Issue #1 (Volume 20 2023)

This paper investigates the relationship of cryptocurrencies with four traditional assets: equity, fiat currencies, crude oil, and gold in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Philippines, Turkey, and Peru. According to Statista’s 2020 Cryptocurrency Adoption Survey, these five countries showed high levels of crypto usage and ownership. Emerging economies attract the attention of portfolio managers due to the high returns associated with assets originating from these countries. The paper explores the possibility of creating a multi-asset portfolio, including cryptocurrencies. Vector Autoregression Granger causality and Johansen Cointegration tests are conducted to study the relationship between each traditional asset and cryptocurrencies. The study period is from October 2017 to June 2021. The composite Crypto Index was created using the top seven cryptocurrencies based on market capitalization. The Granger Causality test results reveal no causality between Nigeria’s chosen traditional assets and the cryptocurrency index. In the case of the Philippines, there is a unidirectional causality relationship from crypto returns to currency returns; and gold returns to crypto index returns. In Vietnam, stock index returns cause crypto returns; in Peru, gold returns cause crypto returns; and in Turkey, crypto returns cause currency returns. None of the countries has exhibited a bidirectional relationship between traditional assets and the crypto index. The robustness of the causality relations is checked using the Johansen Cointegration test. All the assets taken under study, country-wise, are cointegrated with one another. Hence, when building a multi-asset portfolio covering these five emerging nations, cryptocurrencies do not offer investors diversification, hedging, or haven benefits.

Investment cannot be separated from the level of return and risk inherent in assets. Today, investment instruments are not only stocks, currencies, bonds, deposits, savings and others. The beginning of Bitcoin’s emergence as a pioneer of Cryptocurrency was in 2009. Crypto assets are emerging rapidly and are accompanied by an increase in the number of transactions each period. The growth in the market capitalization value of crypto assets has also grown significantly. During COVID-19, many investments, such as stocks, experienced a decline due to market uncertainty. The results of this study prove that with the existence of COVID-19, the crypto market is not affected. Crypto is an attraction characterized by a high degree of fluctuation, and there is no limit to transactions in the open market 24 hours to trade. The Cryptocurrency market is currently a market that can provide short-term benefits to risk-taking investors, while the market in other investment instruments is declining. 78% of the value capitalization of the top 200 cryptocurrencies is represented by the top 9 cryptos used as samples in this study. So that if there is a decrease in these 9 cryptos, it will also have an impact on the overall capitalization value of crypto in the market. The future development of Cryptocurrencies will no longer be digital assets traded with many speculators who can control prices, it can even be digital money that can be used worldwide without any transaction fees and is controlled on a blockchain system.

COVID-19 has caused not only unprecedented health crises but also economic crises among individuals across the world. White-collar (salaried-class) employees with a fixed salary face financial insecurity due to job loss, pay cuts and uncertainty in retaining a job. This study examines the financial behavior of Indian white-collar salaried-class investors to their cognitive biases. In addition, the mediating effect of financial self-efficacy on cognitive biases and financial behavior is examined. Respondents were given structured questionnaires (google forms) through emails and WhatsApp for data collection. SPSS and R-PLS are used to analyze the data. Conservatism (r = –.603, p < 0.05) and herding bias (r = –.703, p < 0.05) have a significant negative correlation with financial behavior. Financial self-efficacy has a significant positive correlation (r =.621. p < 0.050). Conservatism and herding predicted 60.5% and 62.2% of the variance, respectively. The direct and indirect paths between conservatism bias, financial self-efficacy, and financial behavior are significant. The paths between herding, financial self-efficacy and financial behavior are also significant.

Acknowledgement
The authors express their sincere gratitude to Dr Suresha B (Associate Professor, School of business and management, CHRIST (Deemed to be university), Bangalore, India ) for encouraging and motivating them to accomplish this research task. The authors also extend their sincere thanks to Prof. Krishna T.A. (Assistant Professor, School of business and management, CHRIST (Deemed to be university), Bangalore, India) and Dr Sridevi Nair (Assistant Professor, School of business and management, CHRIST (Deemed to be university), Bangalore, India) for their support throughout this empirical investigation.

