Economies, Volume 8, Issue 4 (December 2020) – 35 articles

The importance of a sound and stable financial system and by extension economic stability was brought to the fore by the global financial crisis (GFC). The economic and social costs of the GFC have renewed the commitment of stakeholders in the financial sector including central banks to develop instruments and methodologies that will be useful in monitoring financial stress within the financial system and the real economy. This study contributes to the growing literature by developing a financial stress indicator for the South African financial market. The financial stress indicator (FSI) is a single aggregate indicator that is constructed to reflect the systemic nature of financial instability and also to measure the vulnerability of the financial system to both internal and external shocks. Using the principal component analysis (PCA), the results show that financial stress can be identified by the financial stress indicator. Furthermore, using a recursive Vector Autoregression (VAR) model to estimate the impact of financial stress on output and investment, the result shows that financial stress has a negative impact on economic growth and investment, though not immediately. FSI is very useful for gauging the effectiveness of government measures to mitigate the impact of financial stress. Concerted effort to stimulate investment and domestic production by relevant stakeholders is necessary to mitigate the impact of financial stress. This will go a long way to alleviating the impact of the financial stress on industrial production, employment and the economy at large. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments around the world to implement unprecedented lockdowns, mandating businesses to shut down for extended periods of time. Previous studies have modeled the impact of disruptions to the economy at static and dynamic settings. This study develops a model to fulfil the need to account for the sustained disruption resulting from the extended shutdown of business operations. Using a persistent inoperability input-output model (PIIM), we are able to show that (1) sectors that suffer higher levels of inoperability during quarantine period may recover faster depending on their resilience; (2) initially unaffected sectors can suffer inoperability levels higher than directly affected sectors over time; (3) the economic impact on other regions not under lockdown is also significant. Full article

Accelerating demand for energy and its consumption has become a credible threat to the sustainable ecosystem due to the exploitation of scarce natural resources and environmental hazards. The adoption of renewable energy sources for sustainable development has been gaining traction among researchers and practitioners alike. Considering its hot climate, Pakistan has a huge potential to meet its energy requirements by tapping into renewable energy resources, especially through the use of solar photovoltaic (SPV) technologies. However, the adoption rate of this technology remains still quite scant among consumers. In this regard, the present research explores the factors that affect households’ purchase intention of SPV technology in Pakistan. The study has developed a comprehensive research framework by decomposing the technology acceptance model (DTAM) into second-order sub-constructs. Afterward, Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data by decomposing perceived usefulness (PU) into social, economic, and environmental usefulness and perceived ease of use (PEOU) into discomfort and insecurity and to assess their cumulative effects on consumer attitude. Moreover, the moderating role of policy and propaganda was also investigated. Empirical results assert that PU and PEOU positively and significantly shape the consumer attitude toward SPV adoption. Subsequently, consumer attitude has a positive and significant impact on the actual purchase intention of SPV technology. Furthermore, the moderating role of governmental policy and propaganda between the consumer attitude and actual purchase intention was also confirmed. The policy implications of these results are discussed. Finally, the limitations and future directions of the research are also elaborated. Full article

Russia’s international comportment and geostrategic moves, particularly the invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, caused a substantial change in its international economic and political relations. In response to Russia’s invasion, the United States of America, the European Union, and their allies imposed a series of sanctions. In this study, by applying an exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model to daily logarithmic returns of the ruble exchange rate and the closing price index of the Russian Trading System, we analyze how the returns and volatility of the exchange rate and the stock price index responded to the sanctions and oil price changes. The estimation results show that the sanctions have a significant positive short-term impact on exchange rate returns. Economic sanctions have a significant negative long-term impact on the returns and variance of the exchange rate and a significant positive long-term impact on the returns of the stock price index. Financial sanctions have a positive/negative long-term impact on the returns of the exchange rate/stock price index and a positive long-term impact on the variance of the exchange rate and the stock price index. Corporate sanctions have a positive long-term impact on exchange rate returns. Full article

