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This study aims to examine the impact of market competition, and capital regulation on the cost of financial intermediation of banks of the Bangladesh banking industry.

This study has used a balanced panel dataset comprised of 340 firm-year observations for 34 commercial banks in the Bangladesh banking industry from 2011 to 2020. The Prais Winsten panel estimator has been used to assess the impact of market competition and capital regulation on the cost of financial intermediation of banks.

Based on the regression results, this study has documented that greater market competition results in a lower cost of financial intermediation for banks. Similarly, an increase in the regulatory capital of banks increases the cost of financial intermediation of banks. The main findings of this study are found robust by using alternative proxies for the cost of financial intermediation, market competition and capital regulation. The regression results also suggest that private commercial banks tend to have a higher cost of financial intermediation than state-owned commercial banks.

The regulatory reforms should aim to foster sustainable and optimal market competition for the Bangladesh banking industry to regulate the market power of banks to reduce the cost of financial intermediation. The regulatory authority of Bangladesh should find the optimal policy measures for implementing the capital regulation in the banking industry which would reduce the cost of financial intermediation margin of banks.

Unlike previous studies which have used structural market competition measures, this study has used non-structural market competition measures to assess the relationship between market competition and cost of financial intermediation in the Bangladesh banking industry.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and stock prices during the period from March 2003 to March 2021.

The study uses asymmetric and symmetric frequency domain causality tests and focuses on BRIC countries, namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The findings of the symmetric causality test confirm unidirectional permanent causality from EPU to stock prices for Brazil and India and bidirectional causality for China. However, according to the asymmetric causality test, the findings for China show that there is no causality between the variables. The results for Brazil and India indicate that there is unidirectional permanent causality from positive components of EPU to positive components of stock prices. Moreover, for Brazil, there is unidirectional temporary causality from the negative components of EPU to the negative components of stock prices. For India, there is temporary causality in the opposite direction.

The reactions of financial markets to positive and negative shocks differ. In this context, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine the causal relationships between stock prices and uncertainty using an asymmetric frequency domain approach. Thus, the study enables the analysis of the effects of positive and negative shocks in the stock market separately.

This paper aims to examine the existence of the ripple effect from Amsterdam to the housing markets of other regions in The Netherlands. It identifies which regional housing markets are influenced by house price movements in Amsterdam.

The paper considers the ripple effect as a lead-lag effect and a long-run convergence between the Amsterdam and regional house prices. Using the real house prices for second-hand owner-occupied dwellings from 1995q1 to 2016q2, the paper adopts the Toda–Yamamoto Granger Causality approach to study the lead-lag effects. It uses the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL)-Bounds cointegration techniques to examine the long-run convergence between the regional and the Amsterdam house prices. The paper controls for house price fundamentals to eliminate possible confounding effects of common shocks.

The cumulative evidence suggests that Amsterdam house prices have influence on (or ripple to) all the Dutch regions, except one. In particular, the Granger Causality test concludes that a lead-lag effect of house prices exists from Amsterdam to all the regions, apart from Zeeland. The cointegration test shows evidence of a long-convergence between Amsterdam house prices and six regions: Friesland, Groningen, Limburg, Overijssel, Utrecht and Zuid-Holland.

The paper adopts an econometric approach to examine the Amsterdam ripple effect. More sophisticated economic models that consider the asymmetric properties of house prices and the patterns of interregional socio-economic activities into the modelling approach are recommended for further investigation.

This paper focuses on The Netherlands for which the ripple effect has not yet been researched to the authors’ knowledge. Given the substantial wealth effects associated with house price changes that may shape economic activity through consumption, evidence for ripples may be helpful to policy makers for uncovering trends that have implications for the entire economy. Moreover, the analysis controls for common house price fundamentals which most previous papers ignored.

The objective of the paper is to investigate the relationship between financial risk and the value of the company. In this context, the study is to revisit the trade-off theory of capital structure in the Indian context.

After applying outlier, the study considered 389 nonfinancial companies from BSE500 from 2001 to 2018 collected from the Capitaline database. The statistical package E-views 10 has been utilized for analysis. To understand the nature of the data the descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, normality, unit root, multi-collinearity and Heteroskedasticity were conducted. The Panel Estimated Generalised Least Square with cross-section weight was found suitable for analysis due to the existence of cross-correlated residuals. Further, the study has classified the levels of financial risk to determine the relationship of different levels of financial risk with corporate value.

It was found that the financial risk and corporate value had a significant negative relation during the period of study. On class interval-wise financial risk analysis, it was found that the debt-equity (DE) of around 1:1 may be considered optimal. Below that threshold limit, the DE affects value positively above which the ratio affects the value negatively.

The paper makes an attempt to determine the optimal financial risk at the corporate level in the Indian context.

As climate change shocks and stresses increasingly affect urban areas in developing countries, resilience is imperative for the purposes of preparation, recovery and adaptation. This study aims to investigate demographic characteristics and social networks that influence the household capacity to prepare, recover and adapt when faced with prolonged droughts or erratic rainfall events in Mbale municipality in Eastern Uganda.

