• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.245-254
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• 2021

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance strength on capital structure in an emerging country, namely, Jordan, by constructing a corporate governance score that captures both internal monitoring mechanisms (foreign ownership and institutional ownership) and external monitoring mechanism (audit fees). In addition, this study uses profitability as control variable. This paper uses data of non-financial companies (industrial and services) of 87 listed firms on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2011 to 2019. Using the random-effects generalized least square (GLS) regression model, the findings reveal that foreign ownership significantly and negatively influences the level leverage, while institutional ownership has a positive and insignificant association with level leverage. Further, audit fees have a positive and strong significant association with level leverage in Jordan. In addition, profitability has a positive and significant association with leverage. These outcomes suggest that foreign ownership should be encouraged in listed companies as it can replace the weakness of other corporate governance mechanisms in Jordan. The outcomes of the current study should be of great interest to regulators and policy-makers. The results, which are robust to a range of alternative proxies and to additional tests, provide new insights into the determinants of level leverage.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.349-356
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• 2021

This study comprehensively investigates whether there is an impact of risk, size, profitability, earnings per share, dividend yield, and book-to-market equity on the stock prices of Jordanian banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) for the period 2006-2018. To mitigate endogeneity concerns and to control for within-bank dynamics, panel data fixed effects estimations are used. This study shows that size (SIZE), profitability (ROA), dividend yield (DY) and book-to-market equity (BE/ME) ratios are statistically significant determinants of stock prices. The risk (RISK) factor measured by volatility of ROA has a positive and significant effect on the stock prices, while earnings per share has minimum influence on the stock prices. The results show that ROA has a significant and positive effect and provides the largest effect among all variables used in this study, while the RISK factor has a positive and significant effect. In contrast, SIZE, DY, and BE/ME have a significant negative effect on stock prices. The paper presented new evidence showing that ROA is a better determinant of stock prices in Jordanian banks, and RISK significantly affects stock prices. The researcher recommends using a factor of profitability represented by ROA which has a significant positive effect on the stock prices in Jordanian banks and applying the ROA variable to other sectors.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Business Review
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.19-44
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• 2021

Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) is receiving increased investments in the energy sector under the belt and road initiative (BRI) project since its inception in 2013. SSA has a worse energy efficiency ratio coupled with deficient electricity access, through analysis showed varied impacts on the SSA countries due to the BRI initiative. This study dilves into the influencing factors for Energy Efficiency (EE) in 38 SSA countries, applying the probit and logit approach for 2000-2018. The Multiple-regression model shows significant results of some variables such as foreign direct investment, gross domestic product, and port infrastructure quality being significant on EE under BRI initiative countries. However, the logit and probit models produce similar results and the marginal effect for the entire variable, except energy imports that do not likely impact EE. Furthermore, the interaction of quality of port infrastructure and foreign direct investment variables produces significant results, highlighting the increased investments SSA receives under the BRI initiative in the energy and transport sectors. The model Percent correctly predicted (PCP) value was about 84%, indicating it correctly classified the variables and about 16% not classified. The study recommends EE performance standards should be incorporated on energy projects in SSA to ensure that these projects are energy efficient and decouple SSA's energy demand from economic growth. The research proffers suggestions for policy regarding the BRI initiative in SSA and the implications on sustainable energy and building a community with a shared future.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.345-353
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• 2021

The impact of investment on economic growth has been studied by many authors around the world with different times and research methods. Therefore, there are conflicting opinions about the impact of investment on economic growth. To contribute empirical evidence, the objective of this study is to assess the impact of investment sources such as public investment, private investment, and foreign direct investment on economic growth in Vietnam in the short-run and long-run. The data used for the study is panel data from 63 Vietnamese provinces between 2000 and 2020. The inquiry method is PMG (Pool Mean Group) regression for economic growth (GDP) after testing the stationarity of the variables that meet the PMG regression condition as suggested by Pesaran et al. (1996) and Hamuda et al. (2013). The results show that: factors such as labor and trade openness have a negative impact on economic growth in the short term. In the long run, public investment has a negative effect on economic growth, while domestic private investment, foreign direct investment, trade openness, and labor have positive effects on economic growth. Labour contributes the most, followed by trade openness, foreign direct investment, and domestic private investment. Finally, the study provides policy implications for the Government of Vietnam.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.127-135
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• 2021

This study aims to examine the impact of accessing industrial factors in enhancing business performance with special reference to Muslim women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. Industrial factors are industrial resources available to Muslim women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and it was measured using the dimensions of resource accessibility and government and non-governmental support. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 260 women entrepreneurs from the Muslim community who are registered with the chamber of commerce in the three districts of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka, using a simple random sampling technique. Structural Equation Modeling with AMOS was used as the data analysis technique. The structural model showed that resource accessibility had a significant and positive relationship with business performance, whereas government and non-governmental support did not significantly influence business performance. Especially, Muslim women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka do not show interest in getting support such as finance, training, and other necessities from government and non-government organizations as well as business development support agencies. Trade chambers and decision-making authorities may use this finding to gain insights and develop strategies to enhance the business performance of women entrepreneurs.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.421-431
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• 2021

