Pub Date : 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102284
Markus Koenigsmarck , Martin Geissdoerfer , Dirk Schiereck
This study examines the relationship between sustainability and financial performance for startups. Startups must decide how to integrate sustainability considerations into their business model early on. Thereby, they suffer from scarcer resources compared to large firms and liability of newness, while familiar sustainability data are unavailable. Based on stakeholder and signaling theory, we test this relationship on a dataset of over 27,000 startups, combining Crunchbase data with sustainability signaling data – generated via natural language processing – as a sustainability indicator. We find a robust ∪-shaped connection between sustainability signaling and venture funding, with the most and least sustainable startups attracting more funding than their peers. This pattern is persistent for just-green and just-brown subsamples, suggesting investors discriminate for strategic sustainability differentiation in general and within subgroups. Our findings confirm the crucial role of strategic differentiation for startups, extending it to sustainability.
{"title":"When does it pay to be green for startups? Sustainability signaling and venture funding","authors":"Markus Koenigsmarck , Martin Geissdoerfer , Dirk Schiereck","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102284","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102284","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the relationship between sustainability and financial performance for startups. Startups must decide how to integrate sustainability considerations into their business model early on. Thereby, they suffer from scarcer resources compared to large firms and liability of newness, while familiar sustainability data are unavailable. Based on stakeholder and signaling theory, we test this relationship on a dataset of over 27,000 startups, combining Crunchbase data with sustainability signaling data – generated via natural language processing – as a sustainability indicator. We find a robust ∪-shaped connection between sustainability signaling and venture funding, with the most and least sustainable startups attracting more funding than their peers. This pattern is persistent for just-green and just-brown subsamples, suggesting investors discriminate for strategic sustainability differentiation in general and within subgroups. Our findings confirm the crucial role of strategic differentiation for startups, extending it to sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102284"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145976816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-12DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102283
Dooyeon Cho , Seunghwa Rho
Using survey data on households’ inflation expectations in Japan, this study investigates how the tone of central bankers’ speeches, measured with FinBERT, a domain-specific large language model, affects these expectations across the business cycle. Our findings indicate that a positive tone in central bank communications significantly boosts inflation expectations during recessions by increasing public confidence and promoting beliefs about future inflation. By contrast, during expansions, this positive tone has little impact. We also find that monetary policy shocks do not significantly affect inflation expectations in Japan. Given the country’s unique economic challenges and prolonged deflation, these findings can provide important policy implications for Japan, as managing inflation expectations is critical to its monetary policy. Overall, our results suggest that central bankers’ speeches in Japan play an important role in shaping inflation expectations, particularly during economic downturns, beyond the influence of conventional policy rate adjustments.
{"title":"Can the tone of central bankers’ speeches help shape inflation expectations?: Evidence from Japan","authors":"Dooyeon Cho , Seunghwa Rho","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102283","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102283","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using survey data on households’ inflation expectations in Japan, this study investigates how the tone of central bankers’ speeches, measured with FinBERT, a domain-specific large language model, affects these expectations across the business cycle. Our findings indicate that a positive tone in central bank communications significantly boosts inflation expectations during recessions by increasing public confidence and promoting beliefs about future inflation. By contrast, during expansions, this positive tone has little impact. We also find that monetary policy shocks do not significantly affect inflation expectations in Japan. Given the country’s unique economic challenges and prolonged deflation, these findings can provide important policy implications for Japan, as managing inflation expectations is critical to its monetary policy. Overall, our results suggest that central bankers’ speeches in Japan play an important role in shaping inflation expectations, particularly during economic downturns, beyond the influence of conventional policy rate adjustments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102283"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145976815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2026.102285
Massimo Guidolin, Serena Ionta
This paper examines the predictive power of blockchain characteristics and sentiment indicators for cryptocurrency returns. We construct three weekly factor-mimicking portfolios based on network activity (active users), computing intensity (hashrate), and a sentiment measure from Google search trends. Using an out-of-sample forecasting framework, we find that all three predictors show strong performance across 40 cryptocurrencies. The certainty equivalent returns are often well above the risk-free rate, which supports the economic relevance of the blockchain-driven predictors. We also implement a portfolio sorting methodology that ranks cryptocurrencies by earlier, realized factor-based predictability scores and forms long-short portfolios accordingly. The resulting return spreads confirm the value of combining blockchain and sentiment-based signals. Overall, our findings emphasize the joint relevance of both fundamental and behavioral factors in predicting cryptocurrency returns.
