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This paper analyzes a financing problem for an innovative firm that is considering launching a web-based platform. The model developed in the paper is the first one that analyzes an entrepreneur's choice between initial exchange offering (IEO) and initial coin offering (ICO). Compared to ICO, under IEO the firm is subject to screening by an exchange that reduces the risk of investment in tokens; also the firm receives access to a larger set of potential investors; finally tokens become listed on an exchange faster. The paper argues that IEO is a better option for the firm if: (1) the investment size is relatively large; (2) the extent of moral hazard problems faced by the firm is relatively large; (3) the degree of investors' impatience is relatively small. Furthermore, a non-linear relationship between firm quality and its financing choice is found. Most of these predictions are new and have not been tested so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effect of labor mobility on venture capital (VC) investment. Following the staggered adoption of the inevitable disclosure doctrine that restricts labor mobility, VCs are less likely to invest in affected states. This effect is more pronounced when human capital is more important to startups, when VC investment is more uncertain, and when VCs' monitoring costs are higher. The reduced innovation productivity of employees is a plausible underlying mechanism. To mitigate this adverse effect, VCs stage finance startups more and syndicate more with other VCs. Our paper sheds new light on the real effects of labor market frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine financial literacy in Singapore. Using data from the SKBI-GFLEC Sustainable Investment Survey, we find that approximately 40% of Singaporeans are financially literate. We also find that financial literacy is low among specific groups such as women, the less educated, and the unemployed. Moreover, we examine financial literacy across Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) literacy. We find that those with higher ESG knowledge are also more financially literate, showing that knowledge of these two different financial concepts is positively correlated. Finally, our results show that financial literacy can be linked to investment behavior which may affect financial well-being in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the psychological effects from stock market returns. Using an FBI database of over 55 million daily reported crime incidents across the United States, crime is proposed as a measure of psychological well-being. The evidence suggests that stock returns affect the well-being of not only investors but also noninvestors. Specifically, a contemporaneous negative (positive) relationship between daily stock market returns and violent crime rates is found for investors (noninvestors). A similar relationship is also found between local earnings surprises and violent crime. The contrasting relationships for investors and noninvestors suggests that relative wealth may influence well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the cryptocurrency adoption (CA) level among Indian retail investors who use cryptocurrency as an investment and mode of transaction. Design/methodology/approach: Through self-administered survey questionnaires, data is collected from 397 retail investors of Haryana (India). This study adopted a quantitative method using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings: This paper offered a robust model with a high explanatory value for CA in which four of the five proposed factors of diffusion of innovation theory (trialability, compatibility, complexity and observability) and one of the two proposed factors of consumer behavioral theory (perceived value) significantly influences CA. More specifically, the absence of regulatory support is a barrier to the broad adoption of cryptocurrencies, as its regulations are necessary to mitigate or minimize uncertain outcomes. Research limitations/implications: This research primarily focuses on CA in India. Thus, it can be extended to cover diverse other countries for more precise results. Practical implications: The results provide insights to the government to design the policies, better regulate and make investment strategies that can ultimately enhance CA. In addition, the study's results also inform financial educators, policymakers, employers and academicians about the significance of several variables affecting CA in India. Social implications: From a social standpoint, this study is an advance that directs central banks and governments to develop, regulate and manage digital currencies and implement a digital currency ecosystem. Moreover, the results assist in understanding investors' perceptions and decision-making perspectives toward cryptocurrencies through the country's digitalization. Originality/value: This paper fills the study gap to assist policymakers and cryptocurrency experts in broadening their knowledge base and recognizing prioritized intentions. Additionally, this study provides a theoretical model with the latent variable for a present and pertinent matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper explores the current state of Robo-advisory services in India. This paper further highlights the problems experienced by the service providers in disseminating the innovative business model among the Indians. