Search results

The authors investigate the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on the financial performance of European automobile manufacturers. This paper contributes to the debate about the impact of environmental policy on a firm's competitive performance.

The authors use cross-country sector-level panel data for 71 firms from 18 European countries from 2010 to 2019. The authors apply a fixed-effect model and then, to address the endogeneity issues, the authors use the generalized method of moments (GMM) model. To further examine the validity of the results, the authors use a data-mining modeling approach as a robustness test.

By considering the dynamic impact of environmental policy and overcoming the endogeneity issues, the results show that the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on a firm's financial performance depends on the time horizon: the stringency of environmental policy has a short-term negative impact but a long-term positive impact on a firm's financial performance.

The authors limited the study to the auto industry in Europe. In addition, future research could consider the impact of environmental policy on other financial performance indicators such as Return on Sales or Return on Equity. Also, it would be interesting to conduct a similar study in the United States or China using a firm-level data set to examine the robustness of the results.

Stringency of environmental policy improves a firm's financial performance in the long term. It is essential for firms and managers to consider the dynamic impacts of environmental policy on their financial performance and adopt a long-term perspective when evaluating the costs and benefits of complying with environmental regulations. The findings help management develop a long-term vision for investment and budget allocation. The results support management's view for strategic decision-making against the common budget argument and challenges for stockholders when it comes to adopting new technologies and planning long-term investment.

It is crucial for firms to recognize the broader societal benefits that come with environmental policy. Firms must not only focus on their financial performance but also on their social responsibility to protect the environment and contribute to the greater good. Therefore, firms must take a long-term perspective and recognize the broader societal benefits of environmental policy in order to make informed decisions that support both their financial success and their social responsibility.

This paper contributes to the literature by helping to explain the inconsistent results of studies about the impact of environmental policy on a firm's competitiveness. Using a firm's financial performance as one of the main metrics for competitiveness, this study takes into account both endogeneity and contemporaneity in evaluating the impact of the stringency of environmental policy on a firm's financial performance.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of implementing anti-dumping duties on imported Australian wine to China in the short- and long-run, respectively.

First, the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method is used in this study to evaluate the short-run causal effect of implementing anti-dumping duties on imported Australian wine to China. Second, a Bayesian ensemble method is used to predict 2023–2025 wine exports from Australia to China. The disparity between the forecasts and counterfactual prediction which assumes no anti-dumping duties represents the accumulated impact of the anti-dumping duties in the long run.

The anti-dumping duties resulted in a significant decline in red and rose, white and sparkling wine exports to China by 92.59%, 99.06% and 90.06%, respectively, in 2021. In the long run, wine exports to China are projected to continue this downward trend, with an average annual growth rate of −21.92%, −38.90% and −9.54% for the three types of wine, respectively. In contrast, the counterfactual prediction indicates an increase of 3.20%, 20.37% and 4.55% for the respective categories. Consequently, the policy intervention is expected to result in a decrease of 96.11%, 93.15% and 84.11% in red and rose, white and sparkling wine exports to China from 2021 to 2025.

The originality of this study lies in the creation of an economic paradigm for assessing policy impacts within the realm of wine economics. Methodologically, it also represents the pioneering application of the DID and Bayesian ensemble forecasting methods within the field of wine economics.

The study investigates the role of macroeconomic policies in driving capital market development in emerging African countries where the markets are relatively active. It aims to determine the effects of these policies in pre-pandemic period vis-a-vis the post-pandemic period.

The generalized method of moments (GMM) and auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) are employed in estimating the role within the period 2012Q1-2023Q3. The panel unit root test is used to ascertain the stationary status of variables, while maximum likelihood estimator is employed to determine structural stability of the model.

The empirical results reveal that fiscal and monetary policies played significant positive role in capital market development in both pre- and post-pandemic periods. On the other hand, trade policy and investment return had significant impact in pre-pandemic period which could not be sustained in post-pandemic period. It is only exchange rate policy that remained insignificant in both periods. The findings therefore suggest that capital market development slowed in the post-pandemic period due to reduced performance of macroeconomic policies. Furthermore, the unit root test reveals that all the variables satisfy empirical properties that ensure estimation results are consistent and non-spurious. The maximum likelihood estimator showed there was long-term structural break, hence short-term impacts were used in comparative analysis.

Macroeconomic policies are fundamental to financial market development in developing countries. The role in resuscitating capital market in the post-pandemic period has yet to be adequately investigated in African countries. This study is carried out to fill this void.

The reform and opening-up of capital market is valued for promoting sustainable development, while its impact presented as the form of deregulation of short-selling on the green innovation of enterprises in developing countries remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to outline the significance of gradual reform of financial markets in developing countries for low-carbon transformation and provide implications for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

Based on the green subdivided patent data and financial data of China’s A-share listed companies, this paper takes the implementation of securities margin trading program as a quasi-natural experiment and applies the difference-in-differences (DID) model to examine the impact of deregulation of short-selling constraints on the enterprises’ green transformation.

