Search Results (968)

While green bonds are increasingly used to channel capital towards environmentally responsible projects, their effectiveness depends not only on market growth, but also on the credibility of the institutional frameworks that support the green label. Through focused bibliometric positioning, scoping synthesis and comparative document analysis, the paper examines how seven major green-bond frameworks organise credibility: the EU European Green Bond Standard, the ICMA Green Bond Principles, the Japan Green Bond Guidelines, the ASEAN Green Bond Standards, China’s catalogue-plus-principles framework, India’s Sovereign Green Bond Framework and China’s Sovereign Green Bond Framework 2025. The findings show that frameworks converge in product grammar, including project selection, management of proceeds, reporting and external review, but diverge substantially in credibility architecture, especially regarding external review, supervision, refinancing governance and environmental additionality. Current frameworks generally make green-bond labels more transparent, comparable and verifiable, but not necessarily more additional in environmental terms. Important challenges therefore remain: fragmented standards, greenwashing risks, information asymmetries, weak impact-reporting comparability and limited safeguards against refinancing existing assets. The paper argues that the contribution of green bonds to the green transition depends on how credibility is institutionally organised. Full article

Global angel investment and venture capital are key financial drivers supporting the long-term growth of technology companies, and they play a vital role in improving the global science and technology innovation financial system and advancing green and sustainable transformation. This paper uses data on technology-sector companies listed on the A-share market from 2017 to 2025 to construct a multi-period DID model. It empirically examines the impact of angel investment and venture capital on the sustainable development of technology companies and investigates the moderating effect of ESG performance. The study finds that angel investment can significantly enhance the level of sustainable development in technology firms. Mechanism tests indicate that angel investment indirectly empowers sustainable development by attracting and introducing venture capital. The moderating effect shows that strong ESG performance positively reinforces the promotional role of angel investment and venture capital in the sustainable development of technology firms. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these enhancement and moderating effects are more pronounced in high-tech industries, private enterprises, and asset-light technology firms. These findings provide empirical evidence and policy guidance for governments worldwide to direct venture capital toward supporting science and technology enterprises, help technology firms improve their ESG governance systems, and achieve long-term sustainable operations. Full article

This study examines the moderating role of liquidity in the relationship between extreme capital structure and firm performance among listed firms in emerging markets. It is motivated by the need to better understand how financing constraints and liquidity management influence firm performance in environments characterised by high financial frictions and limited access to external capital. Extreme capital structure is defined as firms maintaining very low levels of debt, measured using thresholds of 1% (ultra-low debt) and 5% for both long-term debt and total debt. The analysis is based on a panel dataset of non-financial listed firms over the period 2006–2024 and employs a dynamic panel System Generalised Method of Moments (System GMM) complemented by a Random Effects model for robustness. Empirical results indicate that liquidity has a meaningful and predominantly positive moderating effect. This is observed when firms maintain extremely low long-term debt (1% threshold) and low long-term debt (5% threshold). Liquidity enhances firm performance. This effect is strongest for return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). The effect on Tobin’s Q is weaker but remains generally positive. These findings highlight the strategic importance of liquidity in improving profitability and financial resilience under conservative financing structures. However, the findings are limited to listed non-financial firms in emerging markets and may not be generalizable to SMEs or unlisted firms. Future research could explore the threshold at which liquidity ceases to generate benefits or begins to produce diminishing returns in ultra-low leverage contexts. Full article

This study examines the relationship between ESG performance and financial performance and resilience in the banking sector, using a sample of systemically important banking institutions in Romania and Poland for the period 2020–2024. The study aims to assess the extent to which ESG performance contributes to improving financial performance and strengthening the financial resilience of banking institutions operating in these two emerging economies in Central and Eastern Europe. The research employs an empirical framework based on correlation analysis, panel regression models (Fixed Effects and Random Effects), selected on the basis of the Hausman test, with robust standard errors, as well as a robustness analysis using ESG variables lagged by one year. Financial performance is assessed using the Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) indicators, whilst financial resilience is analysed using the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) and Cost of Risk (CoR). ESG performance is examined both through the aggregate ESG score and through its individual environmental, social and governance components. The results highlight that ESG performance does not show statistically significant associations with traditional indicators of financial performance. Instead, the analysis reveals differentiated associations between the ESG components and indicators of financial resilience, with the social dimension being associated with credit risk indicators (NPL and CoR), whilst the environmental and governance components do not show significant effects in the estimated models. The study’s contribution lies in the simultaneous analysis of financial performance and financial resilience using a panel framework applied to banks in Romania and Poland, as well as in highlighting the heterogeneous nature of the relationship between ESG components and the various dimensions of financial resilience. The results complement the literature on the banking sector in Central and Eastern Europe and offer relevant implications for banking institutions, investors and regulators, without implying causal relationships between the variables analysed. Full article

