This paper examines the relationship between gold and United States (U.S.) Treasury securities as competing global safe assets under differing monetary conditions. The analysis is motivated by the observation that the interaction between these assets appears to vary with the broader yield environment. An empirical framework is developed in which gold returns are related to movements in real interest rates and changes in the U.S. dollar. Using weekly and monthly data over the period 2003 to 2026, the results show that changes in ten-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (TIPS) yields and movements in the dollar account for a substantial share of the variation in gold returns. The evidence indicates that the relationship between gold and real yields is state dependent. When real yields are low or negative, gold and Treasuries behave as substitutes, consistent with safe-asset scarcity and portfolio reallocation by institutional investors. When real yields are positive, this substitution mechanism weakens and both assets respond more to common macro-financial conditions. A further change is observed in the period after 2022. Despite the return of positive real yields, the traditional opportunity-cost channel that may link gold to interest rates becomes less informative. This pattern is consistent with a shift in the composition of demand, in which official-sector purchases associated with reserve diversification and geopolitical considerations play a larger role, although the post-2022 decoupling remains an open empirical question that the bivariate framework cannot fully account for. Structural break and threshold tests confirm that these regime changes reflect the prevailing yield environment rather than arbitrary historical partitions. The results have implications for reserve management, international portfolio allocation, and the transmission of global monetary policy.

This study examines whether market sentiment affects innovation investment by firms in an emerging market, focusing on Korean firms. We find a significantly positive relationship between market sentiment and innovation investment. For financially constrained firms, sentiment increases both innovation and physical investment, which indicates reliance on sentiment driven equity financing. Firms that are affiliated with chaebols are more likely to adjust research and development investment in response to market sentiment. During periods of high market uncertainty such as the COVID 19 period, the effect of market sentiment on research and development decisions is stronger for financially unconstrained firms. Managerial sentiment amplifies the effect of market sentiment on innovation but does not influence physical investment. Our results show that sentiment acts as an alternative financing mechanism that supports innovation in financially constrained firms.

This study examines how provincial legal environments shape the profitability of illegal insider trading in China. Using 521 adjudicated insider-trading cases from 2006 to 2018, we hand-collect detailed information from court judgments and CSRC sanction documents to reconstruct holding-period returns and illicit gains. We combine these data with established provincial indices of legal development and firm-level measures of ex ante litigation risk to test whether legal risk is priced in illegal insider trades. We find that stronger provincial legal environments are associated with significantly higher per-trade profitability among illegal trades that insiders execute after accounting for enforcement risk. This pattern is consistent with a risk-compensation mechanism rather than a failure of enforcement, as stricter legal environments deter low-return trades and leave only trades with sufficiently high expected gains. Firm-level litigation exposure further strengthens this effect. The results remain robust to sample-selection corrections, alternative return measures and a range of heterogeneity tests. Overall, our findings show how institutional variation in enforcement shapes insider incentives and the risk-return tradeoff of illegal trading.

Bank fragility is rarely observed through outright failure in modern supervisory systems.Instead, regulatory intervention typically occurs before insolvency materialises,so the scarcity of failure events reflects institutional design rather than purely empiricallimitation. This paper examines how distress can be identified in such environmentsusing balance sheet information and forward-looking probability models. Using a panelof banks from Asian emerging and developing economies, we compare a parsimoniouslogit specification with a flexible boosting estimator. The results indicate broadlycomparable out-of-sample discriminatory performance. Across both approaches, profitability,liquidity, and capitalisation emerge as the central determinants of distressrisk. At the same time, the relationship between profitability and fragility varies withmacroeconomic conditions, with the stabilising role of earnings weakening during downturns.This pattern points to the state dependent nature of banking risk. The findingscarry implications beyond the sample considered here. In supervisory settings wherefailures are infrequent, simple balance sheet based models remain highly informativeand provide stable signals for ranking institutional vulnerability. Flexible nonlinearmethods add value primarily by revealing how these relationships evolve across economicstates rather than by materially improving predictive accuracy. More broadly,the analysis highlights how probability based early warning frameworks can supportsupervisory monitoring while preserving transparency, economic interpretability, andpolicy relevance.

This paper examines the impact of firm-level carbon assurance on credit ratings among U.S. publicly traded firms. The findings reveal a positive relationship, indicating that carbon assurance enhances credit ratings by reducing information asymmetry and attracting analyst following. These results are robust to alternative measures of variables, model specifications, and endogeneity tests. U.S. firms with higher carbon assurance benefit from improved creditworthiness, particularly in competitive markets and Democratic-leaning states. These findings support signalling theory and show the strategic importance of carbon assurance in credit assessments and corporate sustainability.

