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This chapter examines the influence of external public borrowing resources on economic progress in Tunisia. The study focuses on two stages: First, the influence is studied in a direct sense and then in an indirect sense, i.e., through a transmission channel of this influence. By applying the autoregressive distributed technique with staggered lags (ARDL), over a period ranging from 1986 to 2019, the results showed that the influence of external borrowing resources on growth seems to be unfavorable in the short term but positive in the long term, hence the importance of the empirical technique chosen. Second, three interaction variables were tested, namely total government expenditure, government investment expenditure, and the real effective exchange rate. The results obtained call for better attention to the channels identified to maximize the positive influence of external public debt on the country's economic progress.

We investigate the role of fiscal policy, through several measures of government revenues and expenditures and redistribution, on disposable and market income inequality and economic growth as well as the interaction between inequality and growth for 31 European countries from 1995 to 2019.

We use a simultaneous equations model to assess the linkage between economic growth, inequalities and fiscal policy variables.

(1) While disposable income inequality has a negative effect on all fiscal policy variables, market income inequality has a mixed effects; (2) for Eastern European countries, public consumption and direct taxation positively influence economic growth; conversely, for Western European countries, the effects are negative; (3) disposable and market income inequality have a positive effect on growth for Eastern European countries, and a negative influence on growth for Western European countries; (4) growth contributes to the increase of disposable and market income inequality for Eastern European countries; for Western European countries, the effects are opposite; and (5) fiscal policy allows for the attenuation of disposable income inequality.

The different results between the role of market and disposable income inequality levels lead us to suggest tax progressivity as an important feature to consider when analyse the trivariate relationship between inequalities, fiscal policy and growth. Furthermore, there are different dynamics between inequality and growth, and the role of fiscal policy, on both Eastern and Western European countries.

This paper aims to explore the interplay between industrial diversity and sustainable economic development in US counties.

Among other popularly used measures, this study uses an underused measure, Hachman index, to gauge the degree of industrial diversity in the models. To capture the impact of industrial diversity on the local community, this study estimates the relationship of two diversity measures to four traditional socioeconomic indicators: per capita personal income growth, gross domestic product per worker, income inequality ratio and poverty rate.

Statistical results suggest that industrial diversity, which is measured by Hachman index, is significantly related to the four socio-economic indicators. Industrial diversity can positively contribute to regional per capita personal income growth and mitigate income inequality and poverty stress; however, it is negatively related to the gross domestic product (GDP) per worker, which means industrial specialization may contribute to GDP per worker growth.

The findings of this study show that there is a nonlinear relationship between industrial diversity and all socioeconomic indicators. Most of the control variables, human capital variables and business and industry profile variables also display significant and positive impacts on economic development.

Education had proven to be one of the main determinants of economic growth, and it is a reason of the variations in economic growth levels between developed and developing countries. One of the main dimensions in studding the relationship between economic growth and education is the gender dimension or the importance of gender equality or female education in achieving economic growth. This chapter aims to test the hypothesis of the existence of a positive relationship between female education and economic growth in Egypt since 1990.

To address this question, Auto Regression Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound test approach is conducted to analyze the co-integration between female education and economic growth using Egyptian Data for the period 1990–2022. The Empirical analysis for Egypt suggests the existence of positive significant relationship both in the short run and long run and that the impact of female education on economic growth is larger than the impact of education in general on growth. This could be explained by the existence of gender gap in Egypt, labor market, and thus, more educated girls able to enter the labor market will affect the economic growth more than the education of both sexes, in other words, there is still a room for improvement in the female labor market opportunities than for both sexes. The chapter also confirms the existence of a direct link between education in general and economic growth and thus confirms the hypothesis of the positive impact of education economic growth.

The paper aims to investigate the relationship between institutions and economic growth in developing countries, considering the role of financial inclusion, education spending and military spending.

The study employs dynamic panel analysis, specifically two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM), on a sample of 61 developing countries over the period 2009–2020.

The results confirm that weak institutional quality, weak financial inclusion and increased military spending are barriers to economic growth, conversely, increased spending on education and gross capital formation contribute to economic growth in developing countries. Regarding the specific institutional factor, we find that corruption, ineffective government, voice and accountability and weak rule of law contribute negatively to growth.

The study calls for strengthening institutions so that the financial system supports economic growth and suggests increasing spending on education to improve access to and the quality of human capital, which is an important determinant of economic growth.

The study contributes to scarce literature by empirically analyzing the relationship between institutions and economic growth by considering the role of financial inclusion, public spending on education and military spending, factors that have been ignored in previous studies. In addition, the study identifies the institutional dimension that contributes to reduced economic growth in developing countries.

