Institutional ownership is an important factor in corporate governance. Institutional investors play important roles in firms because of their substantial shareholdings and their capability to monitor managers. However, the question is whether they are capable of monitoring the managers. The literature has provided different evidence for the monitoring role of institutional investors. This study attempts to provide insights into the monitoring roles of institutional investors by examining the relationship between institutional ownership and earnings quality on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Institutional investors are classified into two groups, namely active institutional investors and passive institutional investors, based on their monitoring power in Iran. A multidimensional method is used to measure the various aspects of earnings quality, such as earnings response coefficient, predictive value of earnings, discretionary accruals, conservatism, and real earnings management. The results show that institutional ownership has a positive effect on earnings quality. Similar to total institutional ownership, active institutional ownership has positive effects on proxies of earnings quality. Nonetheless, passive institutional ownership does not have any power to affect earnings quality. Moreover, lead-lag tests of the direction of causality suggest that institutional ownership leads to more earnings quality and not the reverse.

Investment efficiency shows how well a company invests its assets. Although institutional shareholders play undeniable roles in companies, it is not clear whether they are able to monitor managers and make investment decisions or not. This study gives answers to stakeholders, addresses concerns about the effect of the owners on investment efficiency, and aims to add to the literature on emerging markets by investigating the relationship in Iran, a different environment from developed ones. Based on monitoring power, the shareholders are divided into two types: active and passive ones. Investment problems are classified into two types: over- and under-investment problems. The sample consists of 101 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange between 2010 and 2016. Some regression models are used. The results illustrated that institutional owners have a positive effect on investment efficiency and decrease both over- and under-investment problems and so, the efficient monitoring school is approved. Additionally, active ones are positively correlated with investment efficiency and decrease both investment inefficiency problems. Institutional ownership is the cause of investment efficiency, not the reverse. Based on findings, in emerging markets like Iran’s market, investors are recommended to give notice to the level of active ownership in firms; ownership structure is a good sign of efficiency.

Portfolio selection is one of the most vital financial problems in literature. The studied problem is a nonlinear multi-objective problem which has been solved by a variety of heuristic and metaheuristic techniques. In this article, a metaheuristic optimiser, the multi-objective water cycle algorithm (MOWCA), is represented to find efficient frontiers associated with the standard mean-variance (M-V) portfolio optimisation model. The inspired concept of WCA is based on the simulation of water cycle process in the nature. Computational results are obtained for analyses of daily data for the period January 2012 to December 2014, including S&P100 in the US, Hang Seng in Hong Kong, FTSE100 in the UK, and DAX100 in Germany. The performance of the MOWCA for solving portfolio optimisation problems has been evaluated in comparison with other multi-objective optimisers including the NSGA-II and multi-objective particle swarm optimisation (MOPSO). Four well-known performance metrics are used to compare the reported optimisers. Statistical optimisation results indicate that the applied MOWCA is an efficient and practical optimiser compared with the other methods for handling portfolio optimisation problems.

Financial constraints are one of the influencing factors on investment decisions. Financial constraints put firms under pressure to forgo investment opportunities to finance their working capital needs. Moreover, some variables like working capital needs and liquidity of a firm are likely to affect the relationship between these two variables. Hence, this study seeks to examine the effect of short-term credit constraints on the investment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), firms with different characteristics in comparison with large-sized firms. In addition, this correlation is tested by considering the effect of mentioned moderating variables (working capital and liquidity). The sample of this study includes the firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2018, which are considered as SMEs based on some criteria. Multivariate regression models and E-views software are used to test the research hypotheses. The results indicated that short-term credit constraints negatively affect corporate investment. It means that constrained firms invest in fewer investment opportunities because of facing source shortages. Moreover, in companies requiring more working capital, the inverse effect of short-term credit constraints on corporate investment is stronger. Such firms suffer from financial problems and are not able to use their investment opportunities. Additionally, this hypothesis that companies with high liquidity can offset u effects of short-term financial constraints on fixed investment, is not confirmed