Climate indicators and COVID-19 recovery: A case of Wuhan during the lockdown.

The world needs to get out of the COVID-19 pandemic smoothly through a thorough socio-economic recovery. The first and the foremost step forward in this direction is the health recovery of the people infected. Our empirical study addresses this neglected point in the recent research on COVID-19 and specifically aims at exploring the impact of the environment on health recovery from COVID-19. The sample data are taken during the lockdown period in Wuhan, i.e., from 23rd January 2020 to 8th April 2020. The recently developed econometric technique of Quantile-on-Quantile regression, proposed by Shin and Zhu (2016) is employed to capture the asymmetric association between environmental factors (TEMP, HUM, PM2.5, PM10, CO, SO2, NO2, and O3) and the number of recovered patients from COVID-19. We observe significant heterogeneity in the association among variables across various quantiles. The findings suggest that TEMP, PM2.5, PM10, CO, NO2, and O3 are negatively related to the COVID-19 recovery, while HUM and SO2 show a positive association at most quantiles. The study recommends that maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for the patients may increase the chances of recovery from COVID-19. The success story of Wuhan, the initial epicenter of the novel coronavirus in China, can serve as an important case study for other countries to bring the outbreak under control. The current study could be conducive for the policymakers of those countries where the COVID-19 pandemic is still unrestrained.

Financial Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Under Mediating Effect of Operational Self-Sustainability.

Operational and financial sustainability have, over time, remained as issues in the microfinance industry. The microfinance industry is struggling to gain self-sufficiency in Pakistan due to non-performing loans and operating costs. Simultaneously, deliberation on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is also considered in academic literature and organizational practices. However, studies on CSR and financial performance in the microfinance sector are scarce, especially in Pakistan. CSR will develop customer attraction and loyalty, employee attraction, motivation and commitment, MFIs' reputation and access to capital, and eventually build financial performance. Interviews were conducted with branch managers of microfinance institutions to test previous questionnaires. A self-administered survey was conducted to collect data from the managers of the microfinance banks operating in Punjab. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed to answer research questions using Smart PLS. Most of the microfinance institutions believe in social responsibilities but lacks fund allocation and approval from higher management, and results are in line with prior studies. These empirical findings lead to the perception that CSR is not a barrier performance in microfinance banks as they have access to capital. The results indicated a strong positive correlation between CSR and the financial performance of the MFIs. CSR also positively correlates with customer retention, employees' motivation and attraction, and business reputation. CSR was associated with access to capital but was found to be weak. The research also narrated the limitation and practical implications of the study. The study also discusses further research directions.