Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Filters

2020 - 20256

Settings

Start date: 2020Subject: search.filters.subject.350204 Financial institutions (incl. banking)

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Essays on corporate finance in Indian markets : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Finance at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 10 November 2027.
    (Massey University, 2025) Puri, Swati Kumaria
    A strong and well-regulated financial system is essential for sustained economic growth. Financial sector reforms play a vital role in promoting efficient resource allocation, enhancing inclusion, mitigating business risks, and fostering long-term stability. India’s financial landscape has undergone a major transformation since the liberalization of the 1990s, transitioning from a highly regulated economy to a more open, market-oriented, and globally integrated system. Two landmark reforms—the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) introduced in 2016 and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) law enacted in 2013—have significantly reshaped India’s financial and corporate framework. The IBC has improved the ease of doing business by providing a structured mechanism for insolvency resolution and creditor protection, while the CSR law has institutionalized responsible corporate behaviour by aligning business goals with social and environmental objectives. Despite these progressive measures, India’s financial system continues to face persistent external challenges such as rising crime, which creates uncertainty, increases transaction costs, and undermines investor confidence. This thesis examines the impact of legal reforms, corporate social responsibility, and crime on debt financing and investment efficiency in the Indian context. It provides robust empirical evidence that well-designed legal frameworks and governance mechanisms significantly enhance corporate performance, while external challenges like crime hinder firms’ investment efficiency. Collectively, the three essays in this study underscore the pivotal role of institutional frameworks in shaping corporate behaviour and economic outcomes—beginning with legal reform and extending to governance and enforcement. The findings reveal that proactive policy interventions such as the IBC and CSR reforms can enhance credit access and investment efficiency, contributing to sustainable and inclusive growth. However, the persistence of crime highlights the need for complementary governance and transparency measures to mitigate investment inefficiencies. Overall, this research contributes to understanding how institutional mechanisms and external constraints interact to influence firm behaviour and economic development in emerging markets. Importantly, these insights extend beyond India, offering valuable implications for policymakers and businesses in other developing economies seeking to strengthen institutions, promote economic resilience, and achieve sustainable progress.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Green banking : an exploration from the perspectives of banks, and retail bank customers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Banking at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, School of Economics and Finance, New Zealand. EMBARGOED UNTIL JULY 2027.
    (Massey University, 2024-11-11) Kalu Kapuge Dona, Lilani Randika Kapuge
    This study explores green banking adoption from the perspectives of banks, and retail bank customers. Our aim is to contribute to banks’ adoption of green banking. This is achieved by examining banks’ green practices and proposing a constructivist framework for banks to transform from conventional banking into green banking. As banks are driven by a profit motive, if banks’ environmental performance positively connects with attaining their profitability objectives, there may be a motivation to apply green banking practices. In Essay One, we examine the impact of banks’ green performance and disclosures on their financial, market, and risk performance. We employ Bloomberg’s environmental disclosure scores and Refinitiv’s environmental performance scores as proxies to measure banks’ green performance and disclosures. As an addition to ESG literature, we use Yale’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI) to examine the extent to which the home country’s environmental performance moderates the links between the impact of banks’ environmental performance and disclosures on their financial, market and risk performance. Data was drawn from 189 of the world’s largest banks for the period 2009 to 2019, and the analysis incorporates two-step system GMM models. To check the robustness of our results, we removed banks that are major financiers of fossil fuels and EU banks from the main sample. We find no evidence to support Bloomberg’s environmental disclosure scores or Refinitiv’s environmental performance scores impacting banks’ financial, market and risk performance. In addition, EPI does not moderate the links between the impact of banks’ environmental performance and disclosures on their financial, market and risk performance. The findings confirm that environmental performance and environmental disclosures do not matter to big banking players’ prosperity. Overall, this study establishes the need for a commonly agreed banking-industry-oriented environmental rating scale to measure banks’ green performance correctly to avoid misleading green-conscious stakeholders and identify banks’ true green efforts. In Essay Two, in response to the absence of an agreed or standard performance measurement mechanism for green banking, we develop a green banking scorecard (GBS) from a new perspective. First, we use the updated version of the Planetary Boundaries Theory (PBT) to broaden the green banking measurement scale. Second, we employ a Fossil Fuel Index (FI) to assess banks’ true commitments towards green banking, because banks are often criticised as major financiers of fossil fuels. Third, as a new addition to banks’ green performance measurement, we use Yale’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which brings international differences in measuring banks’ green performance