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Daniel and Titman (1997) contend that the Fama‐French three‐factor model’s ability to explain cross‐sectional variation in expected returns is a result of characteristics that firms have in common rather than any risk‐based explanation. The primary aim of the current paper is to provide out‐of‐sample tests of the characteristics versus risk factor argument. The main focus of our tests is to examine the intercept terms in Fama‐French regressions, wherein test portfolios are formed by a three‐way sorting procedure on book‐to‐market, size and factor loadings. Our main test focuses on ‘characteristic‐balanced’ portfolio returns of high minus low factor loading portfolios, for different size and book‐to‐market groups. The Fama‐French model predicts that these regression intercepts should be zero while the characteristics model predicts that they should be negative. Generally, despite the short sample period employed, our findings support a risk‐factor interpretation as opposed to a characteristics interpretation. This is particularly so for the HML loading‐based test portfolios. More specifically, we find that: the majority of test portfolios tend to reveal higher returns for higher loadings (while controlling for book‐to‐market and size characteristics); the majority of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are statistically insignificant; for the characteristic‐balanced portfolios, very few of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are significant.

This chapter discusses and investigates the sustainability reporting across different sectors. The first section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and primary sector's performance (Agriculture and Food Industries Sector and Energy Sector). The second section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and secondary sector's performance (Manufacturing Sector). The final section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and tertiary sector's performance (Banks and Financial Services Sector, Retail Sector, Telecommunication and Information Technology Sector, and Tourism Sector).

This paper examines the market timing ability of a sample of 62 Australian International equity funds using the returns‐based approach of Henriksson and Merton (1981) (H&M) and Treynor and Mazuy (1966) (T&M). Specifically, the primary focus is to investigate whether market timing ability bears any relationship to the stated fund allocation policy. Generally, the results indicate that fund managers do not successfully time the market. We also find that there is no relationship between the manager's stated level of activity on allocation and their market timing abilities as calculated using the H&M and T&M models. Managers are not successfully implementing their stated policies. These results are consistent with an irrelevance of perceived management style to fund policies and hence performance. Furthermore, it is indicative that fund managers are not successfully targeting particular classes of risk averse investors.

Standard multivariate tests of mean variance efficiency (MVE) have been criticised on the grounds that they require regression residuals to have a multivariate normal distribution. Generally, the existing evidence suggests that the normality assumption is questionable, even for monthly returns. MacKinlay and Richardson (1991) developed a generalised method of moments (GMM) framework which provides tests which are valid under much weaker distributional assumptions. They examined monthly US data formed into size based portfolios, for mean‐variance efficiency relative to the Sharpe‐Lintner CAPM. They found that inferences regarding mean‐variance efficiency can be sensitive to the test considered. In this paper we further investigate their GMM tests using monthly Australian data over the period 1974 to 1994. We extend upon their analysis to consider an alternative version of their GMM test and also to examine a zero‐beta version of the CAPM. Similar to the US case, our results also indicate sensitivity of inferences to the tests used. Finally, while we find that the GMM tests generally provide rejection of mean‐variance efficiency, tests involving the zero‐beta CAPM, particularly when a value‐weighted market index is used, prove less prone to rejection.

In this paper we employ a GMM‐based approach to test the restrictions imposed by a two‐factor ‘market and oil’ pricing model when a risk‐free asset is assumed to exist. We examine the Australian market which has several interesting features including self‐sufficiency in relation to oil, a large concentration of natural resource companies, susceptibility to the ‘Dutch disease’ and a diverse industry base. We extend previous literature by examining industry sector equity returns as different industry groups are likely to have different exposures to an oil factor, particularly in Australia. In the formal tests, we find evidence in favour of the model, particularly for industrial sector industries. The preferred model includes a domestic portfolio proxy for market returns in addition to the oil price factor and we find evidence of a positive market risk premium as well as a significantly priced oil factor.

The purpose of this paper is to assess US-based firms from 2005 to 2015 to determine whether firms with better corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance will allocate capital through their life-cycle to better maintain or extend total assets.

Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics social performance rating scores were used to measure CSR performance in an initial sample of 19,707 firm-year observations. Firms are first classified into stages including introduction, growth, maturity, and decline, and use multiclass linear discriminant analysis, the Dickinson classification scheme (Dickinson, 2011), and the ratio of retained earnings to total assets (RETA) as life-cycle proxies. Life-cycle was formulated based on a broad set of accounting data sourced from Compustat. Various corporate characteristics from the CRSP database were used to classify all sample firms into five equal groups based on their CSR performance.

A firm’s equity and debt issuance assume a hump shape over the life-cycle under CSR practice, and higher-CSR firms face fewer significant issues as they mature; payout, RETA, and free cash flow decreased from high-CSR performance firms to low-CSR performance firms; and cash holdings also exhibit a hump shape over the life-cycle and higher-CSR practices are associated with significantly lower cash holdings.

CSR performance is a useful predictor for forecasting firm life-cycle and superior CSR performance ensures efficient capital allocation throughout firm life-cycle. Furthermore, CSR practice is an indicator of firm life-cycle sustainability and indicates a firm’s future cash flow patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and extent of instability of capital asset pricing model (CAPM) beta in a small emerging capital market.

