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This study aims to examine the impact of relative importance of local characteristics, distance from the city centre and unobservable spatial relation in explaining values of constant‐quality apartment units in Vienna.

Drawing on recent developments in spatial econometrics and spatial hedonic house price modelling, the rent gradient hypothesis is examined by means of hedonic regression and spatial hedonic regression. Spatial autocorrelation tests are applied in order to assess possible presence of spatial dependence. The authors borrow Florax et al.'s specification search strategy in order to choose the most appropriate spatial model specification.

This research shows that local characteristics – or particularities – proxied by district and distance from the city centre are important location variables with regard to the Viennese apartment market. The spatial analysis suggests that the apartment prices are spatially autocorrelated and the Viennese apartment market has a distance‐based neighbourhood structure. The main finding is, however, that residents are willing to bid more for constant‐quality apartment units that are close to the centre of the city.

Rent gradient hypothesis is usually tested within non‐spatial hedonic frameworks: this study estimates a spatial hedonic model additionally in order to allow for comparison of results. This is also the first article to apply recent developments in spatial econometrics to examine explicitly rent gradient theory in the context of the Viennese apartment market.

This paper aims to investigate the determinants and the evolution of voluntarily adopted firm‐level corporate governance practices in Brazil from 1998 to 2004 using broad corporate governance scores.

The authors employ a robust panel‐data procedure that accounts for the main sources of endogeneity to a very representative panel of Brazilian firms over a six‐year period. They address the endogeneity that arises from the simultaneous determination of the quality of corporate governance practices, the dependent variable, and possibly several firm attributes that are commonly employed as the determinants of such practices and are supposedly independent. Specifically, theoretical arguments and empirical evidence strongly suggest that the quality of corporate governance practices may influence some of the variables commonly used as its determinants just as much as they may be influenced by them.

The paper finds that firm‐level corporate governance practices are steadily improving but there is much room for improvement. Heterogeneity has increased. Voluntarily adhering to new stricter listing requirements is associated positively with improvements in firm‐level corporate governance practices. Reducing or not using non‐voting shares improves corporate governance practices.

The authors found no clear evidence of the influence of other potential determinants of the quality of corporate governance, such as growth prospects, firm size, firm value, and ownership structure. Thus, they doubt previous findings that suggest a causal relationship from value and ownership to corporate governance practices because value and ownership seem to be determined endogenously.

Policies directed to reduce the use of non‐voting shares should be implemented. Creating strict listing requirements that may be adopted voluntarily by firms could be a feasible solution to improve the quality of corporate governance practices in emerging market countries. Firms in an emerging market that find that issuance in the USA became too expensive or demanding may offer a substitute listing environment with credible requirements to foreign investors. Premium listings may partially compensate emerging market exchanges for their loss of trading to major markets.

The paper examines the evolution of the voluntary adoption of corporate governance practices in Brazil from 1998 through 2004 while most studies use cross‐section samples over one or a few years. Further, this is one of a few papers to analyze the impact of ownership structure on the quality of corporate governance practices by segregating control and cash flow rights.

Though stock portfolio return autocorrelation is well documented in the literature, its cause is still not clearly understood. Presently, evidence of private information induced stock return autocorrelation is still very limited. The difficulty in obtaining foreign country information by small investors makes the private information of institutional investors in the ADR (American Depository Receipt) market more significant and influential. As such, the ADR market provides a favorable environment for testing the effect of private information on return autocorrelation. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

In this paper, ADRs are sorted annually into three groups based on market equity capitalization. Within each capitalization group, ADRs are further sorted into three groups based on the fraction of shares held by institutional investors. Each ADR is assigned to one of the nine groups and group membership is rebalanced each year. The return autocorrelation of individual ADR securities and ADR portfolios for each group are then calculated.

The results demonstrate that ADR individual stock and portfolio daily return autocorrelations are positively related to institutional ownership. It is also found that other explanations, such as non‐synchronous trading, bid‐ask spread and volatility of ADR, cannot explain the positive relation between daily return autocorrelations and institutional ownership of ADR.

