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This study aims to determine the association of Transparency and Disclosure (TD) with financial distress (FID) while the competition (as Lerner Index) moderates the association between the two.

The panel data analysis (static model) is performed to examine the effect of disclosures on the bank's FID. A TD index is built to assess the level of TD. All three versions of Altman's Zscore are employed to measure a bank's FID (High Zscore is opposite of FID). The data of 34 banks running in India for the timeframe 2015–16 to 2018–19 is utilized. Lerner index (LI) is taken as the moderator. The bank-size, valuation and financial leverage are control variables.

There exists no linear connection between TD and FID. However, TD is positively associated with financial stability (opposite FID). It means TD initially reduces financial stability and improves it after TD crosses a threshold level. Competition (as LI, where the higher value of LI means reduced competition) negatively moderates the association of TD with financial stability. Hence, the findings of this study support the competition-fragility premise. Surprisingly, the negatively significant interaction term of LI and TD implies either high competition and high TD or low competition with low TD, which helps in the bank's financial stability.

The findings provide input to a long-term policy of disclosures and competition in the banking sector, keeping in view the financial stability of the banks. Therefore, findings are novel and carry immense value to the existing knowledge on the topic.

This study aims to examine the impact of regulation and other micro- and macro-economic factors on banks’ productivity growth. It investigates the impact of different regulatory reforms on banks’ performance of total factor productivity (TFP) and its component efficiencies, along with their association with bank-specific variables of profitability and equity, and with macro-level variables of economy and freedom. That is, through analysing the influence of regulatory and supervisory policies related to Basel accords pillars of capital and market discipline through private monitoring; restrictions on bank activities; and economic and financial freedoms on TFP growth and year-end performance in banking.

The authors examine TFP for commercial banks in response to regulatory reforms on an international scale. To estimate the TFP, the authors use a non-parametric frontier technique by calculating the Malmquist output-oriented index, following Delis et al. (2011) and Worthington (1999). The components of the Malmquist index are ratios of distance functions making its estimation a straightforward technique using activity analysis or data envelopment analysis methods. This allows controlling for efficiency changes depending on the reallocation of production frontiers signalling the technical change and the technical efficiency at once.

Results show that high capital requirements enhance productivity growth in North and Latin American banks, but not in European African or Asian banks. Supervisory powers drive bank productivity growth in all regions except Europe and Central Asia. Restrictions on real estate, insurance and securities activities impede productivity change in all income level groups but not in high-income economies. The results also show that market volatility and Z-score drive technological change and scale efficiency growth, but negatively impact pure technical efficiency.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between the implementation of regulatory standards and the performance of the banking sector following a structural model of the banking firm and the concept of optimisation. An additional contribution of this study is that it examines economies with different levels of income based on the gross national income per capita. The study summarises bank-specific data used to synthesise the banks’ productivity (inputs and outputs) and country-specific economic and regulatory compliance data over 19 years (1999-2017). The extent of this data set coverage makes it most recent and most conclusive of variables to provide a significant contribution to the literature on bank regulation and efficiency effect.

The disclosures in banks have become a matter of grave concern, especially post 2008 world financial crisis. The issue further gets exacerbated because disclosers in banks are part of the III pillar of BASEL-II floated in 1999, and despite that, banks face challenges in this regard. Ownership concentration (OC) is a point of discussion because it may affect banks’ corporate governance and transparency and disclosures (T&D) issues. This study aims to determine how OC affects the transparency in the banks.

A T&D index is built into the study covering all the relevant contemporary issues regarding disclosures in banks. The panel data specification is used to find out the association of components of the OC on the T&D practices in the banks. Bank data of 34 banks are gathered for four years for the study.

It is found that except for retail investors, other classes of OC are not concerned with the disclosures in the banks even though substantial financial and non-financial interests are at stake concerning them. The study’s findings suggest framing policies and regulations considering the accountability of promoters and institutional investors for ensuring disclosures in banks.

A few proxies to measure T&D found in the literature have not been used in the study. Similarly, the definition of promoter’s class of investors can be improved.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study builds T&D for banks and examines their impact because of the ownership classes (as used by the current study). This study is unique in this aspect.

During the last two decades there have been significant policy changes in the banking system, primarily in the emerging market economies. These changes have impacted the competitive structure of banking. In India, since 1991, gradual reform measures have been initiated to improve efficiency, productivity, competition and stability of the banking sector. There is a requirement for a formal approach to examine level of competition in Indian banking sector after the liberalization. This paper aims to address this issue.

