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Governments across jurisdictional boundaries leverage financial incentives as a policy strategy to support and develop the business of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study is a systematic rety view of the literature on direct governmental finance to SMEs through loans, guarantees, and credit lines between 2000–2021. Among the 89 studies identified for inclusion, four themes emerged: provision of government loans, other government finance provision, external reasons for government finance provision, and the purpose and outcomes of government financing. The key managerial and finance findings in this study are that a greater awareness among SMEs is needed for accessing existing financial incentives from the government. Likewise, regarding government policy, this study highlights a need to clarify the purpose of loan provision to SMEs. Finally, despite calls by researchers for more qualitative assessments of SMEs and targeted government loan provision, there remains a lack of evidence to characterize this interelationship in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the influence of uncertainty on corporate leverage for 6248 Indian firms for the period 2011– 2021. We find that their leverage tends to fall when policy uncertainty increases. Further, we investigate the two channels through which policy uncertainty affects corporate leverage: demand and supply channels. We find that policy uncertainty increases the burden of debt financing. Furthermore, companies are inclined towards reducing their investment demand during periods of higher uncertainty. Both of these factors contribute to lower debt financing and leverage. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and diverse model identifications using alternate measures of leverage and policy uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an expectation management policy, central bank communication can affect corporate market expectations, thus effectively guiding corporate investment and financing behavior. Based on the quarterly data of non-financial listed enterprises from 2007 to 2020, this paper analyzes the relationship between central bank communication and non-financial corporate leverage differentiation. The results show that central bank communication can reduce corporate leverage differentiation. The increase in the degree of bank credit discrimination can further amplify the inhibitory effect of central bank loose communication on the leverage differentiation of non-financial enterprises. The mechanism analysis shows that central bank communication can affect the leverage differentiation of non-financial enterprises by reducing financial mismatches, stabilizing the market expectation mechanism, and reducing managers' myopia. The results of the extended analysis show that the central bank's loose communication can inhibit the degree of leverage differentiation between zombie firms and non-zombie firms, and improve the dynamic adjustment speed of corporate capital structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal/purpose/objective of the inquiry is to empirically investigate the impact of capital structure (CS) on firm performance (FP), from an emerging capital market perspective, Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). Using financial data from 36 listed-firms on the GSE, spanning 2010–2020, and employing a robust dynamic panel System of Generalized Method of Moment (GMM), this inquiry examined CS-FP-nexuses. Results revealed that whilst total-debt-to-total-equity-ratio, total-debt-to-total-assets-ratio, long-term-debt-ratio, and financial risk exhibited negative associations with FP; total-equity-to-total-assets-ratio, short-term-debt-ratio, cash conversion cycle, total assets turnover, tangibility, sales-growth, firm size, and firm age revealed positive associations with FP, suggesting that highly leveraged-firms are susceptible to insolvency due to high debt-financing cost with worsened macroeconomic instability effect via increased sensitivity of the economy to shocks. Recommendations were made to policymakers to revamp Ghana's capital market to encourage equity-investment and also entreat listed-firms to improve upon their profitability and utilize more retained earnings as an internal-financing source to minimize the interest cost on debt-financing. By utilizing data on all the 36 firms listed on the GSE, an uncharted/unexploited path, this current inquiry is one of the few studies that has contributed to the literature on capital structure-performance nexus in Ghana, an emerging West African country south of the Sahara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing green finance is an important measure for China to achieve a win-win situation between economy and ecology. This study adopts the implementation of Green Credit Guidelines (GCG) in China in 2012 as an intervening event and empirically examines its relative impact on corporate financing and investment using Difference-in-Difference and Difference-in-Difference-in-Difference models. Employing the financial data of A-share listed enterprises from 2009 to 2015, we find that the implementation of GCG restrains the financing and investment behavior of heavily polluting enterprises. The effects of GCG are influenced by institutional factors, and GCG has a more inhibitory effect in the higher polluting, state-owned, and eastern region registered enterprises. This result reveals the importance of GCG in adjusting financial leverage and promoting environmental protection. Policy implications, such as governments should improve incentive and punishment mechanism for heavily polluting enterprises and financial institutions should innovate in green credit business, are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how firms' responses to climate risk affect the financial leverage through an impact on the asset beta. Considering the 2015 Paris Agreement about greenhouse gas reduction as a natural experiment on Japanese manufacturing firms, we observe that the asset beta increased and financial leverage decreased for high emission firms after the agreement was signed. Further, a significant decline was observed for the leverage of high emission firms experiencing a sharp rise in the asset beta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multistakeholder dialogues (MSDs) provide unique opportunities for partners and key stakeholders to meet in a neutral space, get