Trademark Protection and Corporate Leasing: Evidence From a Quasi‐Natural Experiment

Non‐GAAP Earnings Disclosure and Trade Credit

This study examines the effect of non‐GAAP earnings disclosure on trade credit from the buyer's perspective. Building on information asymmetry theory, this study predicts that non‐GAAP disclosure reduces financing frictions by conveying core and risk‐relevant earnings information to outside capital providers, enabling buyers to substitute away from trade credit toward less costly traditional financing. Using 42 675 firm‐year observations for 5544 U.S.‐listed firms from 2003 to 2020, this study finds that firms disclosing non‐GAAP earnings use significantly less trade credit, with the effect representing approximately 35% of the sample mean. The finding is robust to alternative measures, persists over future periods, and holds after addressing endogeneity through Heckman two‐stage estimation, entropy balancing, propensity score matching, and firm fixed effects augmented with industry‐by‐year fixed effects. Cross‐sectional tests show that the effect is more pronounced when monetary policy uncertainty is high, when information asymmetry is severe, and among firms led by lower‐ability managers, supporting the information‐channel mechanism. Mechanism tests confirm that non‐GAAP disclosure is associated with lower discretionary accruals, lower cost of debt, and greater equity financing access. Moreover, the effect is stronger when non‐GAAP measures exclude nonrecurring items, indicating that disclosure quality, not merely its existence, drives the financing benefit. This study contributes to the non‐GAAP literature by documenting real financing consequences beyond capital market informativeness and to the trade credit literature by showing that buyer‐side disclosure shapes working‐capital financing structure. Drawing on information asymmetry theory, this study examines whether non‐GAAP earnings disclosures affect buyers’ reliance on supplier trade credit. Using 42 675 firm‐year observations for U.S.‐listed firms from 2003 to 2020, this study shows that disclosing non‐GAAP earnings is associated with significantly lower trade credit use, highlighting real financing consequences and material working‐capital benefits of enhanced earnings disclosure.

The Effect of Cross‐Listing on Industry Performance in Emerging Economies

We examine cross‐listing effects for 61 emerging market firms across five industries: Energy, Utilities, Materials, Food Beverages and Tobacco (FBT), and Insurance listed on US exchanges from 2004 to 2023, applying the Callaway and Sant'Anna doubly robust estimator. Comparing two‐way fixed effects (TWFEs) against doubly robust estimates quantifies a 0.1229 percentage point WACC bias that standard difference‐in‐difference (DiD) methods introduce when cross‐listing timing is heterogeneous. Three findings emerge. First, regulatory tightening amplifies rather than deters cross‐listing benefits for strategic sectors: FBT and Energy record monotonically increasing valuation and financing effects from pre‐Sarbanes‐Oxley Act through post‐Dodd‐Frank Act, directly contradicting Doidge et al. Second, market volatility outcomes by sector structural type, defensive sectors benefit more under stress, commodity sectors under stability, and Utilities reverses sign on both channels, establishing VIX sensitivity as a structural characteristic rather than a transient effect. Third, strategic sectors activate valuation and financing channels simultaneously whilst defensive sectors activate them sequentially, connecting the first two findings. Positive Tobin Q effects are confirmed in four of five industries; WACC effects are sector‐differentiated rather than universally directional.

Cash conversion cycles and financial flexibility under economic shocks: evidence from emerging markets

