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This study aims to examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on banks’ capital, value and risk by investigating its impact on capital inflows and asset quality. The authors aim to investigate the value-protective characteristics of socially responsible performance.

This study uses a two-stage least squares approach with instrumental variables, with bank and year fixed effects to address concerns regarding endogeneity, specifically reverse causality and unobservable factors.

The results confirm a positive association of CSR with capital adequacy, including higher quality Tier 1 Capital. The authors find strong evidence that banks with higher CSR scores are associated with greater bank value and lower risk. The extended analyses find that the improvement in capital is from annual growth in capital and lower risky assets.

The research advances the field by providing new empirical evidence of a positive association between CSR and capital, including high-quality Tier 1 Capital. This study complements the prior research by simultaneously examining the dynamic links between CSR and capital, bank risk and bank value. The findings are consistent with the view that there is a dynamic link in which CSR affects the operations of banks.

This paper aims to investigate the nonlinear effects of bank regulation stringency on bank lending in 23 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 1997–2017.

This study employs the dynamic panel threshold regression (PTR) model, which addresses endogeneity and heterogeneity problems within a nonlinear framework. It also uses indices of entry barriers, mixing of banking and commerce restrictions, activity restrictions and capital regulatory requirements from the updated databases of the World Bank's Bank Regulation and Supervision Surveys as measures of bank regulation.

The linearity test results support the existence of nonlinear effects in the relationship between bank lending and entry barriers or capital regulations in the selected SSA economies. The dynamic PTR estimation results reveal that bank lending responds positively when the stringency of entry barriers is below the threshold of 62.8%. However, once the stringency of entry barriers exceeds that threshold level, bank credit reacts negatively and significantly. By contrast, changes in capital regulation stringency do not affect bank lending, either below or above the obtained threshold value of 76.5%.

These results can help policymakers design bank regulatory measures that will promote the resilience and safety of the banking system but at the same time not bring unintended effects to bank lending.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the nonlinear effects of bank regulatory measures on bank lending using the dynamic PTR model and SSA context.

The primary objective of this study aims to intensively explore the environment of Indonesian regulations and laws related to the Islamic banking system and micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) and unveil the restrictive laws and regulatory flaws that potentially hinder the Islamic banking institution and MSME industry in achieving financial inclusion and promoting sustainable growth.

This paper implements a qualitative method by implementing a multi-case study research strategy, both from the Islamic banking institutions and the MSME industries. The data were gathered primarily through an interview approach by adopting purposive uncontrolled quota sampling.

The findings of this paper reveal two essential issues: First, the regulatory imbalances and restrictions could demotivate and hinder the efforts of Islamic banks in providing access to finance for the MSME segment, hence, encumbering the achievement of the financial inclusion agenda from the Islamic banking industry. Second, the flaws in MSME registration and taxation might discourage the formal MSMEs from extending their business license and prevent the informal MSME units from registering their business. This issue would potentially lower their chance of accessing external financing from the formal financial institutions and participating in supportive government programmes due to the absence of proper legality.

Since this paper only observed six Islamic banks and 22 MSME units in urban and rural locations in Indonesia using a case study approach, the empirical findings and case discussions were limited to those respective Islamic banks and MSME participants.

By referring to the recommendations as presented in this paper, two critical policy implications could be expected from adopting the proposed recommendations, among others: By addressing the issues of the regulatory imbalance associated with the Islamic banking industry and introduce the deregulatory policies on profit and loss sharing (PLS) scheme implementation, this approach will motivate the Islamic banking industry in serving the MSME sector better and provide greater access to financial services, particularly in using the PLS financing schemes. By resolving the problems on MSME registration and taxation, this strategy will enhance the sustainability of the formal MSMEs’ operation and encourage the informal ones to register, hence, improving their inclusion into the formal financing services and government assistance programmes.