into a common platform. We apply the GBS to 37 of the world's largest banks to measure their green performance. We find that European banks achieve higher green banking scores compared to Asian and American banks. In Essay Three, following Stakeholders' Theory, stakeholders’ positive behavioural change towards green banking is essential for banks to adopt green banking. Employing Behavioural Response Theory (BRT), we examined retail bank customers’ intention to adopt green banking in New Zealand using 254 online survey responses. To extend this study, we examine whether retail bank customers’ environmental knowledge moderates the association between attitude towards green banking and intention to adopt green banking. The study finds retail bank customers prefer green banking although some of them do not yet intend to adopt green banking. The findings confirm that environmental knowledge has a weak negative moderating effect on the association between attitude towards green banking and intention to adopt green banking. The responses from this study indicate there are specific factors that affect and limit retail bank customers’ intentions to adopt green banking. In summary, this study concludes environmental disclosure scores, or environmental performance scores do not impact banks’ financial, market and risk performance. We proposed a green banking scorecard (GBS) from a new perspective to measure banks’ green performance and we find that European banks achieve higher green banking scores compared to Asian and American banks. Finally, the study finds retail bank customers also prefer green banking and intend to adopt green banking.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Three essays on corporate finance studies in China : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Finance at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023-11-13) Yue, Shuai
    This thesis investigates three aspects of listed firms in the Chinese market. The first essay in the thesis examines the impact of state ownership on firm performance using hand collected ownership data of firms with state-private mixed ownership structures. We find a U-shaped relationship between state ownership and firm performance. At lower levels, state ownership has a negative association with firm performance, but beyond a certain threshold (e.g., 55% for ROA and 44% for Tobin's Q), state ownership becomes positively associated with firm performance. This finding indicates a trade-off between the negative effects of grabbing hand and the monitoring benefits of state owners. In addition, the introduction of strategic investors moderates the influence of state ownership on firm performance. The results show that the U-shaped impact of state ownership on firm performance diminishes after the introduction of strategic investors, implying that strategic investors may mitigate the underperformance observed around the threshold state ownership levels. The second essay focuses on the corporate information environment. It investigates the behaviour of firms with politically connected executives regarding information disclosure when subject to government inspection influences. China initiated the central environmental protection inspection in 2016. We find that while firms with politically connected executives generally exhibit lower stock price crash risk, these politically connected firms are more prone to crash risk when subject to inspection influences than firms without political connections. Further, we examine whether the inspection effect on crash risk varies based on the type of political connections developed by executives, namely achieved and ascribed political connections. Our results show that firms with executives having achieved political connections are related to higher crash risk when under government inspection influences, but no significant impact is observed for firms with executives having ascribed political connections. The final essay examines the influence of firms’ exposure to economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on environmental investment and investigates whether firm size plays a significant role in this relationship. We find that although small firms are generally associated with lower levels of environmental investment compared to large firms, there is a positive association between small firms’ EPU exposure and environmental investment, indicating that small firms are more inclined to invest in environmental initiatives when facing higher EPU exposure.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Essays on credit ratings : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Finance at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Nguyen, Pham Minh Quan
    Credit ratings play an important role as a gatekeeper of capital markets. Firms with higher credit ratings are likely to access the capital markets at a lower cost. Hence, understanding credit rating properties is essential, and this topic is of great importance for academics, regulators, and practitioners. This thesis includes three essays on credit ratings. Traditional issuer-paid credit rating agencies (CRAs hereafter) such as Standard & Poor’s (S&P hereafter), Moody’s and Fitch Ratings (Fitch hereafter) have faced criticisms about the lack of timeliness and accuracy in negative signals due to the conflict of interest in their business model. However, this is not the case for the positive signals. In contrast, investor-paid CRAs, without conflict of interest in their business model, issue more timely and accurate negative signal. The first essay investigates how institutional investors who have advanced trading skills and knowledge respond to credit rating changes issued by two types of CRAs: issuer- and investor-paid CRAs. I find that investors react asymmetrically: they abnormally sell stocks surrounding rating downgrades by investor-paid CRAs, while abnormally buying stocks around rating upgrades by issuer-paid CRAs. In contrast, they have no significant reaction to positive signals from the investor-paid CRA and negative signals from the issuer-paid CRAs. The first essay suggests that, through their trades, institutional investors do capitalize on value-relevant rating information: negative and