The objective of this study is to re-examine the impact of the informal economy on economic growth in Pakistan. This study first computed the informal economy through currency demand equation and then the adopted auto-regressor distributed lags (ARDL) technique for data analysis. The result indicates that 56% informal economy of gross domestic product (GDP) exists in Pakistan. The Wald F-test shows that the overall model is statistically significant because the value of this test (13.4) is more than the upper and lower bounds values. Whereas Engle-Granger causality test describes that the growth rate of real GDP causes the Granger to GDP at 5%. This study tries to solve these issues and give a new policy implication for policymakers to control the informal economy and make sure that this sector will convert into a recorded or reported form.

Corporate tax avoidance is an act aiming at reducing tax amount liable to the government, which is expected to raise firm value. However, agency theory postulates that opportunistic managers can lower tax liabilities through the arrangement of complex transactions, enabling them to shirk or pursue own interests. Therefore, the need to examine the link between corporate tax avoidance and firm performance is evident, yet there has not been any research on this in the context of Vietnam, a country plagued with tax-avoiding cases. We are the first to examine the empirical link using a sample of Vietnamese listed firms over the period from 2010 to 2016, using a wide-ranging set of performance and taxsheltering indicators. Overall, the results indicate a mixed relationship between corporate tax avoidance and firm performance in Vietnam.

We have performed a focalized investigation to explore how corporate social responsibility (CSR) moderates the relationship between corporate governance and firms’ financial performance. We applied a panel regression to examine this relationship from a sample of 3400 Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) listed firms, based on yearly observations from 2009 to 2018. Our results show that the presence of female directors on the board is associated with improved firms’ performance and that corporate social responsibility (CSR) moderates this relation, thus indicating that sharing strategic decision-making with female board members revealed a better relationship between CSR and firms’ financial performance. Our findings showed that foreign institutional investors positively influenced firms’ financial performance and that CSR moderates the relation between foreign institutional shareholders and the firm’s financial performance. Supported by corporate governance theories, such as resource dependence and stakeholder theory, our results help to better understand the nexus among corporate governance, firms’ performance and corporate social responsibility. These findings are advantageous to government departments in emerging countries in terms of encouraging marketing practitioners and participants to implement CSR practices and change the attitude associated with CSR implications. This study highlighted the problems of the foreign institutional investors’ scheme, which was the main contribution to the financial market reform of China after 2003. These findings offer significant implications to corporate affairs executives and managers, practitioners, academicians, state officials, and policy-makers, and might provide China with the opportunity to extend its market liberalization to the global markets. This research also contributes to the existing literature, which investigates how CSR moderates the relationship between corporate governance and firms’ financial performance in the Chinese market context.

This study examined the strength of CEOs’ influence on CSR in Chinese listed companies. The companies chosen belonged to the non-financial sector and were listed in the Shanghai stock exchange from 2010 to 2019. The data was extracted from audited annual reports of companies including the director’s report, chairman’s statements, and notes to financial statements. We applied OLS regression as a baseline methodology to determine the extent and impact of CEO power on CSR disclosures. The results indicated significantly negative relationship between the CEOs’ power and CSR disclosure. Our results showed that separate roles of chairman and CEO can reduce agency problems and increase the CSR disclosures. This study is of importance for regulators, as it enforces the view that regulators and policymakers should continue efforts to improve corporate governance practices and CSR reporting in China, as these changes will not only improve the performance of companies but also befit society at large.

This study is undertaken to find out how SMEs contribute to the economy in terms of employment generation and its impact on the economic growth of the country. Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) is accepted globally as a tool for empowering the citizenry and economic growth. In Pakistan efforts have been made by successive governments to increase employment opportunities, reduce poverty and accelerate economic growth by increasing foreign direct investment, diversifying the economy, enacting policy frameworks which favor small business ownership and entrepreneurship programs. Specifically, this study tends to figure out: how SMEs contribute to employment generation, whether a significant number of people is employ within the SME sector; whether the SMEs increase the income level of people. The total number of employees was 255 being selected randomly from Swat marble industries. A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to the selected respondents. The responses were collected and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) analytical tool. The study exposes that SMEs play a vital role in employment generation. There is a positive relationship between SMEs and unemployment reduction. The result also shows that there is a positive relationship between SMEs and increase in income level. This study may be beneficial both for practitioners and academicians. For practitioners, the current study may help to devise policies and strategies concerning SMEs to generate employment opportunities. The current study may lead to the generalizability of existing research in the same field as for academic aspect is a concern.