Issue #2 (Volume 17 2020)

In an attempt to examine the influence of inflation on the growth prospects of the Nigerian economy, the study employs the autoregressive distributed lag on the selected variables, i.e. real gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate, degree of economy`s openness, money supply, and government consumption expenditures for the period 1980–2018. The study findings indicate that inflation and real exchange rate exert a significant negative impact on economic growth, while interest rate and money supply indicate a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Other variables in the model depict no influence on the economic growth of Nigeria. The causality result shows the unidirectional relationships between interest rate, exchange rate, government consumption expenditures and gross domestic product. However, inflation and the degree of openness show no causal relationship with gross domestic product. As a result, the study recommends that a more pragmatic effort is needed by the monetary authorities to target the inflation vigorously to prevent its adverse effect by ensuring a tolerable rate that would stimulate the economic growth of Nigeria.

Understanding the relation between option pricing and market efficiency is important. Indeed, emphasizing this relation generates new insights that are appropriate in practice. These insights give a better understanding of the current limitations of the option pricing and hedging methods. This article thus aims to improve the performance of the option pricing approach. To start, the relation between the option pricing methodology and the informational market efficiency was discussed. It is, therefore, useful, before proceeding to apply the standard risk-neutral approach, to check the efficiency assumption. New modified GARCH processes were used to model the dynamics of the asset returns in the option pricing framework. The new considered approaches allow describing the dynamic of returns when the market is inefficient. Using real data on CAC 40 index, the performance of different models as a function of maturity and moneyness was studied. The in-sample analysis, interested in the stability of the pricing models across time, showed that the new approach, developed under the affine GARCH process, is the most accurate. The study of the out-of-sample performance, which aims to evaluate the forecasting ability of different approaches, confirmed the results of the in-sample analysis. For the optional portfolio hedging, always the best hedging approach is that obtained under the affine GARCH model. After a regression study, it was found that the difference between theoretical and observed option values can be explained by factors, which are not taken into account in the proposed pricing formulae.

The development of a global economy is impossible without economic ups and downs, which disrupt economic stability. The growth of the crisis in Ukrainian companies is no exception. In world practice, there are many methods for estimating the possibility of companies’ bankruptcy. At the same time, there are no methodological approaches to setting up the possible commencement of company’s liquidation during its bankruptcy. The article aims to develop a methodology for estimating the possibility of company’s liquidation due to the introduction of its bankruptcy procedure and to determine the financial potential of the company based on the Ukrainian economy. Statistical surveys about the activities of Ukrainian companies were conducted. Using a discriminant analysis, a four-factor model for estimating the possibility of companies’ liquidation undergoing bankruptcy was developed. An appropriate scale has been constructed to interpret the values obtained using the collective expert estimation method. The matrix method was applied to construct matrices of pairwise comparison for the results of qualitative assessment.
It has been proposed to assess the liquidation of a company by determining the conditional probability of such liquidation. A matrix of the pairwise comparison of the qualitative assessment results has been constructed for the company’s bankruptcy procedure commencement probability and that for the company’s liquidation procedure commencement. It has been substantiated that the level of the company’s financial potential is the reverse indicator of the probability value for the bankruptcy and the liquidation of that company. Matrices have been constructed that qualitatively assess probabilistic level of the financial potential both for the companies at the bankruptcy stage and for those whose bankruptcy procedure has not yet begun. The results of the testing confirm the correctness of the proposed methods and the expediency of their application.

This study aimed to examine whether government financial assistance influences the financial performance of state-owned enterprises. Commercial state-owned enterprises in South Africa that are listed under the Public Financial Management Act during the post-apartheid era from 1995 to 2017 were sampled. Government guarantees were measured as a dummy variable, while financial performance was measured by accounting measure: return on assets (ROA). Endogeneity issues were addressed, and data analysis was performed on an unbalanced panel using the two-step system GMM. The empirical evidence indicated that support by the government in the form of guarantees and subsidies has a significant negative effect on the financial performance of state-owned enterprises. This is an indication that continued government bailouts to poor performing state-owned enterprises exacerbates their poor financial performance and encourages these enterprises to become too reliant on government assistance, burdening the national fiscus.

Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the National Research Foundation of South Africa for the research grant and Dr Farai Kwenda for his supervision during the study.

The regression tree approach is an effective and easy to interpret technique where it utilizes a recursive binary partitioning algorithm that divides the sample into partitioning variables with the strongest correlation to the response variable. Earnings per share can be considered as one of the main factors in making the investment decision. This study aims to build a predictive model for earnings per share in the context of the Middle East and North African countries (MENA) . The sample of the study consists of sixty-three banks, which were chosen from eight countries, with a total of six-hundred thirty observations. The simple regression, regression tree, and its pruned regression tree, conditional inference tree, and cubist regression are used to build the predictive model for earnings per share that depends on total assets, total liability, bank book value, stock volatility, age of the bank, and net cash. The results show that the cubist regression is outperforming other approaches where it improves root mean square error for the predictive model by approximately double in comparison with other methods. More interesting results are obtained from the important scores, where it shows that the total assets of the bank, bank book value, and total liability have the biggest impact on the prediction of earnings per share. Also, the cubist regression gives an improvement in R-squared over other methods by at least 30% and 23% using training and testing data, respectively.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is strongly committed to stimulating savings culture in the local community by providing financial literacy in financial planning, investments, and budgeting. Inculcating the savings and investment behavior among the people will help materialize one of the elements of Saudi Vision 2030. Tadawul, being the most liquid stock market in the Middle East and North Africa, offers investors the ability to grow their capital with confidence through facilitating trading in different securities such as equities, debt instruments, and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). There is a great scope for investors to invest in the companies listed in Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) due to its strong economic fundamentals. The present study aims to apply the CAPM in Tadawul listed stocks, which will help in understanding the systematic and unsystematic risk associated with stocks, understanding their actual and theoretical return on stocks. The methodology adopted is the analysis of secondary data for all listed stocks in Tadawul using the Bloomberg terminal. The financial valuation includes elements like beta, alpha, correlation and standard deviation, expected return and actual return. The practical value obtained from the study will help investors go for undervalued stocks with lower beta, higher expected annual return, and lower systematic risks. Thus, the result shows the predicting power in KSA market and the scope for long-term investments by the investors to boost their savings and investment behavior and materialize one element of Vision 2030.

Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University through the Fast-Track Research Funding Program.

This study focuses on the relationship between financial ratios and the technology and telecommunication stock returns listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Since technology and telecommunication sector has become an important part of the Turkish economy and is attractive for investors and shareholders, the results play a critical role for all stakeholders. This academic work aims to determine, through the application of panel data analysis, using both the Parks-Kmenta estimator and the Two-way Mixed Effects Model, whether the Price-to-Sales, Earnings per Share (EPS), Debt-to-Equity, and EBITDA Margin financial ratios affect the returns of technology and telecommunication stock returns listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. According to empirical findings, Earnings per Share (EPS), EBITDA Margin, and Price-to-Sales ratios have statistically significant effects on technology and telecommunication companies’ stock returns. Higher EPS and EBITDA Margin ratios generate higher returns for the next quarters, and lower Price-to-Sales ratios lead to higher returns for the following periods. Furthermore, the results obtained using the Two-way Mixed Effects Model show that the Debt-to-Equity ratio is negatively related to stock returns.

