Partisan Conflict and Income Inequality in the United States: A Nonparametric Causality-in-Quantiles Approach

This paper examines the predictive power of a partisan conflict on income inequality. Our study contributes to the existing literature by using the newly introduced nonparametric causality-in-quantile testing approach to examine how political polarization in the United States affects several measures of income inequality and distribution overtime. The study uses annual time-series data between the periods 1917–2013. We find evidence in support of a dynamic causal relationship between partisan conflict and income inequality, except at the upper end of the quantiles. Our empirical findings suggest that a reduction in partisan conflict will lead to a reduction in our measures of income inequality, but this requires that inequality is not exceptionally high

Effects of domestic material consumption, renewable energy, and financial development on environmental sustainability in the EU-28 : Evidence from a GMM panel-VAR

Despite the high commitments of the European Union (EU) member countries toward achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs), on average, the region has reportedly under performed in the area of ensuring sustainable production and consumption. This paper uses the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation of panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) with impulse response functions (IMFs) to assess the effects of domestic material consumption, renewable energy, financial development, and greenhouse gas emissions on environmental quality in the EU-28 countries based on the panel data for the period 2000:Q1–2017:Q4. The empirical results reveal that the shocks to domestic material consumption, renewable energy, economic growth, financial development, and greenhouse gas emissions affect the drives towards a sustainable environment. Particularly, the shocks to renewable energy and financial development improve environmental quality, while the shocks to domestic material consumption and greenhouse gas emission deteriorate environment quality. The shock to economic growth improves environmental quality up to the 4th horizon after which it begins to deteriorate environment quality. Furthermore, the panel causality results indicate bidirectional causality between greenhouse gas emissions and the rest of the variables except renewable energy, which is unidirectional. The causality between economic growth and renewable energy, economic growth and financial development, and financial development and renewable energy has a feedback effect while a unidirectional causality flows from economic growth to domestic material consumption. These findings have implications for sustainable production and consumption.©2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Towards ICT diffusion and trade liberalisation on inclusive growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

While the debate over the nexus between trade liberalization and inclusive growth is progressively reaching some consensus in emerging and developing economies, the empirical findings are mixed for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Some of the SSA countries experience rapid growth in information and communication technology (ICT) diffusion manifesting in increased green wealth via the invention of new ideas, access to wider markets like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), promoting accountability, social inclusion, and e-governance among others. The present study critically assesses how ICT diffusion modulates trade liberalization on inclusive growth throughout the 2005–2020 periods for 48 SSA countries. This study contributes empirically and methodologically to literature, specifically on the construction of the ICT index, inclusive growth index, and adoption of a better befitting econometric model. The study explores the direct impacts of ICT diffusion and trade liberalization, and their indirect impacts using an interaction term on inclusive growth. Contrary to the prior expectations, trade liberalization does not lead to inclusive growth in the SSA region, but ICT diffusion has a positive and significant impact on inclusive growth. However, the interaction term of ICT and trade liberalization improves inclusive growth. Therefore, the study advocates for policies that would build a knowledge-based human capital, stimulate innovation in socio-economic systems, and develop ICT infrastructure and its penetration among others, with the expectation that as AfCFTA takes effect, ICT diffusion will facilitate intra-regional trade, enhancing inclusive growth in the African region among other sound policy suggestions

Asymmetric effects of inequality on real output levels of the United States

The existing literature on the short- and long-run impacts of economic growth on income inequality indicates that positive and negative output shocks have worsened the income distribution in the United States. In this paper, we report our empirical examination of the opposite; that is, the impact of positive and negative income inequality shocks on the real output levels. Using the same time-series data, over the period 1917–2012, in a more comprehensive manner, by employing six measures of income distribution, we examined the impact of an increase/decrease in income inequality on economic growth, using the NARDL approach. The results provide evidence in support of a long-run asymmetric impact between income inequality and the real output levels, since the long-run coefficients of positive changes have positive signs, while the signs of those of negative changes are negative, indicating that a decrease or an increase in income inequality improves the real output level in the US.https://link.springer.com/journal/408222020-04-16hj2019Economic

Is causality between globalization and energy consumption bidirectional or unidirectional in top and bottom globalized economies?

By using quarterly data over the period 1970Q1-2017Q4, this paper examines the dynamic causal relationship between globalization and energy consumption by using rolling and recursive rolling Granger causality methods. This study is pioneering effort to examine the dynamic causal relationship between globalization and energy consumption using time-varying Granger causality tests for 20 top and bottom globalized economies. The empirical results reveal that the dynamic causality relationship between globalization and energy consumption is time-varying. Although, the causal relationship could not be observed for some of the study periods, bidirectional causality is found in many sub-samples. From the empirical findings, we observe that unidirectional causality running from globalization to energy consumption has grievous impact on trade and environmental quality. In general, our empirical results resonate with the previous findings of globalization energy-driven hypothesis, with significant policy implications for top and bottom globalized countries.http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijfehj2023Economic

Does Labor Market Hysteresis Hold in Low Income Countries?

This study tests for labor market hysteresis in low income countries while accounting for structural break in the unemployment rates. This is to verify if unemployment in low income countries will return back to natural rate of unemployment in the long run using data from Nigeria and South Africa.  It follows the procedure for single structural break unit root test by Zivot and Andrews (1992). The empirical result indicates that accounting for structural break makes the unemployment rate series stationary for Nigeria; hence, shocks to the unemployment rates will have temporary effects. Contrarily, evidence of hysteresis was found in South Africa's unemployment rates series because it was not stationary. Nigeria's macroeconomic policy can aim at lowering inflation through a contractionary policy, it will temporarily increase unemployment but it will return back to its natural state, but structural reforms that will prompt shock on South African unemployment will increase the persistence of hysteresis. Keywords: Unemployment, Hysteresis, Unit root, Stationarity. EL Classifications: C22; E24; J16; J2

An assessment of environmental sustainability corridor: The role of economic expansion and research and development in EU countries.

Given that the European Union-28 countries proposed a target of 3% of the Gross Domestic Product on research and development (R&D) expenditure by 2020, the current study attempts to examine the role of R&D on environmental sustainability. In addition, the study further investigates the long-run and causal interaction between, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, and economic growth in an ecological footprint function. Notably, the study incorporates research and development (R&D) expenditure to the model as an additional variable, and measures impact of each variable on ecological footprint. Empirical evidence is based on a balanced panel data between annual periods of 1997-2014 for selected EU-16 countries. The Pedroni, Johansen Multivariate and Kao tests all reveal a cointegration between ecological footprint, economic growth, research and development expenditure, renewable, and nonrenewable energy consumption. The Fully Modified and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares models (FMOLS and DOLS) both suggest a negative significant relationship between the countries' research and development expenditure and ecological footprint in the long-run. This implies that spending on R&D significantly impacts on the environmental sustainability of the panel countries. Our study affirms that nonrenewable energy consumption and economic growth increase carbon emission flaring while renewable energy consumption declines ecological footprint. The panel causality analysis reveals a feedback mechanism between ecological footprint, R&D expenditure, renewable, and nonrenewable energy consumption. We further observed a one-way causality between ecological footprint and economic growth. Effective policy implications could be drawn toward modern and environmentally friendly energy sources, especially in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals via spending on R&D