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Narrative inquiry has gained traction in applied linguistics as a complementary approach to positivistic research, focusing on the subjectivities of individuals' lived experiences and using stories as data, analytical tools, and reporting practice. Although numerous methodologically oriented publications on narrative inquiry in the field reflect its vitality, scholars have raised questions about the complexity and ambiguity underlying what exactly constitutes narrative inquiry. While methodological diversity within narrative inquiry can signal innovation, it can also create uncertainty for novice and experienced scholars engaging with the methodology for the first time. To address these concerns, we conducted a systematic methodological synthesis of narrative inquiry studies in applied linguistics published from 2012 to 2022. Specifically, we searched 12 top‐tier applied linguistics journals and developed a corpus of 291 articles. We coded our corpus according to four areas: (a) theoretical framing, (b) demographic characteristics, (c) methodological design, and (d) reporting of ethics, researcher positionality, and funding status. We discuss our results in light of previous thematic reviews of narrative inquiry in applied linguistics, and we offer empirically grounded recommendations for scholars engaging with narrative inquiry. Our study responds to calls for greater methodological transparency in applied linguistics in general and methodological investment in narrative inquiry in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of management myopia on the investment behavior of green investors using A‐share listed companies from 2004 to 2020 in China. The research reveals that management myopia significantly inhibits the investment behavior of green investors. Through corporate reputation and the development of green technologies, management myopia affects the investment intentions of green investors. Environmental project subsidies do not mitigate the negative impact of management myopia on green investment intentions. Interestingly, compared to environmentally friendly projects categorized under "profit‐related" and "reward" headings, subsidies in the form of environmental project grants exacerbate the inhibitory effect of management myopia on green investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning and resolving uncertainty should be important components of management decisions, but not every type of uncertainty is equally important to resolve. For rare, threatened, and endangered species, information may be limited and there is often great urgency to halt potential population declines. Therefore, the most important uncertainties are those that would lead to different decisions intended to improve outcomes for species of interest. The New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is an endemic species to the northeastern United States and is listed as a species of special concern, threatened, or endangered in all states in its current range. States within the historical New England cottontail range have made substantial investments in habitat management, captive breeding, and research, but considerable demographic, management, and monitoring uncertainties remain. Connecticut is the geographic core of the current range of the species and therefore has been the focus of many management efforts, including improving habitat, creating new habitat patches, removing eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus), and releasing captive‐bred New England cottontails. We used a value of information analysis to identify the optimal management decision given current uncertainty and to evaluate how sources of uncertainty might lead to changes in management decisions. Given the current understanding of the New England cottontail in Connecticut, we identified the optimal management decision as improving existing habitat patches without monitoring for the species and managers could expect a 3.4% increase in populations if decision‐making uncertainty could be fully resolved. Multiple sources of uncertainty influenced results, but variation in New England cottontail density and the response of the species to the removal of eastern cottontails were most likely to result in changes to management decisions. At lower New England cottontail densities, releasing captive‐bred individuals competed with improving habitat as the optimal management action. Accounting for the value of information benefits New England cottontail management by guiding research efforts toward information that is most beneficial for decision‐makers and providing insights into parameter thresholds that would lead to changes in management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the American Inventor's Protection Act, which introduced the disclosure of patent applications after 18 months, that is, before a grant decision is taken and, hence, before it is known whether the respective technology will receive legal protection, is associated with a reduction of family firms' research and development (R&D) investment. This suggests that early disclosure of patent applications is perceived as a threat to family firms' innovation activity and discourages their R&D investment. This finding deserves our attention because family firms account for a large share of the US economy, and a reduction in their R&D investment can have long‐term consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon behavioral perspective and agency theory, this paper attempts to investigate the effect of CEO stock option pay on firms' risk‐taking investments in the restaurant sector. Specifically, this paper proposes that option‐loaded CEOs tend to make risky investments. In addition, we investigate how the prior stock performance of a firm and its CEOs' characteristics moderate this relationship. The findings of this paper show that option‐loaded CEOs are more likely to engage in risk‐taking investments. However, this positive main relationship is diminished when a firm has a good prior stock performance, when a CEO has a longer tenure, and when he or she becomes aged. Given the lack of empirical literature that explores the corporate governance in the hospitality literature, this study adds value to the existing research by further investigating the effect of CEO stock option pay scheme on restaurant firms' risk‐taking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many threatened species require ongoing management, which is often funded through short project cycles. Evaluating whether the management is effective in protecting a species is important to inform future management investments. For migratory species, management may affect only part of a species' annual cycle, and reversing a population decline is challenging to achieve and demonstrate. Here, we evaluate whether conservation management projects funded by the European LIFE programme to safeguard a migratory vulture population achieved their major objective of stabilizing the target breeding population. Between 2012 and 2022, an international alliance of conservation organizations implemented multiple actions to reduce poisoning, direct persecution, and electrocution and collision with power lines along the Eastern Mediterranean flyway. We monitored breeding territories of the Balkan population of the globally endangered Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus between 2006 and 2022, and tracked 60 young birds with GPS transmitters since 2010. We used these data to examine whether population growth rate and survival probability had increased since project implementation. The mean annual survival probability of adult territorial birds increased by 1.9% since 2014 from 0.937 to 0.955, and