Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the determinants and the impact of financial development on shadow economy in OIC countries and then compared with non-OIC countries.Design/methodology/approach: The study applies advanced panel GMM technique.Findings: The study finds that macro-variables (unemployment, economic growth, money supply and foreign trade) and institutional variables reduce shadow economy both in OIC and non-OIC countries. The study also explores that financial development mitigates shadow economy; however, its impact is significantly less in case of OIC economies compared to the non-OIC countries.Research limitations/implications: Since the focus of this study is OIC countries vs non-OIC countries, the research only includes discussion about shadow economy in 42 OIC member states and 99 non-OIC economies. The decision to restrict the study to 42 OIC economies and 99 non-OIC nations is due to the availability of data.Practical implications: The study suggests that free market and good business environment in the formal economy are the keys to have less shadow economy. Good institutional setup and ease in regulations can attract firms and businesses from informal sector to the official economy, while political instability is one of the main factors for having large size of shadow economy.Social implications: The OIC member countries should implement policies which improve accessibility to finance of every citizen of the country.Originality/value: Despite the growing importance of shadow economy, the literature investigating determinants and the role of financial development in shadow economy is scarce. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no literature that examined the shadow economy in the context of OIC member countries. Furthermore, this study has covered a large number of OIC and non-OIC economics over time and across different groups using largest data and advanced panel GMM techniques.

With the rapid increase of waste throughout the country, the government of Indonesia has enacted regulations targeting waste reduction using religious sentiment. This is employed in Malang City’s “Waste Bank of Malang” (WBM). This study aims to analyze the impact of waste banks on socio-economic progress, and to assess their efficacy in accomplishing this objective from the Maqasid al-Shariʻah perspective. The research employs a descriptive qualitative approach and uses both primary and secondary data sources. This study found that the operation of WBM contributes considerably to the community’s economic and social well-being. Likewise, the WBM has successfully managed waste by reducing, reusing, and recycling it as it is collected from customers. The customers receive financial incentives from the waste bank in return for providing recycled waste to a specialized firm under a profit-sharing (PLS) contract. As per the findings of the study, the rationale of the waste bank aligns with the Maqasid al-Shariʻah and the Islamic finance contract of PLS arrangements.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between macroeconomic fundamentals, intuitional quality and shadow economy.Design/methodology/approach: By utilizing data setspanning from 2004 to 2015 of 141 countries, the study has employed advanced panel technique, i.e. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method. In order to check consistency of the results, the study also used fixed effect and random effect for robustness.Findings: The study finds that for the full sample, institutional quality has negative effect on shadow economy while macroeconomic fundaments effect shadow economy differently. After splitting the sample into Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and non-OIC countries subsamples, it observes same influence of macroeconomic fundaments and institutional quality on shadow economy, but the effect of macroeconomic fundaments and institutional quality on shadow economy is less observed for OIC countries. The results are found consistence by using different estimation methods.Originality/value: The current literature has focused on estimating the size of shadow economy and literature linking the macroeconomic fundaments, institutional quality and shadow economy is scarce. Additionally, this study provides the evidence for cross comparison between OIC economies and non-OIC economies.

This study aims to analyze the repercussions of the Russia–Ukraine conflict on the Russian financial market, focusing on the main stock market and sectorial stock indices. High-frequency hourly data from September 12, 2021, to April 29, 2022, covering the period before and after the outbreak of conflict, is utilized for analysis. The empirical investigation employs the TVP-VAR and Quantile-VAR connectedness approaches. Our findings indicate a significant impact of the conflict on the Russian stock market, leading to increased market risk during the event period. Notably, certain sectors, including oil and gas, utilities, metals & mining, financials, consumer goods, and services exerted more influence on other sectors, while chemicals, transport, and telecoms were influenced by other sectors. These insights are crucial for comprehending the financial implications of the ongoing conflict on the local economy, providing valuable guidance to portfolio managers, investors, and policymakers in devising effective financial strategies.

Purpose: There has been a burgeoning interest in exploring the impact of uncertainty factors on share returns. However, studies on the influence of global financial uncertainties on emerging market sectoral indices are scarce. Thus, there is a need to have a thorough investigation of the connection between global financial uncertainties and emerging market sectoral indices. To fill this gap, using the theoretical framework of international portfolio diversification (IPD) and utilizing data from 2008 to 2021, this study examines the spillover connection between global uncertainty indices (GUIs) and leading sectoral indices of 28 emerging markets.Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ the quantile spillover-based connectedness approach and minimum connectedness portfolio approach to explore the dynamic connectedness among sectoral indices and global uncertainty indices (GUIs) as well as portfolio implication.Findings: The study found high connectedness among all indices, especially at higher and lower quantiles. Among GUIs, the authors find that stock market volatility (VIX) and oil volatility index (OVX) are strongly interconnected with all leading emerging markets' sectoral indices. Among sectoral indices, the linkage between the financial (F-Index), information technology (IT-Index), and consumer discretionary (CD-Index) sectors shows moderate interconnectedness. In contrast, the communication services (CS-Index) sector has low interconnectedness with the system. In terms of spillover effects, the authors find EVZ, OVX, and the IT sectors to be net recipients for the entire period. The authors also explored portfolio diversification benefits by employing a minimum connectedness portfolio approach. The cumulative returns' findings show a slight decline in the portfolio's value after 2010; during 2012, the pattern remained stable; from 2014 to 2020, the portfolio performed negatively, that is, underperformance due to different events in that period, including COVID-19. The Consumer Discretionary sector is found to be significant because of having the largest weight, 51%, in the portfolio during the study period.Practical implications: The study suggests that investors should invest in the communication services sector as it is the least connected. However, the connectedness increases during COVID-19, which implies that it may be difficult for investors to benefit from IPD in a crisis period. Hence, to obtain the benefits from IPD, the evidence suggests that investors need to consider Consumer Discretionary sector while considering assets for investment.Originality/value: The study's uniqueness is that the authors have investigated spillover between GUIs and 28 emerging markets sectoral indices by employing a quantile spillover-based connectedness approach and minimum connectedness portfolio approach with a special focus on portfolio implication.

The incredible increase in carbon emissions is a major global concern. Thus, academicians and policymakers at COP26 are continuously urging to devise strategies to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. The transportation sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries. Therefore, this study projected an increase in fossil fuel demand for transportation and corresponding carbon dioxide emission in Pakistan from 2018 to 2030 by employing the Grey model and using annual data from 2010 to 2018. Furthermore, the determinant of fossil fuel demand is modeled using an environmental sustainability model such as stochastic regression IPAT that links environmental impact as a product of population, affluence, and technology on annual time series data spanning from 1990 to 2019. The projected values of oil demand and carbon emissions reveal an increasing trend, with average annual growth rates of 12.68% and 11.45%, respectively. The fully modified ordinary least squares (FM-OLS) findings confirmed the environmental Kuznets hypothesis. The increase in population growth emerged as the major driver for oil demand and carbon dioxide emissions, while technological advancement can reduce oil demand and corresponding carbon emissions. This study urges Pakistan to switch from oil to gas and other green energies by encouraging hybrid vehicles, as the number of vehicles on the road positively impacts the transport sector’s oil demand. Moreover, increasing economic growth and controlling the population growth rate by discouraging more children can be a valid policy for reducing oil demand and corresponding carbon emissions.