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By drawing on 18-month ethnographic fieldwork conducted among people who participate in state-regulated games of chance in Istanbul, during the recent Turkish economic crisis in 2021–2022, and engaging with scholarly work on the anthropology of Turkey, economic anthropology and local media and grey resources, this article illustrates the rise of cryptocurrency trading in Turkey. This article shows how my participants situated the cryptocurrency trading within their own techniques to ameliorate financial volatility and to compensate their mistrust in governmental financial institutions during times of economic turbulence. Cryptocurrency trading was viewed as an investment technique that assists in accumulating savings for ensuring the future amid fluctuating national currency and polarized political realities. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency trading was also identified as a game of chance that swings between hinging on luck or skill, and the research participants debated if cryptocurrency trading is permissible in Islam (Halal) or forbidden. Therefore, this article suggests that cryptocurrency trading, although on the rise, is still a contested topic in which the boundaries between perceptions and practices of investing and gambling are blurred within the Turkish context. The controversy of the cryptocurrency trading emerges from the polarized public attitudes and the dissonance between traditional ideals, that condemn easy money and emphasize the value of hard work, in contrast to the neoliberal realities of capitalistic modes of accumulation that encourages speculation over production.

The benefits of global trade are primarily attributed to reducing trade distortions between trading partners. The anticipated promise of a progressive diminution in tariffs throughout the globe was, regrettably, steadily superseded by non-tariff measures (NTMs). However, the impact of these NTMs is only sometimes evident since it occurs in various disguises. NTMs significantly influence trade in the SAARC, mandating prompt attention. The question is how much internal trade will expand if NTMs are repealed. Based on statistics from 2015 to 2020, the study endeavours to quantify the impact of NTMs on Afghanistan's trade volume within the SAARC region, primarily targeting four export destinations (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Using trade freedom scores as a proxy for trade distortions, it has been determined that Afghanistan's magnitude of export earnings is significantly lower due to NTMs imposed by its importing trading partners. According to the findings, a 1% rise in tariffs and NTMs applied by importing countries diminishes Afghanistan's exports by 1.23%.

In contrast, the impact of tariffs alone lowers Afghanistan's exports by 1.13%. The incidence of NTMs also devoid actual Afghanistan exports by US$ 5.70 million, equal to a 0.029% loss of Afghanistan's GDP. The calculations also reveal that lowering or eliminating non-tariff barriers has diverse trade growth effects in different trade groupings. The study recommends a serious NTM-oriented trade policy dialogue that is liberal and guarantees regional integration, thereby promoting and ensuring the future of Afghanistan's economic laurels and stability.

This paper aimed to identify the impact that Industry 4.0 can have on the service sector and how its combination can generate benefits for Sustainability 4.0 in the context of the Triple Bottom Line.

A Systematic Literature Review (RSL) was developed using the following combinations of keywords on the Web of Science and Scopus databases: Industry 4.0 And Sustainability, Industry 4.0 And Service, and Industry 4.0 And Sustainable Development, in which 24 papers were selected.

As a result, the authors found 100 benefits for sustainable development, which were further categorized into 54 advantages for the economic area, 25 for the social segment and 21 for environmental aspects. In this way, the results can help private companies understand the use of these technologies aimed at sustainable growth, plus bolstering the government to conduct public policies to encourage these practices in technology organizations.

As a practical implication, this study offers insight into the evolution of sustainable development. It enables the emergence of works that wish to explore the service sector, providing relevant information for decision-making and influencing managers and policymakers on the importance of applying Industry 4.0 toward the sustainability of the service sector and its applications.

The originality of this study lies in expanding the understanding generated by 4.0 technologies, by diverting attention from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, which have abundant literature on the subject. With this, this work demonstrated that modern technologies have greater possibilities of an action directed at the service sector, in addition to being able to contribute to Sustainability 4.0 from the perspective of the sustainability tripod.

The present study investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and governance quality on carbon emissions in the Economics Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

To achieve the objective of this research, panel data for dependent and explanatory variables over the period 2005–2016, collected in the World Development Indicators (WDI) database and World Governance Indicators (WGI), are analyzed using the generalized method of moments (GMM). Also, the panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) method is applied to the four segments of the overall sample to analyze the stability of the results.

The findings of this study are (1) FDI inflows have a negative effect on carbon emissions in ECOWAS and (2) The interaction between FDI inflows and governance quality have a negative effect on carbon emissions. These results show the decreasing of environmental damage by increasing institutional quality. However, the estimation results on the country subsamples show similar and non-similar aspects.

This study suggests that policymakers in the ECOWAS countries should strengthen their environmental policies while encouraging FDI flows to be environmentally friendly.

The subject has rarely been explored in West Africa, with gaps such as the lack of use of institutional variables. This study contributes to the literature by drawing on previous work to examine the role of good governance on FDI and the CO2 emission relationship in the ECOWAS, which have received little attention. However, this research differs from previous work by subdividing the overall sample into four groups to test the stability of the results.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the importance and status of conditional accounting conservatism indicators and financial flexibility for the management of legal claims of the company during the outbreak of Corona.

