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The study attempts to examine the impact of the US-China trade war on Vietnamese exports to the United States, which has consistently served as a key market for Vietnamese goods and services in recent decades. The heterogeneous effects of the trade war on different export sectors are also evaluated.

The secondary data on Vietnamese exports to the US at a 6-digit level is collected from UN Comtrade. Besides, the difference-in-differences (DiD) method is employed to analyze the impact of the trade war on exports from Vietnam to the United States.

The findings revealed a 14% increase in total Vietnamese exports to the United States due to the trade war. Examining heterogeneous effects, certain industries, such as plastics, iron or steel articles, textiles and garments, and machinery and mechanical appliances, experience significant benefits. However, the study did not identify statistically significant effects on other sectors, such as electrical machinery products, agricultural and forestry, and furniture.

The paper is one among limited studies considering the causal effects of the trade war on a developing country, accounting for the heterogeneous effects on different export sectors.

Drug trafficking in the tiny state of Manipur, located in the northeastern part of India bordering Myanmar, has drawn attention from all over the globe looking at the scale and varieties of drugs trafficked, ranging from plant-based opiates to synthetic-based amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). Moreover, drug trafficking in the region also comes with many socio-political dynamics such as high per-capita drug consumption, local drug manufacturing units, terror funding from drug money, politician–drug lord nexus, police–peddler nexus.

The study is based on data from the years 2007 to 2023 accessed from the Narcotics and Affairs of Borders, a specialized branch of Manipur Police, Government of Manipur. The study also tries to estimate the state’s drug economy using the Financial Action Task Force and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime methodology.

The study finds seizure of a massive cache of heroin/brown sugar, and ATS in the past 4–5 years. The study also finds large-scale destruction of poppy plants in the state. The study also finds a high percentage of ethnic minority communities involved in drug trafficking. The study found the value amounting to US$62m in 2022. The study also comes across low conviction rates of drug traffickers in the state.

The study emphasizes the need for expediting the War on Drugs campaign in the state curtailing poppy cultivation and conviction of drug lords so that the nerve center of terror funding in India’s eastern front is kept under control.

International investment law governs matters related to transnational investments. The extensive reach of transnational corporations (TNCs) has granted them substantial economic, political and social influence, often intertwining them with public interest issues and implications in human rights violations. This paper aims to explore the profound influence exerted by TNCs in today’s globalized world and its implications for human rights and social responsibility within the framework of international investment law. Particularly, it acknowledges the vulnerability of economically weak South Asian states and cites past instances such as the Bhopal gas tragedy in India and the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh as egregious violations of human rights. Focusing on South Asian bilateral investment treaties (BITs), this paper aims to examine the scope of investors’ social accountability.

This research engages with doctrinal and analytical methods in traversing through primary and secondary sources. It would parse the arbitral tribunals’ jurisprudence for their discussion on the inclusion of social accountability obligations within international investment agreements (IIAs). Further, it engages in a quantitative analysis related to the nature of the social accountability-related obligation of the corporation within South Asian BITs.

The findings reveal a glaring absence of the law on investors’ social accountability and the need for enhanced regulatory mechanisms to address the escalating influence of TNCs on human and social rights. The absence of a robust legal framework, coupled with the asymmetric nature of international investment law, granting investors greater rights and leverage compared to states, exacerbates this challenge. The phenomenon of “regulatory chill” inhibits states from effectively enforcing regulatory measures aimed at protecting human rights and the environment. Furthermore, the broad interpretation of clauses such as “fair and equitable treatment” by investment tribunals often undermines states’ ability to implement measures in the public interest. While international organizations such as the UNCTAD and the UNCITRAL Working Group III are actively discussing reforms to IIAs, the existing guidelines addressing investors’ social accountability are woefully lacking in the content as well as the method of their integration with international human rights law. The findings underscore the imperative for South Asian nations, the subject of this research’s empirical analysis, to adopt a comprehensive approach involving both domestic law reforms to promote corporate social accountability and active pursuit of negotiations for the inclusion of binding social obligations for investors within IIAs.

This research, drawing upon international law developments, offers suggestions for incorporation of social accountability provisions via relevant domestic law reform. The research could be viewed as a prelude for mapping the legal developments in the area of investors’ social accountability within investment agreements, as well as investment contracts, drawing guidance from international law instruments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study analysed the scope of investors’ social accountability in South Asian BITs.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of GST_efficiency of the Indian states to assist the policymakers, government and GST council to devise their policies and strategies to boost the GST_efficiency of the Indian states.

The analysis has used the panel data set of 27 Indian states and 3 UTs with a time span of 2017–18 to 2022–23. The study has used the Generalized Method of Moment regression for exploring the determinants of GST_efficiency of the state governments in India.

The findings depict that sectoral composition, inflation rate, financial development, state’s self-reliance, per capita income and gross fiscal deficit have a significant effect on GST_efficiency of the state governments. The findings support the Tanzi effect 1977 and claim that the rise in the inflation level erodes GST_efficiency of the state governments. The rise in the self-reliance of the state government will make the Indian states self-dependent and will reduce their reliance on central transfers.

The government should make efforts to make the Indian states self-reliant by increasing the share of OTR (Own Tax Revenue) instead of increasing their revenue efficiency in short-run through devolution and central transfers. Moreover, the Indian government should devise their macro-economic policies to curb the inflation level and gross fiscal deficit of the state governments in the country.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this may be the first study to explore the determinants of GST_efficiency of the state governments in India.

With the continuous deepening of China's mixed-ownership reform, the participants in the reform have gradually expanded from state-owned enterprises to private enterprises. Whether state-owned equity participation in private enterprises can facilitate the development of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in private enterprises is a question that needs urgent examination. This study aims to investigate the impact of state-owned equity participation on the ESG performance of private enterprises.

