Global Finance Journal最新文献

The FinTech sector is growing rapidly, prompting a need to explore effective investment diversification strategies for stocks in this sector. The existing literature has identified the benefits of using clean energy stocks to diversify stock portfolios and the purpose of this research is to estimate how useful clean energy stocks are for diversifying an investment in FinTech stocks. This study uses a QVAR model to estimate the dynamic return connectedness between FinTech stocks and clean energy stocks for the period September 2016 to April 2024. Total connectedness is time varying and is higher in the tails than at the median. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic had a large but short-term impact on connectedness. Under normal market conditions, systemic risk increases by 3.5% per year. FinTech is a net transmitter of shocks to nuclear energy but is mostly unaffected by shocks from wind, solar, and nuclear energy stocks illustrating the diversification benefits of these sub-sectors. Portfolio analysis shows that adding solar, wind, and nuclear energy to a portfolio with FinTech can produce higher risk adjusted returns and lower drawdown than an investment solely in FinTech stocks. These results are robust across various portfolio rebalancing frequencies (daily, weekly, monthly). For example, a minimum connectedness portfolio rebalanced daily has an average annual return of 11% and a Sharpe ratio of 0.37. These values are higher than their respective values for an investment solely in FinTech stocks (5.4%, 0.11). Thus, clean energy stocks do provide diversification benefits for investments in FinTech stocks.

Companies' risk preference and risk performance, which reflect their inclination to seek higher returns, significantly influence their decisions and behaviors. The current development of digital transformation is an effective strategy to improve enterprises' competitiveness. Studies have earlier examined the functions of digitalization, such as improving business operations and efficiency. Using data from 2847 listed companies in China from 2011 to 2019, this study examines the extent of digital transformation in enterprises and its impact on their risk performance behavior. The results show that digital transformation significantly improves enterprises' risk performance. Mechanism testing shows that optimized corporate governance processes and increased investment in research and innovation act as positive intermediaries through which digitalization affects the level of corporate risk performance. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of enterprises' digital transformation behavior and recommend relevant policies to facilitate a more effective path for enterprise development and reform.

The backdrop of this research is the high global uncertainty that has amplified the demand for safe-haven assets, particularly in the East Asian market. This paper redefines the concept of a “safe-haven” currency to align with contemporary geopolitical and trade policy uncertainties, diverging from the traditional volatility index (VIX) risk measure. We investigate the risk aversion properties of East Asian currencies under these nonmarket risks using dynamic heterogeneous panel data analysis and robustness checks with double machine learning. Empirical results reveal that no East Asian currency qualifies as a safe haven under geopolitical risk and trade policy uncertainty. However, the Japanese yen (JPY) maintains its status under the VIX indicator. This study highlights the insufficiency of traditional safe havens like the JPY and underscores the importance of considering nonmarket risks, challenging the effectiveness of traditional investment strategies amid modern geopolitical and policy uncertainties. The findings suggest that investors should prioritize nonmarket risks and call for reform in the global monetary system to enhance currency resilience. The novel methodological approach to evaluating safe-haven currencies addresses the need for diversified currency portfolios to mitigate nonmarket risks.

This study aims to investigate the tail risk dependence of individual banks in Asian emerging markets. Using value at risk and conditional value at risk to measure tail risk and employing the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression to build the network, this study analysed interconnectedness at three levels: system-wide, country level and individual bank level. This study yields three key findings. First, banks in Asian emerging markets have a notably high tail risk network, particularly during more extreme market conditions. Second, the smaller and more interconnected banks are the most systemically important in the region, rather than the largest banks. Third, the time-varying results suggest that tail risk dependence, primarily attributed to cross-country connectivity, increased after the global financial crisis but has decreased in recent years.

