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CEO duality is the practice in which the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has both the presidency of the company as the chairman of its Board of Directors. The literature so far shows the positive and negative impact on organizational performance when this happens. The approach of the Agency theory suggests that these two functions should be exercised by different people. Therefore, this study aimed to verify the relationship between CEO duality and the corporate performance of companies listed on the Brazil Index (IBrX100) in the 2008 to 2013 period. The sample comprised 70 companies, totaling 420 observations in a balanced panel data. To investigate the relationship proposed by this study, two statistical strategies were used: the method of Ordinary Least Squares and Probit. The results showed that the duality did not affect the organizational performance when compared to the other explanatory variables. However, the performance was affected by the boar size and by the share concentration, as they were the only significant variables, meeting the findings of Daily and Dalton (1997) and Moscu (2013). This result confirms the premise that when duality exists, decisions generally tend to be centralized to avoid loss of control by managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyze if the issuance of Series E Treasury Bonds (CFT-Es) generates abnormal returns in a higher education stock portfolio and verify if the Brazilian higher education market is efficient in its semi-strong form. The main purpose of CFT-Es is to transfer funds to institutions with the aim of providing finance to students enrolled in private universities. These issuances have effects on the capital market, considering that after the program began, the first initial public offering (IPO) of a Brazilian university occurred. Moreover, according to the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira/Ministry of Education and Culture (Inep/MEC), Brazil has the largest market for higher education in Latin America. Several studies have been conducted to analyze the relationship between monetary policy and financial markets, but this has not occurred within the scope of fiscal policy. Such research is appropriate, considering the discussion on the need to contain government spending, but at the same time stimulate the Brazilian economy. The main contribution of the study is it indicates that the higher education market has tended towards the efficiency hypothesis, considering that in the first analysis, H0 was not rejected for 82% of the windows of events, and in the second analysis, H0 was not rejected for any of the windows of events, with there being no evidence of abnormal gains due to funds being released for the Student Finance Fund (Fies). The event study methodology was used to test the hypotheses of abnormal returns obtained due to CFT-Es being issued through the release of ordinances. A portfolio composed of higher education stocks was elaborated, weighted by the quarterly amount receivable from Fies for each institution, and covering 2009 to 2017. The results show that the stocks of institutions benefiting from Fies tend to react efficiently to CFT-E issuances authorized by the National Treasury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the legal regulation of the Brazilian capital market, through literature research and assessment of documents and data, with focus on the revision of the regulatory instrument known as consent decree (settlement). A total number of 405 terms were approved by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) between 2009 and 2014, characterizing a wide use of such regulatory instrument. The present analysis concluded that, although the settlement is considered an important mechanism in the context of capital market regulation, its excessive use constitutes a distortion of both its purposes and of the foundations of normative discipline of the market, and even of the set of functions assigned to the CVM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is trying to make environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) central to its financial system. Investments, which flow through the capital market, should favour sustainable development. The closing of the investment gap in sustainable investment is one of the priorities on the way to the sustainable growth of the EU economy. Very unfortunately, sustainable finance has been made part of the plan to build the capital markets union. In my opinion, including sustainable finance in this process is a misguided solution. The aim of this article is to analyse the conditions of including sustainable finance in the process of building the capital markets union. Since the subject discussed in the article is completely new, the author did not consult any academic studies that could have acted as a point of reference in the conducted analyses. The article can be seen as a pioneering study intended to contribute to fill the gap in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how corporate cash management in Korea has evolved during the COVID-19 crisis, focusing on the interaction between COVID-19-related uncertainty and financing frictions. Compared with the 2008 global financial crisis, massive expansionary financial policy measures have resulted in low external financing costs shortly after the early negative shocks to external financing. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate the separate effects of uncertainty and financing frictions on corporate cash holdings. Consistent with the precautionary motive for cash holdings, we find that firms reserve more cash in 2020 in response to the increased uncertainty; this is especially the case if they are negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis and financially constrained. However, unaffected firms with better access to financial markets and internal capital markets also increase their cash holdings. The COVID-19 pandemic does not systematically change corporate cash management policies. In 2021, firms decrease their cash holdings as uncertainty declines. Overall, our evidence implies that uncertainty is the primary determinant of corporate cash management decisions, whereas financing frictions play a secondary role. We discuss the policy implications of the amplified inequality between financially constrained and unconstrained firms resulting from massive expansionary financial policy measures. • COVID-19 uncertainty is the primary determinant of cash management. • Expansionary financial policies mitigate uncertainty's effect. • Financially constrained firms reserve cash to cope with uncertainty. • Among firms not suffering from the COVID-19 crisis, unconstrained firms hoard cash. • Expansionary policies widen the inequality among constrained and unconstrained firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has been retracted by Hindawi following an investigation undertaken by the publisher [[1]]. We wish to credit our own Research Integrity and Research Publishing teams and anonymous and named external researchers and research integrity experts for contributing to this investigation. [Extracted from the article]