the monthly survival probability of wild juvenile birds increased by 9.7% from 0.833 to 0.914 since 2018. The population growth rate across the Balkans increased by 6.9% from 0.939 before 2018 to 1.005 since 2018. This indicates that the Egyptian Vulture population has remained stable for the past 5 years (2018–2022), but at a population size that is only half (105 adult territorial birds in 2022) than at the beginning of the time series (204 in 2006). We caution that ongoing management along the flyway and reinforcement are required to ensure that the Egyptian Vulture population on the Balkans can recover, but we show that flyway‐scale collaboration of direct conservation actions can have lasting benefits for migratory species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a liability structure, the bank portfolio optimization determines an asset allocation that maximizes profit, subject to restrictions on Basel III ratios and credit, liquidity, and market risks. Bank allocation models have not been tested using historical data. Using an optimization model based on turnover constraints, we develop such tests, which document the superior performance of optimization strategies compared to heuristic rules, resulting in an average annual out‐of‐sample outperformance of 15.1% in terms of return on equity using our data set. This outperformance is remarkable and contrasts with the reported underperformance of several portfolio optimization methods in the case of investment management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hypothesize that the demand for auditing in the registered investment management industry arises from the auditor's ability to act as a solvent indemnifier when outside parties incur losses because of financial misrepresentations. Consistent with this insurance demand, we find that, relative to financial companies, registered investment companies are more likely to retain Big 4 auditors. Restricting the sample to the registered investment management industry, we construct three direct tests of the insurance demand hypothesis. We find that (a) the market share of a Big 4 firm is positively associated with the firm's wealth, (b) changes in audit fees are positively associated with changes in the audit firms' wealth, and (c) net fund flows increase when clients switch from non‐Big 4 to Big 4 auditors. Our results highlight an unusually high demand for Big 4 auditors in the registered investment industry, which we attribute to the insurance demand for auditing services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines if both market frictions and stock mispricing provide better explanation of the momentum premium, compared to the conventional asset pricing models. Using a large sample of 3727 companies listed on the Chinese stock market, we show that winner stocks are associated with larger market frictions and stock mispricing. Our findings reveal new empirical evidence that momentum premium can be attributed to market friction risk‐factor but additionally explained by a mispricing component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a convex‐optimization clustering algorithm for heterogeneous financial networks, in the presence of arbitrary or even adversarial outliers. In the stochastic block model with heterogeneity parameters, we penalize nodes whose degree exhibit unusual behavior beyond inlier heterogeneity. We prove that under mild conditions, this method achieves exact recovery of the underlying clusters. In absence of any assumption on outliers, they are shown not to hinder the clustering of the inliers. We test the performance of the algorithm on semi‐synthetic heterogenous networks reconstructed to match aggregate data on the Korean financial sector. Our method allows for recovery of sub‐sectors with significantly lower error rates compared to existing algorithms. For overlapping portfolio networks, we uncover a clustering structure supporting diversification effects in investment management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African Universities faced an unforeseen crisis in the form of the #FeesMustFall (#FMF) movement. The Executive Management of the affected Universities was criticized for how the crisis was handled. Due to the significant cost (over R1 billion) to the higher education sector, not just in fiscal losses, but the loss of life, the investment into crisis management would be justified. Crisis management is a business action that includes planning and organising to prepare for and to respond to threats to business activities. Reviewing the literature identified a void regarding the crisis management competencies needed by the Executive Management as perceived by stakeholders. This exploratory study made use of a mixed methodology research design. A self-administered questionnaire incorporating open-ended questions was used to identify and explore the competencies perceived by the stakeholders as important during times of crisis. Simple descriptive statistics were used to identify the top management competencies needed in a time of crisis as perceived by the stakeholders. This was compared with the findings in the literature. The study identified 10 management competencies perceived by stakeholders of which eight competencies are consistent with crisis management competencies found in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the performance of two quantitative signals based on ESG scores across a large, multi‐national cross‐section of European stock returns. We test whether the cost of equity capital is more influenced by the upward momentum (measured over time) of the ESG scores of the firms issuing stocks or by their stability (identified as the volatility of the scores over time), measured around a changing mean level. We find that short‐term ESG momentum over 1 month has a significant impact on the cross‐section of stock returns, lowering the anticipated cost of capital and leading to positive average abnormal returns. This suggests that short‐term ESG momentum may represent a novel, priced systematic risk factor. Furthermore, we find strong evidence that an ESG volatility spread strategy which buys low ESG score volatility stocks and sells high volatility ones, generates a substantial alpha and affects the ex‐ante cost of capital. Both quantitative ESG signals result in portfolio sorting and long‐short strategies that enhance the overall sustainability profile of the issuing firms without compromising the raw average of their ESG scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key Takeaways: Combining operational expertise with a consistent infusion of capital investment creates a more efficient, resilient, and environmentally sound water system. In New Jersey, the operational savings provided by Bayonne's public–private partnership concession model have offset rising capital costs and have helped keep rate increases low. The concession model offers former municipal employees more professional development, enhanced career opportunities, and a safer working environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors have become increasingly important to employees and companies alike. It is important to integrate ESG considerations into labor investment decisions. We examine the impact of ESG performance on firms' labor investment efficiency. Using data from A‐share listed firms from 2015 to 2020, we find that ESG performance improves labor investment efficiency. Such positive effect is robust after using alternative measures for labor investment efficiency and ESG performance, alternative regression specifications, and a bunch of endogeneity tests. The mechanism tests show that a strong ESG record can reduce financial constraints and improve the information environment, thus