The study investigates the interconnectedness and risk spillover among a diverse range of financial assets, including thirty-three cryptocurrencies, thirteen sectoral indices, six exchange rates, four precious metals, and six energy commodities. Using diverse methodologies, including partial correlation network, dynamic causality index, Granger causality network, cross-quantilogram and Bayesian graphical VAR model, the findings reveal intriguing insights, such as cryptocurrencies exhibiting a negative relation with other asset classes, minimal interconnectedness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their vulnerability to shocks. Moreover, there is a stronger dependence structure from energy commodities and exchange rates to other classes, while moderate temporal dependencies exist between cryptocurrencies and other assets. These results emphasize the need for understanding and managing risks in the cryptocurrency market and highlight the interconnected nature of financial markets. The interconnectedness among various asset classes is mainly driven by variables representing market and economic sentiment, uncertainty and business confidence.

This study proposes an advanced model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework to construct optimal portfolio strategies in dynamic, complex, and large-dimensional financial markets. Investors' risk aversion and transaction cost constraints are embedded in an extended Markowitz's mean-variance reward function by employing a twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) algorithm. This study designs a DRL-TD3-based risk and transaction cost-sensitive portfolio that combines advanced exploration strategies and dynamic policy updates. The proposed portfolio method effectively addresses the challenges posed by high-dimensional state and action spaces in complex financial markets. This methodology provides two optimal portfolios by flexibly controlling transaction and risk costs with (i) the constituents of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and (ii) the constituents of the S&P100 index. Results demonstrate a strong portfolio performance of the proposed DRL portfolio compared to those of several competitors from the traditional and DRL literatures.

This study examines the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating disagreement on real earnings management in Chinese companies. Using ESG ratings from Huazheng, Wind, SynTao Green Finance, and Bloomberg, we find that increased disagreements in ESG rating lead to higher real earnings management in the current period and over the next 1 to 2 years. This effect is driven by external attention, compensation incentives, and reputational pressure. Furthermore, companies with a financial management background and younger management show a stronger correlation. Specifically, ESG rating disagreement has a significant impact on the manipulation of discretionary expenses and production costs but not on operating cash flows. Additionally, high ESG-rated companies tend to manage their earnings through discretionary expenses when rating disagreements arise. Overall, this study reveals the potential incentive mechanisms for such companies, providing theoretical support for understanding the factors influencing real earnings management. It also suggests that regulators and investors should fully consider the impact of ESG rating disagreement when assessing company performance.

Fintech has significantly influenced the traditional financial industry by introducing advanced technologies and innovative business models that have resulted in profound impacts. This study examines the effects of Fintech development on labor allocation efficiency and explores its underlying mechanisms. Using a set of Chinese A-share public firms from 2011 to 2020, we find that Fintech development plays a positive role in labor allocation efficiency, mainly by mitigating labor overinvestment. This positive effect is further reinforced by market competition. We also find that the primary pathways of this enhancement include lowering information asymmetry, mitigating agency issues, and substituting low-skilled labor. Moreover, we show that the dimensions of depth and digital integration are particularly important in improving labor allocation efficiency.

Drawing on data collected from 30 provinces in China between 2010 and 2020, we attempt to investigate how the digital economy and environmental regulation affect green total factor productivity in different regions. The findings indicate that both environmental regulation and the digital economy substantially positively affect the green total factor productivity. Additionally, environmental regulation and the digital economy have a mutually reinforcing interaction effect. This study presents significant implications for government agencies working to reform environmental regulations and promote the development of the digital economy.

This study examines the influence of bond issuer's social capital on underwriting fees. Investors rely on accurate information to evaluate bond quality, while underwriters assume inventory risk stemming from uncertain investor demand. We posit that social capital enhances the quality of information disclosed by the issuer, consequently impacting the fees underwriters charge for bearing this risk. Utilizing data on new tax-exempt municipal bonds issued from U.S. counties over the period 1990–2017, we find that underwriters charge significantly lower fees for bonds issued from counties with higher social capital. This result remains robust after controlling for issuer and bond characteristics, as well as addressing potential endogeneity concerns. Further investigations show that the observed effect persists only in situations where underwriters bear greater risk, suggesting that social capital functions as a valuable form of certification within the underwriting process.