Makoto Kakinaka

Purpose: This study aims to examine how micro-entrepreneurs evaluate bribery in a high-corruption transition economy. Focusing on the Kyrgyz Republic, it analyzes two mechanisms shaping entrepreneurs’ evaluative acceptance of bribery: public officials’ initiation of bribe requests, “initiator’s advantage” and perceived social norms among peer entrepreneurs. By integrating resource dependence theory and collective action theory, this study explains how institutional power asymmetries and normative expectations jointly influence entrepreneurs’ evaluative acceptance of bribery in bureaucratic interactions. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a vignette-based factorial survey experiment with a 2 × 2 design. Data were collected from 483 micro-entrepreneurs operating in four major bazaars in Bishkek. Vignettes systematically varied whether a public official initiated a bribe request and whether bribery was described as common among peers. Respondents evaluated the acceptability of a hypothetical entrepreneur’s decision to pay a bribe. Regression analysis was used to estimate treatment effects, with extensive balance checks and subsample analyses. Findings: Both information framings significantly increase respondents’ evaluative acceptance of the hypothetical entrepreneur’s decision to pay. Official initiation raises evaluative acceptance modestly, while perceived pro-bribery social norms exert a substantially larger effect. These effects remain robust after controlling for demographic and business characteristics and do not vary by gender, age or education. The interaction between the two framings is not statistically significant. The findings indicate that evaluative acceptance of entrepreneurial bribery is shaped simultaneously by dependence on discretionary officials and by socially reinforced expectations about peer behavior. Originality/value: This study provides experimental evidence on entrepreneurial bribery from a post-Soviet transition economy. It advances the literature by integrating resource dependence theory and collective action theory at the microlevel, demonstrating how institutional pressure and social norms shape microentrepreneurs’ evaluations of corrupt exchanges. Methodologically, it moves beyond correlational survey data by isolating causal effects of situational cues using a vignette experiment. The findings highlight that effective anti-corruption policies must address both bureaucratic discretion and entrenched social norms among entrepreneurs.

Work-related stress and workplace deviant behavior are major concerns in modern organizations, particularly in academic and administrative settings. This study investigates the mediating roles of work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC) in the relationship between job stress and workplace deviance. While prior research has established a link between stress and deviant behavior, few studies have explored how conflicts between professional and personal responsibilities influence this connection. To bridge this gap, an online survey was conducted with a randomly selected sample of 193 academic and administrative employees from an Egyptian university. A quantitative research approach was adopted, incorporating exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to validate measurement models. Regression analysis was employed to examine direct relationships, while mediation analysis assessed the indirect effects of WFC and FWC on the stress-deviance relationship. The results indicate that work-related stress significantly predicts both WFC and FWC. However, only FWC mediates the link between stress and workplace deviance, whereas WFC does not play a mediating role. These findings highlight the need to address family-related conflicts to mitigate workplace deviance. Organizations can reduce such behaviors by implementing policies that promote work-life balance and provide greater support for employees.

The energy transition is crucial for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (affordable and clean energy). As remittances account for a significant share of household incomes in developing countries, they may be associated with the energy transition from low-efficiency residential fuels (e.g., coal and wood) to high-efficiency residential fuels (e.g., gas and electricity). This study examines the association between remittances and residential energy transition in developing countries by employing a pooled mean group autoregressive distributed lag (PMG-ARDL) model for 27 developing nations from 1995 to 2018. The results indicate that a 1% increase in remittances (ratio to GDP) is associated with a 0.24% increase in the share of high-efficiency energy sources in residential energy consumption in the long run.

It has been argued that large military spending is often a crucial constraint in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, and high corruption has enabled these countries to keep such large military spending. One possible remedy is to promote information and communication technology (ICT), which may cause the anti-corruption policies to become more effective in increasing transparency for the public and reducing unnecessary and abusive military spending. This study discusses the nexus among corruption, military spending, and ICT with a panel data of 48 SSA countries from 2003 to 2015. Our analysis reveals that when ICT prevails, military spending is negatively associated with the control of corruption, so that anti-corruption policies with the usage of ICT could reduce the extravagant budget allocation to military spending. Policymakers should associate sound ICT policy with traditional anti-corruption factors to bring more transparency and less corrupt behaviors in the military department. The reduction in the misuse of military allocation enables the country to increase nonmilitary public spending to face sustainable development challenges for the sake of the population.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions entail a key component of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and are crucial for global warming and climate change issues. Although the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) pattern of the emissions–income nexus has intrigued many researchers for a long time, few studies cover a wide range of economic sectors and a large number of countries, which calls for the re-investigation of sector-wise EKC arguments. Thereby, we investigate the long-run equilibrium relationship between CO₂ emissions and per capita income in a panel of 86 developing and developed countries for the period from 1990 through 2015. Our findings show that the EKC holds for three sectors: the electricity and heat production sector, the commercial and public services sector, and the other energy industry own use sector with the turning points of approximately 21,000 USD, 3000 USD, and 5000 USD, respectively. Additionally, emissions decrease monotonically for the manufacturing industries and construction sector, the residential sector, and the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector, whereas they increase monotonically with the development of the transport sector. Policymakers should consider adopting sector-specific environmental policies based on each sector’s unique income–emission relationship, to mitigate CO₂ emissions effectively, and attain sustainable economic growth.

Taxpayers tend to have an aversion to taxes because they often feel that they lack information about how their taxes are being spent. By conducting a vignette survey experiment with the Indonesian taxpayers, we demonstrate that citizens are more likely to perceive their tax obligations favourably if they are exposed to information that the government is acting in a trustworthy manner. This result suggests that a government’s commitment to establishing good governance in tax revenue management can increase public confidence, which can be an important determinant of people’s tax attitudes. Our study provides new empirical evidence on the impact of psychological ties between citizens and the government on citizens’ willingness to pay taxes.

Sustainable development goals aim to promote the implementation of environmental and energy policies towards establishing a sustainable environment. Considering that energy demand has steadily increased in emerging countries along with their rapid economic growth, controlling CO₂ emissions in these countries is crucial to achieving global environmental sustainability. An important concern is that renewable energy is generally classified into traditional and modern sources, and their relationships with environmental degradation can differ at the macroeconomic level. This study examines the link of the two renewable energy sources to CO₂ emissions by employing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for 31 emerging countries from 1990 to 2016. This analysis provides clear evidence of heterogeneity of the effects between traditional and modern renewable energy sources. Although CO₂ emissions have negative associations with both traditional and modern renewable energy sources in the long-term, they are more sensitive to modern renewable energy sources than to traditional ones. These results suggest that modern renewable energy sources are an effective target for environmental and energy policies in emerging countries. Policy regulators and international communities should strengthen domestic and international schemes that facilitate the transfer of green technology, particularly, that related to modern renewable energy sources, from advanced countries to emerging countries.

Governments coordinate people’s various interests through budget allocations for the provision of the public goods and services. In order for governments to maintain their budgetary power, it is important to secure revenues and increase people’s willingness to pay taxes. To understand whether government measures exert any influence on the willingness of individual taxpayers to pay taxes, we conducted a survey experiment that varied the information on the government’s fiscal spending in a vignette experiment. Our results show that while providing information about spending on healthcare and infrastructure development did not change the respondents’ willingness to pay taxes, emphasizing industrial subsidies reduced it significantly. These findings imply that targeting specific groups without careful communication could weaken the reciprocal relationship between the government and the public, thus mitigating taxpayers’ cooperative behavior in terms of tax payment.