Josephine Tan-Hwang Yau

Against the backdrop of China’s dual-carbon strategy, a growing literature documents that corporate green investment improves financial outcomes, yet whether it produces genuine environmental improvement remains contested. This study shifts the analytical lens from financial to ecological returns: drawing on a panel of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms over 2014–2023, we examine how green investment affects corporate environmental performance—proxied by the Environmental (E) pillar of ESG ratings—and whether state-owned shareholding moderates this relationship. To address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, we estimate a dynamic panel model via two-step difference GMM. The results show that green investment significantly raises environmental performance, but that state ownership attenuates this effect. We interpret the main effect as operating through direct pollution and resource-use reduction, lower regulatory-compliance risk, and improved environmental disclosure, whereas in state-owned enterprises institutional frictions—political multi-tasking, soft budget constraints, and weak environmental accountability—convert green capital into largely symbolic compliance, diluting its marginal environmental return. By recentring the analysis on an independent, third-party environmental measure that blends substantive environmental outcomes with the quality of environmental disclosure, this study examines the ecological efficacy of green investment and shows that ownership structure conditions not only profitability but also the realisation of environmental benefits. Robustness checks based on alternative estimators, lagged green investment, panel unit-root tests, and expanded GMM diagnostics corroborate the core positive effect of green investment; by contrast, an objective patent-based outcome does not respond to green investment within the sample window, indicating that disclosure-based and innovation-based measures of environmental performance capture distinct margins. These checks also clarify the conditions under which the moderating role of state ownership is statistically significant.

Against the backdrop of China’s “dual carbon” strategy and green transformation, this study examines the impact of green investment on corporate financial performance and the moderating role of state-owned shareholding ratio. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2014 to 2023 and adopting a dynamic panel data model, the empirical results show that green investment significantly improves corporate financial performance. Moreover, state-owned shareholding plays a negative moderating role, and high state ownership weakens the positive effect of green investment on financial performance. The results indicate that green investment can enhance profitability by improving operational efficiency, reducing compliance risks and enhancing corporate reputation. However, due to policy burdens, multiple agency problems and insufficient profit incentives, state-owned enterprises tend to deviate from efficiency-oriented goals in green investment, which reduces the economic returns of such investment. This study enriches the understanding of the economic consequences of green investment under heterogeneous ownership, and provides empirical support for enterprises to optimize green investment decisions and regulators to improve governance mechanisms.

Debt levels among Asian countries differ significantly, shaped by government expenditures aimed at stimulating growth and responding to challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. While integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into fiscal planning can initially widen deficits due to higher expenditures, these investments often lead to fiscal sustainability. The purpose of this work is to investigate the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on fiscal sustainability through the fiscal reaction function to the level of debt. The analysis is based on Asian economies, as this region is experiencing a higher level of indebtedness and deficit. This study utilizes the data from 2003-2022 on 23 Asian economies. Three composite indexes are constructed Environmental Index, Social Index, and Governance Index. The study combines all three ESG index and forms a composite ESG index through Principal component analysis(PCA). For Fiscal sustainability, primary balance and the role of government debt are utilized. By applying the fixed effect model, random effect model, and Generalized methods of moments(GMM). The results find that the primary balance is sensitive to debt. Cubic specification of debt has a negative and significant association with the primary balance that shows the fiscal fatigue phenomenon in Asian countries. There is a negative association between the ESG performance index and primary balance. For policy implications, higher transparency and a better enabling environment for investors to foster ESG performance will further enhance ESG performance, resulting in long-term fiscal sustainability.

