Business and Economics Journal

African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are anticipated to boost the member country's economic growth and development. Africa currently has eight regional economic communities. Due to regional economic integration, notably trade agreements between African regions, the majority of African countries are members of multiple regional economic communities, creating a multi-membership (spaghetti bowl). The objective of the study is to assess the effect of multi-membership in African economic communities on intra-trade performance among COMESA, IGAD and EAC using a pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model. The research revealed that having numerous memberships hinders rather than fosters intra-regional trade and regional integration. Similar to earlier research, multiple memberships burden African governments with significant time, energy, and resource costs and make them manage conflicting policies. The study recommend that implementation of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) which aims to establish a single continental market for goods and services, free movement of businesspeople and investments, expand intra-African trade, and increase the appeal of the continent as a global trade region. This is expected to eliminate the multi-membership to various regional economic communities of Africa.

Banks are major financial institutions that play a pivotal role in the economic system, diverting financial resources from surplus economic agents to deficit ones. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of liquidity risk on the financial performance of Ethiopian commercial banks. Liquidity risk management and profitability are key issues in a competitive business environment. Fixed-effect balanced panel regressions were used for data from 13 commercial banks for the sample period of interest from 2010 to 2021. We have selected and analyzed six factors that affect the financial performance of commercial banks in Ethiopia. The results of panel data regression analysis showed that liquidity (LATA), leverage (TLA), and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had statistically significant effects on financial performance of commercial banks. The Funding Gap Index (FGR), Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), and Bank Size (SIZE) have no statistically significant impact on central bank financial performance. Liquidity risk has therefore adversely affected the financial performance of Ethiopian commercial banks. The recommendation is that commercial banks may need to review their credit rating methodologies to ensure that only worthy borrowers lend money to reduce the large number of nonperforming loans. Lending should provide borrowers with some form of financial education, guidance, and advice on how to allocate borrowed funds. Commercial banks are required to hold sufficient capital in accordance with bank operating rules. In order to increase the operational efficiency of banks, it is necessary to improve the capacity development of bankers. The recommendation is that commercial banks may need to review their credit rating methodologies to ensure that only worthy borrowers lend money to reduce the large number of non-performing loans. Lending should provide borrowers with some form of financial education, guidance, and advice on how to allocate borrowed funds. Commercial banks are required to hold sufficient capital in accordance with bank operating rules. In order to increase the operational efficiency of banks, it is necessary to improve the capacity development of bankers. Ethiopian commercial banks can achieve profitability by increasing the size of their banks. Banks therefore have an opportunity to benefit from economies of scale by increasing their market share in the Ethiopian banking industry.

In the fast-changing world, globalization is becoming a prevalent issue for many companies in the 21^st century. Whether the comparative advantage theory is suitable for the current situation and how can the corporation achieve globalization within two stages, this paper may provide a reference in certain extent.

Knowing how financial markets are affected by pandemics like COVID-19 can be extremely helpful for economic activists and economic planners. Numerous studies have been conducted in this field, and in the present study we try to provide an overview. Reviewing the literature on COVID-19 and financial markets may be done from several perspectives. Here we focus on finding a common answer from among the various studies while emphasizing two points: first is the duration of the effect pandemics have on financial markets; Studies have shown that COVID-19 has a long-term effect on certain financial markets while its effect on others is only short-term.

The second involves investigating the effectiveness of government policies regarding COVID-19. The available literature can be classified into two groups. First, studies conducted in countries where governments responded to COVID-19 more rapidly and managed to prevent the disease from spreading. In these cases, the negative effects of COVID-19 were less enduring but government intervention increases long-term uncertainty and causes long-term problems in financial markets.

The second category comprises studies that have used the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) index or the Stringency Index (SI) and examined the impact of these indices on stock market returns and volatility. The predominant result in these studies is that government policy responses increase stock market volatility and decrease returns.

For the most part, government intervention seems to have been an effective way to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, but policymakers have faced a trade-off between citizens' health and stock market disruptions.

One of the arguments for the globalization is that it will efficient allocate resources in the world scale and especially make available capital and technology to the developing economies for industrialization and ultimately socio-economic development in the developing countries. Hence, the study took as its objective to examines the relationship between globalization and manufacturing sector development in Nigerian economy. To achieve this, the study adopted the ex-post experimental research design approach and annual time series data from 19986 to 2019. Overall globalization index, economic globalization index, trade openness and foreign direct investment were used as globalization variables, while Nigerian manufacturing sector output contribution to GDP served as proxy and indicator of manufacturing sector development. The analytical method followed the Paseran, Shin and Smith ARDL approach. The unit root test shows that all the variables, apart from FDI are integrated of order 1, that is, I(1) series, while FDI is I(0). Bound cointegration test revealed that there is a stable long run relationship among the variables. Estimate of the ARDL model shows that overall globalization, economic globalization, trade openness and exchange rate variations had negative and significant impact on manufacturing output growth in the long run. FDI had positive, but insignificant effect on manufacturing sector development in Nigerian economy during the period under review. Based on these findings, the study, therefore recommended that, the government should adopt proactive trade policies to protect and give competitive advantage to the domestic manufacturers in the domestic regional and markets.

This study examines the dynamics of immigrant entrepreneurship in Sweden, considering the nation's rich history of diverse immigration flows. It explores how various factors—immigration background, gender, age, geographical location, length of stay and reasons for immigration—impact immigrants' propensity to become entrepreneurs and their employment rate. Utilizing a blend of qualitative research and quantitative data analysis, the study highlights the critical role of self-employment in economic integration for immigrants, particularly in overcoming labor market barriers such as discrimination and unrecognized qualifications. It delves into the influence of ethnic enclaves and societal factors on entrepreneurial decisions. This research not only contributes to academic discourse on immigration and entrepreneurship in Sweden but also provides valuable insights for policymakers, business organizations and social actors aiming to foster economic integration among immigrants.

The presented study investigates the impact of the US Market on the herding behavior in the Indian Equity Market through an analysis of daily returns from the top 100 companies of the National Stock Exchange and S&P 500 index of the US market in tenure ranging from October 2017 to April 2023. The selected study period is very productive because during this time the Covid-19 Pandemic spread all over the world and those distinct circumstances can precipitate herding behavior. The outcomes exhibit that there is no polarization effect between the US and the Indian Market. This outcome may be due to the different market structures of both of countries. The US markets are primarily self-governing while In the Indian Equity Market government can easily interrupt the situation of destabilizing.

This study for the examination of the impact of performance evaluation of the employee working in the manufacturing organizations. Taguchi loss function was used a data analysis for optimization and simulation of the data and quantitative as well as qualitative method of research is used the main purpose of this research focuses on the employee performance enhancement and there betterment so that the organization can look upon the lagging area in quality assessment and enhance it for the attainment of the organization goal and employee development.