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While the classic futures pricing tool works well for capital markets that are less affected by sentiment, it needs further modification in China's case as retail investors constitute a large portion of the Chinese stock market participants. Their expectations of the rate of return are prone to emotional swings. This paper, therefore, explores the role of investor sentiment in explaining futures basis changes via the channel of implied discount rates.

Using Chinese equity market data from 2010 to 2019, the authors augment the cost-of-carry model for pricing stock index futures by incorporating the investor sentiment factor. This design allows us to estimate the basis in a better way that reflects the relationship between the underlying index price and its futures price.

The authors find strong evidence that the measure of Chinese investor sentiment drives the abnormal fluctuations in the basis of China's stock index futures. Moreover, this driving force turns out to be much less prominent for large-cap stocks, liquid contracting frequencies, regulatory loosening periods and mature markets, further verifying the sentiment argument for basis mispricing.

This study contributes to the literature by relying on investor sentiment measures to explain the persistent discount anomaly of index futures basis in China. This finding is of great importance for Chinese investors with the intention to implement arbitrage, hedging and speculation strategies.

Outlines previous research on the mutual fund industry and compares the characteristics of the US and European mutual fund markets using the structure‐conduct‐performance paradigm. Shows that the European industry is smaller, with more funds and more emphasis on fixed income, with the UK and US having lower concentration ratios than mainland Europe; and the US a wider range of fees. Contrasts the use of different distribution channels and performance statistics; and uses 1991‐1997 data to compare actual stock market returns against benchmarks and between countries. Analyses this in detail and notes with surprise the European funds have a better average performance than US funds.

The issue of exposure management, a significant subset of international financial management, is closely intertwined with the notions of foreign exchange risk and exchange market efficiency. Since value is a function of risk, that makes an understanding of these notions germane to those who seek value in global markets. This study finds earlier attempts specifying exchange market efficiency inadequate and those dealing with foreign exchange risk deficient in generating prescriptions for exposure management. The paper focuses on the notion of the market hierarchy (goods, financial and foreign exchange) and the inter‐relationships among the markets. It helps the reader understand the theoretical constructs underlying prevailing schemes for foreign exchange exposure management. Most importantly, it identifies situations under which exposure management is relevant and potentially rewarding. It also points out circumstances when existing dictates for management will yield benefits only by accident. The paper offers some specific alternative suggestions to guide managers in making informed and logical decisions.

This study aims to comprehensively examine sustainable mutual funds (SMFs) research by conducting a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of articles spanning 33 years from 1991 to 2023. This review seeks to uncover the principal contributors and the structural framework of knowledge within the realm of business, finance and management research concerning SMFs.

Following the “Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR)” methodology, the author selected 597 documents for the analysis and collected the bibliographic information from the Scopus database. The author uses RStudio and VOSviewer software to address five research questions.

The findings indicate a notable expansion in research concerning SMFs within high-quality journals over the last 33 years. The review illuminates the principal contributors in SMFs research by using performance analysis based on journal, article, author, country and institution criteria. By using science mapping techniques, the author identifies five prevailing themes and outlines future research prospects in the domain of SMFs.

This review paper can serve as a roadmap for future researchers, aiding them in discerning the trending research topics within this domain.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that comprehensively provides an overview of different variants, diverse strands and research hotspots of SMFs literature. The study offers insight into the evolution of SMFs, showcasing their progression from a segmented market to a prominently specialized domain in the contemporary landscape.

Banking and finance during the past several decades have become “re‐internationalized,” not simply “internationalized.” This becomes clear when we compare the institutional features of banking and finance today with those in the early part of this century, the last period in which both had a substantial international dimension. It is further apparent in historical data that are analyzed in the paper: cross‐country spreads between real interest rates over the long period 1835 to 1990, and figures for gross foreign assets available for a number of major countries at key points in time from 1885 to 1994. The paper concludes by discussing the factors responsible for the changes that have occurred in banking and finance during the past several decades.

