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This paper aims to investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) services and digital finance affect the development of international tourism.

The two-way fixed effect panel regression model, spatial econometric model, panel threshold regression model and panel quantile regression model are used. Data on tourism, economic and social development in 198 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2020 are analyzed.

This study finds that digital economy including ICT services and digital finance has significantly promoted the development of international tourism industry, while there is a negative spatial spillover effect. The promotion effect of international tourism increases significantly after digital innovation reaches the threshold value. International tourism is benefiting more from digital economy with the development of international tourism industry.

The development quality of international tourism industry has not been analyzed due to data limitations, and the mechanism has not been tested.

This study creatively reveals the development of international tourism industry in the digital economy era from ICT services and digital finance perspectives. This study also shows the spatial, nonlinear and asymmetric relationship between digital economy and international tourism.

This study examines the impact of financial inclusion on the corporate sustainability of banks in both Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and non-OIC emerging economies, considering the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research utilizes data from 3,159 bank-years from 2007 to 2021 across 33 emerging markets.

Empirical findings indicate that firms operating in higher financial inclusion developing countries tend to exhibit higher levels of sustainable development. This positive relationship has become even more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting the importance of financial inclusion in fostering corporate sustainability, especially in times of economic challenges. Interestingly, while the positive correlation between financial inclusion and sustainable development remains consistent across both OIC and non-OIC countries, firms in OIC countries do not show significant changes during the pandemic.

This observation suggests that the pandemic’s impact on corporate sustainability may vary between the two groups of countries. This study highlights the significance of financial inclusion in promoting corporate sustainability in developing economies. In times of recessions when accessing finance becomes expensive, policymakers in OIC countries should identify firms that adhere to Islamic principles, such as those sensitive to interest rates, and provide them with targeted support. This assistance can enable these companies to compete effectively and achieve their financial sustainability objectives.

There has been no attempt to investigate the effect of financial inclusion and the pandemic on the sustainable development of banks in developing countries.

This study examines the risk spillovers between Indonesian sectorial stocks (Energy, Basic Materials, Industrials, Consumer Cyclicals, Consumer Non-cyclical and Financials), the aggregate index (IDX) and two commodities (gold and West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil [WTI] futures).

The study uses two methodologies: the TVP-VAR model of Antonakakis and Gabauer (2017) and the quantile connectedness approach of Ando et al. (2022). The data cover the period from October 04, 2010, to April 5, 2022.

The results show that the IDX, industrials and materials are net transmitters, while the financials, consumer noncyclical and energy sectors are the dominant shock receivers. Using the quantile connectedness approach, the role of each sector is heterogeneous and asymmetric, and the return spillover is stronger at lower and higher quantiles. Furthermore, the portfolio hedging results show that oil offers more diversification gains than gold, and hedging oil is more effective during the pandemic.

This study provides valuable insights for investors to diversify their portfolios and for policymakers to develop policies, regulations and risk management tools to promote stability in the Indonesian stock market. The results can inform the design of market regulations and the development of risk management tools to ensure the stability and resilience of the market.

This study is the first to examine the spillovers between commodities and Indonesian sectors, recognizing the presence of heterogeneity in the relationship under different market conditions. It provides important portfolio diversification insights for equity investors interested in the Indonesian stock market and policymakers.

This study examines the dynamics of the comovement and causal relationship between conventional (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance coin) and Islamic (OneGram, X8X token and HelloGold) cryptocurrencies.

This study uses wavelet coherence approach to examine the time-varying lead-lag relationship between conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, the authors use BEKK-GARCH model to estimate the optimal weights, hedge ratio and hedging effectiveness in pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 period.

The authors find no significant comovement in pre-COVID-19. However, the authors find significant positive comovement in conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies at the beginning of the pandemic, and in most cases, conventional cryptocurrencies are leading. X8X and HelloGold have no/weak correlation with conventional cryptocurrencies, implying that investors can diversify the risk by making an Islamic and conventional cryptocurrencies portfolio. The authors also calculate the optimal weights, hedge ratio and hedging effectiveness using the BEKK-GARCH model. Based on the optimal weights, for the portfolios of conventional–Islamic cryptocurrencies, investors are suggested to increase their investment in Islamic cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 than normal period. The results of hedge ratios show that hedging costs are higher during COVID-19 than before.

