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Motivated by the enactment of non-financial reporting regulations by the European Parliament, this paper aims to investigate the impact of European Union (EU) directive 2014/95/EU on the quantity of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures by the S&P Europe 350 index firms. This study also investigates whether the implementation of the non-financial information (NFI) reporting regulations influences the association between ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk.

To measure the impact of mandatory regulations on the quantity of ESG disclosures, this study estimates the average treatment effects using a propensity weighted sample. Then this study uses the difference-in-differences method to estimate the differences in the association between ESG disclosures and earning risk before and after implementation of the EU directive.

The results show a significant positive impact of the EU directive on the quantity of ESG disclosures for the sample European public-interest entities, which indicates that the mandatory NFI reporting requirements could boost the availability of increasingly demanded ESG related information. The enhanced association between the ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk during the post-directive period reveals that mandating NFI reporting also increases the quality of ESG disclosures.

Using the legitimacy and decision-usefulness theories, this study provides novel evidence concerning the impact of the EU directive on the quantity and quality of ESG disclosures.

The rapid growth of credit card use in China poses the potential for card overuse and the accumulation of increased debt. The purpose of this paper is to report on an investigation into the determinants of overall credit card spending and card-financed debt by Chinese consumers.

This study focusses on two dependent variables: credit card monthly spending and card debt. The spending measure is based on consumer outlay for the month preceding the survey. Card debt is the consumers’ outstanding credit card debt when the survey was conducted. Three groups of independent measures are used: socio-demographic characteristics, card features and consumer attitude towards money. Both card spending and card debt are estimated with OLS methods. Data was obtained from the 2013 China Household Finance Survey of 1,920 households in 29 provinces and 262 counties across China that used credit cards over the survey period.

The empirical findings suggest consumers’ attitude towards money is more important in explaining card spending and debt variation than socio-demographic characteristics and card features. The credit limit set for a card, obligations to other loans and the method of paying for ordinary shopping exhibit positive effects on both card spending and card debt, while age exhibits a negative effect. Further, card spending is positively correlated with card debts, but the factors that determine card spending do not necessarily affect card debt and vice versa. Minimum card debt payments, cash advances, card tenure and interest-bearing debt have no effect on card spending but have positive effects on card debt. In addition, gender and income have opposite effects on card spending and debt.

The relationships we have documented suggest several actions the Chinese Government could consider dealing with credit card debt risk. Controlling the aggressive promotional campaigns that card issuers use to attract consumers and aggressive credit policies should be a focus of attention. The Chinese Government might, for example, impose minimum age and income requirements for granting credit cards and prohibit issuance of new cards to applicants who are already in debt with other types of credit. In addition, more stringent criteria to curb increases in card limits and tighter control over cash advances made on cards should be applied. Minimum payment amounts can also be increased in order to reduce credit card debt risk.

Despite ample documentation of consumers’ credit card behaviour, the literature is deficient in at least two areas of enquiry. First, most previous research has investigated either credit card spending behaviour or card debt, but not both. Second, with few exceptions, most research has investigated a range of specific factors that affect credit card use. In contrast, this study investigates card spending as well as card debt behaviour using a wide variety of consumer dimensions particularly relevant to credit card use and resulting debt. In addition, this study focusses on Chinese consumers, who traditionally prefer to save first and delay spending. The impact of the rapid growth of credit card use on this traditional Chinese orientation towards spending is dynamic. Documenting the influence of the individual factors examined in this study is likely to be of value to both policy makers and institutions that offer and manage credit in this changing environment.

This study investigates the psychological impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on Vietnamese people and examines the factors affecting their psychological well-being during and after the lockdown period.

Based on the survey answers of 701 Vietnamese respondents, this study explores the psychological impact associated with COVID-19 lockdown in Vietnam. Using a newly developed “mvord” package in R that controls the heterogeneity in error structure of the sample units (Hirk et al., 2020), the study runs multivariate ordinal logistic regression models to examine the determinants of the emotional outcomes.

The study discloses negative psychological states among the Vietnamese community during and after the lockdown, including boredom, anxiety, sadness, stress, anger, precautionary measures and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Demographic characteristics (male gender, young age, poor-health condition, high educational level, small family size, officers or professionals, using public transport, quarantine experience before the lockdown, non-extended lockdown period and living in rural areas) and various difficulties during lockdown (insufficient information about COVID-19, income loss, having daily-life difficulties and unhappy experiences during lockdown) are related to higher degrees of different psychological symptoms during and after lockdown in Vietnam.

