Int. J. Financial Stud., Volume 9, Issue 3 (September 2021) – 20 articles

During the global financial crisis (GFC), regulators and policymakers turned to deposit insurers, along with monetary and fiscal measures, to help restore market confidence and promote financial stability. These events have focused attention on the role of deposit insurers and their role in the banking system. Recent literature reveals that during the GFC, deposit insurance maintained banking stability and successfully prevented customers doing ‘runs’ on the banks. The objective of this paper is to examine the deposit insurance system’s coverage limits and the impact on banking stability, in the context of a jurisdiction’s economic and institutional environment. Our model examines 61 jurisdictions in Asia and Europe with explicit deposit insurance systems, covering the pre- and post-GFC period between 2004 and 2014. We also examine subsets to investigate the effects of the region by comparing Asia and Europe, as well as a subset using the date of establishment of the deposit insurance system to understand if maturity matters. The results indicate that deposit insurance systems, and specifically deposit insurance coverage levels, have both positive and negative effects on banking stability. We find significant associations with certain economic and institutional factors; however, there are differences between the models we ran. These can be ascribed to regional factors and the date of when a deposit insurance system was established. Full article

In this paper, we approached the concept of real estate bubble, analyzing the risk its bursting could generate for the Chilean financial market. Specifically, we analyzed the relationship between real housing prices, the economic activity index, and mortgage interest rates denominated in inflation-linked units from 1994 to 2020. The analysis was based on a second order Markov switching model with the predetermined variables mentioned later, whose parameters were obtained through the expectation–maximization algorithm. Then, we built a probability index as early warning indicator for potential imbalances in the real estate price that could put financial market stability at risk. The indicator is important to evaluate economic policy calibrations in time. A main finding was that the real housing price had a non-linear relationship with economic activity and the mortgage interest rate. Therefore, the evolution of the real estate price has been consistent with fundamental macroeconomic variables, even under a high growth regime, with increases above 12% per year. About 92% of housing price variability derived from changing macrofinancial conditions, suggesting a low margin of speculative behavior. Full article

A fundamental role of financial reporting is to provide information useful in forecasting future cash flows. Applying up-to-date time series modelling techniques, this study provides direct evidence on the usefulness of quarterly data in predicting future operating cash flows. Moreover, we show that the predictive gain from using quarterly data is larger for asset-heavy industries and industries with higher levels of earnings smoothness. This study contributes to the accounting literature by examining the usefulness of quarterly financial statements in predicting the realization of future cash flows. Our results help fill the gap in knowledge on quarterly financial statements and provide new insights on why the frequency of financial reporting matters. In addition, our findings have important policy implications for the ongoing debate over interim reporting requirements in multiple jurisdictions around the world. Full article

We investigate the association between dividend policy and government shareholding, using Malaysian data. We hypothesize a positive association. We contribute to the literature about dividend policy. Unique features of our study include adaptations to the Malaysian institutional setting, with respect to usage of dividend relevance theory, research methodology, and data collection. The methodology entails two-stage least squares regressions. Dividend payout and dividend yield are the dependent variables in tests of the research hypothesis. The independent variable of interest measures ownership by government-related institutional investors. The sample comprises 1190 company-years, over the investigation period 2006–2013. The results support our hypothesis. The evidence suggests that this support principally emanates from companies with low-quality corporate governance. Full article

Existing global ESG models are limited in terms of applicability and predictability, especially in countries with an unstable environment. On the other hand, utilizing internally made or privately sourced ESG models have caused issues relating to generalizability, comparability, and continuity. In our research, we present an ESG framework that is specific to South Korea, which has both global and country-specific factors in all three categories. The AHP model is used to determine how the three categories’ materiality would be viewed by institutional investors as well as how country-specific factors rank against global factors. The results of this study show that institutional investors place more importance on environmental and governance factors compared to social factors. Factors including shareholders’ rights, pollution and waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and risk and opportunity management are found to have greater influences on investors’ investment decisions. In addition, it was confirmed that both of the country-specific variables for South Korea, partnership with subcontractor and CEO reputation, have a significant influence on investment decisions. By having the ESG model validated by institutional investors, who are the main users of ESG disclosures of corporations, our methodology of presenting a country-specific model can be benchmarked by studies on other emerging markets with a variety of country-level specificities. Full article

