{"title":"Artificial intelligence, information environment, and capital market efficiency","authors":"Abdulazeez Y.H. Saif-Alyousfi","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103094","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103094","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the information environment on capital market efficiency, using stock price synchronicity as a proxy. Analyzing data from Indian listed firms from 2018 to 2023, we find that AI significantly enhances market efficiency by increasing the uniformity of stock price movements in response to new information. The information environment, characterized by analyst attention, Big4 audits, and investor attention, shows mixed effects. Analyst coverage and Big4 audits reduce synchronization by disseminating firm-specific information and enhancing transparency, respectively. In contrast, investor attention increases synchronization by aligning stock prices with market movements. Furthermore, the interaction between AI and the information environment variables reveals that AI amplifies the effects of high analyst coverage, rigorous audits, and strong investor attention, leading to greater market synchronization. Robustness checks, replacing the dependent variable, endogeneity tests, and analyses based on different property rights, confirm these findings. Notably, state-owned enterprises benefit more from AI and information environment factors compared to non-state-owned enterprises. This study highlights the crucial role of AI and a transparent information environment in enhancing capital market efficiency and provides significant policy implications for regulators, financial institutions, and market participants to foster AI adoption, improve information transparency, and tailor regulations to different ownership structures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103094"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144852174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yongda He , Anna Min Du , Boqiang Lin , Frank Scrimgeour
{"title":"Energy-capital substitution, technological innovation, and monetary policy","authors":"Yongda He , Anna Min Du , Boqiang Lin , Frank Scrimgeour","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103029","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103029","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>China has been actively implementing a green development strategy focused on peak carbon and carbon neutrality. The challenge is to avoid the economic fluctuations caused by energy price increases, promote effective substitution of capital for energy, stimulate innovation in energy utilization technology, and implement appropriate monetary policies to resist the negative impact of external supply shocks on the macro economy. This study constructs a new energy utilization technology progress equation within the NK-DSGE framework to reveal the mechanism of energy price-induced technological progress and clarify the substitution path between energy and capital. The study finds that: (1) Rising energy prices drive broad supply-side cost hikes, notably harming capital efficiency and diminishing capital's substitutability for energy. This worsens factor allocation efficiency, potentially inducing an overall demand decrease, thus causing sustained adverse effects on the economy and society (2) China's current energy technology partly reduces economic fluctuations from energy price shocks. Rising energy prices can drive firms to enhance their energy technology, easing the adverse effects of energy price fluctuations. The study notes that the extent of energy technology mitigation of price shocks relies on energy-capital substitution efficiency in production. Advanced energy technology fosters better energy-capital substitutability, curbing the duration and severity of economic stagflation triggered by energy cost hikes. (3) a monetary policy that focuses solely on the core inflation target is more effective than one that focuses on \"temporary\" price fluctuations represented by energy prices, implying that central banks need a clear policy target system when formulating monetary policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103029"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144570894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regulatory enforcement of minority shareholder rights and corporate cash holdings","authors":"Haili Li , Wei Huang , Zhe Shen , Qing Xia","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103042","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103042","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In theory, enhanced legal protection for minority shareholders may have two opposing effects on corporate cash holdings. Firstly, improved corporate governance could ease external financing and lead to reduced cash reserves. Secondly, the reinforcement of shareholder litigations could induce firms to increase their cash holdings as a precaution. In this study, we leverage the implementation of the China Securities Investor Services Center (CSISC) shareholding reform program to examine these competing views. Our analysis reveals compelling evidence that the CSISC reform has significantly reduced cash holdings among firms in the pilot provinces, endorsing its governance benefit on average. Moreover, we demonstrate that this negative effect is more notable for firms with severe agency issues, while weaker for those undergoing litigations and regulatory penalties.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103042"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144596804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Muhammad Ishfaq Ahmad , Enrico Battisti , Ahmed Imran Hunjra , Marina Damilano
{"title":"Corporate philanthropy and corporate governance: The moderating role of CSR committee","authors":"Muhammad Ishfaq Ahmad , Enrico Battisti , Ahmed Imran Hunjra , Marina Damilano","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103061","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103061","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the influence of corporate governance, in terms of gender diversity and board independence, on different types of corporate donations namely, in-kind and in-cash contributions. Furthermore, we also analyze the moderating role of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee between gender diversity and corporate donations. We employe logistic regression to test the hypothesis. We find that gender diversity and board independence positively influence overall corporate donations. However, concerning the types of corporate donations (in-kind and in-cash), corporate governance significantly promotes in-kind donations, while the relationship with in-cash donations is positive but not significant. Furthermore, our study reveals that the CSR committee positively moderates the relationship between corporate governance and corporate donations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103061"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-identical twins: Evidence on greenium in the German treasury bond market","authors":"Paola De Vincentiis, Danilo Abis","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103057","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103057","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapidly growing market for green bonds is capturing much interest from researchers. A relevant question is whether green financing is characterized by higher or lower yields compared to conventional financing. We focus our analysis on the German Treasury bonds market, which – thanks to the so-called ‘twin model’ – offers a perfect environment to observe the phenomenon. We confirm the presence of a statistically significant greenium, even though it is too small to make any relevant difference from a financial point of view. The magnitude of the greenium is associated with the global investor’s attention to environmental and climate topics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103057"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144767059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emma García-Meca , Jennifer Martínez-Ferrero , Carmelo Reverte
