查看更多>>摘要：? 2022This paper engages critically with socio-cultural debates on child labour in sub-Saharan Africa, with a view toward articulating more comprehensively why young boys and girls pursue so-called ‘hazardous’ work in the region's artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector. Today, a discourse of ‘forced (child) labour’ propelled by images of, and anecdotal claims made about, the ASM sector is being widely promoted across sub-Saharan Africa, despite little being known about the social context within which the region's children live. Drawing on a qualitative case study of child labour in Ghana's ASM sector, it is argued that, at the community level, views on maturity and readiness to enter the labour market contrast sharply with the ideas underpinning the concept of ‘childhood’ at the heart of legal and policy frameworks for child protection and child labour eradication. Both have historical roots in Western elite and middle-class milieus.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis study investigates the diversification properties of precious metals for African stock markets. We report that gold offers the strongest safe haven and hedging potential for African equity markets. Our quantile-coherency analysis indicates a low safe haven ability of precious metals in the long-run. Palladium provides both safe haven and hedge opportunities in the short-term, while Platinum holds only its hedging potential in the same spectrum. The GFC period provides important revelations; gold joins platinum as a safe haven with silver as a hedge. Our results suggest dynamic diversification opportunities for investors in African equity markets using precious metals more so in the short-term.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe interaction between the abundance of natural resources and environmental depletion has significant ecological consequences. Nonetheless, this area is not adequately studied, and numerous results are apparent throughout the literature. For massive economic development, it is vital to recognize the role of human capital, urbanization, and natural resources. Hence it is important to consider various factors that can play a constructive role in environmental sustainability. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between total natural resources (TNR), gross domestic product (GDP), human capital index (HCI) and urbanization (URB) with ecological footprint (EFP) in Pakistan from 1980 to 2018. The research uses the latest versions of dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) simulations model. The key benefit of dynamic ARDL is to estimate positive and negative shifts between the selected variables with an immediate visual illustration over the short and long period. In addition, the Kernel-based Regularized Least Squares (KRLS) machine learning method is used to test robustness. The results show that the rise in TNR has a long-term detrimental influence on EFP. However, upsurge in GDP and HCI increases EFP in the long-term. Lastly, URB observed an important and detrimental long-term impact on the EFP. The KRLS also support the hypothesis. This study suggest a policies to the planners and government officials for managing rapid urbanization and minimizing its urban, environmental and economic challenges.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdPakistan has witnessed political instability since its inception in 1947 till 2008. But after the year 2008, somehow shadows of stability in democratic regimes have been seen. Over time, political instability substantiates the roots of corruption in the country. Which has affected the natural resources extraction and management that has suffered the economic growth of the country to a greater extent. Pakistan is an emerging country with Islamic values where the index of corruption is very volatile and a hard debatable phenomenon along with political instability and abundance of un-extracted natural resources. These factors have slowed down the economic growth of the country with rising debts, trade deficits, and current account deficits. The government needs to adopt a well-established framework to comprehend and better deal with these issues, as these serious issues are noticeable concerns that directly affect the various economic dynamics of the country. Instead of the above-mentioned reasons, we tried to explore the relationship of these variables to understand the magnitude of effect that political instability and corruption carry towards suffered economic growth. We applied linear ARDL and non-linear ARDL using the data from 1996 to 2018. Both methodologies validate the hypothesis in the context of Pakistan. Our study results demonstrated that natural resources intensify GDP in the short as well as long-run, and political instability negatively affect country's GDP. Whereas corruption increases GDP in the short-run while decreases GDP in the long-run. However, asymmetric findings in the long-run display that a rise in corruption reduces GDP, and a decrease in Corruption intensify GDP. The causality relationship also supports the above results and recommend policies to counter rent-seeking and patronage act aiming to provide a more transparent environment in the country, which will resultantly control the noticeable issues of political instability, corruption and abundance of hidden un-extracted natural resources and likely to contribute to the economic growth and prosperity of the country.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe massive reliance on the consumption of non-renewable energy resources for bitcoin mining has environmental implications. This paper addresses a critical research gap related to the performance of carbon-intensive equity funds in China – the country with maximum hashrate ? during the crypto boom and bust periods between 2013 and 2021. We employ event study methodology and assess funds based on their investment exposure. The findings demonstrate significant abnormal returns for high-emission funds during the price booms. The abnormal returns reduce as we move across categories and are non-existent for the pro-ecological funds. We also report a positive relationship between investment flows and increasing bitcoin prices, and the impact becomes less profound for low-carbon funds. While demonstrating the effects of variation in crypto prices on investment performance and flows, the results indicate possible impediments to a sustainable financial system. Our findings highlight the relevance of using renewable resources to mitigate climatic concerns.