Transaction Cost Economics is one of the most critical theories for business studies, including Franchise research. Knowing this stream of research well can help researchers to ground and sustain their studies on a more solid theoretical foundation. Through a Scientometric literature review via the Search-AppraisaL-Synthesis-Analysis (SALSA) procedures, this paper proposes, investigates and demonstrates the knowledge heterogenization (i.e., the knowledge structure becoming heterogeneous) of literature in the social science domain. Focused on the Transaction Cost Economics application in Franchising research that intersects Economics and Business areas, knowledge heterogenization is found and demonstrated in the following aspects of research stream development: research topics, targeted outlets, empirical (geographical) contexts, analytic approaches, as well as important scholars and publications. However, we did not find heterogenization in terms of the adoption of cross-sectional versus longitudinal research design and quantitative versus qualitative data sources. Implications for the continuous practices and theory development of this research stream are discussed. Mainly, we argue that knowledge heterogenization is an approach for a scientific community to achieve developmental sustainability. Full article

This study examines the relationship between COVID-19, government response measures, and stock market volatilities for 11 developed and developing economies within the Asia-Pacific region. Our period of study is between 15 February–30 May 2020. Using the continuous wavelet transformation (CWT) analysis and plots and GJR-GARCH analysis, we examined the effects of the COVID-19 public health crisis and the corresponding government measures on the respective domestic equity markets volatilities. The CWT plots showed a varying level of market volatilities at different investment horizons. All the sample countries, except Japan, experienced very low or low volatility over the short-term horizons. In contrast, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Laos experienced medium volatility over the medium-term horizons. Finally, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines experienced high volatility over the long-term horizons. The GJR-GARCH results further ascertain that market volatilities are affected by domestic events, notably, the COVID-19 government intervention measures. In most sample countries, the government measures significantly reduce market volatility in the domestic equity markets. Additionally, international events have also triggered market volatilities. Overall, our study offers several contributions and implications for practitioners and policymakers. Full article

There are several reasons for environmental taxation implementation. Besides its environmental impact, the main reason for such taxation is its fiscal impact, particularly in generating revenues of public budgets. The main goal of this paper is to observe possible spatial patterns in fiscal impacts of environmental taxation in the EU countries, and to depict the groups of countries with the same (or similar) fiscal impact of these instruments on public budget revenues, including environmental and economic characteristics. Two methods of cluster analysis are used, Ward linkage and K-nearest neighbors (spatial) cluster analysis to observe potential geographical links or implication of fiscal impact. The study is performed for the years 2008 and 2017. Based on the results, we can say that in the year 2008, the EU countries were divided into “the west” and “the east”, with some exceptions. The western countries were characterized by high environmental tax revenues, the eastern countries by low environmental tax revenues. For 2017, the situation is different. The border between old and new EU member states is not so abrupt and clear. The results show higher diversification between EU countries concerning the fiscal impacts of environmental taxation. Full article

Knowledge is a determining factor in the creation of competitive advantage by generating new ways of working, which has been widely studied. However, in the agricultural sector, the contributions are minimal. Given the importance of the topic and the sector, the objective of this study is to determine the relationship between knowledge management and innovation in rural agricultural organizations in the state of Sonora in northern Mexico. A quantitative, correlational study was carried out, in which a questionnaire of 36 items with answers on a Likert scale was applied to 91 companies. The information was processed and analyzed in the SPSS program using correlation and linear regression. The results showed a positive and significant relationship between the variables under study, which supports that knowledge management in these companies, has as a consequence, innovations in them; however, it was not possible to determine the impact in economic terms. This can be taken up again in subsequent studies and in a practical sense in the companies by promoting knowledge management actions that encourage new processes, services and/or products that allow a monetary impact on them. Full article