Financial performance and corporate governance play an important role in financial distress in the mining sector, which is one of the most significant contributors to the Indonesian economy. This study aims to analyze the effect of corporate characteristics on financial distress (FD), which is moderated by corporate governance (audit quality), and uses the controlling variables (inflation rate and GDP). The study uses data from audited financial statements from mining sector in the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period 2013–2018. Since the dependent variable (FD) is dichotomous, this study used a binary logistic regression model, as it is the case in many studies regarding the probability of bankruptcy filing. In line with the current study and some previous studies, leverage, efficiency (activity), market-to-book value, audit quality, and GDP affect the probability of financial distress significantly. Only liquidity and inflation do not impact FD. Besides, the moderating audit quality weakens the effect of liquidity and PBV; otherwise, it strengthens leverage and efficiency in predicting financial distress. As for managerial implications, this study concludes that corporate performance, corporate governance, and macro-risk factors affect the probability of financial distress. The authors suggest that mining firms need to pay attention to corporate governance and should watch the economic condition for business sustainability.

This study is devoted to assessing the level of individual segments interconnectedness within the financial market of Ukraine (FMU) and their dynamics in uncertain conditions. The methodology of the systematic approach is used to investigate the dynamic relationship between individual segments of the financial market of Ukraine, namely credit (deposit-credit) market, stock market (market of securities), government securities market, currency market, and interbank market. The study of financial market dynamics focuses on the description of the price indicators of individual market segments, which are monitored using time series analysis and statistical methods. The results of the time series assessment revealed the fractal characteristics of the Ukrainian financial market as a measure of sustainability (namely inertia). It is revealed that all segments of the financial market, except credit, are characterized by persistence. It is established that the development of market segments is uneven and is characterized as bifurcation. The credit segment is addicted to insider behavior and has the highest risk concentration. It is revealed that the foreign exchange market is still in crisis. The results of modeling the correlation relationships between market segments have shown that, in the presence of such relationships, they differ in the strength and nature of the interaction. They are volatile, unstable, and situational, dependent on external conditions. The credit market has a relationship with other segments, not significantly strong but stable. The results of the analysis indicate the dynamic development of segments within the Ukrainian financial market in the presence of interconnections between them.

Acknowledgment
The study was conducted within the framework of the State Budget of the Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman on the topic “Innovative development of banking activities in the integrated financial environment” (state registration number 0117U001178).

Integration or segmentation of markets determines whether substantial advantages in risk reduction can be attained through portfolio diversification in foreign securities. In an integrated market, investors face risk from country-specific factors and factors, which are common to all countries, but price only the later, as country-specific risk is diversifiable. The aim of this study is two-fold, firstly, investigating the superiority of the Fama-French three-factor model over Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and later using the superior model to test for integration of Indian and US equity markets (a proxy for global markets). Based on a sample of Bombay Stock Exchange 500 non-financial companies for the period 2003–2019, the data suggest the superiority of Fama-French three-factor model over CAPM. Using the Non-Linear Seemingly Unrelated Regression technique, the first half of the sample period (2003–2010) shows evidence of market segmentation; however, the second sub-period (2011–2019) shows weak signs of market integration, which is supported by the Johansen test of cointegration, suggesting that Indian market is gradually getting integrated with global markets.

The authors offer evidence for low-risk effect from the Indian stock market using the top-500 liquid stocks listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India for the period from January 2004 to December 2018. Finance theory predicts a positive risk-return relationship. However, empirical studies show that low-risk stocks outperform high-risk stocks on a risk-adjusted basis, and it is called low-risk anomaly or low-risk effect. Persistence of such an anomaly is one of the biggest mysteries in modern finance. The authors find strong evidence in favor of a low-risk effect with a flat (negative) risk-return relationship based on the simple average (compounded) returns. It is documented that low-risk effect is independent of size, value, and momentum effects, and it is robust after controlling for variables like liquidity and ticket-size of stocks. It is further documented that low-risk effect is a combination of stock and sector level effects, and it cannot be captured fully by concentrated sector exposure. By integrating the momentum effect with the low-volatility effect, the performance of a low-risk investment strategy can be improved both in absolute and risk-adjusted terms. The paper contributed to the body of knowledge by offering evidence for: a) robustness of low-risk effect for liquidity and ticket-size of stocks and sector exposure, b) how one can benefit from combining momentum and low-volatility effects to create a long-only investment strategy that offers higher risk-adjusted and absolute returns than plain vanilla, long-only, low-risk investment strategy.