This study investigates the empirical linkages between ASEAN countries' institutional quality and financial inclusion using country data from 2008-2019. In this paper, six governance indicators from the World Governance index are used to measure the impact of institutions on financial inclusion. The PCA method's financial inclusion index is constructed from 3 indicators: penetration, access, and usage: penetration, access, and usage with six indices respectively as the number of ATMs per 1000 km², the number of bank branches per 1000 km², the number of ATMs per 100,000 people and the number of bank branches for 100,000 adults, the ratio of credit to private to GDP, and the ratio of deposit to private to GDP. Regression analysis with the Generalized Moments method shows the positive impact of institutions and other control variables like GDP per capita, inflation, bank concentration, and human development index on financial inclusion. Therefore, this study recommends that the government and policymakers in countries pursue the financial inclusion agenda to pay attention to the financial and economic indicators and institutional factors. This is because many savers, borrowers, and investors may not be protected when financial contracts are enforced or breaches occur in an environment where economic, legal, judicial, and political institutions are weak, such as in ASEAN countries.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.13-19
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• 2021

To provide empirical evidence on the impact of export instability on economic growth in developing countries, this study estimated the neoclassical production function using data of the Jordanian economy for the period 1995-2019. Real exports, real capital, and export instability were the independent variables in the production function. To determine the appropriate methodology for estimating the production function, the study conducted some preliminary tests, including the Augmented-Dickey Fuller (ADF), on the study data. The results of this test indicated that all study variables were stationary at first difference. Therefore, the Johanson cointegration test was applied to determine that there was cointegration between the study variables since the results of the former test indicated that there was one cointegration vector between these variables. The cointegration equation revealed a positive and statistically significant impact of real capital, real exports, and an indicator of export instability on economic growth. The most important policy implications for these results would be reducing the geographical concentration of exports through the expansion of free trade agreements (FTA) to enhance the positive impact of the instability of exports on economic growth. Moreover, the study recommends strengthening export-oriented actions to achieve higher levels of economic growth.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.25-39
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• 2021

This purpose of this study is to investigate the association among mutual funds (MFs) risk measures and return parameters, evaluate mutual fund performance and also explore the best appropriate mutual fund performance measure for investment in Pakistan. Therefore, thirty-five mutual funds have been selected for the period 2007-2015. The Sharpe, Treynor, Jensen Alpha, Information ratio and Fama's Net Selectivity measures has been used to analyze MF performance. Our study findings show significant positive relation exist between Sharpe and Jenson alpha & information ratio (IR); Treynor ratio is negatively correlated to Jenson alpha and Jenson alpha is positively allied with IR. Moreover, association among performance measures, Fama's net selectivity is a major driver in leading to other measures but Sharpe and IR lead to Treynor ratio as well. Furthermore, performance measures are ranked in accordance standard deviation with the arrangement of Fama's net selectivity at top, Jenson Alpha at second, Sharpe ratio at third, IR at fourth and Treynor ratio at fifth position according to risk parameters in Pakistan. Overall, Jensen Alpha measure appears to be the best suitable mutual fund performance measure in Pakistan due to its practical nature. Finally, the Pakistani stock market index KSE100 (as benchmark) performs better than MF industry of Pakistan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.973-979
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• 2021

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of tax planning on firm value of the non-financial firms listed in Vietnam, moderated by the state ownership. In this paper, effective tax rate is used to measure the tax planning; the state ownership is measured by the percentage of state equity holdings, and the firm value is measured by Tobin's Q. The data research is collected from audited financial statements and other statistical documents of 513 firms in the period of 2015-2019, provided by The FiinGroup (Vietnam). According to that, this paper uses quantitative research methods for the panel data. Regression analysis with GLS shows that the tax planning has a negative effect on firm value. In more detail, the association is not a variable in its direction when state ownership takes the role of a moderator. That means, in the perspective of principal-principal conflict, government should improve institutional environment to prevent firms form breaking the rules, especially accounting standards and principles. Assets allocation in tangible assets or making use of large size advantage should be taken into account. In the long run, firms should concentrate on the deployment of resources and the experience of knowledgeable practitioners to produce effective results.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.599-608
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• 2021

The oil and gas industry is widely known as a vital engine of Vietnam development, stimulating researchers to examine the association of various factors with this industry. The aim of this study is to identify the relationship between different variables affecting profitability of the firms in the oil and gas sector in Vietnam. The total of 203 samples were collected from 29 companies listed on Vietnam Stock Market during a 6-year period from 2012 to 2018. Informed by prior research, this investigation employs financial leverage (FL), government ownership (GOV), dividend payout (DIV), fixed assets to total assets (FA) and exchange rate (EXR) as independent variables, while the profit is described by return-on-assets (ROA). The study results show that there are four factors that have an impact on ROA, namely, leverage, government ownership, dividend, and exchange rate. Whereas leverage and exchange rate have negative influence on ROA, government ownership and dividend payment have a positive effect. The findings of this study suggest that high debt ratio in capital structure and the negative effect of exchange rate on their companies' efficiency can adversely affect the profit of enterprises. Also, plausible extent of government ownership and dividend payment could also be considered to optimize corporate performance.