Carbon dioxide (CO₂), whose atmospheric volume has been increasing, is the principal greenhouse gas (GHG) that causes global warming and climate change. Climate change from increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) has broad health and environmental influences. Human-emitted GHGs constitute a significant cause of global warming. The main objective of this article is to assess the influence of technological innovation, economic growth, fossil energy use, renewable energy consumption, and globalisation on CO₂ emissions (CO₂Es) in South Africa over the observation period 1990–2020. The Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) estimator was implemented to examine the relationship between the constituents. The study results indicate that economic growth, fossil energy use, technological innovation, and globalisation boost CO₂Es, whereas renewable energy consumption reduces CO₂Es. The output of the canonical cointegrating regression and fully modified least squares estimators also supports the output of the DOLS estimator. We concluded that, in South Africa, a rise in economic growth, fossil energy use, technological innovation, and globalisation results in an upsurge in CO₂Es. In contrast, an increase in renewable energy consumption leads to a reduction in CO₂Es. This research work contributes to the discourse on CO₂Es in the South African context. The study recommends that policymakers in South Africa should design policies that foster the formation of a low-carbon country, the consumption of renewable energy, and the implementation of environment-friendly technological innovations that reduce the use of fossil energy. Graphical Abstract

Board members and the chairman of the board must provide shareholders and other stakeholders with annual reports that include the chairman’s statement. The statement provides an important message to stakeholders concerning financial performance, non-financial information and future outlook of the company. Stakeholders are concerned about the transparency and usefulness of the disclosed as this would have an impact on whether the chairman’s message is readable or not. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether messages from the chairman of the board are readable or not. A sample of 40 Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies, for the financial period ending 2021, was selected to meet the study objectives. The Gunning Fog Index (Fog index) was applied to assess the readability of the chairman’s statement. The study found that it was difficult to read the chairman’s statements for the selected corporations and South African companies.

In emerging economies, where the legislative and economic landscapes may significantly differ from those of advanced economies, accrual-based earnings management (AEM) is especially problematic for financial disclosure and investor trust. This paper conducts a systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the incentives for AEM in developing countries and to understand the evolution of the AEM domain within emerging countries. For this purpose, 312 journal articles from ResearchGate, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Google, and Scopus, covering the period from 2000 to 2024, were reviewed under various thematic areas. The findings highlighted multiple significant motivators for AEM within developing markets, encompassing financial distress, loss avoidance, profitability pressures, high leverage, weak corporate governance structures and processes, diverse ownership structures (such as concentrated ownership, family ownership, institutional ownership, government ownership, and insider ownership), market performance indicators, political ties, weak regulatory systems, as well as factors such as executive compensation, tenure, career retention, agency issues, investor expectations, audit quality, economic crises, and firm-specific characteristics like size, reputation, and age. This research contributes to existing knowledge by examining the motivations behind AEM in emerging economies, underscoring the need for tailored regulatory frameworks and strong governance structures and processes to address the unique challenges developing nations face. For regulators and policymakers, these findings emphasize the need for robust regulatory frameworks, more stringent auditing protocols, and improved corporate governance structures to discourage business executives from engaging in AEM practices.

Emerging stock markets provide great opportunities for investment growth and risk diversification. However, they are more vulnerable to extreme market events. This study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on stock performance in sub-Saharan African stock markets. An event study method was used to determine whether there was any significant difference in sector returns before and during the pandemic, and panel data regression was used to determine the causal relationship between COVID-19 events and the abnormal returns observed. Four stock exchanges were chosen, including the two largest and two fastest-growing markets in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the study’s findings, the information technology, consumer staples, and healthcare sectors outperformed during the pandemic, while the industrials, materials, and real estate sectors underperformed. The financial and consumer discretionary proved to be the most stable sectors during the pandemic. We also observed that the imposition of lockdown had a negative impact on the performance of most sectors in sub-Saharan African markets, whereas government assistance in the form of economic stimulus packages had no significant positive impact on stock performance except in the South African market. Furthermore, we find that increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths had no negative impact on capital markets, where stocks have responded positively to economic recovery aid. The study concludes that during the COVID-19 pandemic, stocks reacted more to government actions than the occurrence of the pandemic itself.