The present study attempts to address the literature shortcomings and helps to fill the gaps – both theoretical and empirical – by incorporating the multi-case study among Indonesian Islamic banks and MSMEs to extensively explore the Indonesia regulatory environment pertaining to the Islamic banking system (supply-side) and MSMEs (demand-side), and thoroughly investigates and reveals the restrictive laws and regulatory flaws that could potentially hinder the Islamic banking institutions and MSME industries in attaining financial inclusion and contributing to sustainable development.

The Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol has been one of the most contentious aspects of the EU-UK post-Brexit trade relationship. By requiring the UK to comply with EU customs and internal market rules in relation to Northern Ireland (NI), the Protocol has created a hybrid trade regime where NI is subject to multiple, overlapping and often conflicting rules. This paper aims to examine one area in which this hybridity manifests itself. It focusses on the interplay between the Protocol and post-Brexit UK trade agreements. It examines potential areas of conflict between Protocol obligations and obligations derived from UK trade agreements. In doing so, it sheds light on the extent to which compliance with the Protocol may undermine NI’s ability to export and import goods under the preferential terms negotiated under UK trade agreements. It further discusses the consequences of these incompatibilities between the Protocol and these agreements for NI and, more widely, the functioning of the UK internal market as whole.

Doctrinal legal research

The paper examines potential areas of conflict between Protocol obligations and obligations derived from UK trade agreements. In doing so, it sheds light on the extent to which compliance with the Protocol may undermine NI’s ability to export and import goods under the preferential terms negotiated under UK trade agreements. It further discusses the consequences of these incompatibilities between the Protocol and these agreements for NI and, more widely, the functioning of the UK internal market as whole.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first paper carrying out a comprehensive legal analysis of the interaction and potential conflicts between the Protocol on Ireland-Northern Ireland and the UK’s post Brexit trade agreements.

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between banks' ownership structure and their risk-taking behavior as well as the impact of banking regulation on banks' approach to taking risk, after the 2008 financial crisis.

The empirical analysis considers a sample of listed banks from European Union (EU) countries, over the period of 2011–2016 and uses the generalized least squared (GLS) random effect (RE) method, following Baltagi and Wu (1999) and Pathan (2009).

The authors find that the structure of the board of directors can influence bank risk behavior but not the ownership concentration. No significant relation was found between the influence of the regulatory environment and bank risk, i.e., stricter regulation has no effect on risk taking by banks.

The paper contributes to the literature in risk measures and banks' corporate governance. It also considers the impact of regulatory framework on banks' risk-taking behavior. The aim of this empirical analysis was to examine in greater detail these subjects and the dynamics between them after the significant structural changes in the macroeconomic environment and in the financial system, particularly with regards the regulatory and supervisory framework following the 2008 financial crisis, using data from European Union countries.

This study aims to examine the impact of market competition, and capital regulation on the cost of financial intermediation of banks of the Bangladesh banking industry.

This study has used a balanced panel dataset comprised of 340 firm-year observations for 34 commercial banks in the Bangladesh banking industry from 2011 to 2020. The Prais Winsten panel estimator has been used to assess the impact of market competition and capital regulation on the cost of financial intermediation of banks.

Based on the regression results, this study has documented that greater market competition results in a lower cost of financial intermediation for banks. Similarly, an increase in the regulatory capital of banks increases the cost of financial intermediation of banks. The main findings of this study are found robust by using alternative proxies for the cost of financial intermediation, market competition and capital regulation. The regression results also suggest that private commercial banks tend to have a higher cost of financial intermediation than state-owned commercial banks.

The regulatory reforms should aim to foster sustainable and optimal market competition for the Bangladesh banking industry to regulate the market power of banks to reduce the cost of financial intermediation. The regulatory authority of Bangladesh should find the optimal policy measures for implementing the capital regulation in the banking industry which would reduce the cost of financial intermediation margin of banks.

Unlike previous studies which have used structural market competition measures, this study has used non-structural market competition measures to assess the relationship between market competition and cost of financial intermediation in the Bangladesh banking industry.

