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Sustainable investment avenues provide an additional return (than just financial return) in terms of contribution towards sustainability and sustainable indexes. We examine if the investors who put...

Many countries are taking steps to establish national strategies to improve the financial wellbeing of their people. However, financial wellbeing as a term is still at infancy stage with a handful of model developed in the context of developed countries. Thus, there is a need to understand financial wellbeing from a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional approach to draft and implement efficient strategies especially in the context of developing countries like India. In our paper we have employed path-analysis to identify the specific constituents of financial literacy, financial behaviour, and personality traits that affect an individual’s financial wellbeing (perceived and objective) in Indian context. Survey responses of 349 respondents are analysed to empirically validate the proposed relationships using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. Our analysis mostly provides support to existing literature and challenges some. The findings provide support to thirteen out of seventeen tested effects with eight hypotheses. The understanding of pathways that lead to the increased financial wellbeing of individuals have the potential to facilitate effective policymaking and curriculum designing to support individuals’ efforts towards higher financial wellbeing and responsible financial behaviours.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has not only resulted in the loss of human lives but also distressed economies The impact of this crisis is even higher in emerging economies like India due to already slowing growth rates, poor health infrastructure, and a significant population living in extreme poverty While the government is taking measures to handle this crisis, nobody can be sure if these measures are adequate, as this will depend on how soon the spread of the virus is contained in the country However, understanding the depth of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Indian economy is vital to formulate the policy and measures to contain this economic impact This paper attempts to understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Indian economy by employing a qualitative research design, based on sentiment analysis to understand 15 industry experts' opinion concerning the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 The study makes a theoretical as well as applied contribution to the field of study While theoretically, it contributes to the field of pandemic research, public health management, and disaster management;in an applied sense, we propose a set of measures for the policymakers based out in India, as well as in other emerging nations of the world

The Covid-19 epidemic is a public health emergency of international concern. It poses a massive risk for the human race across the planet, calling for the need to take measures at the local, regional, national, and global levels. South Asian countries stand more vulnerable to the pandemic due to their dense population, poor infrastructure, and low surveillance system. This paper aims to understand the challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic for South Asia; and investigates the strategic and operational responses to this pandemic by policymakers and healthcare professionals, respectively, in South Asia. The study uses interviews and opinions of policymakers and doctors, from the South Asian region, involved in tackling the Covid-19 crisis. The qualitative analysis is performed on these interviews and opinions by using NVivo 12 software. The findings indicate that policymakers and healthcare providers across South Asia have been showing efficient teamwork while dealing with this pandemic. The healthcare administrators being at the operational level, convey the challenges they face to the policymakers who then respond to them at a strategic level.

In 2020, ESG funds that invest in companies that score higher on environmental, social, and governance measures witnessed an increase in investment compared to 2019. Understanding the causal relationship and spillover between these two types of indexes may help investors determine if clean energy indexes follow the same trend as conventional indexes or the reverse. Additionally, investors would benefit from understanding this causation in both the pre- and post-Covid-19 eras. We conceive this study to plug this gap and advance the knowledge in this critical area. We study the causality and spillover between NASDAQ clean energy indexes, and their corresponding alternatives namely, NASDAQ Composite Index and NASDAQ Global Select Market Composite using the daily data and from 1 st January 2011 to 29 th June 2021. We apply the Granger-Causality test and the spillover models approach by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) and Barunik and Křehlik (2018) to determine any medium-run, or long-run causality, and spillover between the indexes under reference, respectively. Our results suggest us to observe that both sustainable and green indexes exhibit bi-directional causality where both sets of indexes impact each other in the long-run. Additionally, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the connectivity between the two sets of indices rose significantly. Our findings also suggest that the investors will not lose on risk-adjusted returns if they chose to go green. With the investors' ability to shift towards green investment without losing on financial returns, it shall become even easier for businesses to steer their operations.

Sustainable living has emerged as the need of the hour for mankind in present times. Practitioners, as well as scholarship in the area, are divided over the comparison of financial returns from sustainable indexes vis-a-vis conventional indexes, causing investors' dilemma. These questions loom larger during the times of global crises, such as COVID-19, which have brought sustainability concerns to the limelight. This dilemma of the investors leads us to approach the study on hand. We study the Thomson Reuters/S-Network global indexes (as a proxy for sustainability-based indexes), and their corresponding alternatives, using the daily closing prices from 1st January 2011 to 29th June 2020. We apply the time-frequency-based Granger-Causality test, and further attempt to understand the coherence between these indexes before and during the COVID-19 period by using the Wavelet Coherence and phase-difference mechanisms. Our results suggest short-run uni-directional causality from sustainable indexes to conventional indexes whereas bi-directional causality in medium and the long-runs. The coherence is particularly stronger at low frequencies, indicating the long-run coherence with sustainable indexes in the lead during COVID-19. The results and conclusions of the study have important implications for different audiences. The portfolio and fund managers can prefer to invest in such markets to avail of higher returns over a longer period.

This paper conducts a systematic review of the research work in the field of sustainable investment for identifying research gaps and laying down research agenda for the future. Articles on sustainable investment published in journals indexed at the Web of Science during 1989 and 2018 (so far) are reviewed for the purpose of this research. A total of 225 papers were found through the search criteria, out of which 213 papers were selected for review. The paper identifies gaps in the literature that can be considered as opportunities for future study. The analysis of these articles led us to note the need for an agenda that can present a holistic framework of sustainable investment with lesser variations and increased acceptability. The research agenda proposed by the paper may help researchers in framing their research problems around the gaps identified. Sustainable investment is a potential solution to social and ecological issues by transforming the financial markets to have more accountability for their impacts. Therefore, it is important to carry out extensive research in this field so as to develop it as an applied field of investment. There has so far been no attempt to perform a systematic review in the field of sustainable investment for a period of 20 years, as has been made in this paper.

This paper questions the current perception of business goals and argