Search Results (161)

The study sheds light on the subtle interactions among financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI), and the quality of regulatory frameworks, with particular reference to their deep influence on renewable energy use and carbon emissions across 22 developed countries from 2002–2021. The results show an interesting tendency: Financial development and FDI will reduce reliance on renewable energy, whereas a significant increase in GDP per capita will increase reliance. Secondly, carbon emissions have a negative association with the adoption of renewable energy and financial development, though both reduce environmental quality; there is a positive relation between real gross domestic product (GDP) and energy depletion in terms of these toxic emissions. The significant role of regulatory quality as a moderator in this process is particularly striking. There is a direct correlation between financial stability and more robust regulation, resulting in reduced financial liquidity available for investing in renewable projects and restricting the free flow of clean FDI. Crucially, the paper argues that when combined with strong regulation, FDI is more likely to contribute to reductions in emissions, while FYGD, nevertheless regulated at a high level of quality, should raise emissions. Winding up, the result indicates that neither financial depth nor institutional quality, in isolation, is sufficient to deliver significant environmental improvement. Thus, it is urgent to adopt sound green finance policies and to formulate focused regulatory systems that integrate financial development and foreign direct investment with a broader sustainability agenda. Full article

This study systematically examines the impact of radical urbanization on the quality of economic growth using city-level data from 290 major prefecture-level cities in China during 2003–2019. A comprehensive indicator system for economic growth quality is constructed using PCA, capturing multiple dimensions of efficiency, stability, and sustainability. Nighttime light data obtained from the NOAA is extracted and calibrated, and the ratio of urban built-up area to nighttime light intensity is employed to measure the degree of radical urbanization. Empirical results reveal a divergence between economic quantity and quality effects: while radical urbanization promotes economic expansion, it significantly inhibits the quality of economic growth. To address potential endogeneity concerns, the change in FDI relative to changes in built-up area is used to capture FDI flow direction, with its one-period lag serving as an instrumental variable. Mechanism analysis, based on an interaction-based identification framework, shows that radical urbanization suppresses growth quality primarily through two transmission channels: reduced fiscal output efficiency and declining land use efficiency. Further analysis indicates that radical urbanization crowds out science and education expenditures, weakening fiscal effectiveness and reinforcing the identified transmission mechanisms. These findings provide objective evidence for evaluating urbanization strategies and offer policy insights for promoting quality-oriented and sustainable urban development. Full article

Foreign direct investment (FDI), particularly high-quality FDI, serves as a critical driver in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, understanding how to enhance FDI quality remains a pressing challenge for policymakers and researchers alike. As a core determinant of FDI quality, the business environment necessitates a thorough examination of its underlying mechanisms. Drawing on provincial-level data and firm-level data from listed foreign-invested enterprises in China spanning 2011 to 2023, this study constructs an FDI quality evaluation index system aligned with the goal of sustainable development at the micro-enterprise level, empirically examines the impact of the business environment on FDI quality. Our findings reveal a consistent upward trajectory in China’s FDI quality throughout the sample period, with the business environment exerting a significantly positive influence. Dimensional decomposition reveals that the government-legal environment and openness to foreign investment demonstrate particularly pronounced positive effects. These effects operate primarily through three mechanisms: stimulating entrepreneurship, accelerating digital transformation, and optimizing supply chain configurations. Moreover, these effects are more pronounced among wholly foreign-owned enterprises, firms with superior knowledge absorption capacity, and those facing higher perceived economic policy uncertainty. Extended analysis further demonstrates that enhanced FDI quality makes substantial contributions to sustainable development outcomes. This study extends the research on FDI quality from the macro level to the micro level, broadening the research perspective of related fields. The conclusions not only furnish robust theoretical evidence on how business environments foster high-quality FDI, but also provide actionable policy insights for countries seeking to optimize their institutional frameworks to attract quality foreign investment in alignment with the SDGs. Full article

