• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.181-193
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• 2020

This study examines the relationship between gender diversity (women on the board and women on the audit committee) and a firm's financial stability. The ordinary least square analysis was used to determine the relationship. To measure the financial stability of Malaysian suspect firms, i.e., firms with the lowest positive earnings, the Altman (1993) Z-Score measurement was utilized. The results indicate that women on the board are significantly and negatively associated with the firm's financial stability. That is, they are related to low financial stability, which contradicts the agency and resource dependence theories. Regarding women directors on the audit committee, there is no significant relationship with financial stability, meaning that they cannot protect the company against financial distress. These results are robust and do not change when using different measurements of gender diversity, one-year lag of independent variables, and other methods of analysis, namely random effect panel data. This study is the first to alert policymakers, stakeholders, researchers, and society in general to the need to re-evaluate and strengthen the role of women directors in improving firms' financial stability, particularly in emerging economies like Malaysia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.683-692
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• 2020

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the volatility spillovers from global economic policy uncertainty and macroeconomic factors to the Islamic stock market returns. The study focuses on the Islamic stock indices of emerging economies including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey. The Macroeconomic factors are industrial production, consumer price index, exchange rate. EGARCH model is employed for investigation of volatility spillovers. The results show that the global economic policy uncertainty has a significant spillover effect only on the returns of Turkish Islamic stock index. Similarly, the shocks in macroeconomic factors have little influence on the volatility of Islamic indices returns. The volatility of Indonesian and the Turkish Islamic stock indices returns is not influenced from the fluctuations in macroeconomic factors. However, there is significant volatility spillover only from industrial production to the returns of Malaysian Islamic index. The results suggest that the Islamic stock markets are less likely to influence from the global economic policies and macroeconomic factors. The stability of Islamic stocks provide opportunity for diversification of portfolios, particularly in stressed market conditions. The major price factors of Islamic markets could be firms' specific factors or investors' behaviors. The findings are helpful for policy makers and investors in formulating policies and portfolios.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.73-84
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• 2020

The paper investigates the effect of the factors on the disclosure of sustainable development information of enterprises. The research sample includes 120 manufacturing companies listed on Vietnam stock market in 2019. This research uses ordinary least squares (OLS) to address econometric issues and to improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients. The empirical results show that five variables have a statistically significant positive effect on disclosure of sustainable development information of manufacturing companies, including firm size (SIZE), independence of board of directors (BOD), foreign ownership (FRO), return on equity (ROE), and financial leverage (LEV). The results indicate that state ownership (STO) has a statistically significant negative effect on disclosure of sustainable development information of manufacturing companies listed on Vietnam stock market. Besides, the research results also show there is a large difference in the disclosure of sustainable development information between listed companies in Vietnam, those of other emerging economies in the region, and the companies in developed markets. Therefore, this paper provides a new insight to managers and related parties on how to improve the firm's sustainability disclosure to bring benefit for the firm itself and the stakeholders by reasonable decisions about the factors that affect disclosure of sustainable development information.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.203-212
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• 2021

Theoretically, economic growth necessitates financial liberalization. Thus, the current research examines the effect of financial liberalization on economic growth in emerging nations, with a particular focus on Egypt and Saudi Arabia. To determine this effect, the study employs a model that uses Gross Domestic Product growth as the dependent variable and the following macroeconomic variables as financial liberalization indices: Broad money as a percentage of GDP, Domestic bank credit to the private sector as a percentage of GDP, Monetary sector credit to the private sector as a percentage of GDP, Net inflows of foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP. All data is annual data of Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the period 1970-2018 obtained from the World Bank open data website. The empirical investigation employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The findings indicate that, after more than three decades of implementation, both countries' financial and external liberalization policies do not have a favorable effect on their economies' growth rates. Additionally, this study has led us to conclude that any financial liberalization policy in both countries must be preceded by the strengthening of these countries' financial development and institutional frameworks, as well as the achievement of macroeconomic stability.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.95-105
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• 2021

A prerequisite of a sound financial system is effective channeling of financial resources to efficient users; hence maximizing economic and societal welfare. To that end, the prevalence of bad loans in banks in emerging economies is a major policy concern. In an attempt to add to the growing body of literature explaining the interrelationship between macroeconomic and firm-specific factors, and non-performing loans (NPL), this paper examines data from 24 scheduled commercial banks in Bangladesh from 2008 to 2019. Macroeconomic factors as well as firm-specific factors related to profitability, capital strength, and efficiency are considered. Panel data regression analysis is performed to estimate pooled OLS, fixed effects, and random effects models. Following the necessary testing, it was found that the fixed effects model with robust standard error is appropriate. Results show that return on assets and inflation have a negative influence on NPL, but GDP growth has a favorable impact. The paper concludes by asserting that the evidence supports similar findings from studies both in Bangladesh and elsewhere and it is noted that a combination of these macroeconomic and firm-specific factors explains only a small portion of the total variation in NPL.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.689-695
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• 2021

