This paper examines the causal relationship between industrialization, globalization, information communication technology (ICT) and environmental degradation in Malaysia during 1970-2019. It uses two indicators of environmental degradation (carbon emissions and ecological footprint), three dimensions of globalization (political, social, and economic) and three indicators of ICT (users of internet, mobile cellular, and fixed telephone subscriptions). It utilizes Granger causality technique in frequency domain which differentiates between permanent and temporary causality, Vector Error Correction approach as well as Variance Decompositions. The bound test shows that the variables have cointegration relationship. It reveals joint long-run and short-run causality from industrialization, globalization, and ICT to carbon emissions, albeit the causality to ecological footprint is tenuous. It indicates that industrialization, globalization, and ICT significantly predict carbon emissions at high frequency than at low frequency. A substantial percentage of the forecast error variance in environmental degradation are explained by industrialization, globalization, and ICT. The robustness of the empirical outcomes is confirmed by the alternative proxies of the variables. Our study implies that industrialization, globalization, and ICT are determinants of environmental degradation. Therefore, policies to mitigate environmental problem should prioritize these variables to attain green economy.
Nominal exchange rate determination is a puzzling phenomenon throughout the literature. Thus, the study aims to analyze the nominal exchange rate determination with a hybrid approach of macroeconomic and microstructure determinants, i.e., interest rate differential, oil price, order flow, and bid-ask spread over the long- and short-run horizons in the context of Malaysia. The dataset consists of high-frequency daily data from 2010 to 2017, employing a nonlinear ARDL approach. The results indicate that the bid-ask spread and interest rate differential were found to be key determinants of exchange rate dynamics in the long and short run. The findings show strong evidence of long-run asymmetry in the interest rate differential, while short-run asymmetry effects exist between microstructure determinants and the exchange rate. In addition, it indicates that the bid-ask spread holds informative content to explain the dynamics of the exchange rate in Malaysia. Additionally, the negative changes in the oil price could potentially act as macroeconomic news announcements and the bid-ask spread as liquidity determinants in Malaysia, which play a significant role in exchange rate determination. The study concluded that the prominent short-run asymmetry effects captured in cumulative order flow and bid-ask spread While a long-run asymmetry exists between the oil price and exchange rate in Malaysia. The empirical results allow for long-run and short-run asymmetric pricing impacts of a hybrid approach on the nominal exchange rate in Malaysia. This study is helpful in providing policy direction and practical implications for monetary authorities and market dealers. The bid-ask spread and oil price could be considered influential exchange rate determinants in the short run in Malaysia.
The objective of this study is to unravel the linear impacts of economic growth, technological innovation, natural resource rents and trade openness on carbon emissions in Malaysia during 1980-2021. It also unveils the moderating role of technological innovation on the impacts of economic growth, natural resource rents and trade openness on carbon emissions. It further analyses the nonlinear relationship between technological innovation and carbon emissions. It estimates the parameters with the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model technique. The results of the linear model reveal that economic growth, natural resource rents and trade openness contributes to carbon emissions while technological innovation mitigates carbon emissions. The disaggregated analysis of natural resource rents indicates that oil rents, natural gas rents and coal rents intensify carbon emissions while mineral rents and forest rents do not contribute to carbon emissions. The disaggregated analysis of trade openness shows that exports worsen carbon emissions while imports have tenuous effect. The disaggregated analysis of technological innovation indicates that innovation by non-residents mitigate carbon emissions while innovation by residents do not alleviate carbon emissions. Moreover, evidence from the interaction model reveals that technological innovation can favourably mitigate the adverse impacts of economic growth and trade openness on carbon emissions albeit it cannot alleviate the impact of natural resource rents on carbon emissions. Besides, the nonlinear model indicates a U-shaped relationship between technological innovation and carbon emissions. Unlike previous studies that typically focused on the direct impacts of these variables, this study unravels the impacts of the disaggregated components as well as provides insights into the moderating and nonlinear effects of technological innovation on carbon emissions. The implication of this study is that efforts to achieve a carbon-neutral economy should consider the direct and indirect impacts of economic growth, technological innovation, natural resource rents and trade openness. It is recommended for Malaysia to encourage technological innovation in her quest to abate the adverse environmental impacts of economic activities.
This study aims to determine an interactive environmental model for economic growth that would be supported by the "sustainability principles" across the globe. The study examines the relationship between environmental pollutants (i.e., carbon dioxide emission, sulfur dioxide emission, mono-nitrogen oxide, and nitrous oxide emission); population growth; energy use; trade openness; per capita food production; and it's resulting impact on the real per capita GDP and sectoral growth (i.e., share of agriculture, industry, and services in GDP) in a panel of 34 high-income OECD, high-income non-OECD, and Europe and Central Asian countries, for the period of 1995-2014. The results of the panel fixed effect regression show that per capita GDP are influenced by sulfur dioxide emission, population growth, and per capita food production variability, while energy and trade openness significantly increases per capita income of the region. The results of the panel Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) show that carbon dioxide emission significantly decreases the share of agriculture and industry in GDP, while it further supports the share of services sector to GDP. Both the sulfur dioxide and mono-nitrogen oxide emission decreases the share of services in GDP; nitrous oxide decreases the share of industry in GDP; while mono-nitrogen oxide supports the industrial activities. The following key growth-specific results has been obtained from the panel SUR estimation, i.e., (i) Both the food production per capita and trade openness significantly associated with the increasing share of agriculture, (ii) food production and energy use significantly increases the service sectors' productivity; (iii) food production decreases the industrial activities; (iv) trade openness decreases the share of services to GDP while it supports the industrial share to GDP; and finally, (v) energy demand decreases along with the increase agricultural share in the region. The results emphasize the need for an interactive environmental model that facilitates the process of sustainable development across the globe.
The finance and natural resources revenue nexus play a critical role in an economy. The recent development and significant increase in academic literature regarding the resource-finance nexus are the primary motivations for conducting this study. This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 363 documents published between 1976 and 2021 collected from the Scopus database. The results have been demonstrated via graphs, tables, knowledge maps about the past trends, growth, and prospects using co-occurrence, co-authorship, and co-citation analysis via the VOSviewer tool. This study has identified prolific authors, journals, countries, academic institutions, and future pathways. The findings indicate that China has the highest share of publications (88, 24.2%), followed by Pakistan (58, 15.9%) and Turkey (37, 10.2%). The most productive academic institution is the Beijing Institute of Technology in China (13, 3.6%). This study proposes new avenues for further research concerning the resource-finance nexus, such as ecological footprint, sustainability, fiscal decentralization, green investment, energy prices, environmental quality, technological innovation, financial resource curse (especially the stock market resource curse), human capital, and renewable energy in policy development and sustainability towards the achievement of the SDGs.
Tyrosinase inhibitors can reduce melanin production for skin whitening, but some existing products may harm the skin. This study discovered six compounds that inhibit tyrosinase in the mushroom Agaricus bisporus by over 50%. Compound 11 displayed strong inhibition (92.2% and 86.7%) for L-tyrosine and L-DOPA substrates, while compound 13 showed high inhibition (96.0% and 62.0%) for both substrates. Molecular docking simulations revealed compounds 11 and 13 bind at the allosteric site of the enzyme. Xanthone derivatives, based on these findings, hold potential as safe skin whitening agents and for pigmentation-related diseases in the cosmetic industry.