Diversification of the Islamic stock market, Bitcoin, and Bullions in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 outbreak.

This study investigates the interconnectedness of the Islamic stock market, Bullion, and Bitcoin as diversifiers for portfolios, exploring their role as hedges and safe havens. The analysis covers the period from January 2015 to December 2022, with a particular focus on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War on the MSCI World Islamic Index, bullions (Gold, Silver, Platinum, Nickel, Palladium, and Aluminium), and Bitcoin, employing a time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model. During crisis periods, our findings reveal that the transmission and reception of shocks among these assets varied, with a heightened level of co-movement observed during the pandemic and war periods. These results emphasise the importance of considering the dynamic nature of financial assets' connectedness in asset investment decisions, particularly in times of crisis. Furthermore, the findings suggest that Bullion can serve as a hedge for both Bitcoin and the Islamic stock market. The study also explores the optimal diversification of investment portfolios and highlights the importance of adhering to Islamic principles in portfolio diversification. By integrating Islamic rules into the diversification process, investors can enhance the effectiveness and relevance of their investment strategies.

The Connection between Absorptive Capacity and Green Innovation: The Function of Board Capital and Environmental Regulation.

The stress of environmental regulations, sustainable development objectives, and global warming is becoming more prominent now. Most studies conclude that the industrial sector is largely at fault and under tremendous pressure to address these climate change issues. This study highlights the significance of green innovation to Chinese firms in mitigating these conservational challenges, and the study probes the association between green innovation and absorptive capacity. Additionally, board capital (the social and human capital of directors) and environmental regulation-both drivers of green innovation-are explored as moderators between green innovation and absorptive capacity. With appropriate econometric methods and theoretical support from the natural resource-based review, the resource dependency theory, and the Porter hypothesis, the results indicate the positive relationship between green innovation and absorptive capacity. They also reveal board capital and environmental regulation as positive moderators, emphasizing their significance to green innovation. This study offers several suggestions and directives for stakeholders, such as businesses, policymakers, and governments, to foster green innovation for greater profitability, minimizing negative industrial consequences.

How Does Green Innovation Strategy Influence Corporate Financing? Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Diversity Play a Moderating Role.

Global warming is becoming more and more of a concern, leading authorities to take action. The industrial sector is a key contributor to environmental and social problems. Based on stakeholder theory and agency theory, this research proposes that green innovation strategies at the firm level can overcome the industry's negative environmental impact. As a result, the focus of this research is on green innovation strategies for corporate financing. In addition, this research suggests that corporate social responsibility and gender diversity directly affect corporate financing and their interaction. This study used Chinese 301 manufacturing firms (3010 observations) for the period 2010-2019 for this purpose. This study looks into panel data issues in depth by using approaches such as the fixed effect and generalized method of moment. The feasible generalized least square was employed to increase robustness. Furthermore, green innovation strategies were used for corporate financing. Second, the study discovered that corporate social responsibility aided firm financing. Our findings also imply that corporate social responsibility helps to attenuate the association amid green innovative strategies and corporate financing. Finally, these findings revealed that gender diversity had a favorable effect on corporate financing. Furthermore, this study confirmed that the moderating role of gender diversity is beneficial to green innovative strategies and corporate financing. These findings add to the literature by providing policymakers and regulatory bodies with useful information for advancing sustainable development.

The Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Association of Internal Corporate Governance and Profitability; Evidence from Pakistan.

At present, climate and other environmental problems are arising because of the development of the industrial sector at a large level. The industrial sector is supposed to be a major cause of climate change problems that lead to global warming. Therefore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the help of corporate governance is an imperative approach to control these social problems. Consequently, in the context of the organizational and management theory, agency theory, and the stakeholder theory, this study focuses on important factors of internal corporate governance such as chief executive officer (CEO) power, the board size, independence, ownership concentration, managerial ownership, and audit quality for improving the profitability of firms. Moreover, this study considers corporate social responsibility as a controlling and moderating factor for firm performance and internal corporate governance. We employed ordinary least square (OLS) for endogeneity testing, fixed effect (FE), generalized method of moments (GMM), and feasible generalized least square (FGLS) on data of Pakistani firms for the period of 2010-2019. The results of this study demonstrate the following outcomes: firstly, all internal corporate governance factors are positively linked with firm performance; secondly, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the most valuable tool for improving profitability. Importantly, this study suggests that all internal corporate governance factors are positively linked with firm performance because of the interactive role of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study practically contributes to the literature by suggesting the imperative role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for internal corporate governance, which may help to reduce climate and social problems.

Carbon Emissions in the SAARC Countries with Causal Effects of FDI, Economic Growth and Other Economic Factors: Evidence from Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Models.

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries like other developing countries are the major destination for foreign investors. At the same time, these countries are facing different climate change challenges. This study aims to inspect the economic determinants of carbon emissions (CE) and dynamic causal interaction of CE with foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth (EG), and other economic factors using panel cointegration test, dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and vector error correction model (VECM) for the SAARC countries. To make the homogenous analysis, we examined the association among variables for the individual country and as a group for the period 1990 to 2016. The panel results of this study confirmed the presence of the unidirectional causal association of EG with CE. The panel results of other economic factors confirmed the causality of urban population (UP) and energy consumption (EC) with CE. Moreover, the panel results of domestic capital (DS) and inflation rate (INF) confirmed the causal association with EG. Finally, the panel results of DS revealed a causality with FDI. Based on the above results, some policy guidelines are proposed.

Conceptualizing Pathways of Sustainable Development in the Union for the Mediterranean Countries with an Empirical Intersection of Energy Consumption and Economic Growth.

The availability of sufficient and trustworthy energy services at the reasonable cost in a securely and environmentally friendly manner, and conventionality with economic and social development requirements, is an important factor of sustainable development (SD). Energy plays a significant role in eliminating poverty and increasing living standards. However, most of the present energy forms of energy supply and consumption are unsustainable. This paper analyzes the association between economic growth (EG), energy consumption (EC), and sustainable development (SD) among other economic factors. The sample of 14 developed and developing member states of the Union for the Mediterranean (UFM) was selected. To deal with the endogeneity issue, the system- generalized method of moment (GMM) model was employed. Moreover, panel co-integration, Granger causality tests, and robustness tests were employed to examine the long-run and short-run causality among variables of interest. The results confirmed the short-run dynamic association from sustainable development (SD) to energy consumption (EC), and economic growth (EG) to sustainable development (SD). Moreover, the results validated the presence of long-run equilibrium association in the equations of EC and sustainable development (SD). The findings of this study will be supportive for the policymakers to formulate sustainable energy policies to stimulate the economic growth (EG) in the way of sustainable development (SD) in the UFM countries.