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This paper aims to examine whether high levels of financial inclusion is associated with greater financial risk.

The study uses regression methodology to estimate the effect of financial inclusion on financial risk.

The findings reveal that higher account ownership is associated with greater financial risk through high non-performing loans and high-cost inefficiency in the financial sector of developed countries, advanced countries and transition economies. Increased use of debit cards, credit cards and digital finance products reduced risk in the financial sector of advanced countries and developed countries but not for transition economies and developing countries. The findings also show that the combined use of digital finance products with increased formal account ownership improves financial sector efficiency in developing countries while the combined use of credit cards with increased formal account ownership reduces insolvency risk and improves financial sector efficiency in developing countries.

The paper offers several implications for policy and financial regulation. It suggests policies that would reduce the financial risk that financial inclusion poses to the financial sector.

The recent interest in financial inclusion and the unintended consequences of policy-driven financial inclusion in some parts of the world is raising concern about the risks that financial inclusion may introduce to the formal financial sector. Little is known about the risks that financial inclusion may pose to the financial sector.

Based on institutional theory, this paper aims to examine whether, and if so which, institutional forces influence the quality of China’s listed financial institutions’ (FIs) sustainability disclosures.

Using univariate statistical and multiple regression analyses, this study quantitatively examines the impacts of coercive pressure from the government and stock exchanges, imitation within subsectors and normative pressure from industry associations and regulators on the quality of China’s listed FIs’ sustainability disclosures. Assessment of the robustness of regression results uses panel random-effects and generalized methods of moments estimation.

Financial sector corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure quality did not increase dramatically following issue of the “Guiding Opinions on Establishing a Green Finance System.” However, a convergence in quality is found over time. State ownership concentration and state links to dominant shareholders negatively impact the quality of financial sector sustainability disclosures, whereas stock exchange index listing requirements and industry association reporting guidance have positive influences.

First, data availability limits the sample to listed financial firms with RKS quality scores. Thus, results may not be generalizable to the broader listed and unlisted financial sector. Second, this study only examines the influence of external forces based on institutional theory. However, internal institutional forces, such as corporate governance, may require examination. This study’s results indicate that coercive pressure, as represented by issue of the “Green Finance” policy, has not yet prompted the financial sector to improve reporting quality; however, normative pressure has had significant influence in influencing FIs’ CSR practices, with China’s banks potentially taking a leading role.

The financial sector has a lower direct environmental impact than traditional polluting industries and different operating and reporting structures, features often used to argue for its exclusion in prior studies. However, its indirect environmental impact via lending and investing activities is significant, suggesting evidence on the determinants of sustainability disclosure quality is required. This study uses evidence from China’s financial sector to reduce this gap in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opportunities and challenging prospects for liberalizing financial services in various ways under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), in view of Bangladesh's interests and concerns.

Different tabular and graphical approaches and critical investigation are conducted to analyze the impact of financial liberalization to explore challenges and opportunities of liberalizing financial sector under GATS framework.

This paper finds that although Bangladesh does not make any commitment under GATS, the rate of liberalization in the financial sector has been quite rapid. As one of the least developed countries (LDCs), Bangladesh should have the flexibility to make commitments as well. From the present status of financial sector liberalization, this paper recommends that Bangladesh should adopt commitments because any non‐commitment sends the wrong signal to the global market and may reduce foreign direct investment.

The recommendation of this paper is very practical for trade policy for liberalizing financial sector in Bangladesh as well as other developing countries which already made great liberalization of this sector but did not make any commitments under GATS.

This paper is the first attempt to analyze the financial sector liberalization under GATS framework in the LDCs particularly in Bangladesh financial sector.

The centrality of agricultural sector to the economy, particularly in developing countries, has drawn the attention of researchers to critically examine different factors determining the performance of the sector. Given that massive investment is required to ensure maximum productivity in the sector, one of the factors identified is the issue of financing. However, financing agricultural sector in a poor institutional environment can be depressing. In the light of this, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nexus between financial development and agricultural performance in Nigeria with a view to investigating the role of institutions.

