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The positive illiquidity–return relationship (so-called liquidity premium) is a well-established pattern in international developed stock markets. The magnitude of liquidity premium should increase with market illiquidity. Existing studies, however, do not confirm this conjecture with regard to frontier markets. This may result from applying different approaches to the investors' holding period. The paper aims to identify the role of the holding period in shaping the illiquidity–return relationship in emerging and frontier stock markets, which are arguably considered illiquid.

The authors utilise the data on stocks listed on fourteen exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe. The authors regress stock returns on liquidity measures variously transformed to reflect the clientele effect in a liquidity–return relationship.

The authors show that the investors' holding period moderates the illiquidity–return relationship in CEE markets and also show that the liquidity premium in these markets is statistically and economically relevant.

The findings may be of great interest to investors, companies and regulators. Investors and companies should take liquidity into account when making decisions; regulators should employ liquidity-enhancing actions to decrease companies' cost of capital and expand firms' investment opportunities, which will improve growth perspectives for the entire economy.

These findings enrich the understanding of the role that the investors' holding period plays in the illiquidity–return relationship in CEE markets. To the best knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the effect of holding period on liquidity premium in emerging and frontier markets.

This study aims to provide empirical evidence on the impact of foreign share ownership on the liquidity of the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE).

The authors hypothesize in the first strand that stock liquidity could be positively affected by foreign ownership based on the real friction channel. The authors then hypothesize in the second strand, based on the information friction channel, that foreign ownership's impact on stock liquidity could be insignificant or negative and that foreign investors raise the level of information asymmetry. A sample of 318 firm-year observations from Tunisia over the 2012–2017 period and a random-effects estimation were used. Moreover, using the 2SLS estimator, a robustness check framework was applied in order to address any potential reverse causality concerns.

The authors find strong evidence that higher foreign ownership improves stock liquidity. More specifically, firms with higher foreign ownership engender a lower bid-ask spread, a better stock ability to absorb a large amount of trading volume, and a larger depth. These findings are still valid when reverse causality concerns are addressed through the use of the 2SLS estimator.

The paper contributes to the existing literature by focusing on the ownership–liquidity relationship on a frontier market. It provides further empirical support that higher corporate governance quality reduces the information asymmetry problem and enhances stock market liquidity.

This study aims to investigate the market reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, specifically in the banking sector.

The research uses an event study and cross-sectional analysis, with market reaction measured by cumulative abnormal return (CAR). The sample comprised 1,126 banks.

The results show that the market reacted negatively to the invasion both before and after its announcement. Developed and emerging markets saw a negative impact from the invasion, while frontier markets experienced only a slight impact. The authors also find that the banking markets of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members reacted significantly and negatively both before and after the invasion was announced. This demonstrates that the negative market reaction of NATO members was more impactful than that of other markets. Overall, this study shows that investors in the banking market are very sensitive to war.

This is the first study to provide international evidence, specifically on the banking sector's reaction during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Despite its devastating nature, the COVID-19 pandemic has also catalyzed a substantial surge in the adoption and integration of technological tools within economies, exerting a profound influence on the dissemination of information among participants in stock markets. Consequently, this present study delves into the ramifications of post-pandemic dynamics on stock market behavior. It also examines the relationship between investors' sentiments, underlying behavioral drivers and their collective impact on global stock markets.

Drawing upon data spanning from 2012 to 2023 and encompassing major world indices classified by Morgan Stanley Capital International’s (MSCI) market and regional taxonomy, this study employs a threshold regression model. This model effectively distinguishes the thresholds within these influential factors. To evaluate the statistical significance of variances across these thresholds, a Wald coefficient analysis was applied.

The empirical results highlighted the substantive role that investors' sentiments and behavioral determinants play in shaping the predictability of returns on a global scale. However, their influence on developed economies and the continents of America appears comparatively lower compared with the Asia–Pacific markets. Similarly, the regions characterized by a more pronounced influence of behavioral factors seem to reduce their reliance on these factors in the post-pandemic landscape and vice versa. Interestingly, the post COVID-19 technological advancements also appear to exert a lesser impact on developed nations.

This study pioneers the investigation of these contextual dissimilarities, thereby charting new avenues for subsequent research studies. These insights shed valuable light on the contextualized nexus between technology, societal dynamics, behavioral biases and their collective impact on stock markets. Furthermore, the study's revelations offer a unique vantage point for addressing market inefficiencies by pinpointing the pivotal factors driving such behavioral patterns.

This study aims to explain the market-oriented transformation dilemma of Chinese urban investment and development companies (UIDCs; also known as local government investment and financing companies) and objectively evaluate their transformation efficiency from both static and dynamic perspectives. The results of the research provide methodological bases for improving the transformation efficiency of UIDCs, thus pointing out the direction for the rational planning of their transformation path.

This study takes Chinese UIDCs in market transformation during 2015–2019 as the research object and uses principal component analysis to screen the index system for measuring the efficiency of market transformation. It then uses a three-stage data envelopment analysis model and the Malmquist productivity index to evaluate the market transformation efficiency of these companies during 2015–2019 and comprehensively analyzes the influence of external environmental factors on the market transformation of Chinese UIDCs.

