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The relationship between budget deficits and macroeconomic variables (such as growth, interest rates, trade deficit, exchange rate, among others) represents one of the most widely debated topics among economists and policy makers in both developed and developing countries. However, the purpose of this paper is to review the extensive literature to such a relationship, concentrating on theoretical debates and empirical studies, in order to derive substantive conclusions, which can be beneficial in the macroeconomics area; policy analysis; or in terms of constructing or developing a macroeconomic model for analyzing the impact of budget deficits on macroeconomic variables. The majority of these studies regress a macroeconomic variable on the deficit variable. These studies are cross-country and utilize time series data. In general the key outcomes from the studies presented in this paper indicated that both the method of financing and the components of government expenditures could have different effects. Therefore, it is crucial for the government to distinguish between consumption and investment expenditures especially when the government is in the process of evaluating the impact of fiscal policy on private investment and output growth or in the process of cutting expenditures to reduce the fiscal imbalances in the country. Even though the overall results from the empirical literature with respect to the impact of public investment on private investment and growth are ambiguous, the bulk of the empirical studies find a significantly negative effect of public consumption expenditure on growth, while the effects of public investment expenditure (such as on education, healthcare) are found to be positive although less robust. The key findings from these studies is important in particular for developing countries to be aware of the importance of government investment expenditures in the area of education, healthcare, infrastructure to long-term economic growth and the benefits from which are an important contributor to welfare and well-being. The key outcome from all of the studies presented in this paper while investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and current account deficit showed strong evidence in both developed and developing countries towards supporting the Keynesian proposition (conventional view) which suggests that an increase in the budget deficit would induce domestic absorption and, hence import expansion, causing a current account deficit. The key findings from the empirical studies investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and interest rates indicated strong evidence towards supporting the Keynesian model of a significant and positive relationship between budget deficits and interest rates. The major outcomes from the empirical studies examining the relationship between budget deficits and inflation showed strong evidence that the budget deficit financed through monetization and a rising money supply could lead to inflation.

This study examines the financial rights and responsibilities of China’s local villages and townships based on a field survey conducted in Xingguo County. This field study focussed on local revenues and expenditures from 2012 to 2014. Upon analyzing data from the survey, we noted numerous difficulties of local financial management due to a lack of well-configured financial authority and power among central and local governments. In addition, revenues and expenditures are unbalanced at the local government level in China. Rural financial management systems need to be improved, and the rural finance function should be strengthened.

In this paper, the results of a survey on capital structure decisions of Hong Kong listed firms are reported. It is found that Hong Kong firms conformed more to the "pecking order" principle than a target long term debt-equity mix in their financing decisions. Financial managers' preferences over alternative capital raising instruments are also investigated. The degree of information asymmetry and firm size are found to have impacts on the ranking of some factors governing capital structure decisions. However, signaling motivation does not play a role in managers' financing decisions.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is an important factor in the success of the enterprise application as standalone applications cannot contribute to the success of the increasing business demand of today. There has been a steady growth in the number of research conducted in this field; as such, there is a need to review the research in this field. This paper conducts an extensive review on 44 journal publications in the field of EAI from 1992 to 2015 available in Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database. The aim of this paper is to present scholars and practitioners with a detailed overview of the available research in the field of EAI. The selected papers have been grouped into 13 categories. The contents of papers in each categories are summarized and future research direction for each category is outlined. This overview indicates that the research in EAI that has spanned from late 90’s till date, requires more effort in developing new methodologies and framework to integrate enterprise applications that are the need of today’s growing business that venture into new technologies like cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT).

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is principles, methods and models that are used in the design and realization of an enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems and IT infrastructure. There has been a steady growth in the number of research conducted in this field, however there is a need to consolidate the focus of the research in this field. This paper conducts an extensive review on 177 journal publications in the field of EA from 1974 to 2016 available in Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database. The aim of this paper is to present scholars and practitioners with a detailed overview on the available research in the field of EA. The selected papers have been grouped into 27 categories. The contents of papers in each category are summarized and future research direction for each categories are outlined. This overview indicates that the research in EA that has spanned from late 90’s till date, requires more concentrated effort in terms of developing new methodologies and framework to integrate enterprise applications that are the need of today’s growing business that venture into new technologies like SOA, frameworks, modeling and healthcare.

The literature on international trade and firm performance grows exponentially. This chapter attempts to summarize what we learn from this literature to guide future empirical and theoretical work in this area. The focus is on the empirical part of the literature that consists of recently published papers using data for firms from manufacturing or services industries to study the links between international trade (exports and imports) and dimensions of firm performance (productivity, wages, profitability and survival).