More and more countries have successively promulgated various environmental policies to mitigate climate change and environmental pollution. These policies have become important in promoting low-carbon development and green transformation through enterprise financing. This study employs a difference-in-difference (DID) model to examine how a green credit policy affects the financing choices of highly polluting businesses using the data of A-share listed corporations from 2009 to 2021. The research finds that: (1) The number of bank loans has significantly decreased for highly polluting companies; a green credit policy will also reduce the scale of any non-bank loans. (2) The extent of equity financing and bond financing of highly polluting firms on the capital market decreased due to market constraints and the function of policy signaling. (3) The impact of a green credit policy will spread to upstream and downstream enterprises through trade credit, thus reducing enterprises' commercial credit scale. (4) The impact of a green credit policy on bank loans is more significant in state-owned enterprises, in regions with a high degree of marketization, and in regions with low intensity environmental regulation. The research results provide targeted policy recommendations for promoting the development of green credit and achieving carbon neutralization. [Display omitted] • The impact of green credit policy on corporate financing decisions is examined. • Green credit policy can reduce bank loans and nonbank loans for heavily polluting enterprises. • Signal transmission and supply chain transmission are the main influencing channels. • There is heterogeneity in environmental regulation, marketization, and nature of equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies are increasingly seeking the route of sustainable growth via green innovation in the wake of environmental catastrophe and global warming. Studying its mechanism of action on green innovation has significant consequences for the green and low-carbon transformation of firms as a green development pointer in the capital market. Based on the panel data of Chinese heavy pollution listed enterprises, we use the negative binomial distribution model to conduct a theoretical mechanism analysis and empirical data validation on this issue. We find that green investments significantly contribute to businesses' green innovation, and this effect is influenced by company age heterogeneity and information disclosure heterogeneity. Further mechanism analysis reveals that this effect works mainly through alleviating corporate financing constraints and reducing corporate agency costs. We provide recommendations for the growth of green innovation and the green low-carbon transformation of firms based on the research results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital flows in primary markets are key to the low-carbon transition, as capital raised can finance low or high-carbon assets. Yet, fund-level climate-related disclosures have focused on portfolio holdings, reducing the ability of investors to evaluate the impact of capital flows. In particular, as passive funds grow, there is a risk that capital is channelled into carbon-intensive assets through primary markets. To track carbon-intensive portfolio holdings and primary market transactions, and the role of passive funds within them, we construct a dataset of daily holdings for passive U.S. corporate bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from 2016 to 2021. We find that the carbon exposure and carbon intensity of ETF primary market transactions are associated with existing ETF portfolio holdings. We also find that the share of secondary market holdings and primary market transactions accounted for by passive ETFs is higher for fossil fuel bonds, and increases with bond-level carbon intensity. These findings indicate that the continued growth in passive funds could support carbon-intensive capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study scrutinized the asymmetric impact of oil prices on stock returns in Shanghai stock exchange with data (January 2000 to December 2018) by using asymmetric ARDL model. The examined results of asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag model indicate that cointegration exists between the oil prices and the stock returns. Results of asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag model confirm that both in the long run and the short run increase in oil prices have a negative impact on the stock returns of Shanghai stock exchange while decrease in the oil prices has a positive impact on the stock returns. The examined results of this study recommend that oil prices dynamically contribute incompetence in stock prices in such a way that impact the profits of investors in stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on perceived trade-off between wealth maximization and social responsibility is overstated. It mentions environmental, social, and governance issues often go to the heart of the systemic risks firms face in capital markets. It also mentions long-term investors would benefit from expanded Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated disclosure of information pertinent to such issues.

The article presents a speech by Hester M. Peirce, Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), presented at 2018 LEET Business Law Symposium. Topics discussed in the speech include extension of mandatory disclosure to matters not directly relevant to financial performance, difficulty surrounding the definition of "material" information and costs associated with broader disclosure and purposes of capital markets.

