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The present study explores the impact of economic growth; urban expansion; and consumption of fossil fuels, solid fuels, and renewable energy on environmental degradation in developing economies of Sub-Saharan Africa. To demonstrate its findings in detail, the study adopts a system generalized method of moment (GMM) on a panel of 34 emerging economies for the period from 1995 to 2015. The results describe that the consumption of fossil and solid fuels for cooking and expansion of urban areas are significantly contributing to carbon dioxide emissions, on one end, and stimulating air pollution, on the other. The results also exhibit an inverted U-shape relationship between per capita economic growth and carbon emissions. This relation confirms the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in middle- and low-income economies of Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the use of renewable energy alternatives improves air quality by controlling carbon emissions and lowering the direct interaction of households with toxic gases. Thus, the use of renewable energy alternatives helps the economies to achieve sustainable development targets.

This study explores the impact of fossil fuels consumption, solid fuels consumption for cooking purposes, economic growth, and carbon emissions on human health, with a key emphasis on the occurrence of tuberculosis and the high mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa. For its practical insights, the study develops a system Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) for a panel of 34 middle- and lower-middle-income countries from 1995 to 2015. The study adopts a flexible methodology to tackle endogeneity in the variables. The robust results report that the use of solid fuels (charcoal, peat, wood, wood pellets, crop residues) for cooking purposes and the consumption of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) are significantly increasing the occurrence of tuberculosis. In addition, the results highlight that the consumption of both solid fuels and fossil fuels has adverse affects on life expectancy by increasing the mortality rate in Sub-Saharan African countries. Results report that renewable energy sources like sun, wind, and water (all with potential to prevent households from direct exposure to particulate matters and harmful gases) as well as a rise in economic growth serve as helping factors to control the occurrence of tuberculosis and to decrease the mortality rate. Moreover, the use of renewable energy sources is serving to lessen emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxides, and particulate matters, which can ultimately decrease the mortality rate and extend the life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This study investigates the effect of energy utilization, greenhouses gasses emissions, and economic activities on health risks such as mortality rate and incidence of respiratory diseases in emerging Asian economies. The study analyzes a panel data from 1995 to 2018 to examine the long-run and short-run influence of environmental pollution on health issues. The empirical findings highlight that greenhouse gasses emissions, fossil fuel consumption, and natural resources depletion in the region are key factors to increasing health risks in the long-run period, while the use of clean energy and improvement in per capita economic growth is helping to improve the health status of the households. In a short period, greenhouse gasses emission is the only significant factor responsible for the high mortality rate and occurrence of respiratory diseases in the emerging economies of Asia. According to the results, there is a need for government intervention programs to rescue the region from the negative effects of environmental pollution and the utilization of nonrenewable energy. In emerging Asian countries, the combustion of fossil fuels, environmental pollution, and limited access to clean energy are such factors responsible for high mortality rate and stimulating incidence of respiratory diseases in the individuals. The study suggests that alternative green energy can prove helpful to control greenhouse gasses emissions and to control health issues by improving environmental quality. The study further suggests that the use of clean energy from water, wind, and sunlight may prove helpful to meet the energy requirement at the domestic level and improve the health status of the individuals by reducing the incidence of respiratory diseases in emerging countries of Asia.

The impact of fiscal federalism on economic performance has largely been studied in the developed world since the seminal work of Oates. In this article, we focus on a particular set of developing countries considered to be federal (Forum of Federations), to examine how fiscal decentralization has impacted their economic growth. In this context, we study the impact of tax revenue and expenditure decentralization on economic growth in developing federations. For this purpose, a panel data of 15 developing federations from 2000 to 2015 are analyzed by using a two-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation method. The results show that in federal developing countries, both tax revenue and expenditure decentralization have a significant, positive impact on economic growth. What is more, our findings show that the impact of fiscal decentralization on economic growth depends upon the level of perceived corruption and on the quality of the country’s institutions. Thus, empirical evidence depicts that the positive effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth is tempered if the country is plagued with corruption, if it has weak institutions, and/or if it suffers from political instability. By contrast, a relatively corruption-free country featuring healthy institutions and a stable political environment could take fuller advantage of the effects of fiscal decentralization to improve economic growth.

This study evaluates the sustainable power plant cost in the outlook of global power plant efficiency to reduce fossil fuel dependency and greenhouse gas emissions. For this purpose, the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) applied for conducting the cost assessment of power zone technologies for all principal electricity generation. This study considers the characteristics of essential factors (cement, price of resources, possible increases in employees, and metals) that affect costs. This study suggests that the cost of electricity-generating technologies significantly affects growth efficiency, reduction in production cost, and improving environmental conditions. It also suggests that the cost of electricity-generating technologies, combined with technology mixture, is the key factor behind replacing existing technology in the electricity sector. EPRI cost assessments expanded by around 30% and 50% during 2015-2016. Factors like competition amongst power plant owners, the ambiguous marketplace, production procedures, and lack of environment-related strategies have resulted in massive environmental degradation in developing economies like Pakistan. Based on empirical findings, this study recommends designing efficient technologies, which would reduce power plant costs and ensure vertical prospects related to environmental conditions in the future.