A cross-sectional research design was used to elicit subjective opinions. Previous studies indicate the importance of subjective approaches for measuring social resilience but their use has not been well explored in the context of quantifying urban resilience to climate change shocks and stresses. This study uses 389 structured household interviews to capture demographic characteristics, social networks and resilience capacities. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analysis.

The ability of low-income households to meet their daily expenditure needs, household size, and networks with relatives and non government organizations (NGOs) were significant determinants of preparedness, recovery and adaptation to prolonged droughts or erratic rainfall events.

The results imply that policymakers and practitioners have an important role vis-à-vis encouraging activities that boost the ability of households to meet their daily expenditure needs, promoting small household size and reinforcing social networks that enhance household resilience.

Even the low-income households are substantially more likely to prepare for and recover from prolonged droughts or erratic rainfall events if they can meet their daily expenditure needs. This finding is noteworthy because the poorest in society are generally the most vulnerable to hazards.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of the 2008 and 2020 economic crises on employment in Spain.

The authors perform a counterfactual analysis, combining intervention (interrupted time series) analysis and conditional forecasting to estimate a “crisis-free” scenario. These counterfactual estimates are used as a synthetic control, to be compared with the observed values of the main variables of the Spanish Labor Force Survey (EPA).

The authors measure the effect on Spanish employment of the 2008 recession and the ongoing COVID/Ukraine crisis and the speed of recovery, which yields a rigorous dating for the beginning and end of the crises studied. Finally, the authors provide estimates about which part of the employed and unemployed people was in furlough (ERTE) based on microdata provided by the Spanish Institute of Statistics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no counterfactual studies covering all the basic variables in EPA and no estimates for the effect of ERTEs on the basic employment variables. Finally, the authors combine well-known intervention and forecasting techniques into an integrated framework to assess the effects of both, past and ongoing crises.

Emissions produced by oceangoing vessels not only negatively affect the environment but also may deteriorate health of living organisms. Several regulations were released by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to alleviate negative externalities from maritime transportation. Certain polluted areas were designated as “Emission Control Areas” (ECAs). However, IMO did not enforce any restrictions on the actual quantity of emissions that could be produced within ECAs. This paper aims to perform a comprehensive assessment of advantages and disadvantages from introducing restrictions on the emissions produced within ECAs. Two mixed-integer non-linear mathematical programs are presented to model the existing IMO regulations and an alternative policy, which along with the established IMO requirements also enforces restrictions on the quantity of emissions produced within ECAs. A set of linearization techniques are applied to linearize both models, which are further solved using the dynamic secant approximation procedure. Numerical experiments demonstrate that introduction of emission restrictions within ECAs can significantly reduce pollution levels but may incur increasing route service cost for the liner shipping company.

Two mixed-integer non-linear mathematical programs are presented to model the existing IMO regulations and an alternative policy, which along with the established IMO requirements also enforces restrictions on the quantity of emissions produced within ECAs. A set of linearization techniques are applied to linearize both models, which are further solved using the dynamic secant approximation procedure.

Numerical experiments were conducted for the French Asia Line 3 route, served by CMA CGM liner shipping company and passing through ECAs with sulfur oxide control. It was found that introduction of emission restrictions reduced the quantity of sulfur dioxide emissions produced by 40.4 per cent. In the meantime, emission restrictions required the liner shipping company to decrease the vessel sailing speed not only at voyage legs within ECAs but also at the adjacent voyage legs, which increased the total vessel turnaround time and in turn increased the total route service cost by 7.8 per cent.

This study does not capture uncertainty in liner shipping operations.

The developed mathematical model can serve as an efficient practical tool for liner shipping companies in developing green vessel schedules, enhancing energy efficiency and improving environmental sustainability.

Researchers and practitioners seek for new mathematical models and environmental policies that may alleviate pollution from oceangoing vessels and improve energy efficiency. This study proposes two novel mathematical models for the green vessel scheduling problem in a liner shipping route with ECAs. The first model is based on the existing IMO regulations, whereas the second one along with the established IMO requirements enforces emission restrictions within ECAs. Extensive numerical experiments are performed to assess advantages and disadvantages from introducing emission restrictions within ECAs.

This paper aims to shed light on an impact of Google keywords on the number of new businesses (and an amount of capital registered) in Vietnam, the Southeast Asian country, after the year of an entrepreneur, 2016.

This study uses a rich set of quantitative techniques from VAR Granger and threshold regression. The whole sample period covers the data (keywords, number of new businesses, an amount of capital invested to register) from the first week of 2016 to October 2018, which includes 144 observations in total.

The findings suggest that the relationship between Google does not persist in the long run. There is a short-run shock, might cause a change to the frequency of the other keywords rather than the number of firms (or an amount of capital). However, under the number of firms’ threshold, keywords have the both positive and negative impacts on entrepreneurs whereas a higher threshold of capital, keywords show their roles to predict an amount of money for registering firms.

The Vietnamese Government and executives are advised to consider the Google keywords “entrepreneur” (in Vietnamese) and “start-up”, which cause a decline in entrepreneurial movements. In addition, the current period is going to inverse from the previous one in terms of the number of firms and an amount of capital. Finally, there are two critical thresholds: 1,602 companies and 35,010m VND for the keywords' influence.

This study contributes empirical evidence of technological change and entrepreneurship and contributes to the existing literature by discussing how this relationship under the threshold.