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The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors which are instrumental to poverty reduction opposed to many factors that are considered as impediments to poverty reduction in a poor country like Bangladesh.

This paper is an outcome of review of literature covered wide range of issues including sectoral contribution to economic growth but none has exclusively dealt with the instrumental role of the poverty reduction factors, insider’s view, long-term observations (1960-2014), and reviews of secondary data.

In order to reduce poverty, rather than attempting to change the “culture of poverty,” remove the “structural trap,” or “kin system as poverty trap” it can be achieved through harnessing the enabling factors of poverty reduction. Study argues that rather than focusing on “barriers” to poverty reduction, a country needs to identify and focus on its “potential” factors of poverty reduction. The dominant enabling factors for Bangladesh were agricultural development and remittance. The utilization of land and labor could bring a transformation in the rural economy of Bangladesh which was essential to poverty reduction.

The study shows that the individuals can escape poverty largely through their own effort where a proper policy support from the government is needed. The state needs to play the facilitating role rather than the instrumental in the case of poverty reduction.

The paper reveals instruments to poverty reduction where usual practice was to identify the barrier to development and to suggest the means of overcoming those barriers. It suggests how to look into the matter from other way round where instead of identifying the barrier attempt should be made to identify the enabling factors and to harness those enabling factors. The findings are based on the country-specific literatures but not generalized in the form as attempted here. The study shows a means of poverty reduction where country-specific strategy or home-grown model can be drawn out based on the identification of potential factors.

Social capital accrues to numerous positive socioeconomic outcomes, especially poverty reduction in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between social capital and poverty reduction with special reference to Bangladesh.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a rural setting of north-eastern Bangladesh, where primary data were collected from 310 households. Exploratory factor analysis was pursued to extract multiple dimensions of social capital. Afterward, multivariate binary logistic regression model was applied to measure the association between social capital dimensions and poverty. In this model, odds ratios were used to present the regression coefficients.

The study confirms that social network, norms of reciprocity, social trust and civic participation were associated with poverty. The logistic regression reveals that social trust, social networks, norms of reciprocity and civic participation are negatively associated with poverty by OR=0.488, 95% CI=0.377–0.633; OR=0.709, 95% CI=0.542–0.927; OR=0.619, 95% CI=0.473–0.812; and OR=0.783, 95% CI=0.598–1.025 units.

This study has a significant policy implication related to reducing entrenched poverty in Bangladesh as social capital has a potential to bring about a concomitant improvement in the condition of the poor.

Until recently empirical research in organisational behaviour and personnel management had tended to be based, to a very large extent, on work situations in the United States and Britain. However, in recent years there has been a noticeable increase in studies reported in the literature carried out in other parts of the world. There has also been a quickening of interest in cross‐national comparisons of management and organisation. These trends have without doubt occurred partly as a response to the growing internationalisation of business and management. They have also stemmed partly from a desire to examine Anglo‐American management practice in a sharper relief, by adopting a wider, less culture‐bound, perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Shariah-compliant status and the presence of information asymmetry on investors’ demand for initial public offerings (IPOs) in Malaysia.

The data regarding 260 IPOs dated for a duration of 11 years were acquired from the websites of Bursa Malaysia and Malaysian Issuing House. In evaluating the association between IPO oversubscription and the independent variables in this study, multivariate and quantile regression analyses were implemented.

It was found that Shariah-compliant status (DSHARIAH) had a significant positive relationship with IPO oversubscription. With this, it was indicated that Shariah-compliant status gains investors’ interests in subscribing to IPOs as these shares could be distributed to a wider group of investors. In the case of the proxies of information asymmetry, although firm size posed significant effects on IPO oversubscription, the effects were negative. Meanwhile, institutional investors posed significant positive effects on IPO oversubscription. Furthermore, it was indicated from the negative effects of firm size that less subscription is received by large firms which are perceived to possess lower information asymmetry from the investors. This is owing to the less underpricing provided by the issuers for their IPOs. However, it was indicated from the significant positive association between institutional investors and IPO oversubscription that the participation in the IPO among institutional investors would enhance the enthusiasm of investors for a specific stock and increase the probability of IPO oversubscription. With this, the winner’s curse hypothesis was supported.

It is recommended that future studies investigate the compliance aspect, specifically the financial and nonfinancial aspects which may affect investors’ decision-making process for their investment.

With the availability of this study’s indicators in the prospectus, the findings of this study have provided useful insights for an issuer and underwriter to ensure a good subscription of its issuance.

The findings of this study have provided further comprehension to investors regarding the essential information found in the prospectus during the decision-making process done for IPO subscription.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first articles which have proven the effects of Shariah-compliant status and the presence of information asymmetry on IPO investors’ demand.