Purpose: This article analyzes the influence of familiarity bias on respondents’ decision-making process, using results from online experiments. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 255 research participants from post-Soviet countries completed 510 online tests that were presented in the form of investment games. In the games, the respondents were allowed to sell, buy, or hold two types of asset portfolios: familiar and unfamiliar assets. Findings: Holders of portfolios with familiar assets were 1.34 times more likely to be persistent in selling winners and holding losers and 1.10 times more likely to be persistent in buying fallen assets than holders of unfamiliar portfolios. Moreover, respondents who managed familiar assets tended to generate terminal result distributions with a kurtosis that was 27.8% higher than the distributions of those managing unfamiliar assets. Originality: Several academic studies have examined familiarity bias, the disposition effect, the positive feedback trading of individual investors, and risk-seeking trading; however, they investigated these topics separately. In the current study, we therefore created an online experiment to identify new aspects of investor behavior. Full article

The literature shows little evidence of the effects of business models upon the volatility of banks in developing and fast-growing economies. Hence, this study examines the effects of business model choice on the stability of banks in ASEAN countries. Using GMM and other robust econometric methods on the sample of 99 joint stock commercial banks, we find significant and negative impacts of a diversification model in which banks shift toward non-interest and fees-based activities. We also find that the impacts are different between two groups of countries. For Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, the diversification entails negative impacts on stability while demonstrating positive impacts for Thailand and Malaysia. Based on these findings, we draw policy implications for more sustainable development in the ASEAN banking business. Full article

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a topic which has recently been attracting an increasing amount of attention with respect to corporate operations, and shareholder proposals on CSR are also one of the main types of proposals at firms’ annual shareholder meetings. However, even though the frequency of CSR proposals at annual meetings is comparable to other types of shareholder proposals, the approval rate of CSR proposals is significantly lower than that of other types of proposals, meaning that most CSR proposals are not recommended by the annual meeting to the board of directors for further approval. Motivated by this stylized fact, this study investigates the value of the submission of CSR shareholder proposals. Using a regression discontinuity design with shareholder proposal data of US public companies between 2006 and 2019, this study examines the importance of shareholders’ interest in CSR for firm valuation. Interestingly, while the CSR proposals themselves are typically not approved, the submission of CSR proposals by shareholders at annual meetings matters for the value impact of other types of shareholder proposals. More specifically, the causal effect of approving a corporate governance proposal on shareholder value is significantly positive only if the corporate governance proposal is voted together with a CSR proposal at the same meeting, i.e., the presence of CSR proposals is important for firm value through its interrelations with corporate governance proposals. This shows that the submission of CSR shareholder proposals has significant value implications, even if the CSR proposals themselves are not approved at annual meetings. Full article

The expansion of fintech credit around the world is challenging the global banking system. This study investigates the interrelationships between the development of fintech credit and the efficiency of banking systems in 80 countries from 2013 to 2017. The findings indicate a two-way relationship between them. More specifically, a negative relationship between bank efficiency and fintech credit implies that fintech credit is more developed in countries with less efficient banking systems. Meanwhile, a positive impact of fintech credit on the efficiency of banking systems suggests that fintech credit may serve as a wake-up call to the banking system. Therefore, fintech credit should be encouraged by the authorities around the world. Full article

This study investigated the impact of the introduction of the VN30-Index futures contract on the daily returns anomaly for the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE). Daily returns of the VN30-Index for the period 6 February 2012 through 31 December 2019 are used in this study to ascertain the new VN30-Index futures contract influence on the day-of-the-week anomaly observed in the HOSE. To test this effect, ordinary least square (OLS), generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity [GARCH (1,1)] and exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity [EGARCH (1,1)] regression models were employed. The empirical results obtained from the models support the presence of the day-of-the-week effect for the HOSE during the study period. Specifically, a negative effect was observed for Monday. However, the analysis revealed that the day-of-the-week effect was only present in stock returns for the pre-index futures period, not for the post-index futures period. These findings suggest that the introduction of the VN30-Index futures contract had a significant impact on the daily returns anomaly in Vietnam’s HOSE, providing evidence that the introduction of the index futures contract facilitated market efficiency. Full article

