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This paper aims to document the information transmission capacity of Shariah-compliant firms.

The vector auto-regression (VAR) model is used to test the information transmission capacity of Shariah-compliant firms in India during the period between 2010 and 2015.

The findings show that the returns of non-Shariah-compliant firms lead the returns of Shariah-compliant firms. It is argued that non-Shariah-compliant firms possess certain financial characteristics (higher leverage, higher accounts receivable and higher cash holdings) that make their information environment better than information environment of Shariah-compliant firms. The authors argue that superior information environment leads to timely incorporation of market-wide information, thereby causing the returns of non-Shariah-compliant firms to lead the returns of Shariah-compliant firms. It is also shown that the result holds in various market conditions.

It is believed that prior literature does not adequately address the information transmission capacity of the stock prices of Shariah-compliant firms. The gap is filled by documenting that stock prices of Shariah-compliant firms that are more informative than stock prices of non-Shariah-compliant firms.

This paper aims to document the effect of shariah compliance on stock price synchronicity.

This paper uses the data of non-financial firms from India and various estimation procedures (pooled OLS and instrument variable regression) to test the arguments presented in this paper. The time period of the study ranges between 2000 and 2019.

The results show that shariah-compliant firms have significantly higher levels of synchronicity than non-compliant firms. The findings hold after comprehensive inclusion of relevant controls and to a number of sensitivity tests. The authors attribute this result to the unique financial characteristics (lower levels of leverage, liquidity and cash) of shariah-compliant firms. The paper argues that these characteristics are related to better information environment which is responsible for higher levels of synchronicity. The paper also shows that the difference in the synchronicity levels of the two groups is less pronounced for those shariah-compliant firms that have relatively high levels of leverage and cash ratios.

The authors believe that this is an initial attempt to document the impact of shariah compliance on stock price synchronicity.

This paper documents the effect of different types of information on the value of financial analysts.

The authors use the pooled OLS regression and the data of nonfinancial firms from France to test our hypotheses. The data covers the period between 1997 and 2019.

The results show that analysts are more likely to cover those firms that incorporated greater proportion of market-wide information in their prices. Consistent with the economies of scale view, the authors argue that analysts specialize in the interpretation market-wide information. By doing so, they are able to cover relatively large number of firms simultaneously. The results also show that the value of analyst coverage (measured as the impact of analyst coverage on firm value, probability of stock price crash and probability of stock price jump) is a function of the extent to which different types of information are incorporated in prices. The authors’ results suggest that the impact of analyst coverage on firm value and on probability of crash is less pronounced in firms that incorporate greater proportion of market-wide information. In case of probability of jump, the results show that the impact of analyst coverage is more pronounced firms that incorporate greater proportion of market-wide information.

The major contribution of this paper is to document the impact of different types of information on the extent of analyst coverage. Furthermore, this paper also uses various measures (the impact of analyst coverage on firm value, probability of stock price crash and probability of stock price jump) to show how different types of information affects the value of analyst coverage.

This paper aims is to document the relationship between corporate ethics prevailing in the country and the dividend policies adopted by firms.

The paper uses the data of non-financial firms from 61 countries to test the arguments presented in this paper. The data cover the period between 2010 and 2017.

This paper shows that dividend policies adopted by firms are sensitive to corporate ethics prevailing in the country. The firms headquartered in countries with relatively strong corporate ethics are less likely to pay dividends than firms headquartered in countries with relatively weak corporate ethics. These findings are robust across various proxies of dividend policy and across various estimation procedures. The paper, however, also shows that the relationship between corporate ethics and dividend policies is confined only to countries with strong institutional environment. This relationship breaks down in countries with weak institutional environment. Lastly, the paper shows that the value of dividend policy is more pronounced in countries with relatively weak corporate ethics.

Unlike the attempts to relate firm-level ethics and dividend policy, this paper focuses on the relationship between country-level indicator of corporate ethics and dividend policies. The benefit of using the country-level indicator of corporate ethics is that it highlights the general attitude of corporations with respect to ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to document the impact of participation in microfinance programs on domestic violence against women.

This paper uses the survey data from 69 villages in Bangladesh and the instrumental variable approach to estimate the effect of participation in microcredit programs on domestic violence.

The results show that women’s participation in microcredit programs does not reduce domestic violence. However, this result is possible only when the authors do not distinguish between female borrowers who have control over credit and those who do not have control over credit. Classifying female borrowers into these two categories can significantly change the results. The authors report significantly lower physical violence against those female who have control over credit. In case of psychological violence, the authors report no significant impact of control over microcredit.

