Resilience is system specific rather than shock specific. This study proposes a new measure of engineering resilience based on the theories of simple harmonic motion and regime switching, and it examines the determinants of resilience among China’s regional economies to the 2008 subprime crisis. Enhancing industrial diversity, human capital stock, trade openness and financial liberalization can improve economic resilience. Pre-crisis economic performance had a negative effect on regional economic resilience in China. More efforts are needed to enhance regional economic resilience in China by fostering entrepreneurship. The results provide information for policies to address external shocks and promote sustainable regional economic development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of working capital management (WCM) and working capital strategy (WCS) on firm’s financial performance across different stages of the corporate life cycle (CLC). We use Pakistani non-financial listed firms nested in 12 diverse industries over a period of 2005–2014 as the research sample and employ the hierarchical linear mixed (HLM) estimator, which can process multilevel data where observations are not completely independent. The empirical findings reveal that, overall, WCM is negatively associated with firm performance. However, this association is not static across different stages of a firm’s life cycle. For example, a negative association is more pronounced at the introduction stage followed by growth and decline stages, whereas WCM does not significantly impact the performance of mature firms. Likewise, WCS also causes varying effects on the financial performance across the CLC. A conservative strategy at the introduction, growth, and decline stages negatively affects firm performance, suggesting that these firms should adopt an aggressive strategy. Nevertheless, management of sample firms did not account for the respective life cycle stage while formulating a WCM strategy, which can seriously compromise their financial sustainability. These findings suggest that firms require customized WCM policies and WCS to attain sustainable financial performance at each stage of firm life cycle. Thus, managers should not overlook the significant role of CLC stages in their financial planning to ensure the sustainable functioning of the enterprise.

Environmental degradation and rapid climate change have forced researchers and practitioners to find sustainable practices to save the world. Increasing energy demand is not only consuming scarce natural resources, but also damaging the climate and overall ecosystem. In this regard, biogas technology is beneficial in two ways—by meeting the energy demand and saving natural resources. Pakistan is an agricultural country and has a high potential for producing energy through biogas technology. Therefore, this study aims to find farmers’ intentions of adopting biogas technology in Pakistan by employing the extended norm activation model. Furthermore, the moderating role of social media was explored. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from farmers and results were extracted by using Partial least square structural equation modelling software. The results suggest that awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, environmental concern and perceived consumer effectiveness positively and significantly influence personal norms of the farmers. Consequently, personal norms affect farmers’ intentions of adopting biogas technology in Pakistan. The moderating role of social media was also confirmed by the results. This study considers the notable insights of biogas technology adoption in Pakistan. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper aimed to study how industrial air pollution impacts crop yield by investigating the relationship between output and changes in factors. A translog production function was estimated in the context of stochastic frontier analysis using data collected from a field survey in the case of corn. The interaction between the factors as well as the impact of industrial air pollution on the relationship between factors was analyzed using numerical simulation, followed by the estimation of economic losses of corn yield in the polluted area. Results show that industrial air pollution causes a decrease in crop yield for two reasons. First, industrial air pollution changes the output elasticities of production factors and reduces its absolute amount. Second, industrial air pollution causes the relationship between labor and capital, labor and chemicals, capital and seeds to change from substitutable to complementary; it also resulted in an opposite result for the relationship between capital and chemicals. The paper presents a new explanation of how industrial air pollution affects agricultural production from an economic perspective.

One approach to effectively control the rapid expansion of water hyacinth is to use it as a feedstock in producing valuable goods. While it is technically feasible to produce bioethanol using water hyacinth, the economic feasibility of this valorization is yet unknown. This article conducted an ex-ante cost-benefit analysis of the production of bioethanol from water hyacinth. The results show that in comparison with the active control approach of collection and landfill, it is economically feasible to produce bioethanol from the collected biomass. In addition to its contribution to energy diversification, the production of bioethanol using water hyacinth as a feedstock cannot only control the rapid expansion of water hyacinth but can also contribute to carbon emissions reduction and water quality improvement. While the production cost of bioethanol is high, environmental values play an important role in the economic justification of the production. The coupled use of water hyacinth as a phytoremediation plant and bioethanol feedstock is a potential response to green development strategies.