Five Stylized Facts on Belt and Road Countries and Their Trade Patterns

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers investment opportunities for several Eurasian countries but not all of them attract investments in the same way. This paper investigates the geographical distribution of BRI projects completed between 2013 and 2020. The analysis shows that pre-existing trade patterns are related to the likelihood of a country receiving completed BRI projects. We single out and provide evidence in support of five stylized facts. First, BRI countries with completed projects tend to be poorer and larger. Second, projects are more likely to occur in countries with intense intermediate trade with China. Third, the countries that received projects have more diversified export structures and their sectoral specialization overlaps with that of China. Fourth, among middle-high-income countries, the allocation of projects tends to favor those with high levels of intra-industry trade. Fifth, among BRI countries with projects, the complexity or sophistication of the goods traded increases faster with income. These findings suggest that fostering trade integration has direct benefits and may also contribute to further BRI investments.     

Sustainable environmental practices and financial performance: Evidence from listed small and medium‐sized enterprise in the United Kingdom

In this article, we investigate the financial implication of sustainable environmental practices on UK small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs)–traded firms. Existing literature indicates that there is a direct relationship between sustainable environmental practices and financial performance. However, studies looking at this relationship have focused mainly on large firms with little attention paid to SMEs. Further, those looking at environmental and financial performance relationships have often used a single measure of performance in their studies. This study bridges these research gaps by focusing on listed SMEs in the United Kingdom using multiple measures of sustainable environmental policy indices on a panel of 201 SMEs on the Alternative Investment Market from 2011 to 2016. Evidence from our panel data analysis suggests significant and a nonlinear (concave) relationship between sustainable environmental practices and firms' financial performance. Specifically, energy efficiency practices, greenhouse gases, material, and resource efficiency revealed an inverted U‐shaped relationship with financial performance. The results will offer guidance to management in terms of allocating resources to sustainable environmental practices investment.     

Corporate voluntary greenhouse gas reporting: Stakeholder pressure and the mediating role of the chief executive officer

The study sheds light on the extent to which various stakeholder pressures influence voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the impact is explained and moderated chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics of 215 FTSE 350 listed U.K. companies for the year 2011. The study developed a classification of GHG emission disclosure based on the guidelines of GHG Protocol, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure using content analysis. Evidence from the study suggests that some stakeholder pressure (regulatory, creditor, supplier, customer, and board control) positively impacts on GHG disclosure information by firms. We found that stakeholder pressure in the form of regulatory, mimetic, and shareholders pressure positively influenced the disclosure of GHG information. We also found that creditor pressure also had a significant negative relationship with GHG disclosure. Although CEO age had a direct negative effect on GHG voluntary disclosure, its moderation effect on stakeholder pressure influence on GHG disclosure was only significant on regulatory pressure.     

The path of kyosei

Many global companies believe they have a moral duty to respond to the world's problems but are unsure how to do that and still pursue a reasonable profit for their shareholders. Ryuzaburo Kaku, honorary chairman of Canon, the Japanese technology company, suggests that companies consider kyosei, a business credo that he defines as a "spirit of cooperation" in which individuals and organizations work together for the common good. Kyosei, Kaku claims, has helped Canon make a significant and positive impact on many world problems as the company has grown to become one of the world's preeminent innovators and manufacturers of technology. The implementation of kyosei can be divided into five stages, with each stage building on the preceding one. In the first stage, companies must work to secure a predictable stream of profits and to establish strong market positions. From this foundation, they move on to the second stage, in which managers and workers resolve to cooperate with each other, recognizing that both groups are vital to the company's success. In the third stage, this sense of cooperation is extended beyond the company to encompass customers, suppliers, community groups, and even competitors. At the fourth stage, a company takes the cooperative spirit beyond national boundaries and addresses some of the global imbalances that plague the world. In the fifth stage, which companies rarely achieve, a company urges its national government to work toward rectifying global imbalances. For each stage, Kaku provides detailed examples from Cannon's own experience in putting the ideas of kyosei into practice.