Regulatory bodies have observed an increase in environmental issues due to firms’ interactions with the environment. Nonetheless, reconciliation actions are emerging, driven by the pursuit of sustainable development goals. This study investigated the impact of financial development and foreign direct investment on ecological footprints in sub-Saharan African nations, while examining the mediating role of regulatory quality and control for corruption. The research was motivated by the growing environmental degradation in the region amid growing capital inflows and financial market expansion. Using panel data of 18 sub-Saharan African countries between 1996 and 2023, sourced from the World Bank database and World Governance Indicators, we employed an Autoregressive Distributed Lag model to assess the short- and long-run relationships among ecological footprint, financial development, foreign direct investment, and key institutional factors. Results from the baseline model show that financial development significantly increases ecological footprints, while the effect of foreign direct investments is insignificant in the absence of institutional factors. However, when mediating variables are introduced, foreign direct investment significantly worsens ecological footprint, and regulatory quality and control for corruption show strong moderating effects, confirming the pollution haven hypothesis. Also, all control variables (trade openness, gross domestic product per capita, government expenditure, and population density) show significant outcomes with environmental sustainability. The findings underscore the importance of institutional factors in shaping sustainable foreign direct investment flows and financial systems. These research findings offer policy pathways for aligning investment strategies with sustainability goals in sub-Saharan Africa. Recommendations include strengthening the nation’s institutional framework, linking foreign direct investment to environmental compliance and promoting green finance policies across the region. Full article

This study examines whether inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has ultimately supported or hindered sustainable economic growth in Türkiye by analyzing the impact of FDI stocks on output per worker within an endogenous-growth framework. Using annual data for 1970–2024 and an ARDL approach, the study estimates the short- and long-run effects of FDI stock, distinguishes these effects from those of domestic capital stock, and assesses whether they remain stable across different sub-periods. The results show that FDI stock has a robustly negative impact in the long run, and this adverse long-run effect persists when the sample is split into pre- and post-2001 crisis subsamples, while domestic capital does not emerge as a significant driver of growth. Human capital—measured by years of schooling—also displays a negative long-run association with output per worker, whereas institutional quality has a strong positive effect. The study contributes to the Turkish FDI–growth literature by providing, to the best of available knowledge, the first time-series evidence that focuses on FDI stocks and jointly models foreign and domestic capital stocks, and by documenting a long-run-negative effect of FDI stock that is robust over time. The findings imply that policy in Türkiye should shift from maximizing the volume of FDI toward improving its sectoral structure and governance, upgrading education quality and retaining high-skilled workers, and implementing concrete rule-of-law reforms. Full article

This paper investigates the determinants of tourism in selected Asian economies over the period 1995–2024, employing the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator to account for cross-sectional dependence, unobserved common factors, and heterogeneous country-specific dynamics. As a robustness check, method of moments quantile regressions (MMQRs) are applied to examine how the effects of GDP, consumer prices, foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, and institutional quality vary across the distribution of tourism inflows. The results indicate that GDP consistently promotes tourist arrivals, particularly in countries with lower to median tourism inflows, while higher consumer prices reduce tourism demand across all quantiles. FDI and trade openness positively influence tourism, with FDI’s impact amplified in countries with stronger institutional quality. The MMQR analysis further highlights substantial heterogeneity: emerging economies benefit more from FDI and institutional reforms, whereas advanced economies rely primarily on GDP growth, trade integration, and high-quality tourism services. Overall, the findings underscore the complementary roles of macroeconomic fundamentals, foreign investment, trade, and governance in supporting sustainable long-run tourism growth in Asia, while demonstrating the value of distributional analysis for capturing heterogeneous effects. Full article