Credit policy plays a vital role in the operational efficiency of credit departments as it reduces the ambiguity of credit departments’ functions by giving clear guidelines and instructions. It also reduces the loan default and speeds up accounts receivable turnover. This paper seeks to evaluate the effect of credit policy on the profitability of pharmaceutical firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), using a balanced panel data of 82 pharmaceutical firms from 2008 to 2017. The number of days’ collection period and the number of days’ payable deferral period are chosen for measuring firms’ credit policy, while return on assets (ROA) is used for measuring firms’ profitability. It is found that the number of days’ collection period and the number of days’ payable deferral period have a negative and significant effect on the profitability of the pharmaceutical firms, while the control variables leverage, firm size, and age negatively impact the profitability of pharmaceutical firms. Financial managers in pharmaceutical companies should reduce the number of days’ collection period and increase the number of days’ deferral period to reduce the risk of bad debts. Furthermore, they should conduct a credit analysis to evaluate potential clients as it prevents bad debts.

A topic of relevance to financial managers is the relation between a credit rating and firm value (VL). The general aim of this paper is to elucidate this relation with a specific objective of helping C corp managers choose an optimal target rating (OTR). To achieve these goals, we use the Capital Structure Model (CSM) to compute a series of firm value (VL) outcomes matched to credit ratings. The maximum VL (max VL), among all VL outcomes, identifies OTR. This identification begins with the matching of credit spreads and ratings by Damodaran (2019) for three firm categories: small, large, and financial service (FS). Given these spreads, we can compute costs of borrowing with these costs needed to compute VL and other numerical outcomes. Besides costs of borrowing, our numerical outcomes are based on other key inputs including US $1,000,000 in before-tax cash flows, C corp tax rates, and a sustainable growth rate. Major findings that guide managers include the following. First, Moody’s A3 is the most common OTR. Second, growth firms generally require higher ranked OTRs. Third, compared to small and large firms, FS firms attain greater max VL values, higher optimal debt-to-firm value ratios (ODVs), and generally lower ranked OTRs. Fourth, relative to small firms, large firms gain less from growth even though they attain greater max VL outcomes. Fifth, only for FS firms can we find outcomes where operational cash flows are better spent on interest payments than retained internally for growth.

The efficient market hypothesis states that in the efficient markets, participants cannot make extra-normal returns by exploiting any publicly available information. However, traders are constantly looking to exploit publicly available information to generate abnormal returns for themselves and their clients. One such event is share buyback announcement, which traders can utilize to create profitable trading strategies. The authors undertake the present study to examine if share buyback announcements provide profitable trading strategies to traders. Event study methodology has been adopted to analyze buyback announcements by Indian companies from January 2012 to December 2018. Forty-one (41) day window period comprising of 20 days pre-event, an announcement day, and 20 days post-event period is created to analyze the risk-adjusted average abnormal returns. The empirical findings suggest that there are negligible trading opportunities available for investors post announcements. However, significant risk-adjusted returns are found in the pre-event window, indicating that if investors can predict buyback announcements, they may earn extra-normal returns. The study confirms that Indian stock markets are in the semi-strong form of efficiency. The study also provides a profitable trading strategy for investors in the pre-event window. Finally, it also draws the regulators’ attention to see if insider trading could be the reason for abnormal returns in the pre-event window. The authors conclude the results by confirming that Indian markets are semi-strong in market efficiency and by indicating regulatory interventions to control insider trading.

Acknowledgement
The infrastructural support provided by FORE School of Management, New Delhi in completing this paper is gratefully acknowledged.

