The nighttime economy has always been an important part of tourism in Thailand. The alcohol industry contends that lifting alcohol restrictions will promote tourism and, consequently, generate additional income. Endogenous Growth Theory, however, emphasizes on investing in human capital, innovation, and knowledge as the most important factors that affect economic growth for a nation. Alcohol consumption incurs opportunity costs, as households lose financial resources and time that could be invested in children’s development. Relaxing control measures to promote alcohol consumption should impede economic development by diminishing the quality of human resources. The paper, therefore, aims to estimate the impact of alcohol consumption on economic growth by using 1990–2019 annual data from Thailand. By adopting Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, the results reveal that alcohol consumption has significant and negative effects on economic growth in the long run. The statistic tests demonstrate no presence of serial correlation, heteroskedasticity, as well as, endogeneity problems. The finding has been corroborated in international studies, in which alcohol consumption contributes to substantial social and economic costs of the society.

The objectives achieved in the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependence on fossil fuels have caused, in recent years, a growing importance on sustainability in companies in order to reduce Environmental, social and economic impacts. This study is focused on understanding how the variation in West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices affects the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and therefore the companies included in it, and vice versa. The research aims to examine the statistical properties of both indices, using fractional integration methods, the fractional cointegration vector autoregressive (FCVAR) approach and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) technique. The results warn of a change in trend, with the application of extraordinary measures being necessary to return to the original trend, while the analysis of cointegration and wavelet analysis measures reflect that an increase in those adopted based on sustainability by the different companies that make up the index imply a drop in the price of crude oil.

This research article examines the relationship between the level of social welfare expenditure and economic growth rates, based on unbalanced panel data from 38 OECD countries covering the period from 1985 to 2022. Four hypotheses are formulated regarding the impact of social expenditure on economic growth rates. Through multiple iterations of regression model building, employing various combinations of dependent and independent variables, and conducting tests for stationarity and causality, compelling empirical evidence was obtained on the negative influence of social welfare spending on economic growth rates. The study takes into account both government and non-governmental expenditures on social welfare, a novelty in this field. This approach allows for a detailed examination of the effects of different components on economic growth and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships. The findings indicate that countries with high levels of social welfare spending experience a slowdown in economic growth rates. This is associated with increasing demands on social security systems, their growing inclusivity, and the escalating required levels of financing, which are increasingly covered by debt sources. The research highlights the need to strike a balance between social expenditures and economic growth rates and proposes a set of measures to ensure economic growth outpaces the indexing of social expenditures. The abstract underscores the relevance of the study in light of the widespread recognition of the necessity to combat inequality, poverty, and destitution, and calls on OECD countries’ governments to pay increased attention to social policy in order to achieve sustainable and balanced economic growth.

The role of technology in stimulating economic growth needs to be reexamined considering current heightened economic conditions of Asian developing Economies. This study conducts a comparative analysis of technology proxied by R&D expenditures alongside macroeconomic variables crucial for economic growth. Monthly time-series data from 1990 to 2019 were analyzed using a vector error correction model (VECM), revealing a significant impact of technology on the economic growth of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. However, in the cases of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Bangladesh, macroeconomic indicators were found more crucial to their economic growth. Results of Granger causality underlined the relationship of R&D expenditures and macroeconomic variables with GDP growth rates. Sensitivity analyses endorsed robustness of the results which highlighted the significance and originality of this study in economic growth aligned with sustainable development goals (SDGs) for developing countries.

This study aims to examine the entrepreneurial activities of 240 women in the districts of Konaseema, East Godavari, and Kakinada during 2021–2022, focusing on the diverse range of 286 enterprises they managed across 69 business types. These enterprises were tailored to local resources and market demands, with coconut wholesale, cattle breeding, and provision shops being the most common. The study also analyzes income distribution, noting that one-third of the women earned between ₹50,000–1,00,000 annually, while only 0.70% earned over ₹5,00,000. More than half of the enterprises served as the primary income source for their families. The research highlights the significant role these women entrepreneurs play in their communities, their job satisfaction derived from financial independence and social empowerment, and the challenges they face, such as limited capital and market access. Finally, the study offers recommendations to empower these women to seize entrepreneurial opportunities and enhance their success.

What personal competences of successful project managers are determined by their former career as an elite athlete? To answer the question, comprehensive research is carried out, implemented as part of the EEIG-EU/P-Kr/06.12/23 project. The primary aim is to establish conclusively which particular personality traits, identified and analysed using the Big Five Inventory-2 and supplemented by structured interviews, directly contribute to the success of former elite athletes transitioning into roles as effective project managers. We found that successful project managers who were also elite athletes possess personality traits that can be identified as positive determinants of success in either sport or professional careers. Among these personality traits, we can include a low level of neuroticism and a high level of conscientiousness, then extraversion and agreeableness. This paper contributes to a nuanced understanding of how the realms of sports and management intersect and overlap. The presented paper can serve as a basis for further research in the field of personality psychology and management studies.

The authors’ decision to “read” and semiotically analyse the city’s text based on travelogues stems from their aesthetic, historical and informational value, the possibility of incorporating them “into the network” of other texts about Padua, thus shaping city image. The authors’ research on Slovak literature and culture also determined the choice. As a time frame, the nineteenth century is not accidental; the Slovak cultural environment (the territory of present-day Slovakia) witnessed the development of the travelogue genre and journeys to Italy. By interpreting and semiotic analysis of the selected authors’ travelogues and works, the paper draws attention to the uniqueness of Padua, the ways of its representation and the grasping of the urban space, which until now despite its importance in education, sciences and art has remained unnoticed in literary studies. Considering that only four Slovak travellers included Padua in their writings during the studied period, all of their works were reviewed to uncover their texts’ semantic potential. Interpretive immersions thus reflect the experiential reception of the author’s city image and perceiving its architectural structure. Through this, the authors develop a network of texts about Padua and support the typological classification according to its specific function or image. This paper articulates a variant of the Slovak phenomenon of Italian travel and a view of the meanings associated with urban spaces and places. It reflects the importance of travel writing for understanding the (literary) cityscape and its transformations and opens space for further research on the subject.