Economies — Open Access Journal

In this paper, the effects of the recent global financial crisis on efficiency and profitability of financial institutions were analyzed. In a comparative study, the impacts of the global financial crisis on the performance of Islamic and commercial banks were examined. The fundamental difference between Islamic and conventional banking is that Islamic banking is founded upon the ethical principles of Islamic tradition and law (Sharia). By utilizing a sample of eight Islamic banks and eleven commercial banks, the impact of the global financial crisis on efficiency and profitability of the banking sector was evaluated. This study covered the period from 2006 to 2013. The results of this research were obtained from the Altman Z-score model, ratio analysis, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, and the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model. The results show that during the study period, Islamic banks (IBs) managed to maintain their efficiency while most commercial banks (CBs) suffered a loss in their efficiency. Furthermore, this study found that the financial crisis did not have a significant impact on the profitability of Islamic banks. Full article

Given the background of financial disintermediation and interest rate marketization, the assets of China’s commercial banks can be divided into traditional credit assets, whose rates of return are controlled by the supervision department, and financial assets, whose rates of return fluctuate according to market conditions. Direct financing enterprises are mainly state-owned enterprises with a good reputation, endorsed by the government, and they finance using the financial assets of commercial banks. Indirect financing enterprises are mainly private enterprises, which finance using credit assets. By introducing a financial intermediary sector with a balance sheet into dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, our model endogenously determines the leverage ratio and the ratio of the two assets of the bank. Model results show that the impact from the volatility of financial markets and other exogenous shocks can affect the banks’ asset proportions of the two asset types, asymmetrically affecting the production scale of enterprises with two types of financing. Further, the bank’s leverage ratio changes will have a magnifying effect on economic fluctuations. Full article

There are common narratives about economic growth in Ethiopia. We analyze four common narratives, namely, that (1) the economy is transforming from agriculture to industry, (2) that national economic growth has been rapid and sustained, (3) that Ethiopia’s economy is largely agricultural, and (4) that there is a looming debt crisis, largely due to lending from China. In many instances, the justification for these narratives is based upon single years or specific data points. We examine these narratives over the long term, to assess if they are supported by available macroeconomic data. In doing so, we encountered significant issues with data quality and consistency. This article presents the available datasets from 1999 to 2017 and concludes that the commonly made claims about the Ethiopian economy are sometimes accurate, sometimes incomplete, and other times inaccurate. We call for greater attention to primary data, and primary datasets, as opposed to relying upon secondary summaries, single years, or specific data points to make generalized claims. Full article

Mali has introduced a program to produce biodiesel using jatropha, a shrub widely available throughout the country. The aim of the program is to partially substitute diesel, which is entirely supplied through imports, with domestically produced biodiesel. In this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a microsimulation model to analyze macroeconomic and distributional impact of a hypothetical expansion of jatropha based biodiesel industry in Mali. We find that the expansion of biodiesel industry (i.e., both jatropha farming and oil conversion), would increase GDP, though slightly, if idle lands are utilized for jatropha cultivation. However, the expansion of jatropha would cause slight loss in GDP if the existing agriculture land is used for jatropha cultivation. The distributional results are slightly different. We find that rural poverty would decrease no matter whether idle lands or existing agricultural lands are used for jatropha plantation, although the percentage reductions in rural poverty are higher in the former compared to the latter case. Our results indicate that if governments plan to promote jatropha biodiesel they should not allow jatropha to compete with food staples on the existing land. Policies should be targeted to utilize the idle lands which have not been used for any productive use. Full article

A growing number of recent works support the idea of debt threshold level (turning point), above which debt starts reducing economic growth. However, estimated threshold varies sharply across studies and gives a little insight into what the optimal level of debt is. The point is that there is no single turning point that could be applied to all countries and a proper investigation is needed on factors, which shape the debt impact on growth. This study aims to investigate whether debt threshold level depends on government effectiveness (one of the aspects of countries’ institutional quality) and trade balance. Our SYS-GMM estimates (and alternatively OLS and LSDV for robustness check) are based on the unbalanced panel of 152 countries over the period of 1996–2016 and on two strategies: (i) splitting of sample into subsamples according to trade balance and government effectiveness and (ii) including debt and government effectiveness, debt and trade deficit interactions. The obtained results are in line with those which confirm inverted U-shaped debt-growth relationship with clear debt turning point dependence on government effectiveness. However, effective governance is not enough to avoid the negative debt effect. Trade balance seems to be more crucial factor than institutional quality, on which threshold level depends. Full article