This study examines whether a debt-to-GDP threshold exists in the public debt and economic growth relationship for 20 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 1990 to 2016 using the threshold estimation technique. The empirical results reveal that there is a threshold effect in the public debt and economic growth relationship. The MENA region’s debt-to-GDP threshold value as a developing region is lower than the debt threshold computed by earlier studies for developing countries. We found that the effect of public debt on economic growth is significant and positive only below the threshold value of debt-to-GDP. More precisely, debt has a promoting influence on economic growth when the debt is less than 58% of the GDP. This finding indicates that the relationship between public debt and economic growth is contingent on the debt-to-GDP ratio. Importantly, policymakers need to be more prudent when establishing a policy regarding debt issues. Full article

The strategies that non-profit organizations choose for volunteer engagement and financial sustainability are of the utmost importance for successful work. The main purpose of this study was to investigate feasible strategies for volunteer engagement and financial sustainability. Interviews were conducted to obtain data on the experience of volunteer managers in dealing with volunteers and financial matters together. Qualitative data analysis methods were used to code and analyze the data. Significant themes emerged from the data gathered through interviews that highlighted the strategies for volunteer engagement and financial sustainability chosen by the managers of non-profit organizations. From the manager’s perspective, the following strategies were considered important for engaging volunteers at non-profit organizations (NPOs): ‘building the skill sets of volunteers’, ‘fulfilling ulterior motives’, and ‘administering a culture of administrative support’. Moreover, ‘local fundraising preference’, ‘transparency’, and ‘building trust’ were regarded as successful strategies for maintaining financial sustainability. The findings of this study showed that, to function smoothly, non-profit organizations need to follow certain strategies to be cautious about volunteers as well as finance. The findings provide fruitful implications for practitioners and policy makers, and these are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, the limitations addressed in the study suggest a future direction for research in terms of study design and more focus on study informants. Full article

Externality problems hinder solutions to existential threats, including climate change and mass extinction. To avert environmental crises, policymakers seek mechanisms that align private incentives with societal exigencies. Successful solutions bring individuals to internalize the broad repercussions of their behavior. In some cases, privatization, Coasian bargaining, or Pigouvian taxes effectively place the weight of externalities on the relevant decision makers. Yet, the available remedies often fail to provide satisfactory outcomes, and inefficiencies persist in the markets for energy, transportation, and manufactured goods, among others. This article explains how a simple voting mechanism can achieve socially optimal decisions about many of the innumerable externality problems that remain. Full article

This study investigates the relationship between natural resource rents, human development and economic growth in Sudan using co-integration and vector error correction modelling (VECM) over the period 1970–2015. Institutions proved to play a role in determining a difference in whether a country is cured or blessed by resource abundance. In the case of Sudan, no time series data is available on institutional quality and is therefore excluded from the analysis. The role of institutions and macroeconomic policies is captured by other variables included in the empirical model. Co-integration tests confirm the existence of a long run equilibrium relationship between resource rents, human development and economic growth in Sudan. Empirical evidence from the estimated VECM shows that economic growth is positively affected by resource rents and development expenditure but surprisingly negatively affected by life expectancy at birth in the short run. In the long run, resource rents, school enrolment, life expectancy and financial development have negative significant effects on economic growth. Only development expenditure is found to affect economic growth positively. Resource rents are found to weaken education and health levels and this is indirectly channeled into negative effects of resource rents on economic growth. These results suggest that the government has been neglecting investments to build up human capital necessary for inclusive growth. Long run Granger causality tests show a unidirectional causal relationship running from resource rents to GDP growth as well as from development expenditure to GDP growth. School enrollment, life expectancy and financial development are found to be negatively Granger causing GDP growth. Long run causal relationships reconfirm that a resource curse exists indirectly mediated by weak human capital. The study recommends that the government should manage natural resource rents with a policy framework supporting creation of a virtuous economic circle between human development and economic growth. If pursued, this would promote sustained, inclusive and equitable growth in Sudan. Full article

