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The study examines the nexus between FDI, institutional quality, and financial development in Pakistan. We believe that it is a novel research attempt as it covers both democratic and non-democratic regimes. We use linear ARDL methodology to predict the nature of the relationship as a baseline estimator and Granger causality as a robustness check for further validation of results. The study covers the period from 1990 to 2018. We find that both FDI and institutional quality positively affect financial development in Pakistan. We find bi-directional causality between financial development and institutional quality and a unidirectional casualty between FDI and institutional quality. Likewise, we also find a unidirectional causality between FDI and financial development, running from financial development to FDI. The study has some managerial implications for policymakers to strengthen the country' macroeconomic environment and to encourage institutional reforms to boost up the confidence of local as well as foreign investors.

Ahsan Akbar,1 Alam Rehman,2 Irfan Ullah,3 Muhammad Zeeshan,4 Fakhr E Alam Afridi5 1International Business School, Guangzhou College of South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510080, People's Republic of China; 2Faculty of Management Sciences, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan; 3Reading Academy, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; 4College of Business Administration, Liaoning Technical University, XingCheng, Liaoning Province 125105, People's Republic of China; 5Islamia College Peshawar, Peshawer, PakistanCorrespondence: Alam RehmanFaculty of Management Sciences, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, PakistanEmail amrehman@numl.edu.pkObjective: Most of the Southeast Asian countries witnessed remarkable economic growth in the last few decades. Trade is a primary factor in achieving this exponential economic progress in these countries. Besides, the positive implications of trade, it has associated cost of escalated energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and resulting health complications which leads to higher public health expenditures. This study examines the nexus between trade liberalization, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures in Southeast Asian countries for the period of 1991 to 2018.Methods: The empirical methods used in this study entail diagnostic testing, correlation analysis, and structure equation modeling (SEM) technique. SEM is an advanced multivariate analysis technique that can test complex multivariate causal associations among a set of variables. Therefore, it is the most suitable econometric approach to explore the dynamic association between trade openness, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures.Results: The empirical results reveal a nexus between trade openness, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditure in Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, pollutant emissions have a direct impact on health expenditures, whereas trade and energy consumption shows an indirect influence on the escalation in public health spending in sample Southeast Asian countries. Moreover, the mediating path of each indirect effect is energy consumption.Conclusion: These results imply that Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on fossil energy to fuel economic growth. Hence, to promote sustainable and eco-friendly economic development, the respective governments need to reform their energy sectors by tapping into renewable energy resources and deploy green technologies to reduce pollutant emissions for the development of a healthy society. In addition, governments should levy taxes on highly polluting industries so as to curtail carbon emissions and resulting health expenditures.Keywords: trade liberalization, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, health expenditures, Southeast Asia

OBJECTIVE: Most of the Southeast Asian countries witnessed remarkable economic growth in the last few decades. Trade is a primary factor in achieving this exponential economic progress in these countries. Besides, the positive implications of trade, it has associated cost of escalated energy consumption, CO(2) emissions, and resulting health complications which leads to higher public health expenditures. This study examines the nexus between trade liberalization, energy consumption, CO(2) emissions, and health expenditures in Southeast Asian countries for the period of 1991 to 2018. METHODS: The empirical methods used in this study entail diagnostic testing, correlation analysis, and structure equation modeling (SEM) technique. SEM is an advanced multivariate analysis technique that can test complex multivariate causal associations among a set of variables. Therefore, it is the most suitable econometric approach to explore the dynamic association between trade openness, energy consumption, CO(2) emissions, and health expenditures. RESULTS: The empirical results reveal a nexus between trade openness, energy consumption, CO(2) emissions, and health expenditure in Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, pollutant emissions have a direct impact on health expenditures, whereas trade and energy consumption shows an indirect influence on the escalation in public health spending in sample Southeast Asian countries. Moreover, the mediating path of each indirect effect is energy consumption. CONCLUSION: These results imply that Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on fossil energy to fuel economic growth. Hence, to promote sustainable and eco-friendly economic development, the respective governments need to reform their energy sectors by tapping into renewable energy resources and deploy green technologies to reduce pollutant emissions for the development of a healthy society. In addition, governments should levy taxes on highly polluting industries so as to curtail carbon emissions and resulting health expenditures.