The research method was implemented using statistical analysis in the SPSS environment. The participants of this research can be experts and specialists working in companies admitted to the stock exchange and expert professors in accounting fields; auditing; economy; financial engineering and financial management, categorized. The data related to the localization tool of research variables were collected by snowball sampling method in the summer of 2022.

One of the main results of the research is that based on the opinions and professional experience of experts and professionals working in companies admitted to the stock exchange and academic experts, within a range of seven, “The number of legal claims of the company with electronic businesses” under the title of the main indicator in the legal claims of the company in the outbreak of Corona from the importance dimension; “Exchange rate fluctuations in financial resilience” under the title of the main indicator in financial resilience in the Corona outbreak from the functional dimension; “The number of legal claims of the company with government institutions” under the title of the main indicator in the company’s legal claims in the Corona outbreak from the functional dimension; “The company’s conservatism score” under the title of the main indicator in the conditional conservatism of accounting in the Corona outbreak from the functional dimension; “oil price fluctuations in financial resilience” under the title of the main indicator in financial resilience in the Corona outbreak from the importance dimension; and “type of industry based on total assets” under the title of the main indicator in the conditional conservatism of accounting in the Corona outbreak was calculated from the importance dimension.

Although the previous literature has studied the direct correlation between accounting conservatism and financial flexibility, this work focuses on examining the direct association between accounting conservatism and financial flexibility in the post-Corona era and is carried out to resolve legal claims.

A country is vulnerable when it is susceptible to shocks. This chapter uses data from 34 developing countries to investigate vulnerability trends for them since the 1990s. We find that the level of economic development is inversely related to macroeconomic vulnerability. The countries that became less primarily vulnerable belong to the upper middle-income and middle-income groups; the reverse is true for most vulnerable countries up to 2014. Argentina and Papua New Guinea became more vulnerable from 2016 to 2020. Income plays a crucial role in deciding vulnerability in the globalization era. Geographical location is a key factor in measuring vulnerability, especially in African countries. But the reverse result took place in the de-globalization era. The majority of the upper middle-income and lower middle-income countries are among the most vulnerable. Surprisingly, lower-income groups include the nations with significantly lower IMV values.

The COVID-19 has affected millions of people across the world and worsened the socio-economic conditions that have sound reasons to discuss about the impact of COVID-19 on the progress of achieving the target level of sustainable development. The stagflation due to COVID-19 has a possibility to push a large section of population back under the critical level of income. The economic restriction and lockdown has impacted on the supply of food and essential requirements for decent living. The health services and education have been jeopardised. So the possible impact to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of no poverty (SDG1), zero hunger (SDG2), good health and wellbeing (SDG3), education (SDG4), decent work and economic growth (SDG8), income inequality (SDG10) are examined in this chapter. This chapter also discusses about the proper implementation and stress on SDGs as the possible instruments on the way out of recession. Difference-in-difference analysis is used to explain the impact of COVID-19 with the data in global context in respect of before COVID and after COVID.

This paper aims to answer the following important questions: Is public debt in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries sustainable? What are the determinants of public debt sustainability in these countries, and do these determinants exhibit heterogeneity due to regional, natural resource, and income differences among SSA countries?

This study analyzes the public debt sustainability in SSA countries using the theoretical model known as the Present Value Budget Constraint (PVBC) model developed by Hamilton and Flavin (1986), and adopts the econometric testing method proposed by Trehan and Walsh (1991). Moreover, to empirically investigate the determinants of public debt sustainability in SSA countries, the System-Generalized Method of Moments (System-GMM) method is applied. Furthermore, this study conducts heterogeneity analysis by categorizing the sample based on different regions, natural resource endowments, and income levels. The data of this study are sourced from the IMF and World Bank databases for 45 SSA countries from 2005 to 2021.

Findings reveal that public debt in SSA countries is not sustainable in the long run, with factors such as the previous government debt, long-term debt ratio, debt repayment capacity, economic growth rate, inflation rate, export to GDP, and government fiscal deficit rate influencing sustainability. Additionally, the factors exhibit heterogeneity attributed to regional, natural resource, and income variations among SSA countries.

The findings of our study will serve as a catalyst for policymakers in the SSA countries to embrace and sustain robust fiscal consolidation and debt stabilization measures. Moreover, countries with distinct characteristics should implement tailored approaches. Additionally, policymakers in SSA countries should implement economic measures to address public debt issues. These measures include improving the macroeconomic structure, promoting economic transformation and diversification of industries, fostering sustainable economic growth, ensuring price stability, and strengthening resilience against external shocks and debt risks. Specifically, countries endowed with indigenous species, resources, and tourism potential should adopt a well-coordinated strategy that utilizes agriculture, tourism, ecotourism, and the hospitality industry as instruments for sustainable local community and rural development.

