The tremendous impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global aviation industry has led to many cases of airline financial distress and bankruptcy. The Asia–Pacific region (APAC) contains more than half of the world’s population, and its airlines had the highest profit margin of any region. In this study, we investigate whether corporate sustainability practice can reduce the financial distress risk of air carriers, and, if so, what would the effect be in APAC? We first examine the relationship between environmental, social, and governance disclosure and the likelihood of financial distress of airlines as measured by the Altman Z″-score. Second, we analyze the moderating role of being an APAC airline in this relationship. The findings support the claim that implementing environmental actions may increase financial distress risk, and by improving social and governance activities, airlines can mitigate the risk of financial distress. The negative influence of the environmental pillar and the positive influence of the social pillar can be smaller for APAC airlines. Our study provides empirical evidence of the influence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) on the likelihood of financial distress in the airline industry. Moreover, we analyze the moderating role of being an APAC airline in the relationship between sustainability and financial distress. This study has significant implications for executives, managers, and policymakers in the aviation industry on ESG strategy decisions and the general issue of sustainability.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the presence of a housing bubble using Swedish data from 1986Q1-2016Q4 by using various methods. Design/methodology/approachFirst, the authors use affordability indicators and asset-pricing approaches, including the price-to-income ratio, price-to-rent ratio and user cost, supplemented by a qualitative discussion of other factors affecting house prices. Second, the authors use cointegration techniques to compute the fundamental (or long-run) price, which is then compared with the actual price to test the degree of Sweden'€™s housing price bubble during the studied period. Third, they apply the univariate right-tailed unit root test procedure to capture bursting bubbles and to date-stamp bubbles. Findings The authors find evidence for rational housing bubbles with explosive behavioral components beginning in 2004. These bubbles do not continuously diverge but instead periodically revert to their fundamental value. However, the deviation is persistent, and without any policy correction, it takes decades for real house prices to return to equilibrium.Originality/value The policy implication is that monetary policy designed to contain mortgage demand and thereby prevent burst episodes in the housing market must address external imbalances, as revealed in real exchange rate undervaluation. It is unlikely that current policies will stop the rise of house prices, as the growth of mortgage credit, improvement in Sweden’s international competitiveness and the path of interest rates are much more important factors.

Purpose

This paper aims to assess the long-run drivers and short-term dynamics of real house prices in Sweden for 1986Q1 to 2016Q4. More specifically, the author examines the extent to which real house prices are determined by affordability, demographics and asset price factors.

Design/methodology/approach

The author conducts a cointegration analysis and applies a vector autoregression model to examine the long- and short-run responsiveness of Swedish real house prices to a number of key categories of fundamental variables.

Findings

The empirical results indicate that house prices will increase in the long run by 1.04 per cent in response to a 1 per cent increase in household real disposable income, whereas real after-tax mortgage interest and real effective exchange rates show average long-term effects of approximately – 8 and – 0.7 per cent, respectively. In addition, the results show that the growth of real house prices is affected by growth in mortgage credit, real after-tax mortgage interest rates and disposable incomes in the short run, whereas the real effective exchange rate is the most significant determinant of Swedish real house appreciation.

Originality/value

The impact of the two lending restrictions been implemented after the financial crisis – the mortgage cap in October 2010 and the amortization requirement in June 2016 – are ineffective to stabilize the housing market. This suggests that macroprudential measures designed to ease pressure on housing prices and reduce risks to financial stability need to focus on these fundamentals and address the issues of tax deductibility on mortgage rates and the gradual implementation of debt-to-income limits to contain mortgage demand and improve households' resilience to shocks.

This paper uses cointegration and vector autoregressive (VAR) model to investigate the long-run drivers and short-term dynamics of the real house prices in Sweden forthe period 1986Q to 1995Q4. Specifically, we examine the extent to which real houseprices are determined by affordability, demographic, and asset price factors. The empirical results indicate house prices to increase in the long-run by 0.8% in response to a 1% increase in household's real disposable income, while after tax mortgage interest rate and real effective exchange rate show average long-term effects of approximately - 1% and - 5.3%, respectively. Suggesting that fiscal policy aimed todampen real house appreciation needs to adress the issue of tax deductibility onmortgage rate. In addition, our results indicate that the growth of real house prices is affected by the growth of mortgage credit, after tax mortgage interest rate and disposable income in the short run, and among which the real effective exchange rateis the most significant determinant behind Swedish real house appreciation.

