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This paper shows that brand reputation alone may not be sufficient to help firms successfully issue green bonds and that they may need superior corporate social responsibility performance in the form of high ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scores to unlock the full potential of their brand reputation. Using a sample of 338 international green bond issues across 108 unique firms, we found significant positive effects of ESG disclosure score and its interaction brand reputation on the issuance of green bonds while controlling for other variables, such as fixed effects of industry, region, and time. We also show that it is the S (Social) component of ESG and the interactions of its E (Environmental) and G (Governance) components with brand reputation which drive successful green bond issuance. Besides extending the current research on the impact of brand reputation and ESG on green bonds, these results also have important managerial implications for analysts, fund managers, and firms planning to raise green capital.

This paper extends the growing research on the dark side of B2B relationships by exploring the differences in third-party certification effects based on social capital with professional financial services firms, using a proprietary dataset with confidential voting records of the nominations for Investor Relation Awards in Hong Kong. Results confirm the dark side of these relationships by showing that the nominated firms with more favorable voting from international (vs. local) analysts experience stronger certification effect with higher valuations upon announcement. Moreover, nominated (but not awarded) firms with lower levels of information transparency demonstrate a larger certification effect but they also show significant improvement in their information transparency after the event, which represents an unexpected bright outcome from this dark side of B2B relationships. Overall, these findings extend the social capital argument that international financial services firms bring higher positive return through the support of their own professional and social network.

English is becoming more important in this globalized world. In Malaysia, calls have been made from rulers and commoners alike to use English as the primary medium of instruction in primary schools. Although Malaysia has centralized education system for every state, rural schools might be in danger of losing out to their counterparts in the urban areas. Numerous programmes have been done to bring the standard of English in the school up to par with their counterparts from urban schools and yet English remains a tricky subject to master. In a rural school in the district of Song, Sarawak, English has always been the lowest performing subjects in UPSR year after year. Parallel to UPSR, the pupils for English intervention programme (LINUS BI) has the most compared to Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and Mathematics. This paper will attempt to research and understand the primary issues contributing to low performance of English in the school. At the same time, this paper will attempt to compare the background of pupils with high performance of English and pupils with low and mediocre performance in English and the causes leading to what they are today.

The objective of this study is to examine the performance and investment strategies of the US managed foreign equity mutual funds during the Asian Financial Crisis period. Our findings indicate that a high geographic concentration strategy contributes to excess returns, even after controlling for various fund characteristics including tenure and expense ratio. However, these actively managed funds do not demonstrate superior performance against a passively managed bogey portfolio during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

In order to outperform his peers, a mutual fund manager may decide to invest in stocks that are considerably different from his competitors. By investing in a unique portfolio, the fund manager has a greater chance of either outperforming or underperforming his peers than those managers who invest in a common portfolio (i.e., herding). This study finds some evidence that mutual funds with unique portfolios tend to earn higher returns on an absolute and a risk-adjusted basis, compared to funds that invest in more common portfolios. The results demonstrate some empirical supports for our hypothesis for both six-month and one-year holding periods as well as for growth and growth/income funds. We conjecture these results are consistent with the argument that fund managers investing in uncommon portfolios possess superior stock selection ability. Consequently investing in these undervalued stocks significantly improves their fund returns.

This paper examines the short‐term performance persistence of thirty‐two fund houses in Hong Kong during January 1986 to December 1995. We compute fund house returns using averages of all equity funds in each house. Then we evaluate their hot hand performance using the median return as benchmark on a rolling monthly basis. The results show that there were only two ‘hot hand’ fund houses. Findings using annual returns confirm the non‐existence of a hot hand phenomenon. However, we find a strong correlation between conditional and unconditional probabilities of winning repeatedly in consecutive months.

A perturbed Lagrangian-based variational formulation is proposed for the finite element solution of fully nonlinear frictional contact problems. In the spirit of an operator splitting methodology, an analogy exists between the proposed treatment for the stick-slip motion and the corresponding treatment in elastoplasticity. Within the context of discrete formulations arising from a finite element approximation, explicit expressions for the frictional consistent contact tangent stiffness and residual are derived from variational equations by using a consistent linearization procedure for both the sliding and adhesion phases. The consistent tangent operator is always non-symmetric for the case of frictional sliding owing to the nature of the Coulomb's friction law employed. For two-dimensional applications, a three-node contact element is employed in the finite element discretization. Numerical examples are also presented that illustrate the performance of the proposed formulation. Keywords: structural mechanics.

This document contains three technical papers: (1) 'Surface Flaw Effects on Crack Propagation from Subsonic Water Drop Impact' The effects of surface flaws on ceramic target damage from subsonic water drop impacts are investigated using numerical code simulations based on fundamental wave propagation and fracture mechanics concepts. (2) 'Effects of Surface Pores in Silicon Nitride Impacted by a Water Drop' A water drop impacting directly on a surface pore may significantly increase the probability of crack formation and growth near the pore boundary. (3) 'Strain Energy Release Associated with Circumferential Cracks Around Embedded Particles' Numerical code simulations are used to determine the strain energy release associated with circumferential cracks around spherical particles embedded in tension within homogeneous matrix materials.