In the current technology-driven era, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been deemed as one of the leading and prominent drivers of sustainable economic progress in emerging and developing economies such as in the Bangladesh context. Hence, it is of significance to understand what might fuel accelerating performance of SME business as increased SME performance will bring about more sustainability and strong development of SME sector within the country, through which more employment is anticipated to be generated. Therefore, the current study examines the impact of three factors: risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness on SME performance in Bangladesh. The study has gathered data from SME entities in Dhaka city of Bangladesh, by applying a non-probability sampling strategy. 250 SME owners were contacted to act as respondents and finally, 180 SME owners fully completed the survey questionnaire, indicating that the final sample size is n=180. SPSS is used as a purpose of testing the hypotheses by considering a 5% significance level as acceptance criteria of the hypothesis. Hierarchical regression analysis was run to understand the impact of control variables and independent variables on SME performance and found that age of business, risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness have an important impact on SME performance in Bangladesh.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.191-196
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• 2022

From several socioeconomic perspectives, the present health crisis can be connected to the 2008 financial and economic catastrophe. Governments worldwide are working hard to keep the markets in check, as evidence suggests that the health crisis may soon become an economic crisis. This paper aims to analyze the effect of COVID-19 on the selected stock market. Using a panel of daily COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths and the stock market from 22 developing countries, we exploit an oil price as a shock to the stock market and examine the effect of COVID-19 on the slowdown of the stock market. We find a negative and significant impact of COVID-19 on the stock market in the first stage till April. However, there is no net influence on the stock market downturn when we extend the period. However, further study suggests that the outbreak's negative influence on the selected stock market has diminished and has begun to decline as of mid-April. As a result of the COVID-19 effect on the chosen stock, our findings imply that the government in the chosen market should consider a regulatory mechanism to reduce the stock market slowdown induced by the pandemic COVID-19.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.287-300
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• 2021

The study is conducted to find out the impact of the country- and corporate-level governance and firm internationalization on stock liquidity of 120 listed firms in Japan, Hong Kong, Pakistan, and India. Panel data is used in the current study. The annual time span covered in the current study is 10 years. The current study explores results based on secondary data. The findings of the 'robust panel corrected standard error' estimator shows that the internationalization strategy of firms positively influences the stock liquidity. The internationalization strategy of multinational corporations proves to be an effective methodology for improving stock liquidity in the home market as well as abroad. The study also shows that a stronger relationship exists between stock liquidity and internationalization in those countries where the regulatory settings are effective, the judiciary system is efficient and shareholders' rights are protected. Corporate governance and stock liquidity are negatively associated. The study also finds a negative relationship between country-level governance mechanisms and stock liquidity. Whereas the 'robust panel corrected error' estimator shows a positive association between corporate governance mechanisms and firm internationalization. The study depicts that effective corporate governance motivates multinational companies to expand their business abroad.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.96-112
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• 2019

Purpose - "Trade Facilitation" aims the easier flow of trade across borders, driven not only by effective customs administration, the efficiency of appropriate authorities, but also by telecommunications, the quality of infrastructures and competent logistics. Facilitating trade will help lower trade development costs as well as improve economic development and enhance economic benefits for emerging economies at a time when imports and exports are sent in and out across borders several times in the form of intermediate and final products. Not only that, globalization is being accelerated, which in turn increases competitiveness and this makes logistics one of the key factors when it comes to international trade. Highly efficient logistics services promote product movement, ensure product safety and delivery speed, and reduce trade costs between countries. The purpose of this study is, by using the LPI indices based on gravity model estimates, to analyze the impact of each LPI component on trade with the 20 biggest exporting countries of Northeast Asian countries-Korea, Japan, and China-which account for 19.05% of global exports. Design/methodology - Also, this study statistically analyzes the impact of trade on Northeast Asian countries' top 20 exporting countries, using the LPI indices relevant to Trade Facilitation based on the gravity model estimates. Findings - As a result, it was turned out that the distance, GDP, and the LPI components have relevant impact on the trade exports of all three countries but demonstrated little relation to the demographic perspective. Originality/value - The study also found we can increase the trade volume by improving three countries' trade partners' LPI indices since Korea, Japan, and China share most of their 20 biggest trade partners.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.445-453
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• 2020

Independence is a factor which has a significant impact on auditing quality, especially in the recent times where the marketplace is increasingly demanding transparency. The independence of auditors is assessed based on the main criteria such as the reliability of the audit opinions, the accuracy, truthfulness of financial reports, and the objectivity in the opinions of the auditor. The study investigates the effects of non-audit services (NAS) on auditor independence in emerging economies such as Vietnam. Non-audit services include taxation services, management advisory services and outsourcing internal audit services. Based on previously relevant researches, the authors develop hypotheses and a regression model about non-audit services (independent variables) and audit independence (dependent variable). The research collects data by 5-scale Likert questionnaire. The findings indicate the relationship between NAS and auditor independence. Specifically, the results reveal two main factors that have influence on auditor independence, namely, taxation services and management advisory services. The results of our research can be considered as new findings and can be compared to previous researches in Vietnam, which establishes a new viewpoint about the relationship between the NAS and the independence of the auditor. This result can be implemented for countries or jurisdictions which are similar to Vietnam.