The aim of this paper is to provide additional insights on the association between real earnings management (REM) and crash risk, particularly from the perspective of an emerging market economy. It also examines the moderation role that internal and external corporate governance may play in this area.

Relying on archival data from the RESSET and CSMAR databases over a timeframe from 2010 to 2018 of China listed company, the authors test the hypotheses by regressing common measures of crash risk on the treatment variable (REM) and crash risk control variables identified in the prior crash risk literature. The authors also introduce monitoring proxies (internal controls as an internal governance and institutional ownership as an external governance) and assess how effective internal and external governance moderate the relation between REM and stock price crash risk.

The results suggest firms with higher REM have a significantly greater stock price crash risk, and that this association is mitigated by external monitoring. That is, greater institutional ownership, particularly pressure insensitive owners, mitigates the impact of REM on stock price crash risk. However, internal control does not mitigate the association between REM and stock price crash risk.

Following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) Act, prior research has documented an increase in the use of REM and a positive association between REM and cash risk. The authors demonstrate that they persist in one of the largest emerging markets where institutional regulations, market conditions and corporate behaviors are different from those in developed markets. Also, the assessment of the moderation effect of internal and external governance mechanisms could have meaningful implications for investors and regulators in Chinese and other emerging markets.

The present study investigated the influence of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial return using World Bank Governance indices.

This study analysed 84 IPOs listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange between 2000 and 2017 using cross-sectional data. The impact of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial returns was examined using ordinary least square, robust least square, stepwise least square and quantile regression.

Empirically, the values of political stability, government effectiveness and regulatory quality were positively significant, whereas rule of law and control of corruption were negatively significant in explaining the intensity of IPO initial return. The results also show the presence of significant risk in the market. Hence, investors were compensated with higher initial returns for weak country-level institutional quality. The results also reveal that improving country-level institutional quality would improve the financial market transparency, thereby reducing IPO initial returns.

No studies have been conducted regarding the influence of country-level institutional quality on IPO initial return in Pakistan. This study is a pioneering study that seeks to give insights into the link between these variables in the context of Pakistan.

This study sought to examine the interaction between rural bank performance, information and communication technology (ICT) investment, ICT diffusion and financial development.

Data were sourced from the Association of Rural Banks (ARB) Apex and World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 2014–2020. A total of 122 rural banks were used for this study. The study adopted the two-step system generalized method of moments (SGMM) estimation technique in assessing the interactions among variables.

This study found compelling evidence to support the positive effect of ICT investment on banks’ performance (return on asset and net interest margin). Further, ICT diffusion and financial development positively influence banks’ performance. The results show a positive moderating effect exerted by ICT diffusion and financial development on the impact of bank risk (bank stability) and ICT investment on all three performance measures.

The study focuses on the rural banking sector in the Ghanaian economy, compared to related studies that examine the subject matter for commercial banks. The moderating effects of ICT diffusion and financial development are assessed to guide policy on rural banking development in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper was to examine whether or not the sponsor lock-up ratio, lock-up period, regulation changes and interaction variable (oversubscription [OSR]) affected initial public offering (IPO) initial return.

A complete sample of 111 listed IPOs in Pakistan stock exchange from 1996 to 2018 was incorporated. Based on the cross-section data, this paper estimated using ordinary least square and quantile least square for robustness. In addition to that, this paper estimated the data using stepwise least square to inspect the signalling aspect of the lock-up ratio, lock-up period and regulation changes on IPO initial return.

This study showed that the lock-up ratio, lock-up period and regulatory changes had a positive impact on the IPO’s initial return. Furthermore, the assertion of interaction variable (regulation changes × OSR) and (lock-up period × OSR) was a negatively significant factor in influencing the IPO’s initial return. The results of this paper were robust to endogeneity bias.

The finding of this study proposed that sponsors of IPOs can be a strong signal of risk or quality, which was consistent with the signalling theory prediction. Concurrently, investors must be aware of the total proportions of lock-up ratio so that they can estimate the chances of getting the highest initial return on IPOs. From the regulators’ point of view, it is suggested that the lock-up ratio and the lock-up period should be determined with a deeper understanding and incorporated into the equity guidelines as it is evident that these factors are priced by the market.

Studies on the effect of sponsors have always been centred on well-recognized firms. Therefore, using the IPO samples listed in Pakistan, this paper contributes to the IPO literature by investigating the lock-up ratio of the sponsor, the lock-up period and the regulatory changes to the initial IPO return. Additionally, OSR has been introduced as an interaction variable among the sponsors’ lock-up period and regulations changes to explain the ongoing IPO initial return phenomenon.