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate the industry experts by conducting semi-structured interviews. The data collected were transcripted and further analyzed using the content analysis technique. Finally, the authors utilized categorization and coding techniques to frame broad study themes. Findings: The study findings reveal that the three pillars of Robo-advisory are ease and convenience, the time factor and transparency in operations. Robo-advisory services are still at a nascent stage in India. Furthermore, keeping the sentiments of Indians in mind, FinTech companies could combine automated Robo-advisory with a human touch of a wealth manager for optimal advisory services. Research limitations/implications: Since the present study is qualitative, the authors cannot generalize the study results. Future research can focus on empirically proving the constructs of the study using quantitative methods. Practical implications: Robo-advisors have a well-established market in developed nations but are still nascent in developing countries like India. The current focus of service providers and regulatory authorities must be to increase awareness among investors by educating the investors and building trust. Originality/value: The present study is the first to qualitatively synthesize the challenges faced by the FinTech service providers in the Indian market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benchmarking incentivizes fund managers to invest a fraction of their funds' assets in their benchmark indexes, and such demand is inelastic. We construct a measure of inelastic demand a stock attracts, benchmarking intensity (BMI) , computed as its cumulative weight in all benchmarks, weighted by assets following each benchmark. Exploiting the Russell 1000/2000 cutoff, we show that changes in stocks' BMIs instrument for changes in ownership of benchmarked investors. The resultant demand elasticities are low. We document that both active and passive fund managers buy additions to their benchmarks and sell deletions. Finally, an increase in BMI lowers future stock returns. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the staggered introduction of liability waivers when investors hold stakes in conflicting business opportunities as a shock to venture capital (VC) investment and director networks. After the law changes, we find increases in within-industry VC investment and common directors serving on startup boards. Despite the potential for rent extraction, same-industry startups inside VC portfolios benefit by raising more capital, failing less, and exiting more successfully. VC directors serving on other startup boards are the primary mechanism associated with positive outcomes, consistent with common VC investment facilitating informational exchanges in VC portfolios. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-profit and for-profit social enterprises struggle to source funding. Current limited understanding on the funding sources of these enterprises originates from disconnected body of studies based on different subject areas. This paper systematically reviews 50 articles published between 2009 to 2022 to bridge the existing knowledge in the subject area. This is achieved by mapping the sources of funding for social enterprises at organizational, personal, and institutional levels; analyzing the results to design an extensive model; and suggesting future areas for study in the field. It is found that studies at personal levels majorly focus on the perspective of funders of the features of a social entrepreneur. Social enterprises’ dual logic is usually addressed by research at the business level; including their effect on the effective funding of these enterprises. Institutional level research is clustered into legal, social, economic, and cultural factors. The paper suggests the need for studies, which use an extensive view by looking at all the three levels of analysis together and applying both organizational and economic theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies why investors buy dividend-paying assets and how they time consumption accordingly. We combine administrative bank data linking customers' consumption and income to portfolio data and survey responses on financial behavior. We find that private consumption is excessively sensitive to dividend income. Investors across wealth, income, and age distributions increase spending precisely around days of dividend receipt. Our results are at odds with a number of existing rational and behavioral explanations, such as financial constraints and impulsiveness. Instead, consumption responses reflect "planned" excess sensitivity, driven by investors who select dividend portfolios, anticipate dividend income, and plan consumption accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that international portfolios reflect the underlying heterogeneity in investors' beliefs. Using data on the foreign sovereign debt holdings of European banks matched with their forecasts on future bond yields, we find that expecting higher returns and having more accurate forecasts are associated with larger bond holdings. Crucially, the elasticity of portfolio holdings to expected returns is increasing in the precision of the forecast, implying that investors optimally exploit comparative advantages in information production. We rationalize the results in a model in which partial information specialization arises endogenously by introducing a degree of unlearnable uncertainty about asset payoffs. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an update on the BRI projects in Indonesia. It discusses the progress and challenges of China’s outbound investment and infrastructure projects under the Initiative and outlines how perceptions about the BRI have evolved in Indonesia. Moreover, some case studies highlight the issues and problems associated with BRI implementation, along with future prospects and necessary readjustments. It is argued that, by learning from previous projects, the government should create a clear legal and institutional framework to improve future BRI projects. The state should rigorously assess the viability and financial sustainability of the projects. Furthermore, proper environmental and ecological assessments by independent parties are critical to prevent conflict of interest. The central government authorities should work with various stakeholders, including NGOs and local communities, to address the issues they face. Finally, stricter regulations should be in place for the Indonesian government and Chinese investors to comply with, in order to ensure that locals also benefit from the projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the study consists of the biasess made when investing in photovoltaic panels. The purpose of the study is to identify biasess associated with investing in renewable energy sources. Data from a survey conducted among owners of photovoltaic installations in Subcarpathia were used. The literature has identified papers on factors other than behavioral errors affecting investments in photovoltaic panels. Respondents succumbed to the anchoring effect, the