subsequently boosting the efficiency of labor investment. The findings of the study shed light on efficiency improvement in labor investment for management, regulatory authority, and environmental activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions as to why differences in momentum and reversal patterns seem to emerge in commodity futures compared with spot markets, and how these patterns can be explained, remain unanswered. To investigate these questions, I examine 23 commodities over a period of 60 years. I first show that including the net convenience yield in the definition of commodity spot returns reconciles the differences in the results for commodity spot and futures markets. Both commodity futures and spot markets exhibit quantitatively consistent momentum and reversal effects. An initial momentum effect is followed by a reversal effect and then another momentum effect. These observed patterns in commodities can be jointly explained by a combination of traditional asset pricing factors and a basis factor related to the net convenience yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models based on ecological processes (process‐explicit models) are often used to predict ecosystem responses to environmental changes or management scenarios. However, models are imperfect and need to be validated, ideally by testing their assumptions and outputs against independent empirical data sets. Examples of validation of process‐explicit models are rare. Recently, stochastic population models have been developed to predict the likely responses (over 10–120 years) of a riverine fish (golden perch, Macquaria ambigua) to flow management in the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) in eastern Australia, one of the world's most regulated river basins. Declines in golden perch (and other species) are a direct consequence of altered hydrology, and managers require information to predict how fish will respond to possible future hydrological conditions to guide substantial investments in flow management. Here, we use two independent field data sets to validate our population model. We compared model predictions to observed trends to ask: (1) How do predicted population sizes and growth rates compare with observed data? (2) Does the correlation between predicted and observed population sizes and growth rates vary among populations? (3) Does the correlation between predicted and observed population sizes and growth rates vary across observed hydrological conditions? (4) How do modeled and observed fish movement rates compare? We found reasonable correlations between fish population sizes and growth rates as predicted by the model and observed in independent data sets for several populations (Aim 1), but the strength of these correlations varied among populations (Aim 2) and hydrological conditions (Aim 3). Predicted and observed fish movement rates were strongly correlated (Aim 4). Population models are frequently used in conservation decision‐making but are rarely validated. We demonstrate that: (1) validation can identify model strengths and weaknesses; (2) observed data sets often have inherent limitations that can preclude robust validations; (3) validation is likely to be more common if appropriate observed data sets are available; and (4) validation should consider the purpose of modeling. Wider consideration of these messages would contribute to more critical examinations of models, so they can be most appropriately used in conservation decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regionalization approaches—where utilities in close geographic proximity cooperate to manage drought risks and co‐invest in new infrastructure—are increasingly necessary strategies for leveraging economies of scale to meet growing demands and navigate financial risks. However, regionalization also brings new challenges to water supply planning. Successful regionalization policies must equitably balance the interests of multiple partners while navigating power relationships between regional actors. In long‐term infrastructure planning contexts, this challenge is heightened by the evolving system‐state dynamics, which may be fundamentally reshaped by infrastructure investment. This work introduces Equitable, Robust, Adaptive, and Stable Deeply Uncertain Pathways (DU PathwaysERAS), an exploratory modeling framework for developing regional water supply management and infrastructure investment pathways. DU PathwaysERAS provides an integrated framework for stakeholders to evaluate the equity of policy outcomes across cooperating partners and explore regional power relationships within cooperative infrastructure policies. To capture the time‐evolving dynamics of infrastructure pathways, DU PathwaysERAS features new tools to measure the adaptive capacity of pathway policies and evaluate time‐evolving vulnerability. We demonstrate our framework on a six‐utility water supply partnership seeking to develop cooperative infrastructure investment pathways in the Research Triangle, North Carolina. Our results indicate that commonly employed framings of robustness can have large and unintended adverse consequences for regional partnerships. Results further illustrate that regional and individual vulnerabilities are highly interdependent and emphasize the need to limit counterparty risks through carefully designed cooperative agreements. Beyond the Research Triangle, these results are broadly applicable to cooperative water supply infrastructure investment and management globally. Key Points: We present new tools to develop equitable & robust regional water supply investment pathways & clarify their time‐evolving vulnerabilitiesWe demonstrate how commonly used framings of water supply robustness can have unintended adverse impacts on regional equityCooperative investments can help water utilities maintain regional supply reliability but can also expose utilities to new financial risks [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining which partners to ally with is a key strategic decision for managers. Many studies suggest that firms select alliance partners by rationally evaluating their quality, but it is possible that information asymmetry and managers' limited cognitive capacity actually drive firms to adopt behavioural strategies like momentum and imitation to make decisions. This study examines how momentum and imitation affect firms' selection of partners in nascent and mature product markets. We suggest that the absolute, relative and interactive impacts of momentum and imitation on alliance partner selection decisions change as a product market evolves from its nascent stage to maturity. Evidence from 13,071 partner selection decisions initiated by Chinese fund firms largely supports these predictions. Specifically, as a nascent product market moves towards maturity, the effect of momentum on partner selection decisions becomes weaker, while that of imitation grows stronger. However, momentum is more influential than imitation in both nascent and mature product markets. Momentum diminishes the effect of imitation on partner selection decisions in nascent and mature product markets, but this substitute effect is weaker in mature product markets than in nascent ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work was to run an economic assessment of investment in automatic feeding systems for grow‐out farms of different sizes producing European sea bass in the Mediterranean Sea. For this, we have used an economic model to simulate the annual income statement of a typical farm with different production volumes: a small‐sized farm with a production of 413 tons/year, a medium‐sized farm of 1122 tons/year, and a large‐sized farm of 2539 tons/year. With the values obtained