In the contemporary and perpetually changing environment, firms have transformed their business models by integrating advanced digital technologies in which their capabilities contribute crucially. This has evoked competition and challenges especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, the research aimed to analyze the mediating effect of information technology (IT) capability between digital business strategy and firms’ efficiency. The case of Chinese SMEs was considered specifically. The research was quantitative; therefore, the sample comprised 351 participants accumulated using a survey questionnaire. The mediating effect was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) where partial mediation of the IT capability was found only in terms of IT proactive stance. Therefore, the research has certain managerial implications specifically in terms of proactive stance as the managers need to initiate the transformation within for efficient performance.

Many developed countries including G-7 became part of the Kyoto Protocol for improving their environmental quality in 2005. Its main goals were to develop national-level programs for energy conservation and the eradication of greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve such goals, certain policy measures including reduction in deforestation, urban population and promotion of renewable energy consumption were adopted. This study aims to examine the consequences of these policies on the environmental quality of G-7 from 1988 to 2018. LLC and IPS unit root tests were applied to check the stationarity of analyzed variables. The results of Pedroni and Kao's co-integration tests proved the long-run relationship between the dependent and explanatory variables. The application of multiple cross-sectional dependence tests revealed that the cross-sections are independent of each other. The findings of the panel Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model exhibited that urbanization, economic growth and nonrenewable energy consumption are hampering the environmental quality. While renewable energy consumption and globalization are improving it in the long term. Urbanization, renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption significantly improve the environmental quality during the short term whereas globalization insignificantly deteriorates the environment. The study confirms the presence of reversed U environmental Kuznets curve between urbanization and carbon emissions with a turning point at 80 per cent of urbanization. The study suggests that the transformation of energy consumption from nonrenewable to renewable sources and strict compliance with environment management policies will prove prolific for improving the environmental quality of G-7.

This study empirically examines the relationship between service innovation and service innovation performance. Typology of service innovation (SI) based on new service offering/product (NSO), new service process (NSP) and new service business model (NSBM)is tested for their likely effect on service innovation performance (SIP) of banks from a developing country context in the face of business environment (BE) characterized by dynamism and competitiveness. It uses quantitative data gathered through cross-sectional self-administered survey questionnaire on a 5 -point Likert-type scale from a sample of 220 managers from the banking organizations to predict the impact of service innovation on service innovation performance. Data are analyzed through SPSS-19 and Amos-18 by means of bivariate correlation and regression. Results indicate a strong impact of multi-dimensional service innovation on service innovation performance. Each dimension of service innovation significantly predicts service innovation performance. Business environment theorized in terms of competition and uncertainty fails to moderate the relationship between service innovation and service innovation performance. In this way, this study offers many valuable insights in the field of service innovation and performance management areas which can be valuable to several stakeholders such as researchers, practitioners and policy makers in developing and implementing optimum service innovation strategies to augment and synergize performance of their services.

The use of dirty (fossil fuel-based) energy in the process of economic growth challenges humanity through different health issues. This research examines the health risks in the form of mortality rates and the occurrence of respiratory illnesses due to energy usage, greenhouse gas discharges, and economic venture in twenty developing countries of Asian. For this objective, the study investigated a panel dataset of twenty-three years (1995–2018) to measure the short and long-term consequences of environmental contamination on health issues. Results of this study generated through the Autoregressive-Distributed lag (ARDL) technique of econometric. Experimental outcomes of the study confirm that dirty energy, carbon emission, and the process of natural resource exhaustion have a significant and positive impact on health risks on the people of the developing region of Asia. On the other hand, the per capita income growth and clean energy usage contributing positively to human health improvement. The high mortality is positively associated with carbon emission in the case of short-run analysis. These results suggest a comprehensive governance policy set to protect people from the negative impact of dirty energy usage and carbon emission discharge.

Drilling is an important machining process in various manufacturing industries. High-quality holes are possible with the proper selection of tools and cutting parameters. This study investigates the effect of spindle speed, feed rate, and drill diameter on the generated thrust force, the formation of chips, post-machining tool condition, and hole quality. The hole surface defects and the top and bottom edge conditions were also investigated using scan electron microscopy. The drilling tests were carried out on AA2024-T3 alloy under a dry drilling environment using 6 and 10 mm uncoated carbide tools. Analysis of Variance was employed to further evaluate the influence of the input parameters on the analysed outputs. The results show that the thrust force was highly influenced by feed rate and drill size. The high spindle speed resulted in higher surface roughness, while the increase in the feed rate produced more burrs around the edges of the holes. Additionally, the burrs formed at the exit side of holes were larger than those formed at the entry side. The high drill size resulted in greater chip thickness and an increased built-up edge on the cutting tools.