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This study draws on the investor protection literature to examine whether differences in a country’s level of investor protections help explain cross-country variation in the extent to which macroeconomic forecasters consider aggregate changes in corporate profit margins when forecasting growth in GDP. We find that economies with stronger levels of investor protection have a higher association between changes in aggregate profit margin and GDP growth. Using a unique sample of analysts’ GDP forecasts from 28 countries, we find that economies with stronger levels of investor protection have a lower association between changes in aggregate profit margin and errors in forecasts of GDP growth.

The research aims to study the optimal allocation of irrigation water that is used to irrigate various agricultural crops at the level of Iraq. In order to achieve the goal of the research, two economic models were formulated according to the linear programming technique. The first model aimed to minimize the water needs of the prevailing crop combination during the average period (2017-2020), while the second model aimed to maximize the total profit margin of the water unit for the crop combination that minimizes the water needs during the same period. The first model was estimated with two proposed plans. The first proposed plan included non-imposing legislative restrictions related to the allocation of certain areas for basic agricultural crops that bias the food security requirements of the population, as well as crops that were recently banned from import by the Iraqi government, while the proposed second plan included the imposition and addition of restrictions of legislative areas that did not appear in the table of the optimal solution for the first plan. Results indicated that there is a surplus of water resource for the proposed economic plans according to the two estimated models, its quantity amounted to about 363.361, 9.178 million m3 for each plan, respectively, compared to the total amount of irrigation water needed for the current cropping combination, which was estimated at about 4.736726 billion m3 during the average mentioned period. Results of the analysis of the two estimated models also showed a preference for the results of plans with legislative restrictions as a result of the expansion in the cultivation of most basic and important crops and vegetables for local consumption.

This study investigates how sales methods, service management, and resource allocation influence the operating profit margins of Japanese software companies, with a focus on marketing strategies and profitability improvement. While Japan’s software market continues to grow, domestic companies face challenges such as low profit margins, reliance on subcontracting, and declining international competitiveness. Using data from 124 software companies listed in the Nikkei industry-specific section between 2021 and 2023, this study employs multivariate regression analysis to identify actionable strategies for enhancing profitability.The results reveal that the selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expense ratio negatively affects operating profit margins, emphasizing the importance of cost control. Companies that adopt indirect sales channels achieve significant cost efficiency, improving profit margins (coefficient: -0.1363). Furthermore, while the ratio of sales growth to gross profit growth positively influences profitability (coefficient: 0.0084), its effect is relatively modest. In contrast, the revenue efficiency ratio emerges as the most influential factor, where a 1% improvement corresponds to a 0.72% increase in operating profit margins (coefficient: 0.7166). These findings underscore the critical role of optimizing resource allocation and aligning sales strategies with marketing objectives to achieve sustainable profit growth.This study contributes to the literature by integrating marketing-oriented strategies with operational efficiency, addressing the often-overlooked interplay between these factors. By offering practical insights into channel strategies, cost optimization, and resource allocation, this research provides a roadmap for Japanese software companies to strengthen their competitiveness in both domestic and international markets.

The issue of key determinants affecting the financial performance of advertising and marketing companies in Central and Eastern Europe remains understudied, despite the industry’s rapid growth and regional specifics. This study investigates financial performance determinants of advertising and marketing companies in four CEE countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine) during 2021–2023, employing the least absolute deviations method. The study examines three financial performance measures (Return on Assets, Return on Equity, and Operating Profit Margin) using three independent variables (Current Ratio, Debt to Equity, and Total Asset Turnover) and control variables such as Company Size, Leverage, and Company Type. The results show that Total Asset Turnover consistently has a significant positive impact on ROA and ROE across all studied countries. The study also identified significant regional variations in liquidity and capital structure impacts, particularly in the Polish market, and uncovered distinct patterns in how financial leverage affects various performance metrics across the studied countries. Specifically, while leverage shows a predominantly negative relationship with ROE in most countries, it positively influences OPM for Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian companies, suggesting that the role of financial leverage in company performance is highly context-dependent. The novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive investigation of specific determinants of financial performance in the CEE advertising and marketing sector, revealing the crucial role of efficient asset and equity management in the region.

