Does the perception of government integrity differ across regions? A comparative study between several sub-Saharan and Asian countries

The main goal of the article is to analyze the role and influence of economic freedom on macroeconomic stability. For this purpose, the authors used the integrated index of economic freedom, calculated by the Heritage Foundation and Democracy Index. It is noted that this index indicator was calculated by the experts from the World Bank using the index of voice and accountability. In the paper, the authors used the multinational panel dataset for 11 countries of the EU for the purpose of checking the correlation between economic freedom, democracy and macroeconomic stability. It should be highlighted that the abovementioned 11 countries are related by the fluctuation of economic growth during the transformation process (1996–2016) from communist party to the democracy and political pluralism. In addition, the authors proposed to add the indicators of political stability and trade openness, which allowed to take into account implementation of flexible macroeconomic instruments, including monetary policy, which towards increasing the economic growth, employment and financial development of the countries. The findings are directed received using the regression equation with fixed and random effects showed the high level of correspondence of the model used with the original observations. Despite the chosen approach to estimate the macroeconomic stability, the findings showed that there is a positive and statistically significant impact of economic freedom and democracy on macroeconomic stability.

The paper investigates the impact of institutional quality on economic growth by taking 48 countries in Asia between 2005 and 2018. By using the quantile regression methods with panel data, institutional quality is found to be a key factor of economic development. However, in the lower-income Asian countries, the institution with better quality appears to promote the growth more effectively than in the higher-income ones. Moreover, the paper also finds out a nonlinear relationship between institutions and economic growth. The results show that there is an institutional threshold for economic growth to reach its highest level. If the institution indicator exceeds the threshold, it causes the reverse effect on the growth. Moreover, the economic growth of Asian countries is also affected by inflation (INF), labor force (LABO), trade openness (OPEN), and infrastructure (TELE). From that, the study suggests some policy implications for Asian countries and Vietnam, in particular, in order to improve institutions contributing to economic growth.

Understanding the mechanisms through which social groups impact consumers’ purchase decisions is of particular interest to scholars and practitioners. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the cognitive-affective model by examining the roles of the subjective norm and its contingency factors in the cognitive-affective model and the indigenous consumers’ purchase intention towards a foreign footwear brand. The validity of the model is tested using data collected from 257 Vietnamese consumers. The results of PLS-SEM and SPSS Macro PROCESS reveal that subjective norm positively influences the emotional value (β = 0.219, p = 0.002) and perceived quality (β = 0.239, p = 0.000) for the foreign brand. In addition, face consciousness positively moderates the indirect effects of subjective norm on purchase intention through emotional value (β = 0.08; LLCI = 0.02; ULCI = 0.13) while the moderating effect of perceived behavioral control is significantly negative (β = –0.1074; LLCI = -0.182; ULCI = –0.05). In conclusion, this study can offer insight into the roles of social groups and their contingency factors in the cognitive-affective model and purchase intention. On this ground, managers of foreign brands are advised to focus on the impacts of social groups in their marketing campaigns, together with underlining the social status and superbness of their offerings to attract new consumers.

Acknowledgment
We would like to thank the University of Finance-Marketing for their funding.