This study investigates the effect of sharia compliance status on firms' capital structure decisions and speed of adjustment in non-financial firms in the Saudi Arabian market from 2005 to 2016. It finds that sharia compliance plays a significant role in determining capital structure decisions. Specifically, sharia-compliant firms have significantly lower levels of leverage and slower speeds of adjustment as measured by both book and market proxies of capital structure than non-sharia-compliant firms, owing to the multiple restrictions to which they are subject, which limits their financing channels. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to compare the effect of sharia compliance on firms' capital structure speed of adjustment towards the trade-off theory target leverage ratio. • Compares the capital structure of sharia and non-sharia in the Saudi Arabia. • Uses both book and market measures of capital structure. • Sharia-compliant firms have significantly lower levels of leverage and slower speed of adjustment. • Sharia-compliant firms suffer from a finance gap in the supply side due to financial restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with globalization, developments that in financial markets have brought some recency in recent years. The most important of these recency is the securitization of financial assets and sale to investors in capital markets. Nonliquid asset items are converted into liquid with securitization so additional funding is provided to finance markets. Securitization, which has an important financial aspect, has emerged as a preferred phenomenon in place of traditional banking in the 1970s due to the changes taking place in the international financial markets. Initial securitization practices began with the securitization of mortgage loans in the United States. The first mortgage-backed securities application was the securitization of receivables arising from financial lease agreements in 1985. Today, automobile loans, credit card receivables, equipment leases in financial leasing, student loans, commercial receivables, other assets assets securitized receivables arising from export transactions are among the products. The aim of this study is analyzing securitization which a new funding technique and analyzing the applications of liquidity-based securitization which are one of the securitization transactions in Turkey and in the world. In this context; information are given about structuring of capital markets which securitization transactions, and in generally information are given about securitization traded in these market. Followed by definition and development of the securitization. In the last part of the study, the definition of asset-backed securities transactions which is one of the securitization types has been examined and the literature on Turkey and world applications of asset-backed securities has been examined and the related review and suggestion have been evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author summary: A subset of anti-infective drugs are increasingly unavailable for patients in the United States due to pricing or withdrawal from the market. Timely market solutions are needed. We assert that solutions to ensure access to some essential anti-infective agents lie outside capital markets and that public-private partnerships may be the most viable solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the essence of the concept of "equity capital" and conceptual approaches to its definition and classification. It has been determined that the concept of "capital" has had roots since antiquity, and meant a source of accumulation of wealth. However, in today's conditions of the market system capital is generalizing and at the same time varied, because it covers intellectual, natural, social capital. The importance of the correct calculation of structural equilibrium, which is a guarantee of financial competitiveness, financial stability and solvency in modern fast financial, economic and legislative changes, has been substantiated. Three approaches to the classification of the structure of the enterprise according to the normativelegislative base (national and international) and practical aspect has been determined. The practical analytical analysis of the equity structure based on the financial statements of the enterprise indicates that the equity of the enterprise in the current conditions of management decreases, in particular, by increasing the uncovered loss. The advantage of debt capital in the form of payables proves the need to make optimal decisions on timely control and adjustment of the capital structure of the enterprise due to the dynamics and features of socio-economic and financial processes in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: Increased regulations reducing systemic risk are essentially underpinned by the understanding of the global nature and sources of instability of the financial system. In the economic literature, there are many arguments presented by critical supporters and opponents of measuring and reporting global systemically important entities. Purpose of the article: In response to the requirements of regulators, the article seeks to identify systematically important regulated stock markets for selected global stock exchanges by developing a composite ratio. Additionally, it provides empirical evidence concerning their risk exploration. Methods: The proposed method uses weighted average values of indicators grouped in four categories: (1) market size, (2) cross-jurisdictional activity and interconnectedness, (3) substitutability, (4) complexity. The research covers stock exchanges, reported to WFE, spanning the period 2008-2017. Findings & Value added: The study finds that the problem of systemic risk on global stock exchanges is growing despite numerous prudential regulations. In order to obtain a more complete assessment of market systemic sensitivity, regulators should take into account a wider range of indicators and calculations such as cross-jurisdictional activity and market complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the hypothesis of stock price comovements toward the US market for a large sample of developed and emerging stock markets (G6, BRICS, and MENA) over the periods of February 1970-June 2012, January 1995-June 2012, and June 2005-June 2012. To consider cross-market heterogeneity and asymmetrical time-variation in stock market integration, we propose an innovative threshold panel cointegration specification based on a panel smooth transitions