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New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 March 2023) | Viewed by 24125

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Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Syriopoulos

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Guest Editor

College of Business, Zayed University, Khalifa City B, Abu Dhabi 144534, United Arab Emirates
Interests: time series analysis; financial econometrics; market finance; risk analysis and banking regulation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a health crisis. The spread of the virus causing COVID-19 is changing how we lead our lives, how markets and governments/incumbents react, and how political leaders make decisions at the local, national, regional, and global level. It is hard to predict what that changed world will look like, but it is also very risky to avoid that change (Siriopoulos 2021 a, b, Vidal-Thomas 2021).

For the social and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to be sustainable, a return to “normality” is called by many analysts. This will be a “new” normality, and recovery policies need to generate social adjustments, behavioral changes, and economic investments that will reduce the likelihood of future shocks and increase society’s resilience to them when they do occur (OECD 2020).

Within the framework of its Agenda 2030, the United Nations defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provided a guide for sustainable development at the national and international levels by incorporating economic, social, and ecological criteria (UN 2021).

This Special Issue aims to provide the interdisciplinary answers to the question: Is COVID-19 a threat to sustainable development or an opportunity?

References

OECD (2020). Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), Building back better: A sustainable, resilient recovery after COVID-19, OECD, 5 June 2020.

Siriopoulos, C. (2021a). A first assessment of covid-19 pandemic in financial markets. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 27(S3), 1-8. https://www.abacademies.org/articles/A-First-Assessment-of-Covid-19-Pandemic-in-Financial-Markets-1532-5822-27-S3-235.pdf

Siriopoulos, C. (2021b). Is covid-19 pandemic a trumped-Up test for democracy? Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 27(S4), 1-3. https://www.abacademies.org/articles/Is-Covid-19-Pandemic-a-Trumped-Up-Test-for%20Democracy-1532-5822-27-S4-241.pdf

UN(2015, 2021) https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/

and United Nations Official Document

Vidal-Tomás, D., Caferra, R. & Tedeschi, G. The day after tomorrow: financial repercussions of COVID-19 on systemic risk. Rev Evol Polit Econ (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43253-021-00059-y

Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Syriopoulos
Guest Editor

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Keywords

economic sustainability
financial crisis
COVID-19

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 2967 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Female Labor Participation and Mother’s Daycare in Greece Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic: A Regional Analysis

by Costas Siriopoulos and Sophia A. Kassapi

Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 10920; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151410920 - 12 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1373

Abstract

This paper studies the sample of 1,177,794 mothers in Greece who were eligible to apply for and receive a voucher as beneficiaries of the European program Harmonization of family and business life for the period 2011–2022, using financial on/off criteria. This was a European union (EU) subsidized program under the main strategic plan for Growth in Greece, the Partnership agreement for the Development Framework. This paper conducts an ANCOVA analysis to reveal the motives of the participants that led to the progress of the program both pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. The database comes from all applications submitted online, but confidential data remained undisclosed, restricting the power of the results. Findings uncover the major factor interfering with a mother’s decision to apply prior to COVID-19, namely her family status. However, for the post-COVID period, a mother’s declining age is the major determinant, which shows the increasing uncertainty of women in reproductive age. These findings, along with the low birth rate in Greece, suggest large social unrest, such that a large fraction of women in the workforce would go into labor if they had greater access to subsidized childcare. Regional differences do not seem to affect these results. This analysis might be unique in its nature, as no previous paper has focused on mothers’ characteristics linking them to childcare. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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12 pages, 553 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Antecedents of Organizational Resilience after COVID-19: The Case of UAE

by Khadija Ali Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Ameri

Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 5841; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075841 - 28 Mar 2023