This study identifies the importance of mitigating the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on Vietnamese well-being and prepares the Vietnamese government better to handle the public mental issues during future lockdowns.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of microfinance programs on the income and food expenditure of farm and nonfarm households in Thailand.

The study employs secondary data from the Thai Socioeconomic Survey (cross-sectional data from 2017 and panel data from 2012 to 2017). The cross-sectional data (2017) include 43,210 households. Panel data from the 2012 and 2017 Socioeconomic surveys (SES surveys) include 4,406 households. The estimation methods include propensity score matching (PSM) and a fixed effect (FE) model.

The result shows that village funds (VFs) have a significant negative impact on income and food expenditure for both farm and nonfarm households. The empirical results reveal that the saving groups for production (SGPs) effects are positively significant in terms of income and food expenditure, but only for farm households. The FE model result also shows that while VFs have a negative impact on income they have a positive impact on food expenditure for farm households. In contrast, SPGs have no impact on both farm and nonfarm households' income and food expenditure.

Farm and nonfarm households require both welfare and microfinance programs. Microfinance programs can only help these households once they have the necessary education. The government should provide social programs and business skills for these households; completion of these courses should be a pre-requisite for accessing microfinance programs.

This study is unique because it reveals the microfinance impact between VFs and SGPs programs so that most low-income and poor people in Thailand can access basic financial services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of chief executive officer (CEO) vega on firm policies in the Australian share market based on a panel data set drawn from the 137 Australian public firms for the period 2003-2012.

To allow mutual causation between our variables, the authors use the two-stage least squares estimation method, controlling for firm fixed effects. The authors use the difference-in-differences model to test whether the 2009 Australian tax reforms may discourage high-vega CEOs to take value-enhancing risks.

The authors find the evidence that vega induces CEOs to adopt the riskier financial policy in the Australian capital market. This evidence is further supported by the negative association between vega and firm conservative activities including cash and hedging policies. Further, the result shows that the 2009 tax reforms reduce the CEOs’ willingness to engage in risky financial policy. This finding implies that regulators may restore the 2009 reforms’ “deferred tax point” back to its pre-2009 form.

Based on the study’s results, firms should grant CEOs more out-of-the money options with a longer time to expiration to offset the 2009 tax reforms’ negative impact on the CEO’s incentive to take value-enhancing risks.

This paper aims to integrate and examine three loyalty routes (i.e. service quality, emotional attachment and religiosity) in developing customer loyalty towards Islamic banking.

Data were collected from 412 Islamic bank customers from Indonesia. Variance-based structural equation modelling was applied to evaluate the association between service quality, emotional attachment, religiosity and customer loyalty.

This study reveals that customer loyalty is more driven by emotional attachment and religiosity rather than by perceived service quality. Although not directly affecting customer loyalty, service quality strengthens customer satisfaction towards Islamic banks.

This study provides an opportunity for Islamic bank managers to increase their customer loyalty through the development of emotional attachment and religiosity. To improve customer loyalty, this study suggests that Islamic banks have to provide prompt, accurate and non-personal service. It is also important for Islamic bank managers to keep the bank operation compliant with the Sharia law.

This study is the first attempt to assess the three loyalty routes simultaneously in influencing customer loyalty.

This study investigates the welfare impact of microfinance on rural households in Indonesia. Its finding will bridge the gap in the Indonesian microfinance literature.

The research was conducted by collecting primary data and administering a structured questionnaire to rural households in Bantul District, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. We employed the logistic model to measure welfare impacts of microcredit borrowers.

The research finds that purpose of loan, monthly income, monthly expenditure, interest rates, loan amount, education and marital status have significant effects on the probability of increasing borrowers' welfare after accessing microcredit.

This study will propose some policy recommendations for Indonesian policymakers that may yield better strategies to help improve the impact of their microcredit programmes on the welfare of rural households.

The authors confirm that the article has not been submitted to peer review, nor is in the process of peer reviewing and nor has been accepted for publishing in another journal. The author(s) confirms that the research in their work is original, and that all the data given in the article are real and authentic.

The recent debate in the House of Lords showed that the official plans for milk of better quality, set out in the White Paper three years ago, are only slowly being put into effect. A more active policy was, however, promised by Lord Ammon when labour and plant made it possible. Farmers have come to accept the view that a safe milk supply depends both upon the improvement of animal health and on the heat‐treatment of milk. Some recent figures issued in the Monthly Bulletin of the Ministry of Health show what the pasteurisation of milk has already achieved in reducing the number of deaths among young children from abdominal tuberculosis, a form of the disease which is generally due to tubercle bacillus of bovine origin. In 1921, in the administrative county of London, 136 out of every 1,000,000 children died from this disease. In 1944 the corresponding figure was six. In rural areas the rate in 1921 was 252 and in 1944 still sixty, or ten times the London rate. The London figures for 1944 show a reduction to one‐twenty‐third of the 1921 rate, while for rural areas the reduction is only about one‐quarter. These figures suggest a high degree of correspondence between the increase of pasteurisation and the decrease of mortality from abdominal tuberculosis. In 1944 99 per cent. of London milk supplies was pasteurised; and though more milk has been treated in rural areas and in urban areas outside London during the past twenty years, nothing like the London standard has yet been generally reached. Large towns such as London are at one disadvantage in regard to milk safety in that they receive their supplies in bulk, and samples, before pasteurisation, show a high degree of infection. To this extent rural areas might be expected to have better figures. That they do not would appear to be proof of the greater safety provided by pasteurisation. In the House of Lords debate Lord Rothschild estimated the annual casualties from raw milk contaminated by bovine tuberculosis germs as between 7,000 and 8,000. The case for speedier progress with the provision of pasteurisation plant will be generally endorsed. This development under the auspices of the Ministry of Health needs to be supported by a vigorous effort by the Ministry of Agriculture to build up the health of dairy herds. The problems involved in establishing clean areas, beginning with isolated districts and extending them gradually until in ten or fifteen years' time the whole country is clear of tuberculosis and contagious abortion, were recently discussed in these columns. The Milk Marketing Board, the producers' organisation, has now declared its support for a national drive to clean up the dairy herds; and the Government are assured of general support when a comprehensive plan for ensuring safety in milk is put forward.

The Twentieth Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Sir Arthur MacNalty, for the year 1938, begins with a review of the nature of progress and the application of the conception to questions of health. Life in primitive society is not so healthy as is sometimes supposed, and the true condition is cloaked by the law of survival of the fittest. Civilisation has its cost; certain diseases follow in its train, e.g., tuberculosis. Besides the “new humanity” of the eighteenth century improvements in public health began to appear, and the population increased rapidly. Then came the progress of the Industrial Revolution, accompanied by new problems, especially in the domain of health. It can be concluded, however, that the growth of the health services, and the proof of their effectiveness as shown by the improvement of the nation's vital statistics, is real evidence of progress. In 1938 there was a rise of 10,647 births over the number registered in 1937, representing a birth rate of 15·1 per 1,000 living—a slight improvement on the rate of 14·9 for 1937. It is 0·7 above the rate for 1933, which was the lowest recorded. The infant mortality rate is 53 per 1,000 births as against 58 for 1937, and is now the lowest on record. The deaths in 1938 were 478,829, as compared with 509,574 in 1937, a decrease of 30,745. The five principal killing diseases remain the same as for many years past and occur in the same order, viz.:— (1) Diseases of the heart and circulatory system; (2) cancer—malignant disease; (3) bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases; (4) diseases of the nervous system; (5) all forms of tuberculosis. If, however, the diseases are re‐arranged to show the principal killing diseases operating during the years of working life—15–65—then tuberculosis takes the third place instead of the fifth, and diseases of the nervous system occupy the fifth place.

Explores the extent of employee surveillance in the western world and queries why the USA uses surveillance measures to a greater extent than other developed nations. Suggests that American managers choose surveillance methods which include the control of workers’ bodies in the production process. Lists the batteries of tests and monitoring to which US employees can now be subjected – including searching employee computer files, voice/e‐mail, monitoring telephone calls, drug tests, alcohol tests, criminal record checks, lie detector and handwriting tests. Notes also the companies which are opposed to worker and consumer privacy rights. Pinpoints the use of surveillance as a means to ensure that employees do not withold production. Reports that employees dislike monitoring and that it may adversely affect their performance and productivity. Argues that Americans like to address complex social problems with technological means, there are no data protection laws in the USA, and that these two factors, combined with the “employment‐at‐will” doctrine, have all contributed to make it possible (and easy) for employers to use technological surveillance of their workforce. Outlines some of the ways employers insist on the purification of workers’ bodies.