Search Results (1,561)

The present study focuses on the attractiveness and perceived value of differentiated quality labels, such as the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), for agri-food products from Extremadura (Spain). In doing so, it addresses a gap in the scientific literature concerning consumer behavior toward products bearing these certifications. The results show that awareness of these quality schemes is significantly higher among middle-aged and older individuals, underscoring the need for more modern and targeted communication strategies. The findings highlight the strategic role of agri-food marketing in promoting certified products and emphasize the importance of bridging the generational gap in consumer education. Overall, differentiated quality schemes are perceived as strategic tools to enhance the competitiveness of local products, strengthen cultural identity, and foster sustainable rural economies. Furthermore, this study identifies a negative relationship between the consumption of certified products and the awareness of certification and a positive relationship with the willingness to pay a premium. Consumers with greater awareness tend consume these products less, although they are more willing to pay higher prices for items bearing quality labels. Full article

This paper develops a unified framework for mathematical finance under general semimartingale models that allow for dividend payments, negative asset prices, and unbounded jumps. We present a rigorous approach to the mathematical modeling of financial markets with dividend-paying assets by defining appropriate concepts of numéraires, discounted processes, and self-financing trading strategies. While most of the mathematical results are not new, this unified framework has been missing in the literature. We carefully examine the transition between nominal and discounted price processes and define appropriate notions of admissible strategies that work naturally in both settings. By establishing the equivalence between these models and providing clear conditions for their applicability, we create a mathematical foundation that encompasses a wide range of realistic market scenarios and can serve as a basis for future work on mathematical finance and derivative pricing. We demonstrate the practical relevance of our framework through a comprehensive application to dividend-paying equity markets where the framework naturally handles discrete dividend payments. This application shows that our theoretical framework is not merely abstract but provides the rigorous foundation for pricing derivatives in real-world markets where classical assumptions need extension. Full article

This study evaluates the risk-adjusted performance of Hospitality REITs using multi-factor asset pricing models and downside risk measures with the aim of assessing their diversification potential and crisis sensitivity. Unlike prior studies that examine REITs in aggregate, this study isolates Hospitality REITs to explore their unique cyclical and macroeconomic sensitivities. This study looks at the risk-adjusted performance of Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in relation to more general REIT indexes and the S&P 500 Index. The study reveals that monthly returns of Hospitality REITs increasingly move in tandem with the stock markets during financial crises, which reduces their historical function as portfolio diversifiers. Investing in Hospitality REITs exposes one to the hospitality sector; however, these investments carry notable risks and provide little protection, particularly during economic upheavals. Furthermore, the study reveals that Hospitality REITs underperform on a risk-adjusted basis relative to benchmark indexes. The monthly returns of REITs show significant volatility during the post-COVID-19 era, which causes return-to-risk ratios to be below those of benchmark indexes. Estimates from multi-factor models indicate negative alpha values across conditional models, indicating that macroeconomic variables cause unremunerated risks. This industry shows great sensitivity to market beta and size and value determinants. Hospitality REITs’ susceptibility comes from their showing the most possibility for exceptional losses across asset classes under Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CvaR) downside risk assessments. The findings have implications for investors and portfolio managers, suggesting that Hospitality REITs may not offer consistent diversification benefits during downturns but can serve a tactical role in procyclical investment strategies. Full article

With the proposal of China’s “dual carbon” goal, the carbon market has become a vital tool for controlling carbon emissions. This study constructs a system dynamics model encompassing carbon trading, the economy, energy, population, and the environment, and conducts simulation analysis against the backdrop of China’s national carbon market’s implementation. The results indicate that the implementation of China’s national carbon market significantly promotes carbon emissions reduction, albeit at the cost of some economic development in the short term. However, the suppressive effect of the carbon market on carbon emissions is stronger than its negative impact on economic growth. The effects of carbon reduction strengthen with increases in carbon price, quota auction, CCER price, penalty severity, and the quota reduction rate and weaken with a higher CCER offset ratio. A moderate reduction in the tightening quota reduction rate is more conducive to achieving coordinated development across the multiple objectives of carbon reduction, economic development, and energy structure. Under the constraints of multiple objectives involving carbon reduction, economic development, and energy structure, the reasonable range for carbon prices is between CNY 77.9 and CNY 118.9 per ton, with the maximum quota auction of 23.4%. Additionally, the reasonable range for the quota reduction rates is between 0.84% and 2.18%, with the penalty severity set at 7. Full article