Viewed by 2076

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between work stress, employee engagement, employee well-being, and employee and organizational resilience, in order to develop a model that can be used to investigate the effects of these variables on organization performance. A quantitative approach was used and structural equation modeling with AMOS 28 was applied to investigate the relationship between the variables in a convenient sample of 394 employees in the UAE. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that work-stress negatively impacts the resilience of organizations, while work engagement and employee resilience are positive indicators of the resilience of organizations. No relationship was found between employee well-being and organizational resilience. Using the findings of this study, one may be able to determine whether a company will be able to achieve better resilience when operating in the midst of intense crisis situations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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25 pages, 6104 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Seaport Resilience Analysis and Throughput Forecast Using a Deep Learning Approach: A Case Study of Busan Port

by Truong Ngoc Cuong, Sam-Sang You, Le Ngoc Bao Long and Hwan-Seong Kim

Sustainability 2022, 14(21), 13985; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142113985 - 27 Oct 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3073

Abstract

The global nature of seaport operations makes shipping companies susceptible to potential impacts. Sustainability requires seaport authorities to understand the underlying mechanisms of resilience in a dynamic world, to ensure high performance under disruptions. This paper deals with data analytics for analysing port resilience and a new paradigm for productivity forecasting that utilize a hybrid deep learning method. Nonlinear analytical methods include Lyapunov exponent, entropy analysis, Hurst exponent, and historical event analysis, with statistical significance tests. These approaches have been utilised to show that throughput demand at Busan port (South Korea) exhibits complex behaviour due to business volatility. A new forecasting method based on long short-term memory (LSTM) and random forest (RF) has been applied to explore port throughput in realizing recovery policy. The LSTM networks have shown high effectiveness in time-series forecasting tasks; RF is proposed as a complementary method to mitigate residual errors from the LSTM scheme. Statistical significance tests have been conducted to comprehensively evaluate the introduced forecasting models. The results show that the hybrid method outperformed three benchmarked models in both the short- and long-term forecasting at a 95% confidence level, guaranteeing accuracy and robustness as well as suitability. As a seeking strategy for seaport competitiveness, novel resilience planning incorporates sustainability to prepare for disruptions such as a global pandemic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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13 pages, 3885 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Digital Transformation of the Greek Banking Sector in the COVID Era

by Paraskevi Boufounou, Magdalini Mavroudi, Kanellos Toudas and Georgios Georgakopoulos

Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 11855; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141911855 - 21 Sep 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4379

Abstract

Rapid developments in digital innovation and technology in recent decades have marked a transition into the fourth industrial revolution (and the fifth social revolution), causing a significant impact on all areas of human activity. Moreover, these developments have been strongly felt with the advent of the COVID pandemic. The COVID pandemic has acted as a catalyst for imminent changes within the operational models of banks and their digitization, both locally and internationally, dealing with this peculiar crisis as an opportunity rather than a threat. In this study, after conducting a bibliographic overview of the key literature, an analysis of the digital development that took place in the banking sector in Greece was conducted, comparing the views of bank customers to those of bank employees and investigating the key factors that are believed to have a positive and/or negative effect on the use of new digital banking products and services, as well as the influence of factors determining digital banking expansion (gender, age, educational level, pandemic, etc.). The results revealed that bank customers were quite satisfied and familiar with digital transactions and wished to expand their use, while they considered the possibility of 24/7 service as an important factor in choosing to use digital banking, and the factors for expanding their use were transaction speed, transaction security, and information security. However, bank employees accept digital transformation positively and believe that for it to be successful, additional and ongoing training is required to upgrade their digital skills, which will also contribute to culture change and adaptation to the digital era. Furthermore, the age and educational level of bank customers had a statistically significant effect on the growing acceptance and expansion of the banking sector’s digital transformation. A comparison of the correlations of the demographic data with answers given by bank employees did not reveal any significant variations regarding the findings given by bank customers. These findings can be useful for bank management policy-making issues, for banks and their supervising authorities to build KPIs to monitor and assess the digitalization progress, and for academics for further research, especially as the COVID pandemic ensues and the need for digital solutions is all the more urgent, marking the digital competition between banks as one of increasing intensity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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21 pages, 1746 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Socioeconomic Sustainability for Low-Income Households: The Mediating Role of Financial Well-Being

by Ananthan Munisamy, Sheerad Sahid and Muhammad Hussin

Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9752; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159752 - 8 Aug 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5652

