Business, Economics and Management

Abstract: The study considers the development of a nationally contextualized model of catastrophe risk insurance in the Republic of Tajikistan (RT) as an instrument for overcoming the insurance protection gap. The topic is relevant for RT due to high natural vulnerability, significant role of agriculture, hydropower and transport corridors, as well as the limited capacity of the national insurance market. Insurance protection against catastrophic risks cannot be reduced to a shortage of insurance lines, but has a complex institutional nature, encompassing legal, financial, informational, and behavioral constraints. The methodological basis is comparative institutional analysis. Tajikistan is considered as the main case, while China’s dirigiste model is used as a comparative reference point. The study also examines international approaches to managing natural disaster risks, parametric insurance, insurance pools, reinsurance, and public-private mechanisms for distributing catastrophic losses. Results. Reasonable solution for RT is not a universal insurance programme, but a hybrid multi-level system. The proposed model includes five interrelated elements: the state regulatory framework, a national insurance operator, a national insurance or reinsurance pool, a parametric level of insurance protection, and limited compulsory liability insurance in high-risk segments. A special role is assigned to the State insurer “Tojiksugurta” as a potential institutional hub for launching pilot products, accumulating insurance statistics, and facilitating interaction with the state, policyholders, and international partners. The insurance protection gap in Tajikistan can be bridged only through a combination of insurance instruments, state regulation, subsidization, reinsurance, data infrastructure, social protection, and the phased implementation of pilot mechanisms.

Abstract: This study examines time-varying return connectedness among WTI crude oil, gold, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), and the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). A discount-factor TVP-VAR with separately estimated stochastic-volatility paths is applied to 4,206 synchronized daily observations from February 2008 to December 2025. Generalized forecast-error variance decompositions, directional connectedness, generalized impulse responses, prespecified crisis comparisons, and sensitivity checks are employed. Full-sample connectedness is low (mean TCI = 1.8004), with own-return shares of 97.7067%-98.6715%. During the cleaned Global Financial Crisis (GFC) window, mean TCI rises to 2.2968 versus 1.6315 outside the GFC; however, the lower median and insignificant rank-based tests indicate that the increase is concentrated in the upper tail. The clearest GFC feature is a gold-centered configuration: Gold-to-Oil transmission increases by 1.3723 percentage points, while Oil's net position remains close to zero and specification-sensitive. Gold is the strongest net transmitter and DXY the strongest receiver during the GFC, but their roles change across COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine regimes. Impulse responses attenuate within approximately two days. The findings show that energy-financial transmission is weak on average, short-lived, and crisis-dependent, supporting conditional rather than structural interpretations of cross-market risk.

Abstract: Cash transfers have emerged as a primary form of government-sponsored social security. The welfare effects of these programs differ by the design of the program, target population, socio-economic conditions, and follow-up duration. This study uses the PRISMA approach and assesses articles and papers published during the period 2015 to 2025 on households' consumption, food security, poverty, asset endowment, labour issues, human capital, resilience, and inequality across disciplines. The study also estimated pooled food security. In this study, papers published from January 1, 2015, to September 15, 2026, in indexed and non-indexed journals are considered. The reviews included 14 causal impact studies. Of these, only six studies provided 7 independent comparisons of standardised food security. The study pooled the effect measures, adjusted to the control group standard deviation, using an inverse-variance method with random effects. The results show that cash transfers increased food security and consumption, provided immediate economic security, and increased assets. The effects on labour and poverty were more varied. The pooled food security effect estimate was 0.265 SD (0.149-0.380), with considerable heterogeneity (I² = 81.3%; tau² = 0.019). The studies in Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, and some refugee establishments find that the transitory effects of cash transfer programs may be extinguished once the payments end. Overall, the cash transfer schemes improve the conditions of households' economies. Nevertheless, sufficient cash transfers distributed over significantly long periods, along with appropriate opportunities, services, and inclusive targeting, are needed to reduce chronic poverty.

Abstract: Suppose three things come true. Everyone has thinking machines better than the best human expert in every field, running for about the cost of the electricity. Every household can build the physical goods of modern life from raw materials. Rooftop and backyard solar supplies the power for both. This paper works out who still gets paid in that world. Anything that can be produced by thinking alone becomes cheap, because anyone can make their own copy. Money keeps flowing to three kinds of things that thinking cannot produce: physical stuff that one person's use takes away from another (land, minerals, energy, water); permission granted by law (licenses, approvals, the right to connect to the grid or a payment system); and wanting a specific human being. Five results follow. Income from selling thinking disappears. A company can shrink to one person while still controlling huge physical assets. App stores lose their business of selling tools but keep their business of connecting people and granting permission. A household can make only what its own land, sunlight, water, and materials allow. And the income that thinking used to earn moves to whoever owns the land, materials, and permissions. Rules about who may enter, connect, and operate therefore become the main thing that decides who benefits. A calculation with U.S. data sizes the land that still binds. At today's farm yields and national energy use, feeding and powering a household of 2.5 people on a vegan diet takes about one acre, roughly five times the median lot of a new single-family house sold in 2024. Better technology shrinks that requirement, and the paper shows by how much it must shrink: one median lot is enough once the land needed for food falls about tenfold and energy use falls by about half.