Understanding the pricing of climate risks in bond markets is relevant to financial stability. The real estate sector, characterized by geographically fixed and long-duration assets, exhibits high exposure to environmental shocks; yet, empirical matching between specific climate channels and real estate bond pricing remains sparse. This analysis examines the impact of climate risks on corporate bond credit spreads within the real estate sector by constructing three thematic indicators: transition risk (CTRI), chronic physical risk (ChroCPRI), and acute physical risk (AcuCPRI). Initial feature selection via machine learning suggests all three risk categories as predictive covariates for bond pricing. Subsequent regression estimations indicate that climate transition risk and acute physical risk expand credit spreads, whereas chronic physical risk compresses them—with these statistical patterns being more pronounced among state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Mechanism analyses yield threefold insights: first, transition risk elevates spreads by tightening financing constraints and restricting corporate asset growth, a channel concentrated in short-term tranches and low-liquidity firms; second, the counterintuitive spread-compressing effect of chronic risk is localized among firms with lower credit ratings and lower profitability, consistent with institutional climate support frameworks and strategic green adaptations; third, acute physical risk widens spreads by compressing operational cash flows and exacerbating financing friction, particularly for smaller enterprises. These channels align with the structural attributes of SOEs, which are characterized by larger asset scales, superior capital liquidity, and a higher propensity to secure state guarantees. Full article

This study examines the optimal coordination of internal and external rescue for troubled banks under systemic contagion. Using annual data for 210 Chinese commercial banks from 2013 to 2024, it constructs a region-constrained minimum-density interbank network and embeds it in an EN-GLT dual-channel contagion framework that captures both direct default losses and asset fire-sale losses. Each bank is sequentially treated as the initially shocked institution, and pure internal rescue, pure external rescue, and mixed rescue strategies are compared under risk-tolerance, rescue-capacity, cost, and moral-hazard constraints. The results show that capital-loss contagion and fire-sale amplification are economically meaningful under the no-rescue scenario and become stronger as the fire-sale markdown rate rises. Mixed rescue outperforms pure internal or pure external rescue in most years, with the optimal internal rescue share mainly concentrated between 30% and 55%. The findings indicate that problem-bank resolution should combine internal loss absorption with external stabilization and should be differentiated according to contagion channels, bank type, and the nature of the crisis. Full article

We establish the exact power-law asymptotics of the ruin probability, as a function of the initial capital, in the Sparre Andersen model for non-life insurance with investments in an arbitrary Lévy process. The main advance over previous work, which only established two-sided estimates, is a proof of the existence of an exact limiting equality with a positive finite constant. The method combines a reduction to discrete time, the one-dimensional Kesten–Goldie theorem for the stationary measure of the associated affine stochastic recursion, and Goldie’s result on the asymptotics of the supremum of a perpetuity. The limiting constant is bounded below by the integral Goldie constant of the stationary measure. This bound need not be tight, and an explicit expression for the limiting constant is currently available only in the Cramér–Lundberg submodel. The exponent coincides with the positive Cramér root of the Laplace exponent of the Lévy process given by the logarithm of the risky-asset price; the distribution of the inter-jump times of the business process affects only the constant, not the exponent. In the final section, the constant is compared with an explicit formula in terms of double confluent Heun functions, obtained for the Cramér–Lundberg submodel with proportional investment in a geometric Brownian motion; the agreement of the two approaches is illustrated numerically. Full article

India’s rapid expansion of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity is increasingly constrained by aging assets and the temporal mismatch between generation and peak demand. This study develops a techno-economic framework integrating battery energy storage systems (BESSs) with repowered solar PV projects, using repowered electricity as a low-cost charging source. A capacity-based assessment estimates national repowering potential of 7.2 GWp under power purchase agreement constraints and 10.9 GWp under technical limits. The levelized cost of repowered electricity is ₹1.40/kWh, significantly lower than prevailing utility-scale solar tariffs under stated assumptions. Levelized storage costs range from ₹5.08 to ₹4.12/kWh for 2–6 h durations, declining with improved inverter and balance-of-system utilization. Financial analysis under a ₹10 per kWh peak tariff arbitrage scenario yields internal rates of return between 17.5% and 24.2%, with positive project viability across configurations. Sensitivity analysis identifies capital cost as the dominant economic driver. Environmental benefits include annual greenhouse gas reductions of 13.8–17.2 MtCO₂, accumulating to 411–514 MtCO₂ over the project lifetime. These findings demonstrate that repowering-integrated battery storage offers a cost-effective, scalable pathway to enhance renewable integration, displace fossil fuel peak generation, and support India’s low-carbon transition, highlighting a viable framework for improving system flexibility and overall system performance. Full article

