Search Results (24)

Blockchain technology is being increasingly deployed to store and process transactions and information in the global financial sector. Blockchain underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and facilitates decentralized finance (DeFi), representing a paradigm shift in the global financial landscape, offering alternative solutions to traditional banking, and fostering financial inclusion. In developing economies such as Morocco, where a significant portion of the population remains unbanked, these digital financial innovations present both opportunities and challenges. This study examines the potential role of cryptocurrencies and DeFi in enhancing financial inclusion in Morocco, where cryptocurrencies have been banned since 2017. However, the public continues to use cryptocurrencies, circumventing restrictions, and the Moroccan Central Bank is now preparing to introduce new regulations to legalize their use within the country. In this context, this article analyses the potential of cryptocurrencies to mitigate barriers such as high transaction costs, restricted access to financial services in rural areas, and limited financial literacy in the country. The study pursues a mixed-methods approach, which combines a quantitative survey with qualitative expert interviews and adapts the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to the Moroccan context. The findings reveal that while cryptocurrencies offer cost-efficient financial transactions and improved accessibility, their adoption may be constrained by regulatory uncertainty, security risks, and technological limitations. The novelty of the article thus lies in its focus on the key mechanisms that influence the adoption of cryptocurrencies and their potential impact in a specific national context. In so doing, the study highlights the need for a structured regulatory framework, investment in digital infrastructure, and targeted financial literacy initiatives to optimize the potential role of cryptocurrencies in progressing financial inclusion in Morocco. This underscores the need for integrated models and guidelines for policymakers, financial institutions, and technology providers to ensure the responsible introduction of cryptocurrencies in developing world environments. Full article

The E-7 nations face significant challenges in harmonizing artificial intelligence (AI) adoption with sustainable economic and environmental goals. While AI holds transformative potential to revolutionize energy structures, modernize infrastructure, broaden financial inclusion, and reduce carbon emissions, its effective integration is frequently hindered by policy inertia, economic limitations, and long-standing institutional barriers. Using the multi-level perspective (MLP), this study employs the method of moments quantile regression (MMQREG) on panel data from 2004 to 2024 to investigate the determinants of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, focusing on the roles of energy structure (ES), infrastructure (INFRA), financial inclusion (FI), economic growth (GDP), patent activity (Tpatent), population (TP), and carbon emissions (CE) across E-7 nations. The study findings reveal that economic growth and energy structure play a significant role in driving AI adoption, while inadequacies in infrastructure and limited financial inclusion significantly hinder AI progress. Additionally, the analysis reveals a positive relationship between AI adoption and CO₂ emissions, where early stages of technology uptake lead to increased emissions, but sustained integration eventually results in efficiency gains that help to reduce them. These findings underscore the need for E-7 nations to adopt targeted policies that modernize digital and physical infrastructure, broaden financial access, and expedite the transition to sustainable energy systems. This study offers actionable insights for policymakers to align digital innovation with sustainable development goals. Full article

This paper investigates systemic tail dependence within the crypto-asset ecosystem by examining interconnectedness across eight major tokens spanning Layer 1 cryptocurrencies, DeFi tokens, stablecoins, and infrastructure/governance assets. We employ a novel partial correlation-based network framework and quantile-specific connectedness measures to examine how co-movement patterns evolve under normal and extreme market conditions from September 2021 to March 2025. Unlike conventional correlation or variance decomposition approaches, our methodology isolates direct, tail-specific transmission channels while filtering out standard shocks. The results indicate strong asymmetries in dependence structures. Systemic risk intensifies during adverse tail events, particularly around episodes such as the Terra/Luna crash, the USDC depeg, and Bitcoin’s 2024 halving cycle. Our analysis shows that ETH, LINK, and UNI are key assets in spreading losses when the market falls. In contrast, the stablecoin DAI tends to absorb some of the stress, helping reduce risk during downturns. These results indicate critical contagion pathways and suggest that regulation targeting protocol-level transparency, liquidity provisioning, and interoperability standards may reduce amplification mechanisms without eliminating interdependence. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on crypto-systemic risk and offer actionable insights for regulators, DeFi protocol architects, and institutional investors. In particular, we advocate for the incorporation of tail-sensitive network diagnostics into real-time monitoring frameworks to better manage asymmetric spillover risks in decentralized financial systems. Full article