The article applied the conjectural variation method using 2‐stage least square for assessing the degree of competition in the Indian banking system.

The paper finds that competitive condition in the Indian banking sector has been improving 1996. However, big banks with market share more than 1 per cent have been exercising some degree of price mark‐up over their marginal cost.

Due to the paucity of data competition at the regional level is not analysed which is a limitation of the article.

Analysis of competition allows the policy formulators to design proper liberalization measures to ensure greater competition in the banking sector so as to prevent any cartel formation.

Since the Indian banking sector is monopolistically competitive, the article advocates for more liberalization measures to improve competition in the Indian banking sector.

To assess competition the article has covered 53 banks involving more than 90 per cent banking sector assets of the country. Through Lerner Index the article has found that big banks are able to charge a price which is about 30 per cent more than their marginal cost. The conjectural variation method is a monopolistic market structure prevailing in the Indian banking sector.

Technology may produce disruptive changes and market turbulence in any industry. Organizational inertia becomes relevant as a factor that adversely affects organizational transformation; this study aims to examine how to overcome it and its consequences to firms.

The model estimation with seemingly unrelated regression and two-stage least square. The authors build a data set of years 2015–2019 from the Lima Stock Exchange firms to test the hypotheses.

In this research, using the evolutionary-ecological theory of Hannan and Freeman, the study shows the consequences of organizational inertia on marketing intensity and subsequently on firms' financial results.

This study presents an inter-functional model that links organizational behavior, marketing and finance functions, through the marketing value chain to overcome organizational inertia and create firm value.

La tecnología puede producir cambios disruptivos y turbulencias en el mercado en cualquier industria. La inercia organizacional cobra relevancia como factor que incide negativamente en la transformación organizacional; esta investigación examina cómo superarlo y sus consecuencias para las empresas.

La estimación del modelo es con regresión aparentemente no relacionada (SUR) y mínimos cuadrados de dos etapas (2SLS). Para probar las hipótesis, los autores construyen un conjunto de datos de los años 2015–2019 de firmas de la bolsa de valores de Lima.

En esta investigación, utilizando la teoría ecológica evolutiva de Hannan y Freeman, el estudio muestra las consecuencias de la inercia organizacional en la intensidad del marketing y, posteriormente, en los resultados financieros de las empresas.

Este estudio presenta un modelo interfuncional que vincula el comportamiento organizacional, las funciones de marketing y finanzas, a través de la cadena de valor del marketing para superar la inercia organizacional y crear valor para la empresa.

In less competitive markets, firms with market power are likely to exercise pricing power by setting output prices above their marginal cost, inducing welfare losses from resource misallocation, managerial inefficiency and market instability. In order to address such market imperfections, it is important for regulatory authorities to identify the sources of pricing power and devise policies to address their adverse effects. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to undertake an empirical analysis to identify the determinants of pricing power in the South African non-life insurance market.

The authors estimate the Lerner competitive index as the proxy for pricing power using annual data on 79 firms from 2007 to 2012. In the second stage, the paper employs panel regression techniques in the ordinary least squares, random effects and generalised method of moment’s estimations to examine the effect of insurer level characteristics on pricing power.

The authors find the market to be characterised by firms with high pricing power. Domestic-owned insurers are found to exercise high pricing power compared with foreign-owned insurers. The authors also identify size, cost efficiency, product line diversification, market concentration, leverage and reinsurance contracts as the significant predictors of pricing power in the market. Finally, through a quantile regression analysis, the authors find the effect of cost efficiency, business line diversification and reinsurance to be heterogeneous across different quantiles of pricing power.

The findings provide regulatory authorities with useful indicators in addressing anti-competitive behaviour in high pricing power to enhance the stability of the insurance market and improve consumer welfare and economic development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is first paper to examine the determinants of pricing power and competitive behaviour in an insurance market.

The purpose of the study is to explore the association of disclosures for the performance of banks in India.

Panel data analysis (utilising static and dynamic models) is applied on the data of 34 Indian banks (for time-frame 2015–2019) to explore the association of disclosures (as transparency and disclosure index) with the performance of banks (as profitability, risk-taking and technical efficiency (TE)). The regulation, competition and ownership concentration variables are taken as control variables.

None of the banks' performance measures applied in the study is significantly associated with the disclosures. This situation implies that disclosures do not impact the performance of the banks in India. The reason is that disclosures and performance are two different activities that aim at different purposes.

