Browsing by Author "Wang, Yan"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    A prediction and weak coevolution-based dynamic constrained multi-objective optimization
    (IEEE, 2024-06-24) Gong, Dunwei; Rong, Miao; Hu, Na; Wang, Yan; Pedrycz, Witold; Yang, Shengxiang
    Dynamic multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (DMOEAs) have gained great popularity in dealing with dynamic multi-objective optimization problems (DMOPs). However, existing studies have difficulties in tackling DMOPs subject to (dynamic) constraints. In this paper, we propose a prediction and weak coevolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithm (PWDCMO) to handle dynamic constrained multi-objective optimization problems (DCMOPs), where a prediction strategy is employed to forecast potential optimal regions under the new environment, with a weak coevolutionary constrained multi-objective optimization (CCMO) as the optimizer aiming at balancing exploration and convergence. The proposed method is compared with four popular dynamic constrained multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (DCMOEAs) on six test instances from two various test suites with their convergence and the overall performance being discussed. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed prediction strategy is also investigated to observe its impact on the final results. Additionally, the PWDCMO is employed in the optimization of an integrated coal mine energy system (ICMES) to validate the proficiency in addressing real world problems. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of PWDCMO.
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    Antecedents of corporate social responsibility disclosure: Evidence from the UK extractive and retail sector
    (Emerald, 2022-02-11) Wang, Yan; Yekini, Kemi; Babajide, Bola; Kessy, Miriama
    Purpose – This study aims to examine the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure among the UK extractive and retail sectors and consequently ascertain whether corporate board characteristics and firm characteristics can explain observable differences in the extent of CSR disclosure. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the KPMG survey 2017, the sample comprises all the firms in the extractive industries, such as mining and oil and gas and also retail industries, such as food and drug retailers and general retailers for the sample period of 2005 to 2018. Findings – The findings show that the level of CSR disclosure from extractive sector is much higher than that of their counterparts in retail sector. In addition, the multiple regression results show that CSR disclosure is positively and significantly associated with board gender diversity, board independence, board size. Nevertheless, the results show that board meetings and chief executive officer duality do not have a significant impact on CSR disclosure. Originality/value – This study contributes to the existing literature on CSR in that it advances the understanding of the interaction between governance mechanisms and specific firm characteristics of two distinct sectors of the UK economy and how this in turn influences the CSR in the two sectors.
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    Antecedents of voluntary corporate governance disclosure: A post-2007/08 financial crisis evidence from the influential UK Combined Code
    (Emerald, 2016-03-23) Elmagrhi, M.H.; Ntim, Collins G.; Wang, Yan
    Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, good corporate governance (CG) practices among UK publicly listed firms and consequently ascertain whether board characteristics and ownership structure variables can explain observable differences in the extent of voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices. Design/methodology/approach This study uses one of the largest data sets to-date on compliance and disclosure of CG practices from 2008 to 2013 containing 120 CG provisions drawn from the 2010 UK Combined Code relating to 100 UK listed firms to conduct multiple regression analyses of the determinants of voluntary CG disclosures. A number of additional estimations, including two stage least squares, fixed-effects and lagged structures, are conducted to address the potential endogeneity issue and test the robustness of the findings. Findings The results suggest that there is a substantial variation in the levels of compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG practices among the sampled UK firms. The authors also find that firms with larger board size, more independent outside directors and greater director diversity tend to disclose more CG information voluntarily, whereas the level of voluntary CG compliance and disclosure is insignificantly related to the existence of a separate CG committee and institutional ownership. Additionally, the results indicate that block ownership and managerial ownership negatively affect voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices. The findings are fairly robust across a number of econometric models that sufficiently address various endogeneity problems and alternative CG indices. Overall, the findings are generally consistent with the predictions of neo-institutional theory. Originality/value This study extends, as well as contributes to, the extant CG literature by offering new evidence on compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG recommendations contained in the 2010 UK Combined Code following the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. This study also advances the existing literature by offering new insights from a neo-institutional theoretical perspective of the impact of board and ownership mechanisms on voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices.
