Priyantha Mudalige

Population ageing poses significant challenges to economic growth and fiscal sustainability in advanced economies. This study examines how fiscal sustainability and labour force participation moderate the impact of ageing on gross domestic product (GDP) growth across 37 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development member countries from 1995 to 2023. We introduce a novel composite fiscal sustainability index that captures fiscal health through nine macro‐fiscal indicators, integrating expenditure control, revenue adequacy, macroeconomic stability, and debt management. Employing a dynamic panel data approach with system generalised method of moments estimation, we address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity to derive robust causal inferences. Our findings reveal that a 1% increase in the share of the older adult population reduces short‐run GDP growth by 0.31% and long‐run GDP growth by 0.37%. Stronger fiscal discipline significantly attenuates the negative growth impact of ageing, mitigating the growth drag by approximately 0.077 percentage points in the short run. Moreover, higher labour force participation cushions the adverse effects of demographic shifts and positively contributes to growth in both the short and long run. These results underscore the crucial roles of sound fiscal governance and inclusive labour market policies in sustaining economic vitality amid demographic headwinds. The study offers actionable insights for policymakers to design integrated fiscal and labour market reforms that promote resilient, inclusive growth in ageing advanced economies.

Purpose: The acquirer’s corporate environmental performance (CEP) in mergers and acquisitions has been a subject of debate, yielding mixed results. This paper uses the US firm-level data of 1437 M&A deals from 2002–2019 to examine the impact of overall CEP, resource use, emissions, and innovation on the acquirers’ post-merger market value. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs multi-level fixed effects panel regression using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the instrumental variable (IV) 2SLS method to estimate the models and compare the results with those from robust estimation. Absorbing the multiple levels of fixed effects (i.e., firm, industry, and year) offers a novel and robust algorithm for efficiently accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. The results from IV (2SLS) are more convincing, as the method overcomes the problem of endogeneity due to reverse causality and sample selection bias. Findings: The authors find that CEP has a significant impact on market value, particularly in the long term. While both resource use and emissions performance have positive effects, emissions performance has a stronger impact, presumably because external stakeholders and market participants are more concerned about emissions reduction. The performance of environmental innovation is relatively weak compared to other pillars. Descriptive analysis shows low average scores in environmental innovation compared to the resource use and emissions performance of the acquirers. However, large deals yield significant returns from investing in environmental innovation in both the short and long term compared to small deals. Practical implications: This paper offers several practical implications. First, environmental performance can help improve the acquirer’s long-term market value. Second, managers can focus on the strategic side of environmental performance, based on its pillars, and benchmark their relative position against peers. Third, environmental innovation can be considered a new potential, as the market as a whole in this area is still lagging. Given the growing pressure to improve environmental technology and innovation, prospective acquirers should confidently prioritise actions on green revenue, product innovation, and capital expenditure now rather than ticking these boxes later. Originality value: The key contribution is offering valuable insights into the impact of acquirers’ environmental performance on long-term value creation in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). These results fill the gap in the literature focusing mainly on the effect of environmental pillar and sub-pillar scores on acquirer’s firm value. The authors claim that analysing sub-pillar-level granularity is crucial for accurately measuring the effects on firm-level performance.

The issues and experiences of work-integrated learning (WIL) accounting and financial planning academics across higher education (HE) institutions in developing innovative WIL programs are discussed by the authors. The authors reflect on their responsibilities and goals and how these aligned with student and institutional expectations for both work-based situations as well as classroom-based simulations. Cross-institutional collaboration on WIL approaches in undergraduate and postgraduate accounting courses reveal contrasting priorities and tensions when addressing the needs of stakeholders. Particularly noticeable are the institutional requirements for a technology-driven WIL curriculum, that meet with student, industry and institutional expectations. We contribute with insights on educator preparedness for delivering technology enhanced WIL programs and provide an in-depth analysis of academic engagement with WIL designs. Drawing on Activity Theory to analyse the constraints and confluences perceived in the design and teaching of WIL programs, this research contributes to our understanding of effective ways to manage this activity.

This study examines the effects of news events related to the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) on the Vietnam stock market from 2010 to 2020. We calculate sectoral abnormal returns prior to, during, and after announcements and find that the Vietnamese stock market is susceptible to these events. We discovered that the announcement had a negative impact on the market, which might diminish the effectiveness of the Agreement. The findings show that more than half of Vietnam’s sectors had an immediate reaction to EVFTA announcements, with fourteen reacting negatively and six responding positively. Two of the ten events did not have any immediate impact on these industries but all events resulted in either early or delayed reactions. We also find market scepticism and major changes in the deal led to the emergence of a diamond risk structure. We run multiple robustness tests to account for market integration and other factors that may affect stock returns. In addition, we explore potential sectoral systematic risk changes following these occurrences using different ARCH-type models. These additional tests confirm the robustness of our findings.

This study examines the impact of environmental regulation on the Singapore stock market using the event study methodology. Several asset pricing models are used to estimate sectoral abnormal returns. Additionally, we estimate the change in systematic risk after the introduction of the carbon tax and related regulation. We conduct various robustness tests, including the Corrado non-parametric ranking test, the Chesney non-parametric conditional distribution approach, a representation of market integration, and Fama–French five-factor model. We find evidence showing that the environmental regulations tend to achieve their desired effects in Singapore in which several big polluters (including industrial metals and mining, forestry and papers, and electrical equipment and services) were negatively affected by the announcements of environmental regulations and carbon tax. In addition, our results indicate that the electricity sector, one of the biggest polluters, was negatively affected by the announcement of environmental regulations and carbon tax. We also find that environmental regulations seem to boost the performance of environmentally-friendly sectors whereby we find the alternative energy industry (focusing on new renewable energy technologies) experienced a sizeable positive reaction following the announcements of these regulations.