Vietnam’s sustained poverty reduction has coincided with rising foreign direct investment (FDI) and a major shift from income-based to multidimensional poverty measurement, raising challenges for interpreting poverty dynamics and the role of FDI across regimes. This study examines the relationship between FDI and poverty reduction in Vietnam by accounting for poverty persistence, regional heterogeneity, and changes in poverty measurement. Using provincial panel data for 2002–2022 and a System GMM framework, three main findings emerge. First, poverty dynamics differ across measurement regimes: during the income-poverty period (2002–2016), poverty dynamics exhibited lower persistence and faster convergence, whereas under the multidimensional framework (2016–2022), poverty became more persistent and convergence slowed, reflecting the increasingly structural nature of remaining deprivation. Second, FDI is negatively associated with poverty under both measures, but its effects are conditional and uneven. Interaction effects indicate that the poverty-reducing impact of FDI depends on provincial income levels and initial deprivation, with weaker effects in provinces facing deeper multidimensional poverty. Third, higher FDI exposure is associated with greater poverty persistence, reflecting the spatial concentration of FDI in better-off regions rather than a poverty-increasing effect. The analysis is subject to limitations related to measurement regimes, and results are interpreted as conditional associations. Policy implications highlight that the poverty-reducing effects of FDI depend critically on investment quality, the strength of local production linkages, and complementary public spending, particularly in provinces facing persistent deprivation. Full article

Short-term load forecasting (STLF) is crucial for ensuring power grid stability and economic dispatch. Its accuracy heavily depends on the quality of the input data. However, collecting operational data via the power system’s communication network poses a significant vulnerability to cyberattacks, particularly stealthy False Data Injection (FDI) attacks. By closely mimicking normal load fluctuations, these attacks evade conventional detection, thus, compromising forecasting reliability. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel resilient load forecasting framework that integrates two-stage attack detection with robust ensemble learning. In the detection stage, attack identification is performed through seasonal decomposition and AE-BiLSTM reconstruction, followed by restoration using periodic-consistent historical means and secondary screening via second-order differencing (SOD). In the forecasting stage, an improved Multi-Objective Whale Migration Algorithm (MO-WMA) is employed to adaptively optimize ensemble weights for intelligent fusion, significantly enhancing prediction accuracy and robustness, and providing a generalizable solution for intelligent grid load forecasting. Experiments were conducted on the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO New England, 2012–2014) load dataset under four typical FDI attack scenarios, with test sets including diverse attack intensities and temporal patterns. Results show that the framework achieves $98.98\%$ attack detection accuracy and improves the $R^2$ forecasting metric from 0.9053 to 0.9851, approaching attack-free performance, demonstrating effective recovery of forecasting accuracy and generalization capability. Full article

This study examines the evolution, heterogeneity, and short-term prospects of export performance in seven Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies—Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia—over the period 1995–2024. Using annual World Bank data, exports are modeled as a share of GDP to ensure cross-country comparability and to capture differences in trade dependence. The analysis combines descriptive and inferential statistics with Augmented Dickey–Fuller tests, non-parametric comparisons, Granger causality analysis, and country-specific ARIMA models to investigate export dynamics, the role of foreign direct investment (FDI), and future export trajectories. The results reveal a common long-term upward trend in export intensity across all countries, driven by European integration and structural transformation, but with pronounced cross-country differences in export dependence and volatility. Highly open economies such as Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic exhibit strong export performance alongside greater exposure to external shocks, while larger domestic markets such as Poland and Romania display lower export intensity and greater stabilization. Granger causality tests indicate that FDI contributes to export growth in several economies, often with multi-year lags, highlighting the importance of absorptive capacity and institutional quality in translating investment inflows into export competitiveness. ARIMA-based forecasts for 2025–2027 suggest continued export expansion and relative stabilization despite recent global disruptions. This study’s primary contribution lies in integrating comparative export analysis, causality testing, and short-term forecasting within a unified econometric framework, offering policy-relevant insights into export-led growth and economic convergence in post-transition European economies. Full article

