International Journal of Finance & Economics

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 1076-9307

Issue Number

No. 29-1, January 2024

Latest documents

Measuring the efficiency and productivity of U.K. insurance market
The U.K. insurance industry has a dominant international presence, suggesting strong competitiveness and performance. Yet, its efficiency and productivity has rarely being investigated. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of insurers' performance in the U.K. insurance market from 1996 to 2017, using stochastic frontier analysis to measure efficiency scores and productivity at the firm level. Results show the U.K. insurance industry could improve by about 40% in terms of cost efficiency and by 70% in terms of profit efficiency. In addition, our model reveals a higher cost efficiency score compared to profit efficiency, implying that there are higher inefficiencies on the income side of the insurance industry as measured by our profit function. In terms of total factor productivity (TFP) growth, we report a steady decline over time while on average is negative. By decomposing TFP growth into its underlying components, we reveal that the reported negative trend in TFP growth over time has mainly been driven by the enhanced competition that resulted in a drop in markup, while the scale and cost efficiency has also driven TFP growth down. However, from a positive point of view, we report evidence of both β‐convergence and σ‐convergence in cost and profit efficiency.
Audit report information improvement and earnings management
Increasing the disclosure of key audit matters (KAMs) has been an important change in audit reports in recent years. After the implementation of this policy, what changes have taken place in the behaviour of auditors after the implementation of this policy? What impact has it had on the audit report? A series of problems deserve systematic analysis and empirical testing. This paper examines the relationship between the communication of KAMs and earnings management. We examined quasi‐natural experimental data shaped by new auditing standards issued by the Ministry of Finance of China on 23 December 2016. The new auditing standards have been implemented in phases for the listed companies. We find that (1) communicating KAMs in audit reports restrains the auditor's motivational reasoning behaviour by triggering rationality constraints and improves the auditor's professional scepticism, thus improving audit quality and significantly reducing the company's accrued earnings management level. (2) The influence of communicating KAMs on earnings management is more significant for sampled firms with high external financing dependence and low marketization, revealing its supplementary role in the existing corporate governance mechanism. The findings of this paper enrich existing research on KAMs and supplement important empirical evidence from the Chinese market for assessing the effects of audit reporting reforms worldwide.
Correction to “Outward foreign direct investment and economic growth in Romania: Evidence from non‐linear ARDL approach”
Explaining and correcting trade imbalances between the Northern and Southern Eurozone: An empirical investigation
In this paper we take a novel approach to examining the trade imbalances between the Southern Eurozone countries and the Northern Eurozone countries by aggregating them into a Southern Group and Northern Group. We then explore three possible causes of the trade imbalances, which are the fiscal channel, the investment channel and the competitiveness channel. We find that all three channels are important in explaining the emergence and correction of trade imbalances. In particular, we find that an increase in fiscal deficits in the North are twice as effective in reducing trade imbalances than fiscal consolidation in the South. By contrast, increased investment in the North has a similar impact to reduced investment in the South in correcting the trade imbalances. Finally, we find that a depreciation of the South's real exchange rate is associated with a long run deterioration in the Southern Group's trade balance suggesting that the South needs to seek non‐price competitiveness channels to address its trade imbalances.
Emerging influence of the RMB on currency markets in a transpiring tri‐polar international monetary system
The up‐and‐coming influence of the RMB on currency co‐movements is examined in this paper, in the context of a transpiring tri‐polar international monetary system advocated in prior studies. The study is empirically conducted against the backdrop of a more variable RMB exchange rate regime, which enables the integration of the RMB into the international monetary system. The influence of the RMB is found most evident in Asia, being modest in Latin America while reaching Africa. The RMB co‐moves most with the currencies of countries that have large shares in trade with China considerably. Meanwhile, a residual‐based instrumental variables model is proposed in this study purposely for dealing with issues of common factor dominance, which prevails in currency co‐movements. The emerging influence of the RMB on currency co‐movements arises at the time when a multiple‐reserve currency system is coming, and the RMB is included as the third largest currency in the SDR basket. It is shored up by the improved infrastructure, strengthened central bank cooperation and expanded networks for cross‐border RMB payments and settlements. It is concluded that the RMB has increasingly integrated into the international monetary system as one of the major players, effecting currency market movements actively alongside the US dollar and euro.
Better ways to test for herding
In this article, we outline problems with the standard test for herding developed by Chang, Cheng and Kohrana (2000), subsequently called the CCK test, which is based on the proposition that the cross‐sectional absolute deviation of stock returns (CSAD) should be linearly related to overall market returns. We show that the test is highly biased against finding herding. The bias arises because the test assumes that, in the absence of herding, stock prices follow the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) but does not account for the implications of the CAPM not being a perfect asset pricing model. We suggest several simple alternative tests for herding. Finally, we show that the new tests give radically different results to the CCK test finding herding in many of the world's major financial markets when the CCK test rejects herding.
