The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the nexus between education accumulation and economic growth for a sample of middle-income countries through panel data regressions. The sample consists of 28 middle-income countries from various continents: North Africa and the Middle East (6 countries), sub-Saharan Africa (7 countries), Latin America and the Caribbean (8 countries), East Asia and the Pacific (3 countries), and Europe and Central Asia (4 countries). Education is measured by quantitative (average years of labour force study) and qualitative indicators (student scores on international assessments of educational achievements). To test the impact of education accumulation on GDP per capita growth, a static panel is used during the period of study from 1970 to 2014. A dynamic panel is also being developed to estimate the effect of the education stock on the growth rate of GDP per capita. The results confirm the positive and significant impact of the education quantity and quality on economic growth, both in level and variation. The stock of education and its increase are positively affecting the growth. Moreover, this paper’s original findings suggest that the quality of education is more significant than its quantity.

The board of directors plays a crucial role as an internal structure of corporate governance. Certainly, its efficiency is needy on the existence of numerous issues; the greatest significance is correlated to its characteristics that relay principally to the individuality of its memberships, board dimension, combining the purposes of pronouncement and regulator as well the grade of the individuality of the audit board and the diverse gender of the committee. To assess the authenticity of our assumptions, which stipulate the presence of deterministic characteristics of the committee on the profitability of Tunisian banks, we evaluated by three different ratios i.e., ROA (return on asset), ROE (return on equity), and MP (market performance); and we estimate three models with linear regressions. The empirical findings were performed on a data sample composed of 11 Tunisian banks listed on the Stock Exchange of Tunisia (SET) during the period from 1999 to 2018. From the estimated regressions, we find a satisfactory outcome indicating the significance of the influence of the characteristics of the committee on the banking performance in Tunisia. Then, the percentage of outside directors negatively affects the level of the financial performance of banks. The number of institutional administrators performs an essential role in improving financial performance. Finally, the duality of the Presidency of the Council General-Directorate has a negative effect on the level of stock market performance of Tunisian banks.

The study aims to reveal the role of social networks in enhancing the dimensions of citizenship among university students in Saudi Arabia and aims to test the significance of the differences between the averages of the role according to the gender variable. To do so, the descriptive approach was used, where a questionnaire was prepared consisting of 20 phrases distributed on five axes: knowledge related to citizenship, community participation, political participation, global citizenship, and digital citizenship. After verifying the validity and stability of the study tool, it was applied to the sample, consisting of 1000 students, who were chosen randomly, in 2021. Our results show that the level of the role of social networks in enhancing the dimensions of citizenship among Saudi students came at a large level in the total axes of the study, the arithmetic mean was 4.43, and the results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α=0.05) between males and females in general average. One of the most important recommendations of this study is to increase the interest in educating students about dealing with communication networks; a set of proposals for future studies were also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if creditors take account of the firm’s governance attributes to decide the cost of debt. Using a sample of 486 US firms over the period 1998-2017, we synthesized governance in six factorial axes. We have demonstrated that the quality audit (independence, frequency of meetings, auditor’s reputation, there is a charter) and financial expertise (percentage of financial experts and ownership of institutional investors) are informative tools creditors that provide information on the quality and reliability of financial reporting. They affect negatively and significantly the cost of debt. Moreover, creditors appreciate the presence of independent directors on the board and reduce the cost of debt required. Furthermore, the independence of the nomination and compensation committees prove irrelevant attributes of governance perspective because creditors do not reduce their risk of the agency. However, the attributes of the board (the size, the number of meetings, the existence of specialized committees, and meetings) are misunderstood by creditors that will increase the interest rate. In addition, the cost of debt increases with the concentration of managerial ownership and majority shareholders. Similarly, attributes reflecting the managerial entrenchment (duality of CEO tenure) are positively correlated to the cost of debt.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of prominent multi capital and large capital funds. We examine the performance of 10 prominent funds under both the selected categories has been analyzed during the period of study from 2013 to 2018. Their performance has also been compared against two most diversified benchmark indices of India such as BSE 200 and Nifty 500. We have also attempted to find out whether there is any considerable difference in the performance of the two categories of funds or not. To do so, we employ One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for the comparison of mutual funds as an econometric methodology for a period of study from 2013 to 2018 for a sample of 20 Indian mutual funds. From the empirical findings, we find that the mutual fund schemes under both the categories such as Multi Capital Funds and Large Cap Funds have generated good returns over the period and that too with a reasonable risk. Therefore, it is very safe to conclude that they are good investment option for an investor. In terms of performance of these mutual funds, the average monthly returns generated by the funds in each category are numerically different, but this difference has not been found statistically significant. At the same time, there is no significant difference between these funds and NIFTY 500 as well as these funds and BSE 200 in terms of their returns. JEL Codes: G32, G20, O16.