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Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an important means of boosting the agricultural sectors of developing economies. The first necessary step to formulate effective public policies to encourage agricultural FDI inflow to a host country is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the main determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector, which is the main objective of the present study.

In view of this, we take a comprehensive approach to exploring the macroeconomic and institutional determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector by examining a large panel data set on agricultural FDI inflows of 37 countries, investigating both groups of developed and developing countries, incorporating a large list of potentially relevant macroeconomic and institutional variables, and applying panel-data econometric models and estimation structures, including pooled, fixed-effects and random-effects regression models.

The general pattern of our findings implies that the degree of openness of an economy has a negative effect on FDI inflows to agricultural sectors, suggesting that the higher the degree of openness in an economy, the lower the level of agricultural protection against foreign trade and imports, and thus the less incentive for FDI to inflow to the agricultural sector of the economy. Additionally, our results show that economic growth (as an indicator of the rate of market-size growth in the host economy) and per-capita real GDP (as an indicator of the standard of living in the host country) are both positively related to FDI inflows to agricultural sectors. Our other results suggest that agricultural FDI tends to flow more to developing countries in general and more to those with higher standards of living and income levels in particular.

FDI inflow has not received much attention with respect to the identification of its main determinants in the context of agricultural sectors. Additionally, there are very few panel-data studies on the determinants of FDI, and even more surprisingly, there are no such studies on the main determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector. We have taken a comprehensive approach by studying FDI inflow variations across countries as well as over time.

This chapter discusses and investigates the sustainability reporting across different sectors. The first section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and primary sector's performance (Agriculture and Food Industries Sector and Energy Sector). The second section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and secondary sector's performance (Manufacturing Sector). The final section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and tertiary sector's performance (Banks and Financial Services Sector, Retail Sector, Telecommunication and Information Technology Sector, and Tourism Sector).

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.

The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence of risk balancing behavior by European farmers. More specifically, the authors investigate strategic adjustments in the level of financial risk (FR) in response to changes in the level of business risk (BR).

The authors conducted a correlation relationship analysis and run several linear fixed effects regression models using the European Union (EU)-15 FADN panel data set for the period 1995-2008.

Overall, the paper finds EU evidence of risk balancing. The correlation relationship analysis suggests that just over half of the farm observations are risk balancers whereas the other (smaller) half are not. The coefficient in our fixed effects regression suggests that a 1 percent increase in BR reduces FR by 0.043 percent and has a standard error so low that the existence of non-risk balancers is doubtful. The results reject evidence of strong-form risk balancing – inverse trade-offs between FR and BR keeping total risk (TR) constant – but cannot reject weak-form risk balancing – inverse trade-offs between FR and BR with some observed changes in TR. Furthermore, the extent of risk balancing behavior is found to differ between different European countries and across farm typologies.

This study provides European policy makers a first insight into risk balancing behavior of EU farmers. When risk balancing occurs, BR-reducing agricultural policies induce strategic upwards leverage adjustments that unintentionally reestablish or even increase total farm-level risk.

Making use of the large and unique FADN database, to the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first that provides European (EU-15) evidence on risk balancing behavior, is conducted at an unprecedented large scale, and presents the first risk balancing evidence across countries and farming systems.

This paper aims to examine the customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps for USA firms from 1970 to 2020.

The authors' study examines USA companies from 1970 to 2020. The authors begin with an analysis of the trends in aggregate working capital, the capital's components and the trade credit gaps. Various regression models are used to estimate the impacts of identified firm characteristics and unidentified sources on customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps over time. The authors then decompose the impacts of firm characteristics to further understand whether changing firm characteristics and/or changing sensitivity to firm characteristics drive the variation in trade credit gaps.

There is a gradual reduction in the customer-based trade credit gap and a substantial expansion in the supplier-based trade credit gap. Though identified firm characteristics have dominant impacts on observed trade credit gaps, there is evidence of the effects of time and unobservable factors. The main source of changes in customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps lies in changes in sensitivity to firm characteristics. In addition, the authors find that firm age is the factor with the largest average effect on both trade credit gaps when examining the full sample period. However, different firm characteristics appear to be the key driver of variations in trade credit gaps over time and across the two types of trade credit gaps. The authors also find that financial distress has the least impact on both customer-based and supplier-based trade gaps. There are variations in the firm characteristics with the largest impacts when evaluating decade-long evaluation periods.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps. The connection between trade credit and the trade credit's corresponding inventory (INV) component extends prior literature on the joint management of trade credit and INV. The authors analyze both identified firm characteristics and unidentified sources in the search for explanations of the trade credit gaps. Furthermore, the authors' study explores the channels through which firm characteristics affect different types of trade credit gaps. The authors' findings help identify relevant and irrelevant risk factors of corporate working capital policy.

Professional sports teams employ highly paid managers and coaches to train players and make tactical and strategic team decisions. A large literature analyzes the impact of manager decisions on team outcomes. Empirical analysis of manager decisions requires a quantifiable proxy variable for manager decisions. Previous research focused on manager dismissals, tenure on teams, the number of substitutions made in games or the number of healthy players on rosters held out of games for rest, generally finding small positive impacts of manager decisions on team success.

The authors quantify manager decisions by developing a novel measure of game-specific coaching decisions: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of playing-time across players on a team roster over the course of a season.