This study examines whether the cash conversion cycle (CCC) supports financial flexibility or instead increases firm vulnerability under economic policy uncertainty (EPU), and tests whether the COVID-19 pandemic altered this relationship for firms with different pre-existing working-capital structures. The study uses a balanced panel of 391 non-financial Indian listed firms over 2014–2024 (4,301 firm-year observations), drawn from the CMIE Prowess database. Firm fixed-effects and random-effects models are estimated with default, firm-clustered, and Driscoll-Kraay standard errors; a difference-in-differences design with firm and year fixed effects is used to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic as an exogenous shock, with firms classified into treatment (above-median pre-pandemic CCC) and control (below-median) groups. The analysis is supplemented with an event-study test of the parallel-trends assumption, a placebo test, a lagged-CCC specification, and a dynamic-panel system GMM model. CCC is not robustly significant for return on assets (ROA) once firm-clustered standard errors are applied (p = 0.264), though a one-year-lagged CCC is significantly positive for both ROA and ROE (p < 0.05); CCC is not significant for return on equity (ROE) in the static specification. EPU is positively associated with ROA at conventional or near-conventional levels across specifications. The CCC × EPU interaction is consistently negative but reaches significance only in the dynamic system-GMM specification for ROA (p = 0.025). An event-study test does not reject parallel pre-trends, and the difference-in-differences and placebo estimates show no significant differential effect for high-CCC firms at the onset of the pandemic, though a significant gap emerges by 2024. Working-capital efficiency appears to operate as a gradual, lagged operational channel rather than an immediate source of profitability or crisis vulnerability. Managers should treat CCC as a medium-term operational lever rather than a short-term crisis response tool, and should prioritise short-term liquidity buffers - proxied here by the current ratio, the most consistently significant predictor of ROA throughout this study. Policymakers should prioritise macroeconomic stability, since EPU itself shows a positive association with ROA, consistent with well-managed firms being better placed to absorb policy uncertainty. The study combines a continuous, time-varying uncertainty measure (EPU) with a discrete exogenous shock (COVID-19) within a single firm-level identification strategy, and is, to our knowledge, among the first studies of Indian working-capital management to combine static fixed-effects estimation with an event-study test of parallel trends, a placebo test, and a system-GMM dynamic-panel specification within one design.

Cash holdings in an emerging market technology sector: evidence from BIST firms within the trade-off and pecking order frameworks

Can the Short-selling Mechanism Enhance Corporate Information Transparency?

Information transparency serves as the foundation for the healthy operation of capital markets and a critical determinant of resource allocation efficiency and investor protection. This study employs China's formal implementation of the securities lending and borrowing system in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment, utilizing data from A-share non-financial listed companies between 2012 and 2023. Through a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model, we examine the impact, mechanism, and heterogeneity characteristics of relaxed short-selling restrictions on corporate information transparency. The findings indicate that the securities lending system curbs both accrued and real earnings management practices among target firms, thereby enhancing corporate information transparency. These conclusions remain robust after rigorous tests including parallel trends, placebo effects, PSM-DID analysis, variable substitution, and sample period adjustments. Mechanism analysis reveals that increased stock price information content and reduced agency costs constitute the primary transmission pathways for the governance effects of the short-selling regime, with analyst oversight playing a supplementary mediating role. Heterogeneity tests demonstrate that the information governance effects of the short-selling system are more pronounced in firms with weaker internal governance, lower product market competition, and poorer regional legal frameworks, while external governance mechanisms serve to compensate for internal governance deficiencies. The study provides theoretical foundations and policy recommendations for refining China's securities lending and borrowing mechanisms and improving corporate information disclosure quality.

Do Environmentally Innovative Firms Pay More Dividends? New Evidence From GCC Markets

Environmental innovation may either crowd out shareholder payouts through resource reallocation or reinforce them by signalling financial strength. This study examines how environmental innovation shapes dividend policy in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets. Using a panel of 763 firm‐year observations over 2014–2023, we relate a bounded dividend payout ratio to a granular measure of environmental innovation, controlling for corporate governance structures and firm‐level fundamentals. To address unobserved heterogeneity, dividend persistence, and endogeneity concerns, the analysis employs panel regressions with fixed effects, feasible GLS, dynamic system‐GMM, and fractional response models. Across all specifications, environmental innovation is positively and robustly associated with dividend payouts. Economically, a 0.10 increase in environmental innovation corresponds to an approximately 2–2.5 percentage‐point increase in the dividend payout ratio. Leverage is consistently negatively related to payouts, while stronger board monitoring captured by higher female board representation and a greater proportion of non‐executive directors is associated with more conservative dividend policies. The results reveal that in GCC markets, dividends act as a signalling and legitimacy mechanism that enables companies to convert environmental innovation into tangible financial benefits for shareholders rather than withholding distributions. The study adds to the CSR and environmental management literature by documenting this relationship in an emerging‐market context where ownership is concentrated and sustainability regulation is evolving, and by showing how environmental innovation shapes core corporate financial policies. The results also have implications for investors and policymakers, providing a rationale for considering dividend payments as a key channel through which markets value companies' environmental transition efforts.