Does working capital management improve financial performance in China's agri-food sector during COVID-19? A comparison with the 2008 financial crisis.

The objective of this study is to explore the impact of working capital management on firms' financial performance in China's agri-food sector from 2006 to 2021. In addition, we analyze whether this impact is the same during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Working capital management is measured by working capital investment policy (measured by current assets to total assets ratio), working capital financing policy (measured by current liabilities to total assets ratio), cash conversion cycle, and net working capital ratio. The results reveal that current assets to total assets ratio and net working capital ratio positively influence financial performance measured through return on assets (ROA), while current liabilities to total assets ratio and cash conversion cycle negatively influence ROA. We also find that the relationship between working capital management and financial performance is more affected during COVID-19 than in the 2008 financial crisis. The findings might provide important implications for company managers to make optimal working capital management practices, depending on the economic environment.

Effects of partial demand uncertainty reduction on private equity financing in small and medium-sized enterprises: A supply chain perspective.

The effect of demand uncertainty reduction (DUR) on supply chain management has received tremendous attention. From a financial perspective, studying the impact of DUR is equally significant. This study explores the relationship between DUR and private equity (PE) financing in retail enterprises within a supply chain, which comprises a dominant supplier and a subordinate retailer. This article establishes decision models for a retailer backed by PE under three market demand conditions: range, mean, and range with mean. The study further investigates the impact of partial demand uncertainty reduction (PDUR) on the retailer and PE through comparative analysis of these scenarios. To address incomplete market demand information during the decision-making process, the study employs the minimax regret criterion to construct and solve the model. An intriguing finding of this study is that contrary to intuition, PDUR not only fails to promote PE but also reduces the retailer's willingness to finance and decreases the asset size for both the retailer and PE. In addition, the better the growth potential for the retail enterprise, the more severe the negative impact brought about by PDUR. Moreover, the impact of PDUR on supplier and supply chain performance is two-fold. PDUR based on range information has a negative impact on the expected profit of the supplier and the supply chain, while PDUR based on mean information has a positive impact on their expected profit.

Massive RNA sequencing effort proposed.

U.S. plan would harness the "RNome" for medicine and more-but funding is uncertain.

Intelligent industry, energy regulation and ecological transformation-Taking equity financing as the moderating variable.

With the panel data of 21 China's industrial industries from 2008 to 2020, the relationship models between intelligent industry, energy regulation and ecological transformation are constructed and tested from two dimensions of resource saving and environmental friendliness, then equity financing is introduced into this model as moderating variable to discuss the moderating effects on the relationships between intelligent industry, energy regulation and ecological transformation. Results show that: ⑴China's industrial industries significantly transformed to the resource-saving type, and the environment-friendly level stayed in a slow progression. ⑵Intelligent industry affected ecological transformation positively and significantly. The impact of energy regulation on ecological transformation was nonlinear. The regulation of energy consumption can significantly stimulate the transformation of resource saving, and restrain the transformation of environmental friendliness; the regulation of energy structure can significantly stimulate the transformation of environmental friendliness. ⑶ Equity financing can positively moderate the relationship between intelligent industry and ecological transformation, and it can also moderate the regulation of energy structure and promote the transformation to environmental friendliness, especially in the low consumption industries.

From garages to ecosystems: the coevolution of life science incubators and accelerators.

Incubators and accelerators catalyze the launch of life science startups and have evolved from simple facilities to vibrant ecosystems offering research infrastructure, programs, and funding. Analysis of financing activities indicates the outperformance of incubator companies relative to accelerators in fundraising, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), and initial public offerings (IPOs), attributed to extended interactions with investors and peers.

Venture capital investment in urology, 2011 to mid-2021.