This study explores the relationship between the number of local parliamentarians, local government budget expenditures, Java/non-Java jurisdiction, liabilities, and Local Own-source revenue and financial statement disclosure. It relies on multiple theoretical frameworks and uses a sample of 180 local government financial reports in Indonesia for 2021 that have been audited by the Indonesian National Audit Board. Using the SPSS Version 25 program, multiple regression analysis was used in this study to assess hypotheses. The results found that Java/non-Java jurisdiction (β = 0.259; p < 0.05) and Local Own-source revenue (β = 0.321; p < 0.05) affect the disclosure of financial statements. In addition, the number of local parliamentarians (β = 0.071; p > 0.05), local government budget expenditure (β = 0.038; p > 0.05), and liability (β = 0.005; p > 0.05) does not affect the disclosure of financial statements. The contribution to local government is to analyze potential aspects related to the government’s increased pressure to make financial statement disclosure. The use of information technology to meet social demands more effectively and efficiently is one option for regional governments to disclose their financial statements.

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has adversely impacted global economies and stock markets. This study employs an event study methodology to assess the impact of COVID-19 on stock returns in the healthcare (66 stocks) and tourism (39 stocks) sectors in Indian markets surrounding two events: a) the first COVID-19 case reported in India and b) the announcement of a nationwide lockdown. The findings indicate that investors’ reactions to both events were distinct and asymmetric in healthcare and tourism sectors. The tourism sector stocks react more negatively to the second event than the first, with –2.46% vs. –0.59% event day abnormal returns, respectively. The corresponding figures for healthcare sector stocks are –0.68% and –0.16%, respectively. As expected, pandemic events had a minor negative impact on the healthcare sector. Surprisingly, the tourism industry did not react negatively to the first event. Investors in the tourism industry underreacted to the first reported case; they could not predict the potential consequences and then overreacted to the lockdown announcement. The findings support the behavioral finance theory of underreaction and overreaction, particularly in stressful situations. The study has implications for investors and money managers looking for profitable investment opportunities due to temporary dislocations in stock prices caused by investors’ irrational reactions to certain black swan events.

The company that is synonymous with the application of science and technology is the manufacturing industry (Krmela et al., 2022). Manufacturing companies in Indonesia have been accustomed to the use of technology in their production activities so far, because technology really helps the company’s production to be more effective (Muchran, 2020). This study examines the effect of innovation efficiency on firm performance and the moderating role of ownership concentration on this effect. This study examines innovation efficiency as the optimal combination of innovation input and innovation output. The inputs used are research and development expenses, machine repair expenses, and information technology purchases. Meanwhile, the output of innovation. This study used 616 annual reports of manufacturing companies from 2013 to 2018. The analytical technique used is a moderated regression analysis. The results show that efficiency is positively and significantly correlated with company performance. In addition, the results of the study provide evidence of concentrated ownership, encouraging managers to be more intensive in carrying out innovation efficiency so that it affects increasing company performance. These findings show that there is efficiency in innovation projects that can improve company performance, and companies with concentrated ownership find it easier to carry out innovation efficiency because of the active involvement of shareholders in the management process when innovation projects are implemented aimed at improving company performance.