Despite rapid global growth in renewable energy capacity, fossil fuels still dominate the energy mix. Renewable energy firms often face limited access to bank credit because their asset-light, technology-intensive business models provide little collateral, constraining investment in clean energy deployment. This study examines whether China’s Fintech Reform Pilot Zones, which introduce digital technology-based credit evaluation, can alleviate these financing constraints and accelerate corporate energy transition. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design on a panel of Chinese listed renewable energy firms, we find that pilot zone designation significantly improves firms’ access to external financing and increases Energy Transition Depth (ETD) by approximately 3.6 percentage points, equivalent to 24.7% of the sample mean, indicating economically meaningful improvements in corporate energy transition. The strongest effects are observed in solar photovoltaic deployment and battery storage penetration. Greater energy transition is also associated with lower firm-level greenhouse gas emission intensity, suggesting potential environmental benefits. Mediation analysis identifies two complementary pathways: an innovation-accumulation route which advances renewable energy technology, and a capital-deployment route which supports renewable energy capacity expansion by relaxing firms’ general financing constraints. Regions with more developed renewable energy industries also exhibit lower fossil energy consumption and carbon emissions, suggesting potential regional spillover effects. These findings demonstrate that Fintech-enabled financial reform can facilitate renewable energy deployment and support broader energy transition and decarbonization, with important implications for emerging economies. Full article

This study examines whether recognized intangible assets carry information about bank performance in an emerging market, and whether their information value is conditioned by the maturity of macro digital infrastructure. Using a balanced panel of 28 Indonesian commercial banks over 2015–2024 (280 firm-year observations), we estimate two-way fixed-effects models with macro digital infrastructure, an economy-wide principal component index of internet penetration, mobile and broadband subscriptions, and electronic payment volume as a cross-layer moderator. Intangible investment intensity, proxied by the ratio of reported intangible assets to total assets, shows weak direct associations with performance; only the operating efficiency ratio displays a marginally significant short-run cost, consistent with transition-cost dynamics. The central result is conditional: the interaction between intangible intensity and macro digital maturity is strongly significant for operating efficiency (β = −2.587, p = 0.005), with the implied efficiency cost contracting by a model-implied 88 percent across the observed range of digital maturity (an estimate computed from the estimated coefficients over the observed sample variation, not a structural causal magnitude). Heterogeneity is pronounced across regulator-defined bank tiers (KBMI): the four largest banks realize positive profitability effects, whereas mid-tier banks bear transition costs. Results are robust to Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, system GMM, sub-sample splits, and outlier exclusion. The findings show that the information value of recognized intangibles in banking is state-contingent, extending the intangible-asset and digitalization literature to emerging-market banking. Full article

The relationship between capital structure and firm market valuation remains a central yet unresolved question in corporate finance, with outcomes shaped critically by industry-specific asset structures and financing environments. This study investigates how capital structure influences market valuations across two structurally divergent sectors in India, the asset-light information technology (IT) industry and the asset-intensive automobile industry, using balanced panel data for 14 firms in each sector over 2005–2024. Fixed effect and random effect panel regression models are employed to isolate the direct effect of leverage on earnings per share (EPS), with model selection determined by the Hausman specification test. Complementing these estimations, the Graphical Lasso is applied to recover a sparse conditional dependence network among key financial variables, an approach particularly suited to this research question, as capital structure, profitability, tangibility, and growth are jointly determined, rendering pairwise correlations insufficient for identifying genuine financial linkages. The findings establish that debt exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on market valuations in both sectors, but through distinct economic channels: moderate leverage amplifies profitable growth signals in IT firms, while tax shield benefits drive valuation in automobile firms, constrained by asset tangibility and debt-servicing thresholds. These results support trade-off theory in the automobile sector and pecking order logic in the IT sector, underscoring that sector-specific financing strategies yield superior valuation outcomes compared to universally applied capital structure prescriptions. Full article

This paper examines the relationship between Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) communication surprises, global risk sentiment, and net portfolio debt inflows to twelve major emerging market economies over the period 2000–2024. Exploiting a high-frequency U.S. Monetary Policy Event-Study Database, we estimate panel fixed-effects regressions and local projections at quarterly frequency. We find that global risk sentiment, proxied by the VIX, is a robust and persistent driver of emerging market capital flows, while Fed communication surprises are statistically insignificant in normal times and in the 2022–2024 tightening cycle. A striking exception is the 2013 taper tantrum—the episode of severe capital outflow pressure triggered by Chairman Bernanke’s May 2013 congressional testimony signalling a possible tapering of asset purchases. Regime interaction tests reveal a large, highly significant negative effect of communication surprises on flows during this episode alone, with no comparable effect in 2022. Local projections confirm that the taper tantrum generated a sharp initial outflow followed by partial reversal, while VIX effects are contemporaneous but not persistent. We empirically test for market learning, finding that reduced sensitivity to Fed communication reflects a discrete recalibration after the 2013 shock rather than a gradual learning process. Regarding capital flows, the taper tantrum is clearly the exception, not the rule. Full article

