The relationship between macroeconomic variables on residential property price: case study in Malaysia before and during COVID-19

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse numerous aspects affecting residential property price in Malaysia against macroeconomics issues such as gross domestic product (GDP), exchange rate, unemployment and wage. Design/methodology/approach: The hedonic pricing model has been adopted as econometric model for this research to investigate the relationship between residential property price against macroeconomics indicator. The data for residential property price and macroeconomic variables were collected from 1991 to 2019. Multiple linear regression had been adopted to find the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Findings: The result shows that the GDP has a significant positive impact on residential property price, while exchange rate has no significant impact although it was positive. In addition, the unemployment rate has a significant impact on the residential property price and has a negative relationship. Similar to the wage that shows the negative relationship with residential property prices. Moreover, during the pandemic COVID-19 in Malaysia, this research shows a more transparent view of the relationship between residential property price and the macroeconomic issues of GDP, exchange rate, unemployment and wage. Originality/value: The findings of this research found that macroeconomics issue cannot be eliminated due to Malaysia is a developing country, and there will always be an issue that will happen, but the issues can be reduced to maximise the advantages, e.g. during COVID-19, the solution to fight against COVID-19 were crucial and weaken the macroeconomics issues. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Low-carbon transition toward green recovery: policy framework after COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly hampered energy transition. Globally, many are worried that energy transition is being neglected in favor of green economic recovery. This study first assesses the state of green economic development in China's urban areas. Therefore, we propose a low-carbon energy transition road plan for the post-pandemic age and provide a global analysis of the interplay between the energy transition and COVID-19. We examine the barriers to a smooth energy transition during the pandemic from the vantage points of governmental backing, carbon fuel divestment, renewable generation capacity, global distribution chain, and energy poverty. The pandemic created possibilities for a worldwide energy shift. Therefore, we also pinpoint possible windows of opportunity for energy transition afforded by the outbreak from the viewpoints of cost-effectiveness, policy execution efficacy, and renewable energy. Our findings have important implications for post-pandemic green recovery plans and provide new insights into a global low-carbon energy transition framework.

Novel research methods on evaluating the nexus between environment and energy use: evaluating the role of tourism in the pre-COVID period

Since the fossil fuels are the principal energy sources across the globe, it is considered as the major reason for environmental degradation. Although, the fossil fuel consumption contributes to maintain industrial production, which is a key factor of economic growth, yet tourism is also among the key sources of revenue for China in the pre-Covid-19 pandemic. However, after the emergence of this novel pandemic, both fossil fuel consumption and tourism are severely affected that slowdowns China's economic progress and could have influence on environmental quality. This study investigates the impact of traditional fossil fuel, economic growth, and tourism on carbon emissions level in China over the period 1995–2020. Using time series estimating approaches, all the variables are found stationary at first difference. Due to irregular distribution of data, this study employed the novel Quantile-on-Quantile regression. The estimated results reveal that consumption of fossil fuel significantly enhances the level of carbon emissions in China. Whereas the impact of economic growth and tourism on carbon emission is mixed. The influence of both the variables is found positive in the lower and medium quantiles, while negative in the upper quantiles. This study also employed the pairwise Granger causality test, that validates two-way causal nexus between fossil fuel consumption—carbon emission and economic growth—carbon emissions. While one way causality from tourism to carbon emissions is evident in the empirical results. This study suggests lowering of fossil fuel consumption by using the alternative energy sources and increase tourism stringent environmental regulations for environmentally destructive tourism activities. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Quantifying the probability of a recession in selected Central and Eastern European countries

The COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously affected most economic sectors and has already caused severe worldwide social and economic damage. In response, authorities introduced social distancing measures, with an adverse impact on economic activity. If policymakers were aware of the existing vulnerabilities, including those derived from the positioning on the business cycle, resilience could have been increased. The aim of this article is to describe various methods of dating business cycles in several Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Furthermore, a Probit model regarding the probability of a recession is estimated, confirming the adverse effects of the pandemic, in contrast with a brightening outlook given vaccination campaigns and the E.U. recovery package. However, in case of the Romanian economy, an in-sample estimation showed a high probability of negative growth rates even in a pre-pandemic world, due to the high macroeconomic imbalances. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

COVID-19, social distancing, and economic growth

Social distancing restrictions have become a primary measure in curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the fact that the survival probability of infected individuals and labour supply will decline during the pandemic, this study extends the overlapping generations (OLG) model to include the effects of COVID-19 on individuals' health and investigates the optimal social distancing policy from an economic perspective. Our results show that the pandemic can cause economic contraction, and a strict social distancing policy generally benefits economic growth. Nevertheless, absolute zero socializing may not be an optimal strategy. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

SSP economic growth projections: Major changes of key drivers in integrated assessment modelling

