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This study aims to examine the relationship between financial inclusion and financial system development in emerging and frontier markets.

Using data across 35 countries over 19 years (2004–2022), the improved GMM estimation technique reveals that financial inclusion significantly contributes to the development of financial systems.

The study uses a segmented approach, dividing financial development indices into subindices: financial depth, financial access and financial efficiency. Indicators of bank financial inclusion show a positive and highly significant relationship with bank depth and access but a negative relationship with bank efficiency. Similarly, indicators of the debt market and stock market financial inclusion demonstrate positive relationships with market depth and access but negative relationships with debt and stock market efficiency. The study further examines composite indexes of financial inclusion for bank, debt and stock market segments, finding strong and highly significant relationships with market development. These results underscore the importance of promoting financial inclusion across all segments of the financial sector to achieve an inclusive financial system.

The implications of this research highlight the need for policymakers and practitioners to implement policies and regulations that enhance financial inclusion and foster the development of robust financial systems. By extending access to mainstream financial instruments and services, financial institutions can stimulate financial intermediation and support, thereby accelerating the development of the banking, debt and stock markets.

The study is robust to the use of several indicators of financial inclusion and financial development, and it forms part of the early studies that examine the close relationship between the two variables.

In this paper, the authors study the phenomenon of price clustering in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), a market viewed as one of the best-performing stock markets in the world during 2014–2017. The authors study the effect of stock-level variables on price clustering and analyze the determinants of the cross-sectional patterns of price clustering in the PSX, in particular the causal link between price clustering and political instability.

The authors' dataset comprises daily observations on 100 PSX stocks spanning from January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2019. The authors use multivariate regression and spectral analysis to shed light on the dynamics of stock price clustering in PSX.

The authors document abnormally high levels of stock price clustering, particularly on integer increments, in PSX. The nature of stock price clustering in PSX is consistent with the negotiation hypothesis of Harris (1991). The levels of stock price clustering on PSX are persistent and contain a cyclical component. Furthermore, the authors find that political uncertainty in Pakistan is a significant contributor to the high levels of price clustering on PSX. The authors' conclusions are robust to alternative econometric specifications and different measures of price clustering and political uncertainty.

The authors' findings are of interest to investors and policymakers. Since price clustering decreases market quality and degrades the information content of stock prices, the authors' study shows that price efficiency in PSX has not improved despite major reforms over the last decade. One practical implication of the authors' results is that investors should be cautious while rebalancing portfolios around political events such as general elections because stock price clustering increases in the PSX during these periods. As a result, stock prices are likely to deviate from their intrinsic values.

Research on price clustering is limited to developed markets, and emerging/frontier markets have been largely overlooked. The phenomenon of price clustering in the PSX has yet to be studied, despite the relevance of the PSX for emerging/frontier market investors.

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.

This study aims to investigate the market reaction in the real estate market to the announcement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This study uses the event study method to assess the market reaction to the announcement that Russia is invading Ukraine. The sample in this study comprises 2,325 companies in the real estate market. We also conduct a cross-sectional analysis to determine the influence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members and company characteristics on market reactions during the invasion.

The global market reacts significantly negative toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This indicates that the war poses a high geopolitical risk that prompts financial markets down. The authors also demonstrate that emerging and frontier markets react significantly negative to the invasion before and after its announcement. Meanwhile, developed markets tend to react only before the invasion is announced. Furthermore, we find that the NATO members react more strongly than other markets.

This result implies that war prompts investors to flee from the stock exchange, while the deeper the country’s involvement, the more investors worry about the risks.

This study is the first to discuss the market reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukrainian, specifically in the real estate market.

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 uses a multi-level framework to systematically summarize and synthesize the empirical literature on determinants of sustainability disclosure.

This review study is based on 159 empirical studies examining determinants of sustainability disclosure and published in Charted Association of Business Schools (CABS) ranked journals over the last 40 years.

Companies are experiencing multi-level pressures for sustainability disclosure. Macro-level variables include political, legal, social-cultural and international pressures. Meso-level factors include customers' concerns, shareholders’ and investors' demands, industry-level variables and media coverage. Micro-level factors include the firm-level governance mechanisms, executives' reporting attitude and role of sustainability promoting institutions. Unlike in developed markets, companies in developing markets feel minimal public pressure for sustainability disclosure but rather are influenced by international NGOs, the media and international buyers. Multi-level and multitude of pressures for sustainability disclosure explains the widely observed differences between studies.

This research presents the most extensive systematic review of the extant sustainability disclosure literature and is the first study to group determinants into micro-, meso- and macro-level components using multi-level analysis.

The abnormality of the month-of-the-year and Ramadan effects has extensively existed in the stock and other markets. The commercial strategy pattern and the computation of such predictable patterns in the market allow investors to make money. By using anomalies such as the month-of-the-year and the Ramadan effects on earnings management (EM), it is possible to achieve such a goal. This study aims to investigate the month-of-the-year effect and the Ramadan effect on the relationship between accrual earnings management and real earnings management (AEM and REM, respectively) and liquidity in the Iranian capital market.

