Investigation of The Driving Factors of Ecological Footprint in Malaysia

Malaysia’s growing trends in energy production related emissions throw doubt on the country's possibility of meeting the Paris Climate Change Agreement and SDG obligations. Taking into account Malaysia’s current growth pattern and climatic circumstances, this study evaluates the association between ecological footprint and its potential determinants: economic growth, oil consumption, renewable energy and domestic capital investment for the period between 1965 and 2017. The stationary nature of the parameters is investigated using the conventional unit root approach (ADF and PP unit root) and structural break unit root (ZA unit root). The bounds approach in combination with the critical approximation p-values of Kripfganz and Schneider (2018) established a cointegration association between the observed parameters. The ARDL approach uncovered that economic growth and oil consumption contribute to ecological footprint. Furthermore, renewable energy consumption and gross capital formation reduce the ecological footprint. The FMOLS and DOLS estimators were applied as the sensitivity analysis of the ARDL estimators. Furthermore, the spectral BC causality approach was also utilized to investigate the causal association between ecological footprint and its determinants.

Impact of Industry-Specific Risk Factors on Stock Returns of the Malaysian Oil and Gas Industry in a Structural Break Environment

This study examines the impact of industry-specific risk factors such as oil price, gas price, and exchange rate on stock returns of Malaysian oil and gas firms in a structural break environment by employing the break least square approach of Bai and Perron (1998, 2003). Existing studies fall short of providing such empirical evidence. The results document evidence of structural breaks in the relationship between industry risk factors and the stock returns of the oil and gas industry. Industry-specific risk factors are shown to significantly affect the stock returns of oil and gas industry sub-sectors alongside market-based risk factors. The results reveal that the beta values of oil price, gas price, and exchange rate vary across sub-periods hence confirming that exposure of oil and gas stocks to industry risk factors varies over time and across sub-periods. The effects of oil, gas, and exchange rate risk factors also differ across the sub-industry, with impacts and directions largely dependent on the core business activities of the oil and gas sub-industries. The empirical results offer implications for asset managers and investors.

A validity of environmental Kuznets curve under the role of urbanization, financial development index and foreign direct investment in Pakistan

PurposeThis research aims to inspect the existence of the “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) in the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and urbanization throughout 1972–2018 for Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachFor time series analysis, Phillips and Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root tests are used to confirm the level of integration. For robustness, Kim and Perron (2009)’s structural break unit root test is employed, which identifies the order of integration in the presence of structural break years. Further, combined cointegration analysis is performed to confirm the existence of a long-run association between underlying variables. Furthermore, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis is employed for the robustness of the cointegration approach.FindingsThe cointegration analysis confirms the existence of a long-run association among variables. The authors find a positive and significant impact of urbanization, FD and foreign development on environmental degradation in the long run. Similarly, only FDI increases environmental degradation in the short run. In addition, the authors find an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental quality which, further, confirms the presence of EKC in Pakistan.Originality/valueThis research contributes to applied economics in many ways: the combined effect of urbanization, FD, FDI and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission is checked simultaneously. To avoid ambiguity, this study constructs the FD index through the principal component analysis (PCA). Moreover, the role of structural breaks has been considered through the analysis. Novel Bayer-Hanck combined cointegration analysis is employed to detect the existence of long-run relationships among underlying variables.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Stock Market in China

This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 on the stock ambiguity, risks, liquidity, and stock prices in China stock market, before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 during the Chinese Spring Festival holidays in 2020. We measure stock ambiguity using the intraday trading data. The outbreak of COVID-19 has a significant impact on the average stock ambiguity, risk, and illiquidity in China and induces structural break in the market average ambiguity. However, the equity premium and liquidity premium change little during the same period. The market average stock ambiguity and risks decrease, and stock liquidity improves to pre-pandemic levels as the pandemic is under control in China. The market average stock ambiguity and risks in China increase again when the confirmed new cases in the U.S. surge in the second half of 2020. We also find a “flight-to-liquidity” phenomenon, and the equally-weighted (value-weighted) 20-trading-day liquidity premium declined significantly to about –4.42% (–6.48%) during the fourth quarter of 2020.

How Air Quality Affect Health Industry Stock Returns: New Evidence From the Quantile-on-Quantile Regression

This paper discusses the asymmetric effect of air quality (AQ) on stock returns (SR) in China's health industry through the quantile-on-quantile (QQ) regression method. Compared to prior literature, our study provides the following contributions. Government intervention, especially industrial policy, is considered a fresh and essential component of analyzing frameworks in addition to investors' physiology and psychology. Next, because of the heterogeneous responses from different industries to AQ, industrial heterogeneity is thus considered in this paper. In addition, the QQ method examines the effect of specific quantiles between variables and does not consider structural break and temporal lag effects. We obtain the following empirical results. First, the coefficients between AQ and SR in the health service and health technology industries change from positive to negative as AQ deteriorates. Second, AQ always positively influences the health business industry, but the values of the coefficients are larger in good air. In addition, different from other industries, the coefficients in the health equipment industry are negative, but the values of the coefficients change with AQ. The conclusions provide important references for investors and other market participants to avoid biased decisions due to poor AQ and pay attention to government industrial policies.

