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Purpose: This study seeks to bring new contributions to the literature, by investigating the relationship between CSR dimensions and corporate tax behaviour in a sub-Saharan African country: the Ghanian context. The social aspects of corporate taxation have attracted notable attention in the academic literature over the past ten years, resulting in a prolific stream of research exploring the link between CSR and tax avoidance, but producing conflicting evidence. While several studies have reported a negative relation between CSR and tax avoidance (e.g., Gulzar et al., 2018; Laguir et al., 2015; Lanis & Richardson, 2012, 2015; López-González et al., 2019; Ortas & Gallego-Alvarez, 2020; Salhi et al., 2019), other studies found evidence that firms claiming to be socially responsible actually avoid taxes (e.g., Alsaadi, 2020; Davis et al., 2016; Hoi et al., 2013; Landry et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2018; Col & Patel, 2019; Watson, 2015; Zeng, 2019). The majority of studies have been conducted in developed contexts, and a recent scientometric analysis suggests that African countries remain underexplored (Issah & Rodrigues, 2021). Early studies in developing countries highlighted the limited existence of formalised CSR initiatives (Jamali & Karam, 2016). Yet, according to Sorour et al. (2021), there has been a significant uptick in levels of CSR engagement (operationally and strategically), that seems to be supported by a more complex, varied and nuanced set of motivations. Thus, CSR in developing countries is an emerging field of study (Jamali & Karam, 2018). Formed from the British colony of Gold Coast and the Trust Territory of Togoland in 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan country to gain its independence and it has been a stable democracy since 1992 (Heritage Foundation, 2022). According the World Bank, in the past two decades, Ghana has taken major strides toward democracy being consistently ranked in the top three countries in Africa for freedom of speech and press freedom.14 Yet, the Ghana Integrity Initiative report that Ghana scored 43 (out of 100 points) and ranked 73 out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perception Index for 2021, but failed to make progress in the fight against corruption.15 Ghana is Africa’s second-biggest producer of gold and second largest producer of cocoa in addition to being rich in diamonds, timber and oil (Heritage Foundation, 2022). The World Bank data reveals a fast economic growth of Ghana (except for the COVID-19 pandemic period), but also highlights a poverty rate of about 25 percent. According the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD, 2019), the fast economic growth indicates the attraction of foreign direct investments (FDI), with multinationals coming into the country to take advantage of the tax and other incentives available in specialised economic zones (SEZ), called Ghana Free Zones (GFZ) (e.g., firms located in GFZ benefit from a 100% exemption from payment of income tax on profits for 10 years which will not exceed 15% thereafter), and a stable political environment. The UNCTD (2019, p.191) noted that “Ghana has one of the more successful SEZ programmes in Africa today”. Methodology: Given the context of Ghana, the lack of studies on the association between CSR and tax avoidance in developing countries, in this study we test the following two research hypotheses: H1: Disclosures on the CSR dimensions (economic, environmental and social) are associated with the extent of corporate tax avoidance behaviour in Ghana. H2: The location of companies in Ghana’s Free Zones mediates the relationship between disclosures on the CSR dimensions (economic, environmental and social) and tax avoidance in the country. This study uses a sample of 252 firm-year observations (70 unique companies) of listed (Ghana Stock Exchange) and unlisted firms operating in Ghana, for the four-year period 2017-2020. To test H1 the research model includes as dependent variable tax avoidance; as explanatory variables the CSR dimensions (economic, environmental and social); as controls a set of variables commonly used in prior tax avoidance literature (firm size; capital intensity; leverage; return on assets; dummy==1 for negative profits in prior year; intangibles; auditor type; ratio of executive directors to total board directors; dummy=1 for listed firms; dummy=1 for local firms; dummy=1 for firms located in Ghana Free Zones), and industry and year fixed effects. To test H2, the research model includes as dependent variable tax avoidance, and as independent variables the same as in the prior model, as well as the interaction of the dummy=1 for firms located in Ghana Free Zones (=0 otherwise) with all the independent variables. Two different measures are used as a proxy for tax avoidance. One is the cash effective tax rate (Cash ETR), which corresponds to the cash taxes paid (as shown in the cash flow statement) divided by pre-tax accounting (book) income. ETR measures denote the proxy measure of tax aggressiveness most frequently used by academic researchers (e.g., Davis et al., 2016; Hoi et al., 2013; Lanis & Richardson, 2012, 2015). To allow for meaningful interpretation, values of Cash ETR are truncated between 0 and 1 (see, Davis et al., 2016; Zeng, 2019 for a similar approach). The second measure is the tax rate difference (Tax-Dif), computed as the difference between the statutory tax rate and (cash) effective tax rate. TaxDif captures the deviation from the fair share of tax