error correction model. This specification enables us to identify different integration regimes that transit smoothly, which further reproduces the effects of market frictions and behavioral heterogeneity among the markets under consideration. Accordingly, we distinguish between efficient and inefficient market states. Further, we show that, while MENA and BRICS are segmented with the US market, a nonlinear mean-reversion of stock prices is observed for the G6 markets, suggesting evidence of heterogeneous threshold market integration. This suggests global diversification benefits from a US-MENA portfolio, while only per-regime investment opportunities appear for US-G6 and US-BRICS portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance research shows capital structure has an important effect on the product-market competitiveness of firms. Our paper documents an asymmetric effect of capital structure on firms’ competitiveness in a sample of Chinese firms. Firms whose capital structure is characterized by a low leverage but rapid leverage growth has a dominant position in their product market. The industry average leverage ratio is also a critical factor influencing firms’ competitiveness. High debt levels hinder firms’ competitiveness. The influence of capital structure on firms’ product-market competitiveness varies based on the extent of industry concentration. In highly concentrated industries, high leverage level and slow leverage growth suppress firms’ competitiveness to a larger extent compared with industries with low concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on theoretical and empirical studies, better business results are possible to achieve when there is alignment between the organization's strategy and sustainability management, as this alignment generate value for the organization and attend its stakeholders directly. Thus, this paper aims to highlight the reasons why companies should invest in sustainability, drawing up conclusions from literature and the perception of managers and coordinators of different areas in a Brazilian mining company. In order to do that, a qualitative research was conducted based on semi-structured interviews with those responsible for the mining company. As the main result, we have a synthesis of ten reasons why companies should invest in sustainability, that are: image, increase internal and external sales, valorization in the capital market, reduction of costs, improvement in company's image before its stakeholders, reduction of risks, attraction and retention of talents, innovative capacities, competitive advantage and quick response or anticipation to legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on monetary policy rate which has kept by the Federal Reserve of the U.S. during the time of the Great Recession. Topics discussed include immoderation of low interest rate policy by the Federal Reserve; expansion of monetary policy rate at the zero lower bound (ZLB); and quantification of the insurance against the ZLB.

The article focuses on history and change of the U.S. bank capital regulation during the financial crisis. Topics discussed include imposition of minimum capital requirements on banks by legislators and policymakers of the U.S.; investments which make by the banks for high earning; and maintenance of minimum level of capital by the banks to reduce the danger of failure.

Every company to manage its business needs investments, being they third-party capital or its own, thus forming its capital structure. Some of these resources are only possible to gather through adhesion to the capital market. In order to strengthen the culture of Brazilian companies, being them small or not, in the capital markets, B3's S.A. has created a segment called Bovespa Mais, in its levels 1 and 2. Bovespa Mais has a high degree of corporate management, and as a feature allows listed companies not to open their capital immediately, taking up the seventh year listing for this. The present study sought to verify if the visibility acquired by the adhesion to the stock exchange through Bovespa Mais, especially concerning corporate management required in this segment, as also if it brought improvements in the economic-financial performance of 9 companies listed on Bovespa Mais that had not performed a public offering of shares. Six economic indicators of some sample companies were calculated, being Current Liquidity, General Liquidity, Short-Term Debt Participation, Third-Party Equity, Ebitda Margin and ROE, in a 5-year time period, being them: Two years before listing, The year of adherence to the segment, and two years after listing. It was observed that the liquidity of the companies fell, the short-term indebtedness increased, the participation of third-party capital decreased significantly, the Margin Lajida increased significantly, and the ROE decreased. In general, it was not possible to see an impact on the companies concerning the visibility of the stock exchange and the practice of corporate governance, considering that there was no standard behavior in the indicators, nor an improvement of the same in the companies analyzed, comparing before and after adhesion to the Bovespa Mais segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study sought to apply the model developed by Gokhale et al. (2015) to identify the existence of overreaction and behavioral biases in the Brazilian stock market and analyze its performance as an investment strategy on the São Paulo Stock, Commodities, and Futures Exchange (BM&FBOVESPA) in the short term and long term, as well as test its robustness with time window simulations. The impacts of behavioral finance on capital markets can affect economic decisions, perpetuate or increase asset pricing anomalies, and in more extreme and persistent situations contribute to the formation of bubbles that can compromise the entire financial system of a country. The study pioneers an innovative methodology in the Brazilian stock market for identifying behavioral biases and obtaining abnormal returns and higher returns than the Ibovespa. The research uses the model developed by Gokhale, Tremblay, and Tremblay (2015) in three samples with quotations data for Brazilian publicly-traded companies that compose the Ibovespa and IBrA in the period from 2005 to 2016. With the R statistical software, the Fundamental Valuation Index (FVI) was calculated for each sample share and each year. From the FVI index, the undervalued shares were identified, indicating that the sales price does not reflect their economic fundamentals, and portfolio