in the simulation, we have carried out partial budget and investment analyses to estimate the economic value of this investment decision. To complement our economic assessment, a sensitivity analysis has also been run to include risk in the investment decision. Our findings show that the implementation of automatic feeding systems in sea bass grow‐out farms would be a good economic decision, regardless of the farm size, since there are technological options suitable for different farm sizes and capital investment capacities. Consequently, innovation and investment in feeding management should not be impeded or limited by the farm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: Motivated by the recent regulatory reforms, in the forms of the UK Corporate Governance Code (UK CGC) in 2011 and the enaction of section 414C of the Companies Act 2006, to increase female representation on corporate boards, this study investigates the effect of boardroom gender diversity (BGD) on investment inefficiency (IE). These reforms were aimed at enhancing corporate governance by allowing a pool of female directors into directorship positions and bringing fresher and independent perspective of female directors, thus strengthening board monitoring and its internal control systems. This study therefore seeks to understand whether and how female directors align managers' and shareholders' interests by improving investment efficiency. Findings: Using a sample of UK listed firms from 2005 to 2018, this study provides the first empirical evidence on the impact of BGD on IE. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, we find a negative and statistically significant association between BGD and IE. Furthermore, in a difference‐in‐differences analysis, we find a significant impact of UK CGC on the BGD‐IE relationship. We also identify three possible channels (board dynamics, stewardship effect, and information environment) through which BGD is likely to affect IE. Finally, we also document that the said relationship is more pronounced in firms with three or more female directors, which is consistent with critical mass theory, and that BGD mitigates concerns surrounding both the underinvestment and overinvestment decisions. Our main results are robust to endogeneity bias, alternative measures of BGD and IE, and controlling for potential bias with a two‐step investment estimation method. Policy Implications: Our findings have important implications for regulators, policy‐makers, and other corporate stakeholders. Most importantly, the recent policy initiatives on improving representation of female directors can strengthen board monitoring and could reduce inefficient investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large carnivores increasingly inhabit human‐affected landscapes, which exhibit heterogeneity in biotic resources, anthropogenic pressures, and management strategies. Understanding large carnivore habitat use in these systems is critical for their conservation, as is the evaluation of competing management approaches and the impacts of significant land‐use changes. We used occupancy modeling to investigate habitat use of an intact eastern African large carnivore guild across the 45,000 km2 Ruaha‐Rungwa landscape in south‐central Tanzania. We determined the relative impact on five large carnivore species of biotic, anthropogenic, and management factors at the scales of home range selection and short‐term use within home ranges. We also specifically tested the effect of abandonment of trophy hunting areas on large carnivore occurrence. Patterns of habitat use differed among species. Lions (Panthera leo) appeared affected by top‐down limitation, as their occurrence was significantly negatively associated with illegal human activity (β = –0.63 [SE 0.28]). African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), instead, were limited by biotic features; the species was negatively associated with riverine areas of high sympatric predator density (β = –1.00 [SE 0.43]) and used less‐productive habitats. Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) and leopard (Panthera pardus) persisted in more disturbed areas and across habitat types. Large carnivore occurrence was not affected by whether an area was used for photographic or trophy hunting tourism; regular law enforcement was instead a better predictor of occurrence. All species fared better in actively managed hunting areas than those that had been abandoned by operators. Overall, our findings highlight the divergent habitat requirements within large carnivore guilds and the importance of adopting an integrated approach to large carnivore conservation planning in modern systems. We also identified a novel threat to African conservation areas in the form of decreased management investments associated with the abandonment of trophy hunting areas. Article impact statement: Habitat degradation associated with ongoing hunting area abandonment is shown to be a novel threat to large African carnivore populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) support coastal and freshwater ecosystems, economies and cultures, but many populations have declined. We used priority threat management (PTM), a decision‐support framework for prioritizing conservation investments, to identify management strategies that could support thriving populations of wild salmon over 25 years. We evaluated the potential benefits of 14 strategies spanning fisheries, habitat, pollution, pathogens, hatcheries and predation management dimensions on 19 conservation units (CUs)—genetically and ecologically distinct populations—of the five Pacific salmon species in the lower Fraser River, British Columbia, Canada.The PTM assessment indicated that under the current trajectory of 'business as usual', zero CUs were predicted to have >50% chance of thriving in 25 years. Implementation of all management strategies at an annual investment between 45 and 110 million CAD was, however, predicted to achieve >50% chance of thriving for most CUs (n = 16), with nearly half (seven CUs) having a > 60% chance, indicating there is a pathway towards recovery for most populations if we invest now. In fact, substantial gains could be made by investing in five combined habitat strategies, costing 20M CAD annually. These habitat strategies were estimated to bring 14 of 19 salmon CUs above this 50% threshold.Co‐governance between First Nation and provincial and federal Canadian governments to manage salmon populations and harvest, and improved CU‐level monitoring emerged from the expert elicitation as critical 'enabling' strategies. By improving the feasibility of different management options, co‐governance brought an additional five CUs above the 60% threshold.Synthesis and applications. Supporting wild salmon in the face of cumulative threats will require strategic investment in effective management strategies, as identified by this priority threat management (PTM) assessment. PTM uses the best available data to objectively assess the potential outcomes of management alternatives. With renewed commitments from provincial and federal Canadian governments to protect and restore salmon populations and their habitats, positive conservation outcomes following implementation of targeted management strategies may be within reach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robo‐managers offer automated asset management; however, their overall performance is highly debated. We analyze 15 robo‐managers from Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom by conducting a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative study. The qualitative comparison shows considerable differences between the various robo‐managers, not only across but also within countries. The