In 2016, India implemented new accounting standards, Ind AS, aligning with IFRS to increase transparency in the financial reporting of Indian companies. This study examines the value relevance of financial information in India before and after the adoption of Indian accounting standards (Ind AS) by comparing the published financial statements in pre- and post-Ind AS periods and determines the influence of financial information on the market price of shares. The study period is for twelve years, from 2011 to 2022, divided into 2011–2016 (pre-Ind AS period) and 2017–2022 (post-Ind AS period). To evaluate the value relevance of financial information, the Ohlson pricing model is employed on the panel data of the blue-chip companies listed in the Nifty 50 Index. The results from the Least Squares regression reveal that the net cash from investing activities, profit-after-tax, and book-value-per-share were relevant for investment decisions prior to the adoption of the Ind AS. In contrast, the profit-after-tax had no explanatory power during the post-Ind AS period. However, the net cash from investing activities and the book-value-per-share significantly influenced the market price of equity since the implementation of Ind AS. The value relevance of the accounting statements was superior in the pre-Ind AS period compared to the post-Ind AS.

Many previous studies identify the contagion effect among various types of assets, defined as the increase in correlation of these assets during a financial or economic crisis. During the COVID-19 outbreak, a historic fall in global fuel demand and oil prices has been witnessed. Because crude oil has a strategic position among the export products of the Southeast Asian economies, even a tiny global oil price change leads to a plunge in these stock markets. This study addresses the spillovers of the volatility between the West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices and stock indices across six ASEAN emerging economies. Besides, the study examines whether a contagion connecting the global energy prices and these stock markets exists during the coronavirus pandemic. The empirical results are acquired by applying the Bayesian test for equality of means on the dynamic conditional correlations computed from DCC-GARCH models. The findings present positive volatility transmission from crude oil prices toward these emerging equity markets. During the health crisis, co-movements intensify, indicating the occurrence of contagion effects. The empirical results provide valid implications for policymakers and international investors because a precise volatility forecast is vital for managing portfolio risk.

Acknowledgment
This research is funded by University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Market competitiveness shows a condition where a company can enter the market and survive in that market. In an economic environment experiencing a global crisis, it is important to study the factors of company competitiveness so that companies can compete in the global market. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship between the influence of capital structure, firm performance, and market competitiveness. This study took samples from manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) for the period 2018 to 2020. The data collected are panel data that are quantitative in nature, analyzed by multiple regression, which is processed using the Eviews 9 software. The variables used are debt to asset ratio, debt to equity ratio, and current assets as indicators of capital structure, and return on assets and return on equity as indicators of firm performance are placed as independent variables, and firm size as control variables. The dependent variable is market competitiveness, which is proxied using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) measurement. The results of the analysis show that the debt to asset ratio, debt to equity ratio, return on assets, and firm size have no effect on market competitiveness. However, the current ratio has a negative effect, while the return on equity has a positive effect on market competitiveness. Thus, firm size does not act as a control variable in influencing market competitiveness.

The purpose of the study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the determinants affecting the financial performance of agricultural enterprises in Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. As the main research method, panel data regression analysis was used to analyze data from 34 Polish, 123 Slovak, and 305 Ukrainian agricultural companies for the period 2017–2020. To analyze the links between financial performance measures and its determinants, nine models were developed based on three selected dependent variables (Return on Assets, Return on Equity, Return on Sales) in each of the countries studied. Seven independent variables were used, such as Leverage, Long-Term Debt to Assets, Short-Term Debt to Assets, Debt to Equity, Current Ratio, Asset Tangibility, Capital Intensity, and two control variables such as Size and Dummy variable for legal form. The most significant impact on the financial performance of agricultural enterprises has: for Polish enterprises – Return on Assets – Leverage and Asset Tangibility, Return on Equity – Debt to Equity and Dummy variable for legal form, Return on Sales – Current Ratio, Capital Intensity, and Size; for Slovak enterprises – Return on Assets – Current Ratio, Return on Equity – Debt to Equity, Return on Sales – Current Ratio, and Capital Intensity; for Ukrainian enterprises – Return on Assets – Leverage and Size, Return on Equity – Debt to Equity, and Current Ratio, Return on Sales – Capital Intensity.