Enhancing market integration levels is crucial for advancing sustainable regional collaborative development and achieving ecological protection and high-quality development goals within the Yellow River Basin, fostering a balance between economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental resilience. This study analyzed the retail price data of goods from prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2022, employing the relative price method to measure the market integration index. Additionally, it examined the temporal and spatial evolution patterns and driving factors using the Dagum Gini coefficient and panel regression models. The results indicate the following. (1) The market integration index of the Yellow River Basin shows a fluctuating upward trend, with an average annual growth rate of 9.8%. The spatial pattern generally reflects a situation where the east is relatively high and the west is relatively low, as well as the south being higher than the north. (2) Regional disparities are gradually diminishing, with the overall Gini coefficient decreasing from 0.153 to 0.104. However, internal differences within the downstream and midstream areas have become prominent, and contribution rate analysis reveals that super-variable density has replaced between-group disparities as the primary source. (3) Upgrading the industrial structure and enhancing the level of economic development are the core driving forces, while financial support and digital infrastructure significantly accelerate the integration process. Conversely, the level of openness exhibits a phase-specific negative impact. We propose policy emphasizing the need to strengthen development in the upper reach of the Yellow River Basin, further improve interregional collaborative innovation mechanisms, and enhance cross-regional coordination among multicenter network nodes. Full article

Given the compromising effect of energy rebound on energy conservation efforts and environmental sustainability, plentiful research has focused on evaluating its size and scope in the past; however, there is a scarcity in the exploration of its potential drivers, especially the impacts of the digital economy. With the accelerating pace of worldwide digitalization, how the digital economy affects the energy rebound effect deserves special attention. We explored the underlying impacts of the digital economy on energy rebound and its influencing mechanisms for the first time in this study based on a panel dataset from China. Results show that most of the regions in China exhibited a partial rebound effect over the period 2007–2022, with an average value of 77.14%. Digital economy development exhibits a threshold effect on energy rebound with regard to energy efficiency improvement. That is, when the energy efficiency is low, digital economy development positively impacts the energy rebound, however, as the energy efficiency increases and surpasses a certain critical threshold, the digital economy can help mitigate the energy rebound effect. Energy prices and environmental regulation present a significant negative impact on energy rebound. Finally, several policy implications are highlighted based on the main findings of this study. Full article

Background: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of online health consultations, as they can help reduce the risk of contagion and infection. However, due to limited trust, these services have not yet gained widespread adoption and usage among patients. Objective: This research aims to examine the impact of perceived quality on patients’ adoption and usage of online health consultations from three perspectives: emotional support, responsiveness, and service continuity. Additionally, this research further explores the moderating effects of online service prices on these relationships. Methods: Based on trust theory, this research constructs theoretical models and empirically tests them by using a panel dataset that comprises 1255 physicians and 65,314 physician–patient communication records. Results: The empirical results confirm that emotional support, responsiveness, and service continuity positively influence patients’ adoption and usage behaviors. Additionally, higher online service prices negatively moderate the impact of emotional support and responsiveness on adoption behavior. Moreover, increased online service prices weaken the positive relationship between emotional support and usage behavior while strengthening the positive relationship between service continuity and usage behavior. Conclusions: This research extends the existing literature on online health services and provides practical guidance for platform managers, physicians, and policymakers to improve overall service acceptance. Full article

With the rapid advancement of urbanization, the increasing demand and insufficient supply of public service facilities for children have become urgent problems requiring resolution. This study employs the Shannon diversity index, the location entropy, spatial autocorrelation, and the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of children’s public service facilities in the central urban area of Shenyang. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) There are significant differences in the spatial distribution of children’s public service facilities. Higher quantity distribution and diversity index are observed in the core area and Hunnan District compared to the peripheral areas. The Gini coefficient of various facilities is below the fair threshold of 0.4, but 90.32% of the study units have location entropy values below 1, indicating a supply–demand imbalance. (2) The spatial distribution of various facilities exhibits significant clustering characteristics, with distinct differences between high-value and low-value cluster patterns. (3) The spatial distribution of facilities is shaped by four factors: population, transportation, economy, and environmental quality. Residential area density and commercial service facility density emerge as the primary positive drivers, whereas road density and average housing price act as the main negative inhibitors. (4) The mechanisms of influencing factors exhibit spatial heterogeneity. Positive driving factors exert significant effects on new urban areas and peripheral zones, while negative factors demonstrate pronounced inhibitory effects on old urban areas. Non-linear threshold effects are observed in factors such as subway station density and public transport station density. Full article

