Entrepreneurial Ecosystems as an Enabler of Technological Sovereignty: The Case of the Indian Short Form Video Market

This paper examines whether the geopolitical objective of technological sovereignty is attainable and enabled by entrepreneurial ecosystems, as both concepts aim to improve economic competitiveness. A qualitative single-case study of the Indian short-form video (SFV) market, which provides some of the most innovative business-to-consumer (B2C) digital applications, was conducted based on 20 stakeholder interviews and triangulated archival data. Numerous SFV start-ups were created in the city of Bangalore after a geopolitical incident that prompted the Indian government to ban comparable Chinese SFV apps, including TikTok. The research empirically demonstrates that the Bangalore entrepreneurial ecosystem facilitated technological sovereignty in three steps based on an input-process-output (IPO) model to enable the creation of these “sovereign” Indian SFV apps. Core of the theoretical enablement process is the adaptability of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to socio-political disruptions induced by geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives. This allows for ecosystem self-sustainment and triggers technological sovereignty as ecosystem response

Migranti, Europa e Mediterraneo

This essay primarily examines the significant economic, political, religious, and demographic disparities among Mediterranean-bordering countries, with a central focus on the migrant issue in the region. It delves into the array of international agreements formed by both the Italian government and the European Union to mitigate the influx of migrants. Additionally, it scrutinizes the strategies devised by the government of our country to address the underlying causes of irregular migration while concurrently promoting forms of regulated and monitored migration. Furthermore, it addresses crucial economic matters pertaining to energy supply from select countries in the "Enlarged Mediterranean" which produce gas and oil, as well as technological transfer initiatives aimed at aiding less developed nations in their developmental pursuits. The central theme of the Dublin Treaty, which still underpins the reception system for migrants arriving in the European Union, and the discussion of the New Pact for Migration and Asylum, approved by the European Parliament in April 2024 to address certain shortcomings of the Dublin Treaty, are the two focal points of this essay. Finally, the essay outlines the principles that should guide policies to address the issue of migration. These are: legality, transparency, and cooperation

Exploring Nowcasting Techniques for Real-Time GDP Estimation in Bhutan

In various policy institutions, current estimates of quarterly GDP growth are frequently employed to advise decision makers on the current state of the economy. The bridge equation serves as a fundamental model for nowcasting, elucidating GDP growth through the utilization of time-aggregated business cycle indicators. Recent academic literature has shown significant interest in an alternative method for nowcasting known as mixed-data sampling, abbreviated as MIDAS. Given this context, the paper examines the following questions: How can we estimate the annual GDP of Bhutan through MIDAS and bridge equations? Do they matter for nowcasting GDP growth in practice? By addressing these questions, the study aims to to provide insights into the application and comparative efficacy of these nowcasting techniques in an empirical context

Tranzicijski rizici klimatskih promjena: Analiza emisija stakleničkih plinova u Hrvatskoj i europodručju

To identify sectors in Croatia that are particularly sensitive to the European Union's measures for transitioning to a low-carbon economy, this paper analyses data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to identify the sectors that contribute most to climate change, assess their effectiveness in implementing emission reduction policies, and achieve sustainable development goals. Based on the analysis, it is clear that the energy, transport, and industrial processes sectors are key in the context of sensitivity to EU climate policies. In contrast, the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector stands out as offering unique opportunities for mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration activities and thereby achieving climate neutrality

The dependence of growth on the profitability of capital in the Kaleckian literature: a critical evaluation

Kaleckian models can be considered as the most relevant set of theoretical works which study growth as a demand-led phenomenon. In these models, the pace of accumulation depends on demand expansion and on different measures of capital profitability. The relevance of the latter is generally assumed without any in-depth scrutiny of theoretical principles. This article identifies the theoretical underpinnings of this alleged dependence and reconsiders and develops the criticisms of them which can be found in the literature. This analysis leads to argue that this fundamental assumption of the Kaleckian models is not sufficiently argued as much as its cruciality would require

Financial Performance and Innovation: Evidence from United States 1998 - 2023

This study explores the relationship between R&D intensity, as a measure of innovation, and financial performance among S&P 500 companies over 100 quarters from 1998 to 2023, including multiple crisis periods. It challenges the conventional wisdom that larger companies are more prone to innovate, using a comprehensive dataset across various industries. The analysis reveals diverse associations between innovation and key financial indicators such as firm size, assets, EBITDA, and tangibility. Our findings underscore the importance of innovation in enhancing firm competitiveness and market positioning, highlighting the effectiveness of countercyclical innovation policies. This research contributes to the debate on the role of R&D investments in driving firm value, offering new insights for both academic and policy discussions