Abstract: Kazakhstan’s dairy sector has a substantial household production base, yet this production remains only partly connected to formal collection and processing systems. This study examines the structural and institutional conditions shaping Kazakhstan’s dairy supply system and identifies policy measures that could improve its coordination. Annual national data for 2007-2024 are analysed using descriptive indicators, producer-structure comparisons, and a review of official agricultural and livestock-policy documents. The analysis distinguishes between the volume of milk produced and the extent to which milk is collected, cooled, tested, and supplied to processors. The results show that household farms remained an important source of national milk throughout the study period, although their share of reported production gradually declined. In the analytical series, household farms still accounted for approximately 61% of total reported milk production in 2024. The sharp decline observed between 2021 and 2022 is interpreted cautiously because it may reflect statistical revisions, changes in reporting coverage, or producer reclassification, in addition to possible changes in physical production. The findings indicate that fragmented collection, limited cooling infrastructure, uneven quality control, restricted access to finance, and weak producer–processor coordination remain important barriers to formal market integration.The study proposes an evidence-informed policy framework based on dairy cooperatives, local collection and cooling points, quality-based support, productivity improvement, affordable equipment finance, regional dairy planning, and longer-term purchasing agreements. Sustainable sector development requires not only higher milk output but also a more reliable system for connecting producers with domestic processors.

Abstract: The absence of a monetary value anchor independent of discretionary issuance remains an unresolved problem of monetary theory. This paper develops a conditional research program: granted the normative premise that civilizational survival is a lexicographically prior meta-constraint, the value anchor can migrate from scarcity to net order creation. We construct the negentropic theory of value, in which value is the net increment of systemic order, and civilization utility theory, in which continuous negentropic creation pursues the mastery of cosmic truth as its ultimate directional goal. The value equation Wτ = k·Eτa·Tτb·Iτc is posited rather than derived from physics; its benchmark case Wτ = √(Eτ·Tτ·Iτ) combines exergy input, non-equilibrium maintenance time, and structural information gain. Existence and uniqueness of the incentive-compatible configuration are established under stated assumptions, including quasi-linear utility, and a second-order welfare-loss bound is derived for calibration errors in the consensus coefficients α. A three-period overlapping-generations model, a general equilibrium with endogenous α (with scenario analysis when assumptions fail), mechanism defenses, and a four-layer measurement blueprint (CRN, a forward-looking research program rather than a presently deployable system) complete the program. Component-level cross-country evidence shows that R&D intensity alone explains 79% of the variance in innovation-output density. H1 provides executed component-level correlational evidence; H2–H5 are designed but not yet executed; the macrostability of a scarcity-free anchor is identified as the central open problem.

Abstract: Almost everything known about equity rounds in young firms comes from the records of professional investors, so the evidence is selected on the presence of an intermediary. We read rounds instead from the share-premium reserve, a compulsory, disclosed and restricted line of the Italian statutory balance sheet, for 3,225 certified innovative SMEs over 2016–2025: 2,991 priced capital increases on 1,330 firms. Firms about to raise grew twice as fast in the preceding year and held identical cash, yet six in ten closed it at a loss; profitability falls and intangible assets rise only after the round. Seven panel estimators place the association across firms and not within them; a taxonomy estimated blind to the event finds the mechanism in all five financial configurations, with incidence differing eightfold; six flexible learners fail to improve on the linear specification. Selection operates on growth, not on profitability, a distinction intermediated samples cannot see.