The findings of the paper offer several practical policy implications for investors, portfolio manager, Shariah advisors and policymakers pertaining to asset allocation, risk management, forecasting and diversification. Specifically, investors can maximize the risk adjusted returns of their conventional cryptocurrencies portfolio by adding some portions of Islamic cryptocurrencies. Considering the comovement is time-varying, investors/manager should adjust their investment strategies frequently. For the entrepreneurs in crypto-industry, it is advised to introduce new Islamic cryptocurrencies, as it has a huge growth potential because of their distinct features and performance.

This is the first study that explores the linkages between conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies, therefore this study extends the literature of Islamic finance, stablecoins and cryptocurrencies in pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 period. The study results provide insights to conventional crypto investor on how to manage their portfolio during normal and turbulent period.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of the regional business environment on local firm innovation, considering various dimensions such as administrative, financial and legal environments.

Multiple regression analysis is employed to analyze archival data for firms listed on Chinese stock markets.

We find that the optimizations of the administrative and financial environments positively affect firm innovation, whereas the legal environment does not exert a similar impact. Our analysis also reveals that the business environment’s optimization significantly influences innovation in firms that are small, non-state-owned and operating in high-tech industries. Furthermore, the business environment acts as a moderating variable in the relationship between firm innovation and firm value.

This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of institutional-level determinants of firm innovation, highlighting the nuances of the legal environment and the importance of context-specific analysis, especially in emerging markets like China.

Developing countries can significantly enhance firm innovation by improving the business environment, including the optimization of administrative and financial systems, reducing transaction costs and ensuring capital supply. Tailored legal frameworks and alternative institutional strategies may also be explored.

This study explicitly emphasizes the governmental role in promoting firm innovation, shedding light on policy formulation and strategic alignment with local administrative policies.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the relationship between the business environment and firm innovation using World Bank indicators in an emerging market context, providing novel insights into the unique dynamics of legal, financial and administrative sub-environments.

The authors examine the volatility connections between the equity markets of China and its trading partners from developed and emerging markets during the various crises episodes (i.e. the Asian Crisis of 1997, the Global Financial Crisis, the Chinese Market Crash of 2015 and the COVID-19 outbreak).

The authors use the GARCH and Wavelet approaches to estimate causalities and connectedness.

According to the findings, China and developed equity markets are connected via risk transmission in the long term across various crisis episodes. In contrast, China and emerging equity markets are linked in short and long terms. The authors observe that China leads the stock markets of India, Indonesia and Malaysia at higher frequencies. Even China influences the French, Japanese and American equity markets despite the Chinese crisis. Finally, these causality findings reveal a bi-directional causality among China and its developed trading partners over short- and long-time scales. The connectedness varies across crisis episodes and frequency (short and long run). The study's findings provide helpful information for portfolio hedging, especially during various crises.

The authors examine the volatility connections between the equity markets of China and its trading partners from developed and emerging markets during the various crisis episodes (i.e. the Asian Crisis of 1997, the Global Financial Crisis, the Chinese Market Crash of 2015 and the COVID-19 outbreak). Previously, none of the studies have examined the connectedness between Chinese and its trading partners' equity markets during these all crises.

This study aims to examine the tail connectedness between the Chinese and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) stock markets. More specifically, the authors measure the return spillovers at three quantile levels: median (t = 0.5), lower extreme (t = 0.05) and upper extreme (t = 0.95). The connectedness at extreme upper and lower quantiles provides insightful information to investors regarding tail risk propagation, which ultimately suggests that investors adjust their portfolios according to the extreme bullish and bearish market conditions.

The authors employ the quantile connectedness approach of Ando et al. (2022) to examine the quantile transmission mechanism among the ASEAN and Chinese stock markets.