The impact of economic growth on unemployment is commonly agreed and extensively studied. However, how age and gender shape this relationship is not as well explored, while there is an absence of research on whether education plays a role. We apply Okun’s law, aiming to estimate age-, gender- and educational attainment level-specific unemployment rate sensitivity to cyclical output fluctuations. Since the empirical literature provides evidence in favour of the non-linear impact of output change on the unemployment rate, supporting higher effects of recessions than that of expansions, we aim to enrich this analysis by estimating how the impact of positive/negative output change on the specific unemployment rate varies with the level of the total unemployment. The analysis is based on 28 European Union (EU) countries and covers the period of 1995–2019. The equations are estimated by least-squares dummy variables (LSDV), using Prais–Winsten standard errors. For the robustness check, we alternatively used Newey–West standard errors to address serial-correlations and heteroscedasticity, and the Arellano–Bond estimator for some specifications that assume dynamics in the panel. The results support previous findings of male- and youth-specific Okun’s coefficients and reveal that they significantly stand out just over the periods of negative output change. Additionally, we find that educational attainment level is an important factor explaining the heterogeneity of unemployment reaction to output change. Full article

Since 2000, Sri Lanka has embarked upon a path towards digitalization of most of the government functions and the process of public service delivery in the country. The process started with several disjointed initiatives culminating by 2010 into a full-scale program funded by many international donors around the world. Digital promotion agencies such as the Information Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) and infrastructure development entities such as the Lanka Government Network (LGN) were established, and the process significantly picked up pace in various government agencies and departments. This process, sometimes called e-governance, was set into motion to improve the efficiency of the government operations and public service delivery at all governmental levels. A decade has passed since many primary public services underwent a digital transformation. In this paper, we analyze the digital governance process and assess the efficiency status of public services in the country. We conducted an output-oriented, nonparametric analysis of the performance data by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA). The data were collected through a questionnaire-based field survey. Our findings suggest that most public services have not achieved optimal efficiency levels, and there is still plenty to be achieved by performance enhancement measures that have been adopted by the various agencies of the Sri Lankan government. Full article

This paper investigates the impact of having open 400 meter (400 m) runners on NCAA relay teams. Using data from 2012–2016 containing the top 100 4 × 400 m in each NCAA Division relay times for each year, it is found that more 400 m specialists lead to an increase in the overall performance of the team, measured by a decrease in relay times. The effect is examined across Division I–III NCAA track teams. The results are consistent across each division. We view this as a test of the role of specialization on performance. Using runners who specialize in 400 m races should increase overall team performance as long as specialization does not lead to an inefficient allocation of team human capital. An additional performance measure is used examining the difference between projected and actual relay times. Divisions I and II are found to perform better than projected with an increase in 400 m runners, but there is no effect found in Division III. Full article

Nowadays small and medium sized enterprises have become increasingly important in contribution to job creation and economic growth both in national and European level. Considering the rapidly and continuously changing business environment, due to the impacts of globalization and concentration, staying competitive is a great challenge for companies in the 21st century, especially in fashion retail sector. The current paper is intended to map the current situation of the sector—focusing primarily on SMEs—through the extensive literature review; and provide a better understanding of sector-specific competitive factors in fashion industry. The research methods are the analysis of different related articles, reports and other scientific literature sources, in-depth interviews and questionnaire survey. The survey was validated by confirmatory factor analysis, data were analyzed and evaluated through PLS-SEM model. The main findings of the study show that the most important competitive factor is the compliance with consumer needs. Furthermore, the research also points out that SME sector lag behind chains, thus, they need to focus more on better understanding and meeting consumer expectations. In this activity, it would be useful if they received EU and domestic support for educational assistance. Full article