Abstract: Copper is recognized as a strategic mineral resource supporting the energy transition and digital development. Based on copper trade data from 2015 to 2024 for 146 countries, the copper industry chain is divided into four functional layers: the raw material layer, the refining and processing layer, the recycling layer, and the equipment layer, for which directed weighted trade networks are constructed. In particular, the equipment layer is used as a proxy for investment in copper-processing capacity and manufacturing capability. Complex network methods, community detection, and dynamic targeted-node attack simulations are employed to examine the structural evolution and resilience of the global copper industry chain trade network. The following results are obtained: (1) Significant hierarchical heterogeneity is exhibited in the global copper industry chain trade network. The refining and processing layer is the densest, while the equipment layer increasingly converges toward it, and both show a trend toward concentration in core countries in the later period. (2) China’s core position is systematically strengthened across all layers. Raw material exports are dominated by Chile and Peru; in 2024, Chile is replaced by the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the largest trade corridor to China in the refining and processing layer; in the recycling layer, a shift from dominance by traditional developed economies toward a multi-node collaborative East Asia–Southeast Asia pattern is observed; the equipment layer is shifted from a pattern led by the United States and Germany to one in which China is made the dominant hub of both supply and demand. (3) Marked reorganization is observed in the community structure. In the raw material layer, Chile is transferred to the China-centered community. In the refining and processing layer, the China-centered community is expanded toward the Asia-Pacific and Africa. In the recycling layer, the trans-Pacific community is gradually integrated. In the equipment layer, three coexisting blocs are formed: an Asia-Pacific community, a Europe–Africa transcontinental community, and Americas communities characterized by North–South differentiation. (4) Network resilience is ranked in the following order: the refining and processing layer > the equipment layer > the recycling layer > the raw material layer. In 2024, resilience is markedly weakened in the refining and processing and recycling layers; some recovery is observed in the raw material layer; the equipment layer remains relatively stable overall.

Abstract: Research Question/Issue: This study examines the differential effects of board diversity on environmental, social, and governance (ESG scores) and financial performance across different types of companies. We also assess the impact of the 2021 NASDAQ rule relating to board diversity on ESG scores and financial performance. Research Findings/Results: We find the percentage of non-white board members to have a positive impact on financial performance, while the percentage of female board members has a positive effect on Tobin’s Q, but a negative effect on social ratings. Moreover, we find the NASDAQ rule requiring boards to have at least one minority member to have a negative impact on governance ratings. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This paper explores various theories that explain how board diversity impacts firm performance. These theories include agency, resource dependency, human and social capital, stakeholder, upper echelons, social identity, and critical mass theories. Practical Implications: Our results suggest that firms with greater board diversity may have a greater potential for above average financial returns. Moreover, institutional lenders may view these firms to have lower reputational risk. Relatedly, the positive effect of outside directors on environmental scores may attract financial managers who want to invest in environmentally conscious firms.

Abstract: This article examines the diversity of industrial relations systems in the European Union. Although member states operate within shared regulatory frameworks and EU-level coordination, historical trajectories, institutional arrangements and socioeconomic conditions have produced distinct national models. Drawing on academic literature, EU policy documents, Eurofound reports and country-specific institutional analyses, the study compares the Nordic, Continental, Anglo-Saxon, Southern and Eastern hybrid models in terms of bargaining structures, coordination mechanisms and the role of social partners. The comparison reveals cohesive tripartite cooperation in Nordic countries, corporatist stability and codetermination in Continental systems, decentralised and market-driven regulation in Anglo-Saxon contexts, fragmented implementation and greater conflictuality in Southern Europe, and institutional instability in Eastern hybrid systems shaped by post-socialist legacies and EU-driven reforms. Digitalisation, demographic pressures and platform labour are placing all models under strain and require more adaptive forms of governance. The article concludes that national diversity remains substantial, while the EU encourages selective functional convergence in areas where common principles interact with domestic institutional capacity.

Abstract: We examine whether improvements in firm profitability are associated with a lower carbon-intensity response to revenue growth. Using 26,866 firm-year observations for Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2022, we estimate firm and year fixed-effects models in which the carbon-intensity response is measured as the change in carbon intensity relative to the change in revenue. The baseline association between marginal profit and the carbon-intensity response is negative. Importantly, the result remains negative in a denominator-free specification that relates the change in carbon intensity directly to the change in net profit, indicating that the finding is not solely driven by the shared change-in-revenue denominator. The association is weaker above an estimated marginal-profit threshold and is attenuated among firms with higher market value. The results are consistent with an organizational-slack channel.