GDP scenarios are major drivers of climate change and climate change mitigation assessment studies. In this paper, a major update of the SSP GDP projections is presented. By using the most recent economic data and short-term projections by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the update captures changes in the system of national accounting and purchasing power parities, as well as the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. Harmonization between the data and the original end-of-the century SSP projections was carried out in terms of GDP per capita in order to preserve the underlying narrative of income convergence. The result is a set of projections compatible with the most recent data and the SSP narratives. A comparison of DICE models calibrated to the original and updated SSP2 GDP per capita projections illustrates how significant the impact of an update of income data on integrated assessment results can be. The estimated global social costs of carbon in 2015 and 2030 rose by almost 30%. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Model selection with decision support model for US natural gas consumption forecasting

Reliable prediction of natural gas consumption helps make the right decisions ensuring sustainable economic growth. This problem is addressed here by introducing a hybrid mathematical model defined as the Choquet integral-based model. Model selection is based on decision support model to consider the model performance more comprehensively. Different from the previous literature, we focus on the interaction between models when combine models. This paper adds grey accumulation generating operator to Holt-Winters model to capture more information in time series, and the grey wolf optimizer obtains the associated parameters. The proposed model can deal with seasonal (short-term) variability using season auto-regression moving average computation. Besides, it uses the long short term memory neural network to deal with long-term variability. The effectiveness of the developed model is validated on natural gas consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. For this, the model is customized using the publicly available datasets relevant to the USA energy sector. The model shows better robustness and outperforms other similar models since it consider the interaction between models. This means that it ensures reliable perdition, taking the highly uncertain factor (e.g., the COVID-19) into account. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Mobility and economic activity around the world during the Covid-19 crisis

This paper traces the relationship between quarterly estimates of economic activity and people's mobility during the Covid-19 crisis in a sample of 53 economies. Over time, the estimates of elasticity of value added with respect to mobility have been declining, to below 0.2 at the start of 2021, attesting to the gradual adjustment of global economic activity to social distancing. Yet this adjustment appears to be modest, with economic recovery driven primarily by greater mobility. The study highlights the limit to the extent to which economic costs of restricted movement of people can be reduced, with implications for public policy. The estimated relationships can also be effectively applied to economic forecasting during periods of reduced mobility. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The regional economic impact of the 2020 COVID-19 recession in the USA

Purpose: This paper to identify those states that suffered the largest job losses, largest GDP declines and the highest unemployment rates and those states whose employment levels, unemployment rates and GDP declines were smallest during the COVID-19 recession. In addition, this paper endeavors to provide at least preliminary insights into why some states faired so poorly, whereas other states suffered so little during this downturn. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses descriptive statistics and regression analysis to analyze the differences in state performance during the COVID-19 recession and recovery. Findings: The results from the two estimated regression models suggest that where you lived determined the severity of the recession and living in a blue state negatively impacted the strength of state's unemployment rate recovery. Research limitations/implications: This paper looks at only a two-year period starting with the COVID-19 recession and ending in December 2021. Practical implications: This paper provides a regional assessment of the COVID-19 recession and recovery on both a state and regional level. Social implications: The paper uses descriptive statistics to characterize the substantial state-level differences in the relative magnitude of economic decline due to the Covid-19 recession. Regression analysis reveals that blue states experienced weaker recovery as compared to red states. Originality/value: The study uses publicly available data to identify states that suffered the largest job losses and highest peak unemployment rates during the Covid-19 recession. The results are among the first to analyze the economic impact of the Covid-19 recession at the state level. © 2022, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

COVID-19 pandemic–related policy stringency and economic decline: was it really inevitable?

The coronavirus outbreak in 2020 shattered economies, public health and public well-being worldwide literally overnight. In response to the pandemic, most countries implemented a delicate balance of policy stringency and economic support to ensure public health, social security and a vibrant economy. With the pandemic slowly phasing out, our article explores the effectiveness of various governmental strategies for ensuring economic growth. The proposed econometric model is tested using panel quarterly data for 49 (37 OECD + 12 non-OECD) countries for all four quarters of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. Our findings show that policy stringency and economic support are both negatively associated with economic growth. We also find that the stringency was largely responsive, oriented to preventing the collapse of health systems after infections had already become widespread, not towards saving human lives by preventing soaring levels of infection. While our findings appear to lend support for the view that a trade-off between human lives and the economy was inevitable, we also challenge this view by evidence that some countries were able to secure a double dividend of maintaining public health and a vibrant economy by a prudent far-sighted stringency policy of preventing the virus outbreak. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Natural resources volatility and causal associations for BRICS countries: Evidence from Covid-19 data.