Research results show that the transformation efficiency of Chinese UIDCs is low and slow overall and that large spatial and temporal differences exist. The transformation efficiency of UIDCs located in eastern China is higher than that of UIDCs in central and western China. The higher the external environmental factors of regional GDP, local debt service pressure and credit rating, the more likely they are to cause input redundancy in the transformation process of Chinese UIDCs, which is not conducive to their market-oriented transformation. In addition, the higher the urbanization rate, the more effective it is to improve the efficiency of market-oriented transformation of UIDCs. If the influence of environmental factors is stripped away, both the overall efficiency value and pure technical efficiency value of market-oriented transformation of Chinese UIDCs will increase while the scale efficiency value becomes smaller.

This research measures the transformation efficiency of Chinese UIDCs and comprehensively analyzes the influence of external environmental factors on their market-oriented transformation. The goal is to enrich the study of the market-oriented transformation efficiency evaluation index system of Chinese UIDCs at the theoretical level and provide important reference values for improving the efficiency of market-oriented transformation of Chinese UIDCs at the practical level.

This paper aims to investigate how integrated reporting quality (IRQ), as well as comprehensive disclosure score (CDS) (i.e. incorporating integrated and sustainable reporting quality), impacts value creation differently between companies operating under mandatory versus voluntary adoption of these reporting frameworks.

The sample comprises 1,195 firm-year observations (international data set) from 2018 to 2022, which are divided into groups based on mandatory vs voluntary adoption of the international integrated reporting framework (IIRF) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). Furthermore, regression analysis is used in the analyses.

The findings revealed a significant and positive relationship between IRQ and value creation on a global scale. In addition, unlike voluntary adoption of the IIRF, mandatory adoption of it showed a significant and positive relationship between IRQ and value creation. Furthermore, an increase in the CDS had a greater impact on value creation compared to IRQ. Finally, in contrast to companies with voluntary adoption of both IIRF and SASB, companies with mandatory adoption of them exhibited a significant and positive relationship between these reports and value creation.

The findings have practical implications for various stakeholders. First, by enhancing the awareness and understanding of integrated reporting and sustainability reporting among users, these results can facilitate more informed economic decision-making and enable a more accurate assessment of a company's potential for value creation. Second, these findings can contribute to the development of more effective and tailored reporting guidelines that align with the nuances of value creation dynamics in different contexts. Ultimately, this research can lead to improvements in reporting practices and regulatory frameworks, benefiting both companies and their stakeholders.

The study's social implications are significant as it offers insights into the global debate surrounding the adoption of the IIRF and the objectives of the merger involving the Value Reporting Foundation and the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. The findings provide a concrete basis for evaluating the value of adopting the IIRF and inform discussions on the future of reporting standards and practices.

Furthermore, it stands as one of the pioneering endeavors to investigate the value creation aspects of CDS. These unique aspects make a substantive contribution by expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the realm of corporate reporting and financial implications, offering novel insights and opportunities for further research in this crucial domain.

This study examines the immediate impact of the Israel-Iran conflict on global stock markets and currency pairs, focusing on how these effects vary by market maturity and geographic region.

This study uses the event study method to examine the immediate effect of the Israel-Iran conflict. It uses the market model across a 252-day estimation window through −257, −6 trading days and an 11-day event window through −5, +5 trading days. The primary sample includes 73 stock market indices, 7 EURO currency pairs, 14 USD currency pairs, 6 GBP currency pairs, and 7 JPY currency pairs.

The findings suggest that (1) the global stock markets are adversely affected by the Israel-Iran conflict, (2) the JPY, GBP, and EURO currency pairs are least affected, (3) the USD currency pairs exhibit positive abnormal returns suggesting flight to safety, (4) the frontier and standalone markets experience most adverse effects, followed by developed and emerging markets, (5) the pan-American stock markets experience more pronounced effects of the conflict, followed by the Europe, Middle East, and African stock markets and the Asia Pacific stock markets.

The findings advise investors to manage risk during geopolitical uncertainty through diversification and hedging. Policymakers should monitor developments and enact responsive measures. Market participants can capitalize on insights for strategic investment.

The study contributes to the extant war literature by exploring the impact of the Israel-Iran conflict on global stock markets and currency pairs. This study serves as the first to examine the effects of the escalating conflict due to Iran’s attack on Israel.

This paper aims to study the impact of CEOs' cultural background on corporate innovation. The paper constructs a measure of CEOs' cultural individualism based on their birthplaces and investigates its relationship with firms' patents and citations. The study aims to shed light on the interaction of culture and corporate decisions and focuses on the role of top managers. The paper also investigates the mechanism of how top management can affect corporate innovation output.

The paper constructs the measure of individualism using the westward expansion in US history. To do so, the paper uses the US county-level duration of exposure of the frontier territory in the 19th century and links the counties to CEOs' birthplaces. The paper argues the cultural characteristics of birthplaces can affect a person's later management styles and decisions, hence affecting corporate innovation policies. Using regression and difference-in-differences estimations, the paper explores the relation and causality between cultural individualism and innovation output.

The paper finds that CEO cultural individualism is positively related with the number of patents produced by the firm and the citations received by the firm. Difference-in-differences tests using CEO turnovers support that the relation is causal. The paper also investigates the economic mechanism of how individualistic CEOs achieve such results. It finds that individualistic CEOs tend to hire more talented employees and improve the workplace environment to attract top inventors.

This paper provides firm-level evidence of culture and innovation. Prior studies in this area focus on cross-country evidence and suffer the limitation of confounding factors. Using a county-level measure of individualism and a sample of firms in USA, the paper alleviates the concern and provides evidence with better granularity. This paper also provides a novel mechanism for attracting top inventors, while existing literature tend to focus on risk-taking activities.