Low Level Of Investment Research Articles

Does climate policy uncertainty impair or improve corporate investment efficiency?

Climate policy uncertainty (CPU) has been a topical issue given its widespread impacts, but its effect on corporate investment efficiency is arguable. Based on a sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that higher CPU results in lower investment levels while higher investment sensitivity to investment opportunities. This suggests that CPU improves investment efficiency by pushing firms to reduce investment expenditures and align their investment decisions more in line with investment opportunities. We name this finding as the pushback effect of CPU and find that it is more pronounced for firms with overinvestment or tight financial conditions.

Structural Challenges and A Role in New Health Policy Management in Future India

The development of the Indian state has not been the leader in health and medical care top focus. Two noteworthy facts illustrate this. One is the health sector's low level of resource allocation and investment throughout time, which has been roughly 1% of GDP with a clear downward trend over the past ten years. Second, the unchecked, extremely quick growth of an unregulated private health industry, particularly in the past 20 years. Health policies are typically thought of as official written papers, regulations, and guidelines that represent the decisions made by legislators regarding the actions required to promote health and fortify the healthcare system. A common misconception about the "policy process" is that it proceeds logically and linearly from formulation to execution. Health policy is formulated through a multifaceted process that is influenced by numerous scientific, economic, social, and political factors. Within the context of the development of the nation's health sector, this study looks at the historical evolution of health policy making in India. Additionally, it assesses the current situation and offers suggestions for the course of future governmental initiatives.

Why are the railways of Eastern Europe less efficient than those of the West?

We use a DEA analysis to compare the efficiency of the railways of Western and Eastern Europe and find while most railways of Western Europe are on the efficiency frontier, those of Eastern Europe are typically a long way from it. One explanation may be that the reform process only started much later in Eastern Europe than in the West, although it appears that Eastern Europe has largely caught up. Secondly, Eastern Europe suffered a significant loss of traffic after the end of the communist regime, and this may still be resulting in an excess of labour and assets. There is some evidence that this remains the case for labour and freight vehicles. Although the excess of freight vehicles may be largely vehicles out of service, they still contribute to the poor efficiency scores for Eastern Europe. It is also the case that the countries of Eastern Europe suffer some disadvantages in terms of population density. However, we believe that two aspects of policy play an important role in the poorer performance of Eastern European countries compared with Western. Firstly, is the poorer infrastructure quality associated with lower levels of investment. This shows up as less use of electric traction and slower train speeds, resulting in lower productivity of staff and assets. Despite the efforts of the European Commission to overcome this problem, there is still a long way to go. Secondly, is the strong use of public service obligations to maintain high levels of service with relatively low load factors. If it is desired to raise the efficiency of Eastern European railways, governments in Eastern Europe will need to consider whether they are specifying excessively high levels of service.

Enhancing local road pavement condition prediction using Bayesian-optimized ensemble machine learning and adaptive synthetic sampling technique

ABSTRACT Pavement condition prediction helps road agencies to schedule maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, and to allocate limited funds and resources to such activities. Compared to state highways, pavement performance prediction for local roads has received relatively little attention in the literature due to perceptions of low importance, low levels of investment in data collection, poor data quality, and high variation within the data elements. Additionally, local road pavement condition data may suffer from dataset imbalance, often leading to unreliable condition predictions. Hence, this paper introduces a methodology to predict local pavement condition using various single estimator and ensemble machine learning (ML) models along with the adaptive synthetic sampling method. The study develops nine (9) Bayesian-optimised ML models: category boosting (CatBoost), adaptive boosting, decision tree, extra trees, gradient boosting, light gradient-boosting machine, k-nearest neighbour, random forest, and artificial neural network. The ensemble ML and CatBoost were found to exhibit the best model performance, with an average testing accuracy of 0.82, specificity of 0.81, sensitivity of 0.63, and F-measure of 0.61. These results underscore the efficacy of ensemble ML models in pavement condition prediction. The proposed approach can be beneficial to local road agencies in their long-term planning, scheduling, and budgeting.

