This paper sets out to explore whether the investor herding in the cryptocurrency market induces correlations in cryptocurrency returns using the methodology of Chang et al. (2000) and Galariotis et al. (2015) from a daily data sampling period of 3/30/2015 to 5/24/2019. The initial regression results show that the cross-sectional absolute deviation of return can only be explained by GSCI oil and gold index return, but no relationship exists between cross-sectional absolute deviation of return and other regression variables, such as return on CCi30, US equity risk premium and US/Euro exchange rate return. The herding regression results under normal market condition show that a strong tendency exists to herd on non-fundamental information that explains cross-sectional absolute deviation of returns. As such, cryptocurrency returns cannot be predicted on the basis of fundamental economic information (e.g., major macroeconomic announcements). Herding on non-fundamental information is found to be more pronounced during an upward-trending period of the market and other than upward-trending period. No signs of herding on fundamental information could be observed under other market conditions. Although the theory suggests that herding on non-fundamental information results in more efficient outcomes, the above findings do not encourage the diversification of traditional assets with cryptocurrency on the basis of low correlation. Since cryptocurrency lacks intrinsic value, the exchange is shown to provide a pseudo-efficient trading platform for speculative investors. Implications for future research are discussed.

Purpose While sustainable development policies are mostly set based on United Nations (UN) geoscheme classification, no study attempts to examine the impact of influential economic variables such as energy consumption (EC) and merchandise exports (ME) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in the UN geoscheme regions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible impact of EC and ME on CO2 emission in UN geoscheme classification regions such as Africa, America, Arab, Asia and Europe. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), Pedroni panel cointegration and panel Granger causality methodologies covering an annual panel data sampling period from 1971 to 2014. Findings The results show that there is bidirectional causality between all three variables in the European and American panel except for the non-causality from CO2 to EC in the American panel. These findings suggest possible consequences of weaker energy efficiency (even under environmental policy tightening) and strong demand for energy-intensive economic activities in those regions. Developed countries with higher environmental policy tightening (America and Europe) show significant estimates from the chosen tests supporting the Porter hypothesis. EC and ME have a long-run impact on CO2 emission in American and European panels. The African region has the least environmental impact of pollution from ME. Practical implications The ME and EC have a direct significant impact on CO2 emission in America and Europe. As these causalities, co-integrations and their impacts share a long-run equilibrium relationship, policymakers must design long-term industry policies such as cleaner production techniques focusing on environmentally sustainable practices. Also, it is suggested that the policymakers must ensure that they implement more robust policies and standards for environmental-friendly export production. Originality/value This is the first paper that examines the impact of EC and ME on CO2 emission in UN geoscheme regions. The findings of this paper provide theoretical implications supporting Porter hypothesis and practical implications for policymaking.

No abstract

This paper examines the relationship between common stock return and corporate cultural behaviour of twenty listed firms from Shanghai Stock Exchange. The particular research questions of this study include: whether corporate cultural behaviour impacts common stock returns and under what conditions it impacts shareholder expectations and corporate governance.

This article examines whether the investment strategies of cryptocurrency market involve high-risk gambling. Results show that the cryptocurrency risk premiums co-move closely with the return on CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). As such, the strategies of cryptocurrency trading closely resemble that of high-risk gambling. In other words, traders' expectations co-move closely (significantly) with the expected future payoffs from gambling. The co-movement is more pronounced when the gambling offers gains rather than losses and the payoffs are above average. VIX index returns significantly Granger-cause CSAD of returns (with and without Bitcoin) indicates that the cryptocurrency trading constitutes a form of gambling where the motivation for gambling comes from the amount of variation (i.e. riskiness) in the gambling payoffs. These findings warrant policymakers of countries to revisit the existing regulatory framework governing the conduct of electronic finance in the financial services industry.

This paper examines the relationship between stock return and human behavior in ten well-established stock exchanges, from a monthly data sample from January 1991 to December 2015. The results show that there is no sufficient evidence to generalize the impact of human behaviour on common stock return, through mood state altered by weather variables. When the substance of the underlying process (i.e. the weather alters the mood state) is established by logit regression, the results reveal that there is a bias in the variable selection as regressors, which is subject to the metrological situation of each country (or region). As such, collectivism does not appear to be an explanatory variable of the magnitude of price changes, as a variable uncontrolled for in the regression. Although the null hypothesis is accepted for four countries in the sample, the findings do not warrant researchers to generalize the effect of human behavior on stock price changes through weather variables, for a large population.

The objective of this paper is to examine the financial and strategic implications of regulatory restrictions for working capital management of firms operating in the stockbroking industry. The present regulatory frameworks require banks and other financial services sector firms to have more equity capital in the capital base, without regard to the financial and operating characteristics of the firms. Based on the Sri Lankan stockbroking industry, this paper shows how the return on equity deteriorates and potential growth restricted, when the regulations require firms to deduct certain assets from the capital base to meet the minimum capital requirements. The results show that the potential growth and return on equity reduce substantially after compliance with the regulation. Further, the regulation restricts a firm’s attempt to diversify the collateral portfolio in the market in order to reduce the systematic risk attached to the securities in the collateral portfolio. These regulatory restrictions also add an additional stress level to corporate management to leverage the number of times of sales (sales turnover) in order to overcome the issue, which may result in overtrading. It may also create ethical issues on soliciting clients and induce them to trade in the stock market, without proper justifications. Keywords: net capital, Basel regulation, working capital hedging, potential growth analysis, DuPont analysis, return on equity

This paper examines the mixture of distribution properties associated with heteroskedastic excess Bitcoin return data, using the volume of Google search queries as a proxy for the information arrival time, from a monthly data sampling period of June 2010 to May 2019. The results show that the volatility coefficients become highly statistically insignificant when the lagged volume of search queries is included in the conditional variance equation of the GJR-GARCH-M model. This clearly suggests that the volume of search queries is shown to provide significant explanatory power regarding the variance of heteroskedastic excess Bitcoin return, which can be traced from the ARCH process defined in the GJR-GARCH-M specification. A significant negative relationship between the conditional volatility and the volume of search queries indicates that Internet (online) information arrival reduces the risk premium in the Bitcoin market, which may improve market stability.