Purpose The purpose of this research is to ascertain the impact of audit committee (AC) activism and independence on the quality and quantity of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures for energy sector firms in Australia. This paper aims to understand how AC attributes such as meeting frequency, and the number of independent directors influence the compliance with the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines and quantity of ESG disclosures. Design/methodology/approach Bloomberg ESG disclosure scores and company reported AC attributes are collected and analysed using the pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression framework with Petersen’s (2009) technique by using a two-dimensional cluster at the firm and year level. Further, this paper uses a lagged independent variable and two-stage least square approach to address endogeneity concerns. Findings The results show a significant positive effect of AC activism and independence on the level of compliance with the GRI guidelines, indicating the favourable effect of AC attributes on ESG reporting quality. Likewise, AC attributes positively affect the quantity of ESG disclosures. Notably, the impact of AC attributes is more pronounced on environmental disclosures. Originality/value This paper validates the significance of the management control mechanism in improving the quality and quantity of ESG disclosures for an environmentally sensitive sector, hence offering a potential answer to reduce agency and legitimacy issues for the sensitive industry firms.

A decade after the global financial crisis, the developments in stock market integration have increased the stability and liquidity of markets, and decreased the diversification benefits for investors. International trade is an important determinant of stock market interdependence. The objective of this study is to analyze the co-movements and the portfolio diversification between the stock markets of Pakistan and its top trading partners, namely China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We employed Dynamic Conditional Covariance (DCC)-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) methodology with student t-distribution to examine time-varying correlation and volatilities of stock markets of Pakistan and its trading partners. We used Morgan Stanley capital international (MSCI) daily returns data of developed and emerging markets for the period 2005 to 2018. The results of the study highlighted that stock markets of Pakistan and its trading partners were closely integrated during the financial crisis of 2008, while the integration among stock markets decreased substantially after the period of financial crises. Furthermore, the results showed the slow decay process. Therefore, it is a positive sign for the Pakistani and international investors to diversify their portfolio among the stock markets of Pakistan and its trading partners.

Stock market, is one of the most important financial market which has a close relationship with a country's economy, due to which it is often called the barometer of the economy. Over the past 25 years, the stock markets have been affected by different global economic shocks. Various researchers have analyzed different aspects of these effects one by one, however, this study is an assessment of stock market interrelationship of emeriging Asian economies which include most of the East Asian, and Southeast Asian emerging economies with special focus on China for past decades during which different crisis occurred. We used Morgan Stanley capital international (MSCI) daily indices data for each stock market and compared Chinese stock market with the stock markets of India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. We analyzed the data through the individual wavelet power spectrum, cross-wavelet transform and wavelet coherence, to determine the correlation and volatility among the selected stock markets. These model have the power to analyze co-movements among these countries with respect to both frequency and time spaces. Our findings show that there are co-movement patterns of higher frequencies during the crises periods of 1997, 2008 and 2015. The dependency strength among the considered economies is noted to increase in the crisis periods, which implies increased short-and long-term benefits for the investors. From a financial point of view, it has been determined that the co-movement strength among the emerging economies of Asia may have an effect on the VaR (Value at Risk) levels of a multi-country portfolio. Furthermore, the stock market of China shows a high correlation with the other six Asian stock emerging markets in both high and low-frequency spectrums. The association of the south and east Asian stock market with Chinese stock markets show the interconnection of these economies with the economy of China since past two decades. These findings are useful for investors, portfolio managers and the policymaker around the globe.

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