The results show significant evidence of a higher level of connectedness between Chinese and ASEAN stock markets at extreme upper and lower quantiles compared to the median quantiles, which suggests the use of a quantile-based connectedness approach instead of an average-measure-based one. Furthermore, the time-varying connectedness analysis shows that the total spillovers reach the highest peaks during the global financial crisis, the Chinese stock market crash and the COVID-19 pandemic at the upper, lower and median quantiles. Finally, the static and dynamic pairwise spillovers between the Chinese and ASEAN markets vary over quantiles as well.

This study is the first attempt to examine quantile vector autoregression (VAR)-based return spillovers between China and ASEAN stock markets during different market statuses. Besides, the COVID-19 has intensified the uncertainty in Asian countries, mainly China and ASEAN economies.

This paper aims to investigate whether managerial overconfidence has an impact on investment inefficiency beyond its influence on the use of internal financing or whether internal financing behaves as a full intermediary.

The study employed three dependent variables, namely business investment scale, overinvestment and underinvestment, and analyzed data from 282 firms across five different industries listed in 11 Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries between 2013 and 2019 using regression analysis via least square dummy variable (LSDV).

The findings indicate that while internal financing can provide funding for investment opportunities and address capital shortages, it may also result in overinvestment, particularly in companies led by overconfident managers.

Stakeholders, including shareholders and board of directors, should pay attention to the chief executive officer (CEO)'s behavioral aspects such as overconfidence in decision-making while undertaking new investment projects. Additionally, regulators and policymakers in emerging markets like MENA should re-evaluate the corporate governance framework, devise a corporate governance index and promote boardroom gender diversity as it can significantly reduce risk.

This study adds to the limited research on the impact of managerial overconfidence on investment efficiency in the MENA region. By focusing on this region, which has unique economic, political and social characteristics, the study provides new insights into the role of behavioral biases in investment decision-making in emerging markets.

This study aims to empirically explore and compare the dynamic dependency between health-care sector and Islamic industries before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Time-varying student-t copula is used for before, during and after COVID-19 periods. The data used are the daily frequency price series of the selected markets from February 2017 to October 2023.

Empirical results found strong evidence of significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dependence structure of the studied indexes: Co-movements between various sectors are certain. The authors assist also in the birth of new dependence structure with the health-care industry in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This reflects the contagion occurrence from the health-care sector to other sectors.

By specifically examining the Islamic industry, this study sheds light on the resilience, challenges and opportunities within this sector, contributing novel perspectives to the broader discourse on pandemic-related impacts on economies and industries. Also, this paper conducts a comprehensive temporal analysis, examining the dynamics before, during and after the COVID-19 lockdown. Such approach enables an understanding of how the relationship between the health-care sector and the Islamic industry evolves over time, accounting for both short-term disruptions and long-term effects. By considering the pre-pandemic context, the paper adopts a longitudinal perspective, enabling a deeper understanding of how historical trends, structural factors and institutional frameworks shape the interplay between the health-care sector and the Islamic industry.

It is documented that companies and government agencies in the USA invest more in the fourth fiscal quarter without having higher investment opportunities. While previous studies focus on the agency conflicts and information asymmetry within organizations, this study is motivated by Scharfstein and Stein's (2000) two-tiered agency model and aims to examine how firms' external business environment affects the “fourth quarter effect.”

The authors implement this study in a sample of 41 countries and observe similar seasonality in firm investment as documented in the US market.

More importantly, using country characteristics, this study finds that firms from countries with better investor rights and protection, and more developed financial markets show less severe over-investment in the fourth fiscal quarter.

This paper contributes to the literature of law and finance, and the internal capital market, by investigating the quarterly investment patterns of firms from 41 countries. The authors find that similar to the results in earlier studies on the US market, firms in the global market increase their capital expenditure in the fourth fiscal quarter, indicating that the internal agency conflicts between the headquarters and divisional managers are widespread across the world. The authors also find that firms that operate in countries with higher investor rights and protection, and more developed financial markets, tend to show less severe “fourth quarter effect”.