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The persistent occurrence of extreme weather events redirects both public and private resources, constrains economic expansion, employment opportunities and threatens the well-being of Africans. To provide an empirical econometric update, this study examines the unconditional effects of extreme weather events on economic growth. Also, it disaggregates weather events into floods and droughts to determine which is more consequential to economic growth. The paper further examines the distribution of economic growth at which extreme weather events may be more consequential.

The study deploys the system generalized method of moments estimation strategy, in addition to the method of moment quantile regression.

The results show that extreme weather event is detrimental to economic growth. Among the types of weather events, the incidence of drought has a consequential impact on economic growth while floods do not.

The gross implication of these findings is that policy makers and governments in Africa need to be proactive at least in devising robust adaptive capacities to combat extreme weather events. Also, more efforts need to be invested in understanding the adverse effects of extreme weather events on economic growth.

This study provides novel econometric evidence on the effects of extreme weather events on economic growth and disaggregates weather events into floods and droughts. In addition, the study examines the distributions of economic growth at which extreme weather events may be more consequential.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of remittances, savings and education on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study focuses on understanding how these factors independently and interactively contribute to growth, with a specific emphasis on their potential to drive sustainable economic development in the region.

The study employs a panel dataset comprising 23 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period from 1974 to 2020. The system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique is utilized to address potential endogeneity issues and also explore the interactions between these variables to assess their combined influence on growth.

The findings reveal that remittances, savings and education have a significantly positive effect on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the study finds that the interactions between remittances and both savings and education are positively and significantly associated with economic growth.

The results indicate that Sub-Saharan African countries could harness the full potential of remittances to drive economic growth by implementing policies that encourage a savings culture and improve educational outcomes.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the independent and interactive effects of remittances, savings and education on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study's use of the System GMM approach allows for robust estimation, accounting for potential endogeneity, and offers new insights into how these factors work together to influence economic development in the region.

Comparative analyses in education science have traditionally focused on the category of geographic location as the comparative unit. However, comparison may involve many other units of analysis, such as culture, politics, curricula, education systems, social phenomena, and other categories of the lives of societies. Still, categories are inseparably linked to one or several geographic locations. Comparative approaches are often also dictated by the availability heuristic. Studying geographic units as the foci of comparative research is a necessary step for comparative presentation of the topic. According to Bray and Thomas, a researcher must always seek preliminary insight in the geographic unit to be analyzed before making the comparison. In social science research, a unit of analysis relates to the main object of the research, as it answers the question of “who” or “what” is going to be analyzed. The most common units of analysis are people, groups, organizations, artifacts or phenomena, and social interactions. Ragin and Amoroso have noted that comparative methods can be used to explain the commonness or diversity of results. This paper shows how comparative research can be approached in ways that have not been discussed, grounded in the historically variable understanding of the very term “comparison.” They are, for example, The Ogden-Richards triangle, The Porphyrian Tree, Classification strategies – Mill’s Canons, The chaos of the world – the order of science, Weber’s ideal types, Raymond Boudon’s formula, and the Möbius strip in comparativism.

This research investigates the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies (I4.0) on the resilience of manufacturing firms against the COVID-19 pandemic. The study explores the mediating effects linked to the firm’s supply chain resilience and absorptive capacity in this relationship.

The empirical analysis involves 304 manufacturing firms and uses Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). A two-step hierarchical component model has been employed, considering the statistical analysis validation (reliability and validity) of the LOC and HOC models. The choice of the manufacturing industry is justified due to its degree of automation in emerging economies, such as Mexico, and its significant impact on job creation and the national gross domestic product.

The results confirm the positive impact of I4.0 technologies on companies’ resilience to COVID-19. They also support the indirect effects of the firm’s supply chain resilience and absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity was found to have a higher significant indirect effect than supply chain resilience. Consequently, the study accentuates the significance of leveraging external knowledge and highlights the role of acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation capabilities in enhancing absorptive capacity.