CO₂-biomethanation was studied in the present manuscript by considering the direct injection of hydrogen into a conventional anaerobic digester treating sewage sludge within a simulated wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The plant was simulated using the Python 3.12.4 software, and a Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to account for the high variability in the organic content of the wastewater and the methane potential of the sludge. Two modes of operation were studied. The first mode involves the use of an anaerobic digester to upgrade biogas, and the second mode considers using the digester as a CO₂ utilization unit, transforming captured CO₂. Upgrading biogas and utilizing the extra methane to generate electricity within the same plant leads to a negative economic balance (first scenario). A hydrogen injection of 1 L of H₂/L_r d (volumetric H₂ injection per liter of reactor per day) was required to transform the CO₂ present in the biogas into methane. The benefits associated with this approach resulted in lower savings regarding heat recovery from the electrolyzer, increased electricity production, and an additional oxygen supply for the waste-activated sludge treatment system. Increasing the injection rate to values of 5 and 30 L of H₂/L_r d was also studied by considering the operation of the digester under thermophilic conditions. The latter assumptions benefited from the better economy of scale associated with larger installations. They allowed for enough savings to be obtained in terms of the fuel demand for sludge drying, in addition to the previous categories analyzed in the biogas upgrading case. However, the current electricity price makes the proposal unfeasible unless a lower price is set for hydrogen generation. A standard electricity price of 7.6 c€/kWh was assumed for the analysis, but the specific operation of producing hydrogen required a price below 3.0 c€/kWh to achieve profitability. Full article

This study aims to analyze the impact of the U.S. Federal Reserve System’s monetary policy on major cryptocurrencies. Specifically, it explores whether the effects differ between volatile cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the stablecoin Tether. To this end, we utilize an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach, analyzing monthly data from January 2019 to April 2025. The empirical results indicate that the responses of volatile and stable cryptocurrencies to the Fed’s monetary policy differ. In the long term, the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum tend to react positively to the Fed’s monetary policy changes, whereas Tether’s prices experience a negative impact. We recommend novel policy implications in this study based on these empirical findings. Full article

Indonesia’s dependence on fossil fuel exports, particularly coal and crude oil, presents a dual challenge: sustaining economic growth while addressing rising CO₂ emissions. Despite significant attention to domestic energy consumption, the environmental implications of export activities remain underexplored. This study examines the dynamic relationship between energy exports, crude oil prices, and CO₂ emissions in Indonesia using a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model with annual data from 2002 to 2022. The analysis incorporates Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) and Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (FEVD) to trace short- and long-term interactions among variables. Findings reveal that coal exports are strongly persistent and positively linked to past emission levels, while oil exports respond negatively to both coal and emission shocks—suggesting internal trade-offs. CO₂ emissions are primarily self-driven yet increasingly influenced by oil export fluctuations over time. Crude oil prices, in contrast, have limited impact on domestic emissions. This study contributes a novel export-based perspective to Indonesia’s emission profile and demonstrates the value of dynamic modeling in policy analysis. Results underscore the importance of integrated strategies that balance trade objectives with climate commitments, offering evidence-based insights for refining Indonesia’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and sustainable energy policies. Full article

The international trade in agricultural products is complex and diverse. Global buyers must diversify their import sources, while sellers must explore new market opportunities. In the past, there has been no analysis on how second-tier exporters, with a smaller market share compared to dominant exporters, interact in the same target market and within an existing trade market and what factors affect trade prices and market forces. Based on Vollrath’s revealed competitive advantage index framework, this study analyzes the global tangerine trade (HS08052100) and means of production from 2008 to 2021, performs clustering, and estimates the residual demand elasticities of two main second-tier exporting countries—South Africa and Morocco—in four major importing countries for empirical analysis. The results show that South African tangerines have a lower market share than Moroccan tangerines in the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. However, all data indicate that the residual demand elasticity for the country’s products in the target markets is negative, indicating that South African exporters have market influence in all three markets and significantly affect the prices of Moroccan products in these markets. Unlike other studies that have focused on the ranking analysis of export indices, the novelty of this study is that it provides an oligopolistic framework based on agricultural value chain analysis, which can be used for many countries with limited export scales. The method proposed in this study is expected to help citrus traders to effectively find export markets by evaluating the remaining market niches using key market data and the prices of similar competitors in the same category. Full article