The findings reveal that the initiating securities margin trading program significantly enhances the green innovation performance of enterprises. These findings are valid after performing a series of robustness tests such as the parallel trend test, the placebo test and the methods to exclude other policy interference. Mechanism analyses demonstrate a two-faceted effect of the securities margin trading program on the green innovation of enterprises, in which short-selling policy increases the pressure on capital market deregulation and meanwhile induces the environmental protection investment. The heterogeneity results demonstrate that the impulsive effect imposed by securities margin trading program is more significant in experimental group samples with characteristics of lower financing constraints, belonging to heavy polluting industries and possessing better environmental supervision capability.

First, previous studies have focused on the impact of financial policies implemented by banking institutions on the green innovation of enterprises, but few literatures have explored the validity of relaxing short-selling restrictions or opening the capital market in the field of enterprise’s green transformation in developing country. From the view of securities market reform, this paper broadens the incentive and supervision effects of the relaxation of short-selling control on enterprise’s green innovation performance after the implementation of securities financing and securities lending policy in China’s capital market. Second, previous studies have explored the impact of command-and-control environmental regulations, as well as market-incentivized environmental regulations such as green finance, low-carbon pilots and environmental tax reform, on the green transition of enterprises. Recently the role of the securities market in the green development of enterprises has received more attention in academia. The pilot of margin financing and securities lending is essentially a market-incentivized regulatory tool, but there is few in-depth research on how it affects the green innovation of enterprises. This paper enriches the research on whether the market incentive financial regulation policy can contribute to the green transformation of enterprises under the Porter hypothesis. Third, some previous studies used the ordinary panel regression model to explore the impact of financial policy on enterprise’s innovation performance. However, due to the potential endogenous problems of the estimated model, it might get biased conclusions. Therefore, based on the method of quasi-natural experiment, this paper selects the margin trading pilot policy as an exogenous shock to solve the endogenous or reverse causality problem in traditional measurement model and applies the DID model to study the relationship between core indicator variables.

The monetary policy is an important driver of the real estate sector’s performance. The recent wave of monetary tightening in 2022 in response to the cost-of-living crisis has been associated with the decline in housing prices across the globe. There are two main channels through which the US monetary policy may affect the real estate market in the dollar-pegged countries: the cost of serving mortgages (financing cost) and the exchange rate channel (for example, the appreciation of the US dollar and consequently the local currency). The exchange rate channel, which involves the appreciation of the US dollar and the subsequent effect on the local currency, is particularly significant in the case of Dubai, given how international the housing market in Dubai and might be viewed as a tradable good. Using recent data, the purpose of this study to evaluate the spillover impact of the US monetary policy on the housing market performance in the dollar-pegged countries using Dubai as a case study.

For this purpose, this study collected unique longitudinal data on the volume of the monthly transactions of residential properties and performs a panel-data analysis using within-variation models. The changes in the interest rate policy in the USA are determined by the domestic inflation in the USA, thereby, representing an exogenous shock in the UAE.

The results are robust to different specifications and suggest that a strong negative correlation between the interest rate in the USA and the housing sector demand in Dubai. Fiscal policy measures can be taken to mitigate tighter financial conditions in case of policy misalignment.

Few studies have looked at the spillover impact of the global monetary conditions on the real estate market in the GCC region. This study fills this gap by exploring the impact of the US financial conditions on Dubai’s real estate, using panel data analysis.

This paper aims to unravel the relationship between market-driven impacts of climate change and firms’ deployment of renewable energy (RE) innovation. The purpose is to understand how market-related forces, influenced by uncertainty, shape firms’ behaviour in response to climate change challenges.

Drawing on the behavioural theory of the firm (BTOF), the paper develops a conceptual model to decode the relationship between each category of market-driven impacts and the resulting RE innovation within firms. The model takes into account the role of uncertainty and differentiates between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and domestic firms.

The analysis reveals five key sources of market-driven impacts: investor sentiment, media coverage, competitors’ adoption of ISO 14001, customer satisfaction and shareholder activism. These forces influence the adoption of RE innovation differently across firms, depending on the level of uncertainty and the discrepancy between environmental performance and aspiration level.

This paper contributes to the literature in four ways. Firstly, it emphasises the importance of uncertainty associated with market-driven impacts, which stimulates different responses from firms. Secondly, it fills a research gap by focusing on the proactivity of firms in adopting RE innovation, rather than just operational strategies to curb emissions. Thirdly, the paper extends the BTOF by incorporating the concept of uncertainty in explaining firm behaviour. Finally, it provides insights into the green strategies of MNEs in the face of climate change, offering a comprehensive model that differentiates MNEs from domestic firms.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between higher educational institution bullying policies and the subsequent cultural impact to determine the effectiveness of policy in ameliorating bullying within the university culture.