Using Chinese listed companies as the research sample, this study uses econometric methods such as multiple regression to analyze the relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Additionally, it explores the underlying mechanisms and influencing factors of this relationship.

There is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Mechanism analysis reveals that resource effects and governance effects play a mediating role in this nonlinear relationship. Furthermore, the authors find that environmental regulation and managers' attention to the environment positively moderate the relationship between state-owned equity participation and ESG performance.

A reasonable equity structure is crucial for enhancing corporate ESG performance. Moderate state-owned equity participation helps to leverage resource integration and governance advantages, which will assist private enterprises in maximizing ESG performance and achieving sustainable development.

In advancing the process of mixed-ownership reform, the government should maintain an appropriate proportion of state-owned equity to avoid excessive intervention in enterprise decision-making. At the same time, it should ensure that enterprises can genuinely undertake their social and environmental responsibilities while pursuing economic benefits. This is of great significance for promoting sustainable economic and social development.

This study integrates state-owned equity, ESG and nonlinear relationships into a single research framework. It explores the internal mechanisms and influencing factors of their relationship, overcoming the limitations of previous studies and provides a new perspective for understanding the impact of state-owned equity on corporate ESG performance.

The results of this study indicate that a likely reason why a negative relation between estimated implicit taxes and pretax returns is empirically observed is the researcher’s election to choose a zero tax rate as the benchmark state and local tax rate. Normally, an observed negative relation between estimated implicit taxes and pretax returns supports the hypothesis generated by implicit tax theory. This conclusion regarding the implicit tax hypothesis may be premature whenever the incidence of state and local income taxes contributes to this empirical finding. First, state income taxes, treated as a negative subsidy when the benchmark state and local tax rate is set at zero, will likely cause implicit taxes to be underestimated. Second, the observed relationship between estimated implicit taxes and pretax returns appears to be reversible depending upon the researcher’s election of a statutory tax rate that incorporates the selected benchmark state and local tax rate.

The present study uses a sample of 848 firms covering the years from 1989 through 1998 to show how the relation between estimated implicit taxes and pretax returns can be manipulated by the selection of the benchmark state and local tax rate. Since choosing an accurate benchmark state and local tax rate can be problematic, the present study suggests adjusting both estimated implicit taxes and pretax income by the amount of state and local income taxes incurred. The results, using the regression model making this adjustment, appear to nullify the negative bias of a zero tax rate as the benchmark state and local tax rate.

The purpose of this chapter is to develop criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model, determine the corresponding indicators, and offer the method of evaluation of the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model.

This research applies the methods of induction, deduction, structural and functional analysis, and graphical presentation of information.

Based on the peculiarities of the information economy’s optimization model, three main criteria of the effectiveness of state management while implementing this model are distinguished: flexibility of the normative and legal provision of information economy; balance of the level and rate of development of the noosphere components; and success of the protection, usage, and preservation of information’s uniqueness. To distinguish these criteria it is offered to evaluate the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model by progressive comparison of the sum of results with the sum of limitations and costs for each direction of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model, related to the provision of observation of the above criteria. The author determines the indicators that conform to the offered criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model systematized in connection to these criteria, and offers the formula for calculating the final indicator of the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model.

The offered criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model, the corresponding indicators, and the compiled methodology of evaluating the effectiveness of this process are recommended for usage as methodological provision of monitoring and control of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model.

This study aims to examine the connection between political culture and public sector corruption, using the typology of Daniel Elazar, whose model traces the types of political cultures to their origins in various regions of England. Similarly, the “resource curse” concept, generally treated as a national-level phenomenon, is examined to assess how it might vary among jurisdictions within a country.

Regression analysis was applied to data from the 50 states of the US. Public sector corruption in each state was operationalized as the number of convictions by the Public Integrity Section of the US Department of Justice in relation to the number of public sector employees in that state.

Among the 50 states of the US, support was found for the association between political culture and public sector corruption. On the other hand, whether a state’s economy was dominated by natural resource extraction was not related to public sector corruption. This latter finding suggests the “resource curse” phenomenon does not cause corruption to be worse in states with resource-dependent economies.

Although it is appropriate to apply regression analysis to a data set of the 50 US states, the small size of the data set limited the number of predictor variables that could be examined. Alternative research approaches are discussed, and it is conceivable that another analytical technique might have revealed other predictors that affect the occurrence of corruption.

While numerous studies have examined the impact of political culture and resource orientation on corruption at the national level, the current study examines how these variables affect corruption at the level of subnational jurisdictions within a major developed country, the United States.

Data breaches in the US healthcare sector have more than tripled in the last decade across all states. However, to this day, no established framework ranks all states from most to least at risk for healthcare data breaches. This gap has led to a lack of proper risk identification and understanding of cyber environments at state levels.

Based on the security action cycle, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework, the risk-planning model, and the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) literature, the paper offers an integrated multicriteria framework for prioritization in cybersecurity to address this lack and other prioritization issues in risk management in the field. The study used historical breach data between 2015 and 2021.

The findings showed that California, Texas, New York, Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, and Georgia are the states most at risk for healthcare data breaches.

The findings highlight each US state faces a different level of healthcare risk. The findings are informative for patients, crucial for privacy officers in understanding the nuances of their risk environment, and important for policy-makers who must grasp the grave disconnect between existing issues and legislative practices. Furthermore, the study suggests an association between positioning state risk and such factors as population and wealth, both avenues for future research.

Theoretically, the paper offers an integrated framework, whose basis in established security models in both academia and industry practice enables utilizing it in various prioritization scenarios in the field of cybersecurity. It further emphasizes the importance of risk identification and brings attention to different healthcare cybersecurity environments among the different US states.