to know each other, and build trust and mutual understanding before getting into the issue of water cooperation. The study identifies four key enabling factors stimulating regional MSDs: (a) balancing inclusion and role of facilitators, (b) utilizing existing regional political and economic processes, (c) using thematic anchoring and strategic design, and (d) leveraging sustainable finance. An examination of transboundary regional MSDs in South East Europe, Southern Africa, and South Asia reveals the pivotal role played by these four factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, especially as compared to mutual funds, exchange traded fund (ETF) markets have grown and advanced significantly compared to other financial asset classes because of relative advantages. We found that inclusion of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in ETF assets under management (AUM) positively impacts REIT capital structure (financial leverage), cost of equity capital, and stock market liquidity. As percentages of REIT outstanding shares included in ETF AUM increased, we found corresponding reductions in financial leverage (both book and market leverage), reduced costs of equity capital, and greater market liquidity. This should be of particular interest to REIT and ETF managers as well as REIT and ETF investors. Partially because regulatory statutes incentivize REITs to rely more heavily on external equity financing, REIT stocks included as ETF AUM showed greater reductions in leverage compared to non-REIT stocks also held as ETF AUM. Our results, including applying difference-in-differences models, were robust with respect to these findings, REIT type, and firm fixed effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to leverage private investment is a key selling point of infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs). Research has shown that to attract private capital to infrastructure projects government support is needed. However, the specific instruments of government support and their configurations remain unclear. Drawing insights from institutional theories and the public finance literature, this paper examines the government's institutional and financial tools for leveraging private capital. Based on a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 34 road projects in the U.S. we reveal the multiple configurations of government support strategies that are consistent with high private investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the role of an Action Learning Coach in real-world scenarios. The coach addresses challenges such as team members leaving for phone calls, disruptions caused by important participants and the team returning from a break visibly shaken. As the coach, I employed an approach involving awareness, team queries, and collaborative decision-making. The paper emphasizes the vital function of language in coaching, advocating for a non-judgmental, future-positive approach to instill a learning mindset. The paper underscores the transformative potential of action learning, a process that encourages constant questioning and questioning everything. Action learning coaching leverages coaching at the group level, fostering self-awareness, goal setting and feedback. The article concludes by highlighting the impact of coaching on participants' goal orientation and self-efficacy, stressing the importance of a learning orientation for building powerful, growth-oriented teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to investigate the impact of the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on a firm's strategic voluntary disclosure decisions under different product market conditions. In the corporate world, firms tactically decide the level of voluntary disclosures considering their benefits, like resolving information asymmetry in the financial market, and costs, like providing proprietary information to their rivals. The adoption of IFRS has affected the demands in the financial market for complementary information, and therefore, it would affect the incentive to withhold corporate information in consideration of proprietary costs in the product market. Using a sample of Korean firms, we find that the likelihood of withholding management forecasts in concentrated industries is weaker in the post-IFRS adoption phase than in the pre-IFRS adoption phase. This is because there are greater demands for corporate disclosures for firms in concentrated industries in the post-IFRS adoption phase than earlier. Moreover, we find that the influence of IFRS on the decision of firms in concentrated industries to disclose management forecasts is significant only for firms with higher market power and higher financial leverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions," explores how China uses sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to advance the agenda of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The author argues that China's SWFs, which they prefer to call sovereign leverage funds (SLFs), are unique because they are not commodity-based funds but are based on China's foreign exchange reserves. The article examines the establishment and workings of these funds and provides policy recommendations for managing China's global financial challenges. While the article sheds light on the role of SLFs in China's rise, it also raises questions that require further analysis. [Extracted from the article]

The paper explores whether, and how, capital structure determinants differ across industries. Specifically, we investigate whether the typical capital structure determinants of size, profitability, asset tangibility, non-debt-tax-shields and liquidity affect, in a statistically different way, how capital structure is determined across four different industries: manufacturing, commerce, services, and tourism. We show that even though industry effects have been looked at in the various capital structure determination studies, they have not been thoroughly studied in capital structure literature. We apply an interaction effects methodological approach and show that capital structure determinants do differ in terms of magnitude and direction across industries, concluding that industry specifications should be investigated more thoroughly when exploring the capital structure determination puzzle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have discussed urban regeneration from the perspective of the displacement of long-time residents in disadvantaged communities. However, under certain circumstances, urban regeneration occurring on the outskirts of high-demand areas can enable middle-class and lower-class apartment owners to leverage their apartments as financial assets using various strategies. Relying on a qualitative study (n = 50) conducted in Bat Yam, a suburban city in Israel's Tel Aviv metropolitan area, this article proposes conceiving of the social impact of urban regeneration as a new inequality in which the ownership structure and the approach to real estate constitute a major link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study's main aim is to examine the important determinants that affect working capital (WRC) for non-quality-certified and quality-certified firms from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model and to explore the impacts of quality certificates on WRC. The study is conducted using the secondary data of 328 firms, including 21 quality-certified firms. The secondary data were retrieved from the Albertina database from 2017 to 2021. The two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation was employed to test the hypotheses. The empirical findings indicate that firm size and operating cash flow have a positive impact on WRC. On the other hand, financial leverage and profitability have a negative relationship with WRC. The quality certificates from the European Foundation have a positive impact on both types of WRC. The findings of this study will be beneficial to the firms' directors, managers, academics, and leaders to sustain the optimum level and forecast future WRC requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relationship between firm leverage and firm-level labour shares by using the panel threshold effect model. Based on the sample of Chinese firms listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) from 2010 to 2019, we find that leverage has a significant threshold effect on the labour share of firms, and on average, firm leverage is positively associated with the labour share when the debt per labour is less than 640,000 CNY (approximate 89,600 USD). When the firm leverage exceeds the threshold, firm leverage is negatively associated with labour share. We also find significant heterogeneity over state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), capital-intensive firms and labour-intensive firms, firms with different levels of financial constraints and firms in different life cycles. We contribute to prior literature by revealing the nonlinear association between leverage and firm-level labour share. Therefore, various policies (e.g. made credit policy to restrict lending to firms without sustainable profitability) must be implemented to increase the labour share of enterprises as well as achieve the higher-quality development of the economy in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research question of which firm-level factors make firms more vulnerable to exchange rate fluctuations during periods of crisis has rarely been explored by prior literature. Using a large sample of 1577 firms from 9 developed and 11 emerging countries, this study presents a comprehensive analysis of how firm-level factors affect firms' foreign exchange exposure before and during the COVID-19 crisis. The results provide evidence of a substantial increase in firms' linear exposure during the COVID-19 period. The cross-sectional analysis reveals that the effects of firm-level variables on exposure are more pronounced during crisis periods and are different from non-crisis periods. Firms that have effective asset utilization or large operating profit margins remain less exposed during times of stress. Contrary to hedging theory, firms that have high incentives to hedge such as firms with high financial leverage become highly exposed to currency fluctuations during crisis periods. The interaction analysis provides further evidence that firms with high leverage can limit their foreign exchange exposure during periods of crisis if they have high asset turnover or high operating profits. The results offer important practical implications to firms for risk management during periods of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sovereign wealth funds ("SWFs") have emerged in the last three decades to be players in the global economy as funding sources. Moreover, OECD economies with low savings rates would benefit from the additional funds provided by SWFs. Disadvantages of SWFs Despite the advantages, SWFs are not without their drawbacks. [Extracted from the article]

Digital transformation remains a passion. Globally, science and technology are transforming businesses to make them more competitive and conducive to sustainable development. However, rapid advancements in financial technology have enabled financial institutions to steal customers from traditional banks, resulting in their demise. Consequently, this study employs the System GMM-two step estimator and data from 118 Chinese banks from 2014 to 2021 investigate the issue. Empirical evidence suggests that banks' digital transformation has a negative impact on their profitability to some extent, but digital inclusive finance has enabled the bank to change its digital transformation behavior and enhance its operational performance. Therefore, banks must continue to strengthen their digital transformation by expanding online customer services, increasing the use of e-accounts and mobile applications, providing digital offline services, strengthening digital risk management and privacy and security controls, reducing customer psychological risk, and promoting financial inclusion. Financial inclusion should simultaneously achieve reduced financial exclusion of customers and increased financial literacy of customers. All these factors will help banks to maintain profitability by leveraging synergies with financial inclusion in the process of digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green development efficiency has become an important research topic as many countries are striving to transform development model. This study conducts static measurement and dynamic decomposition analysis of the green development efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta in China using a DEA-Malmquist model. The result shows that the green development efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta is generally on an upward trend, but varies considerably within the region. Moreover, this