Understanding the role of liquidity and leverage is crucial in assessing financial performance, particularly in the consumer goods sector. This study examined the impact of liquidity and leverage on financial performance, using a sample of 13 consumer goods firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2014 to 2024. Despite the present literature on this association, few traceable studies have investigated this phenomenon, and there is a dearth of literature in this sector. The dependent variable for this study was financial performance, and the return on assets (ROA) was employed as a proxy for financial performance. The independent variables employed for this study were liquidity (LIQ), leverage (LEV), and the quadratic term of leverage (LEV2). However, Net profit margin (NPM), inventory turnover (INVT), average collection period (ACP), firm size (FS), and its quadratic term (FS2) were the control variables. The researcher performed the Durbin–Wu–Hausman test, the Breusch–Pagan LM test, redundant fixed effect testing, the Hausman test, and the panel heteroskedasticity LR test before employing the suitable model. After employing the panel least squares (PLS), the fixed effects (FE) model was considered appropriate and efficient for this study. Applying the model, the researcher found a statistically significant and positive impact of LIQ, LEV2, NPM, and FS2 on ROA. Furthermore, a statistically significant and negative impact of ACP on ROA. However, the impact of LEV and FS was negative and statistically insignificant on ROA. Furthermore, the impact of INVT on ROA was statistically positive and insignificant. To improve the financial performance of the firms efficiently, this study recommends that financial managers of consumer goods firms should pay special attention to maintaining and monitoring a healthy liquidity ratio and implement sound working capital management. Furthermore, integrate the strategic liquidity planning into their financial decision-making. The findings highlight that while a moderate level of leverage might not increase financial performance, a strategic increase in debt to a certain optimal level can improve the financial performance of a firm.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of fundamental factors, namely Quick Ratio (QR), Total Assets Turnover (TATO), Debt to Equity Ratio (DER), Price to Book Value (PbV), Net Profit Margin (NpM), Return on Assets (ROA), and Earnings Per Share (EPS) on the stock return of the listed defensive stock sector companies over the period 2016-2018. The research population included defensive stock sector firms that remained listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange between 2016 and 2018. Purposive sampling was used to pick the sample, which consisted of 79 firms. The data collection technique used was documentation. Using the STATA 16 program, the research data were analyzed using the panel data regression approach with a significance level of 0.05. This analysis demonstrated that EPS, DER, NPM, and QR all had a negative, but not statistically significant, effect on stock return. PBV and TATO both had a favorable but negligible effect on stock return. Meanwhile, ROA produced a considerable positive and significant effect on stock returns.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are rapidly growing, and more applications are joining the market competition. As a result, the AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) model is experiencing rapid growth. Many of these AIaaS-based applications are not properly optimized initially. Once they start experiencing a large volume of traffic, different challenges start revealing themselves. One of these challenges is maintaining a profit margin for the sustainability of the AIaaS application-based business model, which depends on the proper utilization of computing resources. This paper introduces the resource award predictive (RAP) model for AIaaS cost optimization called RAP-Optimizer. It is developed by combining a deep neural network (DNN) with the simulated annealing optimization algorithm. It is designed to reduce resource underutilization and minimize the number of active hosts in cloud environments. It dynamically allocates resources and handles API requests efficiently. The RAP-Optimizer reduces the number of active physical hosts by an average of 5 per day, leading to a 45% decrease in server costs. The impact of the RAP-Optimizer was observed over a 12-month period. The observational data show a significant improvement in resource utilization. It effectively reduces operational costs from USD 2600 to USD 1250 per month. Furthermore, the RAP-Optimizer increases the profit margin by 179%, from USD 600 to USD 1675 per month. The inclusion of the dynamic dropout control (DDC) algorithm in the DNN training process mitigates overfitting, achieving a 97.48% validation accuracy and a validation loss of 2.82%. These results indicate that the RAP-Optimizer effectively enhances resource management and cost-efficiency in AIaaS applications, making it a valuable solution for modern cloud environments.

This paper explores the impact of e-commerce on profit margin from the perspective of scale using nation-level survey data from China. The results show that e-commerce can increase the profit margin of cooperatives, and that a higher proportion of sales via e-commerce strengthens profitability. Secondly, the effects of agri-e-commerce on cooperative profit margin is highly dependent on young talents with rich experience and high education level; in particular, female leaders have a significantly stronger effect on improving profit margins by using e-commerce than male leaders. Thirdly, the operating scale of cooperatives does not have a direct impact on the profit margins, but a bigger operating scale can significantly enhance the effect of e-commerce on profit margins. Lastly, a higher degree of standardization of cooperatives and products more clearly evidences the role played by e-commerce, including the number of brands and certification. Overall, this research provides a micro-foundation for cooperatives to better incorporate the key role of e-commerce under the background of platform monopoly and sheds light on how the government can formulate relevant policies to better support China’s e-commerce development.

: This research was performed quantitatively through explanatory approach. Secondary data from audited financial reports on pharmaceutical companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange were employed and analyzed using Regression Moderation Analysis (RMA). As many as 45 samples were involved and chosen using purposive judgment sampling. The test results showed that the profitability measured by the net profit margin proxy had a significant and negative effect directly on dividend payments as measured by the dividend payout ratio. This was indicated by the significant level of the pair value of 0.0000. The effect of Income Smoothing on dividend payments was positive but not significant with a pair value of 0.8941. The effect of the interaction variable between net profit margin and income smoothing on positive dividend payments was insignificant with a pair value of 0.5768, while the influence of the net profit margin, income smoothing, and interaction variables on dividend payments had a significant and simultaneous effect by 70.81%. The interaction value is greater than 0.05, which is 0.5768, indicating that there is no moderating effect of income smoothing on the relationship between net profit margin and dividend payments. Therefore, income smoothing tends to have a positive relationship, which means that when the income smoothing variable increases, it weakens the conducive relationship with the net profit margin, but income smoothing can strengthen the relationship between dividend payments. This means that the more decrease the net profit margin, the more decrease the ability to pay dividends as well._

Lack of transparency in vaccine pricing practices is a problem that has been under discussion for a long time. To tackle this, the World Health Assembly adopted the resolution in 2019. However, despite the appalling effects of the current pandemic and the unequal global distribution of vaccines, the 2019 resolution has not been included as a fundamental pillar in the global health response to COVID-19. Governments and public health agencies have provided public funding to pharmaceutical companies for research and development of new vaccines. Yet, information on pricing strategies and methodologies is still inaccessible. Furthermore, these companies are profiting from publicly funded research and development. But secrecy and opacity prevails in the pharmaceutical industry, affecting low and middle income countries. Situating the demand for transparency, accountability and fair pricing of pharmaceutical products as a global health justice issue, I suggest an independent global observatory for accountability and transparency in the pharmaceutical global market should be created to help international organizations, governments and civil society in their quest for affordable and safe vaccines and therapeutics.