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is crucial for addressing global environmental challenges. SDG 13 calls for urgent climate action, while SDG 7 promotes sustainable energy. These objectives are particularly relevant to China, where transport-related CO₂ emissions continue to rise due to urbanization, industrial growth, and increasing energy demand. This study examines the impact of economic governance, population aging, human capital, financial innovation, GDP growth, and energy transition on China’s transport-related CO₂ emissions, using quarterly data from 2006Q1 to 2018Q4. The Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) is applied to analyze heterogeneous effects across different emission levels. The findings reveal that economic governance (ECOG), energy transition (ENT), and human capital (HI) significantly reduce transport CO₂ emissions (TCO_2E) by enhancing institutional effectiveness and promoting clean energy adoption. In contrast, population aging (POPAGE), financial innovation (FI), and GDP contribute to higher emissions by increasing energy consumption and private transport dependency. These insights highlight the need for stronger governance frameworks, sustainable financial policies, and increased investment in renewable energy. Policymakers should strengthen environmental regulations, expand green financing initiatives, and enhance public transport infrastructure to align with SDGs 7 and 13. By implementing these strategies, China can make significant progress toward reducing transport emissions, achieving carbon neutrality, and ensuring long-term sustainability. Full article

Cultural organizations, such as museums, increasingly seek innovative ways to enhance their financial sustainability and attract diverse, global audiences. Implementing cryptocurrency payments and DeFi systems offers these institutions an opportunity to modernize their operations, streamline transactions, and boost digital marketing efforts, aligning with the growing demand for decentralized financial solutions. Using statistical analyses such as correlations and simple linear regression (SLR) models, combined with AnyLogic modeling, this study examines how integrating DeFi systems, including cryptocurrency payments, can improve the sustainable management of these institutions. The findings suggest that by adopting DeFi technologies, museums can enhance their digital marketing efficiency, increase engagement, and attract a broader audience. The analysis reveals that museums accepting cryptocurrency benefit from broader digital marketing factors, with referral and branded traffic significantly driving organic search, whereby paid social traffic correlates positively with paid strategies, and the authority score is largely influenced by organic traffic. In contrast, non-crypto museums rely more heavily on referral traffic and organic costs, with narrower marketing influences affecting their performance. Full article

The present study discusses how adopting cryptos affects financial inclusion in developing economies. Primary constructs like financial inclusion (FI), perceived economic empowerment (PEE), trust in financial institutions (TFI), user satisfaction (US), and cryptocurrency adoption (CA) were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicated that CA significantly and positively influenced FI, US, TFI, and PEE. These relationships extend to the interaction effects: US, TFI, and PEE, all positively related to FI. This is a reflection of cryptocurrencies as an opportunity to redress most of the afflictions characteristic of traditional finance systems and to promote financial inclusion and economic empowerment in developing countries. Future research should also investigate whether digital literacy and regulatory environments support cryptocurrency access. Full article

Since economic development and environmental protection constitute a multidimensional and complex interaction process, government regulatory mechanisms, as policy tools for green development, have become significant means for environmental conservation. The motivation of this paper is to reveal the government’s promotion mechanism for the green development of the supply chain. To achieve this objective, an evolutionary game model (EGM) method is applied in this paper. The specific steps of this method include the following: a unified theoretical analysis framework was first developed in which integrated suppliers (ISs), government agencies (GAs), and financial institutions (FIs) were integrated into the EGM. Second, on the basis of dynamic evolution and differential equations, the evolution and stabilisation strategies of the stakeholders were examined separately. Finally, adopting a supply chain that includes ISs, GAs, and FIs as a case study, stability strategies under changes in various parameters were investigated. The research results indicated that the behavioural strategies of GAs could serve as a weathervane for ISs and FIs. Within a certain range, government compensation mechanisms could positively impact product R&D, as well as IS green development, while the government subsidy phase-out system could be more suitable at the maturity stage. The contribution of this paper is to provide methodological support for the operational decision-making of GAs, FIs, and ISs. Full article

Scenario analysis is a comprehensive approach to assess the impact of climate-related transition risk on businesses. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores are popular tools with financial institutions (FI’s) for green-scoring practices and since they characterise a company’s performance from an ESG perspective, they have been criticised for enabling “greenwashing” when used within the context of climate risk. Commercially available ESG scores are also available for listed entities, while FI counterparties are often unlisted. This study develops a methodology for creating in-house environmental scores (E-scores), which are then used to effectively choose appropriate transition pathways to be used in company-specific forward-looking scenario analysis. Such scenario analysis can be used to forecast the company’s financial position, including the cost of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and quantify the impact of transition climate risk on specified metrics. The choice of metrics depends on what the results of the analysis are used for. Two metrics are identified for being useful for risk management and credit decisions: future profitability and weighted average carbon intensity. Finally, the study demonstrates how this process can be implemented with a practical worked example, using only publicly available data. Full article

