Can sustainable investments outperform traditional benchmarks? Evidence from global stock markets

To contribute to overcoming global sustainability challenges, investors have been increasingly interested in making sustainable investments and incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their portfolio selection decisions and managerial activities. However, these investors and other agents interested in sustainable investment need updated and robust information to support their decision making. We analyzed the performance of several Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSIs) and compared them with their respective market benchmarks from 2013 to 2018. The indices comprise the following regions and countries: the world, the Asia‐Pacific, Europe, emerging markets and the US. The analysis was conducted based on both classic and modern portfolio metrics. The results suggest that sustainable investment performance is still heterogeneous worldwide, but there is a promising opportunity for investors to obtain superior risk‐adjusted returns in certain regions while incorporating sustainable investment practices. The findings are of utmost importance to financial market practitioners, business managers, academics and other stakeholders interested in promoting investments, corporate practices and scientific knowledge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).     

Do house price developments spillover across euro area countries? Evidence from a global VAR

This paper empirically assesses the prospects for house price spillovers in the euro area, where co-movement in house prices across countries may be particularly relevant given a general trend with monetary union toward increasing linkages in trade, financial markets, and general economic conditions. A global VAR is estimated for three housing demand variables (real house prices, real per capita income, and the cost of borrowing, captured by a real long-term interest rate) on the basis of quarterly data for 7 euro area countries (Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands), which together comprise nearly 90% of euro area GDP, over the period 1971–2009. The results suggest limited house price spillovers in the euro area, albeit with evidence of some overshooting in the first year after the shock, followed by a long run aggregate euro area impact of country-specific changes in real house prices related in part to the country’s economic weight. This contrasts with the impacts of a shock to domestic long-term interest rates, causing a permanent shift in house prices after 2–3 years. Underlying this aggregate development are rather heterogeneous house price spillovers at the country level, with a strong importance for weights – either economic or geographic – in governing their general magnitude. More generally, the impact of financing costs on house prices appears to have grown though time.     

Does faith move stock markets? Evidence from Saudi Arabia

This paper investigates the effects of religious beliefs on stock prices. Our findings support the viewpoint that the religious tenets have important bearing on portfolio choices of investors. It is found that Shariah-compliant stocks have higher return and volatility than their non-Shariah compliant counterparts.     

Time–frequency quantile dependence between Bitcoin and global equity markets

In this paper, we examine return dependence between Bitcoin and stock market returns using a novel quantile cross-spectral dependence approach. The results suggest a right-tail (high return) dependence between Bitcoin and the stock markets in the long term and that said dependence decreases significantly from yearly to monthly investment horizons. Furthermore, right-tail dependence between Bitcoin and the US stock market is the strongest compared with other stock markets. We also extract information on the time-varying and time–frequency structure of co-movements between Bitcoin and the stock markets using wavelet-coherence analysis, the results of which suggest that the co-movement between Bitcoin and the US stock market is positive, whereas, for other stock markets, it is negative at certain frequencies and time periods. Overall, the findings highlight additional risk-management capabilities of Bitcoin according to different stock markets.     

Do option-like incentives induce overvaluation? Evidence from experimental asset markets

One potential reason for bubbles evolving prior to the financial crisis was excessive risk taking stemming from option-like incentive schemes in financial institutions. By running laboratory asset markets, we investigate the impact of option-like incentives on price formation and trading behavior. The main results are that (i) we observe significantly higher market prices with option-like incentives than linear incentives. (ii) We further find that option-like incentives provoke subjects to behave differently and to take more risk than subjects with linear incentives. (iii) We finally show that trading at inflated prices is rational for subjects with option-like incentives since it increases their expected payout.     

Does employment protection help immigrants? Evidence from European labor markets

High levels of employment protection reduce hiring and firing and have a theoretically ambiguous effect on the employment level. Immigrants, being new to the labor market, may be less aware of employment protection regulations and less likely to claim their rights, which may create a gap between the costs for employers of hiring a native relative to hiring an immigrant. This paper tests that hypothesis drawing on evidence for the EU and on two natural experiments for Spain and Italy. The results suggest that strict employment protection legislation (EPL) gives immigrants a comparative advantage relative to natives. Stricter EPL is found to reduce employment and reduce hiring and firing rates for natives. By contrast, stricter EPL has a much smaller effect on immigrants.     

Was the 2007 crisis really a global banking crisis?

We argue that the 2007 crisis was not a global banking crisis. Stock prices of banks in emerging countries faced a temporary shock but quickly recovered, while stock prices of banks located in industrial countries remained much lower than before the 2007 crisis. Our results also suggest that stock prices of large banks were affected more during the crisis than those of small banks. We also find that managerial efficiency, loan quality, leverage, and the volume of outstanding loans affect bank stock prices.     

