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This paper examines the moderating effect of good corporate governance on the association between internal information quality and tax savings.

This study uses a quantitative approach. It employs an Australian sample of analysis composed of 1,295 firm-year observations from the period 2017 to 2021. Data relating to corporate governance are hand-collected from the annual reports.

Based on the result of the analysis, this study demonstrates that the interaction between corporate governance and quality of internal information is positively associated with tax savings. Superior corporate governance is critical in activating the effect of internal information quality on tax savings. This finding is robust to a battery of robustness checks and additional tests.

This examination utilizes only publicly traded companies from one developed country.

For the company management, an effective governance structure must be at the top because it will determine the development of all other areas. This study emphasizes the need to continuously improve the effectiveness of corporate governance practices. For long-term investors, an important indicator that can be considered in assessing the “safety” of a company’s tax strategy is its corporate governance aspects. For regulators, this study is expected to assist regulators in creating a more adequate corporate governance implementation and disclosure package to be implemented by corporations in the future.

This study provides new evidence on a crucial construct that can strengthen the relationship between internal information quality and tax savings.

This purpose of this paper is to address the problem of reducing energy consumption in existing buildings using advanced noninvasive interventions (NVIs).

The study methodology involves systematically developing and testing 18 different NVIs in six categories (glazing types, window films, external shading devices, automated internal shades, lighting systems and nanopainting) to identify the most effective individual NVIs. The impact of each individual NVI was examined on an exemplary university educational building in a hot climate zone in Egypt using a computational energy simulation tool, and the results were used to develop 39 combination scenarios of dual, triple and quadruple combinations of NVIs.

The optimal 10 combination scenarios of NVIs were determined based on achieving the highest percentages of energy reduction. The optimal percentage of energy reduction is 47.1%, and it was obtained from a combination of nanowindow film, nanopainting, LED lighting and horizontal louver external. The study found that appropriate mixture of NVIs is the most key factor in achieving the highest percentages of energy reduction.

These results have important implications for optimizing energy savings in existing buildings. The results can guide architects, owners and policymakers in selecting the most appropriate interventions in existing buildings to achieve the optimal reduction in energy consumption.

The novelty of this research unfolds in two significant ways: first, through the exploration of the potential effects arising from the integration of advanced NVIs into existing building facades. Second, it lies in the systematic development of a series of scenarios that amalgamate these NVIs, thereby pinpointing the most efficient strategies to optimize energy savings, all without necessitating any disruptive alterations to the existing building structure. These combination scenarios encompass the incorporation of both passive and active NVIs. The potential application of these diverse scenarios to a real-life case study is presented to underscore the substantial impact that these advanced NVIs can have on the energy performance of the building.

Disruptions at ports may destroy the planned ship schedules profoundly, which is an imperative operation problem that shipping companies need to overcome. This paper attempts to help shipping companies cope with port disruptions through recovery scheduling.

This paper studies the ship coping strategies for the port disruptions caused by severe weather. A novel mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is proposed to solve the ship schedule recovery problem (SSRP). A distributionally robust mean conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) optimization model was constructed to handle the SSRP with port disruption uncertainties, for which we derive tractable counterparts under the polyhedral ambiguity sets.

The results show that the size of ambiguity set, confidence level and risk-aversion parameter can significantly affect the optimal values, decision-makers should choose a reasonable parameter combination. Besides, sailing speed adjustment and handling rate adjustment are effective strategies in SSRP but may not be sufficient to recover the schedule; therefore, port skipping and swapping are necessary when multiple or longer disruptions occur at ports.

Since the port disruption is difficult to forecast, we attempt to take the uncertainties into account to achieve more meaningful results. To the best of our knowledge, there is barely a research study focusing on the uncertain port disruptions in the SSRP. Moreover, this is the first paper that applies distributionally robust optimization (DRO) to deal with uncertain port disruptions through the equivalent counterpart of DRO with polyhedral ambiguity set, in which a robust mean-CVaR optimization formulation is adopted as the objective function for a trade-off between the expected total costs and the risk.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the long-run and short-run drivers of real house prices in Nigeria from 1991Q1 to 2020Q4.

