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This study draws a comparison between the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis to assess the safe-haven potential of Islamic stocks for G7 stock markets. We employ the cross-quantilogram framework of Han et al., which considers the non-linearity in the relationship, and thus captures the correlation between the Islamic and G7 stock markets across various quantiles reflecting different market conditions. The analysis also includes the time-varying cross-quantile correlation to observe the evolution of Islamic stocks' safe-haven potential. Our full sample analysis shows that Islamic stocks do not exhibit safe-haven properties for G7 stock markets. During the GFC period, Islamic stocks show some diversification benefits for the G7 stock markets. Notably, Islamic stocks emerged as a robust safe-haven asset for the G7 stock markets during the pandemic crisis. The study carries essential insights for equity investors and regulators of G7 and other countries to implement diversification/hedging strategies that would involve Islamic stocks to protect equity investments and the overall financial system amid the financial downturns.

Striking disparities characterise the population growth of cities in industrialised countries. Some cities suffer from ongoing population decline, whereas other cities have experienced increasing numbers of inhabitants in recent years. Whether labour market conditions or amenities via their impact on migration primarily account for differences in cities' demographic development is an important issue. This paper investigates the determinants of the migration balance of German cities between 2000 and 2007. The focus is on the mobility of workers because labour migration in particular affects the future prospects of cities. The findings suggest that not only labour market conditions but also amenities have an impact on the net migration rate. Moreover, large cities seem to be,ceteris paribus, more attractive than small cities. This finding possibly points to the importance of amenities such as cultural infrastructure and matching externalities in urban (labour) markets that are linked to city size. Urban policy aimed at enhancing the attractiveness of cities should thus consider both boosting the local economy and improving the quality of life.

Value chain–based approaches offer tremendous scope for market-based improvements in production, productivity, rural economy diversification, and household incomes, but are often covered by literature that is too conceptual or heavily focused on analysis. This has created a gap in the information available to planners, practitioners, and value chain participants. Furthermore, few references are available on how these approaches can be applied specifically to developing agriculture in Africa. 'Building Competitiveness in Africa's Agriculture: A Guide to Value Chain Concepts and Applications' describes practical implementation approaches and illustrates them with scores of real African agribusiness case studies. Using these examples, the 'Guide' presents a range of concepts, analytical tools, and methodologies centered on the value chain that can be used to design, implement, and evaluate agricultural and agribusiness development initiatives. It stresses principles of market focus, collaboration, information sharing, and innovation. The 'Guide' begins by examining core concepts and issues related to value chains. A brief literature review then focuses on five topics of particular relevance to African agricultural value chains. These topics address challenges faced by value chain participants and practitioners that resonate through the many cases described in the book. The core of the book presents methodological tools and approaches that blend important value chain concepts with the topics and with sound business principles. The tools and case studies have been selected for their usefulness in supporting market-driven, private-sector initiatives to improve value chains. The 'Guide' offers 13 implementation approaches, presented within the implementation cycle of a value chain program, followed by descriptions of actual cases. Roughly 60 percent of the examples are from Africa, while the rest come from Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The 'Guide' offers useful guidance to businesspeople, policy makers, representatives of farmer or trade organizations, and others who are engaged in agro-enterprise and agribusiness development. These readers will learn how to use value chain approaches in ways that can contribute to sound operational decisions, improved market linkage, and better results for enterprise and industry development.

We estimate the effects of labor market entry conditions on wages for male individuals first entering the Austrian labor market between 1978 and 2000. We find a large negative effect of unfavorable entry conditions on starting wages and a sizable negative long-run effect. Our preferred estimates imply a decrease in starting wages by about 0.9 % and a lifetime loss in wages of about 1.3 % for an increase in the initial local unemployment rate by one percentage point. We show that poor entry conditions are associated with lower quality of a worker's first employer and that the quality of workers' first employer explains as much as three-quarters of the observed long-run wage effects resulting from poor entry conditions. Moreover, wage effects are much more persistent for blue-collar workers because some of them appear to be permanently locked in into low-paying jobs/tasks.