Although a large body of empirical research focuses on listed companies, less is done regarding small and medium enterprises. Under the authorities’ support, Taipei Exchange (TPEx) started Go Incubation Board for Startup and Acceleration Firms (GISA) in January 2014. This research yields insight into earnings management activities around seasoned equity offerings (SEO) based on GISA firms in Taiwan and the effectiveness of external corporate governance. Data for the study come from the GISA Market Observation Post System of TPEx and Taiwan Economic Journal. The results reveal that GISA firms with the incentives of raising funds are prone to upward accrual-based earnings management during SEO to avoid long-term negative consequences. Especially, firms with paid-in capital more than TWD (NT$) 30 million, higher fundraising amounts, or smaller-sized firms, tend to increase discretionary accruals. Finally, Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and Big 4 accounting firms effectively serve as external corporate governance on mitigating earnings management. This study makes some contributions to GISA literature. First, expands the prior research, the different earnings management level before and listed on GISA, to the firms listed on GISA. Second, link up the relationship between the SEO and earnings management of GISA in Taiwan. Finally, it provides several contributions to regulators, for instance, the effectiveness of the counseling system provided by CPAs or Big 4 accounting firms. Also, the CPAs and Big 4 accounting firms serve as supervisors on corporate governance.

Given the popularity and propagation of automated trading systems in financial markets among institutional and individual traders in recent decades, this work attempts to compare and evaluate such ten systems based on different popular technical indicators in combination – for the first time – with the d-Backtest PS method for parameter selection. The systems use the technical indicators of Moving Averages (MA), Average Directional Index (ADX), Ichimoku Kinko Hyo, Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD), Parabolic Stop and Reverse (SAR), Pivot, Turtle and Bollinger Bands (BB), and are enhanced by Stop Loss Strategies based on the Average True Range (ATR) indicator. Improvements in the speed of the back-testing computations used by the d-Backtest PS method over weekly intervals allowed examining all systems on a 3.5 years trading period for 7 assets in financial markets, namely EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, XAU/USD, WTI, and BTC/USD. To evaluate the systems more holistically, a weighted metric is introduced and examined, which, apart from profit, takes into account more factors after normalization like the Sharpe Ratio, the Maximum Drawdown and the Expected Payoff, as well as a newly introduced Extended Profit Margin factor. Among the automated systems examined and evaluated using the weighted metric, the Adaptive Double Moving Average (Ad2MA) system stands out, followed by the Adaptive Pivot (AdPivot), and the Adaptive Average Directional Index (AdADX) systems.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr. Christos Schinas for his time and invaluable guidance towards the methodology of the weighted metric. We would also like to thank Michalis Foulos for the hardware setup and support and Nektarios Mitakidis for his contribution to the representation of the results.
This research has been co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH – CREATE – INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK-02342).

The paper aims to verify the introduction of the golden rule of public finance under an active monetary stance for a developing economy using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Besides the two rigidities, namely the deep habit formation and Calvo-style price stickiness, the model structure incorporates real money holdings and welfare-enhancing government purchases in the utility-generating function and a modified Taylor rule. The simulation results have validated the visible crowding-out of private consumption and investment in the short run and a positive impact of the productive government spending on long-run growth, but with some important caveats. In the case of a developing economy that usually has low efficiency and high returns to public capital, the given factors prove significant in addressing the study issue. The results are robust in terms of the structure of utility-generating function, a relatively high share of liquidity-constrained households, and a degree of price stickiness. Moreover, to offset the debt accumulation as a result of increased public investment financing by persistent output growth, in the long run, the central bank should not only rely on response to the fluctuation of inflation and output but also account for a move of public debt.