The development of digital technologies such as blockchain has provided new possibilities for solving the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In order to explore the mutual influence of the participants in the supply chain, this paper constructs two static tripartite game models for traditional and digital supply chain finance, including a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), a core enterprise (CE), and a financial institution (FI). The conditions for SME, CE, and FI to participate in digital supply chain finance, and the equilibrium strategy (repayment, repayment, loan) after participating in digital supply chain finance, are figured out. It is found that compared with the traditional supply chain, the digital supply chain expands the probability range of repayment for SME and CE by the change of pledge rate and default loss and broadens the probability range of repayment for CE by the change of default loss. Further, compared with the traditional supply chain finance, the greater the pledge rate of digital supply chain finance and the smaller the default loss, the stronger the willingness of the SME and CE to participate in the digital supply chain and the lower the willingness of the FI. After the three parties participate in the digital supply chain, however, the conclusion is the opposite. The smaller the pledge rate and the greater the default loss, the stronger the repayment willingness for the SME and CE and the stronger the loan willingness of the FI. Therefore, it is suggested to find the critical values of pledge rate and default loss and raise these two variables to an appropriate range to encourage all parties to voluntarily and consistently participate in digital supply chain financing. Full article

As the expected cost of conservation agriculture (CA) inputs becomes an issue for farmers, financial institutions (FIs) play an essential role in promoting CA, a set of agricultural management practices with multiple positive effects. This research aimed to determine influencing factors, to rank challenges, and identify mechanisms for farmers to access agricultural credit for adoption of CA management practices in Cambodia. It was administered by conducting a survey of 242 randomly selected households for face-to-face interviews and conducting key informant interviews from purposive samples of 28 participants in Battambang and Preah Vihear provinces. The results indicated that influencing factors, including the family, adult labor and total farm size, had a positive relationship with farmers’ accessibility to agricultural credit, whereas age was negative. However, education year, farm size for main crops, on-farm income and farm experience were not significantly associated. High interest rates were the significant first-order challenge ranked, followed by document process complication, limited agricultural credit information, limited collateral security and a few other challenges. Support and improved process mechanisms to enhance credit accessibility are required to engage with multiple stakeholders, including farmers, FIs, non-government organizations (NGOs) and government officers. There has been a reduction in agricultural credit interest rates and incentives for importing CA inputs by the government, while provision of information support for agribusiness plans by NGOs which have implemented development project activities were considered as the main support mechanism. An improved process mechanism at the farmers’ level needs to include access to credit with low interest rates and a straightforward documentation process, whereas the FI level requires a business plan for lending decisions. It is evident that high lending rates hinder access to agricultural credit and the improvement of support and improved process mechanisms are necessary to better promote CA practices among farmers in Cambodia. Full article

The rapid development of supply chain finance (SCF) has significantly alleviated the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, it is important to recognize that within the accounts receivable financing segment of the SCF credit market, the credit risk associated with SMEs poses a serious challenge and potential threat to the stability, health, and sustainable development of the SCF system. This paper pays special attention to the stability of the two-party evolutionary game between SMEs and financial institutions (FIs) within the context of the Chinese SCF credit market. To identify a pathway to reduce credit risks for SMEs while simultaneously enhancing system stability, this paper adopts the stochastic evolutionary game (SEG) model and combines the fixed-point method to determine the conditions that satisfy the stability of the system’s index p mean square of the system. This study has made attempts in various aspects, such as the innovative construction and investigation of a nonlinear SEG model, the endeavor to study the stability of SEG systems using fixed-point methods, and the innovative construction of a more realistic two-player SEG system. The data and simulation results generated from hypothetical scenarios show that the conclusions of the article are credible and feasible. Through the study, we conclude that the higher credit ratio from FI and the higher penalty intensity from core enterprises (CEs) will accelerate the stability of the system. Based on solid data and modeling analysis, insights into the regulation of FI are provided. Full article

Food insecurity (FI) indicates a situation in which there is no regular access to food in satisfactory quantity and quality. To characterize FI in students from Portuguese higher education institutions, a study was conducted in a non-random sample of students, with an online questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic questions and the Portuguese version of the IF scale. There were 200 valid questionnaires and 27.5% of the participants were classified as having some degree of FI. Participants with FI reported fewer visits to the family’s home (p = 0.024) and less financial resources (p < 0.001). The results indicate that interventions are needed in this area. Full article