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    Board Demographic, Cognitive Diversity and Firm Performance: A Quantile Regression Approach
    (World Scientific, 2024-05-30) Wang, Yan; Demiralay, Sercan; Babajide, Bola
    This chapter examines the implications of board demographic diversity (e.g., gender, age) and cognitive diversity (e.g., education and financial background) on performance of tourism firms using a novel quantile regression method. Using a sample of the tourism companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges between 2010 and 2019, we find that gender diversity is associated with tourism performance using the quantile regression method. Our results suggest that board representation of women has a greater positive impact on tourism performance in good-performing firms (average or above average) compared to poor-performing firms. Further, age and educational diversity have a positive association with firm performance and the impacts are greater on good-performing firms compared to poor-performing firms. Finally, financial background diversity is negatively and significantly associated with firm performance, but the relationship is nonlinear. Overall, our evidence indicates that the impact of board demographic and cognitive diversity is not constant along the quantiles of firm performance distribution
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    Board Effect and the Moderating Role of CEO/CFO on Corporate Governance Disclosure: Evidence from East Africa.
    (World Scientific, 2023-02-21) Fulgence, Samuel; Boateng, Agyenim; Wang, Yan; Kwabi, Frank
    This study examines the effects of board size, board independence, and the interaction effect between board independence and CEO/CFO on corporate governance disclosure practices. Using a large and hand-collected dataset comprising 1,000 firm-year observations from 2007 to 2017 in East Africa, this study develops a corporate governance disclosure index (CGDI) of East Africa consisting of 164 provisions. Adopting study three analytical approaches, namely OLS and fixed effect (FE) regressions and the two-stage system GMM, this study finds that large boards and independent directors are associated with greater disclosure of CG information. Different from environments with stronger institutions and corporate governance systems, our analysis suggests that the CEO/CFO power negatively moderates the link between board independence and corporate governance disclosure. Thus, firms whose CEO and CFO are involved in remuneration or nomination committees disclose less CG information. The combined effect of CEO and CFO on selection and remuneration committees and independent board in reducing corporate disclosure appears more pronounced for the post-financial crisis period compared to the crisis period. Our results remain the same after controlling for endogeneity concerns.
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    Corporate Governance Disclosure Index–Executive Pay Nexus: The Moderating Effect of Governance Mechanisms
    (Wiley, 2018-10-14) Elmagrhi, Mohamed; Ntim, Collins; Wang, Yan; Abdou, Hussein; Zalata, Alaa
    This paper first employs principal component analysis technique to develop and introduce an alternative UK corporate governance disclosure index to the US-centric ones. Second, we then investigate whether this new corporate governance disclosure index can determine the level of executive pay (including CEOs, CFOs, and all executive directors) in UK listed firms, and consequently ascertain whether the governance mechanisms can moderate the pay-for-performance sensitivity. Employing data on corporate governance, executive pay and performance from 2008 to 2013, we find that, on average, better-governed firms, tend to pay their executives lower compared with their poorly-governed counterparts. Additionally, our findings suggest that the pay-for-performance sensitivity is generally positive, but improves in firms with high corporate governance quality, implying that the pay-for-performance sensitivity is contingent on the quality of internal governance structures. We interpret our findings within the predictions of optimal contracting theory and managerial power hypothesis.
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    Financial development and economic growth in China
    (LLC Consulting Publishing Company Business Perspectives, 2015-08-12) Wang, Yan; Li, X.; Abdou, H. A.; Ntim, Collins G.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between financial development and economic growth. In particular, the authors examine the impact of financial development on the growth of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in China. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regressions are applied on a set of data from China for the period 1978 to 2013 to determine the effects of financial development on economic growth, while controlling for other macroeconomic variables, namely labor force, capital growth, inflation rate and export growth. The empirical results show that financial development has a negative effect on economic growth in general, but on the growth of the tertiary industry in particular. By contrast, it is found that financial development has no significant effect on the primary and secondary industries. The findings offer policymakers some useful insights that more attention may need to be paid on developing capital markets and providing more investment choices/opportunities for Chinese households. This paper is different from most of the previous studies as it uses up-to-date data (1978-2013) from China capturing the effects of financial development on economic growth in addition to other macroeconomic factors.
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    National Culture, Corporate Governance and Corruption: A Cross-country Analysis
    (Wiley, 2020-07-25) Boateng, Agyenim; Wang, Yan; Ntim, Collins; Glaister, Keith W.
