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This research explores the spillovers and portfolio implications for green bonds and environmental, social and governance (ESG) assets in the context of the rapidly expanding trend in green finance investments and the need for a green recovery in the post-COVID-19 era.

This study utilizes Diebold and Yilmaz’s (2014) spillover method and portfolio strategies (hedge ratio, optimal weights and hedging effectiveness) for the data starting from February 29, 2012, to March 14, 2022.

The study’s findings reveal that the lower volatility spillover is evidenced between the green bonds and ESG stocks during tranquil and turbulent periods (e.g. COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine War). Furthermore, hedging costs are lower both in normal times and during economic slumps. Investing the bulk of the funds in green bonds makes it possible to achieve maximum hedging effectiveness between the S&P green bond (GB) and the S&P 500 ESG.

Both investors and policymakers may use these findings to make wise investment and policy choices to achieve post-COVID environmental sustainability.

Unlike previous research, this is the first to explore the interconnectedness among the major global and country-specific green bonds and ESG assets. The major findings of this study about the lower volatility spillovers and hedging costs between green bonds and ESG assets during the tranquil and turbulent periods may contribute to the post-COVID investment portfolio for environmental sustainability.

In recent years, firms tend to direct their attention in communicating their environmental actions with their stakeholders. However, the level of environmental disclosers varies significantly among firms. This paper aims to explain the variation in environmental disclosure of firms based on their ownership type, namely – state ownership and institutional ownership. The study further aims to understand whether and how the relationship between ownership structure and environmental disclosure changes regarding countries’ development levels.

This paper uses a sample of 27,847 firm-year observations from 72 countries/economic districts between the years 2002 and 2017 and regression analysis to test how the relationship between different ownership structures and environmental disclosure and whether this relation is conditional on countries’ development levels.

This study finds that firms with higher state ownership have higher environmental disclosures and higher institutional ownership has a negative effect on environmental disclosures. Furthermore, this paper also documents that firms with higher state ownership and operating in developed countries have incrementally higher environmental disclosure, relative to firms operating in developing countries.

The study has limitations that would provide possible starting points for further research. The first limitation is related to the environmental disclosure measure, which reflects the level of environmental disclosure of firms based on their disclosure information given in the Thomson Reuters, Asset4 database. A more refined measure can be constructed using hand-collected data based on linguistic analysis, which may reflect not only the level of the disclosure but also the quality of the environmental disclosure. The second limitation is the limited focus of the study toward state and institutional shareholding. Therefore, future research may consider examining the different types of ownership such as family ownership.

The findings of the study may help policymakers and regulators to consider the potential impact of various ownership types on environmental disclosures. Also, given the impact of countries’ development levels, regulators should consider that a one-size-fits-all is not applicable in environmental disclosures. Therefore, each country should consider the institutional dynamics of their operating environment to set appropriate regulations to enhance environmental disclosures.

From a social perspective, the findings indicate that firms’ stakeholder engagement via environmental disclosures depends on the type of the controlling shareholders.

This study contributes to the literature by developing a new construct for environmental disclosure based on Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environmental Investments and Spill Impact Reduction performance measures. Further, grounding on legitimacy and stakeholder theories, this study shows the influence of ownership type on environmental disclosures and how this effect changes in accordance with the countries’ development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of characteristics of the institutional environment on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This is a quantitative and descriptive research. The dependent variables used were environmental dimension (ED) and social dimension (SD) that together compose the corporate social performance (CSP). The independent variables that will be used are the characteristics of the institutional environments of Brazil and the UK. Thus, for this end, variables of the national business system of both countries will be used: corruption transparency, access to credit by countries, quality of the education system and labor relations. After their collection, the data were submitted to descriptive and inferential statistics and hierarchical regression.