study analyses the influencing factors and spatial effects of green development efficiency using the spatial Durbin model, which shows that there are obvious spatial correlations and spatial dependencies in the green development efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster, and the influencing factors such as financial development and industrial structure have a positive effect on the city's green development efficiency and have a positive spillover effect on the surrounding areas. However, technological innovation has a negative spillover effect on green development efficiency. Finally, this study proposes to improve the regional coordination mechanism of green technological innovation, guide the development of financial agglomeration and leverage the spatial spillover effect. In addition, industry structure transformation should be further facilitated, and the development of advanced manufacturing clusters should be supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying VAR/SVAR analysis to the national balance sheet data of the US, this paper provides evidence that the households markedly interact with those of government sectors through the channel of financial leverage, which is defined as the liabilities-to-assets ratio. In particular, the impulse-response and forecasting error decomposition analysis further show that the federal government plays an important role in absorbing the leverage shocks in households. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that this role of the federal government as somewhat of a macroeconomic stabilizer also costs it heavily in view of its escalating leverage over time. Among other concerns, this highly leveraged financial position renders the federal balance sheet more vulnerable to macro-financial risks, thus reducing the room for manoeuvre for countercyclical policies. Finally, with a relatively low and stable leverage ratio, the state/local governments seem to be less involved in such interactions. However, their prudent balance sheet position also implies that they play a minor role in fiscal measures supporting households during economic downturns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the regulatory policy on cash dividends implemented in 2013 as the research context, this study develops a difference-in-difference (DID) model using the data of Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies from 2011–2019, and found that cash dividend smoothing reduces the wealth management products (WMPs) purchased by companies. Channel tests demonstrated that cash dividend smoothing reduces the company's WMPs by increasing the financial leverage and attracting independent-type institutional investors to exert debt governance effect and institutional investor governance effect. Additional analysis found that cash dividend smoothing has a greater effect on WMPs when there are serious managerial agency problems within the firm, the nature of ownership is private, and in regions with dense branches of financial institutions. More importantly, cash dividend smoothing was found to alleviate the crowding-out effect of WMPs on industrial investment and help return the firms' capital to industrial operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clean energy companies often require more costly investment in technology innovation than traditional energy companies, which poses higher technological risks. Therefore, many inconclusive debates have arisen concerning whether the R&D investment can generate sustained returns for such companies. This paper adopts progressive modeling steps to address the problem by using a modified Cobb-Douglas production function, System Generalized Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) approach, and fixed-effect panel threshold model. The role of R&D investment; the non-linear relationship between revenue, innovation, efficiency, and risk; as well as the corresponding threshold effects in clean and traditional energy companies are analyzed. 840 firm-year observations of clean energy companies from the NASDAQ Clean Edge Index are collected and screened, and compared with 280 firm-year observations of listed traditional energy companies in the U.S. Moreover, four types of clean energy companies, comprising green energy, wind power, water, and smart grid companies, are calculated and summarized separately. The results show that, for clean energy companies, long-term R&D intensity is beneficial to returns, shortening the cash conversion cycle (CCC) value, and reducing the financial leverage can produce a positive effect on return on assets (ROA), while different types of clean energy companies are advised with tailor-made portfolio strategies. For traditional energy companies, controlling the financial leverage while properly increasing CCC can help improve their ROAs. In this context, policy recommendations are provided for stakeholders to optimize their investment strategies in various clean and traditional energy enterprises according to the time-lag effect and threshold effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the cost of financial distress of non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan stock exchange. Furthermore, it considers the moderating role of concentrated ownership in the relationship between debt and expected financial distress costs. We used the panel data of 214 firms from 2010 to 2018 to analyse the results. We apply fixed effect model to test the hypotheses. We find that ex-ante financial distress costs are based not only on the probability of financial distress but also affect the amount of time and money spent during the distress period. The use of tangible fixed assets and long-term leverage lowers the cost of financial distress, whereas the use of short-term debt has no significant impact on the cost of financial distress. Furthermore, the company's ownership structure dampens the impact of these factors. Corporate management may reduce the cost of financial distress through better management of fixed assets and financial leverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on collective bargaining that often reflects the use of power and influence, including communication focused on changing people's opinions, leverage, and counter leverage. Topics include examines recommendations for improving the bargaining process and resulting outcomes rooted in inclusivity and transparency, both of which facilitate the trust necessary for effective cooperation.