The sustainable development of eco-tourism is significantly influenced by multiple conditions within spatiotemporally continuous geographic scenarios. However, existing evaluations of the development value of eco-tourism resources (Eco-TRDVs) are non-spatial and do not sensitively represent their complex relationships. This study proposed a GIS approach for evaluating regional Eco-TRDVs by mapping the complex interconnections with spatial distances. Inherent and external conditions for evaluating Eco-TRDVs were classified under three indicators and digitized using GIS and remote sensing technologies. Then, the analytic hierarchy process and GIS cost distance analysis were introduced to define the initial values and cumulate Eco-TRDVs with distances. Taking the Taihang Honggu National Forest Park, China, as the case area, the Eco-TRDVs over the entire area in 2017 and 2020 were mapped. The results present a continuous spatial variability of Eco-TRDVs and comprehensively reflect the complex interconnections of constraint elements with spatial distances. The evaluation is sensitive to the intrinsic value of poles, as evidenced by the high development values and high-density distribution of their contours. Source additions improve the evaluation considerably, with transportation networks having a greater impact than economic development zones and urban elements. Furthermore, aggravated fragmentation of the price flow field increases spatial heterogeneity. The development value shows a negative linear correlation with distance. The proposed approach handles the spatially oriented relationships of the multi-conditions, and supports future planning and monitoring of spatial-temporal changes in eco-tourism development. Full article

Bank operations are contingent upon investor confidence, particularly during periods of economic distress. If investor confidence drops, a bank faces difficulties obtaining money, higher borrowing costs, and lower stock values. Non-performing loans (NPLs) potentially jeopardize a bank’s long-term viability and short-term profitability, and investors are naturally wary of institutions that pose a high credit risk. The purpose of the study was to explore how non-performing loans influence investor confidence in banks. A purposive sampling technique was used to identify 253 New York Stock Exchange banks in the Thomson Reuters Eikon DataStream that satisfied all the inclusion and exclusion selection criteria. The Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) models were used to analyze the data, providing insight into the relationship between the variables. The study discovered that NPLs had a negative and significant influence on price–earnings (P/E) and price-to-book value (P/B) ratios. Furthermore, the bank’s age was found to have a positive and significant relationship with the P/E and P/B ratio. The moderating relationship between NPLs and bank age was found to have a negative and significant influence on price–earnings (P/E) and price-to-book value (P/B) ratios. The findings underscore the importance of asset quality and institutional reputation in influencing market perceptions. Bank managers should focus on managing non-performing loans effectively and leveraging institutional credibility to sustain investor confidence, particularly during financial distress. Full article

Background/Objectives: Despite its well-established health benefits, adherence to the Mediterranean lifestyle (MedLife) has declined globally, including in its region of origin, alongside a significant shift toward ultra-processed food consumption. Understanding the factors associated with MedLife adherence is essential for developing targeted interventions and tailored policy recommendations. As part of the MEDIET4ALL PRIMA project, this cross-sectional study aimed to comprehensively examine geo-demographic, socio-economic, psychological, behavioral, and barrier-related factors associated with and potentially contributing to MedLife adherence. Methods: Data were collected from 4010 participants aged 18 years and above across ten Mediterranean and neighboring countries using the multinational MEDIET4ALL e-survey, which included the validated MedLife index, along with various other questionnaires. Results: Results indicate that only 22% of respondents demonstrated high adherence to the Mediterranean lifestyle (MedLife), with significant variability observed across countries, age groups, education levels, and health statuses. Spain had the highest proportion of participants with high adherence (38%). Factors associated with significantly higher adherence rates include older age, living in the Mediterranean region, higher education levels, a greater awareness of MedLife principles, lower perceived barriers, normal BMI, better health status, and stable economic and marital conditions (p-values ranging from 0.04 to <0.001). Additionally, individuals with high MedLife adherence exhibited more socially and physically active lifestyles and experienced less psychological strain (p < 0.001). Regression analyses identified MedLife awareness as the strongest positive predictor of adherence (β = 0.206), followed by social participation (β = 0.194) and physical activity (β = 0.096). Additional positive contributors include life satisfaction, sleep quality, living in the Mediterranean region, age, and education (β ranging from 0.049 to 0.093). Conversely, factors that are negatively associated with adherence include sedentary behavior, living environment, and barriers such as low motivation, taste dislike, price unaffordability, limited availability, and the time-consuming nature of preparing Mediterranean food (MedFood; β ranging from −0.036 to −0.067). Conclusions: These findings indicate that fewer than one in four adults across Mediterranean and neighboring countries demonstrate high adherence to MedLife, supporting prior evidence of suboptimal adherence even within Mediterranean regions. This study identified a range of behavioral, socio-demographic, and environmental factors—both positive and negative predictors—that can help guide the design of targeted, culturally adapted interventions to promote MedLife behavior. Future research should incorporate objective measurements and longitudinal monitoring to better understand underlying mechanisms, establish causality, and develop sustainable strategies for enhancing MedLife adherence in diverse populations. Full article