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The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corruption on economic growth by testing the hypothesis that the relationship between these two variables is nonlinear and by assessing the veracity of the assumption that corruption is always detrimental to economic growth. Several cross-country studies have treated this question but the findings are not universally robust.

In this paper, a panel data analysis has been used to examine 88 countries over the 1984-2011 period. A cross-sectional framework is used in which growth rate and the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) index are observed only once for each country.

The findings indicate that beyond an optimal threshold, both high and low corruption levels can decrease economic growth. Under this optimal threshold, a moderate level of corruption, defined by the point of reversal of the curve of the marginal corruption effect on growth, could have advantages for economic growth.

This paper shows that the threshold would be a corruption level between 2.5 and 3, which represents the “acceptable corruption level”. This result is conforming to one of the ten principles of economics: “Rational people think at the marginal change”. This threshold represents the point where the marginal benefits of corruption are equal to marginal costs incurred by corruption. Conversely, lack of corruption may be a mechanism that slows down growth.

This paper reviews recent research on the expected economic effects of developing artificial intelligence (AI) through a survey of the latest publications, in particular papers and reports issued by academics, consulting companies and think tanks.

Our paper represents a point of view on AI and its impact on the global economy. It represents a descriptive analysis of the AI phenomenon.

AI represents a driver of productivity and economic growth. It can increase efficiency and significantly improve the decision-making process by analyzing large amounts of data, yet at the same time it creates equally serious risks of job market polarization, rising inequality, structural unemployment and the emergence of new undesirable industrial structures.

This paper presents itself as a building block for further research by introducing the two main factors in the production function (Cobb-Douglas): labor and capital. Indeed, Zeira (1998) and Aghion, Jones and Jones (2017) suggested that AI can stimulate growth by replacing labor, which is a limited resource, with capital, an unlimited resource, both for the production of goods, services and ideas.

Our study contributes to the previous literature and presents a descriptive analysis of the impact of AI on technological development, economic growth and employment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Islamic finance could replace or complement the traditional financial system and could guarantee stability in times of crisis.

To achieve the aim, the authors examined both risk-taking and profitability of 94 Islamic banks (IBs) operating in 18 countries observed during the 2006-2013 financial crisis period. A series of bank-specific and other country-specific indicators are combined to explain profitability of IBs as measured by return on assets and return on equity, and risk divided into credit risk measured by impaired loans/gross loans and total equity/net loans, and insolvency risk measured by Z-score. Indeed, a bank is stronger than another if it is stable with a higher capacity to absorb risks, on the one hand, and increased performance on the other.

Using dynamic panel data econometrics (generalized moment method system), the authors estimated five regressions and found the following results: bank capital is found to be the main indicator that contributes to maximizing profitability and stability of IBs and reducing their credit risk. However, the study of liquidity and asset quality determinants often leads to inconclusive results. Nevertheless, they found that Gulf region-operating IBs are more profitable, more solvent and less risky than those operating in the South East Asian region. At the macroeconomic level, the authors could not find a significant relationship between inflation rate and IBs profitability. However, unlike for IBs in Southeast Asia, the authors found that inflation rate improves IBs stability and reduces their credit risk level.

The results of this study have numerous implications for bank management and the different stakeholders (investors, customers). This study identified several factors that may help bank managers to improve their financial outlook by controlling risk level and profitability. These factors could as well help to understand how macroeconomic indicators affect both banking risk and profitability, in particular Islamic banking. Likewise, portfolio managers can use these results to support their decisions to include IBs in their assets portfolios to mitigate potential risk.

This study contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First, this paper provides fresh data and recent information on Islamic banking in Gulf Cooperation Council and South East Asian countries. Second, the obtained results helped us to conclude that the Islamic financial system cannot replace but rather supplements the traditional system. This result may be explained by the fact that Muslims look for Islamic banking products, which conventional banks are not offering.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, corruption perception, real gross domestic product per capita and the Gini index on happiness.

In this study, the sample consists of 137 countries observed over the period 2017–2019. A multidimensional approach is used consisting of a principal component analysis and an econometric linear regression model.

The findings indicate that perception, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy are the most determining factors of social well-being.

Well-being benefits countries by improving living standards. Indeed, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy directly and positively correlate with social well-being.

This study contributes to the previous literature in three ways. First, this paper provides fresh and recent data on social well-being. Second, the author introduced a multidimensional approach using a principal component analysis of the different social well-being factors to detect correlation between these indicators and to determine homogeneous clusters. Third, through these indicators, a country's leaders can formulate policies to enhance social well-being because it is closely linked to the improvement of the standard of living, good governance and therefore an increase in GDP.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new strategy of portfolio selection.

After making a comparative survey of different strategies of portfolio selection adopted by portfolio managers in Tunisia, the paper proposes a new strategy, which it calls weighted overreaction strategy. This strategy consists in over‐weighting the stocks having bad performances in the past.

The new proposed strategy turned out to be more performing than size, PER, and overreaction strategies in the Tunisian stock market via a mean equality test. Those who adopt it should create a loser portfolio and should sell it at a later period (12 months) and generate average annual returns of 241.75 percent.

This result deserves generalization to other stock markets. As the Tunisian stock market is marked by its looseness and low capitalization, applying this strategy over similar or more developed market would open the way for research aiming to define other strategies and to select the best one for each market. Indeed, it should investigate investors' behavior, which is certainly not the same in each stock market and outline the specific strategy for each market.

The weighted overreaction strategy generated a considerable gain compared to other portfolios.

The new proposed strategy turned out to be more performing than the other ones.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the different measures taken by the G7 and G20 leaders to face the current global financial crisis and to show whether such decisions represent a return to protectionism.