Data show that UK companies make more disclosure in CSR than Brazilian companies. Through linear regression, it can be seen that the institutional environment affects disclosure in CSR. In the UK, a country with better educational, labor, political and financial indicators than Brazil, it presented better CSR practices. The findings reveal that the better an institutional environment, the more firms act in CSR. The findings of the research confirm the premise of institutional theory: different institutional fields can modify business performance.

The study analyzed only the disclosure practices of companies in the public sector. Thus, the results should be carefully analyzed, without generalizations for all industry sectors. Therefore, it is suggested that future research looks at other industry sectors as well as other institutional contexts, i.e. other countries.

Multinational companies may have different CSR practices according to the institutional environment in which they operate. For example, companies in developed countries, such as the UK, have greater stakeholder pressure. Given this, managers must adapt their environmental strategies according to the institutional environment in which they operate.

This research contributes to CSR studies in various institutional contexts. There is a consensus in the literature that institutional environments affect firms' CSR practices. However, few empirical studies show results between the national business system and CSR. Thus, the present study intends to fill this research gap.

Based on the service eco-systems perspective, this paper evaluates the strategies and actions adopted by the Government of Pakistan to handle the COVID-19 crisis with the involvement of multiple actors including public, private, third-sector organizations and civil society.

The paper is based on an in-depth analysis of secondary sources including research articles, policy documents, policy briefs, governmental reports, third party evaluations/reports and media publications.

A multi-stakeholder approach was evident during the pandemic with an effort to better manage the crisis which has exerted immense social, cultural, economic and political impacts on the lives of the citizens. Collaborative efforts among stakeholders (government, private and third sector) were witnessed, resulting in a coherent response. The successful management of COVID-19 in Pakistan is attributed to multiple factors including the formation of a specialized public organization which effectively and proactively took data-driven informed decisions and aggregated the efforts of the federal and provincial governments for a timely response.

This paper gives insights for policymakers to create a sustainable post-pandemic socio-economic environment by building resilient structures across the government while promoting cooperation and collaboration. It suggests strategies for policymakers responsible for providing sustainable societal solutions to combat the social, economic and administrative challenges under the pandemic. As Pakistan has managed and contained the pandemic in a relatively efficient way, it is hoped that this paper can provide a learning experience for other countries with similar national contexts.

Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of environmental concern in the relationship of green purchase awareness and purchasing behavior of fast food consumers keeping in view the theory of planned behavior.

A quantitative, cross-sectional design is used by collecting primary responses through a validated questionnaire. In all, 1,008 male and female buyers of fast food were sampled. Structural equation modeling is applied.

The results revealed that green purchase awareness has a positive relationship with green purchase behavior, and environmental concern has no mediation in the relationship. Upon having awareness, the respondents adopted green or pro-environmental behavior, but at the same time, they were found having least concern for the protection of environment.

This is a cross-sectional study with questionnaire. Multiple sources of data collection results in weakening self-reporting bias.

Implications count toward individuals, enterprises and society at general.

The study highlights the issue of not having concern for the protection of the environment even after having green purchase awareness. This is the first time the environmental concern is examined as a mediator in the selected relationship. The contradictory results of having no environmental concern differentiate this study from others.

The purpose of this study is to examine the various factors that influence the productivity (PR) of employees who worked remotely in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study adopts a quantitative approach to analyze data collected online from 110 respondents using the snowball sampling technique during the pandemic. The analysis of the data is conducted using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique of Smart PLS (Partial least squares) to evaluate the direct and moderating variables.

The results indicate that direct variables such as workload, job satisfaction, work–life balance and social support have a significant positive impact on employee PR in the UAE. However, the analysis of the moderating variable indicates that job level is not a significant moderator of the above relationships. The findings, generally, provide support for social exchange theory.

The findings of this study will help businesses of various domains in a variety of industries in understanding the core factors that should be considered to enhance the overall PR of their employees while working from home. Businesses can achieve their organizational goals by ensuring steady growth even during uncertain times.