quantitative evaluation utilizes different measures to evaluate the performance of the robo‐manager sample. Our results indicate that each country has one particularly favourable robo‐manager. Furthermore, we find that the costs and characteristics of rebalancing measures have only a small effect on performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States, the EU and Canada established a trilateral working group on the ecosystem approach to ocean health and stressors under the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance. Recognizing the Atlantic Ocean as a shared resource and responsibility, the working group sought to advance understanding of the Atlantic Ocean and its dynamic systems to improve ocean health, enhance ocean stewardship and promote the sustainable use and management of its resources. This included consideration of multiple ocean‐use sectors such as fishing, shipping, tourism and offshore energy. The working group met for 4 years and worked through eight steps that covered the development of common language as a basis for collaboration, challenges of stakeholder engagement, review of the governance mandates, exploring the links between sectors and ecosystems effects, identifying gaps in knowledge and uptake of science, identification of tools for ecosystem‐based management, customary best practice for tool development and communication of key research priorities. The key findings were that ecosystem‐based management enables new benefits and opportunities, and that we need to make the business case. Further findings were that adequate mandates and effective tools exist for ecosystem‐based management, and that ecosystem‐based management urgently requires integration of human dimensions, so we must diversify the conversation. In addition, it was found that stakeholders do not see their stake in ecosystem‐based management, so greater engagement with stakeholders and targeting of ocean literacy is required and a sustainable future requires a sustained investment in ecosystem‐based management, so long‐term commitment is key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the joint supervision of auditors and sponsors in a sample of private placements on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2006 to 2019. We observe variation in the inhibitory effect of earnings management and inefficient investment based on the combination of intermediaries with different reputations. We find that auditors exert a strong inhibitory effect on earnings management while sponsors are best positioned to suppress inefficient investment. Furthermore, this study enriches the existing supervisory literature and provides insights to further improve the relationship between auditors and sponsors in the context of China's unique registration system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity loss is a major issue internationally and within Australia, with major restoration efforts to recover native biota focussing on agricultural landscapes. We introduce a free new webtool, BirdCast [https://sustfarm.shinyapps.io/BirdCast/], for estimating the primarily native bird biodiversity in Box Gum Grassy Woodlands within the NSW South Western Slopes bioregion. The tool has potential to demonstrate farm‐scale bird biodiversity dividends generated from past and future investments in vegetation management and restoration programmes. BirdCast incorporates 60 of the most commonly encountered bird species and includes visualisations, data export and summary reports for printing. It is underpinned by a large joint‐species distribution model fitted to 17 years of empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a timing momentum strategy by incorporating moving‐average signals in the price momentum and show that the proposed strategy substantially outperforms the buy‐and‐hold strategy. The performance of the timing momentum is better than that of Barroso and Santa‐Clara's (2015) constant‐volatility momentum and is identical to that of Daniel and Moskowitz's (2016) dynamic momentum. One advantage of the timing momentum is that its weights on winner and loser portfolios are lower than the other two strategies, thus leading to lower transaction costs. Further, we show that the profitability of the timing momentum is enhanced when information uncertainty is high. More importantly, the timing momentum has time‐invariant profitability across various time‐series predictors and during periods of momentum crashes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document that the variation in market liquidity is an important determinant of momentum crashes that is independent of other known explanations. This relationship is driven by the asymmetric large return sensitivity of short‐leg of momentum portfolio to changes in market liquidity that increases the tail risk of the momentum strategy in panic states. Identifying this partly explains the forecasting ability of known predictors of tail risk of the momentum strategy. The contemporaneous increase in market liquidity explains, to some extent, the documented negative relationship between predictors and future momentum returns. Our findings are robust to the use of alternative measures of market liquidity that share a common source of variation in aggregate liquidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban water utilities, facing rising demands and limited supply expansion options, increasingly partner with neighboring utilities to develop and operate shared infrastructure. Inter‐utility agreements can reduce costs via economies of scale and help limit environmental impacts, as substitutes for independent investments in large capital projects. However, unexpected shifts in demand growth or water availability, deviating from projections underpinning cooperative agreements, can introduce both supply and financial risk to utility partners. Risks may also be compounded by asymmetric growth in demand across partners or inflexibility of the agreement structure itself to adapt to changing conditions of supply and demand. This work explores the viability of both fixed and adjustable capacity inter‐utility cooperative agreements to mitigate regional water supply and financial risk for utilities that vary in size, growth expectations, and independent infrastructure expansion options. Agreements formalized for a shared regional water treatment plant are found to significantly improve regional supply reliability and financial outcomes, despite highly correlated weather and climate across neighboring supply systems (e.g., concurrent drought events). Regional improvements in performance, however, mask tradeoffs among individual agreement partners. Adjustable treatment capacity allocations add flexibility to inter‐utility agreements but can compound financial risk to each utility as a function of the decision‐making of the other partners. Often the sensitivity to partners' decision‐making under an adjustable agreement degrades financial performance, relative to agreements with fixed capacities allocated to each partner. Our results demonstrate the significant benefits cooperative agreements offer, providing a template to aid decision‐makers in the development of water supply partnerships. Key Points: Inter‐utility agreements are useful tools to help neighboring water utilities cooperate to reduce supply risks and infrastructure costsAgreements improve regional supply and financial performance versus pathways of independent action, but introduce tradeoffs among partnersAgreements with adjustable financing most expose partners to decision‐making by other utilities, increasing financial risks [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine species and ecosystems are widely affected by anthropogenic stressors, ranging