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Reducing and eradicating global poverty features as a primary objective of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030. Since over half a century, the World Bank has disbursed loans amounting to billions of US dollars to assist countries to alleviate poverty. However, the path to zero poverty is often impaired with conflicts, social unrest and, most commonly, economic crisis. In this chapter, we examine the inter-linkage between various forms of economic crises, poverty and government expenditure for a set of 127 countries from 1985 to 2010. Using a simultaneous equation model, we test the direct effect of a financial crisis on the incidence of poverty and its indirect effect through the immediate decrease in government expenditure. Contrary to previous studies, our findings suggest that crises have no direct impact on poverty. We find a similar effect for currency, inflation and debt crisis. However, there is evidence that poverty increases indirectly due to a fall in government expenditure. Our results are robust for non-advanced and advanced economies and alternate estimation technique using factor analysis.

This study aims to examine the relationship between Achievement Motivation (AM), Smart Work (SW), and human resources (HR) performance. It questions how moral global leadership (MGL) could moderate the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance. A theoretical model was developed and tested on sample data representing 219 employees, educators, and educational staff of Islamic Higher education (IHE). The data were collected through surveys and applied to structural equation modeling using SEM-PLS. This study found that AM and SW significantly affect HR performance. While MGL substantially moderates the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance. This study contributes to the literature on MGL, AM, and SW in creating HR performance that has yet to be studied so far. This study offers the concept of MGL, which plays a central role in moderating the relationship between AM, SW, and HR performance.

The world has witnessed rapid changes as far as growth and convergence of economies are concerned. Over the past decades, many less-developed or developing economies have been catching up with the industrialized economies; a few have even surpassed them, as far as growth is concerned. Also there have seen emergence of new economic powers in the world, where growth rates of these upcoming economies have not only converged with that of developed economies, but have gone ahead of them as well. In this chapter, by the help of beta convergence and sigma convergence, an attempt has been taken to find out the nature and causes of convergence among few developed and developing economies in the last three decades, that is, after 1990, which also covers the period of post-globalization in these developing nations. Main concerned variables are Per-capita GDP, Life expectancy at birth and Foreign Direct Investment. Such analysis would help to find how far globalization has been effective or helpful to the developing economies, as far as catching up with developed economies is concerned. The results suggest that in the post-globalization era, nations have been converging both absolutely as well as conditionally and the variance is also diminishing, which indicates the presence of sigma convergence as well.

Gender equality and women empowerment which are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals have attracted researchers and policymakers worldwide. Various programmes and interventions aiming at empowerment have been designed and implemented by both national and international agencies. One of the flagship programmes of NABARD introduced in the year 1992, the self-help group (SHG)–bank linkage model is also known for its impact on the availability of credit and empowerment of women. Later, the SGSY scheme was restructured into the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in the year 2013. Initially, SHGs focussed on savings and credit linkage, but now the emphasis has been changed to generate livelihoods and economically empowering women on a sustainable basis through training women to establish micro-enterprises. In this facet, the journey of microfinance in empowering women is systematically analyzed. The state of Haryana has consistently outperformed other states in terms of economic and agricultural growth but it ranks poorly in terms of its key human development indicators. Despite high productivity and low poverty, the state faces challenges related to the health and nutrition of children. Literature provides evidence that the health and nutrition status of children and women is closely linked to women empowerment. Using secondary sources of data, we conclude that micro-finance can be a useful tool for empowering women provided the roadblocks are identified and the requisite support is provided to women entrepreneurs.

Purpose: The connection between insurance and the degree of economic development of countries has been long studied in the literature, being argued that they are potentiating each other. Against this background, the objective of this chapter is to appraise the way in which the insurance activity, overall, and, distinctively, considering only the life insurance field, is interconnected with the economic development of the European Union (EU) Member States.

Method: In order to assess the insurance development, we considered the insurance density and penetration degree indicators (total and life insurance), and, for the wellbeing dimension, we applied the Human Development Index (HDI), associated with other economic indicators. The research methodology consists of an advanced econometric procedure, namely macroeconometric models – robust regression, for the period 2007–2019.