The literature on ownership structure in Indian firms does not clearly show how various large shareholdings connected to controlling agency conflicts affect a firm’s outcome. Evidence suggests that large shareholders are in a stronger position to keep a firm’s management more responsible than its dispersed shareholders, thereby positively affecting the firm’s outcome. This research gap has sparked interest in examining the relationship between three large holdings – corporate, institutional, and foreign holdings – and expected returns measured using an ex-ante cost of capital approach in Indian listed firms between 2016 and 2021. The study used a pooled OLS technique to estimate the baseline results and a two-step system GMM technique to validate the baseline results. The results indicate that corporate holdings and expected returns have an inverted U-shaped relationship, institutional holdings and expected returns have a U-shaped relationship, and foreign holdings and expected returns have a U-shaped relationship. The results also reveal that while the threshold for each firm and industry can be different, on average, corporate holdings above 34.3%, institutional holdings below 14.15%, and foreign holdings below 49.80% negatively affect expected returns. The findings suggest that an optimal mix of large shareholders can reduce the risk of any group exerting excessive control over a company and provide benefits in terms of efficient monitoring. Expropriation of minority shareholders can occur in developing countries with weak legal protections. However, this study suggests that large shareholders can mitigate this issue by acting as a check on managerial agency problems, thereby increasing a firm’s efficiency.

As the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia faces the same pressures as any other government to expand its economy. Saudi Vision 2030 is to reduce the country’s reliance on oil exports and revenues. One of the main goals of Saudi Vision 2030 is to increase the share of GDP that does not come from oil. Dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration is used to look at how oil exports and exports of goods other than oil affect GDP growth. The results of the dynamic ARDL simulation show that there is both long-term and short-term cointegration between the variables. The dynamic ARDL simulation tests rely on the presence of cointegration to show that a 1% increase in oil exports will boost Saudi Arabia’s economic growth by about 0.48% in the long run and 0.18% in the short run, depending on the type of time frame. In the same way, the results about non-oil exports showed that an increase in non-oil exports would boost Saudi Arabia’s economic growth by 0.26 percentage points in the long run and by 0.16 percentage points in the short run. This is a good sign of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to diversify its economy away from oil exports and make room for international investors to help the country reach its Vision 2030 goals.

Acknowledgment
This study is supported via funding from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2023/R/1444).

Value creation has become a very important concept in finance. To this end, value creation metrics, like market value added and economic value added have raised the question of their superiority and ability to reflect the true value of organizations, as opposed to the classic accounting indicators like ROE, ROA and EPS. Nevertheless, EVA can only be calculated for listed companies, which makes it difficult to use this indicator to measure value creation for non-listed companies. In this way, some alternatives have been used such as the accounting beta to calculate the return on equity and subsequently the determination of the EVA. Within this framework, the central point of this research is to empirically verify the idea that the normal EVA and EVA calculated using accounting beta are the better measure than traditional indicators to explain MVA. A panel of 32 companies traded on the Casablanca Stock Exchange over the period 2015–2019 was selected for this study. The regression method on panel data was used. The results show that normal EVA is a superior metric than the classical indicators to explain MVA. In addition, the EVA calculated from the accounting beta could be used as a measure adapted to the case of unlisted companies to measure value creation.

Successful achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, is impossible without proper financial support, especially after the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite more than million academic papers related to SDG 7, only very few of them address the financial aspects of achieving SDG 7. To test the hypothesis, “SDG 7 related academic studies ignore the issue of investment in general and responsible investment in particular”, a meta-analysis is performed that includes a number of specific instruments and technics such as SciVal by Elsevier, VosViewer, Google trends, Google Books Ngram Viewer and Google Data. The results show a lack of appropriate academic support (methodology, empirical results, econometric models etc.) for practitioners to fill the existing financial gap and successfully achieve SDG 7. Among 1.2 million SDG 7 related papers, less than 100 deal with the financial gap problem measured by trillions of dollars in achieving SDG 7. This paper identifies the most promising and relevant topics for study related to SDG 7 and investment: the impact of the pandemic on decisions in the energy sector; efficiency of SDG 7 investment support and methodology for its assessment; green bonds, green loans, sovereign green bonds as responsible investment tools to advance SDG 7.