payable (Lin et al., 2018). Given that higher Cash ETR represent a proxy of lower corporate tax avoidance, we transformed TaxDif by multiplying it by –1 to obtain a measure where higher values suggest less tax avoidance (e.g., Lanis & Richardson, 2012). The CSR variables (CSR-economic, CSR-environmental, and CSR-social) are computed based in a content analysis approach and a word count method performed on annual financial reports and stand-alone CSR reports of listed and non-listed firms in Ghana, using GRI standards as a structural benchmark (from the 34 sub-topics of the GRI standards, through the content analysis, we only found information for 20 sub-topics). Content analysis is a popular method to undertake methodical, and quantitative analyses of content communication of CSR (Feng & Ngai, 2020). The word count method is used because words provide a more controllable analysis (Gao et al., 2005) and word-frequency measures produce both powerful and replicable results in commonly studied settings for measuring disclosure of qualitative information (Henry & Leone, 2016). To develop measures of the quantity of CSR disclosures in Ghana, an equal-weighting scheme, which signifies raw word counts, has been applied, where all the attributes are given the same weight (Kulshrestha & Patro, 2021 followed a similar approach). The firm-year CSR variables represent the sum of the number of words obtained from the word counting process for each of the 20 GRI subtopics. In particular, CSR-economic is given by the sum of the number of words of the 4 related GRI sub-topics; the CSR-environmental corresponds to the total words of the 6 related GRI sub-topics, and CSR-social is equal to the sum of the number of words of the 10 related GRI sub-topics. Alternative measures are also computed by transforming the firmyear values of the CSR dimensions into rankings and dividing it by the total number of firms of the year, resulting in normalized scores ranging between 0 and 1. Results: OLS with year and industry fixed effects and robust standard errors is used to estimate regressions and test the hypotheses. Preliminary results reveal that the coefficient of CSR-economic is negative but statistically insignificant; the coefficient of CSRenvironmental is negative and statistically significant at the 1% level; the coefficient of CSRsocial is positive and statistically significant at the 1% level, both when Cash ETR and TaxDif are used. Qualitatively similar results are obtained when CSR variables are computed in a ranking basis. The results, thus support H1. The results suggest that Ghanian firms disclosing higher levels of environmental information present higher levels of tax evasion. The evidence collected on the environmental disclosure is a bit surprising given the legislative instruments in Ghana for sensitive industries on their environmental impact and spearheaded by Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA requires periodic reportage on entities environmental impact, and entities that do not comply can face punitive sanctions, damaging their reputation. A possible reading is that entities disclose environmental information to avoid sanctions and damage their reputation (Welbeck et al., 2017). The evidence collected is consistent with that of Fallan and Fallan (2019) and Laguir et al. (2015), supporting the idea that the more entities' engagement in voluntary environmental disclosure, the greater the tax aggressiveness. Contrarily, firms reporting higher levels of social information present lower levels of tax avoidance. This finding suggests that as entities engage more in social activities (such as public policy and donations, local community support, employee education, health and safety, customer health and safety), the higher is the effective tax rate they pay. This results is consistent with that of Laguir et al. (2015) and Kiesewetter and Manthey (2017). The positive association between the social score and Cash ETR (Tax-Dif) fits the common understanding of social responsibility, and the interpretation implies that social incentives could help to tackle tax avoidance (Kiesewetter & Manthey, 2017). Regarding the test of H2, results for firms located outside the Ghana’s Free Zones are qualitatively similar that reported in the prior paragraphs. Yet, firms located in Ghana’s Free Zones present a statistically significant positive relation between CSR-environmental and Cash ETR (Tax-Dif), suggesting a “green” social responsibility and maybe that the legislative instruments for sensitive industries may be more effective in Ghana’s Free Zones. Furthermore, we found a statistically significant negative relation between CSR-social and Cash ETR (Tax-Dif), suggesting that firms located in Ghana’s Free Zones seems engage in voluntary social disclosure to avoid sanctions and damage their reputation. Ghana Free Zones seem to have a mediating role in the relationship between CSR disclosure and tax avoidance. The results, thus support H2. Research limitations: The inherent subjectivity of the content analysis approach and the word count method used to compute the CSR variables is seen as a limitation of this study. Originality: Over the past ten years, a prolific stream of research exploring the link between CSR and tax avoidance has been undertaken, particularly in economically developed contexts, but the evidence gathered has yielded conflicting results. This study expands the current literature’s focus on developed economies by examining the association between CSR and tax avoidance in the setting of a developing African