📈 economics

Sovereign ESG and the Hydrological Constraint: Rethinking the Determinants of Water Stress

This paper utilizes a comprehensive suite of econometric, clustering, and machine learning methods on data from 170 economies to demonstrate that water stress is primarily a structural phenomenon driven by female labor force participation and specific governance dimensions like accountability, rather than by overall institutional quality.

Aneta Kargol-Wasiluk, Katarzyna Lewkowicz-Grzegorczyk, Carlo Drago, Alberto Costantiello, ANGELO LEOGRANDE2026-08-27
📈 economics

Financial Inclusion as a Determinant of Economic Growth in Selected Lower-Middle-Income African Countries

Using panel regression analysis on secondary data from selected lower-middle-income African countries, this study finds that while financial inclusion indicators like commercial bank branches and deposit accounts have a statistically significant negative impact on real GDP growth, the research concludes that financial inclusion remains a meaningful determinant of economic growth through credit access, savings mobilization, and increased banking penetration.

AYODELE OLUWOLE OJEBIYI, Akeem Adewale BAKARE, Professor Umar Abbas IBRAHIM, Professor Taiwo Adewale MURITALA2026-08-27
📈 economics

Revisiting Inflation Dynamics in Nepal: Global Geopolitical Risk or Cross Border Price Transmission

Using annual data from 1985 to 2024 and an ARDL framework, this paper finds that while Indian inflation and crude oil prices remain the primary drivers of Nepal's inflation, global geopolitical risk represents an emerging, albeit not yet uniformly robust, transmission channel that warrants monitoring by monetary authorities.

Arjun Gurung, Dhurba Poudel, Krishna Rantija Pun, Ramesh Thapa Magar2026-08-27
📈 economics

Fiscal Dependence, Institutional Quality, and Environmental Policy: Rethinking the Resource Curse through the Fiscal Structural Resource Curse in Timor-Leste

This study utilizes PLS-SEM analysis of Timor-Leste's 2010–2025 data to demonstrate that fiscal dependence on oil directly and significantly erodes institutional and environmental governance through a "Fiscal Structural Resource Curse" mechanism, rather than through the hypothesized intervening role of political short-termism.

Victorius Adventius Hamel, Lilik Antarini, Nyoman Suma Widayani, Putu Adi Permana Putra, Ni Putu Dinda Kalpika Putri, An (…)2026-08-27
📈 economics

Long-term Stability and Elicitation Effects in Contingent Valuation: Experimental Evidence from a Three-Decade Valuation Program

This study utilizes a unique three-decade dataset of forest recreation valuation in Germany and Switzerland to demonstrate that recreational values have increased over time, while highlighting consequentiality and sample selection as key sources of variation and affirming the robustness of open-ended elicitation as a complement to single binary choice methods.

Peter Elsasser2026-08-27
📈 economics

Zero-waste City Policy and the Short-Lived Efficiency Window in Urban Green Innovation: Evidence from China’s Staggered Pilot

Using a doubly robust difference-in-differences approach on Chinese prefecture-level data, this study finds that while China's Zero-waste City Pilot yields lasting improvements in industrial waste utilization, its positive impact on urban green innovation efficiency is short-lived, peaking only in the policy launch year and driven primarily by industrial restructuring.

Peiwen Lu, Shouting Zhang, Kailingli Liao, Jinping Tian, Lyujun Chen2026-08-26
📈 economics

Policy Orchestration and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Performance in the UAE: A Multi-Level Framework for SDG 8-Oriented Economic Development

This paper proposes a multi-level Policy Orchestration-Cluster Conversion-Impact framework, derived from an integrative review of UAE policies and literature, to demonstrate how coherent governance of national strategies, regulations, finance, and talent transforms entrepreneurial ecosystem assets into startup scaling, non-oil economic upgrading, and SDG 8-oriented decent work outcomes.

Sazina Khan, Rajesh Arora2026-08-26