درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Environment quality and its determinants are one of the main challenges of the present and future of humanity and sustainable development is interpreted in the direction of preserving and improving the environment. In recent years, many studies have been conducted on the factors affecting environmental quality. One of the main topics that have been less considered in the related studies is the impact of governance on the quality of the environment. In this study, the impact of good governance components, including economic freedom, trade freedom, and political freedom, on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and its sub-indices including environmental health, ecosystem vitality, and climate change is investigated. The data required for statistical analysis are related to Middle East and North Africa region countries and Turkiye (MENAT) during 2000-2021. The panel data method was used to estimate the model and examine the relationship between the variables. The findings show that there is a positive and significant relationship between economic freedom and political freedom with the environmental performance index (EPI), and there is no significant relationship between trade freedom and EPI. </span>In addition, the study found that economic freedom had a detrimental effect on ecosystem vitality and climate change, leading to negative impacts in these areas. However, it had a positive impact on environmental health, indicating that it contributed positively to this aspect. On the other hand, political freedom was observed to have a positive effect on the vitality of the ecosystem and climate change. However, it did not have a significant impact on the overall health of the environment, suggesting that its influence was more prominent in specific areas related to ecosystem vitality and climate change. <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;" data-mce-fragment="1">The result of this research showed that economic freedom has led to more investment in the oil and gas sector of MENA countries, and therefore wastewater and gas emissions have had a negative impact on the vitality of the environment and climate change, but with the increase in production and sales of oil and Gas, per capita income of countries has increased, and environmental health has improved. Also, considering that political freedom among the MENA region has a lot of diversity, the results showed that the countries with more political freedom, through greater awareness of the society and more accountability of the governments and the establishment of environmental protection laws, had a positive impact on the environment. Of course, the environmental health index is more influenced by the economic situation and per capita production of countries and political freedom has little effect on it.

Trade liberalization of agricultural products and its effect on food prices, because of the importance of food in the household consumption basket, is one of the most important goals of governments for public access to health and food security. The present study investigated the effect of trade liberalization on domestic food prices in Iran. In this context, the single-equation error correction model (SEECM) was applied using the required time series data during 1989-2019. The results show that in the short-term, only increases in global food prices, liquidity, and exchange rates significantly affect domestic food prices. However, domestic food prices show more reaction to exchange rate fluctuations than to world prices. The estimated long-run equilibrium relationship demonstrated that world food prices have a positive and trade liberalization has a negative effect on domestic food prices. In addition, in the long run, the effect of liquidity on the domestic food price of food is more than other factors. The estimated error-correction term indicates that in the long run, if a shock occurs to the domestic food price, the domestic market can adjust it by only 35% annually. Considering the fluctuations of global prices and exchange rates, and their impacts on domestic prices, it is necessary to pay attention to these fluctuations in revising trade policies.

Commodity Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are one type of ETF that underlying assets are agricultural products, energy or metals instead of stocks. These ETFs expose their investors to the market of various commodities in different ways, such as physical commodity, futures of single commodity, futures of baskets commodities, equities with exposures to commodities in various forms. In recent years, this financial instrument has become one of the important investment options among several people by creating many advantages. Despite these developments, scarce evidence exists in the current literature on the feedback trading of ETF investors. The objective of this paper is examination of feedback trading in behavior investors of Saffron ETF in Iran. For this purpose, daily data of two Saffron ETF for January 3, 2021 - Novenber 11, 2022 and Sentana and Wadhwani (1992) model was used. Empirical analysis suggests that volatility of fund return is symmetrical against the news. Despite a formal market with full overlapping for the underlying assets, Saffron ETFs investors do not notice about the difference between ETFs' market prices and their Net Asset Value (NAV). The results of the feedback trading model show that there is no evidence of feedback trading in Saffron ETF. It seems that the market of Saffron ETF is efficient, which can be related to the specificity of the underlying assets and the investors of these ETFs.

Agriculture plays a pivotal role in Africa's development and is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the agricultural sector is inherently exposed to production risks, and many farmers in the developing world lack access to reliable agricultural insurance coverage. This situation arises due to limited data and knowledge about farmers' insurance needs and the high costs associated with insuring against severe agricultural risks. Promoting agricultural insurance as an instrument can have several significant impacts, aligning with multiple SDGs. It can help stabilize farmers' income, thereby contributing to the goal of reducing poverty (SDG 1). Moreover, agricultural insurance can provide a safety net for food producers, helping them manage the impacts of climate-related risks and aligning with SDG 13, which addresses climate action. Additionally, by enhancing the resilience of farmers and ensuring more predictable income, agricultural insurance can contribute to addressing hunger (SDG 2) and ultimately create a more sustainable and prosperous agricultural sector in Africa. Therefore, this study evaluated agricultural insurance as an instrument for sustainable food supply systems in Nigeria. This study adopted a survey design. This study captured thoughts, experiences, and observations of selected agricultural underwriters in the Nigerian insurance industry through structured questionnaire. A descriptive statistic was employed in the data analysis. This study results indicated that aside from farmers’ awareness which showed some level of yardstick with respect to farmers behavioural metrics, all other metrics played no significant roles. It was also recorded that why farmers’ age, gender, family size and farming experience have no significant roles in the uptake of agricultural insurance, all other participatory factors have major effects. The study contributed significantly to knowledge with the graphical representations of the challenges confronting the agricultural insurers in Nigeria. The study provided suitable recommendations that endear achievable SDGs in Nigeria.