Firstly, it assesses the sustainability of public debt and its determinants for countries in SSA, which distinguishes it from previous studies that only focus on either debt sustainability or determinants of debt separately. Secondly, by including multiple SSA countries in the analysis, this study stands out from prior research that predominantly concentrates on specific nations. Thirdly, the utilization of the System-GMM method for analyzing determinants adds a novel dimension to this study, departing from earlier literature primarily focused on debt thresholds. Lastly, the heterogeneity analysis conducted in this study provides an empirical foundation for tailoring policies to different countries, addressing a facet often overlooked in earlier literature.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the public safety risks of international construction projects (ICPs) from the perspective of threat and vulnerability. A novel and comprehensive risk assessment approach is developed from a systemic perspective and applied to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to improve the public safety risk management strategy for ICPs in BRI.

First, a public safety risk indicator system was constructed from the two dimensions, namely threat and vulnerability. Next, an integrated measurement model was constructed by combining the Genetic Algorithm-Backpropagation (GA-BP) neural network, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and matter-element extension (MME) method. Data from 49 countries involved in the BRI, as well as five typical projects, were used to validate the model. Finally, targeted risk prevention measures were identified for use at the national, enterprise and project levels.

The findings indicate that while the vulnerability risks of typical projects in each region of the BRI were generally low, threat risks were high in West Asia and North Africa, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries and South Asia.

First, the structure of the public safety risk system of ICPs was analyzed using vulnerability and system theories. The connotation of public safety risk was defined based on two dimensions, namely threat and vulnerability. The idea of measuring threat risk with public data and measuring vulnerability risk with project data was clarified, and the risk measurement was integrated into the measurement results to help researchers and managers understand and systematically consider the public safety risks of ICPs. Second, a public safety risk indicator system was constructed, including 18 threat risk indicators and 14 vulnerability risk indicators to address the gaps in the existing research. The MEE model was employed to overcome the problem of incompatible indicator systems and provide stable and credible integrated measurement results. Finally, the whole-process public safety risk management scheme designed in this study can help to both provide a reference point for the Chinese enterprises and oversea contractors in market selection as well as improve ICP public safety risk management.

This study aims to empirically analyze the market response of energy companies to the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. Additionally, it examines the comparison of market reactions between companies in NATO member countries and non-member countries.

This study utilizes a sample of 1,511 energy sector companies. To achieve the research objectives, two methods are employed. First, an event study is used to analyze the market reaction using Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) to the announcement of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 (event day) within an event window of (−30, +30). Second, a cross-sectional analysis is conducted to compare the responses of companies in NATO member countries with those in non-member countries.

The findings of this study reveal that energy companies worldwide reacted positively both before and after the announcement of the invasion, with significant reactions observed in companies from the Americas, Europe, and Asia & Pacific regions. However, the Middle East and Africa markets did not show significant reactions. Furthermore, the study indicates that most developed and emerging markets responded positively, likely due to the increase in energy commodity prices during the war. Moreover, the market reaction of companies in NATO member countries was stronger compared to other markets.

This study contributes to the existing literature by being the first to examine the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the energy sector, while categorizing markets as developed, emerging, and frontier. It also specifically explores the market reaction of energy companies in NATO member countries, providing unique insights into the differential responses within the energy sector.

研究目的: 本研究擬以經驗及觀察為依據, 去分析能源公司對俄羅斯–烏克蘭侵略行為的市場反應。研究亦擬進行關於北約成員國內的能源公司及非成員國內的能源公司的市場反應的比較研究。

研究設計/方法/理念: 研究使用的樣本為1511間能源領域內的公司。研究人員為能達到研究目標, 採用了兩個方法。首先, 他們使用事件研究法進行有關的研究。具體地說, 他們以累積異常報酬率, 來分析在 (−30, +30) 的事件視窗之內, 能源公司對俄羅斯於2022年2月24日 (事發日) 入侵烏克蘭的公告的市場反應。其次, 研究人員以橫向分析法, 就北約成員國內的能源公司及非成員國內的能源公司的反應進行比較研究。

研究結果: 研究結果顯示, 全球的能源公司於侵略行為公告前後均有正面的反應;而反應較為顯著的公司均來自美洲、歐洲和亞洲及太平洋地區。唯中東和非洲市場均沒有顯著的反應。研究結果亦顯示, 大多數已發展市場和新興市場, 均有正面的反應, 這很可能是因為於戰爭期間, 能源商品價格上升所致。再者, 北約成員國內的公司的市場反應較其他市場強烈。

研究的原創性: 本研究率先以已開發市場、新興市場和邊境市場的市場分類, 去探討俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭對能源部門的影響;就此, 本研究對現有文獻作出了貢獻。研究亦特意探索了北約成員國內能源公司及非成員國內的能源公司兩者的市場反應, 這給我們獨特的啟示, 以能了解能源領域內各種不同的反應。