The Winter World Masters Games (WWMGs) are a large sports event for 30+-year-old athletes. As there are neither competitive qualification requirements for participants, nor entrance fees for spectators, the event can be considered as a participatory sports tourism event rather than a spectator event. In 2020, the WWMGs were staged in Innsbruck, Tyrol. In this study, we estimate the payoff of the event for the regional economy by assessing the impacts generated by participant spending and organizational expenditure. Furthermore, we discuss the peculiarities of the masters sports concept. Our empirical work is based on three distinct analyses: (1) economic impact analysis of participant spending, (2) cost-benefit analysis of organizational resource flows, and (3) discussion of impacts with experts in a focus group setting. Our results support the previous findings that masters sports events attract rather affluent and consumption-oriented participants. Indeed, the WWMGs were found to have a regional economic impact of €6.18 million and an estimated yield of €4.40 for each publicly subsidized euro. For an audience interested in the economic impact of events, this paper presents a novel method for handling non-normal expenditure distributions and adds to the understanding of how visitor segmentation can be utilized in an assessment of event impacts. Full article

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it uses the available official Input–Output data for the Western Balkans economies to estimate the output and value added multipliers of the sectors identified as being either current or emerging strengths within the context of Smart Specialisation. These multipliers indicate the potential impact of changes in final demand for certain products and sectors. This permits the identification of the industries associated with high indirect and induced effects, and to form ideas about the sectoral interdependencies of the economies. For instance, it appears that many sectors related to construction are promising in terms of economic potential related to demand-side monetary injections in Albania. Second, a Multi-Regional dataset is used to investigate the international integration of the Western Balkans economies in terms of participation in the Global Value Chains. The latter has increased over time in the region, but it appears that some economies are benefitting relatively more than others from it. Full article

Farmers’ associations play an important role to help members increase their access to supports of information, capital, and technology; bring benefits to members; and partly promote production, enhance productivity, and increase income. This paper systematizes the theoretical foundation and empirical evidence on income difference between the member and non-member farmers and identifies factors that affect their decisions to join associations. By comparing specific characteristics between the member and non-member farmers, the paper examines the impact of joining farmers’ associations on the income of tea farmers in Vietnam by using the data from the survey of 742 farms. In our sample, 376 respondents are members and 366 non-members of associations in the four largest tea-producing areas, which cover 30 provinces in Vietnam. The paper uses OLS regression model to identify the factors that influence the decision of tea farms to join farmers’ organizations and tobit model to assess more detailed impacts of membership on income. The findings show that the farmers, who are members of an association, are more helpful in the ability to access better market services and more tea prices, and are more likely to earn a higher average income than those are non-members. Moreover, their memberships result in an increase of 0.166 unit of income. The research results also show that other factors, including labor, tea price, share of tea sold, farmer age, tea area, ability to access extension services, and credit services, affect the farmer’s income. Full article

In advanced economies, rising inequality has become a significant economic issue. Our paper examines one dimension of the impact of inequality. This study employs panel estimators that tackle heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence to estimate the impact of income inequality on import demand. In addition, we use a Bayesian approach to the cointegrated VAR model as well as a model that allows for stochastic trends and cross-sectional dependence. Annual panel data for the period from 1995 to 2016 on OECD countries are used. The empirical results show that inequality has a positive and significant effect on import demand. The estimation also yields some other expected results, viz. that the income and price elasticity of import demand function are positive and negative, respectively. Full article

The unprecedented global pandemic of COVID-19 has greatly impacted the stock market in terms of both price reactions and the influences of volatility. Using a sample of 46 stocks listed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand, in this paper, an event study technique is developed considering idiosyncratic volatility to analyze the reactions of stock prices and market volatility in Thailand during the period of the pandemic. The empirical results suggest that most securities in the Thai stock market have been adversely affected by the pandemic, as reflected in the abnormal returns compared to the period before the COVID-19 outbreak. This is mainly attributable to the curtailed economic activities induced by the pandemic as well as policy responses such as social distancing, quarantine and temporary market shutdown. Nevertheless, stocks in different sectors have been shown to have varied in terms of price responses, as some businesses may have benefitted from the pandemic. In terms of market volatility, the cumulated abnormal volatility (CAV) calculated in the paper suggests that volatility in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) was significantly higher during the event window of COVID-19. Full article

