This study investigates the link between state capacity and deaths from Covid-19. We examine the effects on the Covid-19 case fatality rates of state capacity across countries with an ordered probit estimation controlling for the level of democracy, government policy responses, the share of the elderly population, and health system resource capacity. The study presents strong evidence for the critical role of state capacity in achieving positive policy outcomes. The effect of government effectiveness on the Covid-19 death level is consistently negative and statistically significant, suggesting that increased government effectiveness is significantly associated with decreased Covid-19 fatality rates. The findings also show that in the models controlling for government effectiveness and the testing and stay at home policies, non-free countries are more likely to have lower death levels than free countries. The effects of the testing and stay at home policies have expected negative signs. Higher health system capacity represented by higher numbers of hospital beds and doctors is more likely to lower a country’ s case fatality rate. A higher proportion of the elderly population is associated with higher levels of death from Covid-19.

In this paper we study the natural resource curse by analyzing the cross-regional sample from Kazakhstan. Our focus is to understand if the institutional quality within the country explains the resource curse. Using the data for 14 regions in Kazakhstan between 2000 and 2010 and employing various panel data approaches, we find that the institutional quality is not a determinant of the resource curse as institution changes very slowly within the country over time. This statement surely contradicts with previous resource curse literatures that utilized cross-country sample counting the fact that institutions vary across countries. Instead here, we argue that the resource curse within the country arises as a result of commodity price volatility.

Financial development has proven to be one of the major determinants of energy consumption. Although, the U-curve relationship between financial development and energy demand is frequently featured in the literature, there is not much discussion of nonlinear relationships between financial development and energy consumption. In this study we investigated the nexus of these two phenomena in transitional economy countries over the period from 1990 to 2011 employing a Systems-GMM model and the panel cointegration method. The empirical results reveal strong evidence of an inverse U-shaped pattern for the impacts of financial development on energy consumption. The net total effect of financial development on energy demand implies that a one standard deviation increase in financial depth induces a decrease in energy consumption by 0.09 kg of oil equivalent per capita. We also found evidence of Granger causality of financial development on energy demand. The existence of a linkage between the two has been suggested in an earlier study conducted by Coban and Topcu [26]. Although they established the nonlinear nature of the relationship between financial development and energy consumption, this was only apparent after they divided the sample between older and newer EU members. In this respect the effect of financial development on energy consumption is rather dubious because that study used a dynamic panel data model for 15 countries over the period from 1990 to 2011.

Целью данного исследования является выявление влияния восприятия рекламы азартных игр на развитие игровой зависимости, с акцентом на посредническую роль поведенческого импульса и смягчающую функцию осведомленности о риске. С ростом цифровизации игорных услуг и усилением рекламного давления, особенно среди молодежной аудитории, растет потребность в комплексном анализе механизмов воздействия маркетингового контента. Методологическая модель включает четыре гипотезы: влияние рекламы на импульсивность (H1), влияние импульсивности на зависимость (H2), посредническое влияние импульсивности (H3) и смягчающая роль осведомленности о риске (H4). Данные были собраны в 20 регионах Казахстана среди 530 респондентов с признаками зависимости. Применялась модель PLS-SEM. Результаты указывают на значительное посредничество импульса и смягчающее влияние осведомленности о риске. Полученные результаты важны для регулирования и профилактики игровой зависимости.