The nexus between sustainability and firm performance is an area of debate among researchers and academicians. The objective of this study is to examine the level and extent of sustainable financial reporting for non-financial firms in Pakistan and to assess the level of the impact of sustainable financial reporting on firm performance in Pakistan. This study is a novel research work as the sustainability practices are not mandatory in many Pakistani firms. Rather kinds of mix sustainability reporting practices are being practiced. The dilemma still exists whether sustainability practices affect the performance of Pakistani firms positively or not. We collect data from the sustainability reports as well as annual reports of 50 non-financial public limited companies listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange for the period 2013 to 2017. We calculate sustainability reporting index using content analysis procedure based on 42 indicators. The index is based on three subindices, namely, environmental, health and safety, and social indicators. We apply two regression models with a view to ascertain the individual effect of each indicator of the sustainability as well as the composite effect of sustainability reporting index on firm performance. The results confirm positive effects of all three individual indicators as well as the composite form of sustainability reporting index on firm performance. The findings of the study clearly outline the economic relevance for introducing the corporate sustainability reporting practices in corporate strategy.

A huge foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow has been witnessed in China, though on the one hand, it brings a significant contribution to economic growth. On the other hand, it adversely affects the ambient air pollution that may affect human mortality in the country. Renewable energy (RE) usage meets the country's energy needs with no adverse effect on the environment. Therefore, this study is trying to empirically analyze the effect of FDI inflow on human morality and RE consumption in China. We used time-series data for 1998–2020 and applied a non-linear ARDL approach for the estimations. The empirical outcomes suggest that FDI inflow positively affects mortality and RE. There is also unidirectional causality running from RE and pollution to mortality. In addition, the relationship among the variable verifies the existence of a non-linear relationship. The government needs policy guidelines to further boost FDI inflow due to its positive aspects. However, to reduce the negative effect on the environment and human morality, the extensive usage of RE should be adopted. Indeed, proper legislation for foreign firms might be a good step toward quality environmental and longevity of human health in society.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates life expectancy and trade openness in China for the period 1960–2018. METHODS: We purposed a theoretical model that is tested for China by applying regime-switching regression. RESULTS: Our findings suggest that trade openness increases life expectancy in China; trade affects life expectancy from two aspects; firstly, trade expansion and industrialization lead to high economic activities and resulted in raise the income of the people in society leading to improve life expectancy. Secondly, industrial expansion increases the CO(2) emissions which leads to imposes a negative implication on human health and thus reduces life expectancy. CONCLUSION: Thus, the net effect of trade liberalization depends on the value of income effect and volume of CO(2) emissions. Therefore, the government needs to support the trade policies which causes a low level of CO(2) emissions, the government may provide incentives to exports and industrialists to adopted green energy in the production process. Besides, the government may impose some regulations such as carbon tax to mitigate the CO(2) emissions in society.