simulations were carried out for investment over three months or the next year. The results indicate the possible existence of overreaction and behavioral biases in the Brazilian stock market, which lead to the possibility of higher abnormal returns than those of the Ibovespa. Similar to the US market, at the end of the 2006-2016 period simulated portfolios yielded more than 274%, while the Ibovespa yielded approximately 80%. The robustness tests attest to the effectiveness of the model. The various investment portfolios, simulated over different time horizons, yielded more than the Ibovespa on average. The study also confirmed the assumptions of Gokhale, Tremblay, and Tremblay (2015) regarding the model's inadequacy for short-term strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates, in the Brazilian capital market, the effect of the composition of the board of directors on executive compensation sensitivity to market performance, known as pay-performance sensitivity (PPS). Due to potential agency conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders and between shareholders and managers, members of the board of directors of the executive board or those appointed by the controlling shareholder might have less independence, something which may compromise monitoring effectiveness and, consequently, reduce the PPS. The purpose is contributing to understand the agency conflicts that have taken place in the Brazilian capital market and to define the configuration of the monitoring and compensation mechanisms that minimize total agency costs, maximizing shareholders' wealth. The research results have implications for understanding the agency relations and for corporate governance in the Brazilian capital market. It is concluded that the relation between the monitoring exercised by the board of directors and executive compensation is a condition for its effectiveness as a governance mechanism in the Brazilian capital market. Data within the period 2013-2015 from 92 companies that participate in the Brazil 100 Index (IBRX 100) of the São Paulo Stock, Mercantile & Futures Exchange (BM&FBOVESPA) were analyzed. In addition to tests of difference between mean values and correlation, estimates were processed through feasible generalized least squares modeling. The independence of the board of directors vis-à-vis the controlling shareholder and the executive board may work as a corporate governance mechanism supplementing executive compensation. The results of this study indicate that the proportion of executives and independent members in the board of directors reduces the PPS, a measurement for executive compensation effectiveness made operational by the contemporary relation between increased managers' compensation and increased company's market value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital markets dealmaking, like many kinds of business transactions, is built on a foundation of copied and recycled language-- what many call boilerplate. Regulators and the bar periodically call for less reliance on boilerplate, but despite these pressures, boilerplate remains a fixture of ever-growing securities disclosures. This Article explores why boilerplate persists and how it affects investors, showing that boilerplate may have a more complex role than commonly recognized. This Article does so by developing a theory on the effect of boilerplate in securities disclosure--a context that is little studied despite a wealth of literature on boilerplate in other settings--and analyzes disclosure empirically using language processing techniques on a dataset of initial public offering disclosure spanning twenty years, from 1996 to 2015. The data shows that in the aggregate, the use of boilerplate is associated with some efficiency gains. For example, 10% more boilerplate in IPO disclosure is associated with a savings of $65,000 in legal fees, on average, controlling for other relevant factors. But the measurable gains are generally outweighed by boilerplate's information-related costs: greater use of boilerplate is associated with several indicia of information asymmetry that see issuing firms give up as much as $5 to $6 million in the market on average for each additional 10% of their disclosure that consists of rote recitations. Greater use of generic boilerplate language is also related to greater incidence of securities litigation and is associated with lower readability of already complex registration statements. The evidence points to the conclusion that, whether through its content or its signaling effect, boilerplate disclosure in the aggregate represents greater costs for IPO issuers and does little to advance the goal of better informing the investing public. In addition to discussing implications for law and policy, this Article addresses a puzzle raised by the data: Why do securities issuers continue to use boilerplate when it has the potential to lose them money, draw litigation, and buck regulatory pressure? Theory developed in legal scholarship provides a number of possible answers. The explanation most consistent with these findings is that boilerplate serves as a substitute for information production, meaning that issuers can obscure sensitive information or shortcut due diligence if they are willing to pay the price for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solvency II imposes risk-based capital requirements on EU insurance companies. This paper evaluates the property risk standard model proposed. The calibration was performed from the IPD UK monthly index total returns for the period between December 1986 and December 2009. In general, it is considered that returns derived from valuation-based indices are smoother than those derived from transaction-based indices. This paper contributes to the existing literature by applying various unsmoothing techniques to this index. The results show that the capital requirements, applying the same calculation method (historical value at risk at the 99.5% confidence level) as in the calibration of the standard model, are generally bigger than those proposed in the standard model of Solvency II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the use of credit risk transfer (CRT) programs to shift mortgage credit risk from U.S. government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the private sector. It explores the efficacy of the CRT program in boosting the stability of the housing finance system. The use of CRT securities by investors in the capital market to obtain exposure to residential mortgage credit risk is discussed.

