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This study aims to examine the impact of renewable energy consumption on agricultural productivity while accounting for the effect of financial inclusion and foreign direct investment in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries during 2000–2020.

The study has used the latest data from World Bank and International Monetary Fund databases. The dependent variable in the study is agricultural productivity. Renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, financial inclusion and foreign direct investment are independent variables. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach was used to examine the short-run and long-run impact of renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, foreign direct investment and financial inclusion on agricultural productivity.

The findings imply that consumption of renewable energy, carbon emissions and foreign direct investment have a positive impact on agricultural productivity while financial inclusion in terms of access does not seem to have any significant impact on agricultural productivity. Providing farmers, access to financial services can be beneficial, but its usage holds more importance in impacting rural outcomes. The problem lies in the fact that there is still a gap between access and usage of financial services.

Policymakers should encourage the increase in the usage of renewable energy and become less reliant on non-renewable energy sources which will eventually help in tackling the problems associated with climate change as well as enhance agricultural productivity.

Most of the earlier studies were based on tabular analysis without any empirical base to establish the causal relationship between determinants of agricultural productivity and renewable energy consumption. These studies were also limited to a few regions. The study is one of its kind in exploring the severity of various factors that determine agricultural productivity in the context of emerging economies like BRICS while accounting for the effect of financial inclusion and foreign direct investment.

The phenomenon known as financialization of commodities, arising from the speculation in commodity derivatives market, has raised serious concerns in the recent past. This has prompted distortion in agricultural commodity prices driving them away from rational levels of supply and demand shocks. In the backdrop of financialized commodities leading to increase in price of agricultural products and their interaction with equity markets, the authors examine the investment of institutional investors in impacting the agricultural returns. The paper aims to focus on the financial mechanism that drives extreme values and the mean of agricultural returns.

The authors employ the Threshold AutoRegressive Quantile (TQAR) methodology to find evidence of linkages between the Indian agricultural and equity markets from January 2010 to May 2020 consistent with the rise in inflows of institutional investors in agricultural markets.

The results reveal that the investors impact the agricultural commodity markets strongly when the composite commodity index value (COMDEX) is low. Additionally, in the lower extreme quantiles (0.25) of agricultural returns, the integration between the equity index and agricultural returns is found to be highly significant compared to insignificant values in the higher quantiles (0.75 and 0.95) in both the regimes. The results suggest that low values of agricultural commodities are more closely linked to equity indices when composite commodity index value is low. This implies that, at the lower quantiles of COMDEX return (bad day), the investors move to the stock market. In that way, the commodity index returns are seen to be as a strong channel for the financialization of Indian agricultural commodities and suggesting potential involvement of investors during those regime.

Regulators need to anticipate the price fluctuations in spot and futures markets. Investors in commodity markets need to strengthen risk awareness to carry out portfolio strategies.

From policy perspective, it is of pivotal importance to enhance the understanding of the financialization of agricultural products. The findings provide reference measures to stabilize the commodity markets, alleviate price distortions and carry out further evidence of price discovery and risk management in Indian commodity markets.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to highlight the potential influence of financial markets on the financialization of agricultural commodities in an emerging economy like India.

The objective of the study is to analyse the impact of research and development investment on the firm performance of “small” scale firms vis-a-vis “medium”-scale firms.

The dataset comprised of a balanced panel of 486 research and development conducting Indian manufacturing small and medium enterprises, constructed for the period of 2006–2017. Fixed Effects, Random Effects Model and Hausmann test were used to analyse the determinants of firm performance in manufacturing small and medium enterprises in India.

It was found that from firms’ research and development (R&D) investments in terms of performance could be attained if simultaneously internationalisation and higher capital intensity could be achieved.

Managers could pay specific attention to the antecedents of firm performance and calibrate their R&D investment, internationalisation efforts and capital intensity simultaneously to achieve higher growth and productivity. For policymakers, the results provide an insight into how the firms in both categories could be differently incentivised, such that resources are better utilised.

The study analysed the determinants of firm performance in small and medium-sized firms at a disaggregate level as well as at a sectoral level using fixed effects, random effects and lagged effects to arrive at novel results, which have important implications for their competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between ownership structure and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, this paper examines the impact of financial performance on the relationship between ownership structure and CSR.

This study uses panel data set of 200 French firms listed during 2007–2018 period. The direct and moderating effects were tested by using multiple regression technique.

The results indicate that investors have different attitudes toward CSR engagement. While institutional ownership affects positively CSR engagement, managerial ownership shows a negative effect. Findings also show that financial performance accentuates these effects.

The findings have practical implications that may be useful to regulators and managers interested in enhancing CSR. For regulators, the results advise policymakers to restrict managerial ownership and promote institutional investments to improve CSR. For managers, the results suggest developing more sophisticated intervention mechanisms to deal with conflicting voices that could result from different owners’ attitudes toward CSR. As an extension to this research, further study can examine the impact of audit quality on CSR.

This study proposes the establishment of dynamic links between ownership structure and CSR around firm financial performance. In addition, it investigates not only the overall CSR ratings but also each of CSR pillars, namely, environmental, social and governance.