The study employed annual data spanning the period from 1981 to 2016. Three indicators of financial development and five institutional variables were used. Besides, for robust analysis, the study also computed an aggregate measure of financial development and institutions using principal component method. Autoregressive distributed lag method of estimation was used to examine the short-run and long-run effects of financial development on agricultural performance in Nigeria.

The findings showed that financial development has a positive impact on agricultural performance in Nigeria. However, this positive impact is being undermined by institutional variables.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study that examines the mediating role of institutional factors such as the rule of law, control of corruption, etc., in the financial development–agricultural performance nexus in Nigeria.

Management is sometimes challenged by investors to justify the financial benefits of voluntary disclosure and transparency related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Researchers have found inconsistent results when examining the relationship between CSR reporting and financial performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between voluntary CSR reporting and financial performance. Specifically, this paper addresses three questions. First, is there a significant difference in Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting level for firms in a high environmental risk sector compared to those in a low environmental risk sector? Second, does GRI reporting level significantly influence financial performance measures, such as the risk ratios and information ratio? And third, does the relationship between GRI reporting level and financial performance measures differ significantly based on sector environmental risk? These questions are particularly relevant to the Indian business environment, where CSR is not just voluntary but mandated by regulation since 2013. The Indian Government is the first to do so and is ahead of many nations in collaborating with businesses to address not just environmental impacts but also social effects of industry on the community.

This study examined the relationship between GRI reporting level and financial performance for 173 firms with different levels of environmental risk. ANOVA and MANOVA were used to examine for differences in GRI reporting level and financial performance for firms from the various sectors and also to determine if there were significant relationships between GRI level and certain financial risk ratios.

Results indicate that firms in sectors with high environmental risk adopt GRI framework at a higher level than firms with low environmental risk. There is no significant relationship found between GRI reporting and financial performance at an aggregate level. However, environmental risk is found to moderate the relationship between GRI reporting and financial reporting, such that firms with high risk experience a more significant relationship between the GRI level that is adopted and financial performance.

CSR is quickly becoming a pathway to sustainable competitive advantage for businesses today. Such CSR efforts can lead to both reputational and financial performance implications. Organizations not only adopt CSR in response to regulatory requirements, but also frequently do so voluntarily to address stakeholder concerns. This study sheds valuable insight on the positive effects of CSR reporting, which provides important implications for Indian organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between economic development and financial sector development for 28 countries at different stages of their development. The authors specifically focus on the nature of causality during economic boom and tranquil cycles.

The study uses quarterly time series panels of 17 developed and 11 emerging countries, during 1993Q1-2014Q4 with each having three sub-panels – full sample, a period of the economic uptrend (UP), and period of the economic downtrend. The authors use a univariate analysis for initial screening followed by panel unit root test, panel co-integration and causality test proposed by Toda–Yamamoto to examine the causal relationship.

The principal results suggest that for developed economies, there is a causal flow from financial sector to real sector in line with the “supply-leading” hypothesis, whereas for emerging economies, it is from real sector to financial sector, in line with the “demand-following” hypothesis. This overall relationship is strong for both emerging and developed economies during economic boom or UP cycles, but becomes weak during economic downturns or tranquil periods.

This study is different from previous studies on this issue and contributes to the existing literature in a number of ways. First, the focus of this paper revolves around identification of differential patterns in causal flows between real and financial sectors for different economies, across different economic cycles. Second, to present a robust representation of financial sector, the authors consider both banking sector and stock market parameters as the proxy for financial sector development. Third, the authors address the “stock-flow problem” in the measurement of financial variables a typical criticism of some of the previous studies. Finally, the authors use a rich sample size comprising of about 2,500 quarterly observations for each variable, with about 1,500 observations from developed and 1,000 from emerging economies.