    Drawing on institutional theory, we examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on corruption. The interaction effects of national culture and CG on corruption are also examined. By employing a dataset of 149 countries, our baseline findings indicate that the quality of CG practices reduces the level of corruption. Findings also show that three cultural dimensions, namely, power distance, individualism and indulgence moderate the CG-corruption nexus. Our findings indicate that CG and national culture explain the level of corruption among societies, with national culture appearing to matter more than the quality of CG. Our findings remain unchanged after controlling for endogeneities, country-level factors, CG and corruption proxies
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    On the efficiency of the global gold markets
    (Elsevier, 2015-03-28) Ntim, Collins G.; English, John; Nwachukwu, Jacinta; Wang, Yan
    This paper examines the weak-form efficiency of the global gold markets with specific focus on the random walks (RWS) and martingale difference sequence (MDS) hypotheses, and consequently, investigates the extent to which predictability or non-predictability of global daily spot gold price return series behaviour can be explained by volatilities in macroeconomic fundamentals. We apply traditional parametric variance-ratio tests and their recent non-parametric modifications based on ranks and signs to one of the largest datasets on world gold markets to-date, consisting of daily spot price series of 28 emerging and developed gold markets from January 1968 to August 2014. First, our results show that gold markets in Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Vietnam are not weak-form efficient neither from the perspective of the strict RWS nor in the relaxed MDS sense. By contrast, RWS and MDS hypotheses cannot be rejected for gold markets in Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, UK and US at the conventional rejection levels. Results for gold markets in Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey are, however, mixed. Second, our findings show that greater changes in economic fundamentals are associated with lower levels of rejecting the RWS and MDS hypotheses. Third, our evidence shows that the probability of rejecting the weak-form efficiency is higher in emerging gold markets than developed ones. Fourth, our results show that the RWS hypothesis is rejected more frequently than its MDS alternative, and thereby justifying our decision to conduct an explicit test of the RWS and MDS hypotheses. Our results are robust to estimating subsamples, overlapping rolling windows and endogeneity corrected models, as well as controlling for a number of country-specific institutional and trading factors. Our findings have crucial implications for global portfolio managers, investors, poly-makers and regulatory authorities.
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    Post-regulation effect on factors driving environmental disclosures amongst Chinese listed firms
    (Emerald, 2018-09-27) Yekini, K.; Adelopo, Ismail; Wang, Yan; Song, S.
    Purpose: This study examines the factors that affect the level of Environmental Information Disclosures (EID) following the issuance of the “Environmental Information Disclosure Guidelines for Chinese Listed Companies”. Design/methodology/approach: The study is underpinned by stakeholder and legitimacy theories. Level of EID was measured for 100 Chinese companies using a scoring system and content analysis of their annual reports. The study explored the effect of ownership structure, managerial shareholding, economic power and industry classification on the level of EID using panel regression. Findings: The study revealed that with clearly spelt out guidelines, Chinese companies are prepared to disclose environmental information regardless of their economic power. We find that the overall level of EID in China is lower compared to developed economies. The findings are robust across several econometric models that sufficiently address various endogeneity problems. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature by using new and updated data to re-examine the factors that affect the level of EID among Chinese listed companies. The study is important and timely as it covers the period of 2014 - 2016 which is after the Chinese government strengthened the enforcement of EID. It highlights the effects of new regulations and underscored areas that still require government attention to foster effective environmental protection.
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    Prediction of financial strength ratings using machine learning and conventional techniques
    (LLC Consulting Publishing Company Business Perspectives, 2017-12-26) Collins Nitm; Abdou, H. A.; Abdalla, W. M.; Mulkeen, J.; Collins, N.; Wang, Yan
    Financial strength ratings (FSRs) have become more significant particularly since the recent financial crisis of 2007-09 where rating agencies failed to forecast defaults and the downgrade of some banks. The aim of this paper is to predict Capital Intelligence banks’ financial strength ratings (FSRs) group membership using machine learning and conventional techniques. Here we use five different statistical techniques, namely CHAID, CART, multilayer-perceptron neural networks, discriminant analysis and logistic regression. We also use three different evaluation criteria namely average correct classification rate, misclassification cost and gains charts. Our data is collected from Bankscope database for the Middle Eastern commercial banks by reference to the first decade in the 21st Century. Our findings show that when predicting bank FSRs during the period 2007-2009, discriminant analysis is surprisingly superior to all other techniques used in this paper. When only machine learning techniques are used, CHAID outperform other techniques. In addition, our findings highlight that when a random sample is used to predict bank FSRs, CART outperform all other techniques. Our evaluation criteria have confirmed our findings and both CART and discriminant analysis are superior to other techniques in predicting bank FSRs. This has implications for Middle Eastern banks as we would suggest that improving their bank FSR can improve their presence in the market.