PurposeCulture and institutions are among the essential sources of comparative advantage in international trade and may influence a country's FDI influx. This paper aims to analyze the impact of cultural distance (CD) and institutional distance (ID) on the efficiency of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) for the panel of 43 countries during 2003–2016.Design/methodology/approachThe stochastic frontier approach (SFA) has been incorporated into the standard gravity model of gravity Kalirajan, 1999; Ravishankar and Stack, 2014). SFA has traditionally been implemented to evaluate the production frontier as the highest yield that could possibly be generated from specified input levels. The production process is viewed to be fully efficient if the real output is performed at frontier level. Otherwise, the production process is assumed technically inefficient, which implies potential scope for enhanced output. This error term is split into two parts, a non-negative term and more standard asymmetrical term. The former identifies inefficiencies in production, while the latter retrieves random disordersFindingsThe outcomes assert a U-shaped relationship between CD and the efficiency of China's OFDI. Put differently, when the CD is minimal, the “liability of foreignness” (LOF) effect plays a dominant role; and CD tends to reduce the efficiency of China's OFDI. On the flip side, when the culture distance is greater than a certain threshold level, the “advantages of foreignness” (AOF) effect plays a predominant role, and CD improves the efficiency of China's OFDI. Institutional distance results in the “LOF” effect significantly reduce the efficiency of China's OFDI.Research limitations/implicationsNotwithstanding these contributions, our study has some limitations which offer directions for future research. The major limitation of this research work is the availability of comprehensive data for a well extended time, in particular for the variable of CD. Further, a firm-level study can shed light on the motivations and performance of China OFDI. Finally, given that our analysis focuses on emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) from China, the findings might not be explicitly generalizable to MNEs from other developing countries. Future studies should concentrate on the comparative study of China's OFDI with other developing countries, to deepen our understanding of the effects of ID and CD on the efficiency of OFDI.Originality/value(1) The work is novel in nature as the authors attempt to explore the effect of ID and CD on efficiency of Chinese FDI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research is conducted in this direction in terms of Chinese FDI. (2) Further, the prior studies employed standard gravity model, which may not correctly evaluate the trade potential viewed as the highest potential value. To overcome the shortcomings of the standard gravity model in estimation of the trade performance and efficiency, the SFA has been incorporated into the standard gravity model of gravity.

Islamic banking has gleaned considerable attention recently owing to its quantum growth. This study examines the asymmetric association between Islamic banking development (IBD) and economic growth (EG) in Pakistan that spans 2007Q1 to 2017Q4. We apply the non‐linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model of Shin et al., (2014). Our findings confirm co‐integration between IBD and EG in Pakistan. The positive (negative) shocks of IBD have significant positive (negative) association with EG in the long‐run; however, only positive shocks have significant positive relationship with EG in the short run. We observe that the interconnection between IBD‐EG is asymmetric/non‐linear in the long‐run, whereas symmetric/linear in the short run. We conclude that unlike the linear models, the non‐linear models provide realistic results by capturing hidden asymmetries, thereby assisting policymakers in useful decision making.

Asia is a heterogeneous region including countries with distinct features in quite a few facets. This study is designed to unravel the motivations of Chinese FDI in 30 Asian countries (For list of countries see Appendix 1.) during 2003-2016. For estimation, we utilised the Random effect (RE), Fixed effect (FE) and System-GMM (SGMM) methodologies. We transpired that both market and natural resource (mineral richness) seeking motives of Chinese FDI in the whole sample analysis. With respect to income group, we confirmed the market seeking FDI in both high and middleincome countries whereas, mineral richness is priority for Chinese FDI in middle-income group. Thus, Chinese firms targeted middle income developing economies to acquire non-fuel natural resources. Analogously, on the regional basis, the results show that in all regression models, GDP is positive and significant predictor, characterising market seeking FDI by Chinese firms in West, East and South East Asia. In resource seeking motive, among the two types of natural resources, mineral richness affect Chinese FDI positively in East & South East Asia. In a nutshell, seeking market is the common motive for Chinese FDI in the entire sample, whereas the resource seeking motive varies across the income groups and regions.

Australian firms hire an increasing number of foreign directors who bring various cultural perspectives to their boards’ conversations. We evaluate the effect of board cultural diversity contributed by foreign directors on firm performance for a sample of Australian companies, constituents of ASX200. We employ Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions to estimate board cultural diversity. We document a positive relationship between board cultural diversity and firm performance as measured by Tobin’s q and ROA after controlling for various board and firm characteristics. This suggests that more culturally diverse boards may bring benefits to their firms that outweigh the potential costs of conflict and miscommunication caused by cultural differences. Our finding holds after controlling for firm and time fixed effects, implementing an instrumental variable approach, controlling for a firm’s foreign operations and presence, and using alternative cultural diversity measures. We find that not all aspects of cultural differences matter, and it is the diversity in masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation dimensions that positively determine firm performance. This finding on the positive effect of board cultural diversity for Australian firms contrasts with the evidence from other countries, highlighting that the value of cultural diversity can differ across countries and over time.

The reverse mortgage is an important financing instrument which introduced housing finance or housing mortgage loan, it will effectively solve the problem of scarce resources for the aged; however, many problems occurred when brought into effect. One of the most critical problems is pricing. Since the pricing of Reverse Mortgage is such a complex problem, the paper would focus on the fluctuation of housing prices. Based on the researches, the paper aims to raise the problems calling for special attention in actuarial Reverse Mortgage pricing and in further, to propose suggestions and steps in practice.