Purpose: Interest in using popular movies in higher education has flourished, but determining their actual impact remains tricky. Some studies suggest these movies can positively affect student satisfaction, yet many criticize this method as ineffective or lazy. Our study compared two ways of using popular movies – watching them in class versus a flipped approach – for an advanced finance module. We aim to examine the best teaching delivery of watching popular movies in an advanced module.Design/methodology/approach: This study compares two teaching methods during movie screenings: a didactic flipped classroom (Group 01) and in-class viewing (Group 02). The sampling frame was final-year finance students from a public university. It was conducted over two academic years and involved 190 students aged 20–23. These students were split into two groups: G01, with 93 students, and G02, with 97 students. The study focused on the movie “Big Short,” chosen for its relevance to the Fixed-Income Securities course (the advanced module).Findings: Our findings indicate both methods led to high student satisfaction, with no significant difference between in-class viewing and the flipped approach. However, the understanding of the advanced module significantly increased overall. Importantly, using popular movies as flipped material resulted in better student grades compared to in-class viewing. This suggests that while using popular movies is a beneficial teaching method, employing a didactic flipped classroom approach yields superior outcomes for students.Practical implications: This research offers practical insights for instructors, highlighting the value of utilizing popular movies in advanced education. It suggests incorporating movies as learning materials can enhance student satisfaction, particularly when employed within a flipped classroom framework. Importantly, the study reveals that adopting the flipped classroom approach yields superior academic outcomes compared to traditional in-class viewing. Thus, instructors teaching advanced modules should consider integrating popular movies within flipped classrooms to not only enhance student satisfaction but also improve academic performance.Originality/value: Our research investigates popular movies' efficacy, particularly in advanced finance education. While previous studies have explored using movies to enhance student satisfaction, this study investigates it further by comparing two delivery methods: the didactic flipped classroom and traditional in-class viewing. While both methods effectively increase student satisfaction, the didactic flipped classroom significantly improves academic performance. This highlights the innovative potential of the flipped approach in promoting deeper learning and suggests practical implications for instructors seeking to enhance both satisfaction and academic outcomes in advanced courses.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the extent to which information asymmetry affects investment efficiency and whether the presence of blockholders moderate this relationship.Design/methodology/approach: We employ the data of firms listed on the Malaysian stock exchange for the period 2010–2018, to compose our sample. Our final sample includes the 100 largest non-financial firms based on market capitalization. Collectively, these 100 companies contribute 84.2% to the total market capitalization (MYR 1,730bn) which is representative of the whole market. The ordinary least squares regressions were used as the main estimation technique. The system generalized method of moments, two-stage least squares and propensity score matching were also used, to address potential endogeneity concerns.Findings: We document a positively significant association of information asymmetry with investment inefficiency. These results imply that information asymmetry reduces investment efficiency and enhances sub-optimal investments. We also document that blockholders negatively moderate the relationship of information asymmetry with investment inefficiency. Further analyses show that investment inefficiency is higher in low-growth firms than in high-growth firms because of higher information asymmetry.Research limitations/implications: We focus on Malaysia, which is a predominantly common-law Anglo-Saxon country. Graff (2008) documented that the investors are treated differently across legal systems and there are differences between the continental European and Anglo-Saxon countries. La Porta et al. (1999) documented that investors tend to have more legal protection in Anglo-Saxon countries. Therefore, our results may not be generalized to countries with different legal systems.Practical implications: An important implication of our findings is that stakeholders may encourage the presence of blockholders and give them a voice to weaken the positive relationship between information asymmetry and investment inefficiency.Originality/value: This study contributes to the contingency literature by investigating the moderating effect of an important governance mechanism, i.e. the presence of blockholders on information asymmetry-investment efficiency nexus. Despite being important, this moderating effect has been largely overlooked in the literature. Our study contributes by providing an understanding of how blockholders can influence investment decisions, offering insights for academics, investors and policymakers focused on improving the efficacy of investment decisions and governance structure.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between sustainability reporting and corporate performance moderated by the internationalization level of the firms. The sample for this empirical study is collected from the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE)100 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia for a period of nine years from 2011 to 2019. We examine the sustainability reporting based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard with the G4 guideline, in which a content analysis method has been employed to obtain the Sustainability Reporting Index (SRI). The moderating variable for this study is the internationalization level, which is proxied by foreign sales generated. The findings demonstrate that sustainability reporting disclosure has no effect on corporate performance. However, internationalization improves corporate performance but serves no moderation role in the relationship between sustainability reporting and corporate performance. We conclude that there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that companies that disclose more in their sustainability reporting perform better, and this may be because Malaysian corporations are still new to non-financial reporting. We believe that although sustainability reporting is costly, sustainability reporting is able to enhance the reputation of firms in the international market. Sequentially, a highly internationalized firm with more sustainability reporting disclosures may bring wealth to the company in the long run.

Using a unique sample of 13,412 firm-year observations from 19 countries of the emerging economies for the period of 2011 to 2019, we investigate the association between the firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and their value creation in the product market. Specifically, we first used the pooled OLS regression model for panel data as our baseline model and found that ESG performance (as well as its pillars) has a strong positive effect on the future value creation of the firms in the product market. We also conducted some additional analyses using various regression models, as well as adopting multiple tests for endogeneity, and the additional analyses revealed that the results are robust under different scenarios. Overall, the findings of this study highlight the importance of firm-level ESG performance for the value creation of firms in the product market in emerging economies and have theoretical and practical implications for academic researchers, market participants, and government entities in studying, evaluating, and governing firms’ ESG performance and reporting.

This study comprehensively analyzes herding behavior in the cryptocurrency market. First, we conduct an in-depth investigation of herding behavior in the overall cryptocurrency market. Second, we form several groups of cryptocurrencies according to their characteristics and analyze whether each group behaves similarly in volatile market regimes. Third, we investigate whether herding existed in each cryptocurrency group before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a sample of 227 cryptocurrencies constituting nearly 95% of market capitalization, we reveal that herding behavior was absent in the overall sample and sub-samples comprising cryptocurrency groups. Further, the anti-herding behavior implies a contrarian response to the crowd. This anti-herding can be explained from two views: rational behavior of taking profit from market irrationality and irrational behavior due to fear or recency bias.

Indebtedness is a huge global issue faced by all economies around the world since the older time until today. The high and increasing debt levels have become a concern, and public debt has become the core of the turmoil that began a few years ago. When the government's spending in a year exceeds its revenue, there will be a budget deficit for that fiscal year. Hence, it must use debt to fill the funding gap. This situation creates an annual deficit, which cannot end until the accumulated debt becomes unsustainable and the government's finances collapse. Hence, this study is aimed to assess the impact of the public debt threshold on current account balance and fiscal balance in selected ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) by adopting annual data from 1990 to 2021. In panel long run estimation by pooled mean group (PMG) estimator, public debt affects twin balances to have a positive relationship. In the empirical analysis, the single threshold sample splitting model is employed to assess the impact of the public debt threshold on the current account balance and fiscal balance either below or above the threshold level. The outcomes indicate that the public debt threshold level is at 63.36%. When the public debt threshold is below 63.36%, there is a negative relationship between the current account balance and fiscal balance; whereas when the public debt threshold is higher than 63.36%, there is positive nexus between the current account balance and fiscal balance. This result implies the situation of twin divergence situation when exceeding the public debt threshold level.