Cities’ labor administrative penalties and labor income share of enterprises

The labor administrative penalties of a city are enforced by the city's labor security administrative department for any breaches of labor security laws, regulations, or norms. The severity of labor administrative penalties differs across cities; thus, this study aims to determine how a city's penalties affect the labor income share of enterprises. We conduct a practical investigation to examine the influence of labor administrative penalties imposed by cities on the internal income distribution structure of firms. This study utilizes theoretical analysis and data on labor administrative penalties in Chinese cities, as well as samples of A-share listed businesses in Shanghai and Shenzhen. From the perspective of the internal income distribution structure, we examine the labor income share of firms and discover that labor administrative penalties in cities significantly raise the labor income share of these enterprises. The share of labor income of enterprises registered in the city increases by 0.9707 % for each additional unit of cities' labor administrative penalties (i.e., for a one-time labor administrative penalty per 10,000 people). The conclusion remains valid even after excluding the endogeneity and robustness tests. Regional labor administrative penalties can enhance the internal management of enterprise quality by promoting transparency and deterring non-compliance. This, in turn, mitigates credit risk for enterprises by fostering stable labor relations. Enhancing the quality of internal control and mitigating credit risk can lead to an increase in the labor income share of firms. An analysis of heterogeneity shows that the impact of labor administrative penalties in cities on increasing the percentage of labor income varies. The impact is more pronounced for state-owned firms and enterprises with low levels of investment.

Evaluation and Spatial Correlation of Agricultural Green Investment Efficiency in China

Green agriculture is one of the development directions of modern agriculture, and now the development of green agriculture needs the support of capital and technology. Under the background that China attaches great importance to the development of green agriculture, the government has introduced a series of relevant policies. Therefore, by exploring the problem of investment efficiency in the development of green agriculture in our country, optimizing the investment direction, and constantly promoting the development of green agriculture, there is no doubt that it has important practical significance. Through normative analysis and empirical analysis methods, this paper conducted in-depth research on the efficiency of green investment in agricultural science and technology, the development prospect of agricultural green industrial structure, and the impact of green agricultural economy on green investment, analyzed several key impacts of improving the efficiency of agricultural green investment on the development of agricultural industry, and then elaborated the reaction of agricultural green investment on the entire economic development. This paper also innovatively explores from the Angle of entry and analysis methods, and continuously analyzes the investment effect of "high investment efficiency, low investment level and high overall income growth" formed by the gradual improvement of green technology investment efficiency, the continuous decline of green investment level and the continuous reduction of green investment cost.

Future research directions of information technology investment: a systematic literature review

Research aims: This study aims to conduct a systematic literature review on IT investment to answer the following research questions: 1) What are the current trends and future research directions in IT investment research? 2) What are the benefits and challenges of IT investments?Design/Methodology/Approach: The authors collected 57 published articles from the Scopus database and analyzed them using a hybrid approach that integrates the principles of structured review and bibliometric analysis.Research findings: Four current research trends have been observed in information technology investment: (1) IT investment, (2) sustainability development, (3) costs, and (4) profitability. The benefits of IT investment have become the primary driver of innovation, profitability, competitiveness, and performance within a business. IT investment has a negative effect in a stable environment, and companies with low levels of IT investment may be forced to choose between expanding revenue and reducing expenses.Theoretical contribution/Originality: This study used a structured literature review and bibliometric analysis. The authors present a new method of reviewing literature that provides a more focused and comprehensive view of future research.Practitioner/Policy implication: Three practical contributions are provided: (1) identifying trends and directions of IT investment research, (2) revealing the benefits and challenges of IT investment, and (3) integrating the principles of structured review and bibliometric analysis.Research limitation/Implication: It only used data from the Scopus database, which may not encompass all relevant articles on the topic of IT investment. Additionally, the study only selected articles written in English, potentially overlooking articles written in other languages. There is also a potential subjectivity in the content analysis process and in naming each cluster.

Local News Reporting and Mass Attitudes on Infrastructure Investment

AbstractA growing body of research documents how shrinking local newsrooms undermine political accountability and local fiscal and policy performance in the United States. We extend this work to examine political impacts from the level of information content in local news, which has been jeopardized by reductions in newsroom staffing. To understand how information content affects public response to news coverage of a local issue, we focus on the case of preventive spending on infrastructure maintenance and repair. Inefficiently low levels of infrastructure investment are often attributed to low public knowledge about the risk of failure events. In a preregistered survey experiment, we test how the level and type of information in a news article affect support for infrastructure investment across two different types of infrastructure risk (repeated nuisance versus catastrophic failure). For both types of risk, we find that more information-rich reporting, whether investigative or event-driven, increases public support for preventive spending and imposes accountability penalties on local leaders who fail to invest in prevention.

