• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.10
• /
• pp.249-257
• /
• 2021

Industrial agglomeration policy is a strategy that is expected to accelerate economic growth to transform an impoverished region into a prosperous one. However, industrial agglomeration also has the potential to exacerbate development inequality due to the concentration of economic development activities in certain areas. Therefore, this study aims to investigate what strategies are best to minimize the adverse effects of industrial agglomeration. This study uses econometric analysis with panel data covering 38 districts/cities in East Java during the 2011-2019 period. The results showed that the combination of industrial agglomeration policies coupled with accelerated sectoral growth, hard infrastructure development, and soft infrastructure provided the best policy outcome, improving regional inequality and accelerating economic growth in East Java. Based on the analysis, we find that East Java's economic growth characteristics are convergent but relatively long. Therefore, the East Java economic development policy during 2010-2019 should be reviewed due to the relatively long convergence period. Furthermore, this study also found that industrial agglomeration slows down the convergence and economic growth of East Java. In the future, the deployment of Industrial Development Centers (PPI) outside the existing eight districts/cities is needed to accelerate the spread of economic activity in East Java.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.6
• /
• pp.2056-2065
• /
• 2021

The transition toward clean energy is an issue of great importance with growing debate in climate change mitigation. The complex nature of nuclear energy-CO₂ emissions nexus makes it difficult to predict whether or not nuclear acts as a clean energy source. Hence, we examined the relationship between nuclear energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the context of the IPAT and Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework. Dynamic Auto-regressive Distributive Lag (DARDL), a newly modified econometric tool, is employed for estimation of long- and short-run dynamics by using yearly data spanning from 1971 to 2018. The empirical findings of the study revealed an instantaneous increase in nuclear energy reduces environmental pollution, which highlights that more nuclear energy power in the Indian energy system would be beneficial for climate change mitigation. The results further demonstrate that the overarching effect of population density in the IPAT equation stimulates carbon emissions. Finally, nuclear energy and population density contribute to form the EKC curve. To achieving a cleaner environment, results point out governmental policies toward the transition of nuclear energy that favours environmental sustainability.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.769-775
• /
• 2021

The objective of this research was to analyze the factors influencing the farm-gate shrimp prices in Thailand using monthly time series from January 2001 to December 2019. The econometric methodology was employed to satisfy the purpose, consisting of the cointegration test for revealing the long-run relationship and equilibrium elasticity between the variables as well as the error correction model for detecting speed adjustment to shock responses. The empirical results revealed that (1) the export shrimp prices, shrimp production in the country, and shrimp export volume indicated a long-run relationship running to the farm-gate shrimp prices in Thailand with the size of equilibrium elasticity equal to 1.083%, -0.256%, and 0.123, respectively, and (2) the farm-gate shrimp prices in Thailand would adjust to the equilibrium line with a speed equal to 20.147% if there was any kind of incident or shock which caused the relationship to deviate from the equilibrium point. There was no relationship in terms of global shrimp prices and the exchange rate for farm-gate shrimp prices in Thailand. The recommendations should emphasize the varieties of shrimp products for export to other countries beyond the main trading markets nowadays to reduce risks and fluctuations in the export prices of shrimp products.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2017

Over the past centuries, industrialization in developed and developing countries has had a negative impact on global warming, releasing $CO_2$ emissions into the Earth's atmosphere. In recent years, the transportation sector, which emits one-third of total $CO_2$ emissions in the United States, has adapted by implementing a climate change action plan to reduce $CO_2$ emissions. Having an environmental policy might be an essential factor in mitigating the man-made global warming threats to protect public health and the coexistent needs of current and future generations; however, to my best knowledge, no research has been conducted in such a context with appropriate statistical validation process to evaluate the effects of climate change policy on $CO_2$ emission reduction in recent years in the U.S. transportation. The empirical findings using an entity fixed-effects model with valid statistical tests show the positive effects of climate change policy on $CO_2$ emission reduction in a state. With all the 49 states joining the climate change action plans, the U.S. transportation sector is expected to reduce its $CO_2$ emissions by 20.2 MMT per year, and for the next 10 years, the cumulated $CO_2$ emission reduction is projected to reach 202.3 MMT, which is almost equivalent to the $CO_2$ emissions from the transportation sector produced in 2012 by California, the largest $CO_2$ emission state in the nation.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.325-334
• /
• 2021

This study aims to investigate whether economic growth is elevated by banking industry development in Jordan. The study adopts time-series econometric methodologies, which comprise the bounds testing approach within the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and the conditional causality analysis. Consistent with the assumptions of the adopted methodology, the study utilized annual time-series data for a relatively long period of thirty-nine years, between 1980 and 2018. The empirical results show that Jordan's economic growth is strongly responsive in respect to any changes in banking industry development. Also, the results reveal the harmful impact of rising lending interest rate; as this rate increases, economic growth will decrease. The findings are in line with the conceptual arguments of the supply-leading hypothesis, which confirmed that banking development is considered as one of the main pillars that have stimulating effects on economic growth. The evidence of the current study may provide important implications for policymakers and bankers. Those professionals should work to maintain a stable regulatory system that enhances the banking system function in activating economic growth. Also, a considerable focus should be placed on designing a steady interest rate policy to avoid the inherently undesirable impacts of high-interest rates on the Jordanian economy.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.1-38
• /
• 2021