Abstract: Food waste is an overall system failure in agri-food supply chains and a cause of 8-10% of total GHG emissions, associated with more than USD 1 trillion in lost economic value each year. It lacks operational and decision-support tools for practitioners to implement the concepts of the circular economy through food waste prevention pathways. This paper presents a novel three-layer operational decision-support framework building on a previous systematic literature survey of 374 peer-reviewed articles, which highlighted eight structural gaps, such as the lack of economic methods for SMEs, weak metrics–decision linkages and prevention-valorisation asymmetry. The methodological approach includes a literature synthesis method as well as expertise from ISO standards and EU regulatory mapping (ISO/FDIS 20001, ISO 14001, ISO 59004, ISO 22000), KPI sourcing from existing measurement frameworks (FUSIONS, REFRESH, FAO Food Loss Index, GRI 306), and structured expert validation by practitioner and academic reviewers. Layer 1 provides diagnostic hotspot mapping based on stage-level loss typologies and adds a new Hotspot Priority Score. Layer 2 implements circular economy principles through a dedicated prioritisation of prevention with explicit processes taking care of the integration of ISO governance principles and a Lock-in Risk Score. Layer 3 includes cost-based feasibility assessment (CAPEX and OPEX) to meet CSRD/ESRS needs, incorporating a payback period. A feasibility scorecard is provided containing an end-to-end agri-foods SME process example. The framework constitutes a guideline methodology that is easily replicable and can be applied throughout food value chains, including in production, retail, and HoReCa sectors, which helps avoid the diagnosis-implementation gap in food waste governance in the framework of the circular economy and supports food value chain decision-support for sustainable agri-food automation and control.

Abstract: Canada Post faces a structural financial crisis driven by declining letter-mail volumes, rising operating costs, intensifying parcel competition, and the rapid transformation of logistics through artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. This paper develops and applies a Scenario-Based Net Present Value (SNPV) model to evaluate whether restructuring can restore the long-term financial sustainability of a public enterprise while preserving service obligations. Drawing on comparative public administration, postal economics, international postal reforms, and the experience of Japan Post Holdings, the study examines a hybrid restructuring strategy combining AI-driven automation, postal banking, lending, insurance services, and expanded community-based services. The results show that the low scenario remains financially unfavourable, whereas the base scenario generates an SNPV of CAD $15.98 billion and a Benefit–Cost Ratio (BCR) of 1.08. The high scenario produces an SNPV of CAD $383.26 billion and a BCR of 2.66, although it is explicitly treated as an upper-bound sensitivity case rather than an expected outcome. An automation-only sensitivity case remains financially unfavourable, indicating that technological modernization alone is insufficient under the model assumptions. The findings suggest that long-term financial sustainability depends primarily on combining technological modernization with institutional diversification while preserving the broader public value of universal postal infrastructure. The study contributes a quantitative framework for evaluating Crown corporation restructuring and broader public-enterprise adaptation in the AI economy.

Abstract: Financial inclusion has expanded rapidly, yet rising access does not necessarily translate into convergence in digital financial use. Using five Global Findex waves (2011–2024) and individual-level 2024 microdata, this study distinguishes account access from effective digital financial participation. Balanced-economy trends show account ownership rising from 53.0% in 2011 to 80.6% in 2024, while gender and income access gaps narrow. In contrast, income gaps in digital use remain large, and the richest–poorest gap in digital merchant payments increases from 15.4 to 18.7 percentage points between 2021 and 2024. Analysis of 62,480 phone-owning adults across 74 economies uses Findex-weighted logit models with economy fixed effects and economy-clustered inference. Internet use, basic messaging capability, and secure autonomous device control are independently associated with 6.9, 7.7, and 8.3 percentage-point higher probabilities of digital merchant payment. Digital mechanisms attenuate but do not eliminate education, income, rural, and gender gaps. Results are robust to wild-cluster bootstrap, CR2/Satterthwaite correction, alternative weighting, LMIC-only estimation, alternative security definitions, and leave-one-region-out tests. The findings indicate that expanding access alone is insufficient: effective digital participation remains stratified by capability, device control, and socioeconomic resources.

Abstract: Debt maturity composition is filed in every Italian balance sheet and rarely treated as an outcome. Using 73,662 firm-year observations on 11,265 unlisted firms over 2016–2024—innovative start-ups, innovative SMEs and ordinary SMEs drawn from one source on identical items—we estimate the effect of asset tangibility on the short-term share of debt. Maturity matching holds within firms and not only across them: the between coefficient is −0.380, the within coefficient −0.247, and instrumentation moves the estimate away from zero. Adjustment is incomplete, with persistence of 0.556 and a long-run response 1.8 times the static one. The relationship is steeply graded by regime, from −0.312 among ordinary SMEs to −0.120 among innovative start-ups. A taxonomy estimated without the regulatory register reproduces that gradient, indicating that certification selects balance sheets rather than shaping them. Flexible learners improve on the linear form by only 1.27 times.