As an essential channel to obtain external resources and information, corporate networks have played a key role in enhancing the competitive advantage of firms, especially during the period where most of the high-technology firms in China started to directly seek means other than import technology to boost their competitive advantages. However, there was still ambiguity concerning how exactly corporate networks would affect comparative advantage. This study sought to expose the internal mechanisms among two aspects of corporate networks, namely, the network strength and the network centrality, and competitive advantage. We also examined the mediating effects of the dynamic capabilities and the ambidextrous combination. Managers of 384 high technology enterprises in China were interviewed via telephone calls during the period of January to June 2020. The data were analyzed by utilizing the structural equation method, and the results show that both dynamic capacities and the ambidextrous combination significantly mediate the relationship between corporate networks and firms’ comparative advantage, where the two mediators also had a significant relationship with each other. Moreover, the multigroup analysis also unveiled that the corporate networks had a greater impact on competitive advantage and the ambidextrous combination in the manufacturing sector, while small-sized enterprises and service enterprises would benefit more than others from the improvement in the dynamic capabilities and ambidextrous combination. Our findings fill the gap in the literature and provide useful information to firms in China on how to allocate internal and external resources to enhance their competitive advantages. Full article

This study explains the differences and variances in the efficiency scores of the Vietnamese banking sector retrieved from 27 studies published in refereed academic journals under the framework of meta-regression analysis. These scores are mainly based on frontier efficiency measurements, which essentially are Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) for Vietnamese banks over the period of 2007–2019. The meta-regression is estimated by using truncated regression to obtain bias-corrected scores. Our findings suggest that only the year of publication is positively correlated with efficiency, whilst the opposite is true for the data type, and sample size. Full article

Economic policy uncertainty and particularly COVID-19 has stimulated the need to investigate alternative avenues for policy risk management. In this context, this study examines the dynamic association among economic policy uncertainty, green bonds, clean energy stocks, and global rare earth elements. A dynamic conditional correlation-multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (DCC-MGARCH) model was used to gauge the time-varying co-movements among these indices. The analysis finds that green bonds act more as a hedge than a safe haven against economic policy uncertainty (EPU). In the case of diversification, green bonds work as diversifiers with clean energy stocks and rare earth elements during COVID-19 and in the whole sample period. Additionally, clean energy stocks and rare earth elements show safe haven properties against EPUs. This study contributes to the hedging and safe haven literature with some new insight considering the role of green bonds and clean energy stocks. Additionally, the outcomes of the research contribute toward the literature of portfolio diversification theory. These findings pave the way for not only US investors to hedge long-term economic policy risk by investing in green bonds, but also for China and the UK, as these financial assets (green bonds, clean energy stocks, and rare earth metals) and EPU are long-term financial and economic variables. Full article

In banking and finance, credit risk is among the important topics because the process of issuing a loan requires a lot of attention to assessing the possibilities of getting the loaned money back. At the same time in emerging markets, the underbanked individuals cannot access traditional forms of collateral or identification that is required by financial institutions for them to be granted loans. Using the literature review approach through documentary and conceptual analysis to investigate the impact of machine learning and artificial intelligence in credit risk assessment, this study discovered that artificial intelligence and machine learning have a strong impact on credit risk assessments using alternative data sources such as public data to deal with the problems of information asymmetry, adverse selection, and moral hazard. This allows lenders to do serious credit risk analysis, to assess the behaviour of the customer, and subsequently to verify the ability of the clients to repay the loans, permitting less privileged people to access credit. Therefore, this study recommends that financial institutions such as banks and credit lending institutions invest more in artificial intelligence and machine learning to ensure that financially excluded households can obtain credit. Full article

This research investigates the impact of higher education expansion on the educational wage premium from a long-term perspective in Taiwan. By using 1985 to 2015 Manpower Utilization Survey (MUS) data with the difference-in-difference-in-differences model (DDD), this study analyzes the change of the wage premium of university educated versus lower-than-university educated counterparts across the expansion of higher education since 1995. The number of universities in Taiwan tripled between 1995 and 2005, from 50 to more than 150, with upgrading of about 100 technology colleges and vocational schools additionally. Dramatic expansion of universities as well as the number of university graduates will shrink the university wage premium for the young generation who entered into the labor market after year 2000, but the older generation will be less affected. The empirical results show that the wages premium of university graduates of the younger generation is 12% to 21% lower than their older generation counterparts due to the higher-education expansion. Full article

