Financial risk tolerance is one of the important factors affecting the financial investment decisions of individuals and institutional investors and a crucial factor of financial planning and financial counseling. It is therefore necessary to determine the major determinants of risk tolerance. In this article, we researched the impact of financial literacy level and demographic characteristics on the financial risk tolerance of the individuals in the sample of Usak University staff, using a multinomial logistic regression analysis and retrieving data through the questionnaire method. Multinomial logistic regression is an extension of binary logistic regression, allowing for three or more categories of the dependent variable. The findings of the empirical analysis reveal that financial literacy and demographic characteristics of age, gender, education, and income levels are significant determinants of financial risk tolerance. In this regard, the improvements in the financial literacy of the individuals through various education programs will probably raise the demand of financial products with different risk characteristics and in turn contribute to the development of financial sector.

This study explores the impact of environmental policies and human development on the CO₂ emissions for the period of 1995–2015 in the Group of Seven and BRICS economies in the long run through panel cointegration and causality tests. The causality analysis revealed a bilateral causality between environmental stringency policies and CO₂ emissions for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and a unilateral causality from CO₂ emissions to the environmental stringency policies for Canada, China, and France. On the other hand, the analysis showed a bilateral causality between human development and CO₂ emissions for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and unilateral causality from CO₂ emissions to human development in Brazil, Canada, China, and France. Furthermore, the cointegration analysis indicated that both environmental stringency policies and human development had a decreasing impact on the CO₂ emissions.

Carbon dioxide emissions are on the rise, posing a serious global issue. Therefore, it is important that policymakers identify the exact causes of these emissions. This paper investigates the influence of financial development, primary energy consumption, and economic growth on CO₂ emissions in 11 post-transition European economies. The assessment was made for the 1995–2017 period using panel cointegration and causality analyses. The causality analyses did not reveal significant connection between financial sector development and CO₂ emissions, but rather a two-way causality between primary energy consumption and economic growth, on one hand, and CO₂ emissions on the other. Meanwhile, long-run analysis disclosed that financial sector development and primary energy consumption positively affected CO₂ emissions. Our results seek to grab the attention of policy makers, who could work towards creating country-specific strategies that balance the relationship between financial development and CO₂ emissions. These long-term policies could ensure both development of the financial sector and environmental protection.

Banking sector is important for various macroeconomic and microeconomic variables in terms of mobilization of funds, increasing savings, and providing alternative investment instruments suited to the every person by minimizing the risk of adverse selection and moral hazard, allocating funds to most productive projects, risk diversification. Therefore, sound functioning of the banking sector is critical especially for emerging and developing countries. This study explores the macroeconomic, institutional, and bank-specific factors behind nonperforming banking loans as an indicator of banking sector functioning in emerging market economies over the 2000-2013 period by employing the system GMM dynamic panel data estimator. Results of the dynamic panel regression analysis showed that economic growth, inflation, economic freedom (institutional development), return on assets and equity, regulatory capital to risk-weighted assets, and noninterest income to total income affected nonperforming loans negatively, while unemployment, public debt, credit growth, lagged values of nonperforming loans, cost to income ratio and financial crises affected nonperforming loans positively.

The world population maintains a growing trend and in turn, the amount of municipal waste is also increasing. Rising municipal waste quantity poses a challenge for human beings and the environment, therefore recycling becomes important for environmental sustainability and circular economy. This study explores the effects of municipal waste recycling and renewable energy on the environment sustainability proxied by CO₂ emissions in EU member states over the period from 2004 to 2017 through panel cointegration and causality analyses. Recycling is considered an efficient way to reduce CO₂ emission, but surprisingly our results indicate mixed findings. The causality analysis revealed no significant interaction among recycling rate, renewable energy and CO₂ emissions. However, in the long run, the negative impact of recycling and renewable energy use on CO₂ emissions were revealed but varied among the countries. Results indicate that increasing renewable energy consumption will play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These findings must raise awareness among policymakers that should focus on the adoption and implementation of different types of sustainable energy policies that can affect directly or indirectly renewable energy sector development.

Poverty alleviation has become one of the biggest challenges for many countries and access to financial services is considered to be a key driver of development and economic growth. Finding solutions that can break down barriers that poor people are facing to access formal financial services has become a major concern for researchers, governments, financial institutions. Financial services must reinvent themselves and the adoption of new technology is a crucial key to overhaul their operations and to find innovative solutions to manage customer expectations. The escalation in access and penetration level of mobile phones and the Internet can improve financial inclusion by facilitating easy access to financial services, by providing secure transaction platforms, by reducing transaction costs, by providing a competitive business framework. There has been relatively limited research on the impact of Internet and mobile phones use on financial inclusion, therefore our main purpose was to investigate this linkage in a sample of 11 post-communist countries of the European Union from 1996–2017 using panel cointegration and causality analyses. Firstly, we investigated whether mobile cellular phone subscriptions and the rate of Internet usage affect financial institutions’ access; secondly, we analysed the impact of these variables on financial market access. Results indicate that mobile cellular phone subscriptions positively affect both financial institution access in countries like Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovenia and financial market access in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Hungary. Also, a negative relationship between mobile cellular phone subscriptions and financial institution access was noticed in the Czech Republic and regarding financial market access in the Czech Republic and Poland. Our findings also indicate both positive and negative relationships between Internet usage rates and financial institutions and financial markets access. By increasing Internet usage we can improve access to financial institutions in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland and we can increase financial markets access in Latvia and Slovenia.