This article analyzes how trade openness and political stability affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in 25 Asia-Pacific countries from 1990 to 2020. This study employs the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments to mitigate the heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation issues. We also perform the Johnson–Neyman test to examine whether trade openness moderates the relationship between political stability and FDI. Our findings show that trade openness positively affects FDI, while political stability has a negative effect. Noticeably, the Johnson–Neyman test indicates that Trade Openness moderates the relationship between political stability and FDI in Asia-Pacific nations. Trade openness and its moderating role remained robust before the 2008 financial crisis. The impacts of trade openness and political stability on FDI persist in non-tax-heaven countries. Our findings align with market-seeking, efficiency, resource-seeking, and regulatory risk theories. Finally, these findings are helpful for policymakers to attract FDI projects sustainably across the Asia-Pacific region.

This study analyzes the impact of Foreign Direct Investment and labor quality on employment in 29 Asia-Pacific nations from 1990 to 2020. We employ the Dynamic System Generalized Method of Moments to estimate the results. This study finds that a ten percent increase in Foreign Direct Investment creates an additional 0.890 % in employment, and a percent increase in labor quality increases employment by 0.0021 %. Our study also figures a moderating role of labor quality and FDI on employment in Asia Pacific countries. Our findings are robust before and after the recent financial crisis and alternative regression method. Finally, the findings are robust even if we employ an alternative estimation method. Our results are consistent with the Traditional FDI, the Neo-classical, and Resource-Based View theories. Our research generates practical policy implications to develop employment sustainably in Asia-Pacific nations.

This paper investigates the interconnection between Chief Executive Officer (CEO) power, green credit, and core competence of commercial banks in Vietnam. Our data sample consists of 373 annual observations from 2010 to 2021. We employ a dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments to analyze an unbalanced panel comprised of 373 annual observations from 2010 to 2021. The findings indicate an inverse U-shape relationship between CEO overpower and commercial banks' core competence. Moreover, the study reports that banks with green lending activities reduce core competence by about 0.1598 points more than other banks. In addition, the results indicate that CEO power moderates the relationship between green credit and core competence. Our findings align with stewardship, management entrenchment, first-mover advantage, stakeholder theories, and prior literature. The study has practical implications for policymakers to develop the banking system sustainably in emerging markets.

This paper investigates how bank funding diversity and lending affect bank performance, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. We employ the Generalized Method of Moments to analyze unbalanced panels of commercial banks in China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The empirical results show that a percentage increase in bank funding diversity and bank lending in the sample negatively affects profitability. In contrast, the results are mixed in each country due to different market microstructures. While holding diversified funding strengthens bank profitability during the pandemic, increasing lending activities dampers the bank’s performance. Finally, this research has important implications for bank managers and regulators to develop sustainable banking performance in emerging markets, especially during pandemics.

Our research addresses the gap in investigating how political connections and financial constraints affect asset growth anomalies before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our sample includes listed non-financial firms in the Vietnam stock market from 2008 to December 2020. We employ Fama and MacBeth regressions and portfolio sorting methodology to analyze a sample with 34,441 monthly observations, including 478 firms. Our findings indicate a negative relationship between asset growth and subsequent stock returns in all periods. While the asset growth anomaly existed in the Vietnam stock market before the pandemic, it disappeared during the pandemic. The average raw return difference between stocks in the highest and lowest asset growth terciles was −0.26% per month before the pandemic. Our robustness tests show that asset growth anomaly exists in firms with political connections during the pandemic. In addition, the asset growth anomaly only persists in larger firms before the pandemic. Our findings support agency and pecking order theory, behavior, and rational explanations. Finally, this study contributes practical implications for managers and individual investors to prevent adverse impacts of asset growth anomalies.

This study enriches the current literature because it is the first to examine how foreign ownership and Investor attention affect the risk-taking behaviors of property and casualty insurance companies in Vietnam. This study is unique because it tests whether foreign ownership moderates the relationship between investor attention and the risk-taking behavior of insurance firms or vice versa. This study employs the Random Effect Models, Generalized Least Squares, Johnson-Neyman test, and simple slope analyses to analyze 28 property and casualty insurance companies from 2010 to 2022. The findings indicate that foreign ownership and investor attention increases the risk-taking behaviors of insurance firms. Moreover, the findings indicate that foreign ownership moderates the relationship between investor attention and the risk-taking behavior of insurance firms in Vietnam. The findings align with agency theory, stakeholder theory, limited attention theory, and prior literature. This study supports managers and policymakers in developing the insurance sector sustainably, especially in emerging markets.