Education and Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from GMM Estimators for Dynamic Panel Data

The paper aims at studying the effect of education measured by enrolment ratios in secondary and higher education on economic growth measured by the rate of GDP growth in a sample of 40 developing countries during the period from 2002 to 2016 using the dynamic panel data estimators. The results of estimating the model of this study using the difference GMM estimator or what is known as the Arellano and Bond estimator showed that the proportions of those enrolled in tertiary education had a significant positive effect on economic growth, while the proportions of those enrolled in secondary education had a significant negative effect.

Measures of Residential Energy Access in Mexico, 2008–2014

The concept of energy access in developing countries, such as Mexico, encompasses the accessibility to reliable fuels for heating, cooking, and lighting purposes while reducing coal and firewood consumption. This paper suggests residential energy access indicators by applying accessibility theory and estimating demand equations for electricity, natural gas, propane, firewood, and coal using Mexican households’ survey data from 2008 to 2014. Sprawl measures, gravity model, and central place theory are the accessibility theories supporting the accessibility indicators. The suggested energy access indicators are statistically significant and show the expected signs when applied to propane in Mexican households in 2014. The greater the household income, population size, education level of the household head, energy access, and the lower the energy price and the household size, the greater the demand for energy from 2008 to 2014. By contrast, the greater the education, the lower the demand for firewood and coal. Policy-makers in Mexico can use the suggested results to complement the energy access indicators suggested by international agencies to evaluate energy access performance and better understand the drivers of the different energy goods consumed by Mexican households.

The Financial State of Local Communities: A Comparative Research of Ukraine and the Czech Republic

The article describes the specific details of local communities functioning in Ukraine and the Czech Republic. It has been examined that Ukraine and the Czech Republic have similar, but not identical systems of local governance. We conducted a comparative analysis of the financial state of local communities in both countries by five indicators. Indicator 1 (total income per capita) characterises the community’s financial potential and reveals that Ukraine’s local communities have fewer financial resources to use. Indicator 2 (total expenditures per capita) describes the ability to provide residents with the resources generated in their community and Czech communities have a higher value of this indicator. Indicator 3 (share of the administrative expenditures) shows the effectiveness of money spent, and local communities in both Ukraine and the Czech Republic spend particularly the same part of their total expenditures on administrative needs. Indicator 4 (capital expenditures per capita) demonstrate how the money generated is spent on urgent capital investments and Ukraine’s communities have much lower capital expenditures per capita than Czech ones. Indicator 5 (the share of capital expenditures in total expenditures) reflects how local communities perceive the importance of investments in capital projects and Ukraine’s communities spend fewer financial resources for capital needs than Czech ones.

Covid-19 and Unemployment: Evidence from Puerto Rico Using Bayesian Analyses with High-Frequency Data

The paper aims at determining the relationship between the Covid-19 contagion level and the state of the economy using high-frequency data from Puerto Rico. In order to achieve the aim set, the direction of the causality relationship between the numbers of infected persons and the unemployment rate was determined. Furthermore, various Bayesian statistical models were estimated. The analysis results imply that the unemployment rate responds moderately to the Covid-19 contagion level itself and not the other way around. The 95 % credible interval for the elasticity coefficient of the unemployment rate relative to the virus is estimated as [0.0140–0.1448]. Evidence also shows that at the beginning of 2021, most of the fluctuations in the unemployment rate were explained directly by the Covid-19 perturbations. Hence, no evidence was found that economic activity promoted the virus spread in the analysed economy.

Domestic Credit and the Balance of Payment Deficit: Evidence from a Heterogeneous Panel of Five Selected Mena Countries

This study investigated the relationship between domestic credit and net foreign assets in the long run through the monetary approach to the balance of payments (MABP) for a panel of five selected MENA countries (Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) during the period extending from 1980 to 2019. It employed the second-generation methods in panel data analysis to deal with cross-sectional dependence (CSD) and slope heterogeneity. According to the panel results for Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimators, domestic credit has a significant negative impact on net foreign assets in the long run. The country-specific results for the AMG estimator strongly supported the MABP propositions in Jordan, Morocco, and to a lesser extent, in Egypt and Algeria. As for Tunisia, the results do not conform with what MABP predicted. The implicit conclusion is that an increase in domestic credit causes a continuous loss of net foreign assets in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria. Thus, monetary authorities should formulate an appropriate monetary policy to control the domestic credit creation as a mechanism toward improving the balance of payment (BOP) position. Furthermore, the policymakers should concentrate on other policy instruments to correct the BOP deficit rather than focusing on monetary tools, especially in Tunisia, where the findings showed that BOP was not a monetary phenomenon.