Natural resource price volatility has been a major concern in recent time, especially during the COVID 19 period. Although several empirical research have looked into the oil and natural resources prices nexus with economic growth, but, our study makes a significant contribution to the present literature by estimating the long run natural resource price volatility influence on economic growth as well as the causal associations between volatility of the prices of natural resources and economic growth for BRICS economies over 1995-2020 period. To conduct empirical estimation, the study has used new and advanced (CUP-FM) continuously updated fully modified and continuously updated bias-corrected (CUP-BC) estimators for long term influences of the natural resources prices and (Dumitrescu and Hurlin, 2012) heterogeneous test for panel causality for the estimation of the causal relationship between the variables. The results provide clear evidences about the negative influence of volatility in natural resources prices, whereas positive impact of gas and oil rents on economic growth or economic performance of the BRICS economies. Moreover, bidirectional causal association is also revealed from our empirical findings to exist between economic growth and price volatility of natural resources. The findings of our study are robust to various policy implementations. It is recommended to reduce the reliance of natural resources as well as the adoption of short run and long run natural resource hedging policies to mitigate the detrimental impacts of price volatility of natural resources on economic growth and environment.

Impact of Covid-19 on economic recovery: empirical analysis from China and global economies

This research aims to utilize quarterly global VAR data from April 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021, to assess the influence of the economic recovery of China following the COVID-19 outbreak on global economies. China is one of the first big economies globally to show indications of recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. The nation's economic growth has the biggest long-term influence on middle-income nations (0.17%) followed by low- and middle-income economies (0.16%) and high-income economies (0.16%) (0.15%). The chain reaction of China's economic growth is most visible in high-income nations (0.11–0.45%), followed by middle-income countries (0.08–0.33%) and low-income countries (0.02–0.05%). Our findings show that the post-COVID-19 economic rebound in China will mostly benefit middle-income nations, with low- and middle-income countries following closely after. After COVID-19, the influence of the economic recovery of China is most visible in the rise of energy consumption in high-income nations, followed by middle-income economies. It is also worth noting that the influence of China's economic expansion on low- and middle-income economies does not always imply a rise in energy consumption. Overall, China's economic recovery has a significantly stronger influence on other countries' economic development than other countries' energy consumption has on other economies' growth.

INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE AS A KEY TO SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC RECOVERY: THE ROLE OF THE BUILDING INDUSTRY

The focus of this paper is the role of the building industry in post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans. Investment in infrastructure forms a major part of many countries' strategies to engender economic growth and construction is the pivotal industry in enabling the implementation of the plans in a sustainable manner. This study looks at the effects of investment in infrastructure on the economy with reference to the role of the construction industry in delivering this investment. Basic issues are considered, particularly concerning how relevant investment can be measured and how the contribution of the construction sector can be realistically assessed. A review of data sources and empirically peer-reviewed papers is undertaken. Based on longitudinal time series data from national statistics agencies and international organizations, analysis is undertaken to discover the relationship between infrastructure investment and economic growth. The study focuses on the UK, but comparisons are made with other countries to consider alternative approaches to stimulus investment policies with digitalization, and sustainability and green investment being a growing feature of investment plans. Potential issues of these approaches are examined and the main barriers to their achievement are identified. Emerging trends and a set of policy agendas are proposed to guide future directions. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.

Measuring Internet banking service quality: an empirical evidence

Purpose>This study aims to empirically develop a reliable and valid instrument measuring the online service quality in the context of the banking sector in India.Design/methodology/approach>The methodological framework of this research comprises developing an instrument that is based on previous literature, qualitative and quantitative procedure. The study used the survey method and collected data via a well-structured questionnaire from a sample of active Internet banking users. The proposed instrument is identified by the data-reduction technique that is exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and validated through the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Findings>The results confirmed that the digital banking service quality scale (DBSQual) contains 24 items in seven dimensions: (1) web architecture, (2) user friendliness, (3) efficiency of website, (4) reliability, (5) responsiveness, (6) security and (7) personalization. The relationship between digital banking service quality and e-customer satisfaction has also been found to be significant in this study.Research limitations/implications>The results of this study do not find general application for different banks operating in the same sector in India. More testing of DBSQual is required across various different contexts for validity augmentation. In addition, findings would be more reliable if the non-Indian context could be taken into consideration. Thus, such limitations open a window for future research.Practical implications>This study is quite fruitful for the banking organizations in measuring their online services, and enables them to implement their marketing and operational strategies more effectively and efficiently.Originality/value>The contribution of this study is the development and validation of a new instrument that is DBSQual that contains seven determinants of customers' e-service quality perception, emphasis on measuring online service quality in the Indian banking sector. These determinants will offer banks a promising starting idea for establishing an effective quality management for their online businesses. They will be able to increase the opportunities by tapping themselves at a competitive edge.

