Abaidullah Abaidullah

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a growing role in fostering transparency, stakeholder trust, and long-term firm sustainability, particularly in emerging markets. Firms that actively engage in CSR are more likely to disclose credible financial information, which can reduce the incentive to withhold adverse news and thereby limit stock price crash risk (SPCR). This study investigates the impact of CSR on SPCR, while also examining whether this relationship varies across different stages of the firm life cycle (FLC). The analysis is based on an unbalanced panel of listed non-financial firms from the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), covering the period from 2009 to 2023. Financial data were obtained from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), while market data were collected from the PSX. Employing fixed-effects robust regression models and two crash risk proxies, negative conditional skewness (NCSKEW) and down-to-up volatility (DUVOL), the results reveal a consistent and significant negative association between CSR and SPCR. This suggests that firms with stronger CSR engagement are less prone to extreme negative stock returns. However, the moderating effect of FLC is only evident at the introduction and decline stages, indicating that the effectiveness of CSR in reducing crash risk depends on a firm’s position in its organizational life cycle. These findings contribute to the literature on CSR and financial stability in emerging markets and offer practical implications for investors, managers, and policymakers seeking to promote risk-aware, socially responsible corporate strategies.

Digitalization has become an economic force in the modern era, restructuring traditional business models, approaches, and procedures. The embracing of widespread digital technology, along with continuous development of human capital, to promote entrepreneurship is a significant challenge. This paper investigates the effect of digitalization and GDP on entrepreneurship, as well as the moderating effect of human capital. For this purpose, fixed effect estimation technique was used on annual unbalanced panel data of 139 countries collected for a period of 9 years, that is, from 2011 to 2019. The findings show that digitalization has a positive and a statistically significant impact on entrepreneurship in the singleton model, as well as a positive and significant impact in all other models. Similarly, GDP growth also has a positive and significant effect across all the models. Human capital, proxied as tertiary school education, was also found to have a positive and significant impact on entrepreneurship. The analysis shows that the impact of digitalization is more significant in countries where tertiary education fosters the development of human capital, than in those countries that offer primary and secondary education. Furthermore, human capital also moderates the nexus between digital financial inclusion, economic growth, and entrepreneurship. The results of the regional comparison also depict that there is a strong positive and significant impact of all the proxies of digitalization and GDP growth on entrepreneurship in Europe and Central Asia, as compared to East Asia and the Pacific. These results show that the higher the level of digitalization, economic growth, and human capital, the higher the level of entrepreneurship.

Every economy invests heavily to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs attempt to provide everyone with an access to a high-quality education. The more access to schooling individuals have, the more likely they are to think creatively and take entrepreneurial initiatives. It is vital to invest in personnel to generate economic activities that are suitable for the intricacies of a sustainable economy. The current study attempted to examine the effects of human capital and economic growth on entrepreneurial activities, considering the moderating impact of financial development. The study employed a fixed effects estimation technique to unbalance panel data in various economies using the time period from 2011-2019. The results indicated that human capital, through secondary and tertiary education, significantly and positively stimulates the entrepreneurial activities to achieve SDGs worldwide. In contrast, human capital acquired through primary education doesn't affect entrepreneurial activities positively. Financial development has a positive and statistically significant effect as an explanatory variable, however, the moderating effects of financial development remain poorly grasped. The current study provided policymakers, researchers, and academia with valuable information to foster an environment conducive to entrepreneurial activities in order to achieve the SDGs.