The UK referendum in June 2016 on leaving the European Union had a negative impact on banking stocks across the major financial markets. This has left with a question dealing with the effect of UK banking institutions on the systemic risk on a global scale. This paper aims at investigating the changes in the dependence structure between the UK bank equity returns and its counterparts in the G7 economies. The methodology used is based on the GJR-GARCH volatility spillover model that accounts for asymmetry and leverage, and copula for the time-varying correlation structure among G7 banks. Taking the data on bank equity return indices for G7 economies, the results indicate the symmetric dependence structure between the UK and Italian banks and the asymmetric dependence between the UK and the rest of G7 banks. This is due to the simultaneous decline in bank shares prices across the Union. Such results are important constituents for cross-country portfolio diversification.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between the compensation received by chief executive officers (CEOs) and the financial performance of Jordanian public shareholding industrial companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2010 to 2017. To measure the variables of interest, secondary data published on the ASE website were processed to become preliminary data suitable for the study. The study population consisted of 56 companies, 25 of which met the inclusion criteria. The results of the analysis of the data on these 25 companies revealed a large difference between the amount of financial compensation received by CEOs and the earnings per share (EPS) received by shareholders. The results also showed a statistically positive and significant relationship between the amount of CEO compensation and the financial performance of industrial companies. Furthermore, return on assets (ROA), EPS, and leverage have a statistically negative and significant relationship with financial performance. However, the net profit margin has a statistically positive and significant relationship with financial performance. Besides, the results showed a positive and significant relationship between the age of the CEO and the amount of compensation received. On the other hand, Tobin’s Q model demonstrated that the relationship between CEO duality and the amount of CEO compensation is not statistically significant. Therefore, the study recommends using more than one type of compensation for the CEOs of public shareholding industrial companies in Jordan and that CEO compensation should be related to financial performance.

Earnings Response Coefficient (ERC) reflects the market response to the company’s published earnings. It also reflects the quality of the company’s profits. This study aims to examine the factors affecting ERC in Jordan based on a sample of 17 Jordanian industrial companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange during 2012–2018. The dependent variable of this study is the Earnings Response Coefficient (ERC). Five independent variables or factors were selected for testing their impact on the dependent variable, namely, leverage ratio, systemic risks, company’s size, company’s growth opportunity, and the company’s profitability. The results of panel data regression analysis showed that for companies with a higher leverage ratio, the market is less responsive to the change in their profits than those with a higher leverage ratio. Systematic risk has a negative and significant effect on ERC, which means that high systemic risks lead to a reduction in the ERC. The company’s size has no significant impact on ERC, indicating the irrelevance of the relationship between the size of Jordanian industrial companies and their profits. The company’s growth opportunity has a negative and significant impact on ERC, which means low market-to-book ratio and higher growth opportunities resulting in higher ERC. Finally, the company’s profitability measured by return on assets (ROA) has a positive and important impact on ERC, suggesting that higher profitability increases ERC. The study highlighted the importance of ERC and recommended that companies take the needed measures to increase their ERC. It also recommended raising investors’ awareness.

Using macroeconomic factors as control variables, this paper examines the impact of corruption on the development of the stock market in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) from 2008 to 2018. The research model uses GMM techniques to estimate panel data on two sub-sets of data, including five developed markets and seven emerging markets, and a dataset of both market groups. The market capitalization and the stock transaction value relative to GDP represent the development of the stock market, and the corruption control index represents the corruption factor. The empirical results found that corruption has a positive impact on the EAP stock market capitalization with the entire sample data set, which positively affects both size of the market capitalization value and value of stock transactions in underdeveloped markets. However, it is not statistically significant in explaining the development of developed stock markets. Besides, macroeconomic factors such as inflation, interest rates, savings, and credit affect some stock markets at EAP. Compared to previous studies, the article’s results found that corruption affects stock market capitalization and has a positive impact on stock liquidity in underdeveloped stock markets. Corruption affects more underdeveloped stock markets than developed stock markets. This may be due to the implicit relationship of economic benefits between large enterprises and officials in underdeveloped markets.