Factors Influencing Foreign Direct Investments Inflow in Africa: A Case Study of Tanzania

Africa has emerged as an attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) due to its rich natural resources, growing economies, and increasing political stability. The doors of Tanzania, one of the largest countries in Africa, have been opened to international companies in search of growing markets. Nevertheless, Tanzania has seen a low level of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, primarily because of its stringent policies restricting the ownership of businesses by foreign nationals. The aim of this study is to identify and explain the factors that influence FDI inflows in Tanzania, which is the country that will be the focus of the study. This study will concentrate on the independent factors of political stability, availability of natural resources, size of the economy, and transport infrastructure, as well as the dependent variable of foreign direct investment (FDI). To collect the appropriate information, five survey questions were developed for each variable. A total of 125 respondents were collected using purposive sampling. The findings of this study will inform policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders in the region about the factors that influence foreign direct investment inflows into Tanzania. The study examined the impact of transport and infrastructure, political stability, the scale of the economy, and the availability of natural resources on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Tanzania.

Market Entry and Competition Under Network Effects

The “long tail” theory was celebrated by BusinessWeek as the biggest idea of the year 2004, soon after the book The Long Tail by Chris Anderson was published. The long tail theory calls for applying a low-budget strategy—producing a (relatively) large number of products with (relatively) low investment levels. However, some other cultural industries may tell a different story. The concentration of the most popular titles in the video game industry is growing, a phenomenon known as the blockbuster phenomenon. This phenomenon suggests that firms may adopt a high-budget strategy—producing a (relatively) small number of products with (relatively) high investment levels. In “Market Entry and Competition Under Network Effects,” Y. Feng and M. Hu analytically study the impact of a network effect on entry decisions and investment strategies (i.e., the high-budget versus low-budget strategies) adopted by competing firms based on which they further provide a theory that links the ex post sales volume concentration with the ex ante product variety in a market under network effects.

Means of the state policy of increasing and effective implementation of investment and innovation potential in the system of economic security of Ukraine

The article emphasizes the importance of increasing and effective implementation of the investment and innovation potential, which allows to form the necessary prerequisites for fully ensuring the country's economic security. The importance of state support for the processes of building up and effective realization of investment-innovation potential has been proven, where the state is required to create an attractive regulatory environment with a focus on stimulating the establishment of investment-innovation activity, its rapid and stable growth. Obstacles that discourage investment and innovation activity in the economic system of Ukraine are identified, and their overcoming should become the main task of state regulatory bodies. Based on the analysis of the latest research and publications, it was concluded that the existing system of state regulation of investment and innovation activity is aimed at solving current tasks, and the strategic issues of its development from the standpoint of ensuring economic security are not properly resolved. Emphasis is placed on increasing the significance of this direction of state policy in the system of economic security of Ukraine, when it is necessary to resist external military and hybrid aggression. The priority means of the state policy of increasing and effectively realizing the investment and innovation potential in the system of economic security of Ukraine are summarized, the implementation of which should begin as soon as possible, and at the same time, their list should be reviewed in view of the peculiarities of the regional economy, types of economic activity, etc. It was emphasized that solving the problem of the low level of investment and innovation potential of Ukraine requires updating the national economic development strategy. Keywords: investment and innovation potential, economic security, state policy, investment and innovation activity, expansion, effective implementation.

Towards circular economy indicators: Evidence from the European Union.

The European Union (EU) is moving towards sustainable development, and a key role is played by circular economy (CE) models geared towards reducing pressure on natural resources, generating jobs and fostering economic opportunities. Indicators are able to aggregate a variety of information and their use, through the use of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), allows the performance of alternatives to be monitored. This work aims to calculate the performance of the EU27 in the years 2019 and 2020 according to 15 CE indicators available on Eurostat. The results of the Analytic Hierarchy process show that the greatest impact on circularity is determined by the category 'competitiveness and innovation', which together with the category 'global sustainability and resilience' accounts for two thirds of the overall weight. The MCDA results show that Belgium prevails in both the baseline and alternative scenarios, ahead of Italy and the Netherlands respectively. In general, circular policies see western European countries excel, while the performance of eastern European countries is weaker. The implications of this work highlight the three main barriers to the development of CE models: (i) illegal waste management; (ii) lack of knowledge and low level of investment in circular technologies and (iii) low distribution of value among stakeholders. In this way, resource management based on circularity will enable Europe to meet the challenges of sustainability with less dependence on imported raw materials.

Technology adoption, innovation policy and catching-up.