error of positive retrospection, information bias, choice-supportive bias and framing bias when deciding to invest in photovoltaic panels. The research conducted makes it possible to confirm that people's behavior while investing is influenced by non-economic factors. Knowledge of behavioral biases can allow one to calibrate financial incentives in order to influence customers more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to analyze the involvement of institutional investors in the corporate governance of companies in their portfolio by analyzing characteristics of institutional investors concerning the type of investment, investment time horizon, and degree of involvement in the process of managing a company. Starting from the deductive approach, the method of description, compilation, and classification is applied in this review paper, which describes and groups the previous theoretical and empirical research. Main findings indicate that institutional investors are involved in the corporate governance of their portfolio companies and that control mechanisms they use include voting rights at general assembly meetings, direct communication with the management to discuss strategies for future development, and collaboration with other institutional investors in the ownership structure. The theoretical contribution of this paper is an extensive, critical, and systematic review of existing theoretical and empirical findings from the domain dealing with the impact of institutional investors on the corporate governance of companies, and identifying key future opportunities to advance knowledge in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large scale urban development projects, marketed as "new cities," are emerging across the African continent. However, there is a limited empirical insight into how their partnerships, involving foreign investors and the local African landowners, are brokered, and the extent to which local communities are engaged in such projects. Using the Appolonia City project in Ghana and drawing analytical insights from the DEDA urban governance framework, this paper scrutinizes the partnership between Rendeavour, the foreign investor, and the Appolonia community, the owners of the land used for the project, to interrogate the extent to which the community has been involved, and the benefits that have accrued. We find that the traditional rulers saw the project as an opportunity to secure community lands against ongoing unauthorized encroachments, and to assist the local economy. We argue that the 99-year lease granted to Rendeavour in return for a 10% equity stake does not reflect a partnership where concessions and benefits are equally distributed. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the unequal partnership arrangements and the ensuing entangled urban governance process that set in motion project outcomes that do not necessarily reflect the needs of urban citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects and mechanism paths of monetary policy on firms' "short-term debt for long-term investment (SDFLI)" behavior using panel data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2007-2019. The findings indicate that loose monetary policy suppresses corporate SDFLI behavior by lengthening corporate credit maturity structure through the credit maturity structure channel. In addition, heterogeneity analysis shows that loose monetary policy significantly inhibits the SDFLI behavior of state-owned enterprises(SOEs), non-high-tech firms, and firms in regions with high bank competition levels through the credit term structure channel, and the monetary policy credit term structure channel fails for non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs), high-tech firms, and firms in regions with low bank competition levels. The results of the heterogeneity analysis validate the plausibility that monetary policy affects firms' SDFLI behavior through the credit term structure channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic raised the stability challenges for the modern banking systems. As a remedy, the regulators and investors turned their eyes to the Islamic Banking. Many people view it as a full substitute to the dominant conventional banking establishments. We hypothesized that the benefits of the Islamic Banking can be fully enjoyed if and only if it is accompanied with the robust regulatory framework. Such a framework could offer room for the national discretion to define 'alpha' parameter within the capital adequacy ratio. The novelty of our paper is the largest collected to date set of alpha value embedded in the Islamic Banking jurisdictions. Purpose: This research paper aims to able to identify the core driver to locally determine the value of alpha. The credit-to-GDP ratio was shown to be such a driver. We demonstrated that the earlier academic research had offered the Vasicek-based theoretical models for the Islamic Banking that had implied right the opposite values of alpha. Methodology: We have eight independent determinants with presenting the alpha values for 11 countries registered in 2007 and in 2016. Those are the four macroeconomic variables. we have collected the input data for the regression model. Findings: The credit-to-GDP ratio was shown to be such a driver. We demonstrated that the earlier academic research had offered the Vasicek-based theoretical models for the Islamic Banking that had implied right the opposite values of alpha. Thus, the usage of the determinant revealed by us could be of help to the central bankers when shaping the framework for Islamic Banking capital adequacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a quantitative investigation of a case study based on a live industrial refrigeration system exhibiting complex and dynamic behaviour such as randomness, concurrency, and time dependency. The study employs a state-space stochastic Markovian process to model the interactions among the key functional elements of the system. Furthermore, the scientific approach pursued in this study would help improve the availability of the considered plant by establishing a trade-off between investment, economy and quality. Based on the analysis of results, a framework for Decision Support Priorities (DSP) is proposed, emphasizing the criticality of