This empirical analysis comprises a panel data set of 80 listed firms (400 observations) on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020.

The findings exhibit that when AEM and REM increase, information asymmetry also increases. The simultaneous increase of these variables leads to a decrease in stock liquidity. Furthermore, the results indicate that the month-of-the-year and Ramadan effects intensify the negative relationship between AEM and REM with stock liquidity. Therefore, EM is affected by the investor’s behavior in specific months.

Anomalies caused by the Ramadan effect and the month-of-the-year effect on reducing liquidity in the Iranian stock market were confirmed. Investors can use these anomalies to identify predictable patterns, exchange securities according to those patterns and earn abnormal returns.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examined the simultaneous effect of Gregorian and Islamic calendar anomalies on the relationship between EM and liquidity, and while helping managers and other readers, it can be the basis for future research.

The authors investigate how foreign investment in securities market informs about the future firm performance in emerging markets.

The authors define the independent variable, abnormal foreign investment (AFI) as the residuals of the foreign ownership equation. The authors regress foreign ownership on its first lag and factors and define the residuals as the AFI. The AFI is the over- or under-investment reflecting foreign conscious (clear-purpose) investment, thus better indicating how foreign investment affects firm performance. The dependent variable is Tobin’s q (Q), which represents the firm performance. Then, the authors regress the Tobin’s q next quarters (Qt + k) on the AFI current quarter (AFIt). The authors use a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) and check endogeneity with the D-GMM model for the regression.

The results show that the current AFI is positively correlated with the firm performance in each of the next four quarters (the following one year). This positive relationship is pronounced for large firms, firms with no large foreign investors, liquid firms and firms listed in the active market. The results suggest that foreign investment might choose well-productive firms already. Also, the current AFI is significantly positively correlated with stock returns in each of the next three quarters. These results suggest that the AFI is informative up to one-year period.

The results suggest that foreign investors (most of them are small) in the Vietnamese market might choose well-productive firms already. However, if the large investors have long-term investment in tangible, intangible, human capital and so on, and lead to a significant increase in firms’ performance is still the limitation of this paper.

The results of this paper may guide investors whose portfolios are composed of stocks with foreign investment.

This paper adds to the literature to enrich the conclusion of a positive relationship between foreign ownership and firm performance.

The priority of this study is to contribute to the literature by examining herding behavior at different periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study aims to investigate the herding behavior conditioned on market liquidity and information demand.

This study investigates herding behavior in Vietnam's stock exchanges (Ha Noi Stock Exchange and Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange) on a sample of daily stock closing prices of 425 firms from 2018 to the first half of 2022.

The research confirms the existence of herding behavior not only for the whole but also during and post-COVID periods. These results are robust in both bull and bear markets, further confirming the influence of COVID-19 on herding in Vietnamese background. Moreover, when the authors condition exogenous factors for each period, the herding tendency is more evident at the medium market liquidity level than at high and low levels. Besides, the pandemic causes herding behavior of investors with low and medium information demand.

These findings imply some recommendations that facilitate investors, policymakers and researchers in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

The study contributes to the herding literature by examining herd behavior during the post-COVID period, suggesting the long-term impact of the health crisis. Furthermore, the research provides new evidence of herding behavior conditioned on market liquidity and information demand during different COVID sub-periods.

This study aims to explore the underlying issues of behavioural biases in relation to stock market participation and the challenges of individual investors in Bangladesh. The study identifies behavioural biases affecting individuals’ stock market participation, their circumvention strategies and the importance of financial knowledge in encouraging the participation of individuals in the stock market.

Semi-structured interviews were used in this study to gather information from industry researchers, individual investors, brokers and institutional advisors. Twenty-two experts were contacted, and 13 agreed to participate in the interviews. The study then uses the thematic analysis method to report its findings.

This research shows that investors’ behavioural biases (such as loss aversion, herding, trust, gambler’s fallacy and risk tolerance) are among Bangladesh’s primary drivers of stock market participation. Circumvention strategies (such as poor corporate governance and agency costs) also play a part in individuals’ participation. These influences are in addition to the obvious factors of investment risks, poor infrastructure, poor regulation enforcement and the need for more sufficient investment products.

This study conducted 13 interviews with expert subjects, which is a small sample size. However, the findings achieved saturation and cannot be ignored. Future research should use quantitative or experimental methods with a large sample size to validate the current findings.

This study is pioneering in the Bangladesh stock market, exploring the behavioural biases of investors’ participation in the market. This paper provides valuable insights into investor participation by discovering the underlying behavioural biases that have been continually ignored; these insights may also be relevant in frontier markets in Asian countries.