Acknowledgments
Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges support from the Supreme Council of Ukraine (0122U201796).
The research was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy Sciences (VEGA), project No 1/0364/22: Research on eco-innovation potential of SMEs in the context of sustainable development.

According to past research utilizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has been shown to lead most other cryptocurrencies in terms of price movements. However, existing studies tend to focus on the direction of the lead-lag relationship instead of the duration of the lead-lag time. Furthermore, they are handicapped by the reliance on low-frequency data such as daily prices. This paper showcases the measurement of the lead-lag duration between cryptocurrencies using ultra-high-frequency tick-by-tick data, via the pair of Bitcoin and Cardano. Tick-by-tick data bring unique challenges in terms of methodology. The vast majority of time series econometrics methods are designed for use with data collected at regularly spaced time intervals, such as every hour, every day, etc. Tick-by-tick data, on the other hand, are not synchronized in any way and do not arrive at consistently spaced time intervals. Consequently, an asynchronous data integration methodology is utilized to estimate the Bitcoin price lead over Cardano price for each month beginning in January 2019 and continuing through May 2021. The length of the lead time ranges from 16 seconds to 118 seconds, with an average of around 57 seconds. Throughout the study period, the lengths of the lead time manifest a general trend of decline, which is shown to be statistically significant via non-parametric tests. Testing of seasonal patterns turns out to be not significant. The methodology and the findings of this paper have implications for both academics and practitioners, for example, when studying and implementing statistical arbitrage with cryptocurrencies.

Firm value shows the performance of a firm while reflecting the present value of the firm’s future cashflows, hence affecting investment decisions. Therefore, this paper explores the relationship between asset structure, leverage, and firm value of 51 listed companies between 2010 and 2019 using secondary data collected from audited financial statements. The study applies panel data regression models and the causal-comparative research design. The quantitative data are analyzed using multiple regression. The result shows that plant, equipment, property, current, and financial assets influence the firm value positively. Nonetheless, the quotient of current to total assets was reported to yield the highest beta coefficient, implying that significant firm value creation is realized for every additional current asset held, weighed against the quotient of additional equipment, property, and plant to the value of total assets. Leverage had an insignificant influence on the value of firms, implying that no maximization of value is attainable in manufacturing firms through the astute use of borrowed funds. The study recommends that finance pundits consider firms’ asset structure and the use of borrowed funds when formulating financial and investment policies. The study enriches the scholarly world by developing a model for establishing the value of listed firms.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of capital structure decisions on firm performance in Jordan (2010–2018), as well as the extent to which firm size matters in the capital structure-performance relationship. The dependent variable was market share. The main independent variables were the book value of total debt ratios, and firm-specific factors such as firm size, firm age, firm growth, and market-to-book value of equity served as control variables. This study used a quantitative research method using panel data analysis of 830 firm-year observations. Random effects model was employed to analyze the capital structure-performance nexus. To infer correctly, the main analysis was re-examined using the generalized method of moment estimator to overcome possible endogeneity concerns. After controlling for endogeneity and firm heterogeneity, this study finds that the book value of capital structure has a significantly positive relation to a firm’s market share. Hence, every one unit increase in the book value of total debt ratios will increase market share by 4.77%. The firm size, sales growth, and market-to-book value of equity had a significantly positive association with market share. Hence, every one unit increase in firm size, growth and market-to-book equity ratio will increase a firm’s market share by 8.84%, 2.06%, and 2.15%, respectively, but surprisingly, firm age did not meaningfully contribute to operating performance. Another important finding was that the strength of a positive relationship between the book value of total debt ratios and market share depends on the size of a firm and is mostly higher for larger-sized firms. Hence, every one unit increased in the book value of total debt ratios for large firms will increase market share by 10.58%.