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe territorial turn in the research agenda about extractive industries and development has remarked the uneven and entangled processes through which industries anchor across space. Whereas the uneven developmental performance of mining areas has been largely discussed, this turn offers fertile ground to interact with the literature about contentious politics and examine how the spatial distinction of mining territories also shapes local unrest and social mobilization. This paper examines social protest dynamics at mining districts by exploring four dimensions of contentious politics and comparing its prevalence between mining and non-mining districts. For such a purpose, the paper distinguishes between mining and non-mining districts through a cluster analysis based on a set of mining-related variables. Afterward, it analyses four relevant dimensions of social protests related to extractive industries (labor, public services, local politics, and environmental) based on a database of protest actions registered between 2009 and 2019 in 18 newspapers. The results show that mining districts are distinguished by social protests related to public services and labor demands, while social protest related to local politics and environmental issues does not exhibit a significant difference between mining and non-mining districts. Thereby, the districts in which mining exerts a larger influence face higher rates of social protest only regarding labor and public services.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022Oil is of dominated role in global energy market, and its price volatility would bring significant economic and environmental consequents. Given China is the largest oil importer, this paper applies the mixed frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) to investigate the causal relationship among oil price (OP), green innovation (GI), and institutional pressure (IP). The empirical results from MF-VAR model show that quarterly OP would stimulate GI with time-varying, which is not found in low frequency vector autoregression (LF-VAR). The new evidence mainly due to the mix frequency technique, which allows heterogeneous impacts exist between high and low frequency variables. In addition, higher IP is also discovered to promote GI. The major contribution is that a theoretical framework is initially constructed, and oil price is proven to as important booster for China's green innovation. Therefore, some policies such as innovation subsidy and green credit need to be employed to reduce the impacts from oil price fluctuations and main sustainable GI capability. Meanwhile, IP mainly from environmental protection requires government to launch stricter environmental regulations and laws, and establish reward and punishment mechanism to promote GI.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis study examines how market volatility of five green investments (Standard & Poor's - S&P [Green bond select index and Green bond index] and Morgan Stanley Capital International - MSCI [Global alternative energy index, Global pollution prevention index, and Global green building index]) respond to oil shocks; using the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Mixed Data Sampling (GARCH-MIDAS) modelling framework. We employ Baumeister and Hamilton's decomposed oil shocks: economic activity shocks, oil consumption demand shocks, oil inventory demand shocks, and oil supply shocks; each in their original levels, as well as their negatively and positively disaggregated levels. Our findings show homogeneous and heterogeneous responses of green investments volatility to variants of oil shocks. Asymmetry effect is also evidenced, given the differences between the estimated effect of positive and negative oil shocks on the volatility of green investments.
查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis study used a C–C method to reconstruct the phase space of copper prices from January 2002 to December 2021, using Chinese and international copper futures price time series as a sample. It demonstrates the differences in the chaotic characteristics of two copper futures prices through recurrence plots and correlation dimensions. Recurrence complex networks have been employed to quantify the spatial structural similarity between the variables and copper prices, and the main factors influencing the structural changes in copper prices have been analysed by a systematic bifurcation mechanism. The results show that the efficiency of the copper futures market has improved gradually. The level of perfection and efficiency of the Chinese copper futures market is lower than that of the international copper futures market, and the predictability of Chinese copper futures prices is even weaker, which means that the investment in Chinese copper futures is riskier than that in the international copper futures market. Compared to other metal futures, such as aluminium and nickel, copper futures are likely to be a lower risk investment. The US dollar index, the federal funds rate and the price of gold are the main factors influencing changes in the spatial structure of copper prices in China, while political risk, crude oil and gold prices are key to shaping the chaotic character of international copper prices. A tipping point in the chaotic state of copper prices could correspond to the onset of a global financial crisis. This study can help policymakers to understand the market laws underlying prices and thus create robust and well-traded markets by controlling the chaotic characteristic structure of copper prices. In addition, the identification of chaotic state thresholds in Chinese and international copper prices can predict the occurrence of unexpected events such as financial crises, which is important to counteract financial market risks.
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