Does US news impact Asian emerging markets? Evidence from nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test

This paper aims to analyze whether US news on inflation and unemployment causes returns and volatility of seven emerging Asian stock markets from 1994 to 2014, by employing the causality-in-quantile approach. We find evidence that US news affect returns and/or volatility of all the seven stock markets considered, with these effects clustered around the tails of the conditional distribution of returns and volatility when they are either in bear or bull modes. In general, our results highlight the importance of modeling nonlinearity and studying entire conditional distributions of stock returns and volatility to draw correct inferences.     

Is corporate payout taxation a long run phenomenon? Evidence from international data

This paper examines whether dividend and capital gains taxation influences corporate payout policy using the country level data of 21 countries in panel versions of time series models. We find that dividend relative to capital gains tax penalty is cointegrated with corporate payouts (dividends and share repurchases) i.e. corporate payout taxation may be a long run phenomenon. Further, the cointegrating vector estimates are largely consistent with the traditional view of dividend taxation whereby the tax penalty discourages dividends, while the estimates give limited support to the premise that firms substitute dividends for share repurchases in response to an increase in dividend tax penalty. Long run causality also operates between the tax penalty and payouts in the error correction models. Additionally, dividend tax appears to be more influential than capital gains tax on dividend payout decisions. Lastly, taxation affects dividends more significantly in countries with high investor protection.     

The integration of international financial markets: an attempt to quantify contagion in an input–output-type analysis

ABSTRACT

The increasing integration of international financial markets means that credit defaults in one country have to be covered by creditors in other countries. If the principle of creditor liability were applied systematically, the financial losses incurred by the financial institution that provided the credit and is thus directly affected by the default would be ‘passed on’ through its domestic and foreign shareholders and debt holders, as well as their creditors, to the original savers. In this paper, this contagion effect will be estimated by taking international capital linkages into account. Analogously to an input–output analysis of inter-industry linkages, savings used for investments in one country are traced back to the countries from which the funds originated. This also reveals the important role of international financial centers, which essentially serve as distributors of investment risks, while the financial losses are ultimately borne by larger countries with higher levels of savings.     

Do cryptocurrencies provide better hedging? Evidence from major equity markets during COVID-19 pandemic

Using the five-minute interval price data of two cryptocurrencies and eight stock market indices, we examine the risk spillover and hedging effectiveness between these two assets. Our approach provides a comparative assessment encompassing the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 sample periods. We employ copula models to assess the dependence and risk spillover from Bitcoin and Ethereum to stock market returns during both the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk spillover from Bitcoin and Ethereum to stock market returns. The findings vis-à-vis portfolio weights and hedge effectiveness highlight hedging gains; however, optimal investments in Bitcoin and Ethereum have reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the cost of hedging has increased during this period. The findings also confirm that cryptocurrencies cannot provide incremental gains by hedging stock market risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Do global output gaps help forecast domestic inflation? Evidence from Phillips curves for Poland

This study confronts domestic and global views on inflation through the use of the Hybrid New Keynesian Phillips Curve (HNKPC) models estimated for headline and core inflation in Poland. We analyse the roles of the global vs. domestic output gaps in affecting price changes. We ensure that our conclusions are robust by taking into consideration various proxies for inflation expectations, imported inflation, the domestic output gap and the global output gap.Our results suggest that the global demand conditions are statistically insignificant in the majority of the estimated global versions of HNKPC, independently of the measure of them that is considered. In terms of empirical fit, and especially of the out-of-sample forecasting accuracy, the specifications of the Phillips curve with the domestic and global output gaps among the explanatory variables are not superior to traditional Phillips curves. Interestingly, the relative importance of the global output gap is much smaller in models that are estimated in terms of core inflation, excluding foodstuffs and energy, than in CPI inflation models. This suggests that global demand conditions affect the inflation in Poland indirectly, mainly through the prices of food and energy raw materials.The main conclusion from our study is that external factors that are already considered in the traditional hybrid versions of the new Keynesian Phillips curve are sufficient to account for global influences on prices in the domestic economy. The concept of the global output gap improves neither the explanatory nor the predictive power of HNKPC models.     

Are regulations the answer for emerging stock markets? Evidence from the Czech Republic and Poland