THE EUROPEAN WAVE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE WORKFORCE MIGRATION

This article presents the current European context regarding the extent of the labour migration phenomenon, along with the evolution of the digitalization process of the Union, using as a reference point the dynamics of the Digital Economy and Society Index in economically developed and emerging European states. It is based on the examination of the specialized academic literature and the official reports of the institutions on the evolution of the European labour market and digitalization. It tries to capture the direction and the way of labour force migration. A strong DESI level is the equivalent of a complete digital infrastructure, of a level of self-sufficient individual digital skills, and a high-performance digital integration of companies. Also, it is equivalent to the loss of obsolete jobs and the birth of new ones, for which a high level of human resources skills and knowledge is necessary. An elevated digital state can no longer be the equivalent of the destination of GIG workers from economic branches characterized by a workforce equipped with only essential digital skills.

Bioeconomy-based tourism: A new concept responding to the support of bioeconomy

Tourism has experienced dynamic development in recent decades and has become one of the fastest growing industries;however, the Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented changes and declines in revenues and tourism trends. With the strong support of bioeconomy (BE) this period brings a great opportunity to transform the entire tourism sector into a model responding to that concept. The main aim of this article is to prove whether and under what possible conditions tourism is a part of the concept of BE. Selected European Union (EU) countries have been chosen so that every geographical area is represented. This analysis was therefore carried out for a total of 12 states and the EU as a whole (13 entities). Of these 13 entities, 7 have their own BE strategy and 6 do not. According to the level of emphasis on the field of tourism in the examined documents, we divided the states into three categories. Although the selected and analysed countries mention tourism in their BE strategies with various emphasis and approach, the inclusion of tourism under this concept is evident. Bioeconomy-based tourism has been designed as a new concept that considers the approach of BE. It focuses above all on a sustainable level of tourism in the connection of economic and environmental pillars, where the main emphasis is placed on the effective use of natural resources and maximum effort not to waste these resources, as well as to support economic growth.

Applied Regional Economic Research Can Improve Development Strategies and Drive Better Outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an unimagined level of federal investment in regional economic development and much greater political attention to its priorities. Economic development researchers have an opportunity to contribute to an array of federally funded and pandemic-inspired regional experiments, many of which reflect shifting concerns about economic development and what constitutes success. Among these include the importance of addressing historical racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities;the value of research and development as a solution to major human problems;the severity of impending workforce shortages in key sectors;the fragility of many highly efficient global supply chains;and the inadequacy of our underinvested economic data infrastructure to help understand these issues. Researchers have a unique opportunity to examine the regional impacts of national issues by improving public investment logic models, advocating for an improved data infrastructure, and providing evidence to address the long-standing tension between growth and equity as competing economic development priorities.

Dynamic connectedness among climate change index, green financial assets and renewable energy markets: Novel evidence from sustainable development perspective

This paper investigates the connectedness among the climate change index, green financial assets, renewable energy markets, and geopolitical risk index from June 1, 2012 to June 13, 2022, using Quantile Vector Autoregressive (QVAR) and wavelet coherence (WC). The Total connectedness index (TCI) varies as long as the highest TCI originates in the upper quantile. We also note that the higher TCI decreases after the second wave of COVID19 and increases during the first 100 days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Moreover, the results show that Geopolitical risk (GPR) is a net transmitter of the climate change index during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The green bond and clean energy markets are negatively connected to the GPR at extreme 10 th and 90 th quantiles. The wavelet coherence confirms the QVAR results that the climate change market can be a safe haven against GPR during the Russian invasion. The climate change index, green financial assets, and clean energy are strong influencers in the financial markets and are vital to international peace, reducing geopolitical risk. The study reports a few novel conclusions and implications from a sustainable development perspective.

The impact of the media on tourism development and income inequality

This paper examines whether the relationship between tourism development and income inequality is sensitive to the media environment. Using panel data from 88 countries for the period 1996 to 2020, we find that countries with uncensored media environments experience lower income inequality as the tourism industry develops. We also find that a favourable media environment enhances tourism development. Further analysis shows that asymmetries in a hostile media environment;namely, media biasedness, media corruption, and harassment of journalists, inhibit tourism development, particularly in emerging countries. This paper calls for strong support for press freedom to develop the tourism industry as countries emerge from the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Institutions Moderated the Pandemic's Economic Impact in EU Member States

We investigate how institutional quality affected the economic downturn in EU countries during the COVID‐19 pandemic (2020–21). Using quarterly panel data, we show that countries with a higher quality of governance and a higher score of economic freedom suffered markedly less. Importantly, institutions mattered more when the pandemic shock was larger. Thus, the pandemic highlights the asymmetric impact of seemingly symmetric exogenous shock on EU economies and raises important issues about the necessary reforms for short‐run resilience and long‐run convergence.