The advent of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology has sparked a revolutionary shift in the financial sector. This study sets out on a wide-ranging investigation to understand the nuanced dynamics, repercussions, and potential future paths of this shifting environment in the UK and USA. The primary goals of the research are to examine how cryptocurrencies affect financial markets and conventional banking systems; to examine how blockchain technology might be used in the financial sector; to assess policy and regulatory considerations; and to predict and plan for the future. This research digs into how cryptocurrencies have revolutionized the banking and finance sectors. Analysis of adoption rates, market volatility, and integration methods sheds light on the changing position of cryptocurrencies in investment portfolios, reconfiguration of asset classes, and coping mechanisms of conventional financial institutions. When looking at the financial sector as a whole, the transformational potential of blockchain technology becomes clear. The advent of DeFi, smart contracts, and asset tokenization offers new prospects to improve financial transactions, increase transparency, and broaden participation in the investment market. The research analyzes cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology from a policy and regulatory perspective. The delicate balancing act between stimulating innovation and guaranteeing consumer protection, market integrity, and financial stability is highlighted by a comparison of the regulatory methods adopted in the United Kingdom and United States, as well as proposals from international organizations. The research identifies potential future paths for these technologies and their implications. Opportunities and challenges that will influence the future of finance emerge, with a focus on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), sustainable blockchain solutions, and interdisciplinary collaborations. As this deep dive comes to a close, the transformational power of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is highlighted. It sheds light on the forces that are altering the structures of the world’s financial markets, conventional banking structures, and regulatory frameworks. The findings and critical assessment stress the need for well-considered choices, ethical innovation, and interdisciplinary cooperation in order to succeed in an ever-changing environment. To further democratize access, improve transparency, and reshape the economic fabric of our planet, the future of finance resides at the confluence of tradition and innovation, where cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology exist. Full article

In a globally interconnected economy marked by volatility, this study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to examine financial contagion’s impact on Romania’s financial stability. It investigates both conventional and unconventional channels through which financial contagion is transmitted, emphasizing its sensitivity to factors such as geopolitical events and investor sentiment. The study also assesses the influence of unemployment, market capitalization, and financial freedom on Romania’s Human Development Index (HDI) from 2000 to 2022. Using HDI, which encompasses health and education alongside economic aspects, the research provides a holistic view of well-being and quality of life. In addition to the ARDL model’s insights, this study expands its scope by conducting a multilinear regression analysis, with GDP as the dependent variable. We have incorporated independent variables such as HDI, transaction volume, and the BET-FI index to comprehensively assess their relationships and potential impact on Romania’s economic growth. This analytical approach unveils intricate connections between key economic and financial indicators, paving the way for a deeper understanding of how these variables interact. Furthermore, to shed light on the financial dynamics within Romania, a supplementary analysis in the Altreva Adaptive Modeler was undertaken, focusing on the BET-FI index. This software-based exploration provides a nuanced perspective on the index’s behavior and its interactions with other economic and social indicators. This additional dimension contributes to our holistic understanding of the effects of financial contagion and the implications for sustainable human development in Romania. By combining traditional econometric methodologies with cutting-edge modeling techniques, this study strives to offer a robust framework for comprehending the multifaceted nature of financial contagion and its implications for both the national economy and well-being. These findings have the potential to guide policymakers and financial institutions in implementing more effective risk management strategies, driving economic development, and ultimately enhancing the overall quality of life in Romania. Full article

The sustainability of financing is an important measure in the development of supply chains. However, the difficulty and high cost of financing have always been critical factors hindering the sustainable development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Blockchain technology (BT) is an effective tool to relieve the current problem. Based on it, this study aims to establish Blockchain-driven incentives and restraint mechanisms for SME financing using a dynamic game model in which financial institutions (FIs) and new agricultural business entities (NABEs) are regarded as game subjects. By analyzing the impact of key parameters on the equilibrium state of the game for all stakeholders, several findings are drawn as follows. (1) The usage of BT affects FI loan strategies by influencing their cost in supply chain financing. (2) The usage of BT affects NABE’s strategy choice by influencing their loan interest rate. (3) The usage of BT affects NABE’s strategy choice by influencing their default losses. (4) The usage of BT affects NABE’s and FI’s strategy choices by influencing their additional benefits. This study provides decision-making support for optimal strategy decisions under different conditions and serves as a theoretical reference for the government in formulating financing incentive and restraint mechanisms. Full article