This study consisted of two separate but related case studies at two universities in different countries, focussing on university staff. The field work gathered data about existing anti-bullying policy, the extent to which it was part of the organisational culture for staff, and the levels of staff bullying experienced or seen within the organisation. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected.

The study found that despite one university having significant policy and the other having very little policy, the knowledge of policy in both universities was and subsequent experience of bullying for staff were very similar.

The findings indicate that anti-bullying policy alone appears to have a limited impact on organisational behaviour. This suggests that the entrenched and historical master/servant relations of academia enable such practices to continue. Policy implementation is insufficient and training and development to generate more inclusive, people-focussed management cultures is necessary to ameliorate bullying behaviour.

The paper draws on the experiences, critique and suggestions of the study participants to prepare a possible agenda for cultural change that human resource (HR) managers could develop in association with academic and professional managers within their institution.

The findings suggest that in any social setting or organisational structure where strong historical patterns of master/servant endure, the opportunity for bullying behaviours to grow and flourish is fertile and that policy statements alone may have little impact on curtailing such behaviour.

This study makes two contributions to existing knowledge. First, it provides evidence that anti-bullying policy is alone unlikely to have an effective impact on instances of bullying within the culture. Second, the case study contrast displays that unacceptable levels of bullying exist in two very different institutions in two very different cultures. Whilst one country has a war-torn history and the other exists in splendid isolation, the same patterns persist, indicating that universities have structured cultural issues that are difficult to change.

This article analyzes the impact of monetary policy on income inequality across 16 advanced economies. The author investigates three key points: (1) the relationship between domestic monetary policy and domestic income inequality, (2) the spillover effect of USA monetary policy (including quantitative easing) on international inequality and (3) the quantitative influence of the monetary policies of both the USA and the Eurozone on the formation of domestic income inequalities.

The author employed the Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model, which uses Vector Autoregressive with Exogenous Variables (VARXs) models of each economy to build an integrated system that enables us to evaluate individual responses to global shocks.

The author's analysis reveals that (1) contractionary monetary policy exacerbates domestic inequality and (2) USA monetary policy, including quantitative easing, affects international inequality. Furthermore, the author's variance decomposition analysis highlights that USA monetary policy is especially influential on income inequality in Norway and Sweden. Additionally, the cointegrating analysis confirms that monetary policy's impact on inequality persists in the long term.

Most of the studies focused on investigating domestic economies as closed economies. However, the author's approach differs in that the author uses the GVAR, which treats all economies as open. This allows us to incorporate the world economy into the domestic dynamics and connect the economies using bilateral trade. Another advantage of the GVAR is that it captures spillover effects by modeling each economy and constructing the international economy.

This paper aims to examine the impacts of macroprudential policy on the shadow economy worldwide.

We compile a panel dataset covering 125 countries from 1990 to 2018. This paper mitigates potential endogeneity issues via two-stage least squares and the two-step generalized method of moments (GMM).

The robust results show that the overall tightening of macroprudential policies exerts an expansion impact on the shadow economy. Further examination of the 16 individual macroprudential policy instruments finds that loan restrictions, countercyclical buffers, surcharges for systemically important financial institutions and capital conservation buffers have positive and statistically significant effect on the shadow economy. This relationship is only present during tightening episodes of macroprudential policy as loosening episodes do not exhibit any significant impact. Finally, this paper documents the nonlinear effects of macroprudential policy.

The results suggest that the supervisory authorities may need to consider another parameter, which is the development of the shadow economy, when devising the optimal macroprudential policy responses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is likely the first to empirically document the impact of macroprudential policy on the shadow economy. It contributes to the growing literature on the potential side effects of macroprudential policy on the macro-economy.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of China’s Green Credit Guidelines (GCG) policy on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores of restricted enterprises and examine firm’s speculative behavior in response to the policy.

This paper views the GCG policy proposed in 2012 as a quasinatural experiment and uses difference-in-differences (DID) model to evaluate its influence on the ESG scores of Chinese nonfinancial A-share listed enterprises from 2007 to 2019. Robustness tests include the propensity score matching (PSM)–DID method and permutation tests.

The GCG policy significantly increases the ESG scores of restricted enterprises, particularly enhancing environmental (E) performance. However, it only improves the social (S) and governance (G) performance of firms heavily reliant on bank credit, indicating speculative behavior by enterprises. Increased Government attention, a higher proportion of female executives and more developed local green finance reduce speculative behavior, while executives with financial backgrounds promote it.

Governments should mandate standardized ESG reporting and monitor restricted enterprises, banks should monitor speculative behavior and firms should integrate ESG into their long-term strategies to support sustainable development.

The results provide evidence of the effectiveness of implementing the GCG policy in China and offer guidance for better promoting green credit policy in developing countries, contributing to the transition toward a more sustainable future.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore if the GCG policy’s asymmetric effects on ESG components are due to enterprise speculative behavior and examines the factors influencing this behavior, providing insights for regulators to better implement the GCG policy to promote sustainable development.