Developments in Financial Technologies for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be seen as the critical goal for every country in the world. In this vein, a stable global financial system is needed these days to satisfy its duty to boost the private capital mobilisation to achieve sustainable development and steady economic growth. Nevertheless, several obstacles limiting such financial mobilisation have been identified by scholars, practitioners, and standard setters. Recently, digital transformation and advancement, specifically in the finance sector, include a wide range of technological developments, and applications such as blockchain, internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence are promised to enhance performance in the financial sector. The potential of digital applications in the finance sector to resolve critical obstacles in financing for inclusive and sustainable growth becomes evident. This chapter aims to provide a summary and a detailed discussion of the latest developments in financial technologies that both facilitate the SDGs and also contribute to future sustainable international business.

Competitiveness drivers for soybean exportation and the fundamental role of the supply chain

Brazil is the world’s second-largest producer of soybeans and the largest exporter. Despite the growing importance in the international market in the last harvests, activities related to this product threaten this position. Due to its economic importance for the country, this study aims to identify the competitiveness drivers of soybean destined for the international market and to measure their impacts on the export process. Therefore, the used methodology considers the systemic character of different factors that affect the supply chain positively or negatively. As a result, the logistics infrastructure dimension was the only competitiveness driver classified as unfavorable among the analyzed factors. The advances in agribusiness are being subsequently followed by some sectors of the economy such as science and technology. On the other hand, the logistics sector has not been showing the same development, causing some weaknesses to persist, either due to the lack of infrastructure of transport production, or the inability to properly store the national harvest. The current challenge for the State is to ensure the maintenance of the quality of the infrastructure already installed and to promote an environment capable of attracting private capital and a new investment cycle.

Introduction

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the book. It identifies the growing size and importance of overseas state investors and how they challenge current political economy analyses of the state. The phenomenon is well illustrated by Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs): state-owned investment bodies, often from Asia and the Middle East, that have bought shares in major firms in strategic sectors ranging from finance to communications and transport, as well as landmark buildings. The chapter presents the puzzle of the widespread acceptance of SWF investments: national responses to SWF purchases might have been expected to be hostile, especially as they represent entry into Western stock markets by non-Western overseas states. Yet many Western governments have accepted and often actively encouraged SWF investments, seeing them as an additional means to govern their domestic economies and pursue their political strategies. The chapter then situates this puzzle in the wider political economy literature on the role and power of the state in an increasingly internationalized economy. It argues that recent political economy works focus on the internationalization of private capital, ignoring the capacity of the state itself to become a cross-border economic actor. It summarizes the book’s findings that several Western governments have engaged in internationalized statism, underlining that the patterns of policy differ sharply from those that might be expected given popular and academic views of economic openness.

Development Trends of Joint Stock Companies

Joint-stock company is the pinnacle of development of organizational forms of functioning of private capital. Having emerged at a certain stage in the development of the market, a joint-stock company has become the leading form of concentration of private capital and the main source of their further growth including the form of citizens' money savings. The expansion of the size and circle of private capital owners, in turn, required further development of the specific composition of joint-stock companies, on the one hand, towards increasing their publicity and increasing the number of shareholders, and, on the other hand, in order to ensure the processes of the fastest, cheapest, complete and the relatively “safe” inclusion of small private savings in total equity. This revealed the specific process of the division of labor in the field of investment. Investment funds that specialized in "collecting" private savings for their investment in stakes in different companies have emerged, and professional financial intermediaries have developed in order to provide all the necessary services to ensure the process of mass investment in shares. Taken together, all these processes reflect the growth of the social character of modern private capital uniting in joint-stock companies and similar organizations. However, this process of growth of "socialization" of private capital has its own internal limit, which is that any form of pooling of private capital should not cease to be a source of growth of private capital and personal wealth of members of modern society.

Nigeria's development plan will not deliver results

Significance The plan aims for 85% funding by private capital, with the balance coming from federal and state governments. It also envisions 5% average annual GDP growth over the period, and its implementation will be overseen by a mix of public officials and private sector representatives. Impacts The plan is unlikely to change the main economic policies of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The lack of clarity over financing mechanisms will hinder implementation. Growth projections are set to prove too optimistic.

JAVNO-PRIVATNO PARTNERSTVO I VODOSNABDEVANjE

Public-private partnership is often proposed as one of the better ways to establish sustainable and economically efficient use of water resources. On the other hand, we are witnessing an obvious crisis of legitimacy in the liberalization of public utilities, both by various civic movements and authors who challenge the success of this concept in financing water supply, emphasizing that numerous practical examples of private capital participation in this area have led to adverse effects on the poorest population strata. In this paper, the author analyzes the results of research related to the concept of public-private partnership, and attempts to answer whether such solutions appear to be necessary and whether they can be harmonized with the current tendency of public policies to recognize the right to water and include it in the catalogue of basic human rights.

Public Capita and Growth: The Role of Institutions in Development

This study analyzes the links between public capital and growth using an econometric model of simultaneous equations, estimated on a panel of forty-three developing countries over the period 2003-2020. This growth model explains the determinants of GDP and public and private capital stocks. The accumulation of public, private and human capital generates externalities that are sources of endogenous growth. However, the formation of public capital generated a crowding out effect, to the detriment of that of private capital, because of differentiated budgetary constraints. Our results show that several developing countries have moved away from an optimal structure for the growth of sharing of available capital between the public and private sectors. In doing so, are institutions a prerequisite for the economic development of African countries.

IPO, private capital? Not! SPAC!

The introductory part of the article is devoted to a brief overview of the typical methods of raising funds for a company’s capital. Then, I compared The pros and cons of each approach. Further, the author introduces the company’s new fundraising – through the merger with a SPAC (from now on referred to as the merger with SPAC). The article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this option for a company to enter public capital markets or raise capital in a company compared to the already traditional methods – raising private capital and entering public capital markets through an IPO. As a result of this comparison, the author concludes that the merger with SPAC has the advantages of both classical options for raising capital, without their disadvantages, which makes this option a unique offer on the market. Statistical data confirmed this conclusion. The separate section in the article is devoted to the peculiarities and complexities of the merge with SPAC. The advantages of the merger with SPAC for the leading Russian companies compared with other types of capital raising are separately highlighted, and the contrast between the placement on the MICEX and the merger with SPAC. The article also presents statistics on the public capital market and the impact on the public market of the new opportunity for companies to go public. In the final section of the article, the author discloses the chain of events that brought the merger with a SPAC such a fame and popularity at the current moment in time. The article resulted in an explanation of the attractiveness of institutional investors’ investment of funds in companies that have chosen the merger with a SPAC as a potentiality for entering public capital markets.