The implications of this research extend to both manufacturing companies and public administrations, suggesting the need for I4.0 technologies implementation and supportive policies aimed at fostering absorptive capacity.

This research contributes to the literature by filling gaps in empirical studies in the context of developing economies. It provides valuable insights into the effects of I4.0 on absorptive capacity, supply chain resilience, and COVID-19 resilience, particularly in non-essential supply chains. It enriches the understanding of how I4.0 impacts the absorptive capacity and resilience of the supply chain during the COVID-19 crisis.

The finance sector and property market challenges in some global regions have been linked to inefficient property valuation practices. As a result, global valuation professional organisations have set up standards and norms to promote efficient and transparent operations in the property valuation industry. Despite these concerns, valuation industries in some countries still face challenges that threaten their smooth operations. One of such is Nigeria, which faces various problems attributable to its valuation process and regulatory system. Consequently, this paper aims to examine the valuation process in Nigeria with a bid to identify the weaknesses in its valuation process and how it contributes to problems identified in the literature.

A qualitative research approach was adopted, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 valuers across different segments of the valuation industry in Nigeria. The data were subjected to thematic analysis using Nvivo 12 software.

Our findings indicate a fundamentally weak valuation system and regulatory system marked by an opaque engagement process, underpricing of valuation services, inefficient domestication of international valuation standards, poor implementation and monitoring system and concerns about the training and certifications to meet global norms. These identified weaknesses contribute to and fuel problems such as client influence and valuation inaccuracy, among others.

The study has some implications for the valuation professional organisations in Nigeria. The valuation professional organisations should devise systems and enact standards that go beyond solely replicating the IVS and RICS Red Book to effective domestication to suit local norms. Given the inefficient implementation and monitoring system, the use of proptech that supplements legal instruments needs to be adopted. Furthermore, the regulations should be strengthened in line with the trends of sustainability, duty of care and use of data as advocated by the IVSC. This will promote trust in the system and allow global stakeholders to transact more confidently with the Nigerian industry, as the current set-up does not evoke sufficient confidence in the system to deliver excellent and transparent valuation assignments.

This study provides perspective from an untransparent property market on the implications of a poor regulatory system and valuation process for valuers and stakeholders who may rely on valuations conducted in such an environment for decision-making. The findings from this study potentially provide input for the valuation professional organisation in Nigeria in identifying the gaps in their framework and current practices and providing some suggestions to promote improvements.

Over the last decades, the need for sustainable energy production and consumption has been heavily discussed. However, there has been no consensus in the extant literature. Thus, to this end, this study aims to explore the long-run and causality connection among disaggregated energy consumption, environmental tax and economic growth in a carbon-function framework for Turkey.

This study uses annual frequency data for econometrics analysis. To this end, our analysis utilizes the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) technique for cointegration and long-run analysis, while the Granger causality was used for causality direction.

Economic growth drives Turkey’s Load Capacity Factor (LCF), indicating energy efficiency is linked to economic performance. Renewable energy boosts LCF, while nonrenewable energy hinders it. Population growth positively affects energy efficiency, but environmental taxes have minimal impact, suggesting policy reform is needed. These outcomes have far-reaching implications for macroeconomic policies and environmental sustainability in Turkish economy energy mix amidst its growth path.

The findings suggest the need for policy reforms prioritizing renewable energy investments to enhance Turkey’s energy efficiency and sustainability. Additionally, the current environmental tax structure requires reevaluation to support sustainable energy practices better. These policy changes are crucial for balancing Turkey’s economic growth with environmental goals, ensuring a more sustainable energy future.

This study explores the role of government policy in form of environmental tax in environmental performance in Turkey.

This study aims to test the effect of Seattle’s discontinuous sidewalk requirement, on the number of housing units per construction permit.

