International Journal of Finance & Economics最新文献

This research article represents the first attempt to quantify good and bad volatility interconnections among the top nine Islamic financial markets, which are classified based on their global share in Islamic finance banking assets by the World Economic Forum. The study employs a time- and frequency-based generalised VAR framework. Additionally, we explore the moderating effects of global financial stress, geopolitical risk, and commodity market shocks on both short-term and long-term good and bad volatility interconnections. The findings suggest that, on average, forecast error variances are more greatly influenced by bad volatility spillovers rather than good ones. In the short term, the equity markets in the UAE, Indonesia, Kuwait, and Qatar exhibit a higher propensity to transmit bad volatility shocks compared to good ones. In the long run, the financial markets in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Kuwait, both conventional and Islamic, contribute more to bad volatility spillovers than to good ones when forecasting volatility over a 10-period horizon for all other markets. Furthermore, in the short term, the financial markets in the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain receive higher bad volatility shocks compared to good ones. However, in the long term, the financial markets in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Kuwait, both conventional and Islamic, are more susceptible to bad volatility spillovers. The findings also indicate that geopolitical risk has a negative moderating effect on overall, short-term, and long-term good volatility interconnections. Conversely, oil price uncertainty and financial stress have a positive moderating impact on overall, short-term, and long-term bad volatility interconnections.

This study employs state-space models and the quantile-on-quantile regression technique to examine the dynamics of intentional and fundamental herding in North American energy stocks, together with its non-linear determinants. Our findings reveal persistent herding in North American energy stocks, with no exceptions during the global financial crisis, COVID-19, lockdown and post-lockdown period, which is primarily driven by intentions. In all of these cases, herding is primarily motivated by intentional drivers rather than fundamental factors. Our results also show a herding asymmetry during bullish and bearish market conditions, but herding during bullish (bearish) market condition is mainly driven by the intentions (fundamentals). The findings of our quantile-on-quantile regression show that the effects of macroeconomic variables on time-varying herding are, in fact, regime-specific. We generally find evidence of herding (anti-herding) at the lower (upper) quartiles of energy stocks liquidity, oil price shocks, economic policy uncertainty and oil market implied volatility. The investment community engaged in North American energy stocks can benefit from our study, as awareness about regime-specific effects of various market variables on intentional (fundamental) herding can be a useful input in designing asset allocation and hedging strategies. The outcome of our study may provide interesting input to regulators to develop the dynamic legislative framework focusing on policies to encourage investment diversification during regime-specific systemic risk escalation resulting from the dynamic behaviour of herding and macroeconomic variables.

This article contributes to the literature on banks' strategies for increasing capital requirements in the period of 2017–2021. We analysed a sample of 85 European banks and distinguished between subgroups according to bank size, capitalisation, and riskiness. We examined their responses to higher capital requirements following the issuance of the finalised Basel III reforms and increased regulatory and supervisory scrutiny following the COVID-19 outbreak. We found evidence that banks' adjustments towards higher capital ratios were more pronounced and faster in the COVID-19 period and that they depended on banks' specific characteristics and positions. Observed differences between banks and periods were mainly due to the different treatment of risk in banks' books. In particular, higher capitalisation and a lower risk profile allowed banks to take on the risk regardless of the period, while banks with higher risk tended to shift to less risky assets to manage their capital ratios.

Tackling the enduring concentration of women in blue-collar occupations, this paper presents a novel study examining the causal relationship between self-esteem and female occupational outcomes. To conduct this analysis, we utilise two extensive and nationally representative datasets: the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and the National Survey on Women's Social Status of China (NSWSS). Employing various econometric methods such as probit and logit models, nearest-neighbouring matching to counter self-selection bias, and instrument variable techniques to address endogeneity bias, we uncover intriguing findings. The regression results suggest that a lack of self-esteem contributes to the inclination of women toward blue-collar occupations. Remarkably, self-esteem emerges as a more influential factor in determining occupational choices for women in China compared to cognitive ability and the Big Five non-cognitive abilities. This study not only sheds light on interdisciplinary research but also proposes a fresh approach to mitigate occupational segregation, a major challenge hindering women's progress.

To a large extent, the existing literature has not comprehensively explored how the ideological and political baptism of executives in their early years influences corporate decision-making. Based on the imprinting and social identity theories, we investigate whether top executives' experience at Chinese Party schools (hereafter Party schools) significantly affects corporate social responsibility (CSR). Data on the Party school experience of the top executives of A-share listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China from 2010 to 2019 were obtained. The Party school experience of top executives is found to significantly improve CSR performance, and this promotion effect is positively moderated by the level of regional poverty and government intervention. Further analyses show that experience at central-level Party schools has a more significant and positive impact on CSR than experience at local-level Party schools. Top executives' Party school experience is found to improve CSR in all dimensions, leading to the overall promotion of CSR. Moreover, the greater the power of management and the higher the quality of internal control, the more significant the promotion effect of top executive's Party school experience on CSR. This research reveals how internal and external factors influence the effect of top executives' Party school experience on CSR performance and examines the strengthening of executives' ideological imprint and social identity via different regional factors, ultimately contributing to the literature on both Party school experience and CSR.

This article examines the influence of financial development (FD) on the transformation of the economic structure in 89 developing countries (21 low-income countries and 68 middle-income countries) during 1996–2018. Different FD indicators are grouped and ungrouped: FD, financial institutions (FI) and financial markets (FM), each assessed through depth (FID, FMD), access (FIA, FMA) and efficiency (FIE, FME). An Economic Structure Transformation Index (ESTI) encompasses four dimensions: manufacturing, manufacturing trade, innovation and manufacturing employment. Empirical results demonstrate that FD stimulates economic transformation. Moreover, the mediation analysis reveals that FD not only has a direct positive effect on the transformation of the economic structure but also has a positive indirect effect through its impact on agricultural productivity, digitalization of the economy, and commercial openness. To accelerate the positive effects of FD on the transformation of the economic structure, governments should formulate policies aimed at improving productivity in the agricultural sector, thereby encouraging the migration of surplus labour from this sector to the manufacturing sector. Additionally, promoting the digitalization of the economy would be beneficial for fostering the adoption of advanced technologies. Furthermore, encouraging commercial openness aims to enhance the production and quality of goods and services by exploiting comparative advantages between countries.

CSR decoupling practices undermine the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, prompting a desire to use legitimacy-enhancing techniques, like external assurance (BIG4) of CSR reports. Our study uses the international sample of 34 countries from 2006 to 2019, and results indicate that good audit quality (BIG4) can significantly reduce the CSR performance and disclosure gap (CSR decoupling practices). Further, these results still hold even when using the alternate proxies of CSR decoupling (i.e., SUM) and audit quality (i.e., audit fee), and they emerge mainly in unqualified audit reports. Additionally, we use the GMM and PSM regression analysis to control endogeneity concerns, and the results are still consistent. Overall, our findings suggest that BIG4 auditors assure the legitimacy and dependability of their auditees' non-financial disclosures (CSR disclosure), as evidenced by their stringent auditing practices. Finally, our study's key implications are that companies are prone to a lower level of CSR decoupling when their external auditor is one of the BIG4 auditing firms. Our findings are particularly apparent to scholars, regulatory agencies and corporate practices.