economy, i.e., Ghana, and by exploring how particular features of the Ghanian context may mediate those relationship. The results may shed some light about the need of looking at the CSR reporting in developing countries as a possibility of a blend of instrumental and normative motivations as suggested by Sorour et al. (2021). In particular, this study explores the mediating effect of Ghana’s Free Zones on the association between the CSR and tax avoidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific approach is an in-depth analysis of the concept of crisis management, which emerged as a result of the new current conditions of manifestation of insecurity or instability in the world, and based on them highlighting the most relevant and effective ways and tools to implement them. The content of the article includes the identification and establishment of the system of forces and means involved in the prevention, control and resolution of both internal and external crisis situations, as well as the procedures and tactics of action associated with these actions. This approach is a practical reflection, based exclusively on the national legislation of the Republic of Moldova, which needs to be undertaken immediately, regarding the need to create an integrated system, at national level, of interministerial and inter-agency crisis management, under a leadership unique, able to ensure timely and uniform management of crises at the national level, as well as their management at the international level, if necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political risk has a strong influence on the investment in infrastructure projects of Chinese enterprises in the countries along “The Belt and Road”. It is necessary to make assessment and judgment on the political risk in the early stage of investment. This paper establishes an indicator system of political risk by referencing literature and the reports of consulting companies. Then the author applies the catastrophe progression method to quantitatively evaluate the political risk and optimizes the method by using the intuitionistic fuzzy set with IFWA operator and a new score function while ranking indicators according to importance. On the basis of the study above, more objective and effective political risk evaluation model is established. Finally, the author applies this model to Singapore and Malaysia and verified its effectiveness through calculating and comparing the results. This study contributes to proving reference for the investment decisions of Chinese enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic outlook for the future is greatly influenced by long-term corporate investments, where risk indicators are essential inputs for current business decisions. Due to country risk, companies should demand higher returns in some countries, for the same investments, than in others. Sovereign risk and country risk ratings also provide information about the country risk, but the methods are different. The paper has two objectives. The first is to introduce the most common alternatives to measure country risk. The second is to examine the relationship between country risk and sovereign risk, than compare the stability of the two measures. The analysis is based on the IHS Global Insight (GI) score and five-year sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Country risk should be interpreted as a generic term for the overall risk environment of a country, including all types of components: economic, political, legal and socio-cultural. This research is concretely focused on the country risk of Russia, which will be analyzed from the perspective of Austrian companies with wholly owned subsidiaries on the Russian market. The research project's aim is to specify the definition of country risk and to trace connections between changes in the country risk appraisal and complying company reactions regarding the present investment engagement on the Russian market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions of the rational individual are based on all available and identified information and to evaluate them individually and then interact using the form of reciprocally. After careful consideration of all the information, which is dependent on the value of adopting a decision and at the same time the future expected values defined expectations of preferential "states of nature". In the case that would have met all the prerequisites for the decision-making of individuals decision taker, the market would be effective and would avoid any variations that cause stock bubbles, securitization, the existence of the funds and the derivative market. As well as financial market imperfections arise from a lack of knowledge of information or its evaluation. Information asymmetry explains the emergence of generic situations, where one of the participants has more information than the counterparty. In connection with the situation and future progress in the global economy are increasingly "red warning lights" mentioned to refer. Despite the fact of belief, that Europe within the monetary policy will take all measures to recover and kick-start the economy through inflation, maintaining a continuous process will be limited by the progressive integration in reviving the waning economy. The instruments used for direct measures of risk, do not bring quick and efficient progress, therefore it is necessary to standardize unconventional tools to measure country risk, not only in terms of traditional indicators, but much more crucial to non-standard instruments determined by partial indicators of economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government decisions may result in the overall downturn in the country's excessive protectionism. Government uses the economic advantage of the domestic industry to foreign investors, thereby creating two groups with an interest in the project in the system. Protectionism has many reasons, one of which is to protect the country before the entry of foreign partners in key industries such reason protection of national security and an independent foreign policy. Political risk is for the most part perceived as the opportunity to put into play so-called "black holes" in the rupture of reciprocal national relations on three levels: a breakdown of political relations between the domestic and foreign country, within the domestic country, and between the foreign country and a third country. The events which result, either directly or indirectly, from such a breakdown can be designated as political risk. Political risk is the type of risk which can appear, can be taken on or transferred. Usually it is connected with the granting of consent which is conditioned by a political decision at any level of the state apparatus or with the risk of political change which presumes consequences and estimated change of economic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until now Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) does not exist in Russia as legislative practice. We made research how to ease implementation of this approach in Russia using Arctic and Subarctic as focal area. Besides analyzing real water use system we took into account climate change scenarios, flood management problems and possibilities of decision support systems using. We show that essential changes have to be maid in higher education for rapid correction of a situation with IWRM in Russia. We consider deterministic and probabilistic obstacles on this way and present instruments for overcome them. In project planning, primary attention should be given to managing political risk and adequately assess geopolitical risks. Platform https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valery_Abramov2/?ev=hdr_xprf gave excellent opportunities to preliminary discussion and data exchange in the frame of this research. The Ministry of education and science of Russia provided financial support for this research with the state order 2014/166 and state contract 14.515.11.0002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on how reducing conflict and increasing cooperation with stakeholders can improve the financial valuation of a company. The researchers conducted an empirical analysis in the gold mining industry because of data availability and the widespread acknowledgement of the important role of stakeholder engagement for profitability. They also used the Political Constraint Index (POLCON) dataset to measure the country-level risk. They found that the concerns over stakeholder and government support for the right to transform property are increased where the production process is socially or politically salient.

There are many situations in which the country risk must be considered. Those situations could be when one wants to make an investment in another country; when a loan is given; or, even when a stronger and a more powerful economic union is desired. There are many ways to measure the country risk. These methods are created by central banks, rating agencies and international banking institutions. There is a new method the country risk can be measured, with the help of a financial instrument, derived from lending. This paper presents the bond between country risk and credit default swap. Because of the financial-economic crisis, the values of country risk fluctuated considerably, especially in those countries with a large public debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After severe economic crises in the mid-nineties Bulgaria and Romania managed to improve their economic performance in the last decade. Consequently, the two new EU members became attractive investment targets for foreign direct investment and economic integration with the EU rose. However, these transition economies struggle with a high external debt stock and soaring current account deficits that raise concerns about the probability of a currency and thus monetary crisis. Based on the findings of Fink (1993), Kaminsiki, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998) and Kaminski (2006) we calibrate a model that uses a medium-size set of macroeconomic indicators to assess the country risk of Bulgaria and Romania. By assuming constant elasticises for the years to come we can highlight, whether the current economic development could lead to an aggravating situation, which in the end might lead to a currency crisis with severe implications for future monetary integration in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the large and growing literature on firm experience, our effort in this research is to examine empirically the capacity of multinational corporations to create value via foreign direct investment by mitigating country-level risks through foreign experience. We go beyond prior research on firm experience and country risk that have generally focused on a single element of risk or a single dimension of experience. Using Miller's (1992) environmental risk concept, we analyze the interactions between different types of firm-level experience and a full set of country-level risks on foreign direct investment value creation. Our findings suggest that foreign experience mitigates