Impact of COVID-19 on energy prices and main macroeconomic indicators—evidence from China's energy market

<abstract> <p>With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, the development of China's energy industry has been hampered. Although previous studies have shown the global influence of COVID-19 on energy prices and macroeconomic indicators, very few of them examined the impact on China independently, considering the special role of China in this pandemic and economy. In this study, we investigate the impact of the pandemic on several major China energy prices using the ARIMA-GARCH model. Combined with the Value-at-Risk (VaR) theory, we further explore the market risk, which indicates an increase in the tail risk of energy price volatility and the dramatic turbulence in energy markets. In addition, a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is developed to analyze how the main macroeconomic indicators are affected when energy prices fluctuate. According to the model results, energy price fluctuations caused by the COVID-19 have a negative impact on economic growth and inflation, with a higher contribution to the latter changes. Based on the modeling analysis results, this paper makes constructive suggestions on how to stabilize energy prices and recover the economic development in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p> </abstract>

Towards the attainment of sustainable development goal 7: what determines clean energy accessibility in sub-Saharan Africa?

<abstract> <p>Access to clean energy is necessary for environmental cleanliness and poverty reduction. That notwithstanding, many in developing countries especially those in sub-Saharan Africa region lack clean energy for their routine domestic activities. This study sought to unravel the factors that influence clean energy accessibility in sub-Saharan Africa region. Clean energy accessibility, specifically access to electricity, and access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, were modeled as a function of income, foreign direct investment, inflation, employment and political regime for a panel of 31 sub-Saharan countries for the period 2000–2015. Regression analysis from fixed effect, random effect and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares show that access to clean energy is influenced positively by income, foreign direct investment, political regime and employment while inflation has some negative effect on its accessibility. The policy implications from the findings among other things include that expansion in GDP per capita in the sub-region shall be helpful in increasing accessibility to clean energy. Moreover, strengthening the democratic institutions of countries in the region shall enhance the citizens' accessibility to clean energy. Ensuring sustainable jobs for the citizens is necessary for access clean energy.</p> </abstract>

Does corporate social performance lead to better financial performance? Evidence from Turkey

<abstract> <p>In the past two decades, research on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) has seen considerable growth; however, evidence from Turkey remains scarce, and the results are not uniform. To address this lack, this study investigates the impact of CSP on CFP from the perspective of stakeholder theory. Following the investigation of 47 publicly listed companies from the BIST Corporate Governance Index (XKURY) in the period 2014–2018. The results demonstrate that CSP positively affects CFP in both the short and long term. This study addresses the lack of Turkish experience, and the results indicate that CSP is an intangible resource in corporate strategy that can improve the competitive power of Turkish enterprises. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the positive role of CSP in short-term and long-term CFP in the Turkish context from the stakeholder perspective. The results have implications for Turkish policymakers regarding the rational use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to promote economic development and insights for Turkish enterprises in terms of gaining stakeholders' trust and improving investors' valuation through the strategic use of CSR to achieve long-term, sustainable development of enterprise competitiveness and finance.</p> </abstract>

How vulnerable is the fiscal posture in Turkey?

<abstract> <p>This study gauges the degree of fiscal vulnerability in Turkey by calculating the debt stabilising primary balance level and evaluates how this variable measures up against the actual primary balance levels for the 1978–2019 period. Based on this comparison, we build up a fiscal fragility index using the methodology described in <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b15">Stoian (2012)</xref>. In addition, the Toda-Yamamoto causality test is carried out to detect the direction of causality among these two variables. The index-based analysis reveals that the fiscal performance of Turkey was chiefly satisfactory for the estimation period. Also, the Toda-Yamamoto causality test results imply a unidirectional causality from the required primary balance to real primary balance, suggesting that the government uses the primary balance to stabilise fiscal imbalances, which is an affirmative effort by the government to restore fiscal sustainability. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the implementation of corrective fiscal actions to preserve stability, the index value is steadily moving up in recent years, indicating a mounting fiscal vulnerability risk. Back-loading fiscal adjustments involving spending cuts, full-fledged tax reform, proper scrutiny of public expenses, etc., are among the prominent policy options available to the government to alter the ongoing unfavourable trend in the fiscal vulnerability index.</p> </abstract>

The role of financial resources in SMEs' financial and environmental performance; the mediating role of green innovation

<abstract> <p>The current study investigates the influence of financial resources on environmental and financial performance with the mediating role of green practices (innovation) in manufacturing firms of the emerging economy, Pakistan. The research model and its proposed hypothesis was using 294 manufacturing firms' samples, for fruitful insights, the hypothesis was tested through a structured equation model using Smart PLS 3. Our results exhibited a positive and significant impact of financial resources on financial performance but not on environmental performance. However, green innovation fully mediates the relationship between financial resources and financial performance, while partially mediate the relationship between financial resources and environmental performance. Considering our insight, we suggest to the government that financially support the SMEs sector because they have a lack of tangible and intangible resources due to small size, and to easily adapt the green practices.</p> </abstract>

Decent Work and Economic Growth in the European Union. A partial order analysis of Eurostat SDG 8 data

<abstract> <p>Decent work and economic growth are regarded as essential elements for the sustainable development of countries. Thus, the Sustainable Development Goal No. 8 (SDG 8) is specifically devoted to this. The present paper reports on partial ordering-based analyses of the main indicators for the 27 European member states for their complying with SDG 8. The analyses are based on five main indicators, real GDP (GDP), investment share of GDP by institutional sectors (INV), young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET), employment rate (EmpR) and long-term unemployment rate (LtUR). The analyses comprise 1) an overall analysis taken all five indicators simultaneously into account, 2) the investment profiles of the countries applying investment from business, government of households as indicators and 3) the employment situation in the single countries with the NEET, EmpR and LtUR as indicators, specifically looking at differences between males and females. The data gives rather clear-cut pictures of the general situation in the European Union as well on the investment profiles and employment situation. In all cases the countries are mutually ranked and compared to the population averaged values for the Union (EU27).</p> </abstract>