This study examines the impact of financial openness on financial development and the moderating roles of institutional quality and trade openness in Eastern European countries over several decades. We focus on the period following the Berlin Wall (post-1989) and the transition from centrally planned to market-oriented economies after 1991. Financial openness promotes financial development, with institutional quality strengthening this effect, whereas trade openness weakens the positive impact of financial openness. Our results suggest that excessive openness may hinder financial development in Eastern Europe, highlighting the need for a balanced approach to financial globalization, particularly in transitioning economies.

Advancements in high-speed Internet and mobile technology in the 2000s accelerated global digital trade growth. However, financial development in European transition economies remains low, and its connection to digital trade remains largely unexplored. This study analyzes how digital trade influences financial development, focusing on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services exports, goods trade, internet penetration, and key financial metrics, including development, institution, and market indices. The results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship, where initially digital trade growth strengthens financial depth, access, and efficiency, but benefits decline beyond a threshold. Current digital trade levels remain below the optimal point for maximizing financial development, highlighting the need for further growth.

This study examines how investor sentiment affects stock returns under different levels of stock price synchronicity. Firm-level (market-level) sentiment has a stronger impact on low- (high-) synchronicity stocks. While firm-level sentiment effects remain stable over time, market-level sentiment effects intensify across all stocks during the pandemic. Uninformed investors consistently rely more on firm-level sentiment when trading low-synchronicity stocks but shift to market-level sentiment when deciding on their participation during the pandemic. These results remain robust after controlling firm size and calendar effects, and applying an alternative market-level sentiment measure.

This study investigates the effect of financial openness on financial development and the moderating roles of institutional quality and trade openness in this relationship in Eastern European countries over multiple decades. We include the periods after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the transition from centrally planned to market-oriented economies under Soviet influence after 1991. Our findings reveal that financial openness stimulates financial development and institutional quality enhances this relationship. Trade openness diminishes the positive effect of financial openness on financial development. Excessive openness may not benefit Eastern European countries, indicating the importance of a balanced approach to financial globalization especially in transition economies.

Amidst increasing interest from investors and scholars in the emerging Metaverse market, this paper marks a pioneering attempt to investigate the volatility connections between the Metaverse stock index and traditional financial markets such as Gold, Crude Oil, the Volatility Index, Bitcoin, and the Nasdaq. Utilizing a novel Quantile Vector Autoregressive (QVAR) model, the study assesses the transmission of shocks between the Metaverse market and its counterparts during bearish, normal, and bullish market conditions. The results highlight a significant increase in connectivity during extreme conditions compared to median levels. Notably, the Nasdaq emerges as a principal volatility transmitter to the Metaverse index, while Bitcoin shows minimal influence, suggesting that technological innovations, rather than cryptocurrencies, predominantly drive the Metaverse market. This investigation provides valuable insights for investors and policymakers, considering the nascent stage of Metaverse-related empirical research.

Panel data from publicly listed US industrial firms is used to investigate how firm-specific cost of debt (COD) determinants impact COD at different quantiles during a financial crisis. Six COD determinants: firm size, firm age, profitability, leverage, liquidity, and firm value, and advanced estimators: robust and bootstrapped fixed effects, bias-corrected least square dummy variable (LSDVC), and quantile regression, are employed within the context of pecking-order theory. The results show that firm size and leverage negatively impact COD, while liquidity positively impacts it when COD is high (90% quantile). The degree of profitability only confirms the pecking order theory when COD is extremely low (10% quantile) and contrasts with the theory for the 25% and above COD quantiles during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). These findings confirm that the practicalities of access to finance matter during a financial crisis for corporate financing decisions.

Fluctuations in energy prices impact production costs and inflation. This study examines whether inflation data can predict volatility in energy markets. Both inflation and energy market volatility exhibit complex behaviour over time, including structural shifts due to demand and supply shocks. Accounting for differences in data frequencies, we use an extended GARCH model (MIDAS) with Laguerre polynomials for time-varying parameters. The empirical results demonstrate that including low-frequency inflation data enhances energy model predictability particularly during periods of high volatility and extreme price fluctuations. Considering inflation improves forecasting for energy market models, benefiting portfolio management and helping policymakers manage inflation.