{"title":"The impact of European firms’ emissions reduction effectiveness on financial constraints: Evidence from the quintuple helix model perspective","authors":"Emma García-Meca , Jennifer Martínez-Ferrero , Carmelo Reverte","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103069","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103069","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyzes (i) whether firms that are more committed to reducing emissions benefit from reduced financial constraints and (ii) the moderating effects of the five institutional systems of the Quintuple Helix Model (QHM), i.e., economic, education, culture, governance, and natural environment. Based on a sample of quoted European companies for the 2015–2020 period, we document that firms with greater emissions reduction effectiveness benefit from better access to finance due to fewer financial constraints. We also show that this reduction is more substantial in countries with poorer governance quality, lower GDP growth and economic freedom, less scientific production and public educational expenditure and less natural capital. Moreover, the effect of firms’ emissions reduction effectiveness on reducing financial constraints is amplified in companies situated in countries characterized by more individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance, and less long-term orientation and indulgence. Overall, our results suggest a substitution effect between the market mechanism and country-level characteristics to incentivize firms to behave responsibly in countries where the QHM institutional dimensions do not favor a commitment to environmental sustainability. This novel finding of our research can be explained in light of the institutional voids theory, which encourages a more dynamic approach for examining how firms strategize – alone or in conjunction with other actors – to compensate or substitute institutional weaknesses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103069"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ying Tang , Biliang Wang , Andrea Moro , Jinyu Chen , Maura Sheehan
{"title":"Trade credit financing, social trust, and financial distress: Evidence from Chinese listed companies","authors":"Ying Tang , Biliang Wang , Andrea Moro , Jinyu Chen , Maura Sheehan","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103053","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103053","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This research investigates the relationship between trade credit financing and firms’ financial distress using a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2000 to 2020. Our results reveal a significant U-shaped relationship between firms’ trade credit financing and the likelihood of financial distress and that social trust moderates this curvilinear relationship. Our evidence suggests that firm liquidity and financial constraints are two underlying channels through which trade credit financing produces this U-shaped impact on firm bankruptcy risk. Our results are robust to alternative measures of key variables and tests for endogeneity (reverse causality and omitted variables).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103053"},"PeriodicalIF":6.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate risk and corporate leverage manipulation: Evidence from China","authors":"Wenshuai Xu , Jianfei Peng , Yun-Lang Wu , Yahua Yin","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103078","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103078","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing corporate leverage manipulation is essential for mitigating hidden debt risks and ensuring financial stability. We investigate the impact of climate risk on corporate leverage manipulation. We find that greater climate risk leads to higher leverage manipulation. This positive effect is more pronounced in firms with limited climate risk diversification capacity, high climate sensitivity, and those located in regions with low bank competition and underdeveloped financial systems. Mechanism analyses show that climate risk exacerbates leverage manipulation by intensifying financing constraints and increasing deleveraging pressures. Additionally, our study suggests that the rise in leverage manipulation driven by climate risk may elevate firms' future default risk. Our findings contribute to the literature on the economic consequences of climate risk and provide policy insights to mitigate corporate leverage manipulation and reduce systemic financial risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103078"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144826364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rongsheng Zhuo , Zheng Qiao , Ao Li , Bo Sang , Yu Cai
{"title":"Supply network structure and firm tail risk","authors":"Rongsheng Zhuo , Zheng Qiao , Ao Li , Bo Sang , Yu Cai","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103095","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103095","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how supply network structure affects financial stability, specifically for systemic tail risks in capital markets. We construct supply networks using data from the top five clients and suppliers disclosed in the annual reports of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2022, and measures node-level supply network structure. Our findings indicate that improved supply network structure reduces firms’ systemic tail risks, primarily through information efficiency and risk diversification mechanisms. The effect is more pronounced with heightened analyst and media attention, superior corporate disclosures, closer proximity to clients or suppliers, and fewer financial constraints. This study provides insights into building resilient supply chains and mitigating financial risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103095"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144852175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Risk spillover effect and portfolio strategy between Chinese commodity futures market and international green finance market","authors":"Jian Liu , Chaoqiang Chen , Xiaodan Mao","doi":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103076","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103076","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates risk spillover and portfolio optimization between the Chinese commodity futures market and the international green finance market. Using the maximum overlapping discrete wavelet transform (MODWT) and a rolling window vector autoregression-based Diebold–Yılmaz spillover index model, combined with complex network analysis, this study examines risk spillover across different time frequencies and network structures. The findings reveal that risk spillover occurs across multiple time scales, with the international green finance market consistently playing a dominant role, particularly through the green stock market. Although China’s commodity futures market shows a relatively modest overall spillover effect, its significance becomes more pronounced with increasing time scales. The risk spillover network analysis indicates that risk transmission between markets intensifies during extreme events, with the severity of each event directly influencing the complexity of the network. Moreover, the denser connections in the risk spillover network at medium- and long-term scales emphasize the need for investors to prioritize these periods. Portfolio optimization simulations under various investment strategies demonstrate the role of international green finance market in enhancing the performance of China’s commodity futures market by effectively enhancing diversification. These insights may be highly valuable for regulatory bodies aiming to bolster macroprudential regulation and for investors seeking to better manage risks, enhancing the understanding of cross-market risk transmission mechanisms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51430,"journal":{"name":"Research in International Business and Finance","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 103076"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144864327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}