State enterprises, sovereign funds, and other state–capital hybrids have become major engines of global capitalism. How can we explain their global rise and organizational transformation into increasingly sophisticated and globally competitive forms? Why do they increasingly emulate the practices and organizational goals of comparable private-sector entities, adopt the techniques of modern finance, resort to mixed ownership, and extend their operations across geographic space? After critically engaging with arguments that emphasize the role of firm strategies, developmentalist logics, financialized norms, and Polanyian double movements, we develop an explanatory model of organizational change grounded in historic–geographic materialism and economic geographies of the firm. We locate the expansion of state ownership (the role of states as owners) in the historic development and geographic remaking of global capitalism and, in particular, the emergence of a new constellation of international divisions of labor. This created the conditions for a massive round of centralization of capital as state property (the mass of capital controlled by states) since the early 2000s. The modern, marketized, globally spread state–capital hybrid emerged as an organizational fix to mediate the geographic contradictions and imperatives associated with this process. Purposive organizational adaption consisted in developing new skills, operational capabilities, and mixed-ownership structures in order to leverage the financial system, allow for the development of liquid forms of state property, and facilitate the expansion of the latter into global circuits of capital. As such, the article contributes to debates on the role of the state in global value chains, the firm-state nexus, and state capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates term risk premium and expected future spot rates embedded in Treasury forward rates to study the impact of short-term funding shortages on these quantities. Our approach is consistent with dynamic equilibrium models and avoids the arbitrage-free dynamic inconsistency problems exhibited by traditional methods. We find that short-term funding shortages in money markets affect both expectations of spot rates and forward rate risk premium for all maturity forward rates. The leverage ratio of intermediaries (primary dealers) significantly affects term risk premium but not expectations of future spot rates. Yield curve inversion has no impact on the forward rate curve's evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how external governance pressure from the media affects capital structure. Using a comprehensive set of corporate news, we find a negative relation between media coverage and financial leverage. The tests we use to address endogeneity suggest that the effect is causal. Cross-sectional tests indicate that the results are more pronounced when board or shareholder monitoring is weaker. We further find that the effect of media coverage is more pronounced for news related to executives (i.e., the news that are more likely to impose reputational costs on managers). Our findings are consistent with a substitution effect between the external governance imposed by the media and the discipline provided by debt financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how development banks should deploy appropriate financial instruments to encourage real economic risk-taking while minimizing financial engineering risks. We distinguish real economic risks from financial engineering or intermediary risks and argue that using complex financial instruments to leverage additional private financing may undermine policy steer and lead to too much risk being taken by development banks. We then explore comparative advantages of different financial instruments such as loans, guarantees, equity, and insurance in tackling risks in normal times. Then we synthesize common features of development banks' responses to the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, we propose future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public development banks (PDBs) — at sub-national, national, regional or international level — can cooperate and become central in the implementation of sustainable economic models. PDBs are over 500 globally. They are both providers of public funding and enablers to leverage private finance. PDBs need to acquire 'sustainable development analytical tools' to select operations on the basis of criteria other than purely financial ones. This paper explores why development banks can play a leading role. It proposes five recommendations for decision-makers: (1) Streamline into financing decisions the need to transition towards low-carbon and equitable economies. (2) Mobilise and encourage the private sector such that all stakeholders reach convergence on sustainable development. (3) Use development banks to channel funds for transition purposes into concrete projects, programmes consistent with international agreements signed by their governments. (4) Support emergence of a responsible demand, given that PDBs themselves are not originators of projects. (5) Build a global coalition of PDBs, to tackling global problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the likelihood of financial statement manipulation among 19 listed manufacturing and trading firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange for the period 2008 to 2017. We use the Beneish model to group the firms into those likely to engage in financial statement manipulation and those not likely to be involved in financial statement manipulation. Generally, the results show that majority of the firms are likely to be involved in financial statement manipulation. Also, we find that profitability, liquidity, financial leverage, change of audit firm, and the overall economic condition (Z-score) are firm-level factors that predict the likelihood of financial statement manipulation among listed manufacturing and trading firms in Ghana. Given the high number of manufacturing and trading firms likely to engage in financial statement manipulation, there is the need for the managers of the Ghana Stock Exchange to subject future financial reports of these firms to rigorous scrutiny to safeguard the interest of their stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been assumed that marketisation would undermine banks, a claim reflected in the common opposition of market and bank-based finance. But as recent research shows, some banks have flourished in the marketized environment of financialisation. I argue the reason they have come to dominate financialisation stems from a revolution in funding that began in the 1960s with the rise of liability management. This practice enabled some banks to dramatically leverage their operations and expand their balance sheet. The new funding practice also impacted the business model of US banks fuelling a move from lending to trading. As I show, this revolution in finance shifted the power away from lenders and towards leveraging financial agents that focused on capturing assets through predatorial strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subsequent Program of Anti-crisis Measures of the Government of the Russian Federation for 2009 covered interest-rate subsidies on loans to real-sector organizations that were shortchanged when carrying out government orders. The Chinese government developed the concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), which was later combined with the Maritime Silk Road of the Twenty-First Century under the name One Road, One Belt. However, the above integrated indicators of a country's economic security make it possible to judge how much the security of a country's national economy has increased or decreased with respect to a conditionally accepted threshold and, consequently, how closely this value approaches the economy's absolute security or absolute vulnerability. A country's economic security, which has been achieved within the framework of economic patronage (for example, by the government and central bank) and economic cooperation and confrontation with nineteen countries, in particular, can be assessed using 19 × 3 = 57 individual indicators, the values of which vary from 0.01 (absolute vulnerability of the national economy to external and internal threats) to 100 (absolute security). [Extracted from the article]