Vector autoregression and cointegration tests were used to assess the key drivers of Nigeria’s real house prices in the long run and short run.

The empirical findings revealed that household disposable income is the most important determinant of house prices in Nigeria. House prices increased by 1.6% and 60.8% in response to a 1% increase in disposable income in the long run and short run, respectively, while real mortgage credits pushed up house prices by 5% and have no long-run effects, suggesting that most Nigerians depend on their money income rather than credits in securing a home. In addition, prices of oil sector products and real interest rates had negative and significant relationship with house prices, while positive correlations were found for real effective exchange rate and real housing investments regardless of the time horizon. The impact of construction costs and cement prices was also documented.

This is likely a pioneering study of its kind to focus on the determinants of real house prices in Nigeria. It is probably the first study, the best of the author’s knowledge, to empirically examine the impact of the oil sector on house prices in the country.

The e-commerce boom presents new challenges for last-mile delivery (LMD), which may be mitigated by new delivery technologies. This paper evaluates the impact of mobile parcel lockers (MPL) on costs and CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e) emissions in existing LMD networks, which include home delivery and shipments to stationary parcel lockers.

To describe customers’ preferences, we design a multinomial logit model based on recipients’ travel distance to pick-up locations and availability at home. Based on route cost estimation, we define the operating costs for MPLs. We devise a mathematical model with binary decision variables to optimize the location of MPLs.

Our study demonstrates that integrating MPLs leads to additional cost savings of 8.7% and extra CO₂e emissions savings of up to 5.4%. Our analysis of several regional clusters suggests that MPLs yield benefits in highly populous cities but may result in additional emissions in more rural areas where recipients drive longer distances to pick-ups.

This paper designs a suitable operating model for MPLs and demonstrates environmental and economic savings. Moreover, it adds recipients’ availability at home to receive parcels improving the accuracy of stochastic demand. In addition, MPLs are evaluated in the context of several regional clusters ranging from large cities to rural areas. Thus, we provide managerial guidance to logistics service providers how and where to deploy MPLs.

The article addresses the optimization of safety stock service levels for parts in a repair kit. The work was undertaken to assist a public transit entity that stores thousands of parts used to repair equipment acquired over many decades. Demand is intermittent, procurement lead times are long, and the total inventory investment is significant.

Demand exists for repair kits, and a repair cannot start until all required parts are available. The cost model includes holding cost to carry the part being modeled as well as shortage cost that consists of the holding cost to carry all other repair kit parts for the duration of the part’s lead time. The model combines deterministic and stochastic approaches by assuming a fixed ordering cycle with Poisson demand.

The results show that optimal service levels vary as a function of repair demand rate, part lead time, and cost of the part as a percentage of the total part cost for the repair kit. Optimal service levels are higher for inexpensive parts and lower for expensive parts, although the precise levels are impacted by repair demand and part lead time.

The proposed model can impact society by improving the operational performance and efficiency of public transit systems, by ensuring that home repair technicians will be prepared for repair tasks, and by reducing the environmental impact of electronic waste consistent with the right-to-repair movement.

The optimization model is unique because (1) it quantifies shortage cost as the cost of unnecessary holding other parts in the repair kit during the shortage time, and (2) it determines a unique service level for each part in a repair kit bases on its lead time, its unit cost, and the total cost of all parts in the repair kit. Results will be counter-intuitive for many inventory managers who would assume that more critical parts should have higher service levels.

The paper proposes a two-level closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) dynamic competitive model based on different competitive cooperation situations, and explores the impact of competitive cooperation methods on the pricing strategies, recycling and remanufacturing strategies and competitive model selection strategies of supply chain firms.

This paper establishes a CLSC game consisting of a manufacturer and two retailers. Firstly, five CLSC models are established in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, each of which competes with one another. Secondly, the recycling and remanufacturing pricing strategies are analyzed under different competition or cooperation models. Finally, the results are verified through numerical analysis.

