Services as a Determinant of Botswana's Economic Sustainability.

In 2015, the services sector contributed about 58 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which was a significant increase from the 47.6 percent observed in 2005, and a shift from the mining, agriculture, and manufacturing sector. This increase calls to support services as the catalyst for sustained economic development as indicated by the structural transformation and modernization theories. The main objective of this paper was to examine the relationship between and the impact of services on the economic development in Botswana and make recommendations on how Botswana can apply well-directed policies to improve its services sector and diversify its impact on other sectors and GDP, making it less reliant on mining which is vulnerable to price volatilities. The paper applied econometric modeling and results of the Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds test for cointegration indicate that services and other industries services, agriculture, industry, mining, and investment impact GDP over the short and long run. These variables impacted GDP and converged to equilibrium at the speed of 46.89 percent, with a percent change in services in the short and long run impacting GDP by 0.328 and 0.241 percentages, respectively, and the outcome of the Wald test indicated causality from services to GDP growth. The services sectors have contributed over 40 percent to the country's GDP from 1995 to the present, though the sectors have not gone without challenges with limitations such as limited infrastructure development; poverty and inequality; unemployment of over 20 percent; disease, which has dampened productivity; and lack of proper governance and accountability, which has created a habitat for an increase in cases of corruption in state and private entities. The findings of the study with the lessons learned from other studies with similar findings recommend that the government of Botswana should formulate suitable policies and strategies for services diversification. This is by expanding the market for the sector in areas such as tourism that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating investments by instituting strategies to attract and grow domestic and foreign investments, and improve on management of institutions and resources.

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology: Investigating the Relationship between Bitcoin and Financial Markets

The main purpose of this study is to investigate both causality relationship and cointegration relationship between bitcoin and capital markets during the Covid-19 period. To probe the issue a dataset based on a total of eight capital markets and the Bitcoin weekly prices utilized together. Based on Granger causality test, it is found that there is one-way causality relationship from BTC to BOVESPA and from SHANGHAI to BTC. Moreover, the ARDL bounds test shows that Bitcoin has no significant relationship with capital markets in the long run. © Peter Lang GmbH.

A critical review of Australia’s China-dominant education supply chain

This study examines whether the expansion of Australia’s international education sector has been highly dependent on students from China supported by competitive supply chain management. In 2019, Australia’s earnings from international education were A$40.3 billion, of which 30% was contributed by Chinese education visitors. However, researchers and observers have been alluding to the risks of over-reliance on the Chinese market in recent years. Further, the COVID-19 outbreak since early 2020 has severely disrupted the supply chains of the international education sector because Australia imposed travel bans for all international visitors. The econometric results of the study suggest that Chinese students contributed significantly to the education exports and economic growth of Australia. Policy recommendations emphasise on the diversification of the education market and effective supply chain management to recover from the financial hardship experienced by the sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic along with the recent geopolitical tension between Australia and China. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on China's Stock Market Volatility, During and After the Outbreak: Evidence From an ARDL Approach.

Purpose: In this study, we empirically investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China's stock price volatility during and after its initial outbreak, using time-series daily data covering the period from July to October, 2020 and 2021, respectively. Design/Methodology/Approach: In the estimation, the ARDL bounds test approach was employed to examine the existence of co-integration and the relationship of long-run and short-run between the new infection rates and stock price volatility, as stable and unstable variables are mixed. The inner-day and inter-day volatility, based on the Shanghai (securities) composite index, are estimated in separate empirical models. In addition, the Inter-bank overnight lending rate (IBOLR) is controlled in order to consider the effect of liquidity and investment cost. Findings and Implications: We find that in the initial year (2020) of the epidemic, the new infection rate is negatively correlated to stock prices in the short-term, whereas no significant evidence existed in the long-term, regardless of model specifications. However, after the epidemic's outbreak (2021), the result depicts that new infections increased stock prices in the long-term, and depressed its inner-day volatility in the short-term, which is inconsistent with most investigations. This phenomenon may be due to the fact that investors were more concerned about the withdrawal of monetary easing and fiscal stimulus, which were introduced to fight against the epidemic's impact on economy, than the epidemic itself. This study complements the limitations of most existing studies, which just focus on the period of the epidemic's outbreak, and provides insight into macroeconomic policy making in the era of the post COVID-19 epidemic such as the structural and ordered exit of the stimulating policies, intervention in IBOLR and balance social and economic sustainability.

ORGANIZATIONAL FOUNDINGS, DISBANDINGS, AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: EVIDENCE FROM THE TURKISH CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

Purpose: The present study aims to understand the effect of the macro-level economic phenomena observed within a specific time interval on the founding (birth) and disbanding (deaths) of organizations in the construction sector of Turkey that has been growing steadily for many years. In addition, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were also taken into consideration. Methodology: The construction sector in Turkey was analyzed within the framework of the theoretical infrastructure of organizational ecology, i.e. a theoretical perspective that has not received enough attention, except in North America, as an organizational community, while joint-stock, limited, and cooperative companies were also analyzed as organizational populations. Focusing on the period between January 2017 and December 2020, a number of foundings and disbandings of joint-stock, limited and cooperative companies operating in the construction sector, the house price index and house sales statistics, which are thought to affect these rates, were used as data. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic period between March 2020 and December 2020 was included in the analysis as a dummy variable. The ARDL bounds test was used for data analysis. Results: The findings indicate differentiated effects of the house price index, house sales statistics, and the COVID-19 period on both the organizational community of the construction sector and the aforementioned populations. Conclusion: The results, which are expected to contribute to business economics and organizational theories, studies on the construction sector, knowledge of the evaluation of socioeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and future studies, were obtained in the study.