INTRODUCTION: To characterize venture capital (VC) investments in urology in the past decade that represent promising innovations in early-stage companies. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis of deals made between VC investors and urologic companies from January 1, 2011, through June 28, 2021, was conducted by using a financial database (PitchBook Platform, PitchBook Data Inc). Data on urologic company and investor names; company information and funding categories (surgical device, therapeutic device, drug discovery/pharmaceutical, and health care technology companies); and deal sizes (in US dollars) and dates were abstracted and aggregated. Descriptive and linear regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Urology-related VC funding fluctuated from 2011 through mid-2021, but no substantial change was observed in funding over time. In total, 191 distinct deals were made involving urologic companies, totaling $1.1 billion. The four largest funding categories together accounted for $848 million and comprised therapeutic devices ($373 million), surgical devices ($187 million), drug discovery/pharmaceuticals ($185 million), and health care technology ($102 million). At least $450 million (41% of total investments) was invested in companies developing minimally invasive surgical devices. CONCLUSIONS: Urologic VC investments did not increase in the past decade and were allocated more toward devices than pharmaceuticals or health care technology. Given relative patterns within urology, VC investments may shift toward health care technology and away from pharmaceuticals but remain stable for devices. Further investments in promising technologies may help urologists more effectively manage urologic disease while optimizing outcomes.

Climate, race, and the cost of capital in the municipal bond market.

Both climate risk and race are factors that may affect municipal bond yields, yet each has received relatively limited empirical research attention. We analyzed > 712,000 municipal bonds representing nearly 2 trillion USD in par outstanding, focusing on credit spread or the difference between a debt issuer's interest cost to borrow and a benchmark "risk-free" municipal rate. The relationship between credit spread and physical climate risk is significant and slightly positive, yet the coefficient indicates no meaningful spread penalty for increased physical climate risk. We also find that racial composition (the percent of a community that is Black) explains a statistically significant and meaningful portion of municipal credit spreads, even after controlling for a variety of variables in domains such as geographic location of issuer, bond structure (e.g., bond maturity), credit rating, and non-race economic variables (e.g., per capita income). Assuming 4 trillion USD in annual outstanding par across the entire municipal market, and weighting each issuer by its percent Black, an estimated 19 basis point (bp) penalty for Black Americans sums to approximately 900 million USD annually in aggregate. Our combined findings indicate a systemic mispricing of risk in the municipal bond market, where race impacts the cost of capital, and climate does not.

The winding journey of biotech capital raising: deciphering the jargon.

Ensuring biotech companies are sufficiently capitalized to propel innovation and development remains a central focus for management. In this article, we draw on our broad perspective interacting with venture capitalists to offer thoughts on investor feedback. Understanding venture capitalists' mindsets and investment theses will increase the probability of securing needed capital.

ESG investing and the financial performance: a panel data analysis of developed REIT markets.

This study investigates the empirical link between the social and financial performance of the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) by utilizing the PVAR-Granger causality model and a fixed-effects panel data model with a rich dataset comprising 234 ESG-rated REITs across five developed economies from 2003 to 2019. The results suggest that investors pay attention to individual E/S/G metrics and price each component of ESG investing differently, with E-investing and S-investing practices being the significant financial performance factors of REITs. This study is the first attempt to test the social impact and risk mitigation hypotheses of the stakeholder theory of the corporation and the neoclassic trade-off argument to explore the association between corporate social responsibility and the market valuation of REITs. The full sample results strongly support the trade-off hypothesis, indicating that REITs' environmental policies involve high financial costs that may drain off capital and lead to decreasing market returns. On the contrary, investors have attached a higher value to S-investing performance, especially in the post-GFC period from 2011 to 2019. A positive premium for S-investing supports the stakeholder theory as the social impact could be monetarized into a higher return and a lower systematic risk and give rise to a competitive advantage.

Impact of dual control system of energy consumption and intensity on cost of debt financing: micro-evidence from Chinese listed companies.

Capital providers have placed increasing importance on risks associated with transitioning to a low-carbon economy. This study investigates the causal link between energy regulation and cost of debt financing by exploiting regional variations in stringency of the dual control system of total energy consumption and energy intensity (dual controls) to construct a continuous difference-in-difference model. We use a sample of A-share listed firms in 2010-2020 and find that tighter energy regulation leads to higher cost of debt financing. We find that the underlying mechanism is risk premium brought by compliance cost and uncertainties. Further analysis indicates that the impact of dual controls is mainly driven by non-state-owned firms. Lastly, capital providers did not differentiate the interest rates they charge companies based on their level of green transition.