The paper proposes the introduction of a new economic system based on Islamic banks' principle which calls for cancelling interests. This line of thinking might solve speculation problems and put this type of crisis to an end.

This financial crisis pushed most developed countries to lower their banking rates and to implement null‐approximating interest rates, a move which replicates the principle adopted by Islamic banks.

The paper represents a point of view on the financial crisis, the return to protectionism and the role of Islamic banking.

This paper aims to analyze and investigate the performance of an improved fault detection and identification (FDI) method based on multiple criteria, applied to six-switch three-phase inverter (SSTPI)-fed induction motor (IM) drives under both single and multiple open insulated-gate bipolar transistors(IGBT) faults.

This paper proposes an advanced diagnostic method for both single and multiple open IGBT faults dedicated to SSTPI-fed IM drives considering five distinct faulty operating conditions as follows: a single IGBT open-circuit fault, a single-phase open-circuit fault, a non-crossed double fault in two different legs, a crossed double fault in two different legs and a three-IGBT open-circuit fault. This is achieved because of the introduction of a new diagnosis variable provided using the information of the slope of the current vector in (α-β) frame. The proposed FDI method is based on the synthesis and the analysis, under both healthy and faulty operations, of the behaviors of the introduced diagnosis variable, the three motor phase currents and their normalized average values. Doing so, the developed FDI method allows a best compromise of fast detection and precision localization of IGBT open-circuit fault of the inverter.

Simulation works, carried out considering the implementation of the direct rotor flux oriented control in an IM fed by the conventional SSTPI, have proved the high performance of the advanced FDI method in terms of fast fault detection associated with a high robustness against false alarms, against speed and load torque fast variations and against the oscillations of the DC-bus voltage in the case of both healthy and faulty operations.

This work should be extended considering the validation of the obtained simulation results through experiments.

Different from other FDI methods, which suffer from a low diagnostic effectiveness for low load levels and false alarms during transient operation, this method offers the potentialities to overcome these drawbacks because of the introduction of the new diagnosis variable. This latter, combined with the information provided from the three motor phase currents and their normalized average values allow a more efficient detection and identification of IGBT open-circuit fault.

Frame resonance and innovative tactics can substitute for a movement’s lack of important resources to sustain protests. This chapter shows how the insurgent groups in the 2011 Tunisian uprising that lacked mass-based organizations and national leaders maintained and spread the protests using frame resonance and innovative tactics. It argues that the activists’ strategy of frame resonance drew on the collective identity of the poor people in the interior regions, mainly their collective feeling of social marginalization. Activist organizers also relied on a motivational campaign aimed at converting the feelings of injustice held by those in the interior regions into anger against the regime. The innovative tactics of the activists included locating protests inside poor people’s neighborhoods, especially in coastal regions. The engagement of poor people in the protests sustained them in two ways: by spreading and intensifying protests through individual initiatives, and by weakening the Tunisian police in sustained disruptive actions and spontaneous riots. These findings are based on the narratives of 81 activists, insurgent groups’ documents, chanted slogans, and official state documents. The fieldwork research was conducted in Tunisia during the months of April and May 2012, and June 2013.

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of the determinants and characteristics of voluntary internet financial disclosures by large companies in Slovenia. With this research, the authors wanted to determine the factors which impact on the differences between companies that use internet financial reporting and those that do not.

The research was conducted on a sample of large companies in Slovenia (n = 192), which was divided into two groups, depending on whether they use internet financial reporting. A binary logistic regression was undertaken to assess whether voluntary disclosure of financial information on the internet was related to the company’s size, profitability, age, company’s legal form, ownership dispersion and industry sector.

The research has shown that there is a statistically significant difference between the companies which use or do not use internet financial reporting. The likelihood that the companies will publish the internet financial information is greater in the case of public limited companies, companies that deal with the financial, energy or ICT sectors and companies that have a larger ownership concentration.

This is one of the first studies in Slovenia that was used to determine the factors according to which the companies that use internet financial reporting differentiate from those that do not.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss accounting development in Tunisia, which is a developing North African country little known in the international accounting literature.

Methodologically, this paper is based on an exploratory approach. It uses the descriptive tradition of research by collecting and analyzing numerical and narrative data to identify and describe environmental factors that favor or hamper accounting development in Tunisia.

This paper indicates that Tunisian companies have been applying the Enterprise Accounting System (EAS) since 1996. This system, while keeping with the logic of a chart of accounts, represents a first attempt to harmonize with international accounting standards. Accounting harmonization in Tunisia is meant to support the strategy, launched in the early 1990s, to integrate the country into the globalization process. Accordingly, the EAS has helped to achieve macroeconomic benefits (public interests). However, it does not lead to the desired level of financial transparency (private interests), especially that of large companies. Currently, Tunisian Accounting Standards neither reflect the rapid evolution of business activity nor changes in international accounting standards. This unachieved harmonization has led some listed companies to comply with some International Financial Reporting Standards which are not included in the EAS.

The unachieved harmonization in Tunisia is mainly related to the political system, taxation factors, the legal system, the weak state of corporate governance and governmental control over standardization.

This paper provides insights into the problems of developing countries that harmonize with international standards to achieve public interests. These countries may encounter many difficulties in bringing their accounting standards up to date. These difficulties seem to be associated with environmental specificities. Accordingly, international standardization bodies and developing country regulators should take into account environmental factors which are determinant for the harmonization decision to succeed.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on accounting development in developing countries. It implies that recent accounting development, as it is designed in Tunisia, is better suited to the needs of small businesses. Large companies would be compelled to complement local generally accepted accounting principles by standards they choose, voluntarily, among international standards.