Since ADR market is more suitable than other markets for testing the role of private information, stronger and clearer results are got accordingly. This paper suggests that trading strategy based on private information of institutional investors can lead to stock return autocorrelation in ADR daily returns.

The purpose of this paper is to test the weak-form efficiency of listed European football stocks in the sample period 2012–2020.

Three powerful tests for randomness are performed, that is, autocorrelation of returns analysis via the Ljung and Box (1978) test, variance ratio test by Lo and MacKinlay (1988) and runs test (Wald and Wolfowitz, 1940).

Results are mixed. Autocorrelation analysis and variance ratio test reject the random walk hypothesis and are, therefore, in line with the findings of Ferreira et al. (2017). In contrast, the runs test only leads to rejection of the random walk hypothesis for five out of 20 football stocks. Interestingly, this applies to shares with the lowest trading volume.

The market for stakes in football clubs can be expected to continue to grow in the future. Thus, the issue whether the price signals derived from listed football clubs are reliable inputs when negotiating the price for a football club stake in a private transaction is of increasing importance.

This study complements, and partly challenges, the results of Ferreira et al. (2017), the only other study in this field, by applying other methods and analyzing a more recent sample period.

With reference to the methodology of Prof Choudhry in his book “Tawhidi Epistemology and its Applications: Economics, Finance, Science, and Society” in 2014, in a different context, this study aims to present the conceptual fundamental of Islamic finance investment, where investment decisions are governed by Divine law and Islamic jurisprudence, followed by the empirical nature of real-world issues where investment decisions are governed by only financial indicators, using the Amman Stock Exchange as a case study.

As pointed out by Raderbauer (2011), research and industry initiatives mainly focus on environmental measures while ignoring the economic and socio-cultural dimension of sustainability. Recognizing the importance of a holistic understanding to define sustainable business practices for the accommodation industry. Financial markets are no exception; moral and values either coming from secular or religious understanding help to examine relationships between attitudes and actions, as well as differences in attitudes and actions related to the business’ characteristics. In business, ethical considerations apply to a broad list of virtues that companies, their managers and employees customarily seek to adopt. These include, but are not limited to, the encouragement of honesty, integrity and efficiency, as well as diversity and communication skills. One of the most common sources of ethical considerations is religion. In these cases, religious doctrine imparts a sense of applied ethics, where one considers what right conduct is, how to live a life pleasing to the Divine and how one should treat him/herself and others in accordance with those teachings. Again, as ethical considerations is a broad philosophical concept, it can apply to any situation where the person ponders the nature of right and wrong, how to recognize the difference and the meaning those conclusions carry for everyday life.

It can be concluded that the overall the quantitative and qualitative statistics showed that accommodation business manager’s decision has had a very little positive attitude toward sustainability and the implementation of sustainable business practices in ASE financial transaction, no matter what classification, type of business, ownership or size of business. Only rules and regulations govern the attitude and behavior when making financial transactions with profit is the main target. Moral indicators could not be seen throughout the analysis and test used to achieve objectives of the study at hand. One can imagine that the combined two factors together “Moral-Material” in implementing financial transactions will produce a more beneficial outcome. Achieving a material and holistic objective will produce an optimum situation, which can contribute positively to sustainable development.

Islamic alternatives to traditional investment tools have been driven by the fact that such tools do not conform to the Islamic general principles of the Shari’ah (Usmani, 2002). There has been a growing desire to have funds in which profits are not based on riba or interest, which is prohibited in Islam. Muslims deem that profit should come because of efforts; this is not the case in interest-dominated investments. In addition, there is a desire to have investment portfolios, which are morally purified. Thus, investments in companies that are not in compliance with the Shari’ah are not permitted and are eliminated from the portfolio. To ensure compliance with the forgoing condition, Shari’ah advisory boards whose role is mainly to give assurance that money is managed within the framework of Islamic laws govern Islamic mutual funds (Hassan, 2001; Hassan, 2002). On the other hand, dealing with the applied part, the paper will deal with a case study from Jordan (Amman Stock Exchange), where, code of ethics is issued by virtue of the provisions of Article 26 (e) of the Securities Law No. 23 of 1997. The Amman Stock Exchange operates as an exchange for the trading of securities. The company lists securities such as equities and bonds. Its activities include providing enterprises with a means of raising capital by listing on the exchange; encouraging an active market in listed securities based on the determination of prices and trading; providing facilities and equipment for trading the recoding of trades and publication of prices; monitoring and regulating market trading; and coordinating with the Jordan Securities Commission as necessary. The company’s activities also include ensuring compliance with the law, fair market and investor protection; setting out and enforcing a professional code of ethics.

This study aims to determine the association of Transparency and Disclosure (TD) with financial distress (FID) while the competition (as Lerner Index) moderates the association between the two.

The panel data analysis (static model) is performed to examine the effect of disclosures on the bank's FID. A TD index is built to assess the level of TD. All three versions of Altman's Zscore are employed to measure a bank's FID (High Zscore is opposite of FID). The data of 34 banks running in India for the timeframe 2015–16 to 2018–19 is utilized. Lerner index (LI) is taken as the moderator. The bank-size, valuation and financial leverage are control variables.

There exists no linear connection between TD and FID. However, TD is positively associated with financial stability (opposite FID). It means TD initially reduces financial stability and improves it after TD crosses a threshold level. Competition (as LI, where the higher value of LI means reduced competition) negatively moderates the association of TD with financial stability. Hence, the findings of this study support the competition-fragility premise. Surprisingly, the negatively significant interaction term of LI and TD implies either high competition and high TD or low competition with low TD, which helps in the bank's financial stability.

The findings provide input to a long-term policy of disclosures and competition in the banking sector, keeping in view the financial stability of the banks. Therefore, findings are novel and carry immense value to the existing knowledge on the topic.

Turvey (2007, Physica A) introduced a scaled variance ratio procedure for testing the random walk hypothesis (RWH) for financial time series by estimating Hurst coefficients for a fractional Brownian motion model of asset prices. The purpose of this paper is to extend his work by making the estimation procedure robust to heteroskedasticity and by addressing the multiple hypothesis testing problem.

Unbiased, heteroskedasticity consistent, variance ratio estimates are calculated for end of day price data for eight time lags over 12 agricultural commodity futures (front month) and 40 US equities from 2000-2014. A bootstrapped stepdown procedure is used to obtain appropriate statistical confidence for the multiplicity of hypothesis tests. The variance ratio approach is compared against regression-based testing for fractionality.

Failing to account for bias, heteroskedasticity, and multiplicity of testing can lead to large numbers of erroneous rejections of the null hypothesis of efficient markets following an independent random walk. Even with these adjustments, a few futures contracts significantly violate independence for short lags at the 99 percent level, and a number of equities/lags violate independence at the 95 percent level. When testing at the asset level, futures prices are found not to contain fractional properties, while some equities do.

Only a subsample of futures and equities, and only a limited number of lags, are evaluated. It is possible that multiplicity adjustments for larger numbers of tests would result in fewer rejections of independence.

This paper provides empirical evidence that violations of the RWH for financial time series are likely to exist, but are perhaps less common than previously thought.

Numerous geo-statistical methods have been developed to analyse the spatial dimension and composition of house prices. Despite these advances, spatial filtering remains an under-researched approach within house price studies. This paper aims to examine the spatial distribution of house prices using an eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF) procedure, to analyse the local variation and spatial heterogeneity.

Using 2,664 sale transactions over the one year period Q3 2017 to Q3 2018, an eigenvector spatial filtering approach is applied to evaluate spatial patterns within the Belfast housing market. This method consists of using geographical coordinates to specify eigenvectors across geographic distance to determine a set of spatial filters. These convey spatial structures representative of different spatial scales and units. The filters are incorporated as predictors into regression analyses to alleviate spatial autocorrelation. This approach is intuitive, given that detection of autocorrelation in specific filters and within the regression residuals can be markers for exclusion or inclusion criteria.

The findings show both robust and effective estimator consistency and limited spatial dependency – culminating in accurately specified hedonic pricing models. The findings show that the spatial component alone explains 14.6 per cent of the variation in property value, whereas 77.6 per cent of the variation could be attributed to an interaction between the structural characteristics and the local market geography expressed by the filters. This methodological step reduced short-scale spatial dependency and residual autocorrelation resulting in increased model stability and reduced misspecification error.

Eigenvector-based spatial filtering is a less known but suitable statistical protocol that can be used to analyse house price patterns taking into account spatial autocorrelation at varying (different) spatial scales. This approach arguably provides a more insightful analysis of house prices by removing spatial autocorrelation both objectively and subjectively to produce reliable, yet understandable, regression models, which do not suffer from traditional challenges of serial dependence or spatial mis-specification. This approach offers property researchers and policymakers an intuitive but comprehensible approach for producing accurate price estimation models, which can be readily interpreted.

The purpose of this study is to provide an econometric modeling of demand for bank credit and not only offer useful insights to the decision-makers in the public and private sector but also support researchers and analysts in recognizing the determinants of lending in a major dynamic economic context.

This study addresses the “supply-versus-demand-puzzle” by using a demand relationship and model loan demand as a function of interest rates and economic activity that may also capture supply effects. Loan demand modeled as a function of interest rates and economic activity not only represents a demand relationship but also captures supply effects. Using the generalized methods of moments estimation, the estimations are made robust to heteroskedasticity and/or autocorrelation of unknown form. GMM–Time series (HAC) option extends the robustness by using the weighting matrix that is robust to the contemporaneous correlation of unknown form to the autocorrelation of unknown form.

In a bank-dominated financial system like India, lending rates play a significant role in the transmission of monetary policy, as well as triggering and controlling loan demand and thereby exercising a pervasive effect on the output in the economy. The estimates indicate that the elasticity of loan demand is largely determined by the lending rate (0.6) and the economic activity (0.688). For one percentage point increase in capital ratio, the loan spread would rise by 31.4 basis points, which in turn would cause an increase of 18.8 basis points in loan demand assuming that risk-weighted assets are unchanged.

This is the first of its kind studying a banking system dominated emerging economy. Second, this study is based on a rich data set covering the period from 1979 to 2012, than other papers did, to capture the long-run association involving credit booms and busts and, thus, helps in avoiding the problem of estimation spanning the dominance of either boom or the bust alone. With a newer approach for quantification of the impacts of new regulatory standards, this study offers novel insights for the estimation of lending spreads.

The paper introduced the use of a hybrid system of neural networks support vector machines (NNSVMs) consisting of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and support vector machines (SVMs) to price single-family properties.

The mechanism of the hybrid system is such that its output is given by the SVMs which utilise the results of the ANNs as their input. The results are compared to other property pricing modelling techniques including the standalone ANNs, SVMs, geographically weighted regression (GWR), spatial error model (SEM), spatial lag model (SLM) and the ordinary least squares (OLS). The techniques were applied to a dataset of 3,225 properties sold during the period, January 2012 to May 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The results demonstrate that the hybrid system performed better than ANNs, SVMs and the OLS. However, in comparison to the spatial models (GWR, SEM and SLM) the hybrid system performed abysmally under with SEM favoured as the best pricing technique.

The findings extend the debate in the body of knowledge that the results of the OLS can significantly be improved through the use of spatial models that correct bias estimates and vary prices across the different property locations. Additionally, utilising the result of the hybrid system is thus affected by the black-box nature of the ANNs and SVMs limiting its use to purposes of checks on estimates predicted by the regression-based models.