Conservation finance: What are we not doing? A review and research agenda.

Conservation finance embraces a series of innovative financing mechanisms aimed at raising and managing capital to be used for the conservation of biodiversity. The climate emergency and the pursuit of sustainable development underline the criticality of financial support for achieving this goal. Funding for the protection of biodiversity, in fact, has long been disbursed by governments in a residual form, only after they have dealt with social needs and political challenges. To date, the main challenge of conservation finance is to identify solutions that not only generate new revenue for biodiversity, but also effectively manage and allocate existing funding to provide a mix of social and community benefits as well. The paper, therefore, aims to act as a wake-up call, urging academics working in economics and finance to turn their attention to resolving the financial problems faced by conservation. Through a comparative bibliometric analysis, the study aims to outline the structure of scientific research on the topic of conservation finance, to understand the state of the art, and to identify open questions and new research trends. The results of the study show that the topic of conservation finance is currently a prerogative of scholars and journals of ecology, biology and environmental sciences. Finance scholars pay very little attention to the topic and yet there are many opportunities/needs for future research. The results are of interest to researchers in banking and finance, policy-makers and managers.

ESG performance, capital financing decisions, and audit quality: empirical evidence from Chinese state-owned enterprises.

We study the nexus between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and corporate capital financing decisions. Further, we also analyze the effect of audit quality and type of ownership (state-owned enterprises (SOEs) vs non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), local vs central SOEs in this relationship. By applying panel regression (fixed effects) on 6295 firm-year observations of Chinese A-listed enterprises data for 2010-2019, we conclude that firms' ESG information is crucial to their financing decisions. In particular, firms with superior ESG performance have lower debt financing. The findings suggest that enterprises with strong ESG performance have easy access to equity funding via stock markets. Further, this relationship is more pronounced in SOE compared to non-SOEs and in central SOEs compared to local SOEs. These results demonstrate that the market may promote desired social outcomes by rewarding ESG performance; however, we find no significant effect of audit quality in this relationship. Findings are robust to different sensitivity tests, including an alternative estimation, sysGMM regression to address endogeneity issues, and lagged regressions to address reverse causality.

Now in charge, House Republicans ramp up probes.

New investigative panels will delve into pandemic origins and research ties with China.

The Imperfect Science of Publicly Reported Hospital Rating Systems: Lessons From Credit Rating Agencies.

The number of publicly available hospital quality rating systems has substantially increased over the past 2 decades. These rating systems are meant to provide patients, clinicians, and payers with relevant information to select and pay differentially for better quality of care. However, there is evidence of inconsistency, unreliability, and bias in current hospital quality rating systems. Financial ratings are similarly intended to enable investors to identify stronger companies (as investment targets), and these rating systems could provide insight into strategies to improve hospital quality ratings. We evaluate the credit rating methodologies of Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch Group and propose principles to improve hospital quality rating systems through better standardized measures and the use of external audits of source data. Emulating key features of credit rating systems may advance the delivery of meaningful hospital quality ratings.

Reflexive expectations in innovation financing: An analysis of venture capital as a mode of valuation.

Social studies of expectations are premised on the notion that the future is brought into the present, and thereby expectations about the future come to shape our actions, decisions, and practices in ways that performatively bring about the imagined future. In this article, I examine how social actors themselves understand, construct, and deploy future expectations in innovation financing, focusing specifically on the venture capital industry financing of the life sciences sector. I do so to analyse how these reflexive efforts configure the valuation and investment decisions of these social actors and others. I build on analytical perspectives in STS and adjacent fields such as organization studies and economic sociology that analyse the role of expectations - manifested as stories, narratives, and accounts - in social action. To do so, I unpack how reflexivity comes to configure valuation and investment decisions, and the goals (e.g. exits) they rationalize.

Local and spatial spillover effects of corporate financing costs on regional carbon emissions: evidence from Chinese listed firms.