The novelty of the paper lies in distinguishing between physical and psychological violence.

This paper aims to document the relationship between advertising expenditures and analyst coverage in a sample of Indian firms during the period between 2000 and 2019.

In order to test the effect of advertising expenditures on the extent of analyst coverage, the authors estimate various versions of pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The dependent variable (ANALYST) measures the total number of analysts covering a firm in a given year. The main independent variable of interest in this paper represents the advertising activity. The authors define the extent of advertising activity (ADVERT) as the ratio of total advertising expenditures and total assets.

The study’s results show that advertising expenditures have a significantly positive impact on the extent of analyst coverage and are robust across various proxies of the key variables and various estimation procedures.

There are a number of key takeaways from our study. First, firms that expend more resources on advertising are more likely to be followed by analysts which is associated with better performance, lower information asymmetries associated and high advertising expenditures. Second, stock prices with more information embedded in them may signify that these firms receive more attention from investors and have lower information asymmetries. And finally the impact of advertising on the decision of an analyst to cover a firm becomes more pronounced for firms with high stock price synchronicity. All these three main conclusions are giving investors a clear insight on analyst coverage, advertising expenditure and the link between the two.

The results are consistent with the argument that advertising expenditures induces analysts to cover firms because firms with high advertising activities are more likely to have better performance, lower information asymmetries and increased attention from investors. All of these factors are supposed to facilitate the analyst coverage.

The aim of this paper is to document the impact of dividend policies on the downside risk in stock prices.

The authors use the data for non-financial firms from the MENA region to test our arguments by estimating the pooled OLS regressions. The data cover the period between 2010 and 2018.

This paper shows that firms with higher dividend payouts have significantly lower downside risk in their stock prices than the other firms. The findings of this paper are robust across various proxies of dividend policy and across various sub-samples. This paper contends that lower downside risk associated with the stock prices of firms paying high dividends is due to the fact that these firms have lower agency problems. Lower agency problems reduce the downside risk in stock prices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the prior research (covering the MENA region) overlooks the impact of dividend policy on the downside risk in stock prices. This paper fills this gap by documenting the relationship between the two by using the data for firms from the MENA region.

Is location in the financial center of a country significant determinant of a firm’s dividend policy? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question within the context of an emerging market.

The authors use variety of techniques (OLS regression, panel regression with random effects, TOBIT regression and quintile regression) to document the effect of location on dividend policies of Indian firms during the period between 2001 and 2016.

The results show significantly higher dividend payout ratios for firms headquartered in Mumbai, the main financial center of India. The results are robust for alternate proxy of dividend policy and for different sub-samples. The results also show that these results are more pronounced for firms with better information environment (firms with high analyst coverage).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the prior research overlooks how a location of firm’s headquarter in the financial center affects its dividend decisions. This paper fills this gap by documenting the relationship between the two in India.

The aim of this paper is to document the effect of democracy on the financing constraints faced by private firms.

This paper uses the data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys to test the arguments presented in this paper in a large sample of private firms from 92 developing countries.

The results show that firms headquartered in more democratic countries have better access to finance than firms headquartered in less democratic countries. The findings are robust to the comprehensive inclusion of relevant controls and to a number of sensitivity tests. The authors' findings highlight an important channel through which democracy can affect the business environment of a country.

The authors believe that this paper is an initial attempt to document the effect of democracy on the financing constraints faced by private firms.

The purpose of this paper is to document the impact of stock price synchronicity (SYNCH) on the dividend payout ratio.

The authors use data from India for the period between 2000 and 2012 and the panel regression approach to test their arguments.

This paper documents that the relationship between synchronicity and dividend payout ratio is positive until a turning point is reached. After that point, synchronicity has a negative impact on dividend payout ratio. The authors argue that firms with low synchronicity have higher information asymmetries. As a result, they have an incentive to develop a reputation as better-governed firms by paying high dividends. However, as synchronicity increases further, information asymmetries go down and as a result incentive to use dividend payouts as a mechanism to reduce information asymmetries goes down. Therefore, positive relationship between synchronicity and dividend payout ratios breaks down at high levels of synchronicity.

The authors provide evidence regarding the role played by SYNCH – a publicly available measure – on dividend polices adopted by firms within the context of emerging markets.