Cash Flow and Profit Impact on Capital Account Liberalization-Investment Growth Nexus in Nigeria: An Aggregated Firm Case

The article examines the firm’s investment growth effect following capital liberalization and financial constraints. It employs firm-level aggregated data of 80 firms for the period of 2006 to 2016. Employing the differenced dynamic panel regression technique, the analysis has revealed among others that investment growth appears to be significantly determined by cash flow (internal), thereby indicating the presence of profound financial constraint among firms in all industries. Second, the capital account liberalization appears to drive investment more through the indirect channel (capital/credit availability channel proxied by cash flow). Third, capital account liberalization-investment growth nexus appears to be less sensitive and significant with high profitability. This could be attributed to “profit flight” or repatriation of profit by foreign investors who may not necessarily prefer ploughing back of profit, which has implication for further expansion of investment among firms. This suggests that the level of capital openness is still low; hence, there is a need for further liberalization of the capital account with some mandate of profit ploughing back.

Telecommuting Intensity in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic: Job Performance and Work-Life Balance

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a prolonged and intensified telecommuting arrangement that raised a number of unprecedented concerns regarding its implications on employees’ job performance (JP) and work-life balance (WLB). This study primarily aimed at determining the relationship between telecommuting intensity and employees’ JP and WLB. Further, it sought to know if there was a significant difference in employees’ productivity when working at the office and at home. Lastly, it assessed whether previous frameworks on JP and WLB were still valid during the COVID-19 crisis. A total of 396 telecommuting employees from three BPO companies in the Philippines were gathered using stratified random sampling. Pearson correlation, T-test, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were executed for this study. The result of this study provides evidence that intensified telecommuting has a negative relationship with employees’ WLB. It means that longer time spent in telecommuting decreases the work-life balance of employees. On the other hand, telecommuting intensity is not significantly correlated with employees’ JP, supporting the second finding that there is no significant difference in the percentage of work done and the amount of time spent to finish a job at home and at the office. Lastly, CFA generated that the frameworks on JP and WLB were still applicable in the context of COVID-19. This study provides managers with findings to more carefully design telecommuting programmes with emphasis on supporting the factors that contribute to employees’ work-life balance.

The Limits of Leadership as a Barrier to Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Algeria

Since 2010, Quality Assurance (QA) has been officially adopted and has become a priority of the Higher Education (HE) system in Algeria. This study is part of this framework and aims to explore the role of leadership in the QA process as perceived by Quality Management Managers (QMRs). It is based on a qualitative approach through interviews with 27 QMRs from different institutions. Content analysis technique was used to analyse data. The results show that QMRs consider the lack of commitment and involvement of institutions’ higher management as a major constraint to the success of quality processes. The study reveals that the main barrier to QA is related to the limitations of institutions’ governance, which do not promote autonomy and effectiveness. The study suggests that two elements seem to be crucial: autonomy and training/awareness of institutions’ higher managers. Those elements are closely linked and could be at the origin of the success or failure of quality mechanisms.

Impact of Digital Transformation on Accounting Information Systems – Evidence from Algerian Firms

The study aims to demonstrate the conceptual and practical framework of digital transformation and its impact on accounting information systems by focusing on the requirements of digital transformation, such as the digital strategy, the necessary knowledge of the human element, and the effects and obstacles facing the digitization of accounting information systems. The study attempts to answer the following question: What is the impact of digital transformation on accounting information systems in business organisations? The study uses deductive reasoning, based on many previous studies, by applying it to a sample of 237 individuals active in about 120 firms operating in the Algerian environment through a questionnaire distributed in 2021. The study has found a weak degree of awareness of the importance of digital transformation, and a low effort to develop accounting information systems in line with the requirements of digital transformation, all due to the presence of several high-impact challenges.

Persistence and Predictive Ability of Earnings: Evidence from France and the UK

The persistence and predictive ability are extensively requested as desirable attributes of earnings quality in the literature. The paper aims at investigating the persistence and predictive ability of earnings in French and UK companies. The study included a panel data of 1035 firm-year observations for 115 French listed companies from the CAC All-Tradable and 900 firm-year observations for 100 UK listed companies from the FTSE All-Share, during the period of 2011–2019. The research design was based on two equations starting from Sloan (1996) that were estimated using Fixed Effects Method. The study showed that earnings were persistent but they had no predictive ability regarding the future cash flows whether in French or UK companies and that earnings of UK companies were more persistent than those of the French companies. We argue that the persistence of earnings and the inability to predict future cash flows can be evidence of earnings management. The study contributes to the literature about earnings quality by studying earnings persistence and earnings predictive ability together in two different environments. The results require that users must take into consideration the illusory persistence of earnings, auditors must be cautious regarding the manipulation of earnings by managers, and accounting standard setters must review the reporting guidelines of cash flows to enhance their predictability by earnings.