This study aims to highlight the key aspects of sustainable finance using bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature extracted from two separate databases, Scopus and Dimensions.ai. The present study contributes towards the achievement of sustainable development by providing directions to align financial decision-making with different sustainability aspects.

The author conducted bibliometric analysis for 1,220 articles from Scopus and 1,437 publications from Dimensions.ai. The most frequently occurring terms in sustainable finance research are explored and visualised using the VOSviewer.

Bibliometric findings revealed a dynamic evolution of research focus over time. The social component dominated from 2012 to 2016, however a shift to environmental and climate change considerations is noticed from 2016 to 2020. Recent studies (2020–2022) exhibited heightened attention to green finance and renewable energy. Overlay visualisations highlighted similar trends in both databases, indicating a contemporary emphasis on green finance.

This study enriches theoretical discourse by mapping the trajectory of sustainable finance research, contributing to a deeper understanding of its evolution.

Insights from this study guide researchers and practitioners in identifying trends, that can help the integration of green finance principles into corporate strategies.

Findings also raise awareness among stakeholders, and help facilitate socially responsible corporate cultures and informed policymaking.

The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive bibliometric analysis of sustainable finance research in management studies, drawing data from two major databases and spanning over three decades.

This paper analyses trends in direct international property investment by British investing institutions in the 1980s and 1990s. Although it is well established that there is home country bias in all investment sectors, evidence is presented which suggests that it is more pronounced in the direct property sector. The main focus is on barriers to international property investment and, therefore, potential sources of segmentation in the property sector. The research addresses a number of issues relating to levels of international property investment, the linkages between the nature of the core business and investment strategies and the relative importance of high diversification costs. This is carried out by an analysis of the most recent data on British institutional investment trends and by a survey questionnaire of British property professionals involved in asset allocation decisions for the investing institutions. The results indicate that: information costs are the most important barrier to international direct property investment, the high cost of executing a global diversification strategy inhibits international property investment, and institutions who have clients and see business opportunities in international centres are more likely to be interested in international property investment opportunities. The data on asset allocation trends support the view that the property market is significantly less integrated than the other securities markets.

The aim of this paper is to identify why the historically observed equity risk premium is larger than most researchers believe is reasonable. Whilst equity is undoubtedly riskier than government issued securities, the extent of the realised premium on equity has been characterised as a “puzzle”.

This paper measures the equity premium for a number of countries over the past 132 years, and then uses a pooled cross‐section and time‐series analysis to investigate the relationship between the equity premium and inflation.

This paper shows that the equity premium over the past 132 years has been significantly positively related to the rate of inflation and, therefore, has resulted in an equity premium that is substantially higher in the post 1914 period than before. This effect results from the relative performance of bonds and stocks during inflationary periods. The relatively poor performance of bonds during periods of inflation drives much of the equity premium.

Counterfactual simulations in the paper show that the average equity premium post 1914 would have been 4.61 per cent and not 7.34 per cent had the rate of inflation been zero. This is much closer to theoretically derived estimates.

The size of the equity premium has implications for investors' asset allocation decision. The importance of inflation suggests that in a low inflation environment, the expected equity premium will be considerably lower than the historically realised equity premium.

This paper establishes a clear link between the rate of inflation and the equity premium.

Socially responsible investment (SRI) funds have grown dramatically as an investment alternative in most of the developed world. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This study uses a structured experimental approach to determine if the decision-making process of investors to invest in SRIs is consistent with the process used for conventional investments. The theoretical framework draws on two widely studied concepts in the decision making and investment literature, namely, inertia and discounting.

The authors find that inertia plays a significant role in the selection of SRI funds and that investors systemically discount the value of SRIs.

The results suggest that SRIs need to be designed to cater to the risk/return profiles of investors and that these investors need to be better informed about the performance of SRIs vs conventional investments to reduce their systematic discounting.

Unique experimental approach applied to investment alternatives in a manner that captures individual level variation.