This paper examines the indirect effect of democracy on economic growth using a dataset of 17 MENA countries from 1990 to 2015. Democracy is assumed to affect growth through a series of channels: education, health, physical capital accumulation per labor, government consumption, and trade openness. A system of six simultaneous equations using 3SLS, is used to estimate the effect of democracy on growth through these channels. For further analysis, the countries are classified into groups according to the democratic status on the one side, and the level of income on the other. The results indicate that democracy enhances growth through its positive effect on health in all classifications of countries within the MENA region. However, the effect of democracy on growth through education and physical capital/labor is non-monotonic. Democracy hinders growth through government size and trade openness. Once all of these indirect effects are accounted for, the overall effect of democracy on growth is negative in less democratic countries and poor countries, but positive in more democratic countries and rich countries. Full article

This paper investigates the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on resource revenue, using an unbalanced panel dataset comprising 57 countries, including both developed and developing countries, over the period 1995–2015. By means of the two-step system Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimator, the empirical analysis suggests that multilateral trade liberalization exerts a negative effect on resource revenue, probably at the benefit of non-resource revenue. However, this effect over the full sample hides a positive effect of multilateral trade liberalization on resource revenue in poorest countries, and a negative effect of multilateral trade liberalization on resource revenue in non-poorest countries of the sample. Additionally, the negative effect of multilateral trade liberalization on resource revenue over the full sample appears to be dependent on the degree of domestic trade liberalization. In fact, multilateral trade liberalization genuinely induces a reducing effect on resource revenue only if countries liberalize their domestic trade regime beyond a minimum level. Full article

This article revisits the question of whether crude oil prices have a positive effect on stock the prices of renewable energy firms. To examine this question carefully, we allow for the asymmetric effects of oil price changes in our modeling process, using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. We find that changes in oil prices indeed have a significant, positive short-run effect on renewable energy stock prices in an asymmetric manner. However, this short-run effect does not appear to last in the long-run. Full article

The effect of government spending on population’s health has received attention over the past decades. This study re-examines the link between government health expenditures and health outcomes to establish whether government intervention in the health sector improves outcomes. The study uses annual data for the period 1980–2014 on Ghana. The ordinary least squares (OLS) and the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimators are employed for analyses; the regression estimates are then used to conduct cost-effectiveness analysis. The results show that, aside from income, public health expenditure contributed to the improvements in health outcomes in Ghana for the period. We find that, overall, increasing public health expenditure by 10% averts 0.102–4.4 infant and under-five deaths in every 1000 live births while increasing life expectancy at birth by 0.77–47 days in a year. For each health outcome indicator, the effect of income dominates that of public spending. The cost per childhood mortality averted ranged from US$0.20 to US$16, whereas the cost per extra life year gained ranged from US$7 to US$593.33 (2005 US$) during the period. Although the health effect of income outweighs that of public health spending, high (and rising) income inequality makes government intervention necessary. In this respect, development policy should consider raising health sector investment inter alia to improve health conditions. Full article

Constitutional political economy has focused heavily on designing constitutional rules sufficient to constrain governmental power. More attention has been devoted to designing rules that are effective constraints than on the institutions that would be required to enforce them. One problem is that rules are interpreted and enforced by the political elite, who tend to interpret and enforce them in ways that favor their interests over those of the masses. Democratic oversight is ineffective because voters realize they have no influence over public policy, and are therefore rationally ignorant. A system of checks and balances within government is necessary for enforcing constitutional constraints because it divides power among elites with competing interests and enables one group of elites to check the power of others. Checks and balances within governmental institutions are necessary to constrain the government from abusing its power. Full article

