• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.247-255
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• 2019

This study examines the different roles of cash flow in assessing investment returns in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The analysis covers over 900 listed firms across Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand for the period post the Asian financial crisis of 2001-2017. Firm-level panel data analysis shows that cash flow factors are important in all contexts of cash return on assets, earnings quality and market value multiple across the region even after controlling for typical measures of profitability. The results suggest that firms should manage cash flow prudently in considerations of firm value from the shareholder's perspective, measured directly using stock return. Cash profitability on assets should become an important firm performance indicator, whilst higher cash component over reported earnings is preferred. The market also tends to respond favourably to cash flow yield as a price multiple in valuation, outpacing the role of earnings yield. Such findings are robust across the pre and post subprime crisis periods, across estimation methods pertaining to finance panel standard errors, as well as across static and dynamic considerations of returns. It is hence sensible to consider cash flow factors in the research pertaining to asset pricing and factor investing in the ASEAN region.

• 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.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.751-762
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• 2021

This study aims to examine whether an increased disclosure has a positive impact on firm performance and whether the opposite impact of increased disclosure on firm performance can occur in certain conditions - high proprietary information and competition. The sample for this study consists of Indonesian firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The data were selected based on purposive sampling and panel data spanned eleven years (2006-2016). A panel GLS regression using moderated regression analysis (MRA) was adopted. The results of this study reveal that an increased disclosure has a positive effect on firm performance, but an increased disclosure has a negative impact on firm performance when proprietary information is high, and vice versa. Also, if the disclosure is increased, the negative impact of proprietary information on firm performance will get exacerbated in conditions where the competition level is high. The findings of this study suggest that, since the positive effect of continuously-increased disclosure on firm performance leads to the reversal (negative) impact when certain conditions occur (high proprietary information and competition), the level of disclosure quality is most likely to tap an 'optimal' point. In this regard, however, a broader investigation of all firms across countries still needs to be conducted.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.9-20
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• 2020

The study investigates a recent surge of cash literature by using a sample of hospitality firms to gain a new understanding of corporate cash holdings. Past literature states that there is a substantial variation of liquidity across industry groups. Existing literature predominantly refers to US-listed firms and focus on either hotels or restaurants and not the hospitality industry as a whole. Therefore, we provide a comparative study of cash holdings behaviour between hospitality and non-hospitality firms from an emerging market context. Using a sample of public listed hospitality firms from 2002 to 2013, dynamic panel regression techniques are used to study the relationships between firm characteristics and cash levels. Also, the non-parametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test was carried out to examine the time and sectoral differences in cash holdings. In addition, the panel regression techniques are used to investigate the relationships between firm characteristics and level of corporate cash holdings. The results reveal that firm characteristics do matter in hospitality firms. We find that firm size, capital expenditures, and liquid assets substitutes are negatively related to cash level. The results support trade-off theory and the pecking order theory. This study incrementally explains the cash holdings behaviour of hospitality firms in emerging market.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.409-417
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• 2022

This research uses a panel data set of selected developed and emerging economies to investigate the relationship between firm value and the Islamic label. A low-debt company is a proxy for excellent governance, and good governance has a significant positive impact on a company's valuation. We can claim that the Islamic label may also be a proxy for excellent governance and will significantly impact a company's economic value because it reflects low debt Sharia-compliant companies. To explore this relationship, cross-country data from non-financial enterprises in Pakistan, the United States, Malaysia, and Indonesia was acquired from 2010 to 2015. The study's findings indicate that the Islamic label has a positive significant impact on the firm's worth in the whole sample, including all countries. With the exception of the United States, we have also collected the same information at the country level. We also discovered that the corporate governance index at the firm level has a positive significant impact on firm value. The findings show that the Islamic label reflects good governance and hence can be used as a proxy for good governance. The analysis differentiates between Islamic labeled and conventional enterprises in developed and emerging nations, adding to our understanding of who contributes to enhanced corporate financial performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.61-69
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• 2021

