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In July 2002 a new EC Preparations Directive came into force requiring suppliers of preparations to consider the environmental impact of their preparations. The environmental assessment can be made through consideration of the individual substances used in the preparation. A review of additives used in the formulation of metalworking fluids has highlighted that there are a number of substances that give cause for concern, especially surfactants or basefluids that are derivatives of C12‐15 or C13‐15 alcohols, such as ethoxylates, propoxylates and EO/PO copolymers. Some reformulation may be required in order to prevent preparations being classified either as; dangerous for the environment; or as very toxic/toxic/harmful to aquatic organisms; or as may cause long‐term adverse effects in the environment. The new directive will require suppliers of preparations to make available material safety data sheets for preparations classified as dangerous for the environment or for preparations containing at least one dangerous substance at a concentration of = >1 per cent. The new directive will also require suppliers to use new packaging labels for; preparations classified as dangerous for the environment; preparations containing at least one dangerous substance at a concentration of =>1 per cent; and for preparations containing =>0.1 per cent of a substance classified as a sensitiser.

A large number of systematic reviews (SRs) studies have been performed in the cloud computing field, demonstrating miscellaneous outcomes and utilizing different approaches. Accordingly, a meta-review of cloud SRs is needed to appraise the results of such studies and create an integrated understanding. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A tertiary study was conducted using a systematic method to analyze SRs including two stages: searching and screening the SRs and thematic synthesis of results. As a qualitative data management tool, Nvivo software was used to support the research process, for data coding and synthesis.

First, by searching electronic sources between the year of 2011–2016, out of a total of 142 identified articles, 94 articles were included according to pre-determined criteria, of which 76 articles were approved after qualitative evaluation. In the second stage, identifying the research themes, a map of the concepts and issues related to each theme was drawn up. The analysis shows that the quality of articles has improved but can be further enhanced using methodological guidelines as well as supporting tools. The research has focused more on the technical aspect, although there is an equal demand for synthesizing of cloud governance concepts.

This is the first tertiary study which presents the main research themes and concepts of cloud SRs in form of thematic maps by using the thematic synthesis and SR methods. This paper also provides some recommendations to improve reviews after evaluating the quality of papers. This study can support reviewers for future SRs in the field and also helps practitioners and managers to have a better understanding of different aspects of cloud computing.

This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between real estate and stock market of Pakistan.

The data of two real estate indices (house price index and plot price index) are taken for the Pakistan and its four big cities, i.e. Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Islamabad. It estimates the integration between series by applying the Johansen cointegration test. Moreover, the vector error correction model is applied to examine the short and long-run causal relationships between series.

The findings show that the real estate markets are cointegrated with the stock market. They imply that the real estate and stock markets are good substitutes in investment allocation, but investors cannot get the benefit of diversification by making a portfolio of real estate and stock markets in Pakistan. Moreover, the long-run causality is observed from majority house markets to the stock market, whereas short-run causality is evident from majority plot markets to the stock market. Hence, the real estate market leads the stock market in the short run and long run, suggesting the credit-price effect in the majority of real estate markets in Pakistan. These causality results are helpful for investors in the forecasting of real estate and stock markets in Pakistan.

The limitation of the study is the lower number of observations (107), because house and land prices are only available in monthly frequency from January 2011 in Pakistan.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no researcher has investigated the real estate and stock market nexus in Pakistan. Therefore, this study focuses on examining the relationship between the real estate and stock market of Pakistan. The link between real estate and stock markets will provide useful insights to the portfolio managers, real estate companies, property agents, stockbrokers and investors.

This paper study regional attractiveness through passive portfolio investment based on duration, immunization and convexity (in case of higher interest rate volatility) of municipal bonds by using data from Standard and Poor’s. The massive variety of financial incentives to promote regional investment attractiveness is dependent on governmental strategy. Municipal bonds are the one of the most efficient ways of direct investments in the region, however, it is still a question of a good balance between a certain rate of return and an adequate risk. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the investment opportunities in municipal revenue bonds.

This study developed a model of investing using municipal bonds with the case of their immunization and analyze attractiveness of such investment. The theoretical model assumes a situation where the local government finances its capital projects through municipal revenue bonds. Such situations influence strongly on regional or local competitiveness provided by local government policy.

An analysis of the municipal bond market indicates that both municipal general and revenue bonds had stable and good level of yields to maturity in the past ten years. Their standard deviations were very low and in the past two years almost approached the level of standard deviations of treasury bonds. With the duration of 4–6 years on 5-year investment in municipal revenue bonds and their immunization, it is possible to provide good returns for investor.

The limitation of this study concerns theoretical situation where local government will use non-market-based policy to reduce the interest rates and that will influence on rise of municipal bond liquidity premium (price distortion). This situation will make municipality bonds less attractive for investing, especially because of lower liquidity on secondary market. Also, this model is applicable in regions that have developed financial markets.

This research suggests governments a sustainable framework to use municipal bonds as a strategy for capital targeting in regions.

This research is related to professional investors’ strategy with projects that have the highest investment potential; this is good way for an adequate allocation of resources (regional competitiveness).

This paper analyzes very rare subject involving local government strategy of finance and portfolio investment in municipal bonds. There is a huge gap in the literature on this issue. Also, this study provides the model that can be used as a case for higher local competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a difference in the development of shopping lists and use of advertisements as pre-store food-buying practices in terms of planned shopping by South African consumers who dwell in different socio-economic status (SES) areas. The paper also considers the influence of shopper and socio-demographic characteristics on pre-store food-buying practices in a developing country.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 1 200 consumers in retail stores in low, middle and high SES areas in South Africa. A generalised linear model was employed for the statistical analysis of pre-store food-buying practices within the SES area groups in a developing country.

