The budget deficit illustrates the sub-optimal revenue of a region. When viewed from a micro approach related to the lack of services to the community it also becomes very important in development planning and strategies set by the government in achieving development goals. The objectives of this study are 1). How is the development of the district / city-regional government budget deficit in Jambi Province in the 2000-2016 fiscal year, 2). How is the degree of fiscal decentralization and the financial dependence of districts/cities in Jambi Province, 3). What factors affect the budget deficit of Regency /City Governments in Jambi Province from the micro side. The source of data used in this study uses secondary data and primary data. The number of respondents using the calculation analysis obtained 140 respondents from 5 districts/cities in Jambi Province. Based on the analysis results obtained that: 1) The highest budget deficit in the West Tanjung Jabung Regency Government during the analysis period when compared with other regencies/cities in Jambi Province, namely in the amount of Rp. 338,586 million occurred in 2013, while the lowest budget deficit occurred in 2012 of Rp. Rp. 60,000 Million, 2) the degree of fiscal decentralization in Jambi Province in 2002-2006, the percentage of PAD to TPD experienced a significant increase. But in 2007 the percentage of PAD to TPD again declined by 37.83 percent. While the regional independence ratio for 1998-2017 was 63.57 percent and in the category of medium capability, 3). Based on the results of the regression analysis it was found that political and corruption variables had a negative and significant effect on the budget deficit, while for the human resource variable a positive and significant effect against budget deficits.

The first occurrence of the highly contagious Coronavirus was in 2003 when China was hit with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-COV). SARS resulted in around 8,000 infections and 774 deaths worldwide not to mention the impact on world economy which saw declines in domestic and international travel and over 40 billion dollars in economic losses. Fast-forward to 2012, Saudi Arabia was hit with novel Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS COV) causing over 1611 active cases and 575 deaths worldwide. Since December 2019, our world succumbed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 now reaching 2,204,511 infections and 149,000 deaths worldwide. COVID-19 virus spreads through droplets of spittle or nose flow when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Effects vary between mild respiratory difficulties with average patients to severe illness with older people and those with underlying medical problems. Since vaccines are still unavailable, the world were to adopt extraordinary measure to control the outbreak such as flight suspensions, visa restrictions, border closures, social distancing and quarantine. The effects on world economy were severe with huge losses in tourism, travel, retail and service sectors and strains on the medical sector due to high demand and treatment costs.The circumstances surrounding COVID-19‘s spread makes many inquire about the motives of governments that are benefiting from the high infection and mortality rate of this virus to unproductive people, elderly and people with chronic illnesses forming a huge burden on welfare systems. Finally, with nothing confirmed, it is important to inquire about the invisible hands behind the epidemic and what would wait the world after COVID-19.

This study analyzes the impact of trade openness, economic growth, energy consumption and urban population on carbon dioxide emission by using annual data of 50 Belt and Road countries for the period 1992 to 2014. Further the study also analyzes three regions groups of the Belt and Road. The study applied Pooled OLS, Fixed effect, Random effect and GLS models to the realization of this investigation. The fixed-effect model elicited that trade openness mitigated carbon dioxide emission While economic growth, energy consumption, and urban population has proved to be harmful for the environment in overall sample, GLS also supported the same finding. The empirical results suggest that policymakers should consider to ensure and facilitate more trade openness, reduce the usage of carbon fossil fuel, regulate environmental policy, e.g., Carbon tax or pollution permits on pollution-intensive goods to reduce emission and increase dependency on renewable energy. Moreover, encourage economy liberalization with the intention to bring more investments in energy efficiency technologies and access to products with high energy efficiency as well as create the general public awareness of eco-friendly investments and green energy in BRI economies that reduces carbon dioxide emissions.