We study how two dimensions of market conditions affect behaviour in experimental gift-exchange markets with repeated interaction. First, we consider the impact of competitive imbalance, by varying whether there is an excess supply of firms or an excess supply of workers in the market. Second, we impose a minimum wage in the market with an excess supply of workers, and study the overall effect on wages and productivity. Perhaps surprisingly, the state of competition does not appear to have strong effects in our data; however, there is some evidence of lower productivity when a minimum wage is imposed.

Research background: Despite the sanctions pressure, consequences of the pandemic coronavirus infection COVID-19 and other non-economic factors, the study of the impact of globalization processes on the country’s economy comes to the fore today, as Russia is one of the key elements of the world economic system in these difficult conditions. The dynamics of world commodity markets influence the internal economic processes of the country. The authors conclude that the processes of globalization through the influence of the world commodity markets have a significant impact on the capabilities of Russia’s transport complex and require the development of its transport potential on the principles of economic growth. Purpose of the article: Determination of the impact of globalization processes on the renewal of the transport potential of Russia on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of the economic situation. Methods: To conduct the study, we used statistical reporting. Along with traditional research methods (analysis, synthesis, classification), additive models were used to form an index of transport market conditions, which allowed us to identify statistically significant determinants that allow us to determine the main directions of development of Russia’s transport potential in the context of increasing globalization processes. Findings & Value added: The results show that the most significant trends in the development of Russia’s transport potential are determined by globalization processes and require their consideration when developing measures to upgrade and modernize the country’s transport infrastructure. The developed conceptual model for assessing the impact of world commodity markets in the context of globalization of economic processes on the development of the country’s transport system contributes to the development of tools to increase the transportation of both transit and export-import cargo.

Contents: The conceptual framework -- Educational outcomes and their impact on labor market outcomes -- Employment outcomes and links to the broader economic context -- Conclusion : how education can improve labor market outcomes.

Intermittent exporting is something of a puzzle, In theory, exporting represents a major commitment, and is often the starting point for further internationalization. However, intermittent exporters exit and subsequently re-enter exporting, sometimes frequently. We develop a conceptual model to explain how firm characteristics and market conditions interact to affect the decision to exit and re-enter exporting, and model this process using an extensive dataset of French manufacturing firms from 1997 to 2007. As anticipated, smaller and less productive firms are more likely to exit exporting, and react more strongly to changes in both domestic and foreign markets than larger firms. Exit and re-entry are closely linked. Firms with a low exit probability also have a high likelihood of re-entry, and vice versa. However, the way in which firms react to market conditions at the time of exit matters greatly in determining the likelihood of re-entry: thus re-entry depends crucially on the strategic rationale for exit. Our analysis helps explain the opportunistic and intermittent exporting of (mainly) small firms, the demand conditions under which intermittent exporting is most likely to occur, and the firm attributes most likely to give rise to such behavior.

The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either saving the life of a mouse or receiving money. We compare individual decisions to those made in a bilateral and a multilateral market. In both markets, the willingness to kill the mouse is substantially higher than in individual decisions. Furthermore, in the multilateral market, prices for life deteriorate tremendously. In contrast, for morally neutral consumption choices, differences between institutions are small.

This study assesses the effect of macroeconomic factors on bank total assets under changing market conditions. A two-step generalised method of moments model is estimated for panel data spanning from 2007 to 2021 of 18 banks in Ghana. The results show that past total assets exert an impressive influence on the future asset flow of the bank. In addition, a positive relationship was found to exist between economic growth and total assets. Likewise, the study found that inflation positively influences total assets, an empirical result which is interpreted as evidence of investor preference for bank portfolios (a “flight-to-safety” move) in a volatile macroeconomic climate. Moreover, the study found a negative sensitivity of total assets to a bullish market condition, which implies a return-chasing behaviour of investor assets towards outperforming investments on the market. Practically, the efficiency of the financial system can be enhanced through moderate policy rate implementation to check opportunistic income flows to banks regarding higher lending rates, as policy rate hikes drive market volatility to generate asymmetric asset flows and performance relationships in the banking sector. Invariably, this study presents original perspectives on bank performance dynamics through the conditional analysis of the determinants of bank asset flows in the context of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis.