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The purpose of this study is to comparatively analyze the effect of dividend policy on shareholders’ wealth in Shariah-compliant (SC) and noncompliant (NC) nonfinancial firms in Pakistan.

All the nonfinancial firms listed on the Pakistan stock exchange have been taken as a sample for 2016–2021. The Karachi Meezan index screening criteria were applied to screen SC firms. Based on the BPLM and Hausman test results, the authors used the fixed-effect and pooled OLS model for SC and NC firms, respectively. The F-test was used to compare the effect of each dividend policy variable on shareholders’ wealth for both firm types.

The findings reveal that the dividend policy does affect the shareholders’ wealth in both firm types. Dividend per share (DPS), dividend yield (DY) and earnings per share significantly affect the shareholders’ wealth in SC firms. For NC firms, the dividend payout, DPS and DY are critical. Moreover, the F-test results show that the DPS, DY and leverage effect on the shareholders’ wealth significantly differ for both firm types.

This study fills the research gap in the Pakistani context specifically as well as globally by providing important insights into the relationship between a firm’s dividend policy and shareholders’ wealth for SC and NC firms. In addition, this study comprehensively compares the results for both firm types, which is also lacking in the existing literature. Because this study is based in Pakistan, the generalizability of the results would be limited.

The findings of this study are helpful for the management of SC and NC firms in devising their dividend policies that can maximize their shareholders’ wealth. This study also provides guidance and knowledge to investors in choosing companies for their investments that can maximize their wealth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the relationship between dividend policy and shareholders’ wealth for SC firms in Pakistan. It is also the first study that comprehensively compares the dividend policy relationship with shareholders’ wealth for SC and NC firms. In addition, using the F-test for joint hypotheses to compare the specific effect of each dividend policy variable is a methodological contribution of the study.

This study aims to investigate the impact of local windfall gains from the Spanish Christmas lottery on household consumption behavior.

The study applies differences-in-differences to assess permanent income hypothesis (PIH) validity, examining pre- and postlottery consumption effects. Additionally, it also uses an instrumental variable regression, using the lottery shock as an instrument for total expenditures, to estimate the Engel curves.

The paper finds a PIH violation; households in winning region notably increase consumption on durable and nondurable goods compared to nonwinning ones. Moreover, durable goods consumption is responsive to lottery winnings, while nondurable goods consumption are unit-elastic to expenditure shocks.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper analyzing the effects of winning regions of the Spanish Christmas lottery in all types of consumption goods, testing its consequences in the PIH and estimating its effects in the Engel curves.

This study aims to examine the attitudes of the Kuwaiti public towards governmental campaigns on social media (GCSM) regarding the country’s Vision 2035. Specifically, it investigates the effect of GCSM on three attitudinal dimensions (i.e. cognitive, emotional and behavioural).

This study is designed using random sampling. Responses from 630 social media users were obtained using a survey questionnaire (Appendix). The results of data analysis indicate that GCSM had a positive impact on the attitudes of participants towards Vision 2035.

Based on the findings, recommendations are outlined to increase the efficiency of GCSM. This study is unique because no other study has examined the attitudes of Kuwaiti citizens towards GCSM or investigated the effects of these campaigns on citizens’ attitudes in terms of cognitive, emotional and behavioural components. The results can assist decision makers in identifying the effectiveness of such campaigns and taking measures accordingly.

This research provides a new evaluation of the role of virtual campaigns in Kuwait. It highlights the crucial and increasing role of virtual campaigns on citizens’ attitudes Towards Kuwait’s Vision 2035, and it found that virtual campaigns should be used as an addendum to conventional political campaigns in Kuwait.

This research paper attempts to empirically examine the relationship between the performance of the banking industry and foreign direct investment (FDI), thereby helping the readers contemplate one of the least explored areas of the existing literature associated with the idiosyncratic characteristics of FDI resulting from its interaction with the efficient banking performance of the host country. The study has focused on the economy of Bangladesh because of its significant amount of FDI inflows from the rest of the world and its adoption of many liberalization policies, especially in the banking sector and in the areas of international business and trade.

The study, to produce unbiased estimates, employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for analyzing the time series data collected from reliable sources.

The key outcomes of the study reveal that the sound performance of the banking industry appears to be counterproductive for FDI inflows, which is a bit unconventional insight. In the context of Bangladesh, trade openness, inflation rate and infrastructural development seem to be the dominant factors behind the rising inflows of FDI. Market size appears to be an insignificant determinant of FDI inflows.

This is a unique study because of its focus on the unexplored area in the literature.

Prior studies mostly tested the association between carbon emissions and firm value in certain contexts. This study aims to advance the existing literature by concentrating on three indicators of greening in corporations namely resource use, emissions and eco-innovation, and examining their value relevance in the stock market at the global level. Furthermore, we deepen the investigation by exploring the moderating role of eco-innovation and the CSR committee between greening in corporations and market value.

The data for the study were retrieved from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for the years between 2002 and 2019 and contain 17,961 firm-year observations which are analyzed through fixed-effects regression.

The results reveal that while resource usage is viewed as value-relevant by the market, the emissions and eco-innovation are not. However, despite eco-innovation per se not being value-relevant, its interaction with resource usage and emissions is value-relevant. Furthermore, CSR committees undertake a very critical role in translating greening practices into market value.

While the results for emissions support the cost-concerned school, the findings for resource usage confirm the value creation school. Furthermore, the interaction effect of eco-innovation and CSR committee confirms the resource-based theory and stakeholder theory, respectively.

Investors regard eco-innovation-induced pro-environmental behaviors as value-relevant. These results propose firms replace eco-innovation at the focal point in developing environmental strategies and connecting other greening efforts to it. Moreover, CSR committees are critical to corporations in translating greening practices into firm value by developing and implementing disclosure and communication strategies.

The study’s originality stems from investigating the synergetic effect that eco-innovation and CSR committees generate in translating greening practices to greater market value at a global scale.

In this paper we examine the validity of the J-curve hypothesis in four Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) over the 1980–2017 period.

We employ the linear autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model that captures the dynamic relationships between the variables and additionally use the nonlinear ARDL model that considers the asymmetric effects of the real exchange rate changes.

The estimated models were diagnostically sound, and the variables were found to be cointegrated. However, with the exception of Malaysia, the short- and long-run relationships did not attest to the presence of the J-curve effect. The trade flows were affected asymmetrically in Malaysia and the Philippines, suggesting the appropriateness of nonlinear ARDL in these countries.

The previous research tended to examine the effects of the real exchange rate changes on the agricultural trade balance and specifically the J-curve effect (deterioration of the trade balance followed by its improvement) in the developed economies and rarely in the developing ones. In this paper, we address this omission.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Mayors in Portugal engage in earnings management close to zero with the motivation of re-election.

The data used in this study were annual financial information from Portuguese municipalities from 2005 to 2016, as well as data on elections and Mayor re-elections involving three political cycles. The methodologies employed were quantitative, including graphical and panel data regressions.

The results indicate that municipalities used discretionary accruals to engage in earnings management to report net earnings close to zero, and re-election seems to be a motivation for earnings management behaviour. Furthermore, the results suggest that municipalities in which the Mayor is re-elected are less likely to report positive net earnings close to zero.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to the literature on earnings management in municipalities. At the theoretical level, it makes it possible to identify whether re-election is a motivation for earnings management and, in this sense, to identify patterns of behaviour by managers. On a practical level, the knowledge of a manager's behaviour patterns will help to anticipate his or her future behaviour and, consequently, may prevent inefficiencies.

The purpose of the research was to evaluate the relationship between income and the recycled materials used in order to rate the business related to circular repair services under the burden of economic development in the countries of the European Union.

The analytical processes explore data from 2010 to 2020. The countries were divided into clusters according to economic maturity (Human Development Index (HDI), real Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita). Subsequently, the relationships were evaluated through the income indicators (for the 13 population groups), and the circular materials use rate indicator. The three indicators decomposed into five specific metrics were employed. The commonly applied characteristics of the descriptive analysis, Pearson's correlation coefficient and the panel regression analysis were engaged in the investigation.

The results demonstrated the vast disparities between income and circular materials use. In the more economically developed countries, their levels were twice higher as the less-developed countries. However, there is a meaningful positive relationship between them. The greatest attention was paid to the panel regression analysis applied to the relationship between income and circular economy (CE) use. The results showed that in a majority of the cases (different income categories), there is a significant positive relationship. When comparing the outcomes of the regression models between the groups of the countries according to their economic development, a closer relationship was clearly demonstrated in the countries with a lower level of development (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Hungary).

Besides the specific strengths, the study also shows some limitations identified mainly on the data side. The latest data on the consumption of circular materials come from 2020, so they do not cover the period related to the pandemic crisis. It is believed that there may have been some changes in income during the pandemic, and they may have harmed CE. Furthermore, there is to note that some limitations occur in the analytical process. The incompleteness of the data can also be included here as certain data is not available; hence, it was estimated directly by the Eurostat statistical authority.

At the same time, the following are currently considered among the primary barriers: financial restrictions, insufficient infrastructure, weak government support and obstacles on the global market. Consumers, industry leaders and the government are the most influential stakeholder groups in overcoming barriers. Higher demand for repair services will also initiate further development of business activities in this area at various regional levels. Progress in the repair services economy will continue to require extensive efforts in the future. Systematic coordination of activities at multiple levels of government together with manufacturers, designers, educational institutions, community institutions and individuals will be essential.

Socioeconomic characteristics such as sex, age and education represent crucial predictors of consumer behavior. Therefore, the authors would like to focus future research on analyzing these characteristics and examine all the conceptual frameworks of consumer behavior and its positioning in detail within CE and the strategies related to the repair service. Discussing this issue through follow-up research will allow for solving complex transformational and political tasks related to the repair service strategies within CE. It will also inspire the discussion frameworks and multidisciplinary solutions to this issue affecting the fields of human geography, sociological, ethnographic and political sciences.

In less-developed countries, wage change can have a more substantial impact on the development of the CE. Also, a closer relationship between business in the field of repair services with income and the use of circular materials was manifested in the same way.

This study aims to explore the long- and short-run effects of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 (C_t) on daily stock returns (R_t) for Kuwait. This is the first study that was applied to the case of Kuwait.

We employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model of Pesaran et al. (2001) and the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model of Shin et al. (2001) for daily data over the period March 2020 to August 2021.

The findings first document the existence of a long-run relationship (cointegration). Second, the findings of the ARDL model show a significant positive long-run effect of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 (C_t) on daily stock returns (R_t) but a significant negative short-run effect. As for the NARDL model, the findings showed that the increase and decrease of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 (Ct−1+,Ct−1−) have symmetric long-run effects on daily stock returns but asymmetric short-run effects. Finally, the vector error correction model causality test shows significant long- and short-run unidirectional causality running from daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 (C_t) to daily stock returns (R_t).

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that was applied to the case of Kuwait.

The relationship between idiosyncratic risk and stock return has been debated for decades; this study reexamined this relationship in the Pakistani stock market by using the quantile regression approach along with the prospect theory.

The present study is quantitative, and secondary data obtained from an emerging market are used. The quantile regression method allows the estimates of idiosyncratic risk to vary across the entire distribution of stock returns, i.e. the dependent variable. In this study, the standard deviation of regression residuals from the Fama and French three-factor model was used to measure idiosyncratic risk. Convenience sampling is employed; the sample consists of 82 firms listed on the KSE-100 index, with 820 annual observations for the ten years from 2011 to 2020. After computing results by using quantile regression, the study's findings, ordinary least squares (OLS) and least sum of absolute deviation (LAD) regression techniques are also compared.

The quantile regression estimation results indicate that idiosyncratic risk is positively correlated with stock returns and that this relationship is contingent on whether prices are rising or falling. Consistent with the prospect theory, the finding suggests that stock investors tend to avoid risk when they anticipate a loss but are more willing to take risks when they anticipate a profit. The results of the OLS and LAD regressions indicate that the method typically employed in previous studies does not adequately describe the relationship between idiosyncratic risk and stock return at extreme points or across the entire distribution of stock return.

These empirical findings shed new light on the relationship between idiosyncratic risk and stock return in Pakistani stock market literature.