This study uses discontinuity linear regression (DLR) on a database of Seattle’s housing construction permits during January-2015 to January-2018, controlled by 51 socioeconomic, planning and geographic variables. The sidewalk requirement is continuous inside the designated urban villages; however, it is spatially and quantitatively discontinuous in the rest of the city: certain blocks at certain locations require sidewalks’ design and construction in permits with six or more housing units. DLR detects the effect of the discontinuity while controlling for a vast array of confounding variables.

The primary finding is that the discontinuous requirement reduces the number of housing units in about 75% of a housing unit per permit, which at the aggregate level amounts to around 335 fewer housing units during the period of analysis.

The database is relatively small, which has limited a more thorough specification process and robustness tests.

Besides directly testing the effect of a discontinuous in-kind development contribution, the research setup allows to discuss a wider, more structural problem: the possibility of contributions avoidance due to spatial substitution. In contrast, spatially continuous (i.e. city-level) contributions cannot be avoided by performing spatial substitution, and they are internalized by the housing supply side (market-neutral).

This chapter is an introduction to the book “Swift Leadership: A Taylor-made Approach to Influence and Decision Making” which is part of the “Exploring Effective Leadership Practices Through Popular Culture” series. The book explores the business practices, decisions, and influence tactics used by popular musician and icon Taylor Swift. Swift leverages her popularity to stand up to entertainment industry giants and champion the underdog. This first chapter provides an overview of the book and reasons why analyzing Swift’s leadership approach is helpful.

Integrating social comparison and social identity theories, this study aims to examine students’ emotional and behavioral responses to the use of ChatGPT in academic settings, focusing on intrinsic motivation, dissonance, envy, schadenfreude and artificial intelligence (AI) usage intentions.

The research design consisted of two sequential survey-based studies with undergraduate business students. Study 1, analyzed with SmartPLS, measured students’ intrinsic motivation, cognitive engagement, dispositional envy, emotional dissonance and schadenfreude experienced in response to academic dishonesty related to ChatGPT. Study 2 explored the motivations behind students’ future use of AI tools, examining ethical considerations and emotional responses.

Study 1 determined that higher levels of cognitive engagement reduce dissonance and envy among highly motivated students. Nevertheless, driven by cognitive engagement, dissonance and envy, it was established that highly motivated students experience schadenfreude when others are caught misusing ChatGPT. In contrast, low-motivated students only feel schadenfreude as a product of dissonance and envy. The focus of Study 2 was on the adoption of ChatGPT. Results indicate that future usage is driven by ethical considerations for highly motivated students, whereas less dissonance is key for low-motivated students.

The study’s originality lies in its exploration of schadenfreude in the context of AI use among students, highlighting how cognitive engagement and motivation influence emotional responses. Drawing on social comparison and social identity theories, it sheds new light on the dynamics of academic integrity and the emotional landscape surrounding AI tools like ChatGPT, thus filling a research gap in understanding student behavior and perceptions in higher education.

We know how to structure violence. The military industrial complex and its auxiliary institutions, such as the private weapons and securities industries, are prime examples. When we use the Galtungian lens and add ecoviolence to Johan Galtung’s classic direct–structural–cultural violence triangle, we get a violence diamond, or perhaps more accurately, a web of violence (see Turpin & Kurtz, 1996). To what we often think of as violence (which is direct), we must add the institutions structured to harm individuals, groups, cultures, and the ecosphere itself. We could, however, build sustainable development with direct, structural, cultural, and ecological nonviolence. We already have institutions that structure nonviolence – or often both violence and nonviolence in contradictory simultaneous ways: families, faith and cultural institutions, and friendship networks. We also have numerous peaceful societies, economies, and cultures that provide models such as Bhutan’s Happiness and Well-being paradigm. Jennifer Turpin and I wrote about the Web of Violence in 1996, which we collectively weave from micro to macro levels of life, but we also need to attend to and weave a Web of Nonviolence. This chapter investigates how we can be more intentional and systematic in weaving a nonviolent web, following a three-step Gandhian process: research, analyse, and mobilise.