Although the focus of this issue is on investment in British industry and hence we are particularly concerned with debt and shares, the transactions and holdings in these cannot be separated from the range of other financial claims, including property, that are available to investors. In consequence this article focuses on an overview of the financial system including in Section 2 a presentation of the flow of funds matrix of the financial claims that make up the system. We also examine more closely the role of the financial institutions that are part of the system by utilising the sources and uses statements for three sectors, non‐bank financial institutions, personal sector and industrial and commercial companies. Then we provide, in Section 3, a discussion of the various financial claims investors can hold. In Section 4 we give a portrayal of the portfolio disposition of each of the major types of financial institution involved in the market for company securities specifically insurance companies (life and general), pension funds, unit and investment trusts, and in Section 4 a market study is performed for ordinary shares, debentures and preference shares for holdings, net acquisitions and purchases/sales. A review of some of the empirical evidence on the financial institutions is presented in Section 5 and Section 6 is by way of a conclusion. The data series extend in the main from 1966 to 1981, though at the time of writing, some 1981 data are still unavailable. In addition, the point needs to be made that the samples have been constantly revised so that care needs to be exercised in the use of the data.

This paper aims to shed light on financial development in Ethiopia and its implications for overall economic development. It does so with particular focus on development understood as industrial development and with special attention drawn on inequality and debt levels as well as the real estate market in Ethiopia. Two research questions are focussed on in particular, where the first serves as prerequisite for the assessment of the second: What kind of financial development took place in Ethiopia in the past quarter of a century? Furthermore, are processes of financialisation visible in Ethiopia, and if so, to what effect?

The paper is based on publicly available macro-data and qualitative and quantitative data collected by the author herself during a three months’ research stay in Ethiopia.

It is found that despite higher levels of financial inclusion and deepening, industrialisation is on a relative decline. What is more, inequality and debt levels increase, and the recent growth spurts seem to be rooted in the construction sector with prices in the real estate market surging. In can be concluded that despite a flourishing financial sector, the Ethiopian economy is faced with the peril of crises associated with an inflated real estate market, inequality, debt burdens and impeded industrialisation.

African economies and, in particular, the development and effects of financial markets are still a blind spot in economic research. By combining quantitative and qualitative data on and gathered in Ethiopia, this paper therefore conducts greenfield research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between financial development, openness in financial services trade and economic growth in BRICS countries for the period 1990–2012.

An index for financial development has been constructed using principal component analysis technique by including banking sector development, stock market development, bond market development and insurance sector development. For the robustness of the result, the long-run cointegrating relationship amongst the variables has been analyzed.

Overall financial development has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. To take the full advantage of openness in financial services trade, countries need to put more emphasis on the development of their stock markets, bond markets and the insurance sector. The result shows that openness in financial services trade has a positive impact on economic growth when the stock market, bond market and insurance sector are included in the system.

The policy implication of the findings is that policymakers should focus more on developing all four areas of finance to get the full benefit of the financial system on the process of economic growth.

The authors have constructed the better indicators of financial development in the case of BRICS economies. Most of the studies in BRICS economies have measured the development of the financial sector as either banking sector development or stock market development. However, the present study includes all four areas of finance (banking sector development, stock market development, insurance sector development and bond market development) into account.

This paper aims to empirically investigate the impact that financial sector reforms have on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ghana.

Composite financial sector reform index was constructed, which was made up of various forms of reform policies that were implemented from 1987 to 2016. The auto regressive distributed lag bounds test was used to establish cointegration between variables. Having controlled for other covariates that affect FDI such as trade openness, exchange rate, gross domestic product per capita, inflation and by using the fully modified ordinary least squares method, the estimations are robust as it uses a semi-parametric correction to avoid for any possible issues of endogeneity and serial correlation.

Results from the paper reveal that financial sector reform deepening boost FDI with a 2.167% increase in FDI following from a unit percentage improvement of the financial sector reforms. Considering the various categories of reforms, the results reveal that competitive reforms have the highest impact on FDI followed by privatization reforms with positive and significant elasticity coefficients of 2.174% and 0.726%, respectively. Behavioral reforms revealed a positive effect on FDI, albeit insignificant.

The paper contributes to policy by providing empirical evidence on the effect of financial sector reform on FDI inflows in Ghana. As far as the review of literature is concerned, this paper provides the foremost empirical evidence on the subject with sole emphasis on Ghana. Thus, this paper suggests the deepening of the financial sector reforms, improving competition and maintaining macroeconomic stability.