It is generally accepted in the scientific community that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which lead to global warming, arise from using fossil fuels, namely coal, oil and gas, as energy sources. Consequently, alleviating the effects of global warming and climate change necessitates substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuel energy. This paper uses a financial market-based approach to investigate whether positive stock returns cause changes in CO2 emissions, or vice-versa, based on the Granger causality test to determine cause and effect, or leader and follower. If Granger causality can be determined in any direction, this will enable a clear directional statement regarding temporal predictability between stock returns and CO2 emissions. The empirical data include annual CO2 emissions from fuel combustion of the three main fossil energy sources, namely coal, oil and gas, based on 18 countries with sophisticated financial markets that are in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) World Index from 1971 to 2017. The empirical results show clearly that all the statistically significant causality findings are unidirectional from the stock market returns to CO2 emissions from coal, oil and gas, but not the reverse. More importantly, the regression results suggest that when stock returns rise by 1%, CO2 emissions from coal combustion decrease by 9% among the countries that are included in MSCI World Index. Furthermore, when stock returns rise 1%, CO2 emissions from oil combustion increase by 2%, but stock returns have no significant effect on CO2 emissions from gas combustion.

Consider using the simple moving average (MA) rule of Gartley to determine when to buy stocks, and when to sell them and switch to the risk-free rate. In comparison, how might the performance be affected if the frequency is changed to the use of MA calculations? The empirical results show that, on average, the lower is the frequency, the higher are average daily returns, even though the volatility is virtually unchanged when the frequency is lower. The volatility from the highest to the lowest frequency is about 30% lower as compared with the buy-and-hold strategy volatility, but the average returns approach the buy-and-hold returns when frequency is lower. The 30% reduction in volatility appears if we invest randomly half the time in stock markets and half in the risk-free rate.

This paper examines how the size of the rolling window, and the frequency used in moving average (MA) trading strategies, affects financial performance when risk is measured. We use the MA rule for market timing, that is, for when to buy stocks and when to shift to the risk-free rate. The important issue regarding the predictability of returns is assessed. It is found that performance improves, on average, when the rolling window is expanded and the data frequency is low. However, when the size of the rolling window reaches three years, the frequency loses its significance and all frequencies considered produce similar financial performance. Therefore, the results support stock returns predictability in the long run. The procedure takes account of the issues of variable persistence as we use only returns in the analysis. Therefore, we use the performance of MA rules as an instrument for testing returns predictability in financial stock markets.

The market mechanism of spatial resource allocation is examined in a system of cities, where social welfare depends on city size.

A common conclusion in the literature is that both corruption and taxation hamper economic growth. It is also plausible that both affect total factor productivity, which, by the famous Solow residual, is a vital driver of economic progress. Moreover, corruption and tax burden are supposed to be intertwined. This paper focuses on the supposedly linked effects of corruption and tax burden on total factor productivity. The empirical study uses panel data from 90 countries for the time span of 1996–2014. The results show that both corruption and tax burden deteriorate total factor productivity, but that an increase in tax burden mitigates the negative effect of corruption.