{"title":"Equation chapter 0 section 1Macro-driven stock market volatility prediction: Insights from a new hybrid machine learning approach","authors":"Qing Zeng , Xinjie Lu , Jin Xu , Yu Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103711","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103711","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study comprehensively investigates stock market volatility based on over one hundred monthly macroeconomic variables, applying machine learning models. Methodological contribution integrating the random forest (RF) with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator methods (LASSO). Importantly, the RF-LASSO model can robustly achieve the best forecasting performance under different circumstances. In addition, we focus on model explanation from different perspectives based on permutation importance and shapley additive explanation (SHAP) methods. This study illuminates novel insights into the realm of stock market volatility, harnessing the transformative potential of machine learning methodologies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103711"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142561226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Imran Yousaf , Azza Bejaoui , Shoaib Ali , Yanshuang Li
{"title":"Demystifying the dynamic relationship between news sentiment index and ESG stocks: Evidence from time-frequency wavelet analysis","authors":"Imran Yousaf , Azza Bejaoui , Shoaib Ali , Yanshuang Li","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103698","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103698","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using the Time-Frequency Wavelet Analysis, this study investigates the dynamic connectedness between the News Sentiment Index (NSI) and ESG leader indices of developed countries. The empirical findings clearly show nontrivial dynamic comovements between NSI and the ESG indices and the existence of the ESG market volatility in different frequency scales. We also report some discrepancies in cross-linkage patterns among different countries. In particular, such associations for some countries (e.g., Australia and the United Kingdom) are negative, with the leading role of the ESG index against market risk due to high fluctuations in sentiments. These findings suggest that ESG stocks possess potential hedging and diversifying features and safe-haven attributes against market risk driven by negative sentiment during the outbreak of Black Swan events. Our empirical results have insightful implications for investors, portfolio managers, and policymakers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103698"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142561228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sheheryar Banuri , Lucia Milena Murgia , Imtiaz Ul Haq
{"title":"The power of religion: Islamic investing in the lab","authors":"Sheheryar Banuri , Lucia Milena Murgia , Imtiaz Ul Haq","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103690","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103690","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Faith-based mutual funds have recently become a growing corner of the mutual fund industry. Morality and ethics are thought to exert an influence on investors' decisions in this segment, though their role in driving such investments is not clear as these funds are also attractive due to their distinct risk-return profile. If non-pecuniary motives are predominant, investors in such funds may be less sensitive to financial performance, resulting in different fund flows patterns relative to conventional funds. This paper fills the gap in the literature, by providing an express linkage between religious preferences and investment in an Islamic fund. Using an incentivized lab experiment, we compare the extent to which investors with religious preferences are likely to accept inferior financial performances to pursue investments aligned with their religious preferences. We show that those with stronger religious preferences are more likely to stick with their investment in Islamic funds when these funds underperform. We do not find that social preferences play a similar role in socially responsible funds, and we find that investors prefer religious investments over socially responsible investments, providing strong evidence that religious investors do not view socially responsible funds as substitutes for Islamic funds.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103690"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142586842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Firm-level political risk and labor performance","authors":"Svetlana Orlova, Li Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103697","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103697","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how firm-level political risk relates to labor performance, measured as the ratio of the total of net income and labor cost to the number of employees. Using a sample of 9508 firm-year observations consisting of U.S. firms during the years 2002–2021, we find a significant and negative relation between political risk and labor performance. Our empirical tests show that after controlling for other factors, firms facing a higher level of political risk demonstrate lower labor performance, highlighting the negative impact of political risk on firm behavior and outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103697"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inhibiting or promoting? The impact of carbon emissions trading on corporate environmental responsibility","authors":"Yue-Jun Zhang , Wei Shi , Jing-Yue Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103703","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103703","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Carbon emissions trading (CET) policy presents a crucial market-oriented environmental strategy to shape corporate environmentally responsible behaviour. However, how market-oriented environmental strategy may affect corporate environmental responsibility remains to be further investigated. Based on the practice of China's CET, this paper investigates the impact of market-oriented environmental strategy on the environmental responsibility level of high‑carbon enterprises in China. The relevant results are threefold. 1) Contrary to conventional wisdom and CET policy expectation, China's CET policy discourages high‑carbon enterprises from fulfilling environmental responsibility, leading to an overall decrease of 32.6 % in the environmental responsibility level. 2) China's CET policy strengthens the financing constraints of high‑carbon enterprises, which makes them face a financial dilemma wherein it is challenging to balance environmental management and production operations in the absence of financial support. 3) Compared with non-state-owned enterprises and small- and micro-sized enterprises, the inhibitory effect of China's CET policy on the environmental responsibility level of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and medium- and large-sized enterprises (MLEs) is stronger, whereas the inhibitory effect of financing constraints induced by China's CET policy on the environmental responsibility level of SOEs and MLEs is weaker.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103703"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giray Gozgor, Thang Ho, Jing Li, Mohammad Mahdi Mousavi