In this study, the RiskMetrics method is used to estimate Value at Risk for two exchange rates: BitCoin/dollar and the South African Rand/dollar. Value at Risk is used to compare the riskiness of the two currencies. This is to help South Africans and investors understand the risk they are taking by converting their savings/investments to BitCoin instead of the South African currency, the Rand. The Maximum Likelihood Estimation method is used to estimate the parameters of the models. Seven statistical error distributions, namely Normal Distribution, skewed Normal Distribution, Student’s T-Distribution, skewed Student’s T-Distribution, Generalized Error Distribution, skewed Generalized Error Distribution, and the Generalized Hyperbolic Distributions, were considered when modelling and estimating model parameters. Value at Risk estimates suggest that the BitCoin/dollar return averaging 0.035 and 0.055 per dollar invested at 95% and 99%, respectively, is riskier than the Rand/dollar return averaging 0.012 and 0.019 per dollar invested at 95% and 99%, respectively. Using the Kupiec test, RiskMetrics with Generalized Error Distribution (p > 0.07) and skewed Generalized Error Distribution (p > 0.62) gave the best fitting model in the estimation of Value at Risk for BitCoin/dollar and Rand/dollar, respectively. The RiskMetrics approach seems to perform better at higher than lower confidence levels, as evidenced by higher p-values from backtesting using the Kupiec test at 99% than at 95% levels of significance. These findings are also helpful for risk managers in estimating adequate risk-based capital requirements for the two currencies.

The volatility of rising oil prices has certainly made the market more out of control. Market participants are very sensitive to various information and to global issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This study aims to review the reaction of the Indonesian Islamic stock market in the energy sector before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The variables used are stock returns, abnormal returns, and trading volume activity. The sample of this study is represented by Indonesian sharia stocks in the energy sector using a purposive sampling method. The research period was from February 4, 2022 to March 18, 2022. The research method used was the Event Study Method (ESM) and paired sample different tests with the Microsoft Excel program and SPSS version 26. The results of the study show that there is a significant difference in the average stock returns in the periods of 3, 7, and 14 days before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are also differences in abnormal returns for the 3-day and 14-day observation periods, while for the 7-day observation period, there are no significant differences in abnormal returns. Besides, there is an average difference in volume activity during the periods of 3 days, 7 days, and 14 days before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Indirectly, this information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affected the performance of the capital market. This also shows that the semi-strong form of the efficient market hypothesis is proven in this study.

The development of the real estate market always goes hand in hand with the fluctuation of the economy. In recent years, this market has experienced many recessions and «freezes» associated with the appearance of a real estate bubble. To approach this issue, this paper studies and gives an overview of the real estate bubble and the impact of monetary policies on the real estate bubble in Vietnam. This paper’s purpose is to identify and measure the influence of monetary policies, including interest rates, credit and money supply, on the real estate bubble in Ha Noi. The vector autoregression model (VAR) is used to test the interaction of the variables in the model. Dickey-Fuller test (DF) is applied to determine the stationarity of the variables, while the Akaike information criterion (AIC), Likelihood Ratio (LR), Final prediction error (FPE), Hannan-Quinn information criterion (HQ) and Schwarz criterion (SC) are used to find optimal lag of the model; then Granger causality test is utilized to determine the two-way correlation between variables. The results showed that the real estate bubble reacted quickly to shocks from macroeconomic factors representing the monetary policy, consisting of interbank interest rates, credit growth, and money supply growth. Thus, it is concluded that monetary policy is not only the cause of formation, but also one of the effective solutions to deflate the real estate bubble.

Acknowledgment
This research is funded by Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) under grant number [B2022-NTH-03].