This paper aims to assess the impact of the tax incentive policy on firm performance after privatization in Vietnam. Using research data of 260 privatized enterprises in Vietnam, this study sheds light on whether tax incentive policies can help improve firm performance after privatization. The paper utilizes a pre-post comparison approach proposed by Megginson, Nash, and Van Randenborgh (1994). The research results reveal that privatized enterprises with tax incentives have improved profitability (ROA, ROE, ROS) and operating efficiency (NIEFF) and reduced leverage after privatization. A statistical reduction in the number of employed and an improvement in output (real income) after privatization are not observed. Besides, there is no statistical evidence proving that privatized enterprises have experienced significant changes in standard deviations of firm performance measures after privatization in Vietnam. Given significant improvements in the profitability of post-privatized enterprises with tax incentives, the authors propose some managerial implications for the Vietnamese government, investors and non-privatized state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Long-range dependence (LRD) in financial markets remains a key factor in determining whether there is market memory, herding traces, or a bubble in the economy. Usually referred to as ‘Long Memory’, LRD has remained a key parameter even today since the mid-1970s. In November 2016, a sudden and drastic demonetization measure took place in the Indian market, aimed at curbing money laundering and terrorist funding. This study is an attempt to identify market behavior using long-range dependence during those few days in demonetization. Besides, it tries to identify nascent traces of bubble and embedded herding during that time. Auto Regressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average (ARFIMA) is used for three consecutive days around the event. Tick-by-tick data from CNX Nifty High Frequency Trading (CNX Nifty HFT) is used for three consecutive days around demonetization (approximately, 5000 data points from morning trading sessions on each of the three days). The results show a clear and profound presence of herd behavior in all three data sets. The herd intensity remained similar, indicating a unique mixture of both ‘Noah Effect’ and ‘Joseph Effect’, proving a clear regime switch. However, the results on the event day show stable and prominent herding. Mandelbrot’s specified effects were tested on an uncertain and sudden financial event in India and proved to function perfectly.

Due to many theoretical and practical shortcomings of the traditional CAPM model, this study aims at analyzing the CAPM with possible extensions. The analysis aims to know the empirical soundness of Conditional Higher Moment CAPM in emerging India’s capital market. The sample consists of 69 company’s daily stock price data from April 2004 to March 2019 from NSE 100. Panel data analysis is used on 21 cross-sections. The overall results show that when both up and down markets are incorporated separately, all three moments, namely, co-variance, co-skewness, and co-kurtosis, are priced during the normal Indian economy phase. Further, this study states that including higher moments (co-skewness and co-kurtosis) in the two-moment model provides symmetry in both the up and down markets. This is one of the first studies in the Indian Stock market explaining the variation in portfolio returns through panel data analysis by extending CAPM with conditional higher-order co-moments. The portfolio managers should consider skewness and kurtosis along with variance in constructing the optimal portfolios.

The paper proves that the Ukrainian economy’s systematic structural crises stipulated the necessity of choosing the effective forms of tax mechanism for its regulation. Systemic and institutional methods have been used to study the peculiarities of Ukrainian tax regulation. The methods of coefficient and relative values have been used to assess certain parameters of the tax burden. The dynamics of statistical data have been studied by the method of trend analysis. To determine the impact of the current tax system of Ukraine on economic growth, the authors tested several hypotheses about the dependence of the tax system and: GDP (1), industrial production (2), exports (3), investment dynamics (4), and unemployment rate (5) using econometric analysis with the package-statistical module EViews. The existence of a directly proportional relationship between the growth of tax revenues to the budget of Ukraine and the change of certain macroeconomic indicators is substantiated. It was found that the total tax burden on business in Ukraine reaches 41.5% of corporate profits, which exceeds similar indicators in most European countries. A tax regulation mechanism to stabilize the Ukrainian economy is proposed, in particular: proposals to revise tax rates, implement macroeconomic risk management tools, customs post-audit while providing transparency of tax legislation and its harmonization with the EU Customs Code, digitalization of the service component of tax administration.