Unlike the traditional growth model of emerging markets after economic liberalization, India’s inward foreign direct investment (FDI) surged paralleling its strong economic growth in the 2000s, despite the failure to establish a strong secondary sector. This creates an opportunity to deepen the conceptual and contextual understanding of the pivotal mechanisms that impel foreign multinational enterprises to invest into India and provides a natural setting to better understand the nature of its institutional, political and economic environment.

The authors develop a theory contextualized to Indian inward FDI patterns for the 2000–2017 period. The theoretical framework expands upon received investment motives, with explicit consideration given to the idiosyncrasies of developments in India’s recent macro and socioeconomic environment. The authors test the hypotheses using panel data from 134 countries that invested in India, using a Hausman–Taylor estimation.

The authors find that India’s transition toward a knowledge economy attracts asset augmenting rather than asset exploiting FDI. Investors appear to target long-term investments by gaining access to India’s digital capabilities, R&D, and growing talent base with a high degree of specialization within analytics, biotechnology, engineering, or pharmaceuticals. Foreign investors do not seem to be notably deterred by infrastructural challenges nor by legal and regulatory restrictions.

By providing a new perspective on India’s atheoretical economic development and FDI environment, this study offers a distinct point of comparison with regard to established hypotheses within the extant literature on FDI into emerging markets. Rethinking contemporary investment motive theory by introducing an adapted conceptual framework provides further opportunity to inform the understanding of firm strategies in similar environments.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which these reforms address the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s previous investment framework. Long viewed as a hostile environment in which to do business, the Saudi Government has enacted a broad sweep of measures aimed at restoring investor confidence in central aspects of the country’s evolving private law framework.

This paper offers a timely assessment of the raft of foreign investment reforms, both legislative and regulatory, that have been introduced in Saudi Arabia over the last decade.

The paper will proceed by outlining the perceived failings of the old investment regime before going on to reforms.

It will consider the remaining obstacles to the flow of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia in the context of the dual forces that have historically defined the Kingdom’s ambivalent investment law regime.

This study reviews and discusses the accounting literature that analyzes the role of auditors and enforcers in the context of fraud.

This literature review includes both qualitative and quantitative studies, based on the idea that the findings from different research paradigms can shed light on the complex interactions between different financial reporting controls. The authors use a mixed-methods research synthesis and select 64 accounting journal articles to analyze the main proxies for fraud, the stages of the fraud process under investigation and the roles played by auditors and enforcers.

The study highlights heterogeneity with respect to the terms and concepts used to capture the fraud phenomenon, a fragmentation in terms of the measures used in quantitative studies and a low level of detail in the fraud analysis. The review also shows a limited number of case studies and a lack of focus on the interaction and interplay between enforcers and auditors.

This study outlines directions for future accounting research on fraud.

The analysis underscores the need for the academic community, policymakers and practitioners to work together to prevent the destructive economic and social consequences of fraud in an increasingly complex and interconnected environment.

This study differs from previous literature reviews that focus on a single monitoring mechanism or deal with fraud in a broadly manner by discussing how the accounting literature addresses the roles and the complex interplay between enforcers and auditors in the context of accounting fraud.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hospitalization and hospital mortality of the patients with gallstone disease and chronic liver diseases (CLD) in the worst pandemic period in Ukraine.

A retrospective comparative analysis of annual reports data of all economy subjects, which conducted economic activity in medical practice for 2019 and 2021. Data was accepted from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (SSSU).

The total hospitalization rates for diffuse liver disease and cholelithiasis significantly decreased during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine, compared to the values of 2019. At the same time, the rates of in-hospital mortality for these diseases have significantly grown. Also, various proportions of similar trends were described in other countries during the first wave of the pandemic.

This paper highlights the fact that regulatory restrictions and the fear of the population of referring to healthcare facilities considering the high risk of getting an infection had significant disruption to medical care for patients with gallstone disease and CLD. Improving the management of medical resources and strengthening all kinds of institutions in the healthcare system must be thought about if similar challenges appear in the future.