{"title":"The impact of energy diversification on firm performance: The moderating role of corporate social responsibility","authors":"Giray Gozgor, Thang Ho, Jing Li, Mohammad Mahdi Mousavi","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103704","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103704","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the impact of diverse consumption of energy sources on firm performance, focusing on the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The paper uses 45,579 firm-level panel data samples across 56 developing and developed economies from 2002 to 2021. It is observed that the impact of energy diversification in improving firms' performance (measured by the return on assets, return on equity, sales growth, and Tobin's Q) is more potent in firms with higher CSR engagement. The moderating effect of CSR is also more pronounced among firms in high energy-consuming industries than in low energy-consuming ones. Finally, the moderating role of CSR activities is more substantial for firms in countries with individualistic and long-term-oriented cultures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103704"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Income aspirations and peasants' willingness to borrow in rural China","authors":"Liang You , Qing Ren","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103681","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103681","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a comprehensive village-level survey data from two villages in <em>Fuxian</em>, China, collected in 2016 and 2021, we employ a Tobit model to analyze the consequences of income aspirations gap on peasants' willingness to borrow under different repayment terms. The willingness to borrow increases with the income aspirations gap of rural households and is moderated by social networks, though the moderating effect of time preference is observed only under 1-year repayment term. When borrowing purposes are introduced, the income aspirations gap significantly increases willingness to borrow only under 10-year repayment term when the purpose is future-oriented. Additionally, the relationship between the willingness to borrow and actual borrowing behavior is also examined, confirming that stimulating peasants' willingness to borrow from the perspective of income aspirations gap and facilitating the conversion of willingness into behavior is an effective way to address the insufficient financial needs in rural areas.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103681"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stock price spillovers from foreign institutional investor divestment: Evidence from BlackRock's closure of the China Flexible Equity Fund","authors":"Changchun Pan , Yuhang Song , Long Jin","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103694","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103694","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the impact of BlackRock's September 7, 2023, announcement to close the China Flexible Equity fund on Chinese A-share listed firms held by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Using event study methodology, we find that the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of these firms significantly decreases around the announcement date. The decline is attributed to investor concerns about the absence of original governance structures and pessimistic sentiments driven by representativeness bias. The effect is more pronounced in firms with overseas business, weaker investor protection, and overvalued stocks. Our findings provide insights into the influence of FIIs on capital market stability amid global financial movements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103694"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142538895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of CSR on stock return resilience during the 2020 public health emergency: Evidence from the Chinese financial market","authors":"Xiaoling Ouyang , Yuchuan Yang , Kerui Du","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103702","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103702","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can enhance firm value through non-profit channels, but it may also divert operational resources, potentially harming short-term financial performance. A key question in the literature is whether CSR can improve stock return resilience during negative shocks. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we hypothesize that CSR investment enhances stock resilience, though the effect may vary among firms. This paper analyzes financial data from 3153 Chinese listed companies alongside CSR ratings from the Hexun CSR database. Our findings indicate that firms with higher pre-event CSR ratings demonstrated stronger stock performance during the early stages of the public health emergency in 2020. These results remain robust across various checks and are supported by two instrumental variable approaches: local Confucian cultural influence and Lewbel's heteroskedasticity instrument. We further investigate the factors influencing the effectiveness of CSR in protecting firm value, revealing that CSR activities focused on shareholder responsibility are particularly effective. This protective effect is most pronounced in firms facing poorer financial conditions, lower proportions of institutional investors, heightened industrial competition, and those not operating in socially sensitive industries. Overall, our findings provide evidence that active engagement in CSR can enhance a company's resilience to negative shocks during global health crises.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103702"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jinhua Zhang , Rui Mao , John W. Goodell , Anna Min Du , Yimin Xu
{"title":"Impact of bank-affiliation on liquidity seeking of foreign mutual funds during adverse shocks: Evidence from China","authors":"Jinhua Zhang , Rui Mao , John W. Goodell , Anna Min Du , Yimin Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103679","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103679","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using daily shareholding data and event-based measures of composite shocks, we investigate the liquidity-seeking behavior of foreign mutual funds in China that are affiliated with commercial banks, comparing it with the behavior of unaffiliated foreign mutual funds. Fixed effect and panel structural VAR models both reveal differential responses between affiliated and unaffiliated foreign mutual funds. While both types of mutual funds seek liquidity by withdrawing from illiquid, volatile and growth-oriented stocks facing negative shocks, unaffiliated mutual funds exhibit a higher degree of liquidity seeking, consistent with the results of bank-affiliated funds providing liquidity stability. This finding is robust to the selection of shock periods and measurements. The evidence shed new lights on the liquidity management of open-end foreign mutual funds in emerging markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48226,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Financial Analysis","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 103679"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142533815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}