Poverty is a key challenge to socioeconomic development globally. However, the degree to which distance from a market contributes to poverty remains unclear. To provide insights into this relationship, we quantified the relationships between distance from markets and the per capita income of rural and urban people in China based on data from 29 provinces and 2651 counties. Our results illustrate the existence of a “geographical curse”; that is, a large separation between producers and consumers can exacerbate poverty for less-affluent rural residents, who pay a larger proportion of their income to send their products to market and to purchase goods from those markets. Programs to alleviate poverty should therefore consider seeking solutions associated with reducing the impact of that distance, such as subsidizing the transport of goods, improving the transportation infrastructure, supporting innovative business practices, and balancing the locations of producers and their markets.

The global economic recession has caused pessimism in terms of prospects of sales recovering in the future. The present study is an attempt to investigate the cost stickiness behavior by focusing on specific characteristics of companies. The research was done through documentary analysis and access to quantitative data, with the use of statistical methods for analysis as panel data. The statistical population of the actual study included all companies listed on the India stock exchange from 2017 to 2021. They were selected after screening 128 listed companies. The regression method was used to examine the relationship between variables and to present a forecast model. The results of testing the first hypothesis showed that companies’ costs are sticky and according to the results of this hypothesis, an increase in costs when the level of activity increases is greater than the level of reduction in costs when the volumes of the activities are decreased. The results of the second hypothesis showed a remarkable relationship between the cost stickiness and specific characteristics of companies (size, number of employees, long-term assets, financial leverage, and accuracy of profits forecast). Based on the third hypothesis, there is a notable difference between cost stickiness at different levels of specific characteristics of companies. Therefore, the results show that environmental uncertainty such as COVID-19, increases cost stickiness.

Studies show that the COVID-19 crisis may threaten to attain sustainable development goals connected with shelter in developing countries, including Malaysia. Low-cost housing provision has been identified as one tool for achieving sustainability goals via synergistic operations. However, studies about post-COVID-19 housing and sustainable development goals integration are scarce in Malaysia. The study investigated the state of post-COVID-19 housing and developed a framework to integrate Goals in housing provision in Malaysia. The study covered four major cities in Malaysia via qualitative research to achieve the study’s objectives. The researchers engaged forty participants via semi-structured virtual interviews, and saturation was achieved. The study utilized a thematic analysis for the collated data and honed them with secondary sources. Findings show that COVID-19 reduced the possibility of low-income earners becoming homeowners. This is because the low-income groups were real losers of COVID-19 economic changes. Also, findings reveal that achieving four Goals from the 17 Goals will improve housing provision in Malaysia’s post-COVID-19 era. The study encourages key housing stakeholders to improve housing delivery, especially for the low-income earners across Malaysia in the post-COVID-19 era. This will imply contributing to achieving four Goals because of the correlation, as part of the study’s implications.

The economic viability of a photovoltaic (PV) installation depends on regulations regarding administrative, technical and economic conditions associated with self-consumption and the sale of surplus production. Royal Decree (RD) 244/2019 is the Spanish legislation of reference for this case study, in which we analyse and compare PV installation offers by key suppliers. The proposals are not optimal in RD 244/2019 terms and appear not to fully contemplate power generation losses and seem to shift a representative percentage of consumption to the production period. In our case study of a residential dwelling, the best option corresponds to a 5 kWp installation with surplus sale to the market, with a payback period of 18 years and CO₂ emission reductions of 1026 kg/year. Demand-side management offers a potential improvement of 6%–21.8%. Based on the increase in electricity prices since 2020, the best option offers savings of up to €1507.74 and amortization in 4.24 years. Considering costs and savings, sale to the market could be considered as the only feasible regulatory mechanism for managing surpluses, accompanied by measures to facilitate administrative procedures and guarantees for end users.

This study focuses on the environmental cost accounting and economic benefit optimization of China’s FAW Hongqi New Energy Vehicle manufacturing enterprise under uncertain conditions, within the context of the emission permit system This study calculates the pollution situation throughout the manufacturing and production process of FAW Hongqi new energy vehicles, and constructs a multi-level environmental cost evaluation system for FAW Hongqi new energy vehicle manufacturing projects. Through the interval fuzzy model of FAW Hongqi new energy vehicle manufacturing projects, the maximum economic benefits of the enterprise are simulated. The research results indicate that the pollution emissions of enterprises are mainly concentrated in the three processes of welding, painting, and final assembly. Enterprises use their own exhaust gas and wastewater treatment devices to meet the standards for pollution emissions. At the same time, solid waste generated during the automobile manufacturing process is handed over to third-party companies for treatment. Secondly, based on the accounting results of enterprise pollution source intensity and a multi-layer environmental cost evaluation system, the environmental costs of enterprises are accounted for, and the environmental costs are represented in interval form to reduce uncertainty in the accounting process. According to the accounting results of enterprise environmental costs, the main environmental costs of enterprises are environmental remediation costs caused by normal pollution discharge and purchase costs of environmental protection facilities. Pollutant emission taxes and routine environmental monitoring costs are relatively low. Enterprises can adopt more scientific solutions from the aspects of environmental remediation and environmental protection facilities to reduce environmental costs. After optimization by the fuzzy interval uncertainty optimization model, the economic benefits of the FAW Hongqi new energy vehicle manufacturing project were [101,254.71, 6278.5413] million yuan. Compared with the interval uncertainty optimization model, the lower bound of economic benefits increased by 57.68%, and the upper bound decreased by 12.08%, shortening the results of the economic benefits interval. Clarify the current environmental pollution situation of FAW Hongqi’s new energy vehicle manufacturing enterprise, provide data support for sustainable development of the enterprise, and provide reasonable decision-making space for enterprise decision-makers.

New Institutional Economics (NIE) uses solutions from law, economics and organization. The purpose of this article is to link in a single analytical approach the institutional environment, its change in the organizations uniting in one, what is happening in contracts with agricultural lands. The explanation of this type of governance means to integrate: theoretical definitions; formal rules (laws, court decisions and other legal acts); economic institutions—means and mechanisms of exchange; legal and economic forms in which, through governance of transactions property rights are transferred and protected. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to present the elements of the institutional matrix that are the cause of changes in subordination and coordination. Following the process of implementing an approach for reconciling the legal and economic nature of the contract forms and integrating the states, contract organizations and transaction costs in a common model. In order to solve the research problems tasks are adapted methods from law, economics, statistics. Such are: (a) positive legal analysis of legislation; (b) historical (retrospective) method of analysis of changes; (c) discrete-structural analysis to explain the process; (d) comparative-institutional analysis to clarify alternatives and an explanation of any of the effects; (е) regression analysis to model the relationships and present possible one’s scenarios to show the direction in which changes are needed. Changes in legislation, legal forms, mechanisms and the amount of payments create new behavioral patterns that change the contract. Therefore, in retrospect, we are witnessing how the number of changes in legal acts, the amount of fees; the number of participants-administrators of the processes; the number and registers - change the number of transactions; the duration of the actions in the contracts, which ultimately predetermines the different amounts of transaction costs for agricultural lands. This interdependence was established by constructing an econometric model. The analysis presents opportunities for change that would lead to scenarios with a reduced level of transaction costs, that is, improving governance and showing the way to improve the institutional environment related to agricultural lands in Bulgaria.