Inter‐period as well as intra beta instability are examined. Inter‐period instability is examined by Mann‐Whitney z‐scores and Blume's regressions. Intra‐period beta instability is examined using Bruesch‐Pagan LM test and Chow break point test. Robustness tests are performed applying time‐varying parameter models.

Beta instability increases with increase in holding (sample) periods. There is evidence of inter‐period as well as intra‐period beta instability. Analysis of the full eight‐year interval reveals a very high incidence of beta instability, namely, about 26 per cent of the individual stocks tested and about 31 per cent of individual stocks have structural break. The extent of beta instability does not significantly decline when corrected for non‐synchronous trading and thin trading as represented by Dimson beta. However, the extent of beta instability is similar to that of developed market. Time‐varying parameter model under Kalman filter approach using AR(1) specification performs better than any other models in terms of in‐sample forecast errors. Dominance of AR(1) approach suggests that stock betas in DSE are time varying, and shocks to the conditional beta have some degree of persistence which ultimately reverts to a mean. This result is in contrast to the findings of Faff et al. revealing the dominance of Random Walk specification in Australian market, suggesting that shocks to stock beta in Australian market persist indefinitely into the future. These contrasting findings may indicate that beta instability in different markets and for different stocks in the same market are of different nature and different models may be suitable for different markets and different stocks in the same market in capturing the time‐varying nature of beta coefficients.

This study covers only 110 stocks of Dhaka Stock Exchange. It can be extended to include more stocks. The study can also be done in other developing markets.

While the issues of beta instability have been extensively explored for developed markets, evidence for emerging markets is less readily available. The present study contributes to the emerging market literature on beta instability by investigating the extent of beta instability and its time‐varying properties in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), Bangladesh. Understanding the systematic risk behaviour of individual stocks in DSE is important for both local and international investors. With the saturation of investment opportunities in developed markets due to their high integration, and with the enhanced deregulation and liberalization of emerging economies, emerging financial markets like DSE provide suitable and a relatively safe investment environment for international investors and fund managers seeking global diversification for better risk‐return trade‐offs. When most of the world markets declined during the recent global financial crisis, stock prices in DSE experienced a continuous rise. This makes it more interesting as an emerging market to study beta instability.

The last chapter of this book grouped the studies that discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and firm performance in three different regions: Europe, Mena and Africa. In Europe, the findings deduced from the empirical results demonstrate that there is significant positive impact of ESG on the performance. However, the relationship between ESG disclosures varies if measured individually; the environmental disclosure positively affects the ROA and TQ, whereas the corporate social responsibility disclosure negatively affects the three models. However, the corporate governance disclosure negatively affects the ROA, ROE and positively affect the Tobin's Q. In Mena, the empirical results show that there are differences in the impact of sustainability reporting (ESG) on firm's operational performance (ROA), financial performance (ROE) and market performance (TQ) between the sectors. Lastly, the findings from Africa show that there is a significant relationship between ESG and operational performance (ROA) and market performance (TQ) with ROA and TQ varying directly with the level of ESG disclosure. However, there is no significant relationship between ESG and financial performance (ROE).

Over the last several decades, businesses have faced mounting pressures from diverse stakeholders to alter their corporate operations to become more socially and environmentally responsible. In turn, many firms appear to have responded by implementing more sustainable practices — measuring, documenting, and publishing annual CSR or sustainability reports to showcase how they are addressing important issues in this area, including: resource stewardship, waste management, greenhouse gas emission reductions, fair and safe labor practices, amongst other stakeholder concerns. And yet, research in this domain has not yet systematically examined whether businesses have, on the whole, changed their practices in tandem with the important changes in its institutional context over time. Have corporate CSR initiatives, in fact, been growing over the last 25 years or has the increased attention to CSR actually been much ado about nothing? In this chapter, we review the empirical literature on CSR to uncover that common measures of CSR such as the KLD do not support the concept that CSR practices have increased substantively over the last 25 years. We supplement this historical review by modeling the growth curves of CSR implementation in practice and find that the pace of positive change has indeed been glacial. More alarmingly, we also look at corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) and find that, contrary to expectations, businesses have become more, not less, irresponsible during this same time period. Implications of these findings for theory are presented as are suggestions for future research in this domain.

The purpose of this pitch research letter (PRL) is to apply the pitching template developed by Faff (2015) to an academic project on boardroom gender diversity and default risk.

The pitching template helps the pitcher to identify the core elements that form the framework of the research project. The PRL encloses a brief background about the pitcher and pitch, followed by a brief commentary on the pitch and personal reflections of the pitcher on the pitch exercise itself.

One of the best aspects of the pitching template is that it forced the researchers to think each item over and over, enabling a synthesis of scattered ideas in a systematic way. Hence, it is strongly recommend learning and applying the pitching template as a tool to refine embryonic research ideas and to track the progress on the research projects.

This PRL is novel as it highlights the worth of performing the pitching exercise (i.e. quality publication), potential adoptability challenge and solutions (i.e. unfamiliarity and training), systematic process of learning the pitching template and application of the “rule of three” in pitching research. Such reflections are believed to be useful for early career researchers (ECRs).