Sustainable investing allocates investments based on environmental, social and governance factors (ESG). The societal value of sustainable investment is becoming progressively relevant as investors are increasingly recognizing the importance of investing in companies that seek to combat climate change, environmental destruction, while promoting corporate responsibility. Environmental policy and sustainable growth initiatives at a country-level are also being influenced by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Situated within the current trend of declining foreign direct investment flows (FDI), our study examines the role of ESG factors in attracting FDI and enabling progress toward SDGs. We econometrically examine the linkages between ESG and FDI inflows for a sample of 161 counties. We also focus on low- and middle-income emerging economies and low- and middle-income commodity exporters as these countries face unique challenges of mobilizing financing to achieve SDGs and generating sustainable economic growth. Results suggest that FDI inflows to the full sample of countries are positively attracted by good governance in a destination country. We observe that good scores on HDI deters FDI, that higher FDI flows are associated with higher levels of carbon emissions in the case of emerging markets. Sustainability reporting attracts FDI to commodity exporting countries. The study provides possibilities for future research in a post-pandemic future.

Given that technological innovations in the banking sector in industrialised countries have been shown to increase productivity of this industry around the world, then why did India shy away from adopting this technology until the 1990s? Why has India been a late adopter of technology in the banking industry when it could have reaped the benefits from the existing R&D expertise developed by innovators and early adopters? This article charts out the path of technological innovation in the Indian banking industry post-economic liberalisation (1991–2) and identifies initial conditions in terms of competitive environment and regulatory pressures that have contributed to the diffusion of these innovations. The article highlights the role of labour unions in public sector banks and their initial opposition to technological adoption. The empirical analysis demonstrates the superior performance of the early adopters of technology (private sector and foreign banks) as measured by productivity, returns on equity, and market share, as compared to the late or passive adopters (public sector banks).

Did banking sector reforms in India and the adoption of capital adequacy norms based on the Basel Capital Accord prompt Indian banks to understate their bad loans? This paper addresses this question by investigating whether Indian banks under provide for loan loss provisions and understate their gross non performing assets in order to boost earnings and capital adequacy ratios. The paper examines the behavior of Indian banks in the context of tighter regulatory standards that became effective after 1999. The results show that "weak" Indian banks – defined by low profitability and low capital ratios camouflaged the magnitude of their gross non performing assets in the post-1999 period. Based on this the paper concludes that the true nature of India's bad loan problem may be more serious than alluded to in recent studies.