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In this study, we aim to define a new ecological financial pecking order. We examine how SMEs' adherence to the environment in the Mediterranean region is impacted by their financial resources and how women Entrepreneurship could play a moderating role in this relationship.

Our data are pooled cross-sectional firm level data across 14 Mediterranean countries, with a total of 5,949 observations over the period from 2018 to 2020. We look into the moderating influence of SMEs’ female ownership on the financial sources-environmental engagement link using GLS estimations. To reach our aim we focus on seven funding sources and develop a green engagement construct using JCA. Besides, we distinguish between the least and most environmentally engaged companies in the EU and its neighborhood and compare the different interactions and possible moderations.

Results show that government subsidies foster environmental engagement, followed by supplier credits with a less significant positive impact. The bank credits have the least significant beneficial influence, while non-bank financial institutions have a non-significant effect. We underline that environmental engagements are hindered by the other funds, issued bonds and internal funds.

SMEs in the Mediterranean region, particularly the less environmentally conscious, require strong legal frameworks to enforce environmental responsibility and raise awareness. Integrating less environmentally committed EU SMEs into state subsidy strategies is a chance to improve environmental responsibility in the region.

To our knowledge, there are no prior studies that present a detailed financial structure and environmental management investigation for SMEs within the Mediterranean region while considering the moderating effect of women's entrepreneurship.

This study aims to investigate the intersection of financial technology (fintech) and credit risk exploring the impact of fintech on credit risk within the banking and financial sector.

Using a bibliometric analysis approach, this study comprehensively reviews existing literature to understand the evolving landscape of fintech and credit risk. Data were extracted from the Scopus database using a comprehensive query encompassing various fintech-related keywords and their synonyms.

This study pinpoints six research streams on fintech and credit risk, spanning credit risk management, risk-sharing, credit scoring, regulatory challenges, small business lending impact and consumer credit market influence. It also examines recent advancements like artificial intelligence, blockchain and big data analytics in managing risk obligations.

While this study offers a comprehensive assessment, limitations include the ever-evolving nature of technology and potential biases in the retrieval process. Researchers should consider these factors when building on this study's findings.

The findings have practical implications for financial institutions, policymakers and researchers, offering insights into the opportunities and challenges presented by fintech in credit risk management. This study highlights potential areas for the application of advanced technologies in risk assessment and mitigation.

This study underscores the transformative impact of fintech on financial services, emphasizing the potential for more inclusive access and improved risk management. It encourages further exploration of fintech's societal implications, including its role in small business lending and consumer credit markets.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by conducting a thorough bibliometric review, surpassing previous analyses in scope. It encompasses an extensive set of keywords to ensure the comprehensive retrieval of relevant papers, providing a foundation for future research in the dynamic field of fintech and credit risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the financial structure on innovation.

We utilize the matched firm-level data from two sources: the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-Up Survey. A total of 3,664 firms from 11 African countries are included.

The authors find a financially constrained and low technology-intensive firm that uses internal finance more than its peers is less likely to innovate. Our results also show that a firm that uses new equity and debt finance more than its peers is more likely to innovate. The results particularly suggest the significant effect of bank and trade credit finance on firms’ innovation. The extent and, in some cases, the direction of the effect of dependence on internal finance, new equity finance and debt finance on innovation vary due to the heterogeneity in firm size, age and ownership status. Corporate innovation is also associated with firm size, R&D, cooperation, staff training, public support, exportation and group membership.

The management of companies, particularly financially constrained firms, should reduce their dependence on internal finance, which negatively affects their innovation. As a remedy, they could improve their reliance on new equity finance and debt finance, especially bank finance and trade credit finance, which positively affect their innovativeness.

A pending policy task for African business leaders is to design and evaluate reforms that help create strong financial sectors willing to provide capital to a broad range of firms, particularly small and young firms.

This study adds new evidence to the recent surge of debate on the trade-off between going public, using debt or heavily using internal sources to finance innovative projects, and which of these is more important in promoting firm-level innovation.

This study aims to investigate the implications for financial innovation and product development of differences between schools of jurisprudence (fiqh) pertaining across regional Muslim markets, and the consequences for global financial institutions.

The methodology is qualitative, drawing upon several sources. Firstly, differences in interpretation regarding the economic and moral responsibilities of financial institutions in Islamic and secular contexts. Secondly, contrasting tenets of schools of Islamic jurisprudence regarding the permissibility of products traded intra Muslim markets. Thirdly, characteristics of complex financial instruments traded in global secular markets prior to the credit crisis of 2007–2008.

Differences between Islamic and global secular interpretations regarding responsibilities of financial institutions militate against integrated markets across which products can be seamlessly traded. Global financial institutions should recognise that different Islamic schools of jurisprudence prioritise either legal form or substance of financial products, but not both simultaneously. This should be considered when designing new products for regional Muslim markets.

Global financial institutions which focus upon the legal (micro) form of new Islamic products should relate in investor prospectuses and marketing materials the extent to which these accommodate Islamic jurisprudence’s equal (macro) concern for public interest or maslahah. This may comprise the reallocation of risk from those unable to bear it to those willing to assume it for a price, reinforcing rather than compromising economic stability.

This study evaluates implications for product development and marketing for global financial institutions active in regional Muslim markets across which different Islamic schools of jurisprudence apply.

In this paper, the heterogeneity of the linkages among financial development, productivity and growth across income groups is emphasized.