Although the tender offer buyback method has gained significance over time, many companies still prefer open market repurchases. The existing literature focuses mainly on the impact of buyback announcements, specifically on stock returns; however, buyback announcements and abnormal returns in the case of open market repurchases have not yet been studied in detail, especially across industries in the Indian context. This study, therefore, attempts to analyze the impact of open market repurchase announcements on the stock returns of Indian firms. To that end, the event study methodology has been used for a period of 31 days, i.e. 15 days prior to and 15 days after the buyback announcement on a filtered sample of 100 firms during the period 2010–2020. The results of the study indicate that the returns were more favorable in the short run. The findings do not support the undervaluation rationale of firms behind the open buyback statement. The low-profit opportunities in the prior event window convey investors’ predictions about the repurchase announcement. In the context of industries, the manufacturing sector seemed to be far better than IT & telecom, chemical, and pharma firms as the returns were statistically significant for five (5) out of 31 days. The industry-specific results also suggest that the profit opportunities are majorly in the pre-announcement phase. The overall findings corroborate that share repurchases might be irrelevant to shareholders’ wealth. Therefore, open market buybacks may support decisions related to capital structure changes.

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

This study aims to explore the cross-country relationship between economic globalization and growth. It assesses the implications of globalization for the world economy and groups of countries with different income levels. The study employed panel data from the World Bank, the Fraser Institute, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich for 122 countries from 1970 to 2018. Two-stage fixed effect model was used to assess the impact of globalization on growth. The reverse causality was estimated using the method of instrumental variables. The results showed that the world economy benefited from globalization. In turn, greater openness has reinforced economic growth. The study confirms that globalization benefits are distributed unequally. A significant positive impact of globalization on economic growth is confirmed for high and lower-middle-income economies with coefficients of 0.02 and 0.01, respectively. Economic growth of high-income countries is determined by financial globalization, while lower-middle-income countries rely on trade and financial openness. Negative implications of economic globalization took place in upper-middle-income countries with a coefficient of -0.02. In these countries, correlation between trade globalization and growth is -0.13. The effect of economic growth on globalization is found to be significantly positive for high-income (11.08) and upper-middle-income countries (9.62) and statistically insignificant for lower-middle-income economies.

The information quality contained in financial reporting has practical implications for stakeholders. Accounting conservatism is a criterion that affects the authentication of the value of assets and liabilities related to the financial reporting of enterprises. The role of the board of directors is to supervise the information quality of an enterprise. The purpose of the paper is to examine how the board of directors influences the information quality of financial reporting through accounting conservatism. The survey sample includes 100 listed enterprises that have the highest capitalization in Vietnam’s stock market. Time series data taken for the last five years are published by enterprises from 2018 to 2022. The paper implements the quantitative method of ordinary least squares to test the hypotheses. The results explore that board size, board independence, and audit organization affect the information quality of financial reporting through accounting conservatism. Accordingly, board size has the strongest influence, and board independence has the weakest effect on the information quality of financial reporting through accounting conservatism. The research suggests some policies for Vietnamese listed enterprises to have appropriate regulations for the board of directors and strengthen control of the information quality of financial reporting.

The challenges of crisis phenomena can lead to a radical transformation in the stance of public finance and affect the opportunities for economic development. Since the instruments of fiscal adjustment directly determine the solvency and stability of public finances, in these conditions they require special attention. The purpose of the paper is to investigate and assess the correspondence between fiscal solvency, fiscal limitations, and socioeconomic development of Ukraine in a crisis and recovery policy based on compliance with fiscal rules. Empirical studies have not revealed a strong direct correspondence between fiscal solvency, debt security, and socioeconomic development. But at the same time, the implementation or approaching the implementation of fiscal rules has a positive effect on the level of socio-economic development only in conditions of macroeconomic stability, therefore, in a crisis, it is very important not to tighten fiscal rules too early. However, data from the post-crisis policy of Ukraine (2011, 2015, 2021) indicate that incentive measures were prematurely curtailed.