South African consumers that reside in high SES area displayed the largest of shopping list development, while consumers who dwell in low SES areas showed the highest incidence of advertisement usage. Several shopper and socio-demographic characteristics were also found to have an influence on pre-store food-buying practices in different SES areas in South Africa.

A qualitative approach would offer a deeper understanding of consumers’ pre-store food shopping predispositions as opposed to the quantitative approach, which was adopted for this study. A longitudinal design would also provide a more extensive representation of pre-store food shopping practices over a longer time frame than cross-sectional research. The survey was conducted on Saturdays, whereas consumers who shop during the week may have different shopping and socio-demographic characteristics.

Astute food brands, marketers and grocery stores could use the findings of this study to assist with their marketing efforts that they direct at consumers in different SES areas in South Africa and other developing countries.

The findings of this study may assist consumers in developing countries, especially those who reside in low SES areas, with food-buying strategies to reduce food costs, make wiser purchase decisions and reduce shopping.

No study (to the best of the researchers’ knowledge) has considered shopping list development and use of advertisements’ pre-store food-buying practices in different SES areas in a developing country. Furthermore, there is a dearth of research analysing shopper and socio-demographic characteristics in relation to pre-store food-buying practices among different SES areas in developing and developed countries.

This paper aims to assess the equilibrium house price in the city of Suva (Fiji) and to analyse the house price bubble in the Fiji housing market.

This paper adopts a time series approach to determine the presence of house price bubbles in Fiji over the period from 1988 to 2018.

The findings suggest that real income, land cost, building material price, inflation rate, volatility, household size and wealth have a positive impact on house prices, whereas user cost of capital and political disturbances have a negative impact. The findings further indicate that the Fijis’ housing market does not constitute any house price bubble.

This paper draws policy implications for a small developing state (Fiji) and other similar economies.

The price bubble in the Fiji housing market is analysed for the first time. This paper develops a comprehensive empirical approach to assess the equilibrium-housing price in Fiji.

With a newly developed measure of economic freedom across US local government jurisdictions, this paper aims to estimate the relationship between economic freedom and bond ratings.

The author uses a battery of cross-sectional econometric models to identify the impact that economic freedom might have on bond ratings using a sample of US municipal governments.

Overall, the results indicate that relatively more economic freedom within a local jurisdiction is associated with higher bond ratings and thus lower borrowing costs. However, similar to Roychoundhury and Lawson (2010), no specific subcomponent seems to affect bond ratings.

To the author’s knowledge this is the first scholarly work to address this topic at the local level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between fiscal federalism and accountability in Nigeria. Corruption is a global plague and is endemic in nature. Several policies have been adopted by the Nigerian Government to institutionalize accountability and combat the scourge of corruption that have hindered socio-economic progress but to no avail.

Thus, this study examined fiscal federalism and accountability issues in Nigeria using secondary data and used the auto-regressive distributed lag econometric technique to analyse the data.

The results from this study reveal that fiscal federalism fails to mitigate corruption in the long run in Nigeria because of poor bureaucratic quality (BQ) and ineffective law and order (LOR).

Fiscal decentralization must be accompanied by legislations that will strengthen BQ of fiscal institutions at subnational levels and promote effective LOR.

This study recommends that for fiscal federalism to mitigate corruption in the long run, government must adopt appropriate policies to improve BQ and further strengthen LOR in Nigeria. The finding also suggests that to promote public sector accountability in Nigeria, government should ensure the simultaneous decentralization of expenditure and revenue to lower tiers of government. This study provides detailed empirical evidence that fiscal decentralization without accountability will accentuate public sector corruption, and in the long run, weaken local economic development initiative to boost growth and development.

This study investigates the welfare impact of microfinance on rural households in Indonesia. Its finding will bridge the gap in the Indonesian microfinance literature.

The research was conducted by collecting primary data and administering a structured questionnaire to rural households in Bantul District, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. We employed the logistic model to measure welfare impacts of microcredit borrowers.

The research finds that purpose of loan, monthly income, monthly expenditure, interest rates, loan amount, education and marital status have significant effects on the probability of increasing borrowers' welfare after accessing microcredit.

This study will propose some policy recommendations for Indonesian policymakers that may yield better strategies to help improve the impact of their microcredit programmes on the welfare of rural households.

The authors confirm that the article has not been submitted to peer review, nor is in the process of peer reviewing and nor has been accepted for publishing in another journal. The author(s) confirms that the research in their work is original, and that all the data given in the article are real and authentic.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of bank financing on innovative development of Russian circumpolar area and identifying the barriers to its development.

Using the abstract-logical method and a set of methods of economic, statistical and econometric analysis (panel data analysis) the authors examine the role of financial intermediaries in innovative development of Russia and Russian arctic regions.

The key financial intermediaries in the Russian economy have historically been the banks, which are, at the same time, as it follows from the analysis above, inertly participating in the innovative development financing in the Russian circumpolar regions. Assessment of the potential intensification of the role of banks in the innovative ecosystems has shown that, despite the development of institutional conditions of banks’ resource base compounding and the development of funding, high risks of innovation, multiplying in a volatile external environment, prevent the inflow of bank capital into the innovation sector.

Main limitation is the inability of panel data to capture long-term impacts of bank financing on innovative development of Russian circumpolar area.

The results suggest that the intensification of the banks’ participation in financing innovation and overcoming the existing challenges will enable to stimulate the process of innovation development of the circumpolar zone in Russia.

There is no study evaluating the impact of bank financing on innovative development of Russian arctic regions.