from pollution and fishing to climate change. Comprehensive assessments of how species and ecosystems are impacted by anthropogenic stressors are critical for guiding conservation and management investments. Previous global risk or vulnerability assessments have focused on marine habitats, or on limited taxa or specific regions. However, information about the susceptibility of marine species across a range of taxa to different stressors everywhere is required to predict how marine biodiversity will respond to human pressures. We present a novel framework that uses life‐history traits to assess species' vulnerability to a stressor, which we compare across more than 44,000 species from 12 taxonomic groups (classes). Using expert elicitation and literature review, we assessed every combination of each of 42 traits and 22 anthropogenic stressors to calculate each species' or representative species group's sensitivity and adaptive capacity to stressors, and then used these assessments to derive their overall relative vulnerability. The stressors with the greatest potential impact were related to biomass removal (e.g., fisheries), pollution, and climate change. The taxa with the highest vulnerabilities across the range of stressors were mollusks, corals, and echinoderms, while elasmobranchs had the highest vulnerability to fishing‐related stressors. Traits likely to confer vulnerability to climate change stressors were related to the presence of calcium carbonate structures, and whether a species exists across the interface of marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric realms. Traits likely to confer vulnerability to pollution stressors were related to planktonic state, organism size, and respiration. Such a replicable, broadly applicable method is useful for informing ocean conservation and management decisions at a range of scales, and the framework is amenable to further testing and improvement. Our framework for assessing the vulnerability of marine species is the first critical step toward generating cumulative human impact maps based on comprehensive assessments of species, rather than habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates Chinese individuals' financial capability and analyzes the association between financial capability and household investment management. By applying a novel hybrid item response theory to data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study finds that more than 70% of Chinese individuals have financial capability around the average level, and less than 12% of individuals have financial capability far below the average. For two of the components of financial capability, desirable behaviors and perceived financial knowledge, however, more than half of Chinese individuals are below the average. The primary finding on whether financial capability predicts investment management is that individuals with higher financial capability are more likely to take control of household investment alone than to share investment decisions with spouses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study's purpose examines chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics, sustainability reporting format, and environmental disclosure of listed firms in India. Eight hundred firm‐year observations across India's firms applied panel regression with random effect assumptions and general method of moment. The first findings show that reporting format has a positive and statistically significant association with environmental disclosure. The second findings show that CEO age and CEO tenure have an insignificant association, but CEO duality negatively associates with environmental disclosure. The third findings show that CEO characteristics (tenure and duality) × report format is insignificant. However, the CEO age × report format has a positive and statistically significant association with listed firms' environmental disclosure in India. The strategic implication shows that the choice of a stand‐alone sustainability reporting in environmental communication disclosure is a strategic benefit that secures strategic investors and investment in the firm. For the firm to be recognized as a strategic partner in global sustainable development goals, CEOs with longer tenure and aged CEOs engagements are an unsuitable investment, which Indian firms must not pursue. Endogeneity problems across panels are addressed in this study. This study's novelty examines the interactive effect of CEO characteristics and sustainability report format on environmental disclosure in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is among the first studies to review the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) ESG Leaders Index in Asian countries and other emerging markets, such as Brazil, China, and Russia. The relationships among gross domestic product (GDP), human development index (HDI), and a set of key indicators are the fundamental argument of this study. By applying 2SLS estimation from 2010 to 2018, this research examines the connection between environmental, social, governance (ESG) index, GDP growth, and HDI from nine countries as rated in the MSCI ESG Index. The objective is to test whether the index can be efficiently utilized to justify the notion that the adoption of ESG principles can positively influence sustainable development and inclusive growth. The post estimations reveal close relationships between the ESG index and GDP growth. However, the index is not an effective instrument for measuring the connection between HDI‐ESG because it has not yet had a direct effect on HDI. With this result, the index can be utilized to measure the connections with and investments made by countries and corporations for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the link between social capital and business model choice of financial cooperatives (Shinkin banks) in Japan. We identify two forms of business model, which concentrate on the issuance of loans funded by deposits (traditional) and the investment and management of large investment portfolios (new). Traditional business models are more likely to emerge in geographic areas with higher levels of social capital. These findings are robust after controlling for bank‐ and prefecture‐level characteristics (such as unemployment, population and income) that may influence bank business model choice. We repeat our analysis for a sample of shareholder‐oriented (regional) banks, but fail to establish any relationship between social capital and this organisational form. Overall, our findings suggest that financial cooperatives in high‐social‐capital areas are more likely to adhere to a traditional model of financial intermediation focused on lending which promotes community and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty about market developments and their implications characterize financial markets. Increasingly, machine learning is deployed as a tool to absorb this uncertainty and transform it into manageable risk. This article analyses machine‐learning‐based uncertainty absorption in financial markets by drawing on 182 interviews in the finance industry, including 45 interviews with informants who were actively applying machine‐learning techniques to investment management, trading, or risk management problems. We argue that while machine‐learning models are deployed to absorb financial uncertainty, they also introduce a new and more profound type of uncertainty, which we call critical model uncertainty. Critical model uncertainty refers to the inability to explain how and why the machine‐learning models (particularly neural networks) arrive at their predictions and decisions—their uncertainty‐absorbing accomplishments. We suggest that the dialectical relation between