No abstract

This study examines the effect of market risk on the financial performance of 31 non-financial companies listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) over the period 2000–2016. We utilized three alternative variables to assess financial performance, namely, the return on assets, the return on equity and the profit margin. We used the degree of financial leverage, the book-to-market ratio, and the gearing ratio as the indicators of market risk. Then, we employed the pooled OLS model, the fixed effects model, the random effects model, the difference-GMM and the system-GMM models. The results show that the different measures of market risk have significant negative influences on the companies’ financial performance. The elasticities are greater following the degree of financial leverage compared with the book-to-market ratio and the gearing ratio. In most cases, the firm’s age, the cash holdings ratio, the firm’s size, the debt-to-assets ratio, and the tangibility ratio have positive effects on financial performance, whereas the debt-to-income ratio and the stock turnover hurt the performance of these non-financial companies. Therefore, decision-makers and managers should mitigate market risk through appropriate strategies of risk management, such as derivatives and insurance techniques.

This paper examines the asymmetrical relationship between exchange rate and consumer prices in 40 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1990Q1 to 2017Q4. We estimate the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to consumer prices for each country by using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) framework and dynamic panel techniques robust to cross-sectional dependence. First, our findings suggest an asymmetrical ERPT in the SSA region during the short term, whereas there are mixed results across subregions in the long term. Second, the results of the panel analysis suggest incomplete and significant ERPT to consumer prices in the entire SSA region, which is higher during depreciation of the local currency than after appreciation in the short-term, especially in the CFA Franc zone. Third, we find nonlinear ERPT with respect to the size of the exchange rate. Finally, we find that pass-through is higher in countries with fixed exchange rate regimes (CFA franc zone) in a low inflationary environment than in countries with floating exchange rate regimes and high inflation levels. Pass-through is greater during large exchange rate changes than after small changes. Therefore, the policy implication is to consider these asymmetries and nonlinearities to improve monetary policy’s credibility, enhance trade liberalization, and promote competitive market structures in the SSA region.

Abundant literature infers the negative incidence of financial liberalization in the banking sector. As interest rate marketization is a reality in China, we empirically investigate the determinants of commercial banks’ financial performance using 10 listed Chinese commercial banks for 1999 to 2019. Our findings suggest that net interest margin (NIM), non-performing loans (NPL), and asset size (LnAsset) are the key drivers of profitability in Chinese banks. Interestingly, for the sample of city banks observed, we find that bank performance is strongly driven by sound management of the assets and the retail interest margins. On the opposite, the joint-stock banks’ strong diversification leads to lower reliance on net interest margins. Our results also suggest that joint-stock banks’ asset size puts strong pressure on their overall performance and exert a diminishing return effect as their assets’ critical size generates proportional administrative expenses that hinder profitability.

This paper analyses the data on Chinese A-share listed companies from 1996 to 2019, using fixed-effect regression and the double-difference method to systematically examine the impact of commercial credit on enterprise technological innovation. The study found that the acquisition and provision of commercial credit has promoted the number of enterprise technological innovations and significantly improved their quality. In particular, the innovation of highly constrained companies is promoted by financing. Our findings help to solve the obstacles enterprises face in breaking through financing constraints and improving the efficiency and quality of their innovative efforts. The financing system has a significant influence on promoting the sustainable development of innovative enterprises.