The study examines the impact of key determinants of profitability of power and energy sector in Pakistan such as firm size, firm age, firm growth, productivity, financial leverage and electricity crisis discussed in the broader inter-disciplinary literature. For this purpose panel data of 16 firms of power and energy sector is taken for 2001 to 2012. The study considers profitability determinants at the firm as well as industry affiliation levels in examining hypotheses developed from resource-based approaches. Random effect model is used to detect the combination of variables that best estimated the impact of the explanatory variables on the dependent variable. The empirical results suggest that firm size, firm growth, and electricity crisis positively impact the profitability. However, firm age, financial leverage and productivity negatively influence the firm profitability. This study also propose that during the electricity crisis the profitability of power sector is increased even production of this sector is very low. The findings further indicate that larger and younger firms with high growth and low productivity are more likely to be profitable. This study has found that firm productivity and firm size are the strongest determinants of profitability in power and energy sector of Pakistan.

PurposeCulture and institutions are among the essential sources of comparative advantage in international trade and may influence a country's FDI influx. This paper aims to analyze the impact of cultural distance (CD) and institutional distance (ID) on the efficiency of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) for the panel of 43 countries during 2003–2016.Design/methodology/approachThe stochastic frontier approach (SFA) has been incorporated into the standard gravity model of gravity Kalirajan, 1999; Ravishankar and Stack, 2014). SFA has traditionally been implemented to evaluate the production frontier as the highest yield that could possibly be generated from specified input levels. The production process is viewed to be fully efficient if the real output is performed at frontier level. Otherwise, the production process is assumed technically inefficient, which implies potential scope for enhanced output. This error term is split into two parts, a non-negative term and more standard asymmetrical term. The former identifies inefficiencies in production, while the latter retrieves random disordersFindingsThe outcomes assert a U-shaped relationship between CD and the efficiency of China's OFDI. Put differently, when the CD is minimal, the “liability of foreignness” (LOF) effect plays a dominant role; and CD tends to reduce the efficiency of China's OFDI. On the flip side, when the culture distance is greater than a certain threshold level, the “advantages of foreignness” (AOF) effect plays a predominant role, and CD improves the efficiency of China's OFDI. Institutional distance results in the “LOF” effect significantly reduce the efficiency of China's OFDI.Research limitations/implicationsNotwithstanding these contributions, our study has some limitations which offer directions for future research. The major limitation of this research work is the availability of comprehensive data for a well extended time, in particular for the variable of CD. Further, a firm-level study can shed light on the motivations and performance of China OFDI. Finally, given that our analysis focuses on emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) from China, the findings might not be explicitly generalizable to MNEs from other developing countries. Future studies should concentrate on the comparative study of China's OFDI with other developing countries, to deepen our understanding of the effects of ID and CD on the efficiency of OFDI.Originality/value(1) The work is novel in nature as the authors attempt to explore the effect of ID and CD on efficiency of Chinese FDI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research is conducted in this direction in terms of Chinese FDI. (2) Further, the prior studies employed standard gravity model, which may not correctly evaluate the trade potential viewed as the highest potential value. To overcome the shortcomings of the standard gravity model in estimation of the trade performance and efficiency, the SFA has been incorporated into the standard gravity model of gravity.

The repercussions of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic go well beyond health concerns, affecting virtually every aspect of our lives, including daily energy consumption. Therefore, this study explores the impact of COVID-19 on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in the USA, which has been severely affected by the recent pandemic. We conducted a detailed analysis of the energy consumption demands of various sectors in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Our in-depth analysis comprises two parts. Initially, we determine the monthly growth change by utilizing the month-on-month method. Subsequently, we used the quantile-on-quantile approach of Sim and Zhou (2015) on data spanning from December 2019 to August 2021 to explore the impact of COVID-19 on energy consumption across the whole distribution. The study’s outcomes underscored that compared to renewable energy, non-renewable energy consumption was more affected by the COVID-19 lockdown, and the overall energy consumption (both renewable and non-renewable) remained low. These findings accentuate global strategic management tools to tackle COVID-19 cooperatively and restore the energy mix. Such measures are critical for energy access, security, and evenhandedness.

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.

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