various functional units. This framework could also help set and prioritize maintenance, spare parts, and human resource requirements accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Policy is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Institutional investors are very important players in the global financial markets. Their presence and contribution to the financial industry is inevitable. Almost every institutional investor, such as the pension funds, insurance companies and investment funds are growing throughout the years and are obtaining leading positions. In this context, asset allocation is crucial decision-making process for each of the mentioned institutional investors. The asset allocation decision determines the investment strategies and assist in anticipating the rates of return. Hence, the aim of this paper is to show the asset allocation decision of the institutional investors, to understand their investment strategies and determine the differences in the investment portfolio of these investors. Thus, the investment portfolio of the institutional investors mostly consists of cash and deposits, bills and bonds, loans, equity and land and building. The main difference exists in the amount they invest in each of these instruments and as a determining factor are the economic and financial conditions in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations play an increasingly important role in investment decisions. Due to data vendors’ lack of a common framework for creating ESG ratings, substantial disparities exist across vendors in their ESG ratings for the same company. ESG rating disparities make it difficult to assess whether ESG ratings are aligned with companies’ ESG performance and how ESG investing affects investment performance. This presents challenges to asset owners, policymakers, academics, and asset managers. This article highlights the nature and sources of the ESG rating disparities and advises investors to understand these aspects of noisy ESG ratings and to exercise caution when implementing ESG integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the annual data of Pakistan's economy from 1975 to 2018, this paper explores the channels linking social spending and economic growth. With separate modeling for education and health capital, the paper finds that health spending has a statistically significant and negative impact on the mortality rate which infers that health improvement in Pakistan is dependent on the volume of health expenditures. Also, educational spending has a statistically significant and positive impact on the educational level. Last model report that health and education capitals have a positive association with the economic growth of the country. Overall findings have made a great advance in the existing literature on how health and education capitals can play a vital role in boosting the economic growth of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research paper will have the chance to gain a comprehensive understanding of the financial habits and decision-making processes that contribute to the formation of investment portfolios among employed in educational institutions. The research aims to identify the prevailing patterns and attributes that influence investing choices by analyzing the investment preferences, risk tolerance and financial objectives of a substantial sample of employed in educational institutions. This analysis is performed to ascertain the variables that impact investment choices. This study aims to identify the factors that influence investment decision-making. The study also examines the influence of demographic variables such as age, income, and gender of the employee investment decisions. The results of this investigation not only provide insight into the probability of unfairness, but also present a chance to develop financial education initiatives that are tailored to the specific needs of individuals who require such programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India and the Republic of Korea (RoK) are, respectively, the second and sixth largest economies of Asia with significant trade ties since the historic past. India is currently negotiating to upgrade the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the RoK, which was operationalized on January 1, 2010. A key area of concern for India has been its increasing trade deficit with the RoK which has more than doubled since 2009–10. This paper aims to analyze the flow of goods, services and investment between the two sides in major sectors of interest in the last decade. Further, it aims to identify barriers to trade and investment for the Indian exporters and areas of improvement in the CEPA and beyond to enhance economic gains for both sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only transformed our daily lives but has also acted as a catalyst for the rapid evolution of the FinTech industry. This sector has gained substantial recognition from global investors who are eager to allocate their surplus funds to this domain. This paper aims to examine the FinTech industry from a financial market perspective, specifically focusing on investments in thematic FinTech exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Our analysis centres on two prominent ETFs, namely FINX and ARKF, and compares their performance against the Standard & Poor's 500 stock market index. Notably, the results demonstrate the outperformance of this industry niche, even in the face of strong overall market performance during the pandemic years. Employing a factor regression approach, we implement the Carhart 4-factor model for both ETFs over the period from March 2019 to December 2021. The findings suggest resemblances between the FinTech industry and the overall market in terms of factor-investing styles and momentum-driven behaviour of market participants. However, significant disparities in performance metrics are observed between the respective ETFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About half of the rental properties in the U.S. are owned by small- to medium-sized investors, many of whom enter the trade with little prior experience. This paper considers the factors that motivate these amateurs to purchase real estate in high-poverty neighborhoods—an investment that involves high levels of financial risk for the inexperienced. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 93 investors in three real estate markets—Baltimore, Maryland; Dallas, Texas; and Cleveland, Ohio—this paper finds that amateurs decide to become investors due to anxieties regarding their financial position, specifically professional dissatisfaction and a lack of retirement savings. Real estate is particularly appealing because it provides a cultural repertoire aligned with middle class aspirations of independence and self-sufficiency. Consequentially, these ideologies motivate and legitimize strategies of action that allow for sometimes imprudent investments, presenting risks to the investors themselves and the communities in which they invest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we find that the conflict of interest between loan holders and bondholders is positively related to bond IPO underpricing, which serves as a compensation to the initial bond investors. We construct four proxies for the conflict between loan holders and bondholders, namely, a loan covenants index, the outstanding loan amount, the number of lead banks, and the loan remaining maturity. Our empirical tests show that all four variables are positively related to bond IPO underpricing, indicating that the loan structure of firms has a real impact on the pricing of their bond IPOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, states around the world swiftly enacted a multitude of far-reaching emergency responses to contain the viruses' spread and to cope with the economic repercussions of the ensuing crisis. However, these measures detrimentally impacted the operating conditions of many businesses or, at the least, decreased their profitability. As this inevitably affected foreign investments, investors could be tempted to invoke "Investor State Dispute Settlement" ("ISDS") clauses in International Investment Agreements (IIAs) to initiate proceedings before arbitral tribunals and seek compensation for loss of profit caused by states' Covid-19 responses. Due to the specific circumstances in most developing countries, they were hit particularly hard by the crisis and are especially vulnerable to the threat of investment claims. It is therefore important to enable developing countries to realistically anticipate the risk of investment arbitration by assessing the chances of success of foreign investment claims against those policies that were most frequently adopted by them amidst the crisis. Against this background, this paper assesses how likely developing countries' Covid-19 responses breached substantive standards of investor treatment under typical IIAs and which defense strategies states may invoke to justify their regulatory action. Based on this analysis, this paper concludes by formulating policy recommendations on how developing countries may enhance the resilience of their emergency responses against foreign investors amidst future public health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy technologies play a crucial role in solving global energy and environmental issues, and the pace of the energy transition directly depends on improving their efficiency. Presently, the development and implementation of renewable energy systems are ensured mainly through state funding, the possibilities of which are limited. The potential of attracting private investments depends directly on their impact on companies' profitability indicators, and the uncertainty regarding the return on investments is one of the main barriers affecting investors' decision-making. Based on a vector autoregressive model for analysing the stationary time series, the paper explores the impact of long-term investments and research and development costs in renewable energy technologies on the financial performance of ten of the largest companies operating in this field. The study's results showed that investments and spending on research and development positively affect such companies' profitability indicators as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, earnings before interest and tax, net income, and return on investment. The obtained results can be used to substantiate the economic effectiveness of investments in developing and improving renewable energy technologies when forming the companies' financial policies to support them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Momentum and reversals are two phenomena to explain the past return trend. Originally introduced by Jegadeesh and Titman in 1993, momentum is now a common investment strategy when investors are trading securities. It points out the stock price may have a relationship with their past performance. A large number of researchers have been trying to find out the momentum investment effect based on empirical evidence in different markets in different investment periods, which include short term, medium term and long term. Moreover, a series of research concludes that the momentum investment strategy tends to help investors to get a higher return. In recent years, a large number of researchers have focused more on analysing financial markets in China, and they have paid more attention to improving the traditional Jegadeesh and Titman models. In addition, an increasing number of researchers also point out that noise trading is quite important in the security investment strategy, and the investors who are using a momentum investment strategy to trade their portfolios are supposed to take the noise trading strategy into consideration. Then a series of papers have been tried to explain the sources of the momentum effect, either riskbased or behavioural-based. When it assumes that the market is efficient, the past market prices could be reflected, and it is hard to get excess returns by observing the stock's past prices performance. Nevertheless, the momentum effect is likely to examine that the market is inefficient. When it tries to explain the momentum effect in risk-based sources, the abnormal price return may be derived from a risk that is undiversifiable. As for the behaviour-based explanation, several behavioural biases applied by different researchers could be used to study the momentum effect, such as cognitive errors, including the conservatism bias, the representative bias, and the emotional