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate whether and how domestic currency valuation is related to firm-level export competitiveness and profitability by using the unique firm-specific dataset on Bangladeshi nonfinancial firms which have been listed continuously from 2010 to 2018. To achieve the aim of this paper, 63 exporting firms are extracted from a total of 125 firms which have been continuously listed during 2010-2018 and used as the final sample firms. The Pedroni cointegration test reveals that export and import prices of the exporting firms are cointegrated in the short-run as well as long-run. The panel dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) analysis finds that a firm's export competitiveness is maintained by high import inputs even in the presence of depreciation of Bangladeshi currency against the US dollar. Finally, the DuPont analysis finds that the depreciated Bangladeshi currency enhances an exporter's profitability. Conclusions based on the findings are consistent regardless of exchange rate types, such as, real bilateral exchange rate and nominal or real effective exchange rate indexes. Consequently, the firm-level findings of this investigation suggest that undervalution of home currency is essential for Bangaldesh which is one of the frontier markets in South Asia whose exporting firms are mostly price followers in global markets.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.139-147
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• 2020

This paper aims to explore the relationship between the quality of the audit and the level of stock return co-movement in the context of the Vietnamese emerging market. The empirical study is designed based on the quatitative method and deductive approach. The panel dataset includes 256 listed firms from different industries,with 1115 firm-year observations on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange for the period from 2014 to 2018. In the research, we built the econometric regression model, using stock return synchronicity and audit quality as the dependent and independent variable, respectively. Some control variables are also added to the econometric regression models as they are well-documented in prior research to have an effect on stock price synchronicity. To improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients, beside the Ordinary Least Squares, we employ the Random Effects Model and the Fixed Effects Model for better statistical analysis of panel data set. The results show that the quality of the audit is positively correlated to stock price synchronicity. This finding suggests that stock returns of companies with higher quality of the audit are more synchronous with the market. Results for other control variables also support our reasoning for the main findings.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.10
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

This paper attempts to investigate the determinants of capital structure of Vietnamese firms and also shed light on some of the factors of the modern theory of capital structure which is relevant for explaining the capital structure in advanced countries which are also relevant in the context of Vietnam. Using panel data from more than 1000 Vietnamese listed enterprises census 2017-2020, the paper finds that leverage ratio of Vietnamese firms is significantly related to probability. The firms have high level of fixed assets which they use as collateral, resulting in higher debt ratio, which is in line with the pecking order theory. The result also confirm that highly targeted debt ratio is positively correlated with the industry characteristics (using real estate firms as a benchmark), in which firm operates. Furthermore, consistent with the trade-off hypothesis, the leverage ratio is positively affected by non - debt tax shield. The result confirms that a large number of companies are state - owned, will have an insignificant impact of firm's size (as reverse proxy for bankruptcy cost) on leverage ratio. We also find that there is no distinction between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises due to strict adherence to the rules set by the Vietnamese government. Distinct from other countries, corporate income tax has slight impact on capital structure in Vietnamese firms.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2021

The capital structure is one of the hot financial topics among researchers and scholars. Its importance comes from the fact that capital structure is closely related to companies' ability to meet different stakeholders' needs. A suitable capital structure will boost the business and create a competitive advantage in the context of fierce competition. Many companies choose an optimal debt level based on the trade-off between interest and debt costs. This study aimed to test the existence of trade-off theory in capital structure, the case of Vietnam's real estate companies, which are growing very fast recently. Instead of considering constant optimal leverage to test the trade-off model, we take advantage of the dynamic capital structure determined by growth opportunities, profitability, tax incentives, tangibility, liquidity, and firm size. The dynamic panel data regression was estimated by the system Generalized Method of Moment (Sys-GMM). The empirical evidence showed that real estate companies listed in the Vietnamese stock market might change their leverage toward a target capital structure determined by influential factors in a long-term perspective. In particular, the debt-to-asset ratio will change by approximately 14 percent, positively, in response to the difference between the current debt-to-asset ratio and the dynamic target debt-to-asset ratio.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.7118-7125
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• 2015

This study examined one of the concerned or even imperative issues in the field of contemporary finance related to approaching an optimal level of cash holdings for the firms belonging to the chaebols in the Korean domestic capital markets. However, the subject may not have been drawn much attention so far, even if there are still ongoing and active debates among the interest parties at the macro- or micro-level. Two primary hypotheses were postulated to be empirically tested. On the results of the first hypothesis test for the existence of an optimal cash reserves for the sample firms, two estimation techniques were performed in terms of a quadratic regression equation and a relationship between a firm's value and the residuals derived from the static panel date model. As a primary financial implication of the study which may contribute to the practitioners and the academics in finance, the optimal level of cash holdings can be estimated by controlling for the a priori significant components for the sample firms towards maximizing firm value.