of both domestic EPU and WUI have a significant positive effect on the net portfolio investment, implying that a significant net portfolio investment is going out of the country.

The results of this study encourage international investors to consider uncertainty indicators (and, more specifically, their variations) in their portfolio strategy to optimize their position on the international markets. The findings of this study invite policy-makers from large countries to reduce the perceived domestic uncertainty since this parameter can influence international investors' sensitivity and willingness to diversify their position out of the country.

The authors' approach focuses on the variations of uncertainty (existing literature mainly works with the indicators). While the results confirm the role played by large markets in international portfolio investment management, it nuances the changes in the portfolio management behaviors toward other markets when facing a changing uncertainty.

This paper aims to offer an empirical study of the impact of institutional quality on the banking system risk and credit risk.

Applying cross-sectional dependent tests and stationary tests to check the property of our sample, the panel corrected standard errors model is recruited as the main estimator, while feasible generalized least squares, pool ordinary least squares (OLS), robust pool OLS and other estimators are used as a robustness check for an unbalanced panel data for 56 economies divided into three subsamples between 2002 and 2015.

The empirical results show several significant contributions. First, an improvement in institutional quality is an important factor to reduce the banking system risk. This effect of the institutions is less important in well-capitalized, highly profitable and in high-economic growth countries. This effect is also stronger in highly liquid banking systems. Notably, a better institutional quality helps to reduce the banking system risk in the highly concentrated banking system. Second, institutional quality has a significant negative relationship with the banking credit risk, especially in highly concentrated banking systems and in high-growth countries. This influence is weaker in highly liquid and well-capitalized banking systems. Finally, better institutions reduce the positive effect of trade openness, but it induces a higher credit risk for the banking system from the trade openness. Notably, a better institutional quality enhances the negative effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow on both banking system risk and credit risk. These findings are documented for a global sample and three subsamples: low and lower-middle-income economies, upper-middle-income economies and high-income economies.

This study provides some recommendations, for policymakers, on the roles of institutions in the banking system and financial stability.

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.

The effectiveness of fiscal policy is an interesting field in literature of macroeconomics. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth under contributions from the differences in institutions and external debt levels.

The authors use panel data from 2002 to 2014 from 20 emerging markets and use GMM estimators for unbalanced panel data.

The results show positive growth effects of fiscal policy across emerging markets in the examined periods. Notably, the improvement in institutions promotes higher crowding-in effects of fiscal policy. In addition, this paper finds interesting evidences that the external debt has non-linear effects on economic growth, whereas the heterogeneous effects of fiscal policy on economic growth as positive effects in low indebted level and negative effect in high indebted level may explain the mechanism of this non-linear relationship.

This study proposes the non-linear relationship of fiscal growth effects in emerging economies under the dynamic of debt levels.

Single-party regimes increasingly use Subnational Performance Assessments (SPAs) – rankings of provinces and districts – to improve governance outcomes. SPAs assemble and publicize information on local government performance to facilitate monitoring and generate competition among officials. However, the evidence are sparse on their effects in this context. The authors argue that built-in incentive structures in centralized single-party regimes distort the positive impact of SPAs.

The staggered rollout of the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) created a natural experiment. Due to 2010 budget constraints, the first iteration of the PAPI survey covered only 30 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces before covering all in 2011. The PAPI team used matching procedures to identify a statistical twin for each province before randomly selecting one from each pair. The authors use randomization inference to compare the outcomes of these control and treatment groups in 2011.

Exposure to PAPI helped improve almost all aspects of governance; however, significant evidence of prioritization bias exist. The positive effects only persisted for the dimension of administrative procedures, which was the one area of governance that was prioritized by the central government at the time. Other dimensions only registered short-term effects.

Our study provides an examination of the impact of SPAs in a single-party regime context. In addition, the authors leverage the natural experiment to identify information effects causally. The authors also look past short-term effects to compare outcomes for five years after the treatment occurred.

Shipping is a major source of air pollution, causing severe impacts on the environment and human health, greatly contributing to the creation of greenhouse gases and influencing climate change. The research was investigated to provide a better insight into the emission inventories in the Red River in Hanoi (Vietnam) that is often heavily occupied as the primary route for inner-city waterway traffic.

The total emissions of seven different pollutants (PM₁₀, PM_2.5, SO_x, CO, CO₂, NO_x and HC) were estimated using the SPD-GIZ emission calculation model.

The results show that CO₂ has the most significant contribution to the gas volume emitted: 103.21 tons/day. Remarkably, bulk carriers are the largest emission vehicle, accounting for more than 97% of total emissions, due to their superior number and large capacity.

The result to have a roadmap for making efforts to fulfil its commitment so that it could achieve its net-zero climate target by 2050 in Vietnam as committed at COP26.

In this research, the number of vehicles and types of vessels travelling on the Red River flowing within Hanoi territory and other activity data are reported. The tally data will be used to estimate emissions of seven different pollutants (PM₁₀, PM_2.5, SO_x, CO, CO₂, NO_x and HC) using a method combining both top-down and bottom-up approaches.