{"title":"Predictive sorting of cryptocurrencies based on fundamentals and sentiment","authors":"Massimo Guidolin, Serena Ionta","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2026.102285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2026.102285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the predictive power of blockchain characteristics and sentiment indicators for cryptocurrency returns. We construct three weekly factor-mimicking portfolios based on network activity (active users), computing intensity (hashrate), and a sentiment measure from Google search trends. Using an out-of-sample forecasting framework, we find that all three predictors show strong performance across 40 cryptocurrencies. The certainty equivalent returns are often well above the risk-free rate, which supports the economic relevance of the blockchain-driven predictors. We also implement a portfolio sorting methodology that ranks cryptocurrencies by earlier, realized factor-based predictability scores and forms long-short portfolios accordingly. The resulting return spreads confirm the value of combining blockchain and sentiment-based signals. Overall, our findings emphasize the joint relevance of both fundamental and behavioral factors in predicting cryptocurrency returns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102285"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-31DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102280
Christian Glocker, Thomas Url
We investigate the emergence of the Vienna Initiative (VI) as a public–private partnership established in response to the global financial crisis, and assess its short-term impact on the risk metrics of Western European banks. Our findings suggest that negative herding behavior toward certain banks can be associated with their decision to participate in the initiative. Banks with weaker balance sheet fundamentals showed a higher likelihood of participation. The measures implemented through the VI proved effective in curbing risk transmission within the network of participating banks, underscoring a strong signaling effect on investor sentiment. Our findings underscore the value of coordinated information disclosure and conditional support in curbing short-run risk transmission.
{"title":"The Vienna initiative as a signaling mechanism to disrupt the banking doom loop","authors":"Christian Glocker, Thomas Url","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102280","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102280","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the emergence of the Vienna Initiative (VI) as a public–private partnership established in response to the global financial crisis, and assess its short-term impact on the risk metrics of Western European banks. Our findings suggest that negative herding behavior toward certain banks can be associated with their decision to participate in the initiative. Banks with weaker balance sheet fundamentals showed a higher likelihood of participation. The measures implemented through the VI proved effective in curbing risk transmission within the network of participating banks, underscoring a strong signaling effect on investor sentiment. Our findings underscore the value of coordinated information disclosure and conditional support in curbing short-run risk transmission.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102280"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-30DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102281
Amétépé Egbétoké, Loredana Ureche-Rangau
The paper investigates whether and how climate vulnerability affects public debt. We focus on a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change, but scarcely explored, namely Sub-Saharan Africa. On a sample of annual data covering 38 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2022, our results highlight a negative relationship between the debt-to-GDP ratio and climate vulnerability. This relationship holds even when we control for several factors, namely financial crises, sovereign defaults or debt relief programs. Moreover, we account for cross-country dependence and heterogeneity and use variables measuring organized violence and adaptive capacity to climate change as instruments for climate vulnerability. When analyzing the impact of fiscal rules, our results show evidence that while climate vulnerability reduces the debt-to-GDP ratio in countries with expenditure and credible budget balance rules, establishing revenue and credible debt rules may alleviate the funding squeeze.
{"title":"Vulnerability to climate change and funding squeeze in Sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"Amétépé Egbétoké, Loredana Ureche-Rangau","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102281","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102281","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The paper investigates whether and how climate vulnerability affects public debt. We focus on a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change, but scarcely explored, namely Sub-Saharan Africa. On a sample of annual data covering 38 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2022, our results highlight a negative relationship between the debt-to-GDP ratio and climate vulnerability. This relationship holds even when we control for several factors, namely financial crises, sovereign defaults or debt relief programs. Moreover, we account for cross-country dependence and heterogeneity and use variables measuring organized violence and adaptive capacity to climate change as instruments for climate vulnerability. When analyzing the impact of fiscal rules, our results show evidence that while climate vulnerability reduces the debt-to-GDP ratio in countries with expenditure and credible budget balance rules, establishing revenue and credible debt rules may alleviate the funding squeeze.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102281"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-29DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102279
Ozan E. Akbas , Frank Betz , Luca Gattini
This paper proposes a methodology to estimate the aggregate financing needs of firms that are bankable yet discouraged from applying for a loan. Our data come mainly from the 2018–2020 Enterprise Survey and cover 35 emerging and developing economies. Drawing on the literature on corporate bankruptcy prediction, we develop a model with elastic net regularization to predict the outcome of loan applications. Our approach suggests that 38% of discouraged firms would have had their loan application approved, signaling inefficient self-rationing. Using this information, we estimate an aggregate credit gap of 5.4% of GDP, with significant variation across countries. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for more than two-thirds of the total, reflecting both their contribution to economic activity and the fact that they are more likely to be credit-constrained.