Does the emergence of a stock market require a well-developed legal and/or regulatory system? Although historical work by Neal and Davis [Neal, L., & Davis, L. (2005). The evolution of the rules and regulations of the first emerging markets: The London, New York, and Paris stock exchanges, 1792–1914. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 45, 296–311] and Stringham [Stringham, E. (2003). The extralegal development of securities trading in seventeenth century Amsterdam. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 43, 321–344] suggests that securities markets have successfully developed with little government oversight, numerous authors [including Black, B. (2001). The legal and institutional preconditions for strong securities markets. University of California Law Angeles Law Review, 48, 781–855; Coffee, J. (1999). Privatization and corporate governance: The lessons from securities market failure. Journal of Corporation Law, 25, 1–39; Frye, T. (2000). Brokers and bureaucrats: Building market institutions in Russia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Glaeser, E., Johnson, S., & Shleifer, A. (2001). Coase versus the Coasians. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 853–899; Mlčoch, L. (2000). Restructuring of property rights: An institutional view. In L. Mlčoch et al. (Eds.), Economic and Social Changes in Czech Society After 1989. Prague: The Karolinum Press; Pistor, K. (2001). Law as a determinant for equity market development – the experience of transition economies. In Peter Murrell (Ed.), The Value of Law in Transition Economies (pp. 249–287). Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press; Stiglitz, J. (1999). Whither reform. Ten years of the transition. Keynote Address, Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Washington, DC, April 28–30, 1999; Zhang, X. (2006). Financial market governance in developing countries: Getting the political underpinnings right. Journal of Developing Societies, 2, 169–196] argue that the Czech Republic and other Eastern European governments need more regulation for their newly created stock markets. They maintain that the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which is seen as more regulated, has outperformed the Prague Stock Exchange which is seen as largely unregulated. Thus increased regulations are a key to increased performance. This article, however, maintains that the evidence from the Czech experience has been misinterpreted. This article provides an in depth case study of the Czech stock market and finds that (a) Czech capital markets have been hindered by government intervention from their beginning, (b) that the evidence on Poland's superior performance is not as strong as suggested, and (c) that Czech regulators seem to be unqualified, lack the proper incentives, and are unlikely to benefit the market. Under these circumstances it appears that Neal and Davis (2005:311) are correct that increased government involvement is unlikely to improve the situation.     

Scarred from the past or afraid of the future? Unemployment and job satisfaction across European labour markets

Previous research has shown that both past unemployment and anticipated future unemployment have a detrimental impact on employees' attitudes and behaviours, which may affect organisational performance. Surprisingly, however, very little is known about the relative impact of past unemployment compared with current job insecurity. Although it is possible that both effects operate simultaneously, this paper – focused on employees' job satisfaction and utilising a set of cross-sectional data derived from the European Social Survey 2006–2007 – reports on a strongly pronounced insecurity effect: anticipated unemployment substantially reduces employees' job satisfaction. Interestingly, inclusion of the perceived risk of future unemployment as a separate predictor variable in ordered probit regressions relegates the experience of past unemployment to a statistically insignificant coefficient and thus weakens the ‘scarring’ hypothesis. These results hold true even when several socio-demographic characteristics and proxies for individual personality traits are controlled. Implications for organisations and human resource practitioners and scope for future research endeavours conclude the analysis of the paper.     

Career success for international professional women in the land of the equal? Evidence from Norway

This study investigates the career success of international expatriate women in Norway. Norwegian and international women were compared on both objective and subjective career success. Participants were 125 Norwegian women and 168 international expatriate women who answered a 58 item questionnaire. Although Norwegian women achieved higher career success than the expatriate group, these effects disappeared for objective career success when expatriate women had a high level of education, high English language competency and motivation. Motivation, self focused conflict resolution and language competency were positively associated with subjective career success. Results suggest that although being foreign can be a disadvantage in Norway, expatriate women can overcome this liability through investment in education, language and motivation. Implications for international expatriate women are discussed.     

How and when do prior international experiences lead to global work? A career motivation perspective

While research suggests a link between individuals' prior international experiences and their future participation in global work, we know little about how and the conditions under which this relationship occurs. Drawing on career motivation theory, we conceptualize global identity as a mediator between individuals' density of prior international experiences—defined as the extent to which time spent in culturally novel countries has provided individuals with developmental opportunities—and their global work aspirations, which in turn leads to their global work involvement. Further, this multi-stage mediation model holds mainly when individuals receive positive feedback regarding their intercultural competencies (i.e., cultural intelligence) from their peers. We test our model using a multi-wave multi-source dataset spanning 6 years. We discuss implications for the literatures on prior international experiences and global careers.     

Labour solidarity in crisis? Lessons from General Motors

Why was the 2008–09 economic downturn not matched by an internationally coordinated trade union response? Drawing on the evidence from General Motors, this article argues that this was due to states' extraordinary involvement in the economy during the crisis, which provided strategic alternatives to labour transnationalism at the national level.     

Has the Basel Accord improved risk management during the global financial crisis?

The Basel II Accord requires that banks and other Authorized Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs) communicate their daily risk forecasts to the appropriate monetary authorities at the beginning of each trading day, using one or more risk models to measure Value-at-Risk (VaR). The risk estimates of these models are used to determine capital requirements and associated capital costs of ADIs, depending in part on the number of previous violations, whereby realised losses exceed the estimated VaR. In this paper we define risk management in terms of choosing from a variety of risk models, and discuss the selection of optimal risk models. A new approach to model selection for predicting VaR is proposed, consisting of combining alternative risk models, and we compare conservative and aggressive strategies for choosing between VaR models. We then examine how different risk management strategies performed during the 2008–09 global financial crisis. These issues are illustrated using Standard and Poor's 500 Composite Index.