The article focuses on lenders might forgo collectivization and debtors would insist on interest rates possible only if the debtor obtained funds within a capital structure designed to throw the firm to the creditor. It mentions developments in bankruptcy practice and creditor activism and capital market creditors are mere stakeholders to pay for any privilege in the form of lower interest rates. It also mentions collective action problem for individual creditor remedies.

The paper explores the benefits of global financial reporting models for developing countries, discussing the case of Romania, which, at the recommendations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, exceeded the minimum requirements of the European Union, by imposing the full adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in individual financial statements of listed companies. Using regression analysis and decomposition techniques, the paper explores the evolution in value relevance of financial variables based on pre-(2009–2012) and post-(2014–2016) adoption samples, showing that after IFRS adoption financial information becomes significantly more relevant for equity valuations. We also provide empirical evidence showing that the degree of relevance for stock valuation, as well as the IFRS impact varies across types of firms. Overall, our findings tend to indicate the success of the financial reporting reform, which could be relevant for other jurisdictions facing similar decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The asymmetrical mutual influence of investor sentiment and the basis of CSI 300 stock index futures under conditions in different market situations was investigated using the quantile vector autoregressive model (QVAR). The article also discussed asymmetrical influence of investor sentiment on the basis under conditions in different investor structures using the quantile regression method. On this basis, we obtained several important conclusions: (1) There exists a one-way causal relationship where investor sentiment has a significant impact on the CSI 300 stock index futures basis in China; the investor sentiment is likely to exert stronger influences on the basis in the chaotic period of the stock market and imposes significant asymmetrical effects. (2) The institutionalized development of investors can reduce the influences of investor sentiment on the basis when the stock market is stable, while it does not play its function in stabilizing the capital market when the stock market is in turmoil. (3) The low institutionalization level, the individualization of institutional investors, and the imperfect short-sales mechanism as a whole are still the sticking problems in the immature capital market of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Over the past several years, sustainable activities have become increasingly important to academic research and business practices around the globe. However, the nature and type of the potential financial benefits of environmentally oriented information and communication technologies at the corporate level remain poorly understood. To address this gap in the literature, this paper presents novel empirical evidence on the possible effect of Green Information Technologies (GIT) implementation on various aspects of shareholder value creation and financial performance. Using content analysis of corporate disclosures and financial data of 162 companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange during the period 2007–2016, we find that firms with GIT are characterized by higher subsequent returns on assets and the market-to-book values of assets ratios. Additionally, we observe that companies introducing GIT solutions experience permanently lower operating margins and higher costs of goods sold to net sales ratios. Furthermore, companies characterized by more efficient management of assets to generate earnings and more favorable market valuation are generally more inclined to engage in GIT activism. The findings also suggest that factors such as size, sector in which a given company operates, and percentage of women among the top five officers are not indifferent to the implementation of GIT solutions. Overall, this study extends the understanding of financial performance implications of environmentally friendly information technologies. Graphical abstract Image Highlights • We link Green Information Technologies implementation to financial performance. • We analyzed data of German publicly traded companies over the years 2007–2016. • Green Information Technologies negatively influence current financial performance. • Positive lag relations between Green IT, return on assets and market value exist. • Green IT is typical for firms with lower operating margins and higher cost of sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On January 1st 2017, the amendment to the Commercial Code implementing the Capital Market Concept. This is a measure of the implementation which is the part of the Startup Support Concept and the Development of the Startup Ecosystem in the Slovak Republic. A new form of capital trading company has been created to offer a comprehensive solution for capital investments in companies. An example of such an investment is start‑up investment as business initiatives with high innovation and growth potential that can not provide funding through banks. When investing capital, it is necessary to flexibly set the investor’s entry, coexistence and output beyond what is currently possible in the form of trading companies in the conditions of the Slovak Republic. Until now, it has been a limited liability company, which has been mainly used for investing capital of start‑ups. Later was used the joint stock company as the capital‑intensive type of business. A public limited company and a limited partnership belonging to a group of private partnerships were not and are not used as startups, because of unlimited liability of the partners for the company’s obligations. The main obstacle for a joint‑stock company, as support for startups until their advanced stages of life cycle, is relatively high statutory minimum capital requirement of EUR 25,000. Another issue may be legal regulation aimed at medium and large businesses allowing them to trade their shares on the stock Exchange market, with the associated increased demands to ensure the functioning of the company. However, the Simple company, representing the hybrid form of a capital company, also has its serious shortcomings and is not a