Daily hotel data are employed, along with information on prices, revenue, demand and hotel occupancy, to analyze part of the local economic impact of the annual New York City (NYC) Marathon. As the largest competitive race in the world, the marathon attracts domestic and international competitors and spectators. The cancellation of the 2012 marathon due to Hurricane Sandy was estimated to lead to an increase of 4000 hotel nights as well as a 10% increase in the average daily room rate. Taken together, this is associated with a USD 3 million increase in hotel revenue. The results suggest a significantly lower local economic impact of the race than previously thought. Full article

Tax compliance is an issue that can be traced back to the introduction of taxes, which is the reason such compliance remains a significant topic in the current literature of academia and practice. Prior studies on the topic of tax compliance or non-compliance can be categorized into two, namely economic and social/psychological theories. In a more serious note, tax evasion has remained a key issue among governments all over the globe, with Jordan being no exception. Jordan has undertaken different fiscal measures to increase compliance in the domestic front in the past decades, but based on annual reports, the country is still experiencing a considerable increase in net public debt and fiscal deficit that can be traced back to the increased tax non-compliance rate. This is specifically true in the case of sales tax in Jordan. To compound the matter further, literature concerning the determinants of sales tax compliance as well as other determinants that drive non-compliance is still scarce, with a universal tax compliance model able to explain the issue with clarity still being elusive. Hence, this work proposed the determinants of sales tax compliance in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Jordan, extending Fischer’s model of tax compliance, and adding the moderating role of tax knowledge and direct effect of tax service quality. This study proposed a model encapsulating the social, psychological and economic factors to provide insight into the sales tax compliance of Jordanian SMEs. Full article

The existing body of academic literature reveals that production, distribution, and consumption might be both consistently connected and geographically scattered. This requires assessing the spatial order of production–distribution–consumption cycle, within which exploring of spatial relationship would be based on mutual dependence on each other’s of production, distribution and consumption. Hierarchical and spatial nesting of production, distribution, and consumption data allows us to apply hierarchical spatial autoregressive models (HSAR). The study was conducted on data from 2132 municipalities within 84 regions of the Russian Federation in 2018. The created models enabled distinguishing intraregional and interregional effects and highlighted the positive effect of spatial interactions in production volume. The calculations showed that population income, which determine the demand for goods are positively associated with production volume while relationship between manufacturing and wholesale is negative, resulting in revision of relations between wholesale and manufacturing enterprises and boosting ways of improvement the competitiveness of manufactured goods. The results allow us not only to enhance understanding of the spatial pattern of production–distribution–consumption cycle, but also to reveal new opportunities in the development of supply chain location policy. Full article

This study examines the impact of the Khartoum Stock Exchange market performance on economic growth in Sudan from Q1 1995 to Q4 2018. The data were collected from the Central Bank of Sudan (CBS) and Khartoum Stock Exchange (KSE). The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test was applied to estimate the impact of the Khartoum Stock Exchange market performance on economic growth. The results show that the Khartoum Stock Exchange market performance has a limited impact on economic growth. The results of the ARDL test reveal that the speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium after a short-term shock, which confirms the stability of Sudanese economic system through stock market performance, equals 24% only. Although market capitalization has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the long term, the turnover ratio and stocks traded value showed insignificant negative impacts on economic growth. We recommend that suitable investment policies should be developed by policy makers for the Sudanese economy to allow the Khartoum securities market to attract foreign investors and encourage local investors in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the stock market, thus, leading to a boost in securities exchanges as well as economic growth. Full article

Digital competitiveness is gaining more and more attention as a source of competitive advantage at the business and national economies levels. Digital economy performance is a matter of national strategies for achieving economic growth and socioeconomic development. Widely accepted instruments for reporting progress in these areas have been recently developed, including the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI index). The current study aims to use the DESI index and its five dimensions (namely Connectivity, Human Capital, Use of Internet Services, Integration of Digital Technology and Digital Public Services) not only as a tool for recognizing the current state, but also to forecast progress under the Greek economic environment. The Gompertz model was used as a methodological tool and it is valuable that a diffusion model has been implemented on a composite index related to countries’ digital competitiveness. Moreover, the results reveal the areas where convergencies and divergencies exist between Greece and the rest of the EU-28 member states, while forecast permits one to evaluate how current policies have a significant impact on digital competitiveness. Results indicate that Greece is facing significant challenges as a result of the low state of digitization, coming from both the demand side (businesses that consume internet services) and the offer side (institutional and governmental constraints). The proposed results could be used in order to readjust existing policies and to spot aspects where further improvement is needed to achieve high standards of digital competitiveness. Full article

