This paper presents an empirical investigation into the corporate social reporting (CSR) practices of listed companies from Bangladesh, where CSR is still a matter of voluntary disclosure. Analysis of annual reports published in 2007 reveals that only 15.45 per cent of listed companies made such disclosures. This paper presents an extensive survey of the contents, form, nature and extent of CSR practices of listed companies. Analysis over a wide range of industries reveals that companies in the Banking and Energy sectors the secure highest rank in terms of CSR; three quarters of all disclosures are generalized qualitative statements without any attempt at attestation; more than half of the disclosures are located in the Director's report; and the mean amount of disclosures was less than half a page.

This paper investigates the role of financial development in the rapid rise of life expectancy in Bangladesh by using the annual data covering the period of 1972-2013. We examine the unit root properties of the variables employing a structural break unit root test. The combined cointegration and ARDL bounds testing approach confirm the long-run association between financial development and life expectancy in the presence of globalization, income inequality, and economic growth. The long-run elasticities indicate that financial development and globalization (income inequality and economic growth) positively (negatively) affect life expectancy in Bangladesh. The VECM Granger causality analysis indicates that the feedback effect exists between financial development and life expectancy, and income inequality and life expectancy. Economic growth and globalization are also found to Granger cause life expectancy. Our findings offer new insights to policy makers which are crucial to improve life expectancy in Bangladesh.

Pollution reduction is one of the important challenges confronting contemporary business and society. Firms are largely responsible for undertaking sustainable business practices and initiatives as they are major contributors to global pollution. This study empirically examines how sustainable investment influences firm energy and carbon performance. Using a sample of 23,501 firm-year observations from 2440 unique firms over the period of 2002 to 2018 in G-6 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), we demonstrate that sustainable investment leads to better energy and carbon performance without compromising financial return. Our findings are robust to alternative variables, subsamples, and different estimation techniques. This study contributes to the global discussion on sustainability and a low-carbon economy.

We present an application of the recent CS-ARDL methodology in the context of a country’s trade balance–exchange rate relationship. The trade balance is expected to deteriorate first before improving in response to currency depreciation and vice versa, widely known as the J-curve effect satisfying the Marshall–Lerner condition in the long run. Combining bilateral and aggregate analysis in one setting by constructing specific panel data with one reference country, we find that aggregate analysis is sensitive to our allowance for heterogeneity. Estimates using the aggregate time series data show evidence favoring the J-curve relation, whereas the aggregate analysis resulting from the panel time series data shows that currency appreciation improves trade balance in Bangladesh in the long run, which goes against the Marshall–Lerner condition. With the reference of the existing commodity-level literature, we argue that this atypical scenario lines with the realities of a ‘small’ economy like Bangladesh, where her exporters attempt to maintain their market share with some government support. The study provides essential policy suggestions by identifying the significant contributors to Bangladesh’s trade balance–exchange rate relationship: China, Japan, and Singapore.