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting urban economic development in emerging economic market countries and to provide a new research perspective on urban skyscraper construction.

An empirical analysis based on a difference-in-differences (DID) model is conducted using data of urban data in China that expand into developed markets from 2003 to 2018.

The results of the spatial heterogeneity test indicate that the construction of skyscrapers has a significant promotional effect on the eastern city's economy. In contrast, it has a significant inhibitory effect in the central and western regions. Further findings demonstrate that the construction of skyscrapers can influence urban economic development by promoting industrial agglomeration, especially when the transmission effect of the diversified accumulation of tertiary industry is more prominent. The expansion analysis shows that skyscrapers have increased the level of trade in the city, and the impact on trade has an optimal height.

This paper focuses on the economic and trade effects of skyscrapers, and the optimal height of skyscrapers needs to be discussed in more depth, which is also the next problem the researchers need to study.

The government should attach importance to and promote the construction of urban skyscrapers, and do a good job in overall planning and design. The city should formulate preferential policies in land, taxation, finance, system and other aspects to increase support for urban skyscraper construction and promote local economic development.

This study focuses on the impact of urban skyscraper construction on the economic and trade development of cities in developing countries, which not only complements the relevant research on the economic effects of urban skyscraper construction, but also helps to provide reference for the sustainable development of urbanization in many developing countries.

Government spending plays a crucial role in fiscal policy in any country, both as a tool for implementing individual government policies and as a possible instrument for mitigating uneven economic developments and economic shocks. This chapter provides direct empirical evidence on the development and structure of general government expenditure and its relationship with real economic growth in Czechia and the European Union countries. Compared to theoretical recommendations, general government expenditure has not been used as a stabiliser in Czechia and EU countries and has been observed to be pro-cyclical in the period under review. Granger causality analysis identified the direction of causality between the macroeconomic variables analysed and found that in most cases economic growth came first, followed by government spending.

This chapter explores the influence of the banking and insurance sectors on the economic growth of Czechia, a nation with unique financial dynamics ideal for this study. Our aim is to ascertain the contribution of these financial institutions to economic growth, addressing the divergence in empirical findings that have marked this research area for decades. We scrutinise the impact of various factors, including sectoral development and the efficiency and stability of these institutions, all within the Czech context. Utilising the Granger causality test, we assess the role of several indicators related to the development of the banking and insurance sectors. Our findings reveal that in Czechia, the evolution and operational efficiency of these financial institutions significantly drive economic growth. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the role these sectors play in the Czech economic landscape, affirming their crucial contribution to the nation's economic prosperity.

This paper analyzes the effect of institutional quality and economic freedom on investment and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Focusing on a panel of 27 countries, the study employed the panel fixed and random effect models to analyze data spanning from 2005 to 2018. The study also employed the Wu–Hausman test to determine if the endogeneity problem exists in the model.

The findings of the study show that individually, an improvement in economic freedom stimulates economic growth while the improvement in institutional quality is effective in spurring investment. However, the interaction effect of improvement in institutional quality and economic freedom is the stimulation of both investment and economic growth. The findings are robust to alternative model specifications.

The study implies that for SSA countries to effectively achieve higher investment and economic growth outcomes, there is the need to simultaneously strengthen institutional quality and improve economic freedom. Focusing on either of the factors without the other leads to less desirable growth and investment outcomes.

The study examined the combined influence of institutional quality and economic freedom on investment and growth in SSA. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has investigated this in the context of SSA.

Emerging economies have been highlighted as an important growth source of the global economy. However, this group of countries has not received enough academic attention yet. Therefore, this study aims to identify the impact of research and development (R&D) expenditure on economic growth in emerging economies.

The theoretical framework of the production function is applied to quantitatively analyse the impact of R&D expenditure on economic growth with a sample of 29 emerging economies in the period between 1996 and 2019.

The panel cointegration test confirms the existence of long-run cointegration relationships between economic growth and independent variables in these emerging economies. Besides, the estimated results show that the national R&D expenditure has positive effects on economic growth from both direct and interaction dimensions. This evidence has filled the empirical research gap in the R&D-growth nexus in the case of emerging economies. Finally, while gross capital and education have positive impacts on growth, corruption has a harmful effect on economic growth in these countries.

The results highlight that policymakers should enhance R&D expenditure and R&D activities as the key national development strategy. The investment in R&D not only helps emerging economies avoid the middle-income trap but also pushes these countries to successfully join the group of developed countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to examine the impact of R&D expenditure on economic growth with a homogeneous sample of emerging economies. The results are obviously helpful for policymakers to use R&D as the key development strategy for supporting economic growth in emerging economies in the future.