machine‐learning models' uncertainty absorption and multiplication calls for further research in the field of finance and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stochastic programming models for portfolio optimization rely on scenario paths for returns derived from stochastic process models. This paper investigates a variant of the geometric Brownian motion process for stock index returns that incorporates index momentum. Based on this model, three different processes for generating scenarios on a rolling basis are devised, which differ according to how frequently the momentum parameter is updated and whether it is estimated according to a simple moving average or an exponentially weighted moving average of returns. The reliability of scenario sets generated for multiple instances is assessed by applying a recently developed statistical tool. Backtesting is conducted in case studies of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index for two different historical periods. The numerical results show that the frequency with which the expected return is updated does not significantly influence the performance of the scenario generation procedure, whereas how the expected return is calculated affects the autocorrelation and dispersion of generated scenarios drastically. All scenario generation schemes are highly sensitive to the estimated volatility of the index returns. Among the three processes tested, the algorithms that incorporate momentum estimates according to an exponentially weighted moving average can generate reliable scenarios when the volatility estimation error is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which performs better, passive or active funds management, a question that both fund managers and academics fiercely debate. Why does fund size matter? These are a number of typical questions that puzzle practitioners and academics alike. To date, the data has been shown to be somewhat problematic. This paper exploits the SPIVA and passive fund datasets with several novel methods in order to build a foundation for unbiased fund performance analysis and comparison. For this, we address a number of questions including: passive versus active management, fund size, time horizon and fund style on performance. We find that in general, passive funds outperform active funds due to lower management costs, larger funds tend to perform better and funds with longer (3+ years) records of accomplishment tend to perform better. Short termism tends to have a significant detrimental effect on performance. We introduce Dynamic Generalized Method of Moments to show that competition has a significant effect on fund performance. Furthermore, this demonstrates that SPIVA data has a significant dynamic panel time series that was largely ignored by prior research. This integrated dataset and associated methods that we illustrate here, provide both academic researchers and industry analysts alike with an environment to investigate and potentially draw conclusions about the fund factors that affect performance without the inherent limitations of the original sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research in investment management has discovered the puzzling phenomenon that, contrary to established capital market theory, low‐risk assets tend to earn larger returns than their high‐risk counterparts. In a recent contribution, Auer and Hiller (2019) emphasize that an inadequate quantification of risk may be the root of this problem. By interpreting a portfolio as a cooperative game, they arrive at the interesting finding that using assets' risk‐based Shapley values instead of classic stand‐alone risk measures has the potential to solve the low‐risk puzzle. In this article, we extend their study first by considering additional game‐theoretic risk allocation schemes, namely, the cost gap technique and the nucleolus method, and then by improving their simulation design via a larger number of assets and a supplementary determination of risk–return slopes. We find that the Shapley method outperforms the alternatives with respect to the generation of positive risk–return slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rigorous statistical tests have been designed to detect the existence of asymmetric correlations. However, these tests can hardly further facilitate future investment or risk management because asymmetric correlations are time‐varying and difficult to predict. In this paper, we construct a unified state‐space model, which not only measures in‐sample asymmetric correlations, but also exploit out‐of‐sample asymmetric correlations in the context of predicting portfolio returns. First, we regard time‐varying correlation between market returns and portfolio returns as a state variable and model it as an AR(1) process. Then, we measure future asymmetric correlations based on correlation coefficients between two unpredictable components in market returns and correlation, respectively. Third, we clarify the intuition, calculate asymmetric correlations for two portfolio sets and estimate the economic value of applying our model in asset allocation. Finally, we try to search for potential variables that can explain future asymmetric correlations. The results show that market‐wide liquidity, variance, earning price ratio, and investor sentiment can partially explain the asymmetry correlation phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one type of voluntary environmental regulations, environmental disclosure plays an important role in promoting sustainable development of enterprises by enhancing their environmental awareness. Based on the social responsibility and annual reports published by heavily polluting listed companies in China between 2007 and 2016, this article investigates their environmental disclosure and assesses the impact on their green innovation activities as well as its influence mechanisms. Text analysis is used to measure the environmental disclosure by way of three dimensions including environmental investment and management, environmental supervision and agency certification, and environmental performance and governance. The results of the Poisson regression model for panel data show that environmental disclosure has significantly encouraged green innovations carried out by heavily polluting listed companies in China during the past decade and this result is consistent with a variety of robustness checks. Besides, the mediation effect test demonstrates that environmental disclosure stimulated green innovations of heavily polluting listed companies by expanding their financing channels, promoting their product sales, and raising media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid economic growth, declining fertility and changes in family structures have encouraged the Kingdom of Cambodia to reform its old‐age pension system. The Government of Cambodia reached an important milestone in 2019, when the Law on Social Security was promulgated. The Law includes provisions for a compulsory defined benefit pension scheme, establishing a sound framework for extending compulsory pension coverage beyond the public sector to formal private‐sector workers. As a future step, the compulsory pension scheme should be extended to informal workers. To accompany the reform, the investment policy for the pension scheme's reserve funds, including the supervisory regime and investment strategy, will be essential for the modernization of the Cambodian social security system. In this regard, Cambodia has successfully sought policy advice. However, the country should continue to seek further advice, and to act on this. Otherwise, the necessary and increasingly pressing policy ambitions of Cambodia to develop an adequate and sustainable