This paper investigates the impact of governance quality on economic growth in China. After developing a theoretical framework for the effect of governance quality on local economic growth, this article studies the panel data in provincial regions over the period 2001–2015 by constructing a new comprehensive index of provincial governance, and checks the robustness of the empirical findings from four aspects. The results show that governance quality has a positive effect on economic growth, due to good governance strengthening the “helping hand” or weakening the “grabbing hand” of power. Governance quality presents diminishing marginal returns, which means that the high-speed economic growth effect becomes less and less, while the high-quality economic development effect becomes more and more. Higher governance quality could bring a high-speed economic growth effect in the western region, while higher governance quality could bring a high-quality economic development effect in the eastern region. Compared with fixed-asset investment, human capital has played a more important role in economic growth. In order to promote the sustainable development of China’s economy, policy makers should improve local governance quality, strengthen the capacity of independent innovation, and promote the accumulation of high-quality human capital. Full article

The role of economic growth in reducing child undernutrition remains an open and highly debated question that holds important implications for food security strategies. The empirical evidence has been quite contrasted, primarily in regard to the magnitude of the impacts. Yet, most studies have not (appropriately) accounted for the reverse causality between economic growth and child stunting. Using a dataset of 74 developing countries observed between 1984 and 2014, this paper develops a novel approach accounting for the reverse causal effect of stunting on GDP per capita and finds that the impacts of economic growth are much lower than estimated in most previous studies. A 10% increase in GDP per capita reduces child stunting prevalence by 2.7%. In other words, economic growth is modestly pro-poor. We also estimate that a percentage point increase in child stunting prevalence results in a 0.4% decrease in GDP per capita. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that stunting costs on average about 13.5% of GDP per capita in developing countries. Full article

Insufficient staff, inappropriate collection vehicles, limited operating budgets and growing, hard to reach populations mean that solid waste management remains limited in most developing countries; Malawi is no exception. We estimated the willingness to pay (WTP) for two hypothetical solid waste collection services. Additionally, we tested the impact of the WTP question positioning relative to environmental perceptions on respondents’ WTP. The first scenario involved a five minute walk to a disposal facility; the second scenario involved a 30 min walk. Additionally, the order of the question was randomized within the questionnaire. A WTP value of K1780 was found for the five minute walk scenario when the question was placed first, and K2138 when placed after revealing the respondent’s perceptions on the environment. In the 30 min walk scenario, WTP was K945 when placed first and K1139 when placed after revealing the respondent’s perceptions on the environment. The estimated values indicate that there is both a willingness to pay for solid waste services and that there are at least two options that would be acceptable to the community; a pilot scale implementation would be required to validate the hypothetical values, especially given the dependency on problem framing. Community financing should be considered as a sustainable approach to solid waste management in underserved areas. Full article

This paper presents an extension of the two-period Samaritan’s Dilemma in order to analyze the potential for foreign aid to promote freedom. An example is the United States’ recent opening towards Cuba. It is shown that a donor nation’s dual concern for economic reforms and greater freedoms can exacerbate the Samaritan’s Dilemma, even when economic aid is coupled with targets for freedom. By contrast, a policy that is focused on freedom alone can potentially resolve the Samaritan’s Dilemma. Such a policy requires the donor to temper the degree of altruism that motivates its provision of economic aid to the recipient nation. Full article

Empirical studies outline developing countries’ experience economic growth through an undervalued exchange rate and that exchange rate overvaluations have negative long term effects on economic growth. This paper examined the impact of exchange rate movements as well as exchange rate misalignments on economic growth for the Trinidad and Tobago economy over the period 1960 to 2016. We find statistically significant evidence that both exchange rate appreciation and misalignments impact negatively on economic growth in the T&T economy. Drilling deeper, we find interestingly that there exist no non-linear effects of exchange rate misalignments on growth. Specifically, we find statistically significant evidence that both overvaluations and under valuations hamper economic growth in the Trinidad and Tobago economy. We attribute this to T&T’s small and underdeveloped manufacturing sector that tends to be overlooked on account of its energy resources, in addition to the fact that its manufacturing sector is highly import oriented. A major policy recommendation would be for the critical reassessment of the rules governing the Heritage and Stabilization Fund (HSF), as government expenditure was allowed to follow energy revenues due to its current limitations. Full article