the stock market's perception of foreign investment risk in a variety of settings, although conditions under which these effects are present is subtle and nuanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign firms face a variety of institutional, economic and social barriers in every host country. Conceptually, these barriers concern what have been labeled as the interrelated topics of the costs of doing business abroad and the liability of foreignness. Efforts by political interest groups, consultants, analysts and academics to better understand country differences related to such costs produced a variety of measures that all purport to capture some element of this "country risk." Unfortunately, international business research while increasingly focused on country risk, still gives little attention to understanding the construct or its measures. Risk measures are labeled differently, implying they capture different aspects of country risk. Yet, prior findings of high correlation between measures undermine this presumption and suggest that aggregation of component risk information removes distinctions. Thus, the question is raised of whether differently labeled risk constructs and their measures provide clear, distinct sources of information about the external environment that capture unique aspects of country risk. Ultimately, this analysis finds strength in an underlying construct of country risk, while challenging efforts to distinguish between specific types of risk. Though the existence of a range of country risk measures implies an ability to distinguish between aspects of country risk, it is only an illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study that looks at the dynamics of networks and seeks to answer the question: within an existing network, how does the level of risk specific to an existing node affect linkages between that node and the rest of the network? The article states that the study seeks to conceptualize the multinational corporation (MNC) as a network of interdependent subsidiaries, and looks at the effects of country risk to which a subsidiary is exposed on the intensity of intra-firm trade between the subsidiary and the rest of the MNC's global network. The article states that the conclusions of the study offer interesting insights into how MNCs deal with country risk.

International joint ventures are often formed while entering new emerging, geographic markets--either to access complementary resources, or in response to legal restrictions of the host country. These drivers have a distinct influence on joint venture designs and outcomes. Using the empirical context of a natural experiment of the liberalization of the Indian economy, we investigate the effect of a sudden, exogenous market liberalization, where restriction on market entry by foreign companies is drastically reduced, on joint venture design and outcomes. Using data from a survey of international joint ventures of large Indian business groups, we find that in response to market liberalization, joint venture designs and control become more accurately reflective of the respective partner contributions. We also observe that joint ventures that are formed in the pre-liberalization regime are more prone to instability and termination hazards in the liberalized environment. Those joint ventures that fail to adjust to the new situation are more likely to die. However, those that survive may in fact exhibit superior performance in the long run. Further, we also observe that trust between partners is an important antecedent to their ability to adapt and reconfigure the joint venture to meeting changing external and internal conditions, successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study relates firm characteristics to the development of an appropriate mix of integrative and defensive/protective political risk reduction techniques. Recommendations in accordance with the firm's characteristics are given for the following areas: host government relations; ownership; localization of product and R&D; management practices; and finance and marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Political Risk and Foreign Direct Investment: How Do They Get Along in Various European Countries?," by Helena Lenihan, Bernadette Andreosso-O'Callaghan, Denis Kan and Vladimir Benacek is presented.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs), when threatened by political violence in a host country, make different choices; some stay, others exit. What determines who stays and who leaves? We combine insights from the resource-based view, real options theory, and the climate change and environmental sustainability literatures to predict the likelihood, timing and mode of foreign exit in extreme contexts. Exit is argued to be a function of the MNE subsidiary's vulnerability, as determined by three factors: exposure to the threat, at-risk resources (i.e., their irreplaceability, which reduces the delayability of exit, and their immobility, which increases the irreversibility of exit), and coping mechanisms. Innovative geographic modeling of 626 Japanese MNE subsidiaries in 23 conflict-afflicted countries over 1986--2006 provides strong support for our arguments. Our findings suggest that valuable resources may become a firm's "Achilles' heel" in volatile environments, but that increased resilience is possible through the development of coping mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Country Risks and FDI: Empirical Evidence From Latin American Countries," by Alejandro Palacios and Thomas Griffin is presented.