The overall profitability of the CLSC is highest when the manufacturer–retailer partnership alliance is in place. The relationship between retailers and manufacturers is also found to be the best way to achieve overall optimization of the CLSC.

The paper investigates the relationship between the competitive partnership and the total profit of the CLSC, taking into account how to optimize the overall benefit, and focusing on how to optimize the individual interests of each participating enterprise. The results can provide basis and guidance for managers' pricing decision and competition cooperation.

This article investigates the dynamic implication of healthcare expenditure on economic growth in the selected ten Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2018.

The study methodology included dynamic heterogenous panel, using mean group and pooled mean group estimators. The investigation of the healthcare expenditure and economic growth nexus was achieved while controlling the effects of investment, savings, labor force and life expectancy via interaction terms.

The results from linear healthcare expenditure have a significant positive impact on economic growth, while the nonlinear estimates through the interaction terms between healthcare expenditure and investment have a negative statistically significant impact on growth. The marginal effect of healthcare expenditure evaluated at the minimum and maximum level of investment is positive, suggesting the impact of health expenditure on growth does not vary with the level of investments. This result responds to the primary objective of the article.

In policy terms, the impact of investment on healthcare is essential to addressing future health crises. The impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can never be separated from the shortages or low prioritization of health against other sectors of the economy. The article also provides an insight to policymakers on the demand for policy reform that will boost and make the health sector attractive to both domestic and foreign direct investment.

Given the vulnerability of SSA to the health crisis, there are limited studies to examine this phenomenon and first to address the needed investment priorities to the health sector infrastructure in SSA.

This research studies the influence and mechanism of rearing cost and endowment insurance on family fertility desire from the micro perspective.

Through the construction of overlapping generations (OLG) model and on the basis of this research purpose, the research hypothesis proposed by the theoretical model is tested by using the data of China household tracking survey (CFPS).

(1) Endowment insurance has an inhibitory effect on family fertility desire. The marginal effects of participating in old-age insurance on total fertility desire and boy fertility desire are – 3.2% and – 3.6% respectively. (2) The cost of rearing has a significant negative impact on family fertility desire. (3) There is regional heterogeneity in the impact of endowment insurance and rearing cost on fertility desire. (4) There is no significant difference in the impact of endowment insurance on fertility desire between urban and rural areas.

This research tries to fill the gap existing in the international literature by analyzing the micro mechanism of the influence degree of upbringing cost on fertility desire by introducing the rearing cost and fertility rate into the OLG, providing a micro basis for relevant quantitative calculation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the application of sustainable building design and operation within a university setting to determine its economic efficacy and potential for further university investment.

This study incorporated a life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), simple payback period and discounted payback period calculations to determine the return on investment, including a sensitivity analysis when comparing the energy use and financial benefits of the sustainable design of a multi-use facility at Toronto Metropolitan University with buildings of similar size and use-type.

It was found that there is a positive business argument for Canadian Universities to consider the use of sustainable design to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A reasonable payback period and net present value within an institutional context were determined using a life-cycle cost assessment approach.

This study was limited to the measure of only a single location. Certain assumptions regarding energy pricing and interest rates and the related sensitivities were anchored on a single year of time, and the results of this study may be subject to change should those prices or rates become significantly different over time. Considerations for future research include a longitudinal approach combined with a more detailed analysis of the effect of use-type on the variables discussed.

For university administrators, the results of this study may encourage institutions such as universities to approach new building projects through the lens of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

GHG emissions are a well-proven contributor to global climate change, and buildings remain a significant source of GHG emissions in Canada due to their winter heating and summer cooling loads. As a result, sustainable building design on university campuses can mitigate this impact by optimizing and reducing energy consumption.

Research related to the economic evaluation of sustainable building design on university campuses is generally limited, and this study represents the first of its kind in regard to an LCCA of a sustainably designed building on a Canadian University campus.