Search

This study investigates the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD), and governance on carbon emissions in 15 emerging Asian economies (EAEs) from 2000 to 2021. It aims to assess how successful these nations have been in upholding ecological sustainability while promoting themselves as alternative manufacturing destinations to China and fostering domestic manufacturing through significant financial development. It creates a composite governance quality (GQ) measure and three subdimensions-EcoGov, InstGov, and PolGov-to assess its precise role in influencing the FDI-carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and FD-CO 2 nexuses. Using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) panel cointegration techniques, this study yielded findings revealing that FDI and FD significantly enhance carbon emissions. The overall GQ significantly moderates the FD-CO 2 nexus but fails to moderate FDI's detrimental environmental influence. More specifically, EcoGov significantly moderates FDI's and FD's influence on carbon emissions, whereas InstGov significantly enhances their influence on emissions. In contrast, PolGov is only found to moderate FD's impact on environmental quality since the Government frequently endorses liberal environmental regulations to facilitate FDI-led growth. The findings from this study are robust and carry distinct policy ramifications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Green Infrastructures (GI) help build and develop climate resiliency and biodiversity. Moreover, the ecosystem services (ESS) that GI generates can be a source of social and economic value. Public policies to support GIs are necessary, but they cannot be successful without the involvement of relevant stakeholders. Because GI is a rather obscure concept for most non-specialists, their contribution to sustainability is not always apparent, and this makes it difficult to mobilize resources. This paper analyzes the policy recommendations of 36 projects focused on GI governance, funded by the European Union (EU) in the last decade or so. Using the Quadruple Helix (QH) approach, we find that GIs are perceived as a mostly governmental responsibility, with civil society and business engaged to a limited extent. We argue that non-governmental players should be more actively involved in decisions concerning GI to foster more sustainable development., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The massive contagion of new coronavirus (Covid-19) has disrupted many businesses across the European Union. This has resulted in an immense drag on the revenues and cash flows that may lead to a significant increase in corporate bankruptcies. In this paper, we investigate the impact of Covid-19 on the solvency profile of the firms in the EU member states. We introduce multiple stress scenarios on the non-financial listed firms and report a progressive increase in the probability of default, an increase of debt payback, and declining coverages. Our results indicate that the solvency profile of all firms deteriorates. The manufacturing, mining, and retail sector are most vulnerable to a decline in market capitalization and a reduction in sales revenues. The paper also examines the possible policy interventions to sustain solvency at a pre Covid-19 level. Our findings suggest that for a moderate deterioration in economic conditions, a tax deferral is sufficient. However, in the event of exacerbating business shocks, there should be hybrid support through debt and equity to avoid a meltdown. This study has important implications for policymakers, corporate managers, and creditors., Competing Interests: The authors report no declarations of interest., (© 2020 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The rising concerns about climate change and environmental degradation have urged various stakeholder to focus on sustainable investments that are facing a drag from the Covid-19 pandemic. Since environmental and Covid-19 challenges are global, it is critical to assess the interlinkages of sustainable investments. In this research, we employ the dependence, centrality, and dynamic network approach to examine the interdependence and its determinants across multiple countries between January 2009 and March 2021. The findings indicate France as the lead risk transmitter while Japan and Taiwan show risk reception among international markets. We observe an increase in dependence during economic turmoil notably in Covid-19 episode. The centrality network revealed the prominent significance of sustainable investments in the European countries that can be attributed to their exceptional efforts to combat the climate change. Finally, our results suggest that the volatility in gold prices is the key driver of interdependence of sustainable investments., (© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Quality air to breathe is the basic necessity for an individual and in recent times, emission from various sources caused by human activities has resulted in substantial degradation in the air quality. This work focuses to study the inadvertent effect of COVID-19 lockdown on air pollution. Pollutants' concentration before- and during- COVID-19 lockdown is captured to understand the variation in air quality. Firstly, multi-pollutant profiling using hierarchical cluster analysis of pollutants' concentration is performed that highlights the differences in the cluster compositions between before- and during-lockdown time periods. Results show that the particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5 ) in air that formed the primary cluster before lock-down, came down to close similarity with other clusters during lockdown. Secondly, predicting air quality index (AQI) based on the forecasts of pollutants' concentration is performed using neural networks, support vector machine, decision tree, random forest, and boosting algorithms. The best-fitted models representing AQI is identified separately for before- and during-lockdown time periods based on its predictive power. While deterministic method reactively evaluates present AQI when current pollutants' concentration at a particular time and place are known, this study uses the best fitted data-driven model to determine future AQIs based on the forecasts of pollutant's concentration accurately (overall RMSE<0.1 for before lockdown scenario and <0.3 for during lockdown scenario). The study contributes to visualize the variation in pollutants' concentrations between the two scenarios. The results show that the reduced economic activities during lockdown period had led to the drop in concentration of PM 10 and PM 2.5 by 27% and 50% on an average. The findings of this study have practical and societal implications and serve as a reference mechanism for policymakers and governing bodies to revise their actions plans for regulating individual air pollutants in the atmospheric air., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper, (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