bias, including the loss aversion bias, the overconfidence bias and the self-attribution bias. Another possible explanation within this behavioural source is that overreaction to the news leads to the existence of price momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the evolving nature of the capital market in the second and third decades of the 21st century, characterized by its widespread accessibility to individual investors. However, the emergence of inexperienced investors driven by profit-seeking motives has led to non-conventional investment decisions resulting in significant losses. To address this challenge, the study investigates practical methods to minimize risk, focusing on the limited availability of derivatives in the Polish capital market. The research develops and tests an investment portfolio, drawing on Markowitz's portfolio construction theory and Hull's hedging strategy. The findings support the hypothesis that resilient investment portfolios can be constructed under Polish conditions using available tools and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), when there is economic slowdown in most of the countries of the world, which formed a scare across the investors and they are becoming increasingly doubtful about investing their money in several investment opportunities present in the market, investing money in the mutual funds being the most common. Covid-19 has affected the financial markets significantly. This paper intends to analyse the perceptions of investors towards mutual funds and the effect of Covid-19 on the investment decisions of individual investors. The study examines the perceptions of investors about mutual funds before and during the period of severe uncertainty affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected from individual investors residing in different states of India in 2022. The perceptions of investors, investment awareness programs about mutual funds and impact of COVID-19 on investments in mutual funds have been measured by using the method of factor analysis. The study analyses the perceptions of investors regarding investment opportunities in mutual fund before and during the period of severe ambiguity affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study has significant implications for mutual funds investors and regulatory bodies in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has the potential to become a high-growth Wealth Management Services (WMS) market supported by its mass affluent and High Net worth (HNW) investor base, improving wealth levels among global Indians, strengthening regulatory environment and an increasing share of organized players, including relationship managers who act as financial advisors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the major objectives set besides investors mind while availing WMS along with major sources of information affecting their decision while availing WMS. The data used to test the hypothesis has been collected from 290 Mass affluent and 210 HNW investors availing WMS from various service providers in Punjab. The findings serve as a valuable reference for WMS Providers to understand challenges disturbing service quality with respect to objectives behind availing WMS and sources of information. WMS providers in terms of their communication with the investors should set up, design and develop their sources of information in such a way that it should be more understandable to both set of investors. Mass affluent investors in comparison to HNW investors are more sensitive as they demand more personal touch and clear processing of funds. Therefore, the study strongly recommends that WMS providers should function in such a way as to send great contents to the prospects and ensure disclosure of pertinent way and means of wealth creation on a regular basis both congenial to mass affluent and HNW investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investor decision behavior in any pandemic, Covid-19 always goes through rationally. In reality or practically, the investment decisions made by millennials (generation Y) are not always rational. The sole purpose of the topic under study is to investigate a spectrum of millennial (generation Y) investors' behavioral factors that affect investment decisions during a pandemic. This study adopted secondary sources for data collection. The secondary data is gathered through published research papers in peer-reviewed journals, scholarly journals, magazines, news, and books, as well as published data from the government. The major findings reveal that millennials (generation Y) financially deal with more confusion and disagreements when dealing with various patterns of informed conduct or behavior in contrast to other generations. Also, if taken a step further, the outcomes imply a much more important aspect regarding investors' behavior, financial investments, and economic growth: that they were all affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. It caused anxiety and uncertainty among players in the market. Behavioral factors and heuristics like the overconfidence and attitude effect, and herding factors are considered to have also influenced investors' decisions. Furthermore, the market behavior factors of price change, market information, past trend, customer preference, and underlying stock fundamentals have an impact on individual investor decision behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Economic Research & Business Administration is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a niche source of entrepreneurial financing and a novel investment option that has appealed to investors. The present study aims to identify and prioritise factors that attract investors in the ICO selection process, thus providing valuable insights in improving their decision‐making process. To examine this objective, data were collected from respondents of four continents who had invested in ICO. The fuzzy analytical hierarchy process was applied to prioritise the factors inducing the decision‐making process of the respondents. Ideological factors, white paper, return expectations and behavioural factors emerged as the top four factors, respectively, that influenced the selection process. In contrast, technological factors appeared to be the least