The Contributions of Knapp and Innes to the Chartalist Theory of Money

The relationship between money and credit is analyzed differently between schools of economic thought. Orthodoxy, in general, analyzes it using the commodity money approach; heterodoxy, in large part, adopts the Chartist approach. The crucial difference between them lies in the fact, as put by Schumpeter, that orthodoxy postulates a monetary theory of credit; the heterodox, a credit theory of money. For the latter, money is, by nature, credit, and it can take different forms, tangible or not. The State uses it sovereignty to delimit the monetary system by defining what will (or will not) be accepted as money in the payments of transactions due to itself. Thus, Knapp’s contribution in structuring a theory of state money meets Innes’s credit theory of money and, together, these contributions offer a solid theoretical and historical framework for the formulation of an alternative theory of money, the Chartist theory

The impact of the industrialized nation’s CO2 emissions on climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case studies from South Africa, Nigeria and the DR Congo

Human activity has transformed the planet at a pace and scale unprecedented in recorded history, causing irreversible damage to communities and ecosystems. Countries have focused their capacities on economic growth, with too little attention to externalities in terms of environmental quality. The world will not avoid catastrophic warming unless wealthy nations accelerate their reduction of own emissions and help poorer countries to do the same. North America and Europe have contributed 62 % of carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution, while Africa has contributed only 3%. However, it is in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that the impacts are most severe and the people most vulnerable. Developed countries, in their own interests, should focus on ways to help developing countries phase out fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy. However, there are tensions between richer and poorer nations over who should pay the costs of global warming. Rich countries have a responsibility to act more quickly than their low-income counterparts. Yet governments continue to subsidise the use of fossil fuels, and banks and companies still invest more in polluting industries than in climate solutions. The consumption habits of the richest 10 % of people generate three times more pollution than those of the poorest 50 %. Emerging economies such as China and India, which plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 and 2070 respectively, should join the developed world in accelerating emissions reductions. It is not just the way we produce and use energy that needs to change quickly. It's the way we consume food, the way we protect nature. It's everything, everywhere, all at once. The agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable, especially in SSA countries where agriculture is central to the economy. Among the top eight countries with the highest cumulative net emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use are two SSA countries, Nigeria and DR Congo. Most of these emissions are embodied in trade and are caused by consumption in regions such as Europe, the United States and China. The establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund agreed at COP27 will not be enough to turn the tide, nor will it necessarily translate into climate finance commitments, given the lack of progress in delivering the promised US$100 billion in annual climate finance from rich countries. African countries themselves need to reflect on their own strengths and step up their efforts in a timely and substantial way

Global Perspectives on Fiscal Policy and Labor Income-Leisure Choices: Theoretical and Practical Insights

In macroeconomic literature, fiscal policy is considered a powerful tool to achieve sustainable development, full employment, and social well-being in developed and developing societies. For this, public authority uses expansionary and contractionary tax policies to achieve stable growth and employment environment for the stable labor market. This study theoretically and empirically investigates the problem of inference on income-leisure labor preference. Also, it considers the impact of tax and expenditure structure on labor choices, regarding working hours under the assumption of neoclassical theory. We use quantile regression analysis to investigate the data set for worldwide, high, and lowincome countries from 2000 to 2022, for the macro-level analysis based on the empirical investigation of 123 countries cross-section panel. The outcomes show that, when the fiscal authorities impose a regressive form of taxes, it may hurt the labor wages and distribution of income-leisure preferences or the welfare of labor. Similarly, non-labor income hurts labor utility through a large volume of development expenditure. However, when the progressive form of taxes is imposed it may improve the labor utility, while on the other side, when fiscal authority disburses the development expenditure it may support the non-labor income through the provision of public goods and services. For practice, the empirical results of quantile regression show that government expenditure has a positive while tax hurts labor supply. Fiscal policy in low-income countries has provided an alternative outcome

Fiscal policy, interest rate and the manufacturing sector performance in Nigeria

In this paper, the influence of fiscal policy (government expenditure and taxation) and interest rate on the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy was explored for the period 1981 to 2021. The study utilized the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model approach since some of our variables were integrated at level and others at first difference, and the bounds test reporting the existence of long run relationship in the model. Findings of the study in tudy indicated that in the short run, government expenditure and its one-period lag exerted a negative and significant influence on manufacturing sector performance; value added tax exerted a positive and significant effect on manufacturing sector performance while its one-period lag exerted a negative and significant effect; and interest rate exerted a positive and significant effect on manufacturing sector performance. In the long run, government expenditure put forth a negative but insignificant effect on manufacturing sector performance; while value added tax and interest rate exert positive and significant effect. In the disaggregated model, recurrent expenditure exerts a negative and significant effect; capital expenditure exerted a positive and significant effect; value added tax exerted a negative and significant effect; and interest rate put forth a positive and significant influence on manufacturing sector performance. The study recommended that there is need for a reduction in the cost of governance as a huge proportion of public spending is used in running the government other than being utilized in stirring critical sectors that could stir manufacturing sector performance