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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of investor confidence on mutual fund performance in two relatively vulnerable but leading emerging markets, India and Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach A pooled ordinary least squared (OLS) model is used to look at two alternative measures of investor confidence and test for the relationship between investor confidence and mutual fund returns. To check the robustness of the findings, the authors also implement two-stage least squares and generalized method of moments techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity problems in the regressors. Findings The paper finds that the returns of mutual funds are positively associated with investor confidence and an interaction effect exists between investor confidence and persistence in performance. The paper also confirms that returns from mutual funds are associated with different fund characteristics such as fund size, turnover, expense, liquidity, performance persistence and the fund’s age. These findings remain robust to alternative model specifications and measures of investor confidence. Originality/value While the previous literature mainly focuses on mutual fund characteristics and the macroeconomic determinants of mutual fund returns, this paper demonstrates that investor confidence plays an important role in determining mutual fund performance. The authors attribute this finding to two relatively unique features of the emerging markets in the study. A lack of awareness of mutual funds as being a low-cost investment vehicle and the interplay of cultural and behavioral changes have prevented investor’s savings from being channeled into investment products, away from gold or property.

Good corporate governance practices build equilibrium between management and shareholders and eliminate agency problems, as results managers pursue a suboptimal dividend policy. The aim of this study is to examine the potential relationship between ownership structure, board size, board composition, CEO duality and dividend policy of 176 listed firms at KSE and 280 listed firms at BSI from 2010-2015. We used pooled OLS regression test to analyze the association between corporate governance determinants and dividend policy. Among other methods, VIF and Hausman tests had been used to check the fitting of Random effects and fixed effects, while fixed effect method was chosen to test the hypothesis. We discover a positive association between managerial ownership, board size, board independent and dividend policy, while a negative association of ownership concentration and dividend policy. Finally, it is observed that there is a positive impact of return on assets (ROA) and size on dividend policy. This study will contribute to the existing literature through investigating the impact of corporate governance on dividend policies of listed firms in emerging markets.

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This paper establishes an empirical relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in Nigeria under the framework of cointegration analysis over the period 1970-2010. The econometric evidence from the Engle Granger cointegration tests suggests that there is no long-run relationship between FDI and economic growth in Nigeria. However, there is a short-run dynamic relationship between FDI and economic growth. And finally the study concluded that, for the achievement of a long-run relationship between FDI and economic growth in Nigeria, there is a need to improve the business environment, with the provision of necessary infrastructure and political stability in the country.