Dependence between Chinese stock market and Vietnamese stock market during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study aims to investigate the tail dependence between Chinese stock market and Vietnamese stock market in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using the data on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (VNI) and the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSEC) representing for Vietnam and China stock markets, the study reveals the tail dependence across three periods including: pre-pandemic, during the chaos of the pandemic, and the period of adaptation to the pandemic. Using the copula method including Normal, Clayton, Plackett, Frank, Student, Symmetrised Joe-Clayton copulas, the research results confirm that there is no dependent relationship between the stock market between the two countries in the pre-pandemic. During the pandemic, the Vietnamese stock market is heavily dependent on Chinese stock market, especially the upper tail dependence. During the period of adaptation to the pandemic, this dependence relationship still exists but less than that in the pandemic.

Flexible Epsilon Iron Oxide Thin Films.

Metastable ε-Fe2O3 is a unique phase of iron oxide, which exhibits a giant coercivity field. In this work, we grew epitaxial ε-Fe2O3 films on flexible two-dimensional muscovite substrates via quasi van der Waals epitaxy. It turns out that twinning and interface energies have been playing essential roles in stabilizing metastable ε-Fe2O3 on mica substrates. Moreover, the weak interfacial bonding between ε-Fe2O3 and mica is expected to relieve the substrate clamping effect ubiquitously encountered in films epitaxially grown on rigid substrates, such as SrTiO3. It is anticipated that these flexible ε-Fe2O3 thin films can serve as a platform for exploring possible interesting emergent physical properties and eventually be integrated as flexible functional devices.

Assessment of rice and wheat production efficiency based on data envelopment analysis.

Global warming, energy consumption (EC), and food safety have caused an increase of focus regarding agricultural crop productivity with a principal focus on CEs from crop farming. This study analyzes Pakistan, India, and China's rice and wheat production rating through the CCR and SBM DEA framework. The recorded rice (0.60) and wheat (1.00) production, through the CCR approach, can be considered the highest productivity. The rating productivity of the parallel DMUs for the CCR (or BCC) framework average degree of technical productivity of SBM model of wheat and rice production, which does not adhere to the degree of 100% amongst all countries. Keeping the area's efficiency in mind, the average technical productivity rating recorded through CCR is 0.87, and SBM is 0.86 and is significantly lower than the ideal rating in the original DEA. By decreasing tomato output through farmers' productive operations, energy can be conserved by 21.4% compared to its current level by enhancing the utilization of essential resources, chemical fertilizers, farmyard manure, and water bear comparatively greater trading weights. It is eminent to decrease energy usage and carbon discharge in rice production. Similarly, the high yield and adequate rice plantation methods should be encouraged in the given region.

Assessing the efficiency and total factor productivity growth of the banking industry: do environmental concerns matters?

This paper investigates the efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) growth of the Pakistani banking industry and determines the impact of risk and competition on the efficiency and TFP growth. The data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based Malmquist productivity index is used to measure efficiency and TFP growth of the Pakistani banking industry. The generalized method of moments (GMM) model is applied to observe the impact of risk and competition on efficiency and TFP growth. The motivation behind the use of GMM model is its ability to overcome unobserved heterogeneity, autocorrelation, and endogeneity issues. The results of the study show that the credit and liquidity risks have positive while insolvency risk has negative effect on the efficiency and TFP growth. The competition leads to improve technological efficiency but declines the technical efficiency growth. Among other explanatory variables, operational cost management, banking sector development, GDP growth rate, and infrastructure development show significant relationships with various efficiencies and TFP growth. The banks also facilitate for the purchase of carbon-intensive products in order to reduce carbon emissions. Strong banking development successfully allocate their financial resources for the development of energy-efficient technology while banking sector development is found to be negatively related with environmental sustainability. The strong banking sector possesses a significant negative influence on carbon reduction and environmental degradation.