{"title":"Quantifying credit gaps using survey data on discouraged borrowers","authors":"Ozan E. Akbas , Frank Betz , Luca Gattini","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102279","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102279","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper proposes a methodology to estimate the aggregate financing needs of firms that are bankable yet discouraged from applying for a loan. Our data come mainly from the 2018–2020 Enterprise Survey and cover 35 emerging and developing economies. Drawing on the literature on corporate bankruptcy prediction, we develop a model with elastic net regularization to predict the outcome of loan applications. Our approach suggests that 38% of discouraged firms would have had their loan application approved, signaling inefficient self-rationing. Using this information, we estimate an aggregate credit gap of 5.4% of GDP, with significant variation across countries. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for more than two-thirds of the total, reflecting both their contribution to economic activity and the fact that they are more likely to be credit-constrained.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102279"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145884001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-26DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102282
Çiğdem Vural-Yavaş , Seda Bilyay-Erdogan
This study examines the impact of interest rate uncertainty on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, using an international dataset covering 8,296 firm-year observations. We present novel evidence that short-term and long-term interest rate uncertainty have a positive impact on ESG performance, with the estimated impact of short-term uncertainty being approximately three times greater than that of long-term uncertainty. Our findings remain robust when we employ alternative variable definitions, samples, model specifications, and methodologies that address endogeneity issues. Next, we identify potential transmission channels: long-term interest rate uncertainty affects ESG through corporate investments and financial constraints, while short-term uncertainty does so via corporate risk-taking. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that country-level institutional factors moderate the long-term interest rate uncertainty – ESG link, such that the positive impact of long-term interest rate uncertainty on corporate ESG performance is less pronounced for the firms in countries with more institutional quality. Overall, the results underscore the significance of macro-financial uncertainty in shaping firms’ sustainability practices.
{"title":"Navigating uncertainty: How do interest rate fluctuations affect ESG performance?","authors":"Çiğdem Vural-Yavaş , Seda Bilyay-Erdogan","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102282","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102282","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impact of interest rate uncertainty on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, using an international dataset covering 8,296 firm-year observations. We present novel evidence that short-term and long-term interest rate uncertainty have a positive impact on ESG performance, with the estimated impact of short-term uncertainty being approximately three times greater than that of long-term uncertainty. Our findings remain robust when we employ alternative variable definitions, samples, model specifications, and methodologies that address endogeneity issues. Next, we identify potential transmission channels: long-term interest rate uncertainty affects ESG through corporate investments and financial constraints, while short-term uncertainty does so via corporate risk-taking. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that country-level institutional factors moderate the long-term interest rate uncertainty – ESG link, such that the positive impact of long-term interest rate uncertainty on corporate ESG performance is less pronounced for the firms in countries with more institutional quality. Overall, the results underscore the significance of macro-financial uncertainty in shaping firms’ sustainability practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102282"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-20DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102277
Shujie Wang , Liyan Han , Xiaoguang Yang , Tongshuai Qiao
Although prior studies suggest that investor regret is a salient behavioral force in emerging markets, the factors driving the regret (REG) premium remain underexplored. This paper fills this gap by investigating the underlying drivers within China’s distinctive market and institutional context. Using portfolio sorts and Fama-MacBeth regressions from 1995 to 2024, we find that high-REG stocks earn significantly higher risk-adjusted returns. Further analyses reveal that the REG premium is stronger for non-state-owned enterprises, during periods of high market volatility, in low-information environments, and when investor sentiment is weak. Liquidity improvements, greater market openness, and higher institutional participation substantially attenuate the effect. Robustness checks using alternative benchmarks, extended estimation horizons, and an orthogonalized measure confirm that the REG premium is a robust and persistent market anomaly. Overall, our findings suggest that improvements in the market environment help reduce mispricing, providing broader insights into behavioral asset pricing and financial liberalization in emerging markets.
