Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of ownership structure and dividend payouts over firm’s profitability, valuation and idiosyncratic risk. The authors further investigate if corporate performance is sector dependent. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs signaling and bankruptcy theories to evaluate the influence of ownership structure and dividend payout over a firm’s corporate performance. The authors use a panel regression approach to measure the performance of family owned firms against that of widely held firms. Findings: The study confines to firms operating out of emerging markets. The results show that family owned firms are dominant with concentrated ownership. The management pays lower dividend leading to lower valuation and higher idiosyncratic risk. The study further illustrates that family ownership concentration and family control both influence firm performance and level of risk. The findings indicate that information asymmetry and under diversification lead to increased idiosyncratic risk, resulting in the erosion of firm’s value. Results also confirm that firms paying regular dividends are less risky and, hence, command a valuation premium. Originality/value: The evidence supports the proposition that information asymmetry plays a significant role in explaining dividend payouts pattern and related impacts on corporate performance. The originality of the paper lies in factoring idiosyncratic risk while explaining profitability and related valuation among emerging market firms.

Liquidity is the ability of a bank to fund assets and meet obligations, as they become due, at reasonable costs. Technological and financial innovations have impacted the management of liquidity in banks. Declining ability to rely on core deposits, increased reliance on capital markets and recent turmoil in financial markets have created new challenges for banks in managing liquidity. The current study has discussed theories, indicators, factors influencing bank liquidity, and its implications on bank’s capital and profitability. It has empirically analyzed the determinants of liquidity through Arellano-Bond estimates and studied the interrelationship of liquidity, regulatory capital, and profitability through 2-SLS system equations. It has found that bank size, profitability, leverage, net interest margin, CRAR, gross non-performing loans, and Central Bank Policy Rate are the significant determinants of banks’ liquidity. The interactive effects among liquidity, profitability, and regulatory capital convey that banks can be more liquid with less profit, but less risky with more liquidity.

Interconnectedness among banks is a key distinguishing feature of the banking system. It helps mitigate liquidity problems but on the other hand, acts as a curse in propagating systemic risk at times of distress. Thus, as banks cannot function in isolation, this study uses the Contemporary Theory of Networks to examine banking competition in India for five distinct economic phases, emphasizing upon the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a Market Power Network Index (MPNI), which uses network parameters to measure banks’ market power. This network structure shows a formation of bank clusters that are involved in competition. Specifically, network properties, such as centroid, average path length, the distance of a node from the centroid, the total number of connections in the inter-bank market, and network density, do go on to explain banking competition. It is interesting to note that crisis periods witness a lower level of competition, with GFC bearing the least competition. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic shows a lower trend, but it is of a higher magnitude than GFC. It was also found that big-sized, profitable, capital adequate, and public banks dominate the banking system. Notably, this study was conducted on a sample of 33 listed Indian banks from April 2008 to December 2020.

This article examines the impact of various sources of systematic liquidity risk and idiosyncratic liquidity risk on expected returns in the Indian stock market. The study tested the liquidity-adjusted capital asset pricing model (LCAPM) which is previously tested on developed markets. Systematic liquidity risk is found to be significant in impacting asset returns through various channels, viz. commonality in liquidity and illiquidity sensitivity to market returns. Covariance between individual stock returns and associated stock liquidity has a commanding influence as an idiosyncratic liquidity risk factor. The estimated asset pricing model is found to be robust across the two sub-time periods. The findings indicate that given the multidimensional nature of risk, the alternative of LCAPM along with the idiosyncratic risk is persuasive for consideration in investment decisions.

Banks in India have been gone through structural changes in the last three decades. The prices that bank charge depend on the competitive levels in the banking sector and the risk the assets and liabilities carry in banks’ balance sheet. The traditional Lerner Index indicates competitive levels. However, this measure does not account for the risk, and this study introduces a risk-adjusted Lerner Index for evaluating competition in Indian banking for the period 1996 to 2016. The market power estimated through the adjusted Lerner Index has been declining since 1996, which indicates an improvement in competitive condition for the overall period. Further, as indicated by risk-adjusted Lerner Index, the Indian banking system exerts much less market power and hence are more competitive contrary to what is suggested by traditional Lerner index.

There is significant empirical evidence specifying the effect of size, value and momentum in portfolio pricing. To confirm the effect, the article has attempted to construct long and short term winners and losers portfolios comprising of stocks forming the CNX NIFTY 500. Stocks are classified based on their past performance, book-to-market value and market capitalisation. The resultant portfolios' pricing is empirically assessed using Carhart four-factor model. The current work further evaluates a set of conditioning information contributing to these factors. Based on the findings, the study makes an attempt to evaluate and compare the returns generated due to 'growth', 'value', and 'momentum' investing in the Indian capital market. It further empirically evaluates the effect of size (small minus large market capitalisation stocks), value (stocks with a low price-to-book ratio) versus growth (stocks with a high price-to-book ratio), and momentum (past winners minus past losers) in the pricing of the portfolios. The study has acknowledged that Indian equity market provides significant profits if investors buy stocks with large market capitalisation and sell stocks with small market capitalisation. This finding is in contrast to the finding of Fama-French (1993) and Carhart (1997).