We consider a test of expressive voting developed by Brennan and Lomasky (1993). They point out that in presidential elections the probability of a tie, and casting a decisive vote, increases “multi-billionfold” as the election becomes increasingly close. They conjecture that if voters are instrumentally motivated there would be enormous increases in voter turnout for presidential elections as they became close. When they find no consistent relationship between closeness and turnout in presidential elections since 1940, they conclude their test justifies a “decisive rejection of the instrumental voter hypothesis.” As dramatic as such a “multi-billionfold” increase is, we argue it would not motivate voting if an instrumental payoff was the only motivation for doing so. The Brennan–Lomasky test does give the correct result, but not for the reason they emphasize. They do see reasons why voting turnout would be moderated other than the dramatic probability of a decisive vote in close elections. Furthermore, they close their test by indicating that one reason turnout might be higher in close elections is that they are more interesting, which is congenial to an expressive account. We agree. We also argue that the observed tendency for voters to confirm their biases rather than change their minds provides additional support for expressive voting. Full article

Visegrad Group is a group of four countries in Central Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary. These countries share not only a similar history, but also similar economic development (measured for example by Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) and geo-political ideas. Nowadays, the economic development of every country and its competitiveness on the world market is supported by the creation of innovation (knowledge-based economy), especially from an Industry 4.0 point of view. The aim of this article is to compare the Visegrad Four (V4) from different perspectives. Firstly, the comparison of GPD development is done, next the analysis of foreign trade. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of changes in innovativeness and competitiveness of the V4 economies over a period of 5 years. The Global Innovation Index (GII) shows the level of innovation of most countries in the world. Reports publishing GII were established thanks to the cooperation of Cornwall University with INSEAD (fr. Institut européen d'administration des affaires) Business School and World Intellectual Property Organization. The Summary Innovation Index (SII) was used in the European Innovation Scoreboard, as well as the Global Competitiveness Report and Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). The analysis shows that all members of V4 are so called moderate innovators. The Czech Republic begins to diverge from other member states in terms of SII, GII and it has been increasing its GCI as well. Poland occupies one of the last positions in the V4 innovation ranking, where Hungary was the weakest in terms of competitiveness in 2016. However, the mutual connection between GDP and above mentioned indexes shows relatively surprising results. Full article

This paper attempts to test the pass-through of the real exchange rate (RERT) to unemployment in Brazil over the period 1981M1–2015M11 using linear and nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) models. The result of the linearity test suggests that the relationship between RERT and unemployment is linear in the short-run and nonlinear in the long-run. Therefore, using the symmetric ARDL model for the short-run analysis, we find that an increase in the RERT decreases the unemployment rate. The result of the nonlinear ARDL for the long-run analysis shows that the unemployment rate reacts to the RERT appreciations and depreciations differently with depreciations having a strong effect. However, the pass-through of the RERT to unemployment is incomplete both in the short- and long-run. These findings have important policy implications for the designing of appropriate monetary policy in response to a rise in unemployment resulting from a change in the real exchange rate. Full article

The 2017 U.S. Senate Special Election in Alabama, which was decided on 12 December 2017, was one of the most contentious and scandal-laden political campaigns in recent memory. The Republican candidate, Roy Moore, gained notoriety during the 2017 campaign when a number of women alleged to national media that as teenagers they were subject to sexual advances by Moore, who was then in his early 30s and serving as a local assistant district attorney. The process and results of this particular election provide the heretofore unexamined impact of political scandal on localism or friends-and-neighbors voting in political contests. Based on data from the 2017 special election in Alabama, econometric results presented here suggest that a candidate who is embroiled in political scandal suffers an erosion in the usual friends-and-neighbors effect on his or her local vote share. In this particular case, the scandal hanging over Moore eroded all of the friends-and-neighbors effect that would have been expected (e.g., about five percentage points) in his home county, as well as about 40% of the advantage Moore had at home over his opponent in terms of constituent political ideology. Full article