Innovation-oriented productive forces are increasingly concentrated in cities, but the multiscale mechanisms through which the built environment shapes these forces remain insufficiently understood. This study develops a spatial analytical framework linking firm-level new quality productive forces (NQPF) to fine-grained urban spatial structures. Using 89 A-share listed firms in the Xiamen–Zhangzhou–Quanzhou (XZQ) urban agglomeration, we first construct an entropy-weighted NQPF index from eleven financial indicators related to R&D human capital, advanced capital stock, intangible assets, and operational efficiency. Kernel density estimation is then used to transform discrete firm-level NQPF values into a continuous 600 m × 600 m grid surface as the dependent variable. On the explanatory side, 27 built-environment variables are organized into an integrated indicator system covering urban form, natural conditions, jobs–housing structure, and service infrastructures. We combine cross-validated recursive feature elimination (RFE-CV) with multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) to construct two model specifications: a 7-variable parsimonious subset and a 14-variable highest-performing subset. This dual-subset design allows us to distinguish core structural drivers from more context-dependent spatial mechanisms. The results reveal three mechanisms. First, ecological adaptation reflects the scale-dependent enabling and constraining effects of infrastructure and natural-foundation variables. Second, structural coordination shows that mature cores may experience crowding-related suppression when functional and institutional resources become spatially mismatched. Third, boundary activation indicates that transport, public-service, and leisure-related facilities can activate peripheral and cross-jurisdictional interface zones when supported by network connectivity and institutional coordination. By coupling variable-specific bandwidths with local coefficients, this study advances the analysis of spatial heterogeneity and provides evidence for differentiated, innovation-oriented urban regeneration. Full article

This study investigates the impact of liquidity risk on asset quality and financial stability in Uzbekistan’s commercial banking sector. Using quarterly time-series data from 2016 to 2024, the study employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with quadratic specifications to capture potential non-linear effects of liquidity. Two models are estimated to examine (i) the relationship between liquidity risk and asset quality, and (ii) the impact of liquidity risk on financial stability, proxied by net profit. The results indicate that liquidity risk does not have a statistically significant effect on asset quality, suggesting that credit performance is primarily driven by structural and macroeconomic factors rather than liquidity conditions. In contrast, the financial stability model demonstrates high explanatory power (R² = 0.883), although individual coefficients are statistically insignificant due to severe multicollinearity among banking sector variables. The findings do not support the conventional liquidity–profitability trade-off hypothesis, as no evidence of a linear or non-linear relationship between liquidity and profitability is observed. Regulatory capital emerges as the most influential variable, indicating the importance of capital strength in supporting banking stability. This study contributes to the literature by providing novel empirical evidence from a transition economy, highlighting the limitations of isolating liquidity effects in rapidly expanding banking systems. The results suggest that in reform-oriented financial environments, banking stability is shaped more by structural growth and capital adequacy than by liquidity trade-offs, offering important implications for macroprudential policy design. Full article

The increasing penetration of variable renewable energy sources (RESs) poses significant challenges to power system flexibility and reliability, particularly in systems with high solar generation. At the same time, existing Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants in Europe face declining economic viability due to high capital costs and the expiration of incentivized tariff schemes. This study proposes and evaluates a novel approach to repurpose CSP plants as flexible energy assets through the integration of cold thermal energy storage (CTES) within a Thermally Integrated Power-to-Heat-to-Power Energy Storage (TI-PTES) framework. The proposed system combines an ice/water-based cold storage with a CO₂-based refrigeration cycle to enhance the efficiency of the CSP steam cycle by reducing condenser temperatures, while also enabling temporal shifting of electricity consumption. A techno-economic optimization model based on PyPSA is developed to determine the optimal sizing and operation of the storage and refrigeration system under realistic load and electricity price conditions representative of the Spanish market. Results show that the integration of cold storage significantly alters system operation, shifting the chiller from a continuous demand-following mode to an intermittent, high-intensity regime. This leads to a reduction in annual operating expenditures by approximately 32% and an increase in annual profit and net present value (NPV), despite higher capital investment. While hourly net revenue becomes more volatile, with negative values during charging periods, cumulative annual performance improves due to effective temporal optimization. However, the absence of strong electricity price arbitrage and negative price signals limits the revenue potential of the storage system, which primarily acts as a cost-reduction mechanism. The findings demonstrate that cold thermal storage can successfully reposition CSP plants as flexible, value-generating assets in modern electricity systems. The proposed concept offers a promising pathway for extending the operational lifetime of existing CSP infrastructure while supporting higher integration of renewable energy sources. Full article