We study the relationship between the scope of trade policy cooperation and bilateral trade flows with a particular focus on global value chain (GVC) trade using data on the core and non-core provisions included in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). We find that broader PTAs have a larger impact on trade flows involving intermediates relative to flows involving all products, suggesting that GVC trade is particularly sensitive to the scope of trade policy cooperation. We also investigate different dimensions of heterogeneity in PTAs. We find that core provisions tend to drive the effect of PTAs on the level of GVC trade and that PTAs are particularly effective in raising the level of GVC trade between developing economies. We explore these issues using a sample of 189 countries over the period 1990–2015, with data obtained from the latest release of the EORA multi-regional input–output tables and UN-COMTRADE data. Full article

This study aims to examine the sources and determinants of consumption expenditure inequality in Malaysia as well as to quantify their proportional contributions to the total explained inequality using the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) data for the year 2014 collected from the Malaysian Department of Statistics (DOSM). The study applies Field’s regression-based decomposition method to the log-linear regression model of per capita monthly consumption expenditure. It is found that the model explains about 55.2% of the variability in the logged monthly consumption expenditure per capita. The findings suggest that the size of households, education of household heads, and regional variations are the major contributing factors to consumption expenditure inequality in Malaysia, with household size being among the highest. Other household head characteristics, including ethnicity, strata, and citizenship, have small contributions to the total explained inequality. However, sex and age of household heads contributed negatively to inequality and have inequality decreasing effects, with a negative impact on inequality. A large percentage of unexplained inequality is not captured by these factors, which may be attributed to either unobserved household attributes or residuals. The results are important for policy implications and should be taken into account in formulating future policies, especially those aiming to reduce inequality among the population and thus improving living standards and well-being. Full article

The goals of this paper are first to identify why professional football clubs replace their head coach and, second, to investigate the effect of coach dismissal on team performance. To do that, we propose a new method for assessing the performance expectations of professional sport teams using Monte Carlo simulation. We apply our method to the English Premier league and the French Ligue 1 football teams over the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 seasons. We find that coach dismissal is the result of a drop in the average expected performance compared with the performance expectations at the beginning of the season. We also show that dismissing a coach may enhance performance only if the team under-performed before the dismissal. There is no obstacle to using the same method for professional teams in other sports. The method is easily reproducible and does not require much information in order to be applied. Full article

The scope of this paper is to investigate whether imitation strategies adopted by startups are effective in the pursuit of enhanced entrepreneurial innovation. To this end, a literature review was carried out in order to develop a research framework with factors related to imitation predicting entrepreneurial innovation. Moreover, managerial skills and entrepreneurial skills were incorporated as predictors of entrepreneurial innovation. In this respect, a structured questionnaire was developed to address these research objectives, based on scales tested in previous studies. In 2020, a survey was conducted on 486 startup owners operating in Greece, and a total of 289 responses were received. A hierarchical regression analysis was employed in order to examine the research framework. In congruence with the hypotheses, the findings demonstrated that outcome-based imitation strategies and trait-based imitation strategies positively affect the development of entrepreneurial innovation. Moreover, the positive impact of managerial and entrepreneurial skills on the development of entrepreneurial innovation was also confirmed. In contrast, the findings suggest that frequency-based imitation strategies negatively predict entrepreneurial innovation. However, outcome-based imitation and trait-based imitation strategies have been shown as the determinants with a positive impact on entrepreneurial innovation. Full article