The Nexus between Agricultural Productivity, Oil Prices, Economic Growth, and Financial Development in the USA

Purpose. The study aims to examine the nexus between agricultural productivity by connecting oil prices, economic growth, and financial development. Design/Methodology/Approach. A newly formulated ARDL model was used to estimate an agricultural productivity nexus model using annual time-series data from 1962 to 2016. Innovation and additive structural break unit root tests were applied to determine the existence of unit roots, and the results reaffirmed that all the variables were stationary at first difference. The Chow Breakpoint test was applied to confirm a structural break in the year 2008 caused by the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Findings and Implications. The results depicted a long-run relationship linking agricultural productivity, oil prices, economic growth, financial development and a financial crisis. The results also showed that financial development and economic growth have positive effects on agricultural productivity. The empirical findings further suggested that an increase in oil prices and the prevalence of a financial crisis have severe adverse effects on agricultural productivity. Originality. The study provides a novel viewpoint of agricultural productivity by connecting oil prices, economic growth, and financial stability and development. The study successfully demonstrated that the financial sector and oil price stability are pivotal for enhancing agricultural productivity initiatives. This study highlights the policy implications of the estimated results for policymakers seeking to boost agricultural productivity by addressing economic misfortunes induced by oil shocks and a financial crisis.

Cryo-EM structure of an amyloid fibril formed by full-length human SOD1 reveals its pathological conformational conversion

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by the selective death of motor neurons. Misfolded Cu, Zn-superoxide dismutase (SOD1) has been linked to both familial ALS and sporadic ALS. SOD1 fibrils formed in vitro are able to incorporate into cells, transmit intercellularly, and share toxic properties with ALS inclusions. Here we produced amyloid fibrils in vitro from recombinant, full-length apo human SOD1 under semi-reducing conditions and determined the atomic structure using cryo-EM. The SOD1 fibril consists of a single protofibril with a left-handed helix. The fibril core exhibits a serpentine fold comprising N-terminal segment (residues 3 to 55) and C-terminal segment (residues 86 to 153) with a structural break. The two segments are zipped up by three salt bridge pairs. By comparison with the structure of apo SOD1 dimer, we propose that eight β-strands (to form a β-barrel) and one α-helix in the subunit of apo SOD1 convert into thirteen β-strands stabilized by five hydrophobic cavities in the SOD1 fibril. Our data provide insights into how SOD1 converts between structurally and functionally distinct states.

Investigating the validity of the agricultural-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Ghana: evidence from an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach with a structural break

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the validity of the agriculture-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis with evidence from an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach with a structural break including real income and energy consumption in the model for Ghana over the period 1980–2014.Design/methodology/approachThe ARDL approach with a structural break was used to analyze the agriculture-induced EKC model which has not been studied in Ghana. The dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), canonical cointegration regression (CCR) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) econometric methods were further used to validate the robustness of the estimates, and the direction of the relationship between the study variables was also clarified using the Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test.FindingsThe ARDL results revealed that GDP, energy consumption and agricultural value added have significant positive effects on CO2 emissions, while GDP2 reduces CO2 emissions. The Toda-Yamamoto causality test results show a bidirectional causality running from GDP and energy consumption to CO2 emissions whereas a unidirectional long-term causality runs from GDP2 and agriculture value-added to CO2 emissions.Practical implicationsThis finding validated the presence of the agriculture-induced EKC hypothesis in Ghana in both the short run and long run, and the important role of agriculture and energy consumption in economic growth was confirmed by the respective bidirectional and unidirectional causal relationships between the two variables and GDP. Thus, a reduction in unsustainable agricultural practices is recommended through specific policies to strengthen institutional quality in Ghana for a paradigm shift from rudimentary technology to modern sustainable agrarian technologies.Originality/valueThis study is novel in the EKC literature in Ghana, as no study has yet been done on agriculture-induced EKC in Ghana, and the other EKC studies also failed to account for structural breaks which have been done by this study. This study further includes a causality analysis to examine the direction of the relationship which the few EKC studies in Ghana failed to address. Finally, dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), canonical cointegration regression (CCR) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) methods are used for robustness check, unlike other studies with single methodologies.

Malaysia’s Energy-Growth Nexus and Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: Empirical Analysis Using the VECM and ARDL Cointegration Techniques

This paper investigated Malaysia’s energy-growth nexus and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis over the period 1971-2014 by taking the globalization variables of trade openness and foreign direct investment (FDI) and the structural break dummy of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 into estimation. To give interference, the Granger causality tests were implemented in the framework of two cointegration techniques: vector error correction model (VECM) and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL). As per Malaysia’s energy-growth nexus, referring to different results of the two approaches, we concluded that the presence of the energy-growth nexus was statistically confirmed, but it has not been fully established yet in the country. On the other hand, both the VECM and ARDL results provided the same conclusion for Malaysia’s EKC hypothesis, that is, in the initial stage, as the higher economic growth, the less CO2 emissions, but after a threshold, the higher economic growth, the more CO2 emissions.