This study investigates the effects of 7 internal corporate factors on the liquidity of 30 French and 30 Taiwanese banks and uses the Quick Ratio (LIQ) as a liquidity proxy using quarterly data from 2012 to 2018. The analysis employs multiple linear panel regression models, namely, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS); and both Fixed Effects (FE), and Random Effects (RE) are used as robustness tests. This research examines financial leverage (LEV), size (SZ), return on total assets (ROTA), operating profit (OP), customer loans and bank loans (CLBL), return on equity (ROE), and working capital ratio (WCR) as possible factors influencing a bank's liquidity. Findings show that banks from both countries do not exhibit many similarities except that SZ positively affects LIQ. For French banks and all banks combined, LEV and ROTA have the same negative relationship with LIQ, whereas WCR has a positive relationship. However, these ratios do not show any significance for Taiwanese banks. Bigger French banks mostly show different results from smaller French banks. LEV and ROE positively affect LIQ, and WCR negatively affects LIQ for bigger French banks, while the opposite is true for smaller French banks. However, both LIQ is negatively influenced by ROTA. Bigger Taiwanese banks show a similar and negative influence of CLBL and WCR on LIQ with smaller Taiwanese banks. This paper provides original empirical evidence in examining financial factors that management can use to better understand changes in a bank's liquidity. It also contributes to the literature by understanding the different effects of corporate variables on the liquidity of French and Taiwanese banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper investigates the nexus between the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) and the market leverage of firms listed on the US stock market. Analyzing the yearly database of non-financial US firms from 2000 to 2019, we find that an increase in the VIX index has a positive impact on the leverage of the corporate market. We also find robust evidence that the US-listed firms tend to use more market leverage in the future year when the VIX index ascends. Furthermore, we find a more prominent positive effect of the change in the VIX index on the long-term market leverage than the short-term market leverage. Different approaches for the panel models firmly support our findings. In addition, our research suggests that the implied volatility index is a good proxy to measure investors' fear of securities investment and provides a good foundation for making the capital structure decisions for the firms listed on the US stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this study is the capital structure of the largest Serbian companies in the period after the global economic crisis in 2008. The research sample comprises the 141 largest non-financial (mostly private) companies in Serbia over the period 2009–2017. In order to identify the key determinants of the capital structure of the sampled companies, three models of financial leverage were tested (total, short-term, and long-term) using panel data fixed effects models. The main result of the analysis indicates that these companies, mostly financed by short-term debt, predominantly belong to the 'pecking order' theory. When the total leverage is split into its short-term and long-term components, the results show that short-term leverage behaviour aligns with the 'pecking order' theory, whereas long-term leverage is fully consistent with the expectations of the trade-off theory. Also, this study shows that the country-specific determinants, such as inflation and development of the banking sector, have a significant impact on the capital structure of the largest companies in Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of companies utilise end-of-use products (i.e. cores) for remanufacturing or recycling. An adequate supply of cores is needed for such activities. Establishing a purchasing policy for cores, over a finite planning horizon, requires multi-step ahead forecasts. Such forecasts are complicated by the fact that the number of cores in any future period depends upon previous sales and recent returns of the product. Distributed lag models have been used to capture this dependency for single-period ahead forecasts. We develop an approach to use distributed lag models to make multi-period ahead forecasts of net demand (i.e. demand minus returns), and investigate the cost implications, at a prescribed service level, of using such forecasts to purchase cores on a rolling horizon basis. Our results indicate that the effects of errors in the sales forecasts are negligible if sales follow an autoregressive pattern but are substantial when sales are more random. Dynamic estimation of the parameters in a rolling horizon environment yielded the most cost savings at high prescribed service levels (i.e. >0.95). Collectively, our results demonstrate the conditions in which companies can best leverage the dynamic nature of distributed lag models to reduce the acquisition costs over a finite horizon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined the impact of changes in creditors' rights on the financial policy of Indian firms in a quasi-natural experimental set up. Using the implementation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in 2016 as an exogenous policy shock, we investigated the changes in quantitative (leverage) and qualitative (debt maturity and debt heterogeneity) aspects of the financial policy. Overall, our findings indicated that the strengthening of creditors' rights had a negative impact on debt ratio and debt heterogeneity and a positive impact on long-term debt maturity structure. These results were observed mainly in those firms that had a high probability of bankruptcy in the pre-implementation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how to trigger a wave of low-carbon investments compatible with the well-below 2°C target of the Paris Agreement in the current post-pandemic context of increasing private and public debt. We argue that one major obstacle to catalysing global excess savings at sufficient scale and speed on climate mitigation, and to 'greening' economic recovery packages, lies in the up-front risks of low-carbon investment. We then explain why public guarantees should be the preferred risk-sharing instrument to overcome that obstacle. We outline the basic principles of a multilateral sovereign guarantee mechanism able to maximize the leverage effect of public funds and massively redirect global savings towards low-carbon investments, with the double benefit of bridging the infrastructure