Transformative role of educational funding in shaping national development across SAARC countries in the 21st century: A panel NARDL approach

Since the beginning of this century, there has been evidence of a rise in educational funding among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). However, there has been a decline in recent years despite South Asia being a highly populated and poverty-ridden region. Thus, the present study comes to assess how well the countries are doing in relation to the effect of educational funding on national development indicators, namely economic growth, human capital development, and the unemployment rate among the SAARC countries in the 21st century using Panel Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PNARDL) model formulated in Salisu and Isah (2017). The findings revealed that the impact of educational funding on economic growth and the unemployment rate is an asymmetry in the long run and symmetry in the short run but on the human development index, it is an asymmetry in both terms. However, educational funding is influencing economic growth in the long run, but in the short run is not. Furthermore, educational funding influences human capital development in both terms, but in the long run is negligible. Moreover, educational funding is negligibly discouraging the unemployment rate in both terms.

Exploring the interrelationship among health status, CO2 emissions, and energy use in the top 20 highest emitting economies: based on the CS-DL and CS-ARDL approaches

Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e) which is caused by energy use contributes to the global average surface temperature increase by 1.5 °C as compared to the mid-1800s which is causing a certain change in the climate and becoming an adverse effect on health and economy. The relationship between health status, CO2e, and energy use has yet to be thoroughly investigated in the top 20 highest emitting economies. The data from 2000 to 2019 is analyzed by using advanced techniques of cross-sectional augmented distributed lag (CS-DL) and cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) which take into consideration crucial elements of panel data, namely dynamics, heterogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence. Moreover, cross-sectional augmented error correction method (CS-ECM) and the common dynamic process of the augmented mean group (AMG) are applied for robustness checks. The empirical findings revealed that (i) CO2e weakens the health status only in the short-run, whereas health expenditure improves the health status in the both short- and long-runs, while economic growth is not contributing to the health status in the both short- and long-runs; (ii) health expenditure and economic growth only help to mitigate CO2e in the long-run, whereas energy use causes CO2e in the both short- and long-runs; (iii) energy use causes high economic growth in the both short- and long-runs, whereas CO2e aids economic growth in the short-run but is extremely damaging to economic growth in the long-run, while in the both short- and long-runs health expenditure is not aiding the economic growth. This study provides policy recommendations on improving human health by advocating massive health expenditures, CO2e easing, promoting renewable energy use or low-emission energy, and steering the economy toward green economic growth.

Graphical abstract

Ramification of healthcare expenditure on morbidity rates and life expectancy in the association of southeast asian nations countries: A dynamic panel threshold analysis

OBJECTIVE

This study has investigated the impact of healthcare expenditure on life expectancy and morbidity rates in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to analyse whether health expenditure remains a critical component of improving health status and to determine the threshold value at which health strategy becomes cost-effective from 2000 to 2019.

METHODS

The techniques employed include the Dynamic Panel Threshold model advanced by Seo et al. (2019) to implement Seo and Shin's (2016) proposed first-differenced generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation. Furthermore, the dynamic system GMM and Pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) techniques were also employed for robustness check.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that healthcare expenditure raises life expectancy and lowers the crude death rate, infant mortality rate, and maternal mortality rate. Therefore, healthcare expenditure is increasing life expectancy and reducing crude death rate, infant mortality rate, and maternal mortality rate. However, when disaggregating the impact, that of public healthcare expenditure is higher than that of private except in the case of infant mortality rate where that of private is higher. In addition, it found that the threshold value at which health strategy becomes cost-effective, thus the amount which the countries should spend for health status improvement is at least 6% and above of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

CONCLUSION

Healthcare expenditure is raising life expectancy and lowering the morbidity rate of the countries. Furthermore, the cost-effective level of the country's healthcare expenditure as a proportion of GDP is 6% and above.

The nonlinearity and nonlinear convergence of CO2 emissions: Evidence from top 20 highest emitting countries

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the most prevalent greenhouse gas that triggers climate change, which in turn leads to catastrophic effects on trade, business, human health, and other areas. Understanding the characteristics and tendency of CO₂ emissions will improve policy making and mitigation strategies. Understanding the linearity or nonlinearity and convergence or divergence of CO₂ emissions is essential for selecting appropriate modeling techniques and for designing reliable policies. Therefore, this paper investigates the nonlinearity and nonlinear convergence of CO₂ emissions among the world's top 20 highest emitting countries, which account for 80% of the world's total emissions. To check the nonlinearity of CO₂ emissions, the McLeod-Li nonlinearity test, the Terasvirta nonlinearity test, and the Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman-LeBaron nonlinearity test are employed. The convergence or divergence of CO₂ emissions is checked by using the Kilic nonlinear unit root test, the Hu and Chen nonlinear unit root test, and the Park and Shintani nonlinear unit root test. The findings revealed that the CO₂ emissions process in all the 20 countries is nonlinear; 17 countries exhibit convergence in CO₂ emissions while the other 3 countries diverged from 1960 to 2018. Based on the results, the nonlinear nature of CO₂ emissions requires special attention from scholars when selecting estimation techniques for CO₂ emissions. For countries with convergence, emissions trends can be used to forecast future values of CO₂ emissions. Moreover, strong policy actions are required to achieve convergence in the countries with divergence.

Prevalence, causes, and impact of self-reported vision impairment among older people in China: Findings from the China health and retirement longitudinal study

This article investigated the prevalence, causes, and impact of self-reported vision impairment among older people in China. A total of 12,910 participants aged ⩾50 years were included in this study from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) over the periods of 2011, 2013, and 2015. All data were reported by participants via a self-reported questionnaire. Distance vision was assessed by asking if they could see the face of a person on the other side of the street. Near vision was assessed by asking if they could read ordinary newspaper. Depressive symptoms were evaluated by 10-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. The analysis method included the χ2 – square distribution test and multiple regression analysis. This article first found that prevalence of self-reported vision impairment was much higher in rural than in urban areas; in urban areas, females had a greater chance of being affected than males, and for both sexes, it increases with increasing age. Second, some factors found are significantly associated with increased vision impairment rates, include increasing age, female gender, rural residents, elementary-level education, unmarried individuals, and non-agricultural occupations. Third, the leading cause of vision impairment was a refractive error and the most common causes of vision impairment include cataracts and glaucoma. Fourth, vision impairment was significantly associated with falls and depressive symptoms and has a negative effect on the quality of life of older Chinese. The article concluded that older people with self-reported vision impairment were relatively low and it is majorly caused by refractive error. Older people with distance vision impairment and near vision impairment were more likely to report falls and depressive symptoms in the future. In line with these findings, a couple of policy recommendations for further research were made.