Issam Malki

University of Westminster · Westminster Business School

Impact investing is based on using the ESG framework as a tool to evaluate firms that engage in generating positive impact. Most impact investors and fund managers now integrate the ESG framework in their investment and stock-picking process. However, due to lack of standardisation of ESG reporting, it remains a challenge for investors and the publ...

Reducing income inequality is a crucial goal of sustainable development as income inequality often viewed as harmful to economic growth. The main aim of this paper was to empirically assess the macroeconomic and institutional drivers of income inequality in Africa. We use a Kuznets curve framework, which emphasises the role of income per capita in...

Strong demographic headwinds have motivated Japan to strengthen its economy by fostering innovation. This paper draws on a panel of business enterprises operating in 33 industries in Japan to examine how research and development (R&D) activities affect employment. Our findings suggest that employment gains are associated with innovation, both at th...

Using a unique dataset of corporate social responsibility rating – available on a monthly basis – we shed new light on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and firm risk. Where previous studies use annual (at best) measures of CSP, assuming that a change in CSP leads a change in risk, we formally test the direction of the rel...

This article explores the determinants of local resilience in the form of local COVID-19 mutual aid groups. These groups were formed to offer mutual help to those who had experienced a loss of social quality. We test a series of hypotheses, considering which conditional factors are most connected to the formation of these groups, particularly focus...

University of Westminster Working Paper Series, Working Paper Number: 2020/005

We analyse top income and wealth shares data, by conducting a robust estimation of trends, tests for structural breaks, and tests for determining persistence. We include Anglo-Saxon countries, continental Europe and Asian countries, grouped under different percentiles and deciles, spanning a period that is at least close to a century. We find that...

This paper attempts to offer an empirical assessment of the main macroeconomic and institutional driver of income inequality in Africa. We use a Kuznets curve framework, which emphasises the role of income per capita in explaining the time path of inequality. In contrast to much of the literature, we explicitly examine the possibility of the existe...

This paper investigates the convergence behaviour regarding the share of global energy mix, as measured by primary energy consumption. Recent studies that employ stationary tests of panel data suggest that such data support the convergence hypothesis; however, some drawbacks exist, as these studies rely on methods that do not necessarily imply a su...

Since isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and its isomer dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) are the universal precursors of both essential oil components, and the antimalarial agent artemisinin and its derivatives in Artemesia annua L., this paper aims to correlate the spotted differences in their concentrations by screening Artemesia annua L. field-grown...

Following the 1929 Wall Street collapse, the initial response to the institutional failures and collapsing financial system was to allow the markets to self-correct, which led to a significant period of economic depression. In contrast the US (and UK) governments responded to the 2008 financial crisis with extra liquidity for the banking sector and...

This paper presents an alternative interpretation of an experimental public goods game dataset, particularly on the understanding of the observed antisocial behaviour phenomenon between subjects of a public goods experiment in different cities around the world. The anonymous nature of contributions and punishments in this experiment are taken into...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the pass-through of quantitative easing (QE) on equity returns in the United States (US). The methodology mimics the programme’s impact on investors’ required returns for financial assets through the QE portfolio balance channel. This analysis of monetary policy involves using a VAR model, simulating a redu...

This study examines whether household access to microfinance reduces poverty in Pakistan and, if so, how and to what extent. It draws on primary empirical data gathered by interviewing 1132 households, including both borrower and non-borrower households, in 2008–2009. Sample selection biases have been partially controlled for by using propensity sc...

This paper examines regional divergence in income across different states in India, and estimates convergence clubs endogenously. The paper makes two useful contributions. First, the data is analyzed using a novel method due to Phillips and Sul (2007) leading to different conclusions in comparison to past studies, and secondly sectoral level data i...

This paper presents an alternative interpretation of an experimental public goods game dataset, particularly on the understanding of the observed antisocial behaviour phenomenon between subjects around the world. The anonymous nature of contributions and punishments are taken into account to reinterpret the experimental results by analysing dynamic...

This study examines whether household access to microfinance reduces poverty, and if so, to what extent and across which dimensions of wellbeing. The study draws on first-hand observations and empirical data gathered from interviews of 1,132 households across 11 districts in the rural areas of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It employs a quasi-...

This study examines if household access to microfinance reduces poverty in Pakistan, and if so, to what extent and across which dimensions of well-being by taking account of the multi-dimensional aspect of poverty. The study draws on first-hand observations and empirical data gathered through the interviews of 1,132 households across eleven distric...

Phillips curves have often been estimated without due attention to the underlying time series properties of the data. In particular, the consequences of inflation having discrete breaks in mean, for example caused by supply shocks and the corresponding responses of policymakers, have not been studied adequately. We show by means of simulations and...

Phillips curves have traditionally been estimated without due attention to the underlying time series properties of the data. In particular, the possibility that inflation may have breaks in mean has been ignored. A simulation study and an empirical example based on United States data show that the standard estimates may be seriously flawed by such...