social protection system may not be fully realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many decision contexts, there is a need for benchmark equity valuations, based on simplified modeling and publicly available information. Prior research on U.S. data however shows that the accuracy of such valuation models can be low and sensitive to the choice of model specifications and value driver predictions. In this paper, we test the applicability and pricing accuracy of three fundamental valuation (dividend discount, residual income, and abnormal earnings growth) models, all based on forecasts of company dividends, earnings, and/or equity book values. Extending prior research, we apply these models to Scandinavian firms with accounting data from the period 2005–2014, explicitly testing two approaches for the prediction of the value drivers—exogenously forecasted numbers versus projected historical numbers. Given access to the forecasted value drivers, the dividend discount model comes out as the most accurate valuation model. In particular, this holds in a comparison between the most parsimonious model specifications. The residual income valuation model generates the best pricing accuracy given the prediction of value drivers based on historical financial numbers. Notably, we observe pricing errors that in general are lower than what has been reported in prior U.S.‐based research for the dividend discount and the residual income valuation models. The pricing accuracy of the abnormal earnings growth models is surprisingly weak in the Scandinavian setting. However, these models improve somewhat after a couple of complexity adjustments, in particular with value driver predictions based on the projected history setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of preferences on judgments in an investing context, where investors should be motivated to interpret information objectively, yet have clear preferences with respect to what the information they are evaluating conveys (i.e., a gain or a loss on their investment). The results of the experiment are consistent with theories of motivated reasoning that predict when and in what manner directional preferences affect how information is processed. Specifically, investors are motivated to agree unthinkingly with information that suggests they might make money on their investment, but disagree with information that suggests they might lose money. In disagreeing, long investors expect earnings to be relatively high and short investors expect earnings to be relatively low. These results have implications not only for understanding investor behavior, but also for understanding the biased behavior of market participants who face conflicts of interest, such as analysts, managers, and auditors, by providing direct evidence that such behavior can arise for purely psychological reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes when different foreign investment location choices are value creating for firms at different stages of international expansion. I argue that because direct investment in developing countries is riskier than in advanced countries, shareholders may not value a firm's investment in developing countries until that firm has experience from previous international investments and capabilities to better manage and hedge the higher levels of risk and uncertainty. Using a panel of 191 U.S. manufacturing firms and their foreign investments over a 20-year period (1981–2000), the empirical results show that firm investments in advanced and developing countries are valued differently by shareholders, depending on the firm's prior international expansion, the firm's capabilities and experiences, and the knowledge intensity of the firm's industry. These results highlight the importance of considering firm location decisions, prior experiences, and resources when analyzing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether mutual funds change their names to take advantage of current hot investment styles, and what effects these name changes have on inflows to the funds, and to the funds' subsequent returns. We find that the year after a fund changes its name to reflect a current hot style, the fund experiences an average cumulative abnormal flow of 28%, with no improvement in performance. The increase in flows is similar across funds whose holdings match the style implied by their new name and those whose holdings do not, suggesting that investors are irrationally influenced by cosmetic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a structural model that determines default spreads in a setting where the debt's collateral is endogenously determined by the borrower's investment choice, and a demand variable with permanent and temporary components. We also consider the possibility that the borrower cannot commit to taking the value-maximizing investment choice, and may, in addition, be constrained in its ability to raise external capital. Based on a model calibrated to data on office buildings and commercial mortgages, we present numerical simulations that quantify the extent to which investment flexibility, incentive problems, and credit constraints affect default spreads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the joint provision of effort by an entrepreneur and by an advisor to improve the productivity of an investment project. Without moral hazard, it is optimal that both exert effort. With moral hazard, if the entrepreneur's effort is more efficient (less costly) than the advisor's effort, the latter is not hired if she does not provide funds. Outside financing arises endogenously. This explains why investors like venture capitalists are value enhancing. The level of outside financing determines whether common stocks or convertible bonds should be issued in response to incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the dynamic investment decision of a firm subject to an endogenous financing constraint. The threat of future funding shortfalls lowers the value of the firm's timing options and encourages acceleration of investment beyond the first-best optimal level. As well as highlighting another way by which capital market frictions can distort investment behavior, this result implies that (1) the sensitivity of investment to cash flow can be greatest for high-liquidity firms and (2) greater uncertainty has an ambiguous effect on investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of incentive fees on the behavior of mutual fund managers. Funds with incentive fees exhibit positive stock selection ability, but a beta less than one results in funds not earning positive fees. From an investor's perspective, positive alphas plus lower expense ratios make incentive-fee funds attractive. However, incentive-fee funds take on more risk than non-incentive-fee funds, and they increase risk after a period of poor performance. Incentive fees are useful marketing tools, since more new cash flows go into incentive-fee funds than into non-incentive-fee funds, ceteris paribus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between investor protection and firm liquidity. We posit that less protective environments lead to wider bid-ask spreads and thinner depths because they fail to minimize information asymmetries. The Hong Kong equity market provides a unique opportunity to compare liquidity costs across distinct investor protection environments, but still within a common trading mechanism and currency. Our empirical findings verify that firm liquidity is significantly affected by investor protection. Regression and matched-sample results show that Hong Kong-based equities exhibit narrower spreads and thicker depths than their China-based counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]