Purpose: The authors examine the impact of asymmetric information on firm's financing decisions, the feedback effect of changes in capital structure on the level of asymmetric information, and the speed of adjustments in capital structure on its target leverage.Design/methodology/approach: The authors extract the data on 280 non-financial firms listed in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from the DataStream. The authors implement the generalized method of moments (GMM), complemented by the fixed effect model (FEM) to estimate the model coefficients.Findings: The authors find that asymmetric information significantly affects the financing decisions; and that on average, firms adjust 26% of the total debt toward their target capital structure. The negative effect from the difference between the observed and target changes in leverage on asymmetric information confirms that capital structure changes act as a signal for future profitability and helps the management to lower its level of asymmetric information.Originality/value: The findings offer fresh insight into the effect of asymmetric information on financing decisions, as well as the speed of adjustment of capital structure toward its target leverage, in the context of the firms working in emerging markets like Pakistan. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of asymmetric information on financing decisions that incorporate firm's age, size and the global financial crises 2007–2008. The authors construct an asymmetric information index using both accounting and finance measures of asymmetry.

We aim to analyze the impact of capital regulation and market discipline on capital to risk-weighted assets ratio. We used the panel data of Asian developing-countries banks for the period from 2009 to 2018. We collected data from the financial statements of 73 banks of Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. We used the generalized method of moment (GMM) to analyze the results. We find that capital regulation and market disciplines significantly influence the capital ratio in Asian developing countries.

Socially responsible firms receive more finance and have been well researched in the corporate finance literature. In this paper, we examine the relationship between CSR and trade credit. Using data from the US manufacturing industry, we find that CSR has a significant positive association with the buyer and supplier sides of trade credit. During the 2008–2009 financial crisis, the manufacturing industry trade badly fell. We also argue and find evidence that, during crisis, CSR is negatively associated with trade credit. These findings are robust for alternate proxies of CSR and trade credit, sample selection, and time period. Moreover, the potential endogeneity concerns do not affect our results. Finally, we show that this relationship exists for both domestic and multinational firms’ subsamples. Overall, our results indicate that firms with high social performance use more trade credit to increase their business activity.

We examine the mediating role of capital structure in the perceived relationship of uncertainty, corporate social responsibility (CSR), stakeholder interest and financial performance. We collect data through questionnaires, and survey the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of the service sector of Pakistan. We apply Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) for data analysis. We find that CFOs perceive uncertainty, CSR and stakeholder interest to have both direct and indirect impacts on financial performance. In particular, we find evidence of the mediating effect of capital structure in the relationship. Our findings imply that firms screen out uncertain situations while making capital structure decision and pursuing CSR-related activities.

Banks not only rely on the traditional way of generating income, they also opt for non-interest income (NII) to survive in a competitive environment. Banks in South Asia are diversifying their income from interest to non-interest sources in order to reduce risk and generate high returns. This study examines the impact of non-interest income (NII) and revenue concentration on banks’ risk in South Asian countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Panel data for eighty-five banks from 2009 to 2018 is used. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed to analyze the data. The study finds that non-interest source income and revenue concentration significantly affect bank risk in the overall analysis. The study finds different results depending on the regulations and application of the regulatory system in each country. Non-interest income reveals a significant impact on bank risk for Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but insignificant for Si Lanka. Revenue concentration has a significant effect on bank risk in Pakistan and India, however, it does not affect bank risk in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This study recommends that bank managers focus on different sources of revenue generation in order to minimize their level of risk through a diversification strategy to enhance efficiency. This study contributes to the banking sector literature of South Asian markets.