There is a wide gender gap in developing countries due to a range of cultural, economic and political barriers. This is even more accentuated in post conflict economies in times of crisis. Smartphones and mobile applications can help to narrow this gap. The economic and non-economic challenges facing women entrepreneurs and the role of smartphone innovation in overcoming these challenges and developing strong marketing strategies were investigated. We drew on the 5 M model to investigate how mobile applications can support women entrepreneurs. We conducted thirty interviews with women entrepreneurs in Iraq. The findings show that mobile applications provided these entrepreneurs with innovative ways to overcome many of the challenges they face in relation to running a business. The research provides theoretical contributions by developing an integrated, multilevel analytical model on women in entrepreneurship based on extending the 5 M model with new technology-related elements. Practical, policy and managerial implications are discussed., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.)

This research aims to understand the link between perceived innovativeness and customer satisfaction in the fine-dining catering segment. By employing a mixed-method approach, this paper proposes a multidimensional framework for measuring the perceived innovativeness of restaurants throughout the entire customer journey. Customer satisfaction was measured by considering online customer-generated data from TripAdvisor. The study not only finds a strong correlation between perceived innovativeness and customer satisfaction but also presents how fine-dining restaurants can employ user-generated data to co-innovate entire customer journeys and restaurant experiences. The results highlight menu-, service-, and customer experience-related innovativeness as the three most important criteria for fine-dining restaurant customers. Additionally, the results of the qualitative study indicate that in the context of fine-dining catering, the quality of the dishes, the service, and the customers' experience with the service staff and chefs are the main elements of satisfaction that restaurants should consider in promoting innovation., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic is adversely affecting financial markets, including commodities, conventional stocks, and Islamic stocks. This paper empirically investigates the extent to which COVID-19 effects may drive interdependence in markets. We fit copulas to pairs of returns before and during the ongoing epidemic shock, analyze the observed changes in the dependence structure, and discuss asymmetries on the propagation of crisis. We also use the findings to construct portfolios possessing desirable expected behavior. We find that the dependence structure changes significantly during the global pandemic providing valuable information on how the COVID-19 crisis affects inter-dependencies. The selected portfolio, including gold and Islamic return indices, has the best performance outside the COVID-19 crisis, and slightly more performing during the bear markets validating gold's intrinsic characteristic to be a safe haven. However, the portfolio performances, when combining the Brent with Islamic or conventional indices, have the same trend for the whole period. Our findings contribute to help investors better adjust their investment strategies., (© 2022 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This paper assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on non-financial firms' valuations in the European Union (EU) using a stress testing approach. Notably, the paper investigates the extent to which the COVID-19 may deteriorate non-financial firms' value in the ten EU countries to provide a robust anchor to policymakers in formulating strategic government interventions. We employ a sample of 5342 listed non-financial firms across the selected member states that have consistent analyst coverage from 2010 to 2019. First, we estimate the input sensitivities of free cash flow and residual income models using a random effect panel employed to in-sample data. Second, based on these sensitivities, we compute the model-driven ex-post valuations and compare their robustness with actual price and analyst forecasts for the same period. Finally, we introduce multiple stress scenarios that may emanate from COVID-19, i.e., a decline in expected sales and an increase/decrease in equity cost. Our findings show a significant loss in valuations across all sectors due to a possible reduction in sales and an increase in equity cost. In extreme cases, average firms in some industries may lose up to 60% of their intrinsic value in one year. The results remained consistent regardless of the cash flow or residual income-driven valuation., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Authors.)

Investment in Green energy is becoming a popular alternative asset class for investors, primarily due to its environment-friendly attributes. However, there is a dire need for subjective evaluation of this emerging asset class based on the risk-return dynamics to which investors are exposed. To respond to this call, in this study, we conduct this evaluation utilizing a unique and rich data set consisting of daily prices of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) established on different asset classes. We use Vector autoregression and Baba-Engle-Kraft-Kroner parameterization of multivariate GARCH models and assess the relative strength of return and volatility spillovers from the Green and Grey energy markets. Our results reveal the return shocks originated in the Green energy market and transmitted to other markets are more pronounced. It is also observed that the potential to earn high returns and the weak correlation of Green energy ETFs with the traditional asset classes are the crucial factors helpful in inviting attention and investment of investors after 2015. Although our results further suggest that the role of Grey energy is diminishing, as shown by the Impulse response functions and the coefficients of multivariate ARCH and GARCH. Nonetheless, for some asset classes, e.g., Bonds, the volatility spillovers that originated in the Grey energy market are still prominent and robust., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.)