We use a pooled panel bootstrap procedure and different benchmark models of performance to investigate presence of skill in mutual fund performance across different investment styles based on Swedish data from February 2007 to March 2015. To check robustness, we apply serial correlation, unit root, and variance ratio tests to examine the predictability and market efficiency of gross and net excess returns. The results suggest that Swedish funds underperform their benchmarks, net of costs. In addition, very few managers outperform the market, and too many managers underperform the market due to good and bad skills rather than good or bad luck. © 2016 Elsevier Inc.

This paper investigates whether value and size premia exist in the Euro area’s industry returns and, if so, what factors are driving them. We use a Garch-M (1,1) model on daily return data from the STOXX market indices for five major industries in the euro area. Our findings show that an industry-specific three-factor Fama and French type model does provide a robust explanation of returns over the period, 2001-2012. While, our results further emphasize the widespread influence of the value and size effects in the Euro market, the pattern, sign, size, and significance of these factors vary widely across different industries and market conditions.

The objectives of this paper are, first, to estimate the long-run cost of equity capital for the banking sector using data from the Eurozone, US, UK, Sweden and Switzerland for the period 1999-2014. Our inference differs from that of previous studies because we employ a dynamic panel GMM model with a fixed effect and a multi-factor asset pricing framework to explain the variation of the cost of equity capital across banks in terms of risk-factors including, bank size, leverage, business cycle and regulations. Second, this model analyzes whether the cost of equity of banks in Eurozone differs from banks’ cost of equity in the U.S. Our findings show that the multi-factor asset pricing framework does provide a robust explanation of the cost of equity for banking sector. Our findings are consistent with those of IIF (2011) in that a higher leverage ratio, an increase in capital requirement and regulation resulting in an increase of the cost of equity in the banking sector. However, the pattern, sign, size, and significance of these factors vary widely between the Eurozone and the US

The elimination of exchange rate risk and overall integration of the European equity markets have created new opportunities to utilize industry-specific diversification strategies for portfolio and risk management decisions. Using daily return data for five major industries in the Euro area over the period, 2001-2012, our findings show that an industry-specific three-factor Fama and French type model provides a robust explanation of security returns. While, our results further emphasize the widespread influence of the “value” and “size” premiums in the Euro area, we show that the pattern, sign, size, and significance of these factors vary widely across different industries and during the “bull” (2003-2007) and “bear” (2007-2009) market conditions. The size premium predominantly plays a positive, stable and significant role in explaining security returns under different market conditions. On the other hand, the results for the value premium is not convincing. Its estimated coefficients are both positive and significant (30% of all cases), and negative and significant (66% of all cases). Nor does our results provide convincing evidence for the conventional risk-based argument in support of the existence of size and value premiums in the Euro area. Value stocks are generally associated with higher betas than those of growth stocks only during the bear market condition. The betas for small caps are consistently lower than those for the large caps. Finally, the momentum effect does not appear to play a strong rule in explaining security returns in the Euro area.

This paper analyses the impact of the Euro on the development of equity markets in the Euro area and compares the results with those of the United States, UK, and Japan. Specifically, using data on 11 EMU countries from 1990-2010, we examine the impact of the Euro on different measures of stock market size, market liquidity, and concentration. It then uses a variety of ARFIMA and GARCH models to test whether the volatility returns have decreased following the introduction of the Euro. We found that the Euro enhances the depth and the liquidity in Euro area equity markets and that concentration and the unconditional volatility of returns have significantly increased in most Euro area equity markets. Furthermore, although our results identify the United States, Italy, Greece, and Euronext as the fastest growing markets on aggregate, it identifies Ireland and Germany as the lowest growing markets when information on market size, liquidity measures, volatility, and concentration measures.