Researchers argue that ignoring the structural breaks in the time-series variance can cause significant upward biases in the degree of persistence in estimated GARCH models. Against this backdrop, the present study empirically examines the effect of stock futures on the underlying stock’s volatility in India by incorporating the structural breaks with the help of ICSS test and AR (1)-GARCH (1, 1) model for 30 most liquid and actively traded underlying stocks and their associated futures contracts. The study period ranges from the 1st January 2000 or the listing date of the particular stock (whichever is prior) till 31st March 2019. The study contributes to the on-going debate regarding the effect of derivatives on the underlying stock market’s volatility in two ways. Firstly, by taking into consideration the breaks in the volatility and, secondly, studying the effect of single stock futures will allow us to evaluate company-specific response to futures trading directly. The study offers a mixed outcome for the stocks under consideration. However, there is evidence of a decline in unconditional volatility for the majority of the stocks. The overall findings indicate that trading in stock futures may not have any detrimental effect on the underlying stock’s volatility.

Successful solution of main problems and contradictions in the development of financial intermediaries’ investment activities largely depends on their timely detection, which is facilitated using trend forecasting models. The research aims to determine the current investment potential of financial intermediaries in the Ukrainian economy, find out the features and general problems, and identify the main perspective directions for the development of their investment activities. The article reveals the main internal and external factors and the source of development and inhibition of Ukrainian banks’ investment activities, insurance companies, and non-government pension funds. Based on the analysis, the investment structure patterns for key groups of financial intermediaries were defined. The forecast of their investments for 2020–2022 allows comparing the investment activities of selected financial intermediaries and offering conditions for the intensification of investment activities for banks (formation of reserves and cash flows control), insurance companies (to develop investment strategies), and private pension funds (to allow investing funds in collateralized government debt securities).

This paper examines capital structure determinants for service companies in Jordan between 2014 and 2018. Secondary data from 45 companies were analyzed using the panel regression approach. The results show that the independent variables, suggested as capital structure determinants, have an effect on the debt ratio made by the service companies. Size and non-debt tax shield have a positive significant effect on the debt ratio, while profitability and business risk have a negative significant impact on the debt ratio. In general, the findings support the notion that the trade-off, bankruptcy cost, agency cost and pecking order theories are crucial in explaining the capital structure of Jordanian service companies except for non-debt tax shields and tangibility factors. Jordanian service companies do not use fixed assets as collateral or companies with higher collateral value tend to borrow less debt. Although the coefficient of institutional investors is statistically insignificant, it is still negative and economically significant. This paper concludes that size, profitability, business risk, non-debt tax shields and institutional ownership factors are fundamental in terms of shaping the capital structure in Jordanian service companies.

Financial distress is a matter of concern in the recent period as Vietnam gradually enters global markets. This paper aims to examine the factors of Altman Z-score to detect the financial distress of Vietnamese listed companies. The authors use a sample of 30 delisted companies due to financial problems and 30 listed companies on the Vietnamese stock market from 2015 to 2018. They employ Independence Samples T-test to test the research model. It is found that there are significant differences in the factors of Altman Z-score between the group of listed companies and the group of delisted companies. Further analyses using subsamples of delisted companies show that the factors of Altman Z-score are also statistically different between companies with a low level of financial distress and those with a high level of financial distress. Based on the results, there are some suggestions to assist practitioners and the State Securities Commission in detecting, preventing, and strictly controlling financially distressed businesses. These results also enable users of financial statements to make more rational economic decisions accordingly.

This article investigates the impact of earnings management on market liquidity measured by the depth of the market. Managers have desired to provide amazing performance of companies, manage their earnings through non-discretionary accruals. Consequently, investors have trouble evaluating the stock value and misunderstanding of the market liquidity because of manipulated information.
To this aim, the fixed-effect model (FEM) is implemented to analyze the financial information of 170 listed firms on the Vietnam Stock Exchange over the period 2013–2016. The empirical results emphasized that market liquidity is influenced by earnings management that means the higher level of earnings management, the better equity liquidity. The findings provide additional insight into the determinants of stock liquidity such as earnings management, firm size, daily trading dollar volume of stock, average daily trading dollar volume of the firm, daily returns of stock, daily stock returns, average closing stock price of the firm.