This paper answers the question of whether remote working affects employee PR during the pandemic in an emerging market, namely the UAE. The current study contributes to the existing literature by combining the variables investigated in previous studies into a single study and by considering job level as a moderator variable.

The aim of this research is to understand how government incentives (financial and non-financial) influence the relationship between green innovation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in SMEs.

To contribute to the literature, this research uses empirical evidence of 204 Pakistani small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and tests the moderating role of government support between green innovation and SDGs.

The findings indicate that green innovation has a significant influence on SDGs, community development and environmental activities. The government support significantly strengthens the relationship between green innovation and environmental practices, while it does not moderate the path between green innovation and community development.

The research recommends SMEs focus on the adoption of green innovation and green technology to protect the environment and facilitate the community. Moreover, the research advises the government to assist SMEs financially and nonfinancially, so they will in turn help in the attainment of SDGs.

This research is the first attempt to assess the importance of green innovation in SDGs with a moderating role of government incentives in emerging SMEs. It provides several useful implications for policymaking.

This paper aims to study the interlinkages between cryptocurrency and the stock market by characterizing their connectedness and the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on their relations.

The author employs a quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) to identify the connectedness of nine indicators from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021, in an effort to examine the relationships between cryptocurrency and stock markets.

The results demonstrate that the pandemic shocks appear to have influences on the system-wide dynamic connectedness. Dynamic net total directional connectedness implies that Bitcoin (BTC) is a net short-duration shock transmitter during the sample. BTC is a long-duration net receiver of shocks during the 2018–2020 period and turns into a long-duration net transmitter of shocks in late 2021. Ethereum is a net shock transmitter in both durations. Binance turns into a net short-duration shock transmitter during the COVID-19 outbreak before receiving net shocks in 2021. The stock market in different areas plays various roles in the short run and long run. During the COVID-19 pandemic shock, pairwise connectedness reveals that cryptocurrencies can explain the volatility of the stock markets with the most severe impact at the beginning of 2020.

Insightful knowledge about key antecedents of contagion among these markets also help policymakers design adequate policies to reduce these markets' vulnerabilities and minimize the spread of risk or uncertainty across these markets.

The author is the first to investigate the interlinkages between the cryptocurrency and the stock market and assess the influences of uncertain events like the COVID-19 health crisis on the dynamic interlinkages between these two markets.

本學術論文擬透過找出加密貨幣與股票市場兩者相互關聯之特徵,來探討這個聯繫;文章亦擬探究2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行對這相互關聯的影響。

作者以分量向量自我迴歸法、來找出2018年1月1日至2021年12月31日期間九個指標的關聯,藉此探討加密貨幣與股票市場之間的關係。

研究結果顯示,全球大流行的驚愕,似對全系統動態關聯產生了影響。動態總淨值定向關聯暗示了就我們的樣本而言,比特幣是一個純短期衝擊發送器。比特幣在2018年至 2020年期間是一個衝擊的長期純接收器,並進而於2021年年底成為一個衝擊的長期純發送器。以太坊則為短期以及長期之純衝擊發送器。幣安在2019冠狀病毒病爆發期間,在2021年接收純衝擊前、成為一個純短期衝擊發送器。位於不同地區的股票市場,無論在短期抑或長期而言均扮演各種不同的角色。在2019冠狀病毒病全球大流行的驚愕期間,成對的關聯顯示了加密貨幣可以以2020年年初最嚴重的影響去解釋和說明股票市場的波動。

研究結果使我們能深入認識有關的市場之間不同情緒和看法的蔓延所帶來的影響的主要先例,這些知識、亦能幫助決策者制定適當的政策,以減少有關的市場的弱點,並把這些市場間的風險和不確定性的散播減到最低。

作者是首位研究加密貨幣與股票市場之間的相互關聯的學者,亦是首位學者、去評估像2019冠狀病毒病健康危機的不確定事件,會如何影響有關的兩個市場之間的動態相互關聯。