Abstract

Financial literacy contributes to the economic well-being of every country. Specifically, the financial literacy level of low-income households is crucial in the process of developing and building economic potential. Moreover, the knowledge, attitude, and behavior of families are essential to the financial sustainability and money-wise behavior of low-income households. Thus, financial literacy and financial well-being are vital for low-income households to survive in highly competitive marketplaces and sustain their socioeconomic status. This study intends to examine the impact of financial literacy on the socioeconomic status of low-income households. A self-administered survey questionnaire was employed, and the sample consists of 282 randomly selected respondents from low-income households in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modelling procedure in IBM-SPSS-AMOS 26.0 to examine the causal effect. The results showed that financial literacy (consisting of financial knowledge, financial behavior, and financial attitudes) has a positive and significant impact on the socioeconomic status of low-income households. Moreover, financial well-being also mediated the effect of financial literacy on socioeconomic status. The research results provide new ideas and perspectives for improving money-wise mechanisms and the socioeconomic sustainability of low-income households. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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16 pages, 3539 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Green Bonds and Commodities: A New Asymmetric Sustainable Relationship

by Athanasios Tsagkanos, Aarzoo Sharma and Bikramaditya Ghosh

Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6852; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116852 - 3 Jun 2022

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2640

Abstract

In this study we examine the relationship between corporate green bonds and commodities (both perishable & non-perishable) that attracts very little attention in relative literature. For the first time, we investigate a long-term relationship between green bonds and commodities including a significantly higher number of commodities and observations. Furthermore, we adopt a novel methodology, the VaR (value at risk) based copulas, to describe the asymmetric risk spillover between green bonds and commodities by considering the asymmetric tail distribution. Our results reveal an insignificant risk spillover effect from commodity market uncertainty. Further, we found non-perishable commodities are transmitting risk to perishable commodities (barring lead). In addition, in contrast to other similar studies the risk spillover is comparatively higher regarding lead, gold, and agriculture commodities as against copper and silver. On the other hand, energy commodities have the least spillover effect. Finally, these results have several important implications for investors as well as for policymakers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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16 pages, 2143 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Forecasting the Effect of Migrants’ Remittances on Household Expenditure: COVID-19 Impact

by Lei Zhang, Yang Chen, Oleksii Lyulyov and Tetyana Pimonenko

Sustainability 2022, 14(7), 4361; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14074361 - 6 Apr 2022

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 3445

Abstract

The unexpected pandemic has provoked changes in all economic sectors worldwide. COVID-19 has had a direct and indirect effect on countries’ development. Thus, the pandemic limits the movements of labour forces among countries, restricting migrants’ remittances. In addition, it provokes the reorientation of consumer behaviour and changes in household expenditure. For developing countries, migrant remittances are one of the core drivers for improving household wellbeing. Therefore, the paper aims to analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected household expenditure in Ukraine, as being representative of a developing country. For this purpose, the data series were compiled for 2010 to the second quarter of 2021. The data sources were as follows: Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, The World Bank, and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The core variables were as follows: migrants’ remittances and expenditure of households by the types. The following methods were applied to achieve the paper’s aims: the Dickey–Fuller Test Unit Root and the ARIMA model. The findings confirmed that COVID-19 has changed the structure of household expenditure in Ukraine. Considering the forecast of household expenditure until 2026, it was shown that due to changes in migrants’ remittances, household expenditure in all categories tends to increase. The forecasted findings concluded that household expenditure on transport had the most significant growth due to changing migrants’ remittances. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges in Sustainable Economic Resilience during and after the COVID-19 Outbreak)

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