Search results

The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of legal institutions and property rights protection on corporate innovation among developing countries.

To testify these hypotheses, we use firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, and country-level information from Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Development Indicators and Global Competitiveness Reports. The final data set consists of 24,166 firm observations, from 41 developing countries.

By using a wide range of control variables, the results propose that well-organized legal institutions stimulate corporate innovation . More precisely, a strong rule of law, effective government and protected property rights encourage firm-level innovation. Countries’ rule of law guarantees to solve disputes between parties and provide legitimate rights in case of innovation replication. Rule of law also directs that rules made by policymakers to secure the rights of innovators are well enforced. Moreover, strong property rights ensure innovators that the innovations are protected, and in case of any infringement, the guilty party will be punished and fined.

This study aims to investigate the role of all effective aspects legal institutions and property rights protection on corporate innovation among developing countries. Such security to prevent unlawful duplication will ultimately increase innovation.

This study aims at testing the relationship between corporate real estate (CRE) investment and firm performance of nonfinancial firms in the context of an underdeveloped market, Pakistan.

This study uses a sample of 307 nonfinancial firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2020. This study adopts a rigorous methodological approach and employs ordinary least square, fixed effect, generalized method of moments system regressions and the propensity score matching technique to account for potential heteroskedasticity, effects of unobserved variables and endogeneity.

This study finds that as the investment in CRE increases, the firm’s performance decreases. The findings are robust to alternative proxies of CRE investment and alternative methodologies. Furthermore, the findings hold for financially constrained and financially unconstrained firms, high- and low-growth firms and safe and financially distressed firms.

This study extends the evidence about CRE investment in an underdeveloped market and suggests potential avenues for future research.

The findings of this study warrant investors, managers and directors be cautious about CRE investment in firms.

This study uses a new proxy of CRE investment, which is more inclined toward the asset management and financial perspective of CRE investment. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the role of CRE investment in an underdeveloped market.

Pakistan has experienced financial liberalization with rapid ups and downs in economic growth due to domestic issues during the last 2 decades. Motivated by inconclusive and conflicting time-driven findings about the performance of the business groups, this study examines the performance of business groups in Pakistan for a relatively long period from 2003 to 2018.

The study uses 3,821 firm-year observations from non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). For the estimation, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) with industry- and year fixed effects and two-step system generalized methods of moments (GMM) are used.

The study finds that group-affiliated firms outperform independent firms in accounting performance, while underperform in market performance. The outperformance is mainly driven by medium-sized business groups, while underperformance is driven by small and large business groups. Further, the study documents that the underperformance in terms of market performance of firms affiliated with small and large groups is greater before the economic downturn, while outperformance in terms of the accounting measure of firms affiliated with medium-sized groups is greater during the economic downturn. These findings support our time-driven concerns. Overall, the authors' findings are consistent with institutional and transaction cost theories.

Business groups are important channels to reduce market inefficiencies. Business groups may enhance the affiliated firms' resources and resistance capacity through active utilization of the internal capital market, specifically when market conditions are not ideal for affiliates. However, effective utilization of internal capital markets depends on group size. Therefore, investors should deliberate on the size of business groups and diversification within business groups.

The authors extend the literature by providing fresh evidence related to the performance of business groups in the Pakistani context while accounting for the role of the size of business groups.

Investor sentiment (optimism or pessimism) may influence investors to follow others (herding) while taking their investment decisions. Herding may result in bubbles and crashes in the financial markets. The purpose of the study is to examine the presence of herding and the effects of investor sentiment on herding in China and Pakistan.

The investor sentiment is captured by five variables (trading volume, advance/decline ratio, weighted price-to-earnings ratio, relative strength index and interest rates) and a sentiment index developed through principal component analysis (PCA). The study uses daily prices of 2,184 firms from China and 568 firms from Pakistan for the period 2005 to 2018.

The study finds that herding prevails in China while reverse herding prevails in Pakistan. Interestingly, as investors become optimistic, herding in China and reverse herding in Pakistan decrease. This indicates that herding and reverse herding are greater during pessimistic periods. Further, the increase in herding in one market reduces herding in the other market. Moreover, optimistic sentiment in the Chinese market increases herding in the Pakistani market but the reverse is not true.

Considering the greater global financial liberalization, and better opportunities for emotion sharing, this study has important implications for regulators and investors. Market participants need to understand the prevalent irrational behavior before trading in the markets.

Since individual proxies may depict different picture of the relationship between sentiment and herding therefore the study also develops a sentiment index through PCA and incorporates this index in the analysis. Further, this study examines cross-country effects of herding and investor sentiment.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects dividend policy (the propensity to pay dividends as well as the dividend payout ratio) and what role family ownership plays in this regard in an emerging market.

The study uses a sample of 1,480 observations from Pakistan for the period 2010–2016 and accounts for Hackman self-selection bias and endogeneity issues using a robust regression analysis. CSR activity is measured by CSR score developed through a content analysis of firms' annual reports.

The study finds that the greater number of CSR activities increases the propensity to pay dividends, but reduces the dividend payout in dividend-paying firms. On the other hand, in family firms, the greater number CSR activities decreases the propensity to pay dividends, but increases the dividend payout in dividend-paying firms. The findings hold for a series of robustness and sensitivity checks, for example, alternative measures, specifications and estimators.

A trade-off between firms' CSR activities and dividend policy needs to be the point of concern for investors, minority shareholders and policy makers. The role of the non-executive and independent directors becomes more important, especially in the family firms where family members sitting on the boards may drive CSR activities in their own interests opportunistically. The potential opportunistic behaviour of family members warrants the need for policy reform initiatives to strengthen the protection of other stakeholders' interests.

The study highlights that family owners' efforts to preserve their socio-emotional wealth in family firms affect the relationship between CSR activities and dividend policy. Further, the relationship between CSR and dividend policy in emerging markets is different from developed markets. This study simultaneously focuses on both the propensity to pay dividends and the amount of dividend payment and documents that the implications of CSR are different for them.