We analyze which type of gold investment is better for investors by studying the determinants of returns on gold mining stocks (gold stocks) and gold exchange-traded commodities (gold ETCs) over the period from March 2012 to February 2024. We find that gold ETCs outperform gold stocks in both returns and risk, and respond significantly more positively to economic policy uncertainty (EPU), offering investors more favorable safe-haven properties. Gold stocks are also more sensitive to oil price increases than are gold ETCs, and their relative price performance is negatively related to both oil price changes and Gold VIX. We conclude that investing in gold stocks is less suitable for investors who buy gold as a safe-haven asset.

We conduct a comparison of three portfolio investment strategies in the US stock market following the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure in October 2000. The strategies analyzed are analyst‐recommended, recommendation changes, and momentum portfolios. Across various time periods, company sizes, and industry sectors, the momentum portfolio consistently outperforms the other strategies. Portfolios based on analyst recommendations exhibit poor performance in industries such as consumer staples and materials, which are strongly correlated with oil prices. These industries are susceptible to external demand and supply‐side price shocks that are not adequately captured by analyst recommendations. The findings highlight firstly, the efficacy of the momentum strategy and the limitations of relying solely on analysts’ recommendations, particularly in oil‐dependent sectors; and secondly, the varying dynamics and performance of different investment strategies for investors seeking to optimize their investment decisions across different sectors and market conditions.

This study analyzes the volatility impact of the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX) on the global banking sector during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), COVID-19, and the Russia-Ukraine War. Using a Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model with asymmetric Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) volatility, we examine three geographical regions, focusing on large banks. The key findings include significant symmetric Granger causality between volatility changes and negative bank returns during the GFC, asymmetric impacts of volatility increases and decreases in the lower quartile of bank returns, with COVID-19 exhibiting the strongest asymmetry, and volatility shocks affecting the downside risk of the banking sector, where the highest value-at-risk (VaR) levels occur in the GFC and the lowest during the war period. Finally, Asian banks demonstrated greater resilience to volatility impacts than European banks, which were the most affected by COVID-19 and the war. Overall, we find that volatility has less impact on the global banking sector in the war sample than in other crises. Our findings provide valuable insights for policymakers, investors, and regulators to help effectively manage future crises and ensure the stability of the global banking sector.

The study examines the relationship between economic uncertainty, as measured by the Twitterbased economic uncertainty index (TEU), and Metaverse stocks across different time-frequency domains. By employing Wavelet Local Multiple Correlation analysis, we identify a substantial and statistically significant correlation between TEU and the Metaverse stock market across all time horizons examined. The positive correlation is confirmed when two alternative measures of economic uncertainty: crude oil and gold volatility, are included. The results highlight the importance of considering real-world economic uncertainty in decision-making processes involving virtual reality environments.

Using the revised de facto and de jure measures of economic globalization, this paper investigates the effects of globalization on credit market controls. In addition to overall, or aggregate, measures of credit market deregulation, private sector credit, bank ownership, and interest rate controls are also considered. The results indicate that economic globalization promotes credit market deregulation in the 146 countries considered. The findings are robust to a host of tests that include alternative econometric techniques and the effects of differing income levels and regions.

This chapter considers the implementation of these global ‘best-practice1 standards of governance as part of the continuing post-economic-crisis reform throughout Asia. The Asian Economic Crisis Has Exposed Critical Deficiencies In financial systems throughout Asia. The principal focus of post-crisis research has attempted to link these deficiencies to specific causes such as over-leveraged domestic financial markets, overexposure to foreign exchange risks and monopolistic market structures. The urgency of post-crisis reform, however, necessitates that the protracted course of improvement through natural convergence be replaced by a more expedient method. As a result, the introduction of a Western system of governance has been proposed. Convergence towards this path has primarily been supported through the efforts of international organisations. The urgency of reform has evoked appeals for the correction of poor corporate governance to be accomplished by introducing Western governance standards—specifically, the replacement of existing systems in Asia with the OECD Principles.

This study compares three types of portfolio investment strategies: analyst-recommended, recommendation changes and momentum for the United States stock market. We compare these portfolios by period, size, and industry. Our results show that the momentum portfolio performs best across all periods, size, and sectors, except for the utility sector. Portfolios based on analyst recommendations performed worse in industries that are highly correlated with oil prices (e.g., consumer staples and materials), since they are subject to exogenous price shocks. Overall, these results suggest that portfolios formed using a simple technical indicator (momentum) outperform investments based on analyst information. This finding raises questions of the value to investors of the information provided by analysts.