Findings: The results obtained highlight significant positive associations between insurance development and wellbeing at the level of EU countries.

Originality and Significance of Findings: This research considers an integrative indicator that measures the wellbeing dimension, including the human factor (HDI), in addition to the economic development degree, that has not been addressed so far in the literature, which reveals the originality of this study. Thereby, adjusted policies and strategies developed to sustain the main components of HDI (education, life expectancy and living standards) became paramount keystones in order to promote insurance development.

The chapter points to the interactive nature of the different aspects of sustainability of development and investigates the interrelations among the various facets of development or sustainability. It further makes deeper analysis of the dynamic relations among human development, the natural environment, and economic growth. Using simultaneous equation econometric models for 1990–2019 in a cross section of 110 countries, it observes that economic growth in terms of growth of per capita national income is important for both human development as well as for environmental conservation and protection. For environmental sustainability it is thus both growth policy and direct environmental policies relating to protecting human health and health of the ecosystem would be of prime importance.

We investigate in this paper whether income growth has played any role on inequality in all nine young South American democracies during the 1970–2007 period.

Given the nature of our dataset, the methodology is based on dynamic panel time-series analysis.

The results suggest that income growth has played a progressive role in reducing inequality during the period. Moreover, the results suggest that this negative relationship is stronger in the 1990s and early 2000s, a period in which the continent achieved macroeconomic stabilization, political consolidation, and much improved economic performance. On the contrary, during the 1980s (the so-called “lost decade”), the negative income growth experienced by the continent at the time has hit the poor the hardest (the poor usually are the ones to lose their jobs first in recessions), which has consequently led to an increase in inequality.

All in all, we suggest that consistent growth, and all that it encompasses, is an important equalizer that affects the poorer progressively and it should not be discarded as a plausible option by policy makers interested in a more equal income distribution.

School Operational Assistance Fund (SOAF), provided by the government and an increase in Regional Gross Domestic Product (RGDP), should increase public interest in education and reduce dropout rates. However, in some cases, it was found that the increase in RGDP and the promulgation of policies related to school tuition assistance did not reduce the decline in the number of students dropping out. Education itself is one of the driving economic growth factors, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia. This chapter aims to determine whether school grant programs and RGDP impact students who drop out. Our evidence presents a negative correlation between SOAF and dropout, and there is no significant effect. This study for knowledge implies that the student aid program's implementation system has not yet reached its best state, so the program will not significantly impact education. In the PDRB analysis, increasing economic growth does not necessarily improve education. The implication in practice shows the importance of planning, monitoring, and evaluating government plans, especially plans related to the carrying capacity of a country's economic growth in the short and long term.

Vietnam is a land that has seen turbulent past and has faced huge damage as being a land for proxy war between the USA and the USSR, but yet it has risen and liberated itself out by adapting renovation or Doi-Moi as it is formally called in Vietnam. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the major impact of trade liberalization and trade integration on the Vietnamese economy. Through this chapter we have tried to bring out the changes that took place in the Vietnamese economy post liberalization. The structural change that took place in the Vietnamese economy due to liberalization is analyzed in this chapter. We have used paired sample T-test and Chow Test (F-Test) to observe the change as Vietnam joined the WTO. The effect that the various policy and FTA that Vietnam had after joining the WTO will be analyzed through this chapter.

With economic reforms increasing market competition, greater efficiency and productivity of factors of production, particularly of the workforce, have become important prerequisites for firms' growth and survival. Consequently, designing appropriate strategies to motivate the workforce in this direction appears as a critical aspect of human resource management. However, an important issue is if increase in wages, salaries, and other benefits can necessarily result in the desired outcomes. This chapter will examine this aspect. Estimating long-term trends in share of wages, salaries, and total emoluments in major industries, it is found that while the share of wages, salaries, and total emoluments has increased in recent years, such changes are not reflected in higher productivity. It is, therefore, suggested that, in addition to higher wages, salaries, and other benefits, enhancing efficiency and productivity of human resources requires adequate emphasis on human aspects as well.