An empirical analysis is conducted with an illustrative sample of 130 economies over the period 1991–2019 and classified into four subsamples: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), developing, least developed and net food importing developing countries. Forecast error variance decompositions and panel vector auto-regressive estimations are computed, with insightful findings.

Higher levels of output stimulate the economic development in the agricultural sector, mainly via the productivity channel and, in the most developed economies, also through access to credit. Differently, in developing and least developed economies, the role of access to credit is marginal. The findings have practical implications for stakeholders involved in the planning of long-run investments. In less developed economies, priorities should be given to investments in technology and innovation, whereas financial markets are more suited to boost the development of the agricultural sector of developed economies.

The authors conclude on the credit–output–productivity nexus and contribute to the literature in (at least) three ways. First, they assess how credit access, agricultural output and agricultural productivity are jointly determined. Second, they use a novel approach, which departs from most of the case studies based on single-country data. Third, they conclude on potential causality links to conclude on policy implications.

Financial technologies form the heart of considerable disruptive innovation. Fintech is the emerging financial infrastructure for modern business. Big data are the feedstock for artificial intelligence (AI) that drives many fintech sectors – start-up finance, commodities and investment instrumentation, payment systems, currencies, exchange markets/trading platforms, market-failure response forensics, underwriting, syndication, risk assessment, advisory services, banking, financial intermediaries, transaction settlement, corporate disclosure, and decentralized finance. This chapter demonstrates how analyzing big data, largely processed through cloud computing, drives fintech innovations, scholarship, forensics, and public policy. Despite their apparent virtues, some fintech mechanisms can externalize various social costs: flawed designs, opacity/obscurity, social media (SM) influences, cyber(in)security, and other malfunctions. Fintech suffers regulatory lag, the delay following the introduction of novel fintechs and later assessment, development, and deployment of reliable regulatory mechanisms. Big data can improve fintech practices by balancing three key influences: (1) fintech incentives, (2) market failure forensics, and (3) developing balanced public policy resolutions to fintech challenges.

This paper aims to examine the factors associated with a household business entrepreneur’s decisions to formalise the firm at a multidimensions level.

The data set is a panel of 2,336 SMEs and household businesses from Vietnamese SME surveys during the 2005–2015 period.

This study elucidates how firm-level resources, entrepreneur characteristics and costs of doing business influence an entrepreneur’s decision to enter, the speed and the degree of formality.

This study provides insight into the origins of an entrepreneur’s decisions to the multidimensions of business formality through the lenses of the resource-based view, entrepreneurship and institution theories.

Climate change poses effect on banking sector’s risks and profitability through adaptation of green technology. This study aims to incorporates green technology adaptation in three sectors: green banking, green entrepreneurial innovation (EI) and green human resource (HR), in a model of bank’s performance. And determines the impact of climate change on bank risk and profitability.

An assessment of profitability and risk profile of commercial banks is done for 27 European countries for 2013–2022, employing a two-step difference system-generalized method of moments estimation technique with a moderate effect of climate change by including interaction between climate change and green technology adaptation.

The results indicate that green banking increases profitability, reduces credit risk and increases liquidity risk. The results also show that green human resource increases profitability and becomes a source of credit and liquidity risks for the banks. Green EI increases credit risk and liquidity risk, while the effects of green EI on profitability vary with the use of two proxies: Green patents increase profitability and environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) scores decrease profitability.

Supportive government initiatives, including subsidies and tax rebates to green borrowers, may take the burden of green transition off the banking sector.

This paper observes the impact of green technology adaptation in three sectors: banks, EI and HR, moderated by climate change, adding substantially to the existing literature in conceptual framework and methodology.

It is important to consider economic and political factors when designing the tax mix and setting the level of corporate taxation. Increasing corporate taxation can be seen as an inefficient way to raise revenue for the state, as it can have a negative impact on investment and the competitiveness of firms. However, lowering corporate taxation can encourage investment and job creation, but it can also be perceived as supporting large corporations. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate corporate taxation, its position in the tax mix and its potential impact on economic growth. The revenues of corporate income tax (CIT) have an increasing tendency even though the tax rate was reduced from 41% to 19%. Revenues are influenced by both legislative changes and economic cycles. The level of taxation is also influenced by deductions, which include asset depreciations, research and development expenses, or loss deductions. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to examine the correlation between the selected factors. A moderately strong positive correlation was found between GDP growth and CIT as a percentage of total taxes, as well as between GDP growth and CIT as a percentage of GDP.

This paper aims to address the gaps in current research by exploring how blockchain technology influences corporate green innovation.

This study investigates the potential of blockchain technology to stimulate the green innovation of companies using the difference-in-difference model with a panel data set of 1,803 Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2019.

The application of blockchain significantly increases the number of green invention patents obtained by companies but has no significant impact on green utility model patents, that is, blockchain applications improve the quality rather than the quantity of green innovation. The role of blockchain in promoting green innovation is particularly pronounced in state-owned enterprises, non-heavily polluting industries and older companies. The use of blockchain technology helps reduce sales costs and boosts research and development investments, thereby encouraging green innovation. Additionally, a company’s internal control quality plays a moderating effect.

Firstly, previous research on blockchain has primarily centered on its relationship with supply chain management. This article empirically tests the impact of blockchain applications on the green innovation of companies using the DID method. Secondly, current studies mainly explore the influencing factors on green invention patents. This article examines the impact of blockchain applications on both green invention patents and green utility model patents and identifies distinct influencing effects. Finally, this article introduces the internal control mechanism of enterprises into the DID model and explores the potential impact of the quality of internal control on the relationship between blockchain and green innovation.