significant factor driving the selection process. This is the first kind of research that deals with the identification and prioritisation of factors and sub‐factors regarding the ICO selection decision‐making. The study will be of huge relevance to investors as it will offer them better clarity regarding the spectrum of factors and sub‐factors that impact their ICO selection process and simultaneously extend guidelines that will help them invest more rationally and strategically. The study will also ensure that issuers devise and design their ICO effectively to draw investors eventually leading to its success. Consequently, the study will serve the policymakers to establish a framework to enhance investors' protection from any unscrupulous practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the return predictability of investor sentiment in 12 Asian and European markets during the period between 2004 and 2016. Employing the composite sentiment index constructed from the consumer confidence index (CCI), advance/decline ratio (ADR), and volatility premium (VP), we find a strong negative relationship between investor sentiment and the next 3 to 24-month returns. This outcome implies that sentiment could be a contrarian predictor of market returns over various periods. Moreover, we reveal an essential role of local factors, including financial development, institutional governance, and culture, in the sentiment-return diversification among regional markets. We discover that the moderating effect of market-specific factors is time-varying and different between Asian and European areas. As a result, sentiment has a shorter-term impact in Europe but a longer-term impact in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is concerned with the data generated during a network transmission session to understand how to extract value from the data generated and be able to conduct tasks. Instead of comparing all of the transmission flags for a transmission session at the same time to conduct any analysis, this paper conceptualized the influence of each transmission flag on network-aware applications by comparing the flags one by one on their impact to the application during the transmission session, rather than comparing all of the transmission flags at the same time. The K-nearest neighbor (KNN) type classification was used because it is a simple distance-based learning algorithm that remembers earlier training samples and is suitable for taking various flags with their effect on application protocols by comparing each new sample with the K-nearest points to make a decision. We used transmission session datasets received from Kaggle for IP flow with 87 features and 3.577.296 instances. We picked 13 features from the datasets and ran them through KNN. RapidMiner was used for the study, and the results of the experiments revealed that the KNN-based model was not only significantly more accurate in categorizing data, but it was also significantly more efficient due to the decreased processing costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper examines the behavior of investors in times of economic crises when investing in the S&P 500 Index, gold and the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The results of the descriptive analysis show that the decision-making of investors in times of economic crises is reflected in the development of the S&P 500 Index by a decrease in average annual prices, the opposite is the case with gold, where there is a significant increase in the market price in times of crisis. This means that investors in crisis situations consider gold to protect their capital. An analysis of the tightness of the relationship between the S&P 500 Index and the price of gold based on monthly data by Pearson correlation confirmed a moderate inverse relationship. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin has seen a massive increase in market value during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the shift of business to the online world. As in the case of gold, from the perspective of investors, this cryptocurrency was seen as a way of protecting their investments and, in addition, the possibility of maintaining solvency even in a period of restrictions. Bitcoin and other virtual financial instruments seem to be a suitable alternative to gold investments in the 21st century during the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stock prediction is one of the most important issues on which the investor relies in building his investment decisions and the financial literature has relied heavily on predicting future events because of its exceptional importance in financial work, after which profit or loss is determined, and since money dealers are eager to profit, the researchers have devoted techniques to forecast as providing the tools to achieve this. The choice of the proper model of time series data affects the precision of the predictions, and stock market data is typically random and turbulent for various industries. To obtain forecast models of stock market data that can accurately portray reality and obtain future forecasts, these models must take all data considerations from linear and none linear trends, different influences, and other data factors, hence the research problem of obtaining a method that gives predictions of Iraq's stock market indicators that are accurate and reliable in stock analysis. In this paper, two models were proposed to predict the Iraqi stock markets index through the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) and a long short-term memory (LSTM) algorithm where Iraqi stock market data were used from 2017 to 2021 and good results were achieved in the prediction where the long short-term memory (LSTM) algorithm reached a mean square error (MSE) rate of as little as 0.0016 while the artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm reached error rate 0.0055. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the scheduling of maintenance tasks for generators is not a new issue, it has recently attracted new attention due to the significant rise in demand for expanding power system size in modern power systems. Generator Maintenance Scheduling (GMS) is a nonlinear optimization problem, highly dimensional and constrained, and determines when powerproducing units must undertake well-planned preventative maintenance. The objective function includes binary variables to indicate whether a generator is undergoing maintenance at a given time and is subject to several restrictions described in this paper. However, the biggest concern of GMS is to produce a precise timetable for preventive maintenance of generating units with low cost and high reliability. Despite that, regrettably, a large volume of research works has accomplished solutions towards a model of GMS with the consideration of either maximizing system reliability or minimizing operation costs as an objective of their research work. This is called Single-Objective Problem (SOP), which involves one objective function that needs to be optimized. SOP is solved by Single-Objective Optimization Method (SOOM). The primary purpose of the research is to present a review of SOOM methods used in solving GMS problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to examine investor perceptions of SIP and how SIP can gain and increase investor income. The research is carried out using the following SIP Axis Bluechip Fund, DSP Equity Fund, ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund,Edelweiss Large cap fund and Kotak Bluechip Funds. The mutual fund is a vehicle for diversifying one's portfolio of assets. People tend to concentrate on low- risk investments like PPF, bank deposits, insurance policies, and real estate. However, relying too heavily on fixed income investments is just as risky as investing in stocks. For them, investing in mutual funds is a safer choice. SIP is the best choice for those who want to make daily long-term investments. SIP investments are flexible because investors can choose to stop investing in a plan at any time or may choose to increase or decrease the investment amount. SIP is usually recommended to retail investors who do not have the resources to pursue the active investment. From the research it is understood that people are aware about the tax benefits from investing in SIP. Also to create greater investors awareness about the various schemes offered by the fund house, the fund house should invest in advertisement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural areas are characterized by sparse population, low population density, remoteness, and population aging, which can discourage startups and undermine their financial performance, as the theory of urban agglomeration economies suggests. However, many studies have shown that companies created in rural areas survive longer than those created in urban areas, which seems contradictory. This paper aims to identify the factors that explain this rural resilience. We analyzed all of the startups founded in Spain over 10 years. We used statistical matching methods to test for the effect of the location while controlling for founding conditions and environmental factors. Our study confirmed that few startups are created in rural areas and they grow less, but their survival rate is slightly higher than those established in urban areas. We found that high subsidies, low operating costs, high labor intensity, a slow but low-risk growth pattern, and other foundational conditions and external factors contribute to explaining rural resilience. Nonetheless, additional factors, including the traits of rural entrepreneurs and the lack of alternatives to bankruptcy, as proposed by the entrepreneurial opportunity theory, also matter. • Rural resilience is evident even in typically urban sectors such as HTEC industries. • Despite challenges, rural startups often exhibit higher survival rates compared to their urban counterparts. • The traits of rural entrepreneurs and the lack of alternatives to bankruptcy matter in the resilience of rural entrepreneurs. • Composite indicators of rurality provide practical insights for stakeholders in rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the concept of sustainable development and innovation-driven development strategy proposed in China, as well as the promotion of the concept of ESG, which takes into account both economic and social benefits, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study how ESG empowers both internal management and external investors, and ultimately enhances corporate technological innovation (CTI). This paper takes Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021 as the research object, and tries to study the impact of ESG performance on CTI and its mechanism based on the perspective of innovation process. It is found that: (1) ESG performance can effectively promote the intensity of R&D investment, innovation output and quality of enterprises, and this conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. (2) The innovation incentive effect of ESG performance is more obvious in enterprises in traditional industries, manufacturing industries and heavy pollution industries; (3) ESG performance mainly affects CTI through alleviating enterprise financing constraints, improving enterprise market expectations and gathering high-end research talents. The above findings have important implications for optimizing corporate ESG disclosure mechanisms and promoting CTI through process optimization. • Explore the impact of ESG performance on corporate technology innovation. • Focus on perspective of innovation process with input intensity, output quantity and quality. • Instrumental variables based on pan-ESG, city ESG and distance to Shanghai are selected. • Mechanisms of financial constraint, market expectation and talent agglomeration are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report was provoked by the trend of increasing investments of enterprises in real estate in recent years. This trend outlines a need to systematize real estate investment approaches both from accounting and tax compliance point of view. The author's main goal is to present three approaches to investment in real estate: direct acquisition of the real estate asset, acquisition of specific asset through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) or investment through a diversified Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) listed on the stock exchange by presenting the advantages and disadvantages for the investor in choosing each of the approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]