The signing of the Paris Agreement has raised concerns about global carbon emissions, which have detrimental consequences in terms of climate change. At the same time, the financing process for listed companies has begun to incorporate investigations into these firms' carbon emissions. But the current impact of financing costs on firms' carbon emissions has not been accurately assessed. There are large differences in endowments in different regions of China, and factors flow frequently among regions. To date, no empirical evidence has emerged to show the spatial effects of financing costs on carbon emissions. This study uses the STIRPAT model and a panel lag regression model for empirical testing. The results show that increasing financing costs will increase the burden imposed by carbon reduction efforts in various regions. Although this trend has obvious spillovers to surrounding areas, the location of the enterprise bears a more negative burden of externalities. Further analysis shows that reducing the financing costs of enterprises in economically developed regions can reduce both their carbon emissions and the damage to economic growth. These research conclusions can help policymakers shape carbon reduction activities through reducing corporate financing costs on the basis of regional development differences.

As startups no contexto da organização capitalista financeira e as subjetividades empreendedoras / Startups in the context of financial capitalist organization and entrepreneurial subjectivities / Startups en el contexto de la organización capitalista financiera y subjetividades emprendedoras

As startups são empresas que apresentam modelos de negócios marcados pela inovação, rapidez, flexibilidade e alta capacidade de adaptação aos mercados. Atuando em diferentes setores socioeconômicos, elas prometem criar e transformar produtos e serviços. A emergência e disseminação dessas empresas ocorrem em um momento histórico de mudanças iniciadas a partir de 1970 e marcadas pelas crises geradas com o esgotamento do paradigma da sociedade urbano industrial. No Brasil, o número desse modelo de negócio apresentou uma expansão expressiva, alcançando a marca de 13.374 nos últimos cinco anos. Atento a esse cenário, o objetivo desta pesquisa consistiu em compreender como sujeitos, grupos e instituições atribuem sentidos à experiência de trabalho nas chamadas startups. Na parte teórica, as condições sociais e econômicas que possibilitaram a emergência e disseminação das startups são analisadas em uma perspectiva crítica. A parte empírica, por sua vez, apresenta depoimentos de empreendedores relatando o contexto geral de atuação nas startups. Ao final deste artigo, conclui-se que há uma instrumentalização capitalística de componentes subjetivos específicos selecionados e colocados em circulação para fortalecer o modo de produção capitalista financeirizado.(AU)

Startups are companies that have business models characterized by innovation, speed, flexibility, and a high capacity to adapt to markets. Operating in different socioeconomic sectors, they promise to create and transform products and services. The emergence and dissemination of these companies occur at a historical moment of changes that began from 1970 and are marked by the crises generated by the exhaustion of the paradigm of industrial urban society. In Brazil, the number of businesses in this model showed a significant expansion, reaching 13,374 companies in the last five years. Attentive to this scenario, the objective of this research was to understand how subjects, groups, and institutions attribute meanings to the work experience in so-called startups. In the theoretical part, the social and economic conditions that enabled the emergence and dissemination of startups are analyzed in a critical perspective. The empirical part presents entrepreneurs reporting the general context of action in startups. At the end of this article, it is concluded that there is a capitalistic instrumentalization of specific subjective components that are selected and put into circulation to strengthen the financed capitalist production.(AU)

Las startups son empresas que tienen modelos de negocio marcados por la innovación, la velocidad, la flexibilidad y una alta capacidad de adaptación a los mercados. Desde diferentes sectores socioeconómicos, las startups prometen crear y transformar productos y servicios. La aparición y difusión de estas empresas se produce en un momento histórico de cambios que comenzó a partir de 1970 y que está marcado por crisis generadas por el agotamiento del paradigma de la sociedad urbana industrial. En Brasil, estas empresas se expandieron significativamente alcanzando la marca de 13.374 empresas en los últimos cinco años. En este escenario, el objetivo de esta investigación fue entender cómo los sujetos, grupos e instituciones atribuyen significados a la experiencia laboral en las startups. En la parte teórica, se analizan las condiciones sociales y económicas que permitieron el surgimiento y la difusión de las startups en una perspectiva crítica. La parte empírica presenta testimonios de emprendedores que informan sobre el trabajo en startups. La investigación concluye que hay una instrumentalización capitalista de componentes subjetivos específicos que se seleccionan y ponen en circulación para fortalecer el modo de producción capitalista financiero.(AU)