This study does not provide output for the association between disclosures and the value of the banks and confines itself to explore the association between disclosures and performance of the banks only. This limitation can be the future scope of the study.

There is no other study that solely focuses on exploring the association of disclosures with the performance of the banks. Disclosure has more significant importance in banks because of the inherent nature of opaqueness in banking operations. Therefore, the current study's findings have substantial implications for policymakers, managers and investors of the banks.

The study intends to determine the environment, social and governance (ESG)'s impact on the firm's value. In addition, how ownership concentration (OC) and transparency and disclosures (TD) influence the impact of firm's ESG on its valuation (firm value).

The relevant panel data with a sample of 78 Indian firms for five years (2016–2020) are gathered. Both linear and nonlinear connections of firm's ESG with its value are tested. In addition, TD and two components of OC (stakes of promoters and institutional investors) are empirically tested as moderators on the connectivity of the firm's ESG with its value.

The linear association of firm's ESG with its value is found insignificant. ESG is found to have a positive and nonlinear (U-shaped) impact on the value of the firms. TD does not moderate the connectivity of firm's ESG with its valuation (firm value). The higher stakes of promoters positively affect the association of firm's ESG with the valuation. However, the high stakes of institutional investors retard the ESG's influence on the firm value.

The study is on Indian firms for five years. A sample of more than one nation and a longer duration (10 years) could have helped better determine the associations among the variables. In turn, these limitations can be the present study's future scope. In addition, the authors find a lack of standardisation of the ESG scales, which is a problem in measuring it. Using standardisation scales of ESG for the analysis can also be future scope on the topic.

The investors would be wary of the level of ESG to influence the firms' value positively. Managers also need to be careful to have sincere efforts for ESG to reap its rich dividends. Policymakers may take cognisance that despite having board seats (in a few cases), institutional investors negatively (instead of positively as expected) influences the ESG's association with the firm's value. They may bring some guidelines or legislative changes to fix responsibility on the part of the institutional investors.

No study reports the linear and nonlinear association of ESG on the firm's value to observe clearer connectivity between the two. Similarly, no study is observed to have promoters and institutional investors as moderators on the association of firm's ESG with the valuation (firm value). Hence, the present study considerably augments the extant literature on the topic and its contribution.

It is often stated that profits, which in the long‐run and under perfect competition are supposed by theory to be approaching the “normal rate”, reflect by their observed interfirm diversity different competitive conditions in the demand or the supply side of the market or both. For this reason, it is expected that profits are associated with the degree of competition.

The banking sector is undergoing a phase of transition worldwide. The degrees of flux may vary from country to country. Metamorphosis causes include financial distress, corporate governance issues, environmental and social issues and an avalanche of technological advancements. This study aims to explore how environmental, social and governance (ESG), one of the essential and contemporary change agents across the sectors, including in the banks, impacts the valuation of the banking sector. In addition, this study also aims at how another vital and inevitable change agent, information and communications technology (ICT) expenses, influence the ESG’s impact on bank valuation.

Panel data regression is conducted using valuation (Tobin’s Q and market capitalization) as endogenous variables, and ESG and expenditure on ICT are used as the main exogenous variables. The interaction term of ESG and ICT is also used as an exogenous variable.

Surprisingly, the authors find unequivocal evidence of the positive influence of ESG and ICT on bank valuation without consideration of ICT. In addition, ICT is also found to moderate the ESG’s influence on bank valuation positively. In particular, when ICT is low, an increase in ESG impacts the valuation negatively. However, high values of ICT cause ESG to impact the valuation positively.

Without consideration of ICT, ESG investments coincide with the value-creating hypothesis. However, modern world firms do not have a choice of ignoring ICT, which is essential to sustain. Adequate investments in ICT shift the value-eroding ESG effects (at low ICT) toward a value-creating hypothesis (at high ICT) when ESG investments start to impact the value positively.

In practice, modern-day firms have no choice but to align with ESG investments. In cases where ESG tends to erode value (at low ICT), the firms should, in parallel, choose to make some ICT investments. Such combined and balanced attention to ICT, along with ESG, will undoubtedly benefit the firms financially.

The study’s significant implications are on the stakeholders’ mindsets, who may not have clarity on the role of ESG and ICT in the bank’s performance and subsequent valuation. The policymakers may also restructure their long-term policy on ESG in the banking sector using the current study’s findings.