positive signals provided by investor- and issuer-paid CRAs respectively. More importantly, I further find that a dynamic trading strategy specifically based on rating downgrades by investor-paid CRA and rating upgrades by issuer-paid CRAs generates significant abnormal returns. The second essay focuses on the relationship between politics and credit ratings. Specifically, I investigate whether political similarities between CRAs and bond issuers impact credit ratings. I find that a higher degree of similarity of political affiliation leads to a decrease in timeliness and accuracy of rating downgrades prior to default events. The findings support the notion that CRAs tend to maintain/assign relative rating advantages to politically similar firms via favourable rating activities. I further show that these politically similar firms tend to increase the proportion of political donations to their favoured party following favourable credit ratings. Interestingly, this result is confined to Republican-leaning firms. The results indicate that CRAs successfully use biased credit ratings as an indirect channel of political party support. The second essay thus contributes to the body of knowledge on the importance of political connections in corporate finance as well as CRAs’ rating behaviours. The third essay examines the effect of natural disasters on credit ratings. Natural disasters are exogenous shocks to CRAs’ rating behaviours. I find that firms located in the disaster states (i.e., affected firms) are downgraded by CRAs. I also find the same patterns in changes in stock returns of affected firms. The findings support hypothesis that credit rating changes are driven by firm’s fundamental changes caused by natural disasters. By using instrumental variable (IV) analysis to extract affected firms’ rating changes caused by natural disasters, I further investigate the spill-over effects of natural disasters on rating changes of non-affected firms (i.e., firms are not located in the disaster states). I find that the affected firms’ rating changes positively spill-over to connected firms’ rating changes which are not directly impacted by natural disasters. Connected firms are selected from the same industry, the adjoining states, or supplier-customer relationships with the affected firms. I also find the negative spill-over effects from the affected firms’ rating changes to their competitors’ rating changes. Finally, I replicate the spill-over channels for stock returns, a proxy for market reactions to natural disasters, and find delays in the stock return spill-over. This is significant evidence on CRAs’ sensitivity to natural extreme events.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Essays on corporate cross-listing decisions : a thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Finance, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Agyemang, Abraham
    The decision to cross-list and the associated outcomes on corporate structure, strategies, and decisions is well-advanced. The reported outcomes range from access to foreign capital, broader analyst coverage, better information environment, improved liquidity, better corporate governance, and enhanced revenue. Such outcomes are said to motivate the cross-listing decision and are significantly associated with corporate and market characteristics. However, studies on how dynamics in corporate and market characteristics interact to drive cross-listing decisions are limited. Again, studies on the subsequent impact of cross-listing on other corporate decisions and strategies are lacking. This thesis expands the existing literature by providing three essays on how dynamics in firm and market characteristics influence cross-listing decisions. It also shows how the associated outcomes of cross-listing impact ensuing corporate decisions and strategies. The first study focuses on the dividend smoothing strategies of foreign firms. It examines how commitment to full disclosure through cross-listing in the US influence dividend smoothing behavior. While questions on the determinants and channels of dividend smoothing are not new, how cross-listing impacts these determinants and channels have not yet been studied. The study is based on the premise that cross-listing in the US signals commitment to full disclosure. Also, it is typically associated with improved transparency and increased investor and analyst coverage: reducing information asymmetry and agency conflicts. Again, it is widely argued that the levels of information asymmetry and agency cost significantly influence dividend smoothing practices, while investment and debt are among the primary channels for dividend smoothing practices. We, therefore, examine how commitment to full disclosure and improved transparency due to cross-listing impacts the dividend smoothing strategies of foreign firms. We adopt two well-established approaches: Lintner’s partial adjustment model, and a variance decomposition approach to study the dividend policies of firms after cross-listing. The results show increased dividend smoothing after cross-listing with significant sectoral variations in dividend smoothing strategies. We also document that firms from developing economies exhibit a lower increase in dividend smoothing after cross-listing compared to firms from developed economies. Adopting a variance decomposition approach, we find evidence of essential differences in the use of debt and investment channels before and after cross-listing to smooth net income shocks. Overall, our findings suggest that managers of cross-listed firms are motivated to ensure minimal fluctuations to dividends due to the information content of dividend payment. The results also indicate that firms use financing decisions to keep dividends smooth. The second study focuses on how market characteristics interact with firm characteristics to influence cross-listing decisions and the choice of the host market. The study examines how the specialization in the output of the local and host markets impacts cross-listing decisions and the selection of the host market in the presence of other firm-level characteristics. This study builds on the existing macroeconomic literature that maintains that economies are specialized in their