Abstract: Agricultural green development (AGD) is crucial for food security, eco-efficiency, and rural sustainability. However, existing studies seldom examine structural shifts in AGD drivers across development stages. Using 2004–2023 county data from Hunan, we measure AGD via combined-weighting–TOPSIS and apply a panel threshold model with lagged agricultural economic level as the threshold. Results show: (1) AGD in Hunan generally rose, accelerating in later years, with a distinct “east-strong, west-weak” pattern; (2) a significant double threshold exists at approximately CNY 1959 and CNY 3380 per capita; the green effects of agricultural service provision and mechanization are progressively released, non-farm employment shows an inverted U-shape, while fiscal support shows no significant effect; (3) the release patterns of service provision and mechanization are common in middle and high stages, whereas the effect of non-farm employment varies markedly across Hunan’s four subregions. By endogenizing development stage as a testable threshold, this study reveals stage-dependent driving rules of AGD and provides a reference for differentiated green-transition pathways and regional governance in major grain-producing areas.

Abstract: Ghana has sustained constitutional democratic governance since 1992; however, concerns persist regarding executive dominance, weak institutional independence, and uneven economic performance. Drawing on institutional theory, this study examines whether constitutional separation of powers influences economic development beyond conventional macroeconomic factors. Using annual data from 1996 to 2023, the analysis employs a Bayesian State Space Structural Equation Modeling (BSS-SEM) framework to capture the dynamic and latent nature of institutional quality and development outcomes under limited sample size and missing data. Separation of powers is modeled as a latent construct and measured by the Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality, and Voice of Accountability, while economic development is modeled as a latent construct using the Human Development Index, Gross Domestic Product, and Foreign Direct Investment. The results reveal a positive, persistent effect of separation of powers on economic development, strengthening over time and underscoring the role of constitutional design in sustaining economic performance.

Abstract: This paper investigates the main factors behind exchange rate volatility in Ghana using yearly time series data from 1988 to 2024. The study applies an ARDL bounds test approach for cointegration to test the long run relationship between exchange rate movement in Ghana and foreign direct investment, current account deficit, interest rate, political stability, terms of trade and external debt. The results of the model suggest that external debt, past exchange rate and current account deficits cause depreciation of the Ghana Cedi. It also shows that foreign direct investment inflows and terms of trade strengthen the Ghana cedi. The error correction term or the speed of adjustment parameter is significant and negative validating the long run relationships. It shows that 30% of deviations from equilibrium of the exchange rate in Ghana is corrected in one period.

Abstract: A land register records what a parcel sold for. It does not record what may be built on it, though that is what sets its value to a developer. From 39,940 title-deed transfers in the Paphos District Land Registry, Cyprus, 8,945 arm's-length land transactions for 2019–2024 are isolated; 1,116 building plots across seven settlements carry the density analysis. Dividing transacted price by the statutory building coefficient removes four-fifths of the between-settlement variance in log price, but this restates the coefficient's monotonicity in price, and a vector built from price ranks alone compresses more. The register's second value descriptor fails independently: declared consideration falls short of accepted value by €242.0 million, and the shortfall is twice as large district-wide where no contract of sale was deposited (17.0% against 8.3%), a contrast partly compositional yet present within settlements. The published assessment procedure does not refer to deposit status, but deposit changes the evidence before the assessor, so the contrast is read as declaration behaviour, with fee-incidence and assessor-evidence channels open. Comparables and automated valuation lack the parameter that sets development value, and a reinstated property tax would inherit a base least reliable on low-value property. The failure is one of register design.

Abstract: Comprehensive wealth accounting defines net investment in natural capital as the change in the stock, yet country-level ESG research has concentrated on flow measures of environmental pressure and left this outcome unexamined. Drawing on the World Bank Sovereign ESG Data Portal, this paper takes the annual change in renewable natural capital per capita, from the Changing Wealth of Nations accounts, as its dependent variable, for 149 to 151 countries between 1995 and 2020. It is explained three times, through parallel equations differing only in the ESG pillar of origin of their regressors, so that the three sets of determinants are estimated as distinct and comparable effects rather than compressed into a composite index. Each equation is developed through panel econometrics across six estimators, a comparison of six clustering algorithms ranked on eleven internal validity indices, and six supervised learners used to validate the specification rather than to predict. Median renewable natural capital per capita falls by 29.7 per cent and its share of comprehensive wealth halves, yet the aggregate stock is roughly constant: the coefficient on population growth is −0.913, indistinguishable from the value implied by the accounting identity, and becomes insignificant on the total stock. The decline is therefore demographic arithmetic. Climatic stress is the most robust environmental determinant, and its coefficient more than doubles when agricultural land is excluded from the dependent variable. Institutional trajectory dominates institutional level, a distinction recovered independently by the clustering. Relationships differ systematically between the two panel dimensions, and the renewable energy share reverses sign across them.