Globally, the issues of climate change and global warming rapidly rises due to extensive CO 2 emission. In this regard, countries across the globe initiate policies to combat CO 2 emissions and attain a carbon neutrality target. As an emerging research area, the current study investigated carbon neutrality targets for BRICS economies (excluding Russia) covering the period from 1980 to 2018. This study covers important variables that influence both the economy and energy. Considering the role of electricity production from renewable energy and globalization, this study also checked for the role of income and renewable energy consumption. Various second-generation unit root and cointegration tests are used for the panel data to observe the stationarity and long-run relationship among these variables. Also, the DOLS and FMOLS are employed for the long-run estimation. Additionally, the article utilizes fixed effect and random effect models. This study also utilizes the augmented mean group (AMG) to confirm the prior findings. The empirical findings present evidence of the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the region. Moreover, the findings suggest that income and globalization play a positive role in carbon dioxide emission, which negatively influences the carbon neutrality target. However, electricity production from renewable energy and renewable energy consumption is efficient for achieving carbon neutrality targets. Specifically, the AMG estimates reveal that a percent increase in GDP and globalization increases 1.087 and 0.0342 % CO 2 emissions while a unit increase in renewable electricity production and renewable energy consumption declines CO 2 emissions by 0.0205 and 0.0143 %, respectively. The results are found robust and significant. Based on the empirical findings, policy implications are provided that would lead the BRICS region to attain the carbon neutrality target by revising the policies concerning globalization and economic growth. Also, proper attention should be paid to renewable energy electricity adaptation., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The promotion of carbon-neutral investments is among the primary constituents of developing a carbon-neutral economy. This is even more important for emerging economies that have constrained financial markets. In this paper, using monthly data between 2011 and 2019, we study 6519 actively managed mutual funds in BRICS after sorting them into black, brown, and green categories based on their investment holdings. Our comparative performance shows that green funds outperform their counterparts for the entire sample and within-country assessment. We also document the volatility and market timing ability of green funds, mainly absent in high emission funds. The results remained robust for various definitions of performance. Our findings also indicate Chinese green funds perform better than those of other countries. This is attributed to the multiple ecologically friendly economic policies that China has adopted over the years. Based on the results, we propose various interventions that could foster the adaptability of a carbon-neutral investment landscape., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The development of a green financial intermediation channel is imperative to achieve zero-carbon economies. In this study, we assess the impact of carbon-neutral lending on the credit risk in the Eurozone. We employ quarterly data for a sample of 344 lending institutions of 19 member states spanning over ten years from 2011 to 2020. Using two specific credit risk measures, the findings show that the exposure to carbon-neutral lending is negatively related to the default risk. The results remain consistent for the various size sorts, depicting that regardless of the bank size, the impact of green financing on the credit risk is the same. We attribute the credit risk reduction to the lower volatility of the borrowers' earnings and cash flows emanating from their sustainable business model. As a consequence of lower credit risk, financial institutions can benefit from lower loan loss provisions and economic capital requirements. This incentive is vital to increase the carbon neutral credit and contribute towards pro-environmental goals., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper presents the dataset of a survey on workplace health and safety training, employees' risk perceptions, behavioral safety compliance, and perceived job insecurity in Vietnam during COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected through an online questionnaire completed by Vietnamese full-time employees between April and June 2020. Using E-mail, LinkedIn, and Facebook, the online questionnaire was sent to respondents who filled it out voluntarily. A two-wave survey was conducted in order to lessen the common method bias. Totally, we received complete matched data for 732 full-time employees. All data were processed through SPSS 22.0, AMOS 23.0 and Smart PLS 3.0. Besides descriptive statistics, the results of the explanatory factor analysis and the confirmation factor analysis were included in this paper, which may serve as a good reference for future studies., Competing Interests: The research team did not receive financial support from any institutions. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

The mutual funds' returns, inter alia, are dependent on fund managers' performance. This makes human capital efficiency very central for consistent risk-adjusted performance. The persistence in performance becomes more critical during periods of high turbulence, like the one we are experiencing amidst the outbreak of Covid-19. In this research, we attempt to evaluate the performance of equity funds in massively impacted Latin American countries. These equity funds, with 95% of their investment in the infected region, are ranked as per their human capital efficiency using 2019 as the base year. Our findings demonstrate that funds with higher human capital efficiency significantly outperform their counterparts that rank lower on human capital efficiency. These findings remained consistent for the sub-periods that we specify to map the evolution of Covid-19. We conclude that equity funds should enhance their human capital efficiency to endure resilience amid macroeconomic shocks., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests, (© The Author(s) 2020.)