PurposeThe financial policies of the modern world corporations and their investment decisions are generally considered as interrelated because the agency problems, associated with the debt level and its maturity structure, give rise to incentives for overinvestment or underinvestment. The present study empirically investigates the linkage between debt maturity structure and firm investment in a financially constrained environment, using Pakistan as a case study, to determine how the institutional environment in which firms operate affect these decisions and their linkage.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is carried in a panel data setting using panel regression models as the baseline methods. Moreover, generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimators are used, coupled with the instrumental variables approach, for robustness and improving the efficiency and consistency of estimates.FindingsResults suggest that firms rely more on short financing in Pakistan. Thus, given the capital structure which is characterized by higher proportion of short-term financing, the higher level of leverage is less likely to cause underinvestment problem. However, the underinvestment problem do persists in the firms that have higher portion of long-term debt. These findings imply that the debt-overhang problem may persist even in the financially constrained environments where attractive investment opportunities are limited, and long-term financing is difficult to acquire.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by revealing how corporate investment and financing decisions and their linkage is influenced by the institutional environment of the less developed countries which is characterized by underdeveloped financial markets, inefficient legal system and weak investor protection system.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of firm structure (whether diversified or focused firms) on corporate cash holding. Samples of 80 non-financial companies were selected including diversified and focused firms which were listed on Karachi stock exchange for a period 7 years from 2006 to 2013. These diversified and focused firms were selected on the basis of equal proportionate method. Random effect model and descriptive statistics were used for the analysis of these variables. The results of these models showed that there is negative and significant effect of firm structure on corporate cash holding. We also find negative and significant relationship of leverage and Networking capital with the corporate cash holdings and the relation between growth opportunities and corporate cash holding was examined to be positive and significant. We also find a negative and insignificant relationship between firm size and corporate cash holding. The descriptive statistics showed that there was significant difference between the cash holding of diversified and focused firms. The diversified firms keep a smaller amount of cash as compare to the single segment companies (focused firms), which is in support of the trade-off theory. This paper contributes to current literatures with regard to organization structure (whether diversified or focused firms) on cash holding in a developing economy like Pakistan.

No abstract

The catastrophe that the world is now facing in the form of COVID-19, has affected most of the world economies and financial markets as a result of lockdown, travelling restrictions, and social distances. The present study attempted to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on the stock returns of the Pakistan Stock Exchange. The data employed comprises daily prices of Pakistan Stock Exchange, the daily value of exchange rate over the period 01 January 2011 to 30 April 2021, and a dummy variable for COVID-19 which takes 1 for the period during COVID-19 and 0 for the period before. The data were sourced from the Karachi Stock Exchange website, National Institute of Health Sciences Pakistan, and State Bank of Pakistan. We applied the autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (ARCH) and the associate generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (GARCH) approaches to analyze the impact. Our findings revealed that a negative relationship exists between our variables of interest with mean returns and a positive relationship with the volatility of the KSE-100 index. This implies that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the stock price and increases the volatility of the KSE-100 index, and further affects the financial system. The study recommends that an urgent and powerful response is needed on the part of the government,including strong measures to prevent a severe stock market crash in Pakistan in near future.