output, suggesting potential high competition for funding, among other forms of competition. Given this basis, we propose two arguments. One, specialization in national output could encourage firms to seek funds from other foreign markets through cross-listing. Two, specialization in national output could make the local market attractive to international firms. We implement a gravity model on a sample of 1779 firms from OECD countries for 20 years and find that specialization in output in the local and host markets significantly influences the decision to cross-list and the choice of the host market. Using firm and industry-level data, we report that firms from countries that are specialized in specific industries undertake more cross-listing compared to firms from markets that are not. Interestingly, we document that firms from specialized markets cross-list to markets that are less specialized in the same industry. While the findings suggest that firms seek diversification of funding opportunities in the cross-listing decision and the choice of the host market, they also indicate the weakening of the gravity restrictions in line with recent studies. The role of market characteristics in influencing corporate decisions and strategies is conventional. However, recent studies document a growing influence of policy uncertainty on corporate decisions. The third essay builds on this premise and examines how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in the local and global markets impacts corporate cross-listing decisions. It employs firm- and country-level motivated by the availability of the EPU data. The examination commences with the implementation of an initial Granger Causality test. The study then adopts two contemporary approaches; a Quantile on Quantile Regression approach, and a Wavelet Coherence approach to allow a comprehensive understanding of the relationship. The results show that local and global EPU influence the cross-listing decisions of firms, with a more substantial influence on firms from smaller domestic markets. The empirical evidence suggests that firms from smaller local markets pursue more cross-listing in the face of high local EPU and reduce or avoid cross-listing during periods of high global EPU. The Quantile on Quantile Regression approach and the Wavelet Coherence approach document important dynamics between EPU and cross-listing decisions at different frequencies and periods, with a stronger relationship reported at higher frequencies of EPU. In addition to contributing to the existing literature, our findings suggest that policy transparency could have important implications for current and future corporate decisions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Impact of the global financial crisis 2008 on bank efficiency : an experience of the Anglo-Saxon countries : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Banking Studies at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) U-Din, Salah
    This thesis investigates the differences in the impact of the Global Financial Crisis 2008 (GFC) on the banking sectors of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and the United States from 2003 to 2015. The selected banking sectors are based on a common Anglo-Saxon banking system and belong to developed economies for which the GFC showed varying degrees of severity. The measures of cost, profit, alternative profit, and shareholder value efficiency are used to assess the impact of the GFC on bank efficiency of the five countries. The aim of this study is achieved with four major objectives: first, the theoretical analysis of the varying impact of the GFC on the banking sectors of the developed and integrated economies is confirmed with econometric analyses; second, the impact of different banking environment variables on bank efficiency is assessed to identify the reasons behind the variation in the impact of the GFC on the efficiency of the selected banking sectors; third, this study compares the results for the U.S. banking sector with other developed economies using a common frontier; fourth, it assesses the change in banking risk, structure, and shareholder value during the study period. A common frontier is drawn with a one-stage Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model among the selected group of relatively homogenous economies, and remaining economic variations are controlled with banking environment variables. A group of 29 large and systemically important banks is selected from all five countries for this study. The empirical results confirm the superiority of the Australian and Canadian banking sectors in cost efficiency compared to New Zealand, UK, and U.S. sectors from 2003 to 2015. Profit efficiency of the U.S. and British banks is most negatively impacted by the GFC, and the banking sectors of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are among the least impacted. A significant impact of the GFC is observed during 2008 and 2009, and the selected banking sectors are not able to achieve pre-GFC efficiency levels in the post-GFC period. Cost-efficient banking is found to be more resilient, and the level of bank liquidity and equity play a vital role in the stability of the banks during the crisis period. The level of risk has declined over the study period, however, the negative influence of the risk on bank efficiency is reported. A higher ratio of lending assets provided earning stability for banks during the crisis period. Bank size, market concentration, and population density of chosen economies are not favorable for bank efficiency. Shareholder value was also impacted by the GFC during the same period and was found to be closely associated with the profit efficiencies of the banks during the study period. The trend and scores of the selected four efficiency models are consistent over the study period and found to be robust to various alternative tests. The findings of this thesis support the enhanced standards of the bank liquidity and equity, however, we recommend some regulatory initiatives to lower regulatory cost, bank size, and market concentration of selected banking sectors. A few limitations of the thesis are identified, and some guidelines for future research are also provided.