This paper examines the dynamic connectedness between green bonds and OECD financial markets of European countries. The study is conducted on daily price of green bonds and selected European stock markets from January 27, 2015, to August 4, 2021. Top ten European countries namely Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, and Belgium are included within the OECD economies. The study uses Diebold and Yilmaz and Barunik & Krehlic tests to examine the connectedness between the economies and green bonds in short, medium, and long term. Result exhibits volatility across all frequency cycles. Brussel Stock Exchange and Euronext Amsterdam are identified as high-risk markets in the OECD European market. Evidence emerging from this study advocate the inclusion of green bonds in these financial markets for shorter time periods only. Results from this study are expected to have practical implications for portfolio managers, investors, and market regulators, suggesting incorporation of green bonds in investor portfolio for efficient diversification of risk.

Financial distress is a socially and economically significant issue that affects almost every firm across the world. Predicting financial distress in the banking industry can substantially aid in the reduction of losses and can help avoid misallocation of banks’ financial resources. Models for financial distress prediction of banks are being increasingly employed as important tools to identify early warning signals for the whole banking system. This study attempts to forecast the financial distress of commercial banks by developing a bankruptcy prediction model for banks. The sample size for the study is 75 Indian banks. Logistic, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and artificial neural network (ANN) models have been applied on the last 5 years’ (2015–2019) data of these banks. Data analysis results reveal the logistic and LDA models exhibiting similar prediction accuracy. The results of the ANN prediction model exhibit better prediction accuracy. It is expected that the results of this study will be useful for managers, depositors, regulatory bodies and shareholders to better manage their interests in the banking sector of the country.

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the comovement among green bonds, energy commodities and stock market to determine the advantages of adding green bonds to a diversified portfolio. Design/methodology/approach: Generic 1 Natural Gas and Energy Select SPDR Fund are used as proxies to measure energy commodities, bonds index of S&P Dow Jones and Bloomberg Barclays MSCI are used to represent green bonds and the New York Stock Exchange is considered to measure the stock market. Granger causality test, wavelet analysis and network analysis are applied to daily price for the select markets from August 26, 2014, to March 30, 2021. Findings: Results from the Granger causality test indicate no causality between any pair of variables, while cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence analysis confirm strong coherence at a high scale during the pandemic, validating comovement among the three asset classes. In addition, network analysis further corroborates this connectedness, implying a strong association of the stock market with the energy commodity market. Originality/value: This study offers new evidence of the temporal association among the US stock market, energy commodities and green bonds during the COVID-19 crisis. It presents a novel approach that measures and evaluates comovement among the constituent series, simultaneously using both wavelet and network analysis.

Purpose: International Integrated Reporting Council is in its 10th year of establishment and the integrated reporting (IR) framework released in 2013 was under revision in the year, 2020. Despite some significant developments in the past 10 years, the authors know very little about the perception of preparers towards IR. This paper aims to study the perception of the preparers and to understand the current status of the adoption of IR in India.Design/methodology/approach: The top 500 companies from ET 500 list have been analysed. Banks and financial institutions (a total of 69) have been excluded for the study. Out of 431 companies, the status of IR has been checked by the questionnaire-based survey. Principle component analysis, a dimensionality reduction technique was performed on the responses to understand the important components impacting the perception of companies. Also, a case study methodology has been adopted to compare and analyse the IR trends in the manufacturing and industrial sector.Findings: The result shows that the majority of companies have a positive opinion about IR and the three major components impacting their perception are – concise reporting, effective and transparent reporting and finally, better decision-making.Practical implications: The result of this study will be useful for the policymakers, regulators, companies who have or will adopt IR. Paper gives a relevant view to academicians for assessing the effectiveness and perception of IR.Originality/value: Very few studies can be found in India which focusses on analysing the perception of preparers towards the IR. Specially after the circular of SEBI in 2017, it becomes even more important to analyse the insight and awareness of the companies who have adopted IR. The paper is a timely and relevant contribution to the literature by providing insight over the opinion of preparers in India.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how environmental disclosure affects environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, specifically in relation to emissions, innovation, use of resources, environmental controversy, and environmental products. It also looks at how specific firm attributes and board characteristics affect ESG reporting in three different industries. The analysis uses data for 8094 enterprises sampled from Asia and Europe between 2016 and 2021 that was gathered from secondary sources and taken from the Refinitiv Eikon database. According to the findings, proactive environmental investments, fines, and environmental expenses associated with ESG reporting are positively correlated. The findings also show that European businesses disclose environmental information at a higher degree than Asian businesses, which benefits their sustainability initiatives. Furthermore, sustainability indices have an adverse relationship with ESG reporting in Asia but a positive relationship with ESG reporting in Europe. Crucially, the findings show that various industries have varied relationships between sustainability reporting and environmental indicators. The study provides valuable insights for policymakers by highlighting the extent to which enterprises disclose their emissions, innovations, and resource use. Additionally, the study offers evidence on the role of corporate board members and how certain board characteristics as important mechanisms can improve the quality of ESG reporting making environmental disclosures useful and relevant.