This paper examines the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in European Union member states using a dynamic panel framework. Using an unbalanced EU panel from 2002 to 2022 and an Arellano–Bond difference-GMM specification, we model inward FDI inflows per capita as a function of institutional integrity (measured by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index), market size, development level, and trade integration. The results show a robust positive association between improvements in perceived integrity (higher CPI scores) and increases in inward FDI inflows per capita, conditional on macroeconomic controls and dynamic adjustment. Market size and trade variables have the expected signs, while GDP per capita is the empirically sensitive margin, consistent with the idea that higher development can indicate greater purchasing power but also higher costs and saturation effects in advanced economies. Robustness checks using the inverse hyperbolic sine transformation—suited to heavy tails, zeros, and negative net flows—confirm that the governance association is not an artifact of scaling. The findings highlight the importance of institutional quality and market openness as correlates of FDI attractiveness within the EU. Full article

Background/Objectives: Iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) is a common extraintestinal complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Among high-dose intravenous (IV) iron options, ferric carboxymaltose (FCM) carries a higher risk of treatment-emergent hypophosphatemia than ferric derisomaltose (FDI), with potential clinical consequences. Slovenia’s healthcare setting, characterized by very low IV iron infusion tariffs and recent pricing in which FCM is substantially less expensive than FDI, warrants a setting-specific cost effectiveness evaluation. Methods: We integrated two methodological components: (i) a payer-perspective cost-effectiveness analysis using a patient-level microsimulation model with (ii) an umbrella review of systematic reviews and a targeted search of expert consensus statements on IV-iron-associated hypophosphatemia. Results: In the base case, FDI required fewer infusions than FCM (11.1 vs. 14.2 over 10 years) but generated only €95 in IV iron administration savings due to low tariffs, while drug procurement was €1166 higher with FDI than FCM. When incorporating the clinical impact of hypophosphatemia, incremental quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were 0.136, yielding an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of €6590/QALY. The umbrella review consistently showed higher hypophosphatemia incidence with FCM (up to 92%) compared with other IV iron formulations (<10%), with recent recommendations emphasizing phosphate monitoring and risk mitigation through alternative formulations. Conclusions: Despite Slovenia’s low IV iron infusion tariffs and lower FCM price, FDI remained cost-effective in this model, largely due to its more favorable hypophosphatemia profile within the model. These findings suggest that hypophosphatemia risk should be considered when selecting IV iron therapy in routine IBD care. Full article

Using a fixed-effects panel threshold regression with Driscoll–Kraay inference, this paper examines how institutional quality shapes the distributional effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the ASEAN-5 economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) over 2002–2023. The empirical framework allows the impact of FDI on income inequality (net Gini index) to differ across low- and high-institutional regimes and to vary within regimes through interaction terms. Across governance indicators from the Worldwide Governance Indicators and a composite institutional quality index (IQ) constructed via principal component analysis (PCA), the results reveal pronounced nonlinearities, most clearly for government effectiveness, where the association between FDI and inequality switches sign across institutional regimes. For other governance dimensions, the FDI–inequality relationship is similarly regime-dependent and operates partly through regime-specific interaction effects, underscoring the importance of institutional thresholds in mediating distributional outcomes. Robustness checks confirm the directional consistency of the baseline results. Our findings imply that governance reforms must surpass critical institutional thresholds, particularly in effectiveness and implementation capacity, before FDI can contribute to reducing income inequality, highlighting the central role of deep governance improvements in enabling inclusive growth in ASEAN economies. Full article