investment gap in developing countries and reducing tension between developed and developing countries around accelerated funding for low-carbon transitions. We carry out numerical simulations demonstrating how the use of guarantees from AAA-rated sovereigns, calibrated on an agreed-upon 'social value of carbon', is compatible with public-budget constraints of developed countries. In summary, the use of such guarantee mechanisms provides a new form of 'where flexibility', which could turn real-world heterogeneity into a source of reciprocal gains for both developed and developing countries, and contribute to meeting the USD 100 billion + pledge of the Paris Agreement. Catalysing excess world savings through low-carbon investments (LCIs) would secure a safer and fairer economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and avoid locking developing countries into carbon-intensive pathways. Public policy instruments focused on the creation of public guarantees can reduce the up-front financial risks associated with LCIs, mobilize private money and increase the leverage of public finance. A multi-sovereign guarantee mechanism would yield financial support from developed to developing countries in cash grant equivalent and equity inflows two to four times higher than the 'USD 100 billion and more' commitment of the Paris Agreement, and provide greater confidence in meeting this commitment equitably and effectively with benefits for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aid donors, development advocates, and finance experts increasingly look to the private sector to fill the estimated $2.5 trillion annual Sustainable Development Goals financing gap, an amount likely to increase due to effects of COVID-19. Donors use a variety of partnerships with the private sector to realise development objectives. We use the term donor–private partnerships (DPPs) to describe the broad range of arrangements between donors and private–sector actors. Using ODA to leverage private finance, innovation testing, or service delivery, modalities include blended finance, de-risking instruments, public–private partnerships, and more. Does the reality match donors' enthusiastic rhetoric? There are success stories but civil society actors and others question whether private sector engagement in development reduces poverty and inequality, advances gender justice, and achieves environmental sustainability. There may be trade-offs between development and profit making. We present our research based on frameworks we developed to categorise and assess DPPs. We applied these to 20 partnerships involving nine donors and found that donors fail to sufficiently integrate development, human rights, and environmental standards. They inconsistently implement due diligence and risk management requirements, and impact assessments are inadequate. Our frameworks offer practitioners and academics valuable tools to examine how DPPs can advance sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding concerns about mounting levels of corporate debt in the United States. This article places the current conjuncture in its historical context, analysing corporate indebtedness against the backdrop of increasing corporate concentration. Theorising leverage as a form of power, we find that the leverage of large non-financial firms increased in recent decades, while their debt servicing burdens decreased. At the same time, smaller firms experienced sharp deleveraging alongside increasing debt servicing costs. Crucially, smaller corporations also registered severe losses over this period, while large corporations remained profitable, and in fact doubled their net profit margins from the early-1990s to the present. Taken together, the results from our mapping exercise uncover a series of dramatic changes in the financial fortunes of large versus smaller firms in recent decades, a phenomenon we refer to as the great debt divergence. We explain this divergence with reference to the dynamics of power in the era of 'shareholder capitalism', and we argue that the US political economy in the post-COVID 19 world is likely to resemble the pre-COVID 19 one, only with more market turmoil, more concentration, more inequality, and even less investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past years, the financial technology industry has gained considerable attention from policy makers and regulators, market participants, as well as the general public. Despite the interest of these stakeholders, academic research on the topic is scarce and we aim to extend the literature by examining the impact of financial leverage on the performance of FinTech firms. Using a sample of 146 U.S. FinTech firms operating in ten market segments over the period 2000–2016, we find that financial leverage has a negative impact on profitability and risk-adjusted performance. We also reveal that the magnitude of the influence of leverage depends on firm age. The results are robust to the use of a cross-country sample, alternative model specifications and estimation approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firm growth has been studied extensively, yet limited attention has been devoted specifically to growth in women-owned firms. Women entrepreneurship studies to date has focused largely on the start-up rather than the growth stage. Given the dearth of research with this focus and the recognized prime role of the entrepreneur in driving firm growth, this study focuses on the specific human capabilities driving firm growth, through a survey of 172 micro and small women-owned established firms in Ireland. Regression analysis highlights that specific human capabilities (education, managerial experiences and being team-led) strongly influence firm-financial growth. These human capabilities are leveraged to maximize financial growth, but not employment growth. Therefore, employment as a measure of growth may be a barrier to access policy supports and initiatives for this cohort of entrepreneurs. We contribute a more nuanced understanding of growth from a resource-based view, in women-owned established micro and small firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-levered firms have serious concerns related to avoiding covenant violations and meeting the needs of their creditors. Accounting information of those firms should be less value relevant for market participants. Based on a sample of Turkish listed firms over 2009–2018, we analyse whether the value relevance of accounting information is significantly lower for high-levered firms. For this purpose, we group observations with no net debt and divide the rest into quintiles based on leverage levels. We conclude that the value relevance of both earnings and book value of equity is lower for the high-levered quintile than the rest. Moreover, the value relevance of earnings is moderated more than the value relevance of book value of equity for the high-levered quintile. Last, book value of equity is more dominant in the valuation of the high-levered quintile than the valuation of the rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about Digital transformation with a series of coordinated culture, workforce, and technology shifts that enable new educational and operating models and transform an institution's business model, strategic directions, and value proposition. Topics include Dx initiatives on many campuses are anchored in student success goals; and policies will be critical to create the shifts to culture and workforce leverage technology from equity and ethics.

