An agency problem is defined as a conflict of interest arising due to a misalignment of interests among the managers and other stakeholders of the company. This article aims to review the articles addressing the agency problem and their impact on business performance. This article reviews the contributions of prominent theorists on agency problems and agency costs. Using bibliometric attributes of 740 articles from the Scopus database, this study highlights the publishing trend and outlets, along with leading contributors and collaborators in terms of authors, institutions, and countries. This study identifies the clusters through the bibliographic coupling technique and a trend topics analysis. Most researchers have focused on corporate governance and expressed the agency problem as one of the impact areas. This study is unique as no study to date specifically focuses solely on agency theory or the agency problem through the lens of bibliometric analysis. Future research directions on agency problems and their solutions conclude this study.

This systematic literature review (SLR) delves into the evolving landscape of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures and their consequential effects on the financial performance of firms. As sustainability considerations increasingly influence investment decisions, corporations are compelled to integrate ESG factors into their reporting practices. The primary objective of this research is to comprehensively analyze existing literature, elucidating the patterns, trends, and key insights surrounding ESG disclosures and their repercussions on financial outcomes. The study employs a systematic approach to identify, evaluate, and synthesize pertinent research articles, academic papers, and industry reports. It explores the multifaceted dimensions of ESG disclosures, encompassing environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and governance practices. The analysis spans diverse sectors, examining how ESG reporting has become a crucial component of corporate transparency and stakeholder engagement. The review aims to distill overarching themes from the literature, providing a nuanced understanding of the relationship between ESG disclosures and financials. Preliminary findings suggest that ESG disclosures are positively associated with enhanced financial performance, fostering long-term value creation for firms. However, variations exist in the significance of these relationships across industries and regions. Furthermore, the review highlights the emergence of standardized frameworks and reporting guidelines as essential catalysts for advancing ESG disclosure practices. This research contributes to the ongoing dialogue on sustainable finance by consolidating diverse perspectives and methodologies found in the literature. The synthesis of existing knowledge seeks to inform future research directions, guide corporate practices, and assist policymakers in shaping frameworks that promote responsible and transparent business conduct. In total, 650 articles were reviewed to explore the effect the ESG disclosure has on the financial performance of the firms.

This study investigates the interconnected roles of infrastructure development, financial growth, and economic growth in SAARC nations. Using principal component analysis, the paper develops a composite infrastructure development index, which integrates factors such as access to electricity, telecommunications, air transport, and agricultural land use. This index serves as a comprehensive measure to assess and compare infrastructural progress across the region. Econometric analyses, including Pedroni’s and Kao’s cointegration tests, reveal long-term associations between the studied variables. The results demonstrate a bidirectional relationship between trade openness and GDP growth in the short term, as well as unidirectional influences from inflation to financial development and from infrastructure development to inflation. However, findings vary across SAARC countries, reflecting their diverse economic structures and development stages. Notably, Afghanistan is excluded due to data limitations, emphasizing the region-specific focus of the results. The study highlights the critical role of targeted infrastructure investment and financial sector reforms in fostering sustainable economic growth. Policymakers are encouraged to consider these findings when designing synchronized public and private sector initiatives to bridge development gaps. By offering detailed insights into region-specific dynamics, this study enriches understanding of the complex interplay between infrastructure, finance, and economic growth in emerging economies.

COVID-19 impacted the whole world's economy at large and all the sectors except a few. Most industries witnessed huge losses in most countries, whether developing, developed, or undeveloped. The losses suffered by the major sectors catering to the economies typically affect all the ancillary service sectors also. The research attempts to look at the causality of stock returns and volumes within, using a dynamic Markov regime switching GARCH model to identify the changes in this relation pre and post COVID-19. The study finds a weak relationship between the real growth represented by GDP and stock returns pre and post COVID-19. The presence of structural breaks was evident from the observations and a positive result from the regime-switching models, which suggests that the perception of stock markets is not derived from the real GDP.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors are important in evaluating a company’s performance while aligning investment with governance, ethical, environmental, social commitment, and sustainability goals. Recent years have seen an increasing focus on ESG factors, leading to a corresponding evolution in financial markets. ESG is emerging as a key factor among other non-financial performance indicators that impact market dynamics, price, and investment strategies. This study investigates the price discovery process at the firm level in reference to ESG in the Indian stock market. The data were analyzed for 11 key sectors using the daily closing prices in the spot market and futures market prices of selected firms, along with their respective ESG scores. The study used the stationarity test and order of integration test, followed by applying the Johansen cointegration test to analyze long-run co-integrating relationships among futures and spot market prices. Finally, the vector error correction mechanism (VECM) test was applied to detect long-term causality. Findings reveal that the price discovery process takes place in the Indian stock market and is significantly affected by the ESG factor. In the case of a high ESG score, the spot market leads the futures market, while for stocks with low ESG scores, the futures market price leads the spot price. Cement, oil, gas, and pharmaceutical sectors have shown a negative association between the price discovery process and ESG scores, while in the case of the service sector, the positive association is witnessed between ESG scores and the price discovery process between futures and spot prices.