Previous research suggests that internationalization affects initial public offering (IPO) performance in the short term, but it less is known about the founders’ role in the relationship between internationalization and IPO performance. The objectives of this study were to investigate moderating effects of the founders’ role on the impact of internationalization on IPO performance of newly listed companies. The samples included 80 international firms listed in Thailand stock markets from 2013 to 2020. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the effects of internationalization on IPO performance, and the PROCESS macro was applied to test the moderating effects. Founder CEO as a proxy of a founders’ role was a moderator variable where internationalization was a predictor variable and IPO underpricing, a proxy of IPO performance, was the outcome variable. The results revealed that internationalization demonstrated no statistically significant effect on IPO underpricing. A non-founder CEO had a moderating effect on the influence of internationalization on IPO underpricing, whereas a founder CEO revealed no moderating effect. Specifically, internationalization had a negative effect on IPO underpricing once an international firm had a non-founder CEO. A decrease in IPO underpricing of international firm is clearly explained by the results of this study. Full article

The seasoned equity offering (SEO) market plays a significant role in the economic development of a country by providing liquidity for ongoing commercialization and innovation. This study is a comprehensive analysis of 149 SEOs and their effect on share prices in Thailand between 2009 and 2019. SEOs are categorized based on their time categories (early, mid, and grown) and volume categories (small, medium, big, and super). Using the event study methodology (multi-factor model), we find that most SEOs under both categories have a negative cumulative abnormal return (CAR) in the window period. Ranking the types of SEOs reveals that grown SEOs have the highest proportion of negative CAR under the time categories. Under the volume categories, medium SEOs show the largest share. The results were validated by regression assumption tests provided by Gnu Regression, Econometrics and Time-series Library, and correspond to established theories. The paper also contains an extensive literature review of studies examining the link between SEOs and share-price development. Our findings have important implications for corporations, investors, and regulatory bodies and can thus help in increasing market confidence for sustainable corporate funding. Full article

Accounting conservatism (AC) is one of the components of financial reporting, and has been widely studied by academicians to identify its impact on information quality. Scholars in accounting have started to explore how AC is related to different fundamental functional areas of organizations. The interest of the scholars has resulted in an increasing number of publications in this field. In this study, we examined 408 indexed publications related to AC. This work’s objectives include analyzing the regional distribution, size, and evolution of this knowledge base by identifying key authors, documents, and journals while exploring current literature, scholarly structure, and highlighting contemporary trends. The findings of the study concluded that most of the studies are conducted in developed nations contexts. However, there are still areas that need further exploration to obtain more profound insights on the subject. This bibliometric review inspires a new generation of researchers on the topic by giving them an overview of the past studies related to AC. Full article

This study investigates market reactions to announcements of CEO turnover and finds that forced turnovers are not accompanied by positive returns, which contradicts the broad view that firing a CEO sends a positive signal to the market. This contradiction is further explored by focusing on the nature of not only turnover but also a firm’s past performance. This study finds that the market seems to incorporate both types of information in reacting to CEO turnover announcements. Firing an underperforming CEO is viewed as a positive signal, whereas firing an outperforming CEO is viewed as a negative signal. Rather than taking early action against CEOs for a deterioration in their performance, firms appear to be firing outperforming CEOs owing to their apparent nonperformance-related reasons. This study also explores reasons behind the decision to fire a CEO from different news databases and finds that giving no clear reasons for a CEO’s departure increases uncertainty in the market, thereby causing a negative market reaction. However, stating performance as the reason for the departure assures investors about the future trajectory of the firm and results in a positive market reaction. Full article

The study investigates the safe haven properties and sustainability of the top five cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Monero, and Ripple) and gold for BRICS stock markets during the COVID-19 crisis period from 31 January 2020 to 17 September 2020 in comparison to the precrisis period from 1 January 2016 to 30 January 2020, in a nonlinear and asymmetric framework using Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methodology. Our results show that the relationship dynamics of stock market and cryptocurrency returns both in the short and long run are changing during the COVID-19 crisis period, which justifies our study using the nonlinear and asymmetric model. As far as a sustainable safe haven is concerned, Dash and Ripple are found to be a safe haven for all the five markets before the pandemic. However, all five cryptocurrencies are found to be a safe haven for three emerging markets, such as Brazil, China, and Russia, during the financial crisis. In a comparative framework, gold is found to be a suitable safe haven only for Brazil and Russia. The results have implications for index fund managers of BRICS markets to include Dash and Ripple in their portfolio as safe haven assets to protect its value during a stock market crisis. Full article