{"title":"What Drives the Regret Premium: Evidence from China","authors":"Shujie Wang , Liyan Han , Xiaoguang Yang , Tongshuai Qiao","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102277","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102277","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although prior studies suggest that investor regret is a salient behavioral force in emerging markets, the factors driving the regret (REG) premium remain underexplored. This paper fills this gap by investigating the underlying drivers within China’s distinctive market and institutional context. Using portfolio sorts and Fama-MacBeth regressions from 1995 to 2024, we find that high-REG stocks earn significantly higher risk-adjusted returns. Further analyses reveal that the REG premium is stronger for non-state-owned enterprises, during periods of high market volatility, in low-information environments, and when investor sentiment is weak. Liquidity improvements, greater market openness, and higher institutional participation substantially attenuate the effect. Robustness checks using alternative benchmarks, extended estimation horizons, and an orthogonalized measure confirm that the REG premium is a robust and persistent market anomaly. Overall, our findings suggest that improvements in the market environment help reduce mispricing, providing broader insights into behavioral asset pricing and financial liberalization in emerging markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102277"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-18DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102265
Jinhyeong Jo , Doojin Ryu
We suggest a model in which General Partners (GPs) can have incentives to distort valuations in continuation funds, an increasingly common vehicle in private equity. GPs may inflate valuations to raise fees under asymmetric information and misaligned incentives between exit and rolling Limited Partners (LPs). Such distortion diminishes when the proportion of rolling LPs is higher and when the GP faces stronger prospects of raising follow-on funds. We characterize the model under Limited Partner Advisory Committee (LPAC) approval and investor participation. We propose governance measures to strengthen valuation integrity by capturing the bargaining dynamics between exit and rolling LPs.
{"title":"Do GPs truly present fair value? The case of continuation funds","authors":"Jinhyeong Jo , Doojin Ryu","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102265","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102265","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We suggest a model in which General Partners (GPs) can have incentives to distort valuations in continuation funds, an increasingly common vehicle in private equity. GPs may inflate valuations to raise fees under asymmetric information and misaligned incentives between exit and rolling Limited Partners (LPs). Such distortion diminishes when the proportion of rolling LPs is higher and when the GP faces stronger prospects of raising follow-on funds. We characterize the model under Limited Partner Advisory Committee (LPAC) approval and investor participation. We propose governance measures to strengthen valuation integrity by capturing the bargaining dynamics between exit and rolling LPs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102265"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-15DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102274
Lu Jolly Zhou, Wanqing Zheng, Haotian Tang, Xinru Li
This paper examines how stock market liberalization affects product market competitiveness in emerging economies. Using the Mainland China-Hong Kong Stock Connect program as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The empirical evidence shows that stock market liberalization, on average, is associated with an increase of 19.45% in firms’ market share relative to the sample mean. This effect operates through improving information disclosure and enhancing product quality. The effect is more pronounced for firms in growth and maturity lifecycle stages, with stronger corporate reputations, and better governance structures. The further evidence suggests while financial globalization generally enhances competitive positioning, it simultaneously intensifies short-term predation risks as increased transparency provides competitors with strategic insights.
{"title":"Opportunity or challenge? The impact of stock market liberalization on product market competitiveness","authors":"Lu Jolly Zhou, Wanqing Zheng, Haotian Tang, Xinru Li","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102274","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102274","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how stock market liberalization affects product market competitiveness in emerging economies. Using the Mainland China-Hong Kong Stock Connect program as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The empirical evidence shows that stock market liberalization, on average, is associated with an increase of 19.45% in firms’ market share relative to the sample mean. This effect operates through improving information disclosure and enhancing product quality. The effect is more pronounced for firms in growth and maturity lifecycle stages, with stronger corporate reputations, and better governance structures. The further evidence suggests while financial globalization generally enhances competitive positioning, it simultaneously intensifies short-term predation risks as increased transparency provides competitors with strategic insights.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"107 ","pages":"Article 102274"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}