The influence of climate change and perceptions of it on people’s migration decisions has received significant prominence, especially for people living on low-lying islands. To contribute to this literature, this paper uses Maldives as a case study for exploring the research question: How does climate change influence or not influence people’s migration decisions in Maldives? Previous work tends to start from a disciplinary climate change perspective, while this study combines migration, mobility, and island studies perspectives, within which climate change sits. As well, rather than focusing on the area around the capital, Malé, as with many previous studies, the 113 interviews here were conducted in eight islands across three atolls. The method was qualitative, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews using purposive sampling of ordinary people. Contrary to a view of islanders preparing to flee their islands as “climate change refugees”, the interviewees provided nuanced and varied responses. They rarely identified the potential of future impacts due to climate change as influencing their migration-related decisions. When migration was considered, it was chiefly internal movement seeking a better standard of living via improved services, better living conditions, and more job opportunities. If migration related to potential climate change impacts might happen, then it was assumed to be in the future for decisions then. This lack of influence of climate change-related perceptions on Maldivians’ migration decisions fits well within island mobilities studies, from which climate change perspectives could adopt wider contexts.

In our paper, we analyse the long-term stability and impact of remittances and development aid on sustainable economic growth in developing countries. We use two data samples from countries that were recipients of both aid and remittances in the corresponding period. First, unbalanced data from the years 1970 to 2017; that is, how countries appear in the data. Second, balanced data, where we selected the largest possible set of countries for which data exists without gaps from the years 1970–2017. This dataset consists of 57 countries for the period from 1991 to 2017. Using linear regression models, we conclude that up until the end of the 1980s, the size of aid as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) was larger than the share of remittances. After that, the situation changed and the shares of both inflows were broadly similar. The inflow of remittances was more stable than the inflow of aid and development aid did not (on the contrary to remittances) contribute positively to sustainable economic growth if we consider the entire period between 1970 and 2017. Our results suggest that a statistically significant relationship between development aid and economic growth (per capita) may be observed only in the period from 1990 to 1999. Economic growth in developing countries is negatively influenced by the uncertainty related to the flows of official development assistance (ODA) and aid in all investigated decades. In the case of the remittance flows, the increased volatility tends to contribute negatively to sustainable economic growth only when the remittance flows represent a relatively higher share of GDP.

While assessing the economic impacts of corruption, the corruption-related transmission channels which influence taxation as such have to be duly considered. Taking the example of the Czech Republic, this article aims to evaluate the impacts corruption has on the size of the shadow economy as well as on the individual sources of long-term economic growth, making use of a transmission channel through which corruption affects the tax burden components. Using the method of an extended DSGE model, it confirms the initial assumption that an increase in perceived corruption supports the shadow economy’s growth, but at the same time, it demonstrates that corruption and especially its perception has a significantly different effect on two key areas—the capital accumulation and the labour force size. It further identifies another sector of the economy representing taxes which are prone to tax evasion while asserting that corruption has a much more destructive effect on this sector of the economy, offering generalized implications for other post-communist EU member states in a similar situation.

The paper examines the effect of gender composition of executive body on financial performance and financial health of the firms. The data of more than thousand Czech travel agencies and tour operators for the period 2008–2015 was employed in the paper. To test the relationship between firm performance and gender diversity in leadership, the regression model was applied. After using alternative measurement for gender diversity of executive body and controlling for firm size, firm age, executive body size, leverage ratio and industry, the results have shown that the gender composition of executive body has no statistically significant effect on both firm performance and financial health of firms. The study deepens empirical knowledge about the relationship between gender diversity of executive body and corporate performance and financial health and brings new insights into the link between these phenomena in the Czech Republic.

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are now experiencing the local consequences of a changing climate, environment, and society. Nonetheless, climate change research frequently remains at regional or national levels. Without locally grounded data, islanders’ perceived impacts of the changes might not be considered, thereby causing difficulties when policy and practice responses are implemented without accounting for local understandings. To contribute to addressing this gap, this study examines perceptions of climate change and associated environmental and social changes in two SIDS case studies: St. Kitts in the Caribbean Sea and Malé Atoll, Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Through these two case studies, we assess perceptions of changing social and natural environments through a closed-question, face-to-face survey. Our results suggest that in both island case studies, communities perceive environmental changes to be happening that demand negotiation with the social changes of daily life. Results also suggest that perceived climate change impacts are only part of the equation, as social and economic impacts reveal two case studies of changing island societies. While the geographic context in each case study differs, this study reveals the perceived impacts of climate change and social changes at a local level, providing valuable insights and angles for formulating policies and actions to deal with the myriad of social and environmental changes affecting SIDS.