Narrow Results

This paper re-examines the hypothesis of unemployment hysteresis using panel data for 11 Asian countries for the period from 1980 to 2008. This study employs a variety of panel data unit root tests recently advanced by Bai and Ng (2004), Pesaran (2007) and Chang and Song (2009). The advantage of these tests is that they are able to exploit the cross-section variations of the series. In addition to these tests, a new powerful panel stationarity test proposed by Carrión-i-Silvestre et al. (2005) is applied which exploits the cross-section variations of the series and also allows for different numbers of endogenous breakpoints in the series. Our findings stress the importance of accounting exogenous shocks in the series and provide stronger evidence against the hypothesis of unemployment hysteresis for the countries analyzed. We also discover critical economic affairs which may cause the unemployment rates to fluctuate significantly. Policy implications are proposed through our observations.

This study examines the effect of the shadow economy, economic freedom and other macroeconomic factors on formal entrepreneurship in Asian countries. The dataset encompasses 28 countries over the period from 1995 to 2018. The Fixed Effect Model (FEM) and Generalized Least Squares (GLS) methodologies are employed for regression analysis. The results indicate a nonlinear relationship between the shadow economy and formal entrepreneurship. Economic freedom, particularly trade freedom, significantly enhances entrepreneurship. Positive macroeconomic influences on formal entrepreneurship include financial development, political stability, GDP per capita growth and foreign direct investment net inflows, while government spending and unemployment negatively affect entrepreneurship. The findings suggest that a substantial shadow economy does not inherently impede formal entrepreneurship. Consequently, governments should prudently consider the role of the shadow economy in fostering entrepreneurial growth. Moreover, policies aimed at improving economic freedom, especially trade freedom, can create a conducive environment for boosting formal entrepreneurship.

Almost all previous studies that have tested the law of one price or Purchasing Power Parity theory (PPP) have used either real effective exchange rates or bilateral real exchange rates which are constructed using CPI or PPI data. Most of these studies have failed to support the PPP mostly due to aggregation bias. A few recent studies, have, therefore used commodity prices in different countries and have provided strong support for the theory. These studies have mostly used data from industrial countries. In this paper, we use individual prices of 52 retail items from 15 cities in Asia and test for stationarity of the real exchange rate and speed of adjustment. We provide support for PPP in 63% of the cases. We also find that using individual prices lead to faster convergence of real rates toward their PPP values.

This study aims to look into the effect of intellectual capital efficiency on Islamic banks’ financial stability after controlling the bank-specific and macroeconomic variables. This study employed a hierarchical two-step system generalized method of moment (2SYS-GMM) estimation technique to analyze the data collected from 94 Islamic banks in 18 Asian Islamic countries during the period 2010–2020. The empirical findings show that ICE components, specifically SCE and RCE, have a positive and statistically significant effect on Islamic banks’ financial stability. Our findings suggest that policymakers and top management at Islamic banks should pay closer attention to ICE resources, which have the potential to improve bank efficiency and stability while also keeping them competitive in times of distress.