The paper examines the role of the informal sector on innovation activities of urban formal manufacturing enterprises in India. It provides empirical evidence on firm-level linkages between formal and informal sectors by using the World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2013-14 and the Innovation Follow-up survey, 2014. Primarily, the paper aims to examine the effect of informal sector competition on innovation in urban formal manufacturing enterprises in India. Secondly, the paper analyses the mediation effect of informal sector competition on innovations in the urban manufacturing enterprises. It determines the direct and indirect influence of business regulations and constraints on innovation outcomes through the mediation effect of informal sector competition by using the SEM "Structural Equation Modeling" guidelines. The econometric results show that informal sector competition has a negative effect on the introduction of product innovations while industry-level informal sector competition has a positive effect on product innovation through the local knowledge spillovers from the informal to the formal sector. However, the informal sector competition was found to have no significant effect on the probability of introducing process innovations. Further, the results show the inhibitive role of informal sector competition on innovation in urban formal manufacturing enterprises is more severe for firms with heavy regulatory burdens and is relatively weakened in firms with resource constraints. This suggests that the informal sector plays an important role in the NIS (National Innovation System) in India.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.77-88
• /
• 2021

The stock markets in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries are the leading emerging markets globally. Therefore, it is pertinent to ascertain the critical drivers of stock market development in these economies. The currrent study empirically investigates to identify the linkages between stock market development, key macro-economic factors and institutional factors in the BRICS economies. The study covers the time period from 2000 to 2017. The dependent variable is the country's stock market development and the independent variables consist of six macroeconomic variables and five institutional variables. The study employs a panel cointegration test, Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS), a Pooled Mean Group (PMG) approach and a heterogeneous panel non-causality test.The findings of the study indicate co-integration among the selected variables across the BRICS stock markets. Long-run estimations reveal that five macroeconomic variables and four variables related to institutional quality are positive and statistically significant. Further, short-run causalities between stock market capitalization and selected variables are detected through the test of non-causality in a heterogeneous panel setting. The findings suggest that policymakers in the BRICS countries should enhance robust macroeconomic conditions to support their financial markets and should strengthen the institutional quality drivers to stimulate the pace of stock market development in their countries.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.373-385
• /
• 2021

The objective of the study is to empirically investigate the impact of bank capital on the lending behavior of Vietnamese commercial banks from 2007 to 2019. Lending behavior is captured by two dimensions, including the quantity (loan growth) and quality (credit risk) of loans. Instead of investigating loan growth and credit risk separately, we combine these two aspects in our study and further develop the interaction term between capital buffers and credit risk to capture the asymmetric impact. We apply the dynamic model (regressed by the generalized method of moments) and the static models (regressed using the fixed effects, random effects, and the pooled regression approach) to perform regressions. The results show that banks with higher capital ratios tend to expand lending more, while the risk of credit portfolios is controlled at lower levels at these banks. Further analysis reveals that credit risk mitigates some aspects of the relationship between bank capital and loan expansion. The patterns remain robust across alternative measures and econometric techniques. The study provides insightful policy implications for bank managers and regulators in the process of upgrading capital resources to ensure the safety and soundness of the banking industry in an emerging country.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.20 no.12
• /
• pp.13-22
• /
• 2022

Purpose: The paper contributes to the existing literature on Vietnamese corporate governance and firm performance with a focus on listed family firms and the use of a more suitable econometric framework to analyze firm performance. The study investigates how family firm performance is affected by corporate governance under the standpoint of stewardship theory in Vietnam. Research design, data and methodology: With the use of different measures for firm performance (Tobin's Q, ROA, and ROE), regression models were estimated using Generalized Least Square (GLS) method on a panel data of a total of 113 listed companies during the five-year period from 2015 to 2019. Results: We found that family ownership as the main characteristic of the stewardship theory affects family firms positively. In addition, several other characteristics in corporate governance as board composition (board independence, board audits, and board committees), CEO (age and tenure) and firm characteristics (size, age, expansion, and annual sales) showed significant impacts on firm performance. Our findings also suggest that family firm performance can be either positively or negatively affected based on the characteristics of corporate governance. The findings can help companies evaluate the significance of corporate governance through deciding board structure and the selection of CEOs to match family firm characteristics. It also gives insights for investors, rating agencies, and policymakers for relevant purposes.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.69-77
• /
• 2021

The objective of this research is to explore the inconclusive theoretical and empirical association between institutional ownership and firm performance in the context of emerging Pakistani economy. The data set consists of all the non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). Annual data set covers the period ranging from 2010 to 2015. However, the econometric analysis does not include those firms with incomplete data. Thus the final data set comprised of an unbalanced panel of sample of 276 firms with 1231 firms years observations. Data related to the institutional ownership and other variables taken for the study were extracted through the annual financial reports of the firms. The research used Tobin's Q as a proxy of market measure of firm performance and tested the endogenous relation with institutional ownership through OLS and 2SLS approach. The study also applied Durbin-Wu-Hausman test to determine the endogeneity before analyzing the 2SLS model. The Durbin-Wu-Hausman Test (DWH) conform the endogenous link between institutional ownership and performance and vice versa. The results derived from 2SLS also confirm a highly significant relationship and two way direct proportional relationships between the institutional investment and corporate performance in the studied companies.