Muhammad Imran Shah,1 Irfan Ullah,2 Xiao Xingjian,2 Huang Haipeng,2 Alam Rehman,3 Muhammad Zeeshan,4 Fakhr E Alam Afridi5 1School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People's Republic of China; 2Reading Academy, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; 3Faculty of Management Sciences, National University of Modern Languages Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan; 4College of Business Administration, Liaoning Technical University, XingCheng, Liaoning Province, 125105, People's Republic of China; 5Islamia College Peshawar, Peshawar, PakistanCorrespondence: Irfan UllahReading Academy, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, People's Republic of ChinaEmail irfnecon@nuist.edu.cnObjective: This study investigates life expectancy and trade openness in China for the period 1960– 2018.Methods: We purposed a theoretical model that is tested for China by applying regime-switching regression.Results: Our findings suggest that trade openness increases life expectancy in China; trade affects life expectancy from two aspects; firstly, trade expansion and industrialization lead to high economic activities and resulted in raise the income of the people in society leading to improve life expectancy. Secondly, industrial expansion increases the CO2 emissions which leads to imposes a negative implication on human health and thus reduces life expectancy.Conclusion: Thus, the net effect of trade liberalization depends on the value of income effect and volume of CO2 emissions. Therefore, the government needs to support the trade policies which causes a low level of CO2 emissions, the government may provide incentives to exports and industrialists to adopted green energy in the production process. Besides, the government may impose some regulations such as carbon tax to mitigate the CO2 emissions in society.Keywords: trade, life expectancy, CO2 emissions, health quality, regime-switching regression, China

Irfan Ullah,1 Assad Ullah,2 Sher Ali,3 Petra Poulova,4 Ahsan Akbar,5 Muhammad Haroon Shah,6 Alam Rehman,7 Muhammad Zeeshan,8 Fakhr E Alam Afridi3 1Reading Academy, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; 2School of Economics, Henan University, Kaifeng, People's Republic of China; 3Department of Economics, Islamia College Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan; 4Department of Informatics and Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 500 03, Czech Republic; 5International Business School, Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China; 6College of International Students, Wuxi University, Wuxi 214105, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China; 7Faculty of Management Sciences, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan; 8College of Business Administration, Liaoning Technical University, XingCheng, Liaoning Province, 125105, People's Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Ahsan AkbarInternational Business School, Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of ChinaEmail akbar@gcu.edu.cnObjective: The provision of healthcare facilities remains high on the manifesto of various political parties in Pakistan and healthcare spending has witnessed a significant surge in the last two decades that is expected to positively influence health outcomes in the country. Therefore, this research aims to explore the effects of healthcare expenditures on the actual health status of the masses in Pakistan for the period 1995Q1 to 2017Q1.Methods: We apply the Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) approach for estimation purposes. This is the most recent and emerging estimation technique in time series analysis.Results: Our findings confirm that public healthcare spending significantly impacts health outcomes in Pakistan both in the short-run and long-run. Public healthcare spending improves life expectancy and reduces death rate and infant mortality.Conclusion: The study concludes that public healthcare is the main focus of the current regime. It is noticed that spending on healthcare significantly contributes to the health outcomes in Pakistan. These efforts by the government significantly promote life expectancy and drop down the mortality ratio in the country. Based on these notable facts, the government should allocate sufficient resources towards the latest healthcare technologies and equipment to optimize health outcomes in the country.Keywords: healthcare spending, health outcomes, healthcare technologies, Quantile cointegration, QARDL, Pakistan

OBJECTIVE: The provision of healthcare facilities remains high on the manifesto of various political parties in Pakistan and healthcare spending has witnessed a significant surge in the last two decades that is expected to positively influence health outcomes in the country. Therefore, this research aims to explore the effects of healthcare expenditures on the actual health status of the masses in Pakistan for the period 1995Q1 to 2017Q1. METHODS: We apply the Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) approach for estimation purposes. This is the most recent and emerging estimation technique in time series analysis. RESULTS: Our findings confirm that public healthcare spending significantly impacts health outcomes in Pakistan both in the short-run and long-run. Public healthcare spending improves life expectancy and reduces death rate and infant mortality. CONCLUSION: The study concludes that public healthcare is the main focus of the current regime. It is noticed that spending on healthcare significantly contributes to the health outcomes in Pakistan. These efforts by the government significantly promote life expectancy and drop down the mortality ratio in the country. Based on these notable facts, the government should allocate sufficient resources towards the latest healthcare technologies and equipment to optimize health outcomes in the country.