A model is proposed where economic growth is driven by innovation alongside the diffusion and adoption of technology from the frontier. Innovation investments are related to households savings, which generates multiple equilibria with low and high levels of innovation and productivity. Low-level equilibria are unstable. Starting from a position with low levels of investment and innovation, increasing investments are associated with high but decreasing dependence on international technology diffusion. A major objective of policy-making is to increase investment sufficiently in the lower end to reach the high-level steady state. An economic rationale is provided for the existence of productivity improving equilibria, where distance to the frontier is reduced based on a tax and subsidy mechanism designed to boost innovation and speed up catching-up.

ON THE ISSUE OF EFFICIENT USE OF MONEY FROM THE ROAD FUND FOR MEASURES TO INCREASE THE LEVEL OF ROAD TRAFFIC SAFETY

A review of modern financial regulations regulating the allocation of budget funds for road safety measures made. An analysis of the distribution of funding and the filling of the road fund over a four-year period made. Identified inconsistencies in financing tasks related to increasing traffic safety. It established that 5% of the fund's budget or 1.63 billion hryvnias are the guaranteed allocations for road safety as of 2018. The main manager of these funds is the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine (formerly - Ukravtodor). This institution distributes and approves allocations for traffic safety according to applications (budget requests for subvention) formed by the regions, which contain justification, physical and financial indicators that correspond to existing state regulations and departmental regulations of the specified institution. Proposals for harmonization are provided legislation. It concluded that one of the main causes of accidents is the low level of investment in improving the level of traffic safety. The need to develop a detailed, systematized description of social relations arising in the field of traffic safety, which are the object of normative and legal regulation by the state, has been identified.

Minimum wage standard adjustment and employment: Heterogeneity effects on the human capital investment

Considerable debate has arisen around the potential effects of increasing the minimum wage on employment. This study aims to analyze the impact of changes in China's minimum wage standard on employment. The research utilises the canonical model method and constructs a regression model based on standard labor economics theory. The analysis is conducted using sample data from Chinese industrial enterprises between 2000 and 2007. Regression analysis is performed by categorizing enterprises based on their level of human capital investment. The findings indicate that minimum wage increases have a non-linear impact on employment, when seen from the standpoint of human capital investment. When the level of human capital investment is low, an increase in the minimum wage standard leads to a decrease in employment; when the level of human capital investment is high, an increase in the minimum wage standard leads to an increase in employment. According to the findings, the reason for this is that, investments in human capital can improve business profitability, increase worker marginal productivity, and increase labor demand. Similarly, the employment effect of a change in the minimum wage is positive in regions with high levels of human capital investment due to the externality effect of human capital. Adjustments to the minimum wage have a negative impact on employment in areas of the country with low levels of human capital investment. This demonstrates that changing the minimum wage does not result in a simple increase or decrease in total employment. The level of investment in human capital within the organization and the region is an important factor in determining the type and magnitude of the impact.

Government Education Funding and Government Higher Education Investment in Uganda

The paper examines the relationships between government funding of education and government investment in higher education in Uganda during the 2005 to 2020 period. The major hypotheses of the study are that government funding of higher education (GHE) depends on government investment in education (GIE) and the reverse is true. During the given period, government spending on education as a percentage of GDP for Uganda was on average 2%, while the world average was 4% (World Bank, 2022). This implies that low levels of government funding are responsible for the low levels of government investment in higher education in Uganda. Therefore, the study aims to estimate the government investment function of higher education and the production function of government funding in Uganda during the given period. The analyses of the relationships between government education funding (GIE) and government investment in higher education (GHE) are conducted by using the generalised least squares (GLS) method. The dataset for the study was obtained from Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), Education Sector Plan. The effects of 1% government spending on primary education, secondary education, technical and vocational education training (GTVE) and GHE on GIE were as follows: 0.354%, 0.086%, 0.044% and 0.063% per annum, respectively. This implies that in Uganda, GHE contributes very little (0.063%) to GHF compared to the contribution of GPE to GIE (0.35%). Meanwhile, a 1% increase in GIE might have caused growth in GHE and GTVE to rise by 11.45% and 17.18%, respectively. Hence, the paper suggests increasing GIE, GTVE and GHE adequately.

