The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance quality and ownership structure on the relationship between the agency cost and firm performance. Both the fixed-effects model and a more robust dynamic panel generalized method of moment estimation are applied to Chinese A-listed firms for the years 2008 to 2016. The results show that the agency–performance relationship is positively moderated by (1) corporate governance quality, (2) ownership concentration, and (3) non-state ownership. State ownership has a negative effect on the agency–performance relationship. Various robust tests of an alternative measure of agency cost confirm our main conclusions. The analysis adds to the empirical literature on agency theory by providing useful insights into how corporate governance and ownership concentration can help mitigate agency–performance relationship. It also highlights the impact of ownership type on the relationship between agency cost and firm performance. Our study supports the literature that agency cost and firm performance are negatively related to the Chinese listed firms. The investors should keep in mind the proxies of agency cost while choosing a specific stock. Secondly; the abuse of managerial appropriation is higher in state-held firms as compared to non-state firms. Policymakers can use these results to devise the investor protection rules so that managerial appropriation can be minimized.

Temperatures worldwide continue to climb, while carbon emissions have exceeded previous records. To achieve environmental sustainability, countries with the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement (COP26) demonstrate sophisticated technical expertise and deploy environmentally driven technologies, such as greenfield investment and renewable energy infrastructure. This proposal presents an intriguing opportunity for policymakers to identify the distinct characteristics of institutional reforms and green energy sources that may be used to mitigate carbon emissions. Governance regulatory factors, foreign direct investment (FDI), renewable energy consumption (REC), research and development expenditures, urbanization, and carbon emissions are examined in Pakistan. The study estimated the short- and long-run association between the variables using the ARDL bounds testing method for 1996Q1 to 2020Q4. In the short run, in terms of carbon emissions and economic output, the country has an upturned cord environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). The race-to-the-bottom concept holds for countries with U-shaped EKCs in the long term. The negative correlation between overseas investment and environmental damage supports the environmental halo hypothesis. Investment in research and technology may reduce emissions, even though urbanization increases them. Future and present REC are often intertwined with carbon footprints. Carbon emissions are also strongly connected with indicators of institutional quality (IQ), such as procedural efficiency, administrative effectiveness, and political unrest. The research findings demonstrated unidirectional Granger causality running from urbanization, government effectiveness, economic growth, and R&D expenditures to carbon emissions to validate urban-led emissions, institutional-led emissions, growth-led emissions, and innovation-led emissions in a country. Furthermore, R&D expenditure Granger causality was linked to inbound FDI, while government effectiveness Granger causality was linked to REC and R&D expenditures. Following the COP26 guidelines for achieving shared prosperity, the study concluded that good governance reforms, R&D expenditures, greenfield investment, and REC promote environmental sustainability and maintain air quality.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, technology stocks, such as FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google), attracted the attention of global investors due to the vast use of technology in daily business. However, technology stocks are generally considered risky stocks; hence, efficient risk management is required to construct an optimal portfolio. In this study, we investigate the volatility spillovers and dynamic conditional correlations among the daily returns of FAANG company stocks, gold, and sharia-compliant equity to construct the optimal portfolio weights and hedge ratios during the COVID-19 pandemic period by utilizing a multivariate GARCH framework. The dynamic conditional correlations reveal that both gold and sharia-compliant equities exhibit lower correlations with FAANG stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic, implying opportunities for portfolio diversification. The findings indicate that gold and shariah-compliant equity are good candidates to hedge FAANG stocks. These findings are highly relevant for international investors, asset managers, hedgers, and portfolio managers.