boon to support startups. Since it is a “young” type of business company that has not yet been the subject of research, it is the intention of the contributors to analyse a Simple company on shares and, by means of a number of scientific research methods, to provide a critical view of its shortcomings. Despite the fact that the reason for the establishment of this business company was mostly economic, research is mainly directed at the area of commercial law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the basic tools of the capital market are securities. Under the currently valid and effective legislation, ownership of securities can be acquired through three types of scrambling contracts. It is a contract for the purchase of securities, a contract for the donation of securities and a contract for the loan of a security. These contract types are primarily regulated in the Securities Act as the “lex specialis” of securities law, with subsequent reference to the legal regulation contained in the Civil Code and the Commercial Code. The authors are focused on a donation of securities lending of securities, which are used in practice only a little, or even at all. For this reason, no attention is paid to them either by legal theorists. The authors, through scientific and doctrinal interpretation, examine the selected provisions of the Securities Act, the Civil Code and the Commercial Code relating to the issues of these agreements. Through professional literature and court decisions, they are looking for answers to practical application problems. Last but not least, they compare legal regulations in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and point to the differences. The study of the selected issues related to the acquisition of securities in the conditions of the Slovak Republic represents the main objective of this contribution, which affects also the area of economics or financial management. Priority, however, is in the area of financial law with significant transitions to civil and commercial law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper verified the need to include the cash flow in the evaluation of the stock return by associating the variables of earning and cash flow with analysis of the quality of this information. Accounting information regarding net earnings, EBITDA, cash flow from operations and the variation of these variables were collected in the Economática database, divided by the number of shares, in addition to the annual percentage return between 2006 and 2016 in the universe of non-financial companies in six countries of Latin America - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, with a total of 1.149 observations in the period. The objective was to verify the contribution of the cash flow associated with the earnings to the return, obtaining in response that the return can be explained by both variables. The main results indicate that the return can be explained by a different metric from the traditional analysis, and this may indicate an increase in the explanation of the return by a demonstration recently required by the legislation, if compared with the other analyzes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent agents are often used in professional portfolio management. The use of intelligent agents in personal retirement portfolio management is not investigated in the past. In this research, we consider a two-asset personal retirement portfolio and propose several reinforcement learning agents for trading portfolio assets. In particular, we design an on-policy SARSA ( λ ) and an off-policy Q ( λ ) discrete state and discrete action agents that maximize either portfolio returns or differential Sharpe ratios. Additionally, we design a temporal-difference learning, TD( λ ), agent that uses a linear valuation function in discrete state and continuous action settings. Using two different two-asset portfolios, the first asset being the S&P 500 Index and the second asset being either a broad bond market index or a 10-year U.S. Treasury note (T-note), we test the performance of different agents on different holdout (test) samples. The results of our experiments indicate that the high-learning frequency (i.e., adaptive learning) TD( λ ) agent consistently beats both the single asset stock and bond cumulative returns by a significant margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we test for the existence of equity market contagion, originating from oil price fluctuations, to regional and domestic stock markets. The data are collected over the period from April 1993 to April 2015. We apply an empirical multifactor asset pricing model with three-factor setting to capture the unexpected return and disentangle simple correlation due to fundamentals and contagion. We investigate four regions: the European Monetary Union (EMU), Asia-Pacific (AP), the Non-European Monetary Union (NEMU) and North America (NA). We define contagion as the excess correlation that is not explained by fundamental factors. Oil price risk is shown to be a factor as important as contagion. In addition, oil price fluctuations amplify contagion in the context of regional markets strongly interlinked with the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our FDI preoccupations date from before 2008 [1]. This below paper studies the international directly invested capital and develops on coordinates already drawn by previous working papers seeing facts developed at the world scale[2]. Our previous findings will here reach a new one regarding Europe and Asia, i.e. Eurasia continental block, which isn't quite a region, as in our previous papers, but contains some unexpected and interesting specific features. Not to omit the quite specific of our set of papers on FDI, that is no any temptation about causes of effects of FDI, as in the other literature and as in our previous papers in the area. Except for world-wide view and the last quarter of century that makes our study more than relevant, this is just FDI, as effective flows and stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Under the assumption that managers have incentives to practice earnings management in optimistic moments, this paper aims to analyze whether analysts' monitoring affects the relation between the discretionary accumulations (accruals) and investor sentiment in the Brazilian capital market. Originality/value: The mediating role of analysts in the relation between investor sentiment and earnings management was not identified in the literature