The aim of this work is to investigate which policy tools are used in the governance of the healthcare sector. In particular, we compare the healthcare systems of five OECD countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, England and the Netherlands. The analysis intends to reconstruct the healthcare governance methods implemented in these countries, and understand how they have evolved over the last thirty years. Throughout this work, policy tools are subdivided into four categories: direct provision, regulation, financing and information. Direct provision remains the prevailing mode of governance in the English healthcare system. All of the five countries studied in this work make extensive use of regulation. Insurer regulation is particularly stringent in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. Of the countries examined, those that make the greatest use of financial leverage seem to be Australia and Canada. England and the Netherlands are the two countries that focus most on informative policy tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We expand the traditional specification of the tax gain from leverage by accounting for the choice between issuing debt and utilizing internal retained earnings equity. Standard analyses focus solely on the choice between debt and external equity. This results in the traditional tax gain from leverage, which equals the corporate tax benefit from debt minus the partially offsetting personal tax disadvantage. Expanding the debt analysis to include internal equity introduces a third tax component to the gain from leverage: a supplemental personal tax disadvantage. This supplemental disadvantage reflects the personal tax cost of distributing internally-generated equity to investors and using replacement debt. It reduces the overall or comprehensive tax gain from leverage and frequently converts it into a tax loss. Therefore, using debt often is costlier than generally assumed. We provide conceptual support for the comprehensive tax gain, plus some initial empirical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency cost theory suggests that a firm's financial leverage is important to improve organizational efficiency. Using data of industrial companies of three biggest economies, this study analyzes how debt-financing decision affects firm efficiency and the mediating role of cash holding. We find inverted U-shape relationship between the level of financial leverage and firm efficiency. This implies that firms with optimum capital structure achieve high efficiency. The cash-holding level of the companies negatively relates to the efficiency. We also document that the firms' that apply more financial leverage are less likely to hold excess cash balances and that the cash holding partially mediates the relationship between the financial leverage and the firms' efficiency. This suggests that the use of debt financing has the potential to enhance firm efficiency by effectively tapping the free cash flow that would have been misused by the management. The results have important implications for corporate finance since it highlights how financial decisions determine corporate productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High transition costs remain a major barrier to deeply decarbonizing sectors such as transport in many developing countries. Choice of mode and complementary policies are critical to shaping the costs of climate mitigation in the transport sector. This paper investigates the potentials offered by combined technological and behavioural changes stimulated by strategic infrastructure deployment that can facilitate decarbonization of transport in China. Our study is carried out using IMACLIM-R, a state-of-the-art integrated assessment model, which includes a detailed representation of transport dynamics by incorporating the behavioural determinants of mobility in a standard transport modelling framework. More specifically, this behavioural representation considers (i) the spatial organization of residential dwellings and industrial production, (ii) modal shift induced by transport infrastructure deployment and (iii) the intensity of freight transport production and distribution processes. It is found that supplementing carbon pricing with behavioural measures and a decoupling of economic activity from mobility needs can efficiently promote a modal shift towards low-carbon transport modes and reallocate the sectoral distribution of mitigation efforts. This in turn would significantly reduce the macro-economic impacts of deeply decarbonizing Chinese transport activities over the next decades. Complementary policies should focus on infrastructure, fiscal incentives, land-use, building regulations and other policies affecting the ways urban activities are distributed within the city's boundary, along with industrial policies and other regulations that affect where firms choose to locate. Key policy insights To decarbonize China's transport sector an integrated approach is needed due to strong inertia and distributional effects. Complementary policies have to focus on transport infrastructure, fiscal incentives, land-use and building regulations, as well as spatial organization. Transport-related climate policies interconnect with the ways in which urban activities are distributed within the city's boundary, but also with industrial policies and other regulations that affect where firms choose to locate. A suite of policy instruments is required, including larger institutional incentives and greater financial leverage supporting innovations in the transport sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of excessive volatility in world market currencies caused by COVID-19, especially on the tourism industry, is pervasive. This paper examines the foreign currency risk of 131 tourism firms from 19 countries during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it with the pre-COVID-19 period to analyse the time-variation of firms' exposure. The study provides evidence that firms face significantly higher currency risk during this pandemic, whereby firm-specific variables, such as operational efficiency, leverage and hedging, are significant determinants of firms' currency risk in the tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]