Emerging Markets Review最新文献

Notwithstanding the financial innovations of the digital era, globally, 1.4 billion people are still excluded from the formal financial system, thus precluding them from achieving financial health and wellness. Financial innovations, such as financial technology or fintech, have gained increasing global attention as powerful tools for financial inclusion and socioeconomic development. In this study, we explore the potential of technologically-enabled financial innovation to bring unbanked segments of society into the formal financial system and the repercussions of such innovation on financial stability during the pandemic. However, the excitement around fintech has also masked its risks to the financial system and low-income people. We analyze the interrelationships among fintech, financial inclusion, and financial stability through a systematic literature review of 163 academic articles published between 2010 and 2023. We seek to fill the knowledge gaps in these subject areas by (1) mapping the fintech-driven financial inclusion field, (2) synthesizing the findings to develop a conceptual framework, and (3) discussing theoretically sound future research directions. This study is related to innovation with a focus on finance, contributing to a small but growing literature on the role of inclusive innovation and fintech-driven financial inclusion in promoting inclusive development and poverty alleviation, particularly in emerging economies. We also explore the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the interactive roles of financial capabilities and regulatory and supervisory frameworks in the interrelationships above.

In this study, we investigate how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) influences corporate tax avoidance using a dataset of listed firms from 22 countries spanning 1999 to 2019. Our findings align with the agency motive, showing that as EPU increases, firms tend to decrease their tax avoidance practices. Further analysis reveals that this negative relationship is particularly strong among unconstrained firms. We also observe that strong firm-level governance is associated with reduced tax avoidance during periods of heightened EPU. Furthermore, we investigate how institutional characteristics at the country level influence the relationship between EPU and firms' tax avoidance strategies. We find that firms in countries with strong governance, situated in developed economies, and adhering to stringent auditing standards are less inclined to engage in tax avoidance amid increasing EPU. Conversely, firms in countries with low GDP per capita, low governance scores, and located in emerging economies demonstrate a positive association between tax avoidance and EPU. Overall, our research highlights EPU as a key driver of corporate tax management, offering policymakers valuable insights into its potential impact on tax planning.

This study investigates whether auditors integrate climate risk into audit pricing. Using a sample of firms from 11 emerging countries, we find that auditors charge higher audit fees for firms with higher carbon emissions. This positive association is stronger for firms audited by Big 4 auditors and that operate in high litigation-risk industries. The effect of climate risk is, however, weaker for firms with board oversight of climate-related issues, verification of carbon emissions, and higher climate governance scores. In additional analyses, we find that the documented impact of climate risk is weaker in emerging countries in comparison to developed ones.

A novel approach of gravity strength centrality (GSC) model is proposed to identify the influential risk spreaders in Chinese financial networks. We also measure the systemic risk contribution of financial institutions via $\Delta \mathrm{CoVaR}$ and detect the relationship between the risk spreading ability and the systemic risk contribution of financial institutions. Our findings show that (i) the novel GSC model has the best performance on identifying influential risk spreaders, (ii) financial institutions with larger risk spreading ability contribute more to the systemic risk, (iii) the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly enhanced the contribution of influential risk spreaders to the systemic risk.

Using the stock transaction records of individual investors from a large brokerage firm in China, we explore the impact of Confucian culture on the gambling preferences of individual investors. After a series of tests, we find a significant negative relationship between Confucianism and the lottery-type stock preference of individual investors, indicating that Confucian culture inhibits gambling preferences in stock investment. This effect is more pronounced for female investors, middle-aged investors and investors in regions with higher gambling sentiment. Investor risk preference mediates the relationship between Confucian culture and lottery-type stock preference.

This study examines whether internal and external perceptions and perception differences can significantly improve the effectiveness of financial fraud detection. Specifically, we construct and validate management and media perceptions using various state-of-the-art methods. The empirical research is based on data from 2017–2021 from the Chinese market. The results reveal that the enhancement effect is more significant when considering multi-subject perceptions. A cross-sectional analysis and application of real scenarios further support the conclusions. The predictive direction and implications of perception indicators are fully discussed. The results imply that the media can perceive firms' potentially fraudulent behaviour and play a regulatory role.

The ever-changing global economy and sudden global public health events have posed challenges to financial resilience worldwide. As its important role in maintaining domestic economic stability, safeguarding national security, and enhancing international status, financial resilience has long been widely studied. However, few studies have empirically explored how technological progress affects financial resilience. Based on data from 30 provinces in China, this study adopts a panel two-way fixed effect model to identify the impact of technological progress on financial resilience and the underlying mechanisms. Results show that technological progress can significantly enhance financial resilience, and this impact is stronger in provinces with large population size, high employment proportion in the tertiary sector, high social consumption capacity, and provinces located in Central China. Further, technological progress have a positive impact on financial resilience through increased asset liquidity and government intervention.

This article explores catering behavior among security analysts by examining how firm-specific experience impacts forecast accuracy. Using analyst forecasts on listed companies in China from 2014 to 2018, we find that firm-specific experience significantly reduces analyst forecast accuracy, which indicates the existence of catering behavior. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that catering behavior primarily exists for analysts employed by large brokerage firms or who issue forecasts for large companies. Further analysis shows that catering behavior is more prevalent when analysts make forecasts for SOEs. These findings suggest multi-faced implications of firm-specific experience and call for better regulations on refraining analysts' catering behavior.

Using a sample of Chinese local listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from 2008 to 2020, we find that provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) leaders' work experience at local companies significantly improves local SOEs' investment efficiency. This effect is stronger for local SOEs with shorter pyramidal layers and those in regions with weak institutional environments. Moreover, mechanism tests show that provincial SASAC leaders' work experience at local companies improves local SOEs' investment efficiency by decreasing agency costs and weakening policy burdens. Overall, our study highlights the important role of regulators' characteristics in determining the investment efficiency of SOEs.

Using a unique dataset comprising 6313 firm-year observations for Chinese listed firms between 2008 and 2017, we investigate the impact of CEO social capital on cost of debt. Our results show that CEO social capital is negatively related to cost of debt, and the impact of CEO social capital in environments with a low degree of marketization or social trust is more pronounced than in environments with a high degree of marketization or social trust. Moreover, our results reveal that two potential mechanisms, discretionary accruals and information disclosure quality, mediate the impact of CEO social capital on cost of debt.