The study of firm value and financial risks became more important after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, as the required risk was mismanaged, resulting in a deterioration in firm value. It is important to study the relationship between financial risks and firm value. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of capital adequacy on the relationship between financial risks and the firm value of listed banks in Pakistan. This study is based on half-yearly secondary data of 560 sample observations from 2009 to 2021. Multiple regression and panel data estimation techniques were employed for the analysis. The study used firm value as a dependent variable, proxied by Tobin’s Q, along with five independent variables and one moderating variable. The results of this study indicate that a higher capital adequacy ratio (CAR) increases firm value and has a moderating effect on financial risks and firm value. Nonperforming loans, net interest margin, and cost income ratio are found to have a significant negative relationship with firm value. The study concludes that the stock prices of listed banks in Pakistan are declining persistently, which causes the stock’s worth to shift from being inflated to being undervalued.

The aim of this paper is to study the behavior of the Taylor rule in the presence of Sukuks. The New Keynesian model of Gali (2008)/Chapter 3 is used, due to its simplicity and small size. Nevertheless, such a model is suitable for examining the implications of monetary policy in the presence of sovereign Sukuks. The growth rate is used as the rate of return on sovereign Sukuks, which is closest to the profit and loss sharing approach, and is compared to the Gali’s baseline model. The results show that the introduction of sovereign Sukuks mitigates inflation and output gap shocks, but also limits the scope of the Taylor rule. Thus, an increase in the interest rate is offset by a flight of capital from sovereign Sukuks to treasury bonds, while a decrease in the interest rate leads to a flight from treasury bonds to sovereign Sukuks. In the extreme, if the preference for Sukuks is largely dominant, the Taylor rule tends to be obsolete, and vice versa.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have several critical challenges that threaten their capacity to survive and thrive. However, access and awareness to digital platform is fundamental to moderate the financial costs and develop financial productivity and sustain SMEs financially. Considering this, the purpose of this study is to get empirical information on the level of management awareness and usage of digital platforms in SMEs in South Africa. The methodological framework included a quantitative research strategy and positivist paradigm. Purposive sampling was utilized to collect data from 321 out of 700 SMEs owners, and the Cochran formula was used to explain the sample size. There were 321 surveys sent out, and 304 were filled out and returned (95% response rate). Descriptive analysis, Pearson’s correlation, and regression analyses from the Statistical Package for Social Sciences were used. The results of Pearson’s correlation coefficient establish a statistically significant relationship between access to digital finances and SME Sustainability (r = 0.334), as well as a statistically significant relationship between financial awareness and SME Sustainability (r = 0.549). The findings alert SMEs managers of the need to improve their digital platforms awareness in order to meet current financial demands and make better informed financial choices to improve company success. The results explain the advantages of trading using many digital platforms available in the country to improve the performance of their enterprises.

The purpose of the paper is to assess the war impact on the market value of the industrial complex enterprises of Ukraine. This is an important task for determining the investment needs to restore the Ukrainian economy, substantiating the reparations for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which should include the damage caused after the unleashing of a full-scale war from 24.02.2022 , and losses in the early phases of military aggression (after 22.02.2014).
The author’s method of assessing the market value is based on the CVA concept. The war impact on the enterprises market value should be manifested through changes in the effects of exploitation and financing liabilities, which show a differentiated effect from changes in the internal and external business environment of enterprises in wartime. Estimates should be based on the possibility of both negative and positive effects. The main direction of the negative influence is the financing effect, which is due to the action of the external business environment factor. The Kane-Essian argument should be considered in the estimates by calculating normalized effect sizes.
The normalized cumulative war impact equaled 165.1 billion dollars, which corresponds to 44.4% of the total market value of industrial enterprises of Ukraine, estimated for the period 2014–2022. About 14.4% of the total war impact on the market value of Ukraine’s industrial enterprises is attributed to the financing effect. Loss assessments can be used to evaluate the investment needs to restore destroyed and damaged business property. To determine the amount of compensation for damage caused by the war, the market value of an enterprise according to the CVA method can be used.