establishing an important gap to be investigated, given the relevance of the reported earnings for the decision-making process of market participants. Design/methodology/approach: Fixed effects regressions (industry and quarter) were estimated from 2010 to 2016, using all data and the subsetting sample according to whether or not companies were monitored by analysts. Findings: The results showed a reduction of earnings management after optimistic moments, which differs from the initial expectation and such behavior is attributed to the presence of analysts following companies. The results were robust to alternative proxies for earnings management and investor sentiment. Analysts have an influence on accounting earnings supporting the best disclosure, so inhibiting the practice of earnings management in optimistic moments. Therefore, although previous studies suggest that earnings management practices increase during optimistic moments, market participants may consider, even in such moments, a better earnings quality when firms are monitored by analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a number of researchers studying innovations in general specifically pointing out the risky nature of financial innovations, and the necessity to study their impact the empiric studies describing the effect of the innovations in financial technologies upon capital markets are scarce. There is no credible evidence leading to an unambiguous conclusion as to the impact of innovation in financial technologies upon the development of capital markets in Central and East European countries (CEECs). Thus, the main scientific problem of this article is the lack of reliable quantitative evidence of the impact of innovations in financial technologies on capital market development in CEECs. According to that, the aim of this article is to assess the impact of the financial technologies innovations upon the capital markets of the CEECs on the basis of the most recent available data (2006-2017). The study methods employed by the authors included an analysis of the relevant scientific literature, comparative dynamic analysis, panel data models (constant, fixed and random effects) and other statistical methods. As a result, the panel model of the impact upon the capital markets in CEECs is developed based on the analysis of the data from 9 Central and Eastern European countries for a period of 12 years (2006-2017). The model suggested by the authors explains almost four fifths of the changes in the capital market expressed in the capitalisation indicator. The panel models of constant, fix and variable effects is an evidence of a negative statistically significant impact of the summary innovation index reflecting the level and the scope of financial technologies upon the development of capital markets in the Central European States when the other selected macroeconomic variables remain in control. The panel model of development of capital markets also showed that a statistically significant positive impact upon the capital market development in CEECs was produced by forecasted GDP growth, inflation and capital investment factors (variables). On the other hand, foreign direct investment, unemployment, interest rate, public debt, government budget deficit do not have a statistically significant impact upon the development of capital markets in the selected CEECs. The model constructed by the author is characterised by fairly high reliability and determination indicators, therefore, may be used for the purpose of a further assessment and projecting of the impact of financial technologies and other actions upon the development of the capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has been consistently rising among the China's ChiNext companies over the past years, which has drawn great attention across academia and industry. Based on the neoclassical theory and the behavioral theory, this paper explores the driving factors of M&A among Chinese ChiNext companies. Two hypotheses were put forward: one based on IPO over-financing and the other based on the market value overvaluation. IPO over-financing is specific to the Chinese capital market while market value overestimation is driven by the continuous upsurge in the ChiNext Market. Our study found that both factors account for enterprises' mergers and acquisitions. They have far-reaching influences on such fields as acquisition probability, the size of the transaction, transaction frequency, M&A payment method and market reaction. Due to IPO over-financing, enterprises tend to carry out M&A via cash payment or cash and stock mixed payment method. Heavier IPO over-financing will increase the chance of M&A and leads to larger transaction size and higher transaction frequency. Market value overvaluation will lead to more uses of stock or cash and stock mixed payment on M&A transactions. When the company's stock is overvalued, the company will use the overvalued equity to acquire other companies. Greater overvaluation of the market value also increases the chance of M&A and leads to a larger transaction size and higher frequency of M&A. In China, IPO over-financing rather than market value overvaluation, is the major driving factor for China's corporate mergers and acquisitions. Further study found that the market reaction to different payment methods in mergers and acquisitions varies: it has the minimum reaction on cash payment, a larger reaction on stock payment and the greatest reaction on mixed payment. Also, the mixed payment method has the largest cumulative abnormal returns. This is different from the empirical findings in the United States and Europe. This paper provides a theoretical basis and empirical evidence for an in-depth understanding of the wave of mergers and acquisitions of Chinese ChiNext companies, and provides a basis for decision-making and policy recommendations for the government regulators and investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the largest emerging capital market with a unique setup: it issues simultaneously both (i) Class A shares addressed to Chinese domestic investors, and (ii) Class B Shares addressed to foreign investors. After Chinese stock market resumed the operation, they feature dramatic fluctuations due to policy changes and over-speculative activity of individual investors. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of both the Shanghai A and B Markets through a Markov-switching asymmetric GARCH in four different time frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]