Does economic complexity influence environmental performance? Empirical evidence from OECD countries
Environmental degradation is a major challenge facing the world. Our view is that a country's productive structure, reflected through its knowledge content and technical capabilities (economic complexity), is strongly correlated with its environmental performance. To empirically confirm this view, the link between economic complexity and environmental performance in member countries of the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) was examined within a modified version of the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology (STIRPAT) model incorporating two alternative measures of economic complexity. The model was estimated using the fixed effects extension proposed by Driscoll and Kraay (DK‐FE) and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation techniques. Granger causality testing in frequency domain was also employed to examine country‐specific relationships. The sample period extended from 2007 to 2016. The study findings provided reliable empirical justification for our position. The coefficients for economic complexity in the long‐run estimations revealed that economic complexity positively impacted on environmental performance in the OECD countries. Granger causality outcomes also indicated economic complexity as a meaningful predictor of environmental performance in most of the OECD countries.
The non‐linear impacts of innovation on unemployment: Evidence from panel data
This article examines the linear and non‐linear impacts of innovation on unemployment in 61 countries, covering annual data from 2007 to 2016. The relationship is estimated by deploying the system generalised method of moments (SGMM) estimation. Alternative instruments for the SGMM estimation and cross‐sectional threshold estimation are utilised to investigate the estimation robustness. Although the negative linear relationship between innovation and unemployment is not robustly supported in the linear models, the empirical results of non‐linear models suggest the existence of an inverted‐U effect of innovation on unemployment rate. The marginal impact of innovation also supports the inverted‐U relationship in which only the innovation at the maximum and mean level contributes to lower unemployment. Additionally, the negative marginal effect is larger at the maximum level compared to the mean level. The robustness estimations that use alternative instruments and the Hansen threshold regression also support the non‐linear relationship. On the basis of the findings, although innovation should be encouraged to create more jobs, policymakers are advised to consider interventions in job protection, such as offering reskilling programs to mitigate rising unemployment following the initial efforts to promote innovation.
Directional predictability from energy markets to exchange rates and stock markets in the emerging market countries (E7 + 1): New evidence from cross‐quantilogram approach
We examine the directional predictability of energy stock returns on exchange rates and stock market in the E7 + 1 emerging market economies, which include India, China, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, over the period 4 January 2000 to 31 May 2018. To achieve this, we carried out a cross‐quantile analysis in the static and dynamic frameworks, using the bi‐variate cross‐quantilogram (CQ) and the partial cross‐quantilogram (PCQ) approaches and a dynamic variant of such approaches. The predictability of the stock returns on the energy prices for WTI, Brent, OPEC, heating oil and natural gas is examined. Further relationships are also conditioned by using two measures of geopolitical risk, including the general geopolitical risk (GPRD), and the geopolitical risk threats (GPRD_Threat). The overall results highlight the importance of employing the PCQ approach in examining the predictability of different pairs of the energy prices, exchange rates and stock markets. They also indicate that controlling for GPRD and GPRD_Threat significantly improves the predictability of these variables. Policy implications of the empirical findings have been elaborated and discussed.
How the information content of integrated reporting flows into the stock market
According to its advocates, integrated reporting (IR) aims to enhance firms' information environment by placing financial reporting into a much broader perspective in which interrelated non‐financial information of firms' activities are taken into consideration. We examine whether this intended outcome of IR embeds into the stock pricing process using a sample of South African listed firms that mandatorily adopted IR in 2011. Unlike previous studies that explore market valuation implications of IR, we examine the channel through which the IR‐related information flows into firm value. Specifically, we quantify the effects of revisions of expectation about future cash flows (prompted by financial reporting information), revisions of expectation about discount rates (prompted by non‐financial reporting information) and their interconnectedness. We hypothesize and empirically show that the adoption of an IR approach prompted greater market revisions of expectations about future discount rates and a stronger interconnectedness between market revisions of expectations about future cash flows and discount rates. Thus, the change in the stock pricing process after the adoption of IR is determined by non‐financial reporting information and its strong interconnectedness with financial reporting information. We also show that our results are stronger for firms with greater earnings opacity, suggesting that investors find IR more useful when firms' financial reporting is opaque. Results indicate to researchers, practitioners and regulators that IR enhances the firm‐level information environment by providing informative non‐financial reporting which is also well integrated with financial reporting.