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Global investment in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is falling short of the target to close the $2.5 trillion annual financing gap for developing countries. The COVID-19 shock has exacerbated existing constraints for the SDGs and may undo the progress made in he last 6 years in SDG investment. This poses a risk to delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper assesses the global trends in both investing in and financing the SDGs, including the myriad of financing instruments launched to respond to the COVID-19 health crisis and its economic and social impacts. It analyses the main challenges for mobilizing funds, channeling investment into SDG sectors, and maximizing positive impact, as well as regulatory dilemmas in promoting SDG investment. The article then elaborates on a set of policy measures for accelerating investment in the SDGs, including four principles for guiding private sector investment, mainstreaming the SDGs into national and international investment policies and promotion strategies, harnessing financial instruments for sustainable development, building special SDGs model zones, and promoting better ESG standards, compliance, and reporting.

The fourth industrial revolution has brought several risks to factories along with its plethora of benefits. The convergence of new technologies, legacy technologies, information technologies and operational technologies in the same network generates a wide attack surface. At the same time, factories need continuous production to meet their customers’ demand, so any stopped production can have harsh effects on a factory’s economy. This makes cyber resilience a key requirement in factories nowadays. However, it is difficult for managers to define effective cyber resilience strategies, especially considering the difficulty of estimating adequate investment in cyber resilience policies before the company has suffered cyber incidents. In this sense, the purpose of this article is to define and model an effective cyber resilience strategy. To achieve this, the system dynamics methodology was followed in order to get five experts’ opinions on the best strategy to invest in cyber resilience. Interviews were conducted with these experts; their reasoning was put into behavior over time graphs and a system dynamics model was built from these findings. The main conclusion is that a cyber resilience investment strategy should be dynamic, investing in both technical security and personnel training, but at first with an emphasis on technical security and later shifting to have an emphasis on training.

We explore the public policy implications of two new, significant, and inter-related global phenomena. First, the rising share of services, particularly innovation-driven digital and knowledge-based services, in foreign trade and multinational enterprise activity; and second, the increasingly important role of global cities as home and hosts to these activities. Our framework distinguishes between national economic policies to promote trade and FDI, referred to as economic diplomacy, and comparable policies originating in cities, referred to as city diplomacy. National economic diplomacy has traditionally promoted trade and investment in goods, often through trade agreements and promotion agencies, and we explore the limitations of these tools as trade in services becomes more important. However, we also note that trade in services, particularly innovation-driven services, is concentrated in global cities, and traded between them, often within MNEs. We conclude that national policies on trade and investment cannot be divorced from innovation and knowledge strategies, and that these strategies cannot be divorced from cities. We emphasize that national economic diplomacy should be better aligned with city diplomacy. We also discuss how the transition to stronger city diplomacy may have consequences for firms and their strategies for corporate diplomacy.

Pritchett (J Econ Growth 5:361–384, 2000) convincingly argued that the difference between investment cost and capital value is of first-order empirical importance especially for developing countries where public investment is the primary source of investment. This paper constructs a public investment efficiency index that captures the institutional environment underpinning public investment management across four different stages: project appraisal, selection, implementation, and evaluation. Covering 71 countries, including 40 low-income countries, the index allows for benchmarking across regions and country groups and for nuanced policy-relevant analysis and identification of specific areas where reform efforts could be prioritized. Research applications are outlined.

We analyze the dynamic investment decision of a firm subject to an endogenous financing constraint. The threat of future funding shortfalls lowers the value of the firm's timing options and encourages acceleration of investment beyond the first-best optimal level. As well as highlighting another way by which capital market frictions can distort investment behavior, this result implies that (1) the sensitivity of investment to cash flow can be greatest for high-liquidity firms and (2) greater uncertainty has an ambiguous effect on investment.

Transition of Georgia to market economy is a complex and continuous process, closely related to both, economic growth and social challenges. In this regard domestic as well as foreign direct investments are one of the mechanisms of utmost importance. The country with economy in transition has many social-economic problems that make it essential for government to look for the most efficient ways of solving them implementing proper investment strategy.The paper considers the main trends and tendencies of investments from macroeconomic point of view, concerning the governmental investment policy aspects, investment climate, the dynamics of investments flows, capital revenues, investments’ share in GDP, the structure of investments in term of countries, sectors, etc. The article considers the core issues of the investment policy in Georgia from pragmatic as well as conceptual point of view, where the role and importance of investment policy are presented, legislative base of investments are discussed, inevitability of transparency, measurability and effectiveness of investment process is reasoned, proactive investment approach is prioritized, the importance of privatization policy is given, forms of privatization and their effectiveness are analyzed, complex utilization of investment marketing instruments, effective management of investment cycle, facilitation of post-investment activity, investigation of investment potential, Brown-field and Green-field investments and the PPI model and other topical questions are also characterized. Herewith, the author suggests some corresponding problem-solving recommendations which, as the author suggests, will help policy implementation persons at state, regional and local governmental levels of the country.

U.S. corporate sponsors of defined benefit (DB) pension plans in recent years have been de-risking by paying premiums to transfer their pension plan assets and liabilities to the balance sheets of third-party insurers. The passage of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) in 2012 provided the pension funding relief necessary to make de-risking a mainstream corporate activity. This study provides the first empirical analysis of plan and firm factors that cause a firm to de-risk its DB pension plans. We find a positive association between de-risking and aggregate corporate risk-taking. The results also show that de-risking, on average, has a stronger effect on corporate financing policy than investment policy, leading to an increase in credit risk reflected in a firm's credit rating and cost of debt. Also, we present suggestive evidence that the reallocation of pension risk increases firm idiosyncratic risk and excess returns.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate whether social investment (SI) policies improve employment among single mothers.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes the potential effects of SI policies on vulnerable individuals and workers at the macro level by using the employment position of single mothers as a dependent variable. Time-series cross-national data from 18 OECD countries between 1998 and 2017 are analyzed. Multilevel model analysis is also used for robustness check.FindingsI find that public spending on education and family support is positively associated with the employment rates of single mothers. In contrast, active labor market policy (ALMP) spending is negatively associated. ALMP’s negative effects stand out particularly with public spending on job training. Of all family support policies, family allowances are positively associated with single mothers’ employment, which runs counter to the conventional argument that family allowances are a disincentive for women’s or mothers’ employment. Paid leave (length and generosity) is also associated with higher employment for single mothers. There is also some tentative evidence that public spending on maternity leave benefits (spending level) may raise the odds of single mothers being employed, when individual-level factors are controlled for in multilevel analysis we implement for robustness check.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper does not analyze the effects of the qualitative properties of SI policies. Future research is necessary in this respect.Originality/valueThe effects of SI policies on employment among single mothers have not yet been examined in the literature. This paper seeks to be a first cut at measuring the effects.

This paper seeks to derive rational policies towards multinational enterprises (MNEs) from extant international business theory. It examines the impact of national institutions and policies on both inward and outward direct foreign investment. It adopts a theory-based perspective utilising internalisation, transaction cost and institutional approaches to the operations of MNEs. It contrasts the received policy process by which MNEs react to policy initiatives with a potential “direct” policy model whereby strategic decisions of MNEs embody policy goals. The paper suggests that transparent national policies with robust supranational monitoring are the best solution for world economic welfare.