Evidence from two-way fixed effects regression models explaining observed variation in National Basketball Association team winning percentage over the 1999–2000 to 2018–2019 seasons show a significant association between managers’ allocation of playing time and team success. A one standard deviation change in playing-time HHI that reflects a flattened distribution of player talent is associated with between one and two additional wins per season, holding the talent of players on the team roster constant. Heterogeneity exists in the impact across teams with different player talent.

This is one of the first papers to examine playing-time concentration in the NBA. The results are important for understanding how managerial decisions about resource allocation lead to sustained competitive advantage. Linking coaching decisions to wins can help teams to better promote this core product.

This chapter analyzes the extent to which more experienced employers, arbitrators, and attorneys fare better in securities industry arbitration. Although studies into experience have identified a so-called repeat-player effect on outcomes, I argue that more nuanced considerations of experience are required.

I empirically analyze all employment arbitration awards from the securities system’s inception through 2008. I separate experience into two categories (between- and within-group effects) and run hybrid random- and fixed-effects regressions modeling increasing employer, attorney, and arbitrator experience on arbitration outcomes.

I find that between-group experience affects awards but that within-group experience is nonsignificant, except in civil rights cases. This implies that so-called repeat players gain an advantage over inexperienced players due to their entity-specific characteristics, not necessarily by learning to use the system to their advantage. I conclude that, although the securities arbitration system suffers from power imbalances, there is little evidence of systemic exploitation by firms.

Prior studies into employment arbitration are limited both by their definitions of experience and by their methodological approaches. I overcome these issues by employing a novel methodological approach to measure between- and within-entity experience, which adds a more multifaceted and nuanced framework to the literature than the common repeat-player versus single-player dichotomy.

This paper aims to seek answers to a primary question: “How much do divergent leverage factors account for fluctuations in time-varying financial leverage in leading hospitality sub-sectors decomposed by four exclusive sub-portfolios?” In the path of seeking answers, this paper investigated the effects of both firm-specific and macroeconomic indicators to firms’ varying financial leverage in those primary sub-sectors overtime.

In each sub-sector portfolios, firms were sorted based on market-to-book values (Mktbk _it ) with median breakpoint percentiles. For hypothesis testing, this paper constructed panel regression models with firm fixed-effects to layout fluctuant financial leverage phenomenon engaged with a set of 11 leverage factors in each Mktbk _it sorted sub-sector portfolios.

Results exhibited assorted evidences. The bottom line was: firms with different market capitalization rates in each portfolio acted differently in regard to the magnitude of financial leverage across time.

The final sample of 415 firms in four sub-sector portfolios sufficiently embraced financial leverage composition in the hospitality industry across time. However, by reason of lack of data in the other intra-hospitality industries, such as gaming and/or cruise lines, findings did not represent the firms operated in those sub-industries.

This paper departed from the established context of the previous literature in the manner that it expects to add to the literature by demonstrating the core drivers causing the deviations in financial structure in four exclusive, hospitality industry sub-sector portfolios with varying leverage proxies overtime.

Building upon the framework of the tradeoff model of capital structure and motivated by the equity market timing theory, we examine whether equity misvaluation is a source of adjustment “costs” that will affect a firm’s leverage adjustment speed toward target. We also investigate whether the quality of a firm’s long-term growth options will influence the decisions of managers to exploit the mispriced equity to converge to the optimum. Using a sample of listed Taiwanese firms during 1992–2014 and employing the market-to-book decomposition as developed by Rhodes-Kropf, Robinson, and Viswanathan (2005), we find that overleveraged and overvalued firms demonstrate faster adjustment speed than overleveraged but undervalued firms. Furthermore, controlling for the misvaluation status, high-growth firms converge to target faster than their low-growth counterparts. The effect of growth options on the relation between equity mispricing and adjustment speed does not mirror the effect of financing deficits. With the detailed financial information of the local companies across a rather long time series, this study provides incremental inputs to the literature of capital structure from the determinants of target leverage, the estimation of leverage adjustment speeds, to the identification of the sources of adjustment costs in an emerging market where institutional environment is strikingly different from the US.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the growth-profitability nexus among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The data comprise 106,884 observations covering 26,721 Swedish SMEs in six industry sectors over the 2008-2011 period. The data were analysed using several statistical techniques, including two-stage least squares regression, fixed-effects and random regressions, and bootstrapped quantile regression.

Consistent with the hypotheses derived from the resource-based approach, the results indicate that current profitability significantly and positively affects firm growth. The firm-level control variable size significantly and positively affects firm growth, though firm age significantly and negatively affects growth. Firm industry affiliation also affects firm growth.

Since SME performance is commonly equated with access to knowledge, consultancy services or business training programmes sponsored by governmental organizations can help SMEs improve their management skills and thereby their performance. Moreover, adopting advanced financial management practices can improve the use of financial resources, leading to higher profitability and thereby sustainable growth. This implies that managers should change their strategy from “growth now, profitability later” to “profitable growth now”.

Unlike most previous studies, this study employs several multivariate methods to analyse a comprehensive, cross-sectoral sample comprising non-financial, independent, and active SMEs in several industries. This study focuses explicitly on SMEs, which play a fundamental role in the Swedish economy.