Institutions, Investment and Economic Growth: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub Saharan African countries experience low private investment compared to other developing countries in world. For instance, private investment in the region averaged 15% of GDP from 2010 to 2016, as compared to 22%, 18% and 17% for developing countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America respectively. This low investment level constrained the region’s ability to grow and improve social outcomes such as; increase in the real wages and poverty reduction. Low quality institutions could explain this phenomenon. Therefore, this study examined the effect of institutions on investment and economic growth of 37 SSA countries from 1996 to 2017 using dynamic panel data model. The data were retrieved from Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Development Indicators and the Chinn-Ito index. System Generalised Method of Moments was used to estimate the result. The key findings generated by the study confirmed that these measures of institutional variables and there interaction with investment yield a positive and statistically significant result. Indicating that strengthening the quality of these institutions could positively affect investment and economic growth of the region. For instance, unit increase in controlling corruption increases investment by 1.4%. Furthermore, there is evidence showing financial development slows investment growth, which can be attributed to the weak institutional arrangements, as the coefficient of financial development is negative and statistically significant. The study recommends that SSA countries should pay greater attention on institutional reforms particularly; control of corruption and political stability to drive a meaningful growth and development in the region.

Stock Market Integration and Corporate Investment in Nigeria: A Critical Analysis

Low level of corporate investment in Nigeria coupled with poor financial base of a single stock exchange market system bring the need for the study to critically examined the effect of stock market integration on corporate investment in Nigeria from 1986 to 2022. The study adopted Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) unit root test and Auto-regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL). The data used for this study were collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria, Statistical Bulletin (2022). The ADF showed that the real exchange rate, lending interest rate, and trade openness were all integrated of order zero (∆ = 0); while, stock market integration and corporate investment were integrated of order one (∆ = 1). The ADF result showed that stock market integration exhibited a non-stability trend over the years, real exchange rate showed a negative sign but non-significant at 5%; while, lending interest rate and trade openness was negative and significant. The study concluded that stock market integration was volatile over the years which limited the rate of impacting corporate investment in Nigeria; while, lesser interest rate and trade liberation promote corporate investment. The study recommended that in order to fast ease stock market integration, which is crucial for economic progress, the Nigerian Exchange Group NGX should aim toward ensuring that each listed firm on the market have a strong market capitalization through encouraging different ownership structure to possess their respective stock value

Financing of the agricultural industrial complex of Ukraine: problems and prospects

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the financing of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, the identification of problems and prospects of this process. During the research, methods of a scientific and empirical nature were used the collection and comparison of information, as well as complex analytical methods, which include synthesis and generalization. The informative basis of the paper is the scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists who consider the issue of financing the agro-industrial complex and the problems associated with its development. The paper noted that Ukraine with its fertile land has great potential for the growth of this sector of the economy. However, the unconscious and inefficient use of natural resources, as well as internal and external economic challenges put it at risk. Factors that hold back the development of this industry include insufficient financing, lack of available credit, low level of investment, bureaucratic obstacles, corruption and instability, infrastructure problems. The experience of foreign countries can be useful for Ukraine in the field of state support of the agro-industrial complex. The conclusion emphasizes that financing the development of the domestic agricultural sector is an urgent problem that requires a comprehensive approach. To ensure the sustainable development of the industry, it is necessary to increase state support, expand lending programs on favorable terms, support scientific research and development of agricultural technologies. Tax incentives for agricultural producers and the development of processing of agricultural products can contribute to an increase in added value and the number of jobs. Strengthening the financial stability of the sector and increasing the export potential of products with high added value can have a positive effect on the country's economy and ensure the sustainable growth of agriculture. A close relationship between state institutions, enterprises and scientific institutions is necessary for the successful implementation of these measures.

Unknotting typologies in smallholder farmers investing in seed potato production in South-Western Uganda

ABSTRACTSmallholder farmer participation in seed production ensures seed security among farming communities. Interventions that promote farmer investment in seed production, however, enroll any willing farmer, yet smallholder farmers can be heterogeneously composed of receptive and new intervention-shy individuals. This study sought to identify homogenous typologies of seed potato producers investing in seed potato production in South-Western Uganda. Data collected from 213 farmers and 16 focus group discussions were analyzed using principal component and cluster analysis methods to construct farming typologies. Psychological capital and investment level were major variables in typology distilation. The results revealed 4 seed potato producer typologies including, typology 1 of ‘middle-aged female seed multipliers of moderate psychological capital and low investment level', typology 2 of ‘old-aged seed recyclers of high psychological capital but with the lowest investment level', typology 3 of for ‘young male seed recyclers of moderate psychological capital but with high investment level' and typology 4 of ‘young male seed multipliers of high psychological capital and the highest investment level’. Investing in seed potato production across the typologies was constrained by identical factors, including land shortage, limited access to markets, credit facilities and seed storage facilities. Seed interventionists are recommended to focus on typology 4, 3 and 1 producers. Future typology studies should include psychological factors to introduce practical variability nested in individual interpretations of seemly constant contexts.