International Journal of Finance & Economics最新文献

Women directors' role in addressing climate change is the source of increasing scholarly interest. We study the impact of women directors on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide using a dataset of 2758 firms listed in 36 countries between 2002 and 2019 and reveal a significantly negative association between women board directors and GHG emissions, including direct as well as indirect GHG emissions. In recent years, many countries have enacted board gender quotas, leading to a marked rise in women's board representation. Our findings indicate that the marginal effect of women directors on GHG emissions after implementing gender quotas also remains negative and highly significant. We also note that the impact of women directors on GHG emissions is significant when the board has two or more women and is mainly influenced by independent rather than executive women directors. Moreover, industry nature and climate change action-oriented compensation policies drive the relationship between women directors and GHG emissions. The results remain robust to alternate proxies, various subsample analyses, and alternative specifications and offer significant research and managerial implications. This study contributes to the emergent literature on the role of women directors and board gender quotas in tackling the global issue of climate change.

Against the backdrop of global climate change and slowing economic growth, nations are urgently seeking strategies to both stimulate economic recovery and reduce carbon intensity (CI). In this context, China has prioritised the expansion of green finance as a pivotal mechanism for fostering green transformation and securing sustainable growth. This study delves into the effect of green finance on China's CI. Employing an empirical analysis across 30 Chinese provinces from 2007 to 2020, this paper leverages the entropy method to forge a comprehensive green finance indicator. The findings show green finance diminishing CI, predominantly driven by green innovation and industrial structure. Further examination using the threshold effect model reveals a pronounced threshold impact of green innovation and industrial structure on the efficacy of green finance in reducing CI, with the inhibitory effect of green finance peaking within an optimal threshold range. The heterogeneity test reveals that, compared to the western and northeastern regions, green finance has a more pronounced inhibitory effect on CI in the eastern and central regions. The research findings of this paper provide a perspective on how green finance facilitates the reduction of regional CI.

This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of interconnectedness in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) equity markets and global bond markets, primarily focusing on European Monetary Union (EMU) and US bonds, from July 2007 to September 2023. Using innovative methodologies such as quantile connectedness and quantile coherency, we capture the dynamic relationships across different market conditions, particularly during extreme events. The quantile connectedness includes a moderate to low degree of interconnectedness during normal market conditions, intensifying during extreme market conditions. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia are identified as influential players, transcending borders to impact returns in other GCC markets. Roles of GCC countries as net transmitters or receivers of returns shift over time, necessitating adaptable investment strategies. The interconnectedness of GCC markets with bonds responds differently to global crises and turbulences, including geopolitical and health crises. Our quantile coherence analysis provides insights for risk management and portfolio allocation. These findings have crucial implications for investors, encouraging adaptive asset allocation strategies, and for policymakers to monitor intra-regional spillovers in shaping market dynamics.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between ownership structure and dividend payments (DP) and whether financial technology (FinTech) has an impact on this relationship. The study uses a panel sample of 278 Chinese financial firms during the period 2009–2022. The study applies regressions and finds that FinTech firms pay lower dividends, suggesting that these firms are holding onto the money to re-invest for future growth. The results demonstrate that Institutional-shareholding, and inside shareholding (Chairman-shareholdings and Managerial-shareholdings) increase DP in firms, while Largest- and Top_10 shareholdings decrease the DP. With the induction of FinTech, the Institutional-shareholdings and inside shareholding decrease DP, so they utilise funds for future growth. Moreover, FinTech intensifies the negative impact of the Largest- and Top10-shareholdings on DP. The results from the sub-sample further support the findings. Several other economic parameters, such as the dynamic panel model, difference-in-differences and propensity score matching, and different dividend measures confirm the findings. The study contributes to other contentious findings found in the literature and offers helpful insights into the effects of innovation on prospective financial sector firms' ownership structure and DP, which seem to be impacted by FinTech.

This study explores the impact of Indian non-financial firms' capital structure on corporate zombification. The study uses a logit model, with the capital structure mix as a covariate, to determine the likelihood of a firm becoming a zombie. Panel data from 1999 to 2020 for all non-financial firms were utilised to examine the effect of debt capital on the probability of corporate zombification. The findings reveal that increased debt-to-equity financing raises the risk of default. However, the study underscores the importance of maintaining an optimal debt level and conscious capital structure decision-making by managers that support relevant capital structure theories. Going overboard with debt capital erodes its benefits. Debt financing is associated with an unequal distribution of information and financial commitments. To a certain extent, the conclusions of the present study could guide firm managers to make informed decisions related to capital structure and adjust the intensity and direction of a firm turning into a zombie. By providing practical insights, the study empowers managers to make strategic decisions that can potentially prevent their firms from becoming zombies. The study will further enrich the literature, focusing on the factors responsible for a firm turning into a zombie.

Controlling shareholders essentially engage in equity pledging with the goal of promoting their own self-interest, but few studies have explored the mechanisms that can restrict this activity. By reference to a sample of Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2007 to 2022, we find evidence indicating that the presence of active multiple large shareholders has a significant constraining effect on controlling shareholders' equity pledging. Furthermore, we conduct deep analyses of this situation in terms of its timing, path and economic consequences. Specifically, the timing analysis reveals that active multiple large shareholders can moderate the equity pledging on the part of controlling shareholders that results from the separation between cash flow and control rights as well as excess goodwill. The path analysis reveals that active multiple large shareholders can decrease controlling shareholders' equity pledging by motivating management and reducing press coverage. Finally, the economic consequence analysis reveals that active multiple large shareholders can decrease tunnelling among controlling shareholders and reduce the risk of future stock price crashes resulting from equity pledging.

We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment with 623 top managers from textile and garment firms in Vietnam to investigate the nexus of top managers' risk preferences and firm investment. We find that firms led by managers with higher levels of loss aversion tend to have lower investments. The heterogeneity in managers' loss aversion also affects different investment levels of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) vis-à-vis large firms. Interestingly, our findings reveal that managers' loss aversion has a strong link to investment behaviours of firms led by war-exposed managers, who born and grew up during the American war in Vietnam. However, this pattern does not hold for firms led by their counterparts. This result shows that personal early-life war exposure may influence managers' investment decisions during their adulthood.

The frequent occurrences of geopolitical tensions, wars and conflicts continue to place a great limitation on the development of green projects, thereby reducing the incentives for sustainable investments. While there have been several attempts to connect geopolitical risks with financial market performance, there are still several limitations that this study intends to address. Among others, we make a comparison between the predictive impacts of global and country-specific geopolitical risks on the volatility of green investment assets, putting threats and actual acts into perspective. Using the GARCH-MIDAS methodology, we find that global geopolitical risks increase the volatility of most of the green investment assets, with the highest impact attributed to geopolitical risk threats. The country-specific analysis shows more heterogeneous impacts, although a positive relationship is found in most cases. In Europe, the geopolitical risks of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom exert the strongest impacts on the volatility of green investments, whereas in the non-European countries, the geopolitical risks of Russia and the United States have the strongest influence. Comparing regional impacts, the geopolitical risks of the non-European countries have a stronger impact than those of the European countries.