Given global efforts to promote sustainable energy transitions, this study investigates how the deployment of renewable energy technologies (RETs) relates to multidimensional societal welfare and provides empirical evidence on these linkages in Lithuania. The purpose of the study is to provide an integrated, Lithuania-specific assessment of how economic, social, and environmental determinants associated with RET deployment are related to multiple dimensions of societal welfare. Drawing on scientific literature, an integrated indicator framework is developed that links the economic, social, and environmental determinants of renewable energy technology (RET) deployment to six societal welfare dimensions, as defined by the Lithuanian Quality of Life Index. Using official Lithuanian statistics for 2020–2024, a standardized panel dataset is constructed and Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression are applied using aggregated determinant categories, with model assumptions verified using the Breusch–Pagan and Durbin–Watson tests. Correlation results show very strong positive links between RET intensity indicators and key economic welfare measures (for example, wages, GDP per capita, foreign direct investment, disposable income), with absolute correlation coefficients typically between 0.90 and 0.99 (p < 0.05), and strong negative correlations between air-pollution indicators and GDP, income, FDI, and education (correlation coefficients between −0.96 and −0.90; p < 0.05). The results indicate that RET-related economic determinants have a statistically significant positive effect on the societal welfare dimensions of material living conditions; entrepreneurship/business competitiveness; and public infrastructure, living-environment quality/safety. Social factors also significantly support the societal welfare dimensions of entrepreneurship/business competitiveness and public infrastructure, living-environment quality/safety. In the retained regression models, explanatory power is very high (R² between 0.91 and 0.999), with positive and statistically significant coefficients for the economic determinant (regression coefficients between 0.43 and 0.96; p < 0.05) and negative, statistically significant coefficients for the environmental determinant in the entrepreneurship and public-infrastructure dimensions (regression coefficients between −1.13 and −1.51; p < 0.05). Environmental determinants are associated with lower air pollution but show negative effects on the societal welfare dimensions of entrepreneurship/business competitiveness and public infrastructure, living-environment quality/safety. Overall, the findings suggest that RET deployment is an important correlate of the economic aspects of societal welfare, while environmental and social dimensions display more complex, domain-specific impacts. Full article

This study investigates the determinants of green energy penetration in the Next Eleven (N-11) economies over the period 2000–2022, with a particular focus on the roles of foreign direct investment (FDI), green transition, governance quality, industrial growth, and urbanization. The primary objective of the study is to assess how investment flows, structural transformation, and institutional capacity jointly shape the adoption of renewable energy in fast-growing emerging economies. To achieve this goal, the study employs a second-generation panel econometric and machine-learning framework that accounts for cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, and long-run equilibrium relationships. Specifically, cross-sectional dependence and slope homogeneity tests are conducted, followed by CADF and CIPS unit root tests and the Westerlund cointegration approach. Long-run effects are then estimated using Partialing-Out LASSO and Cross-Fit machine-learning estimators, complemented by SHAP analysis to interpret nonlinear and heterogeneous effects. The results indicate that green transition, governance quality, and urbanization significantly promote green energy penetration. In contrast, FDI and industrial growth exert adverse effects, reflecting carbon-intensive investment and production structures. The findings highlight the importance of coordinated investment strategies, institutional strengthening, and urban planning in accelerating renewable energy transitions in emerging economies. These results provide policy-relevant insights for achieving sustainable energy development while supporting long-term economic growth in the N-11 countries. Full article

Environmental sustainability has emerged as a global imperative in the context of accelerating climate change, rapid industrialization, and increasing ecological stress. Ecological quality is necessary for countries to pursue because of its overall benefits to the entire ecosystem. Therefore, due to the significant role that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plays in the global environment, this research examines the role of Green Innovation (GI), Financial Globalization (FG), Economic Growth (GDP), and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in influencing Environmental Quality (EQ) in the UAE from 1991–2022. The UAE is well known for these economic indices. Furthermore, this study employed the innovative Quantile Augmented Dickey–Fuller (QADF) test, Wavelet Quantile Regression (WQR), Wavelet Quantile Correlation (WQC), and Quantile-on-Quantile Granger Causality (QQGC). WQR is able to identify connections between series over a range of quantiles and periods. WQC evaluates the co-movement between variables at different quantile levels and across several scales. The QQGC captures the causal effect of the regressors on EQ. These methods are quite advanced compared to other traditional econometric methods. Based on the outcome of the WQR and WQC methods, evidence shows that GI contributes to EQ across all quantiles in the short, medium, and long term, while FG, GDP, and FDI reduces EQ across all quantiles in the short, medium, and long term. The QQGC results also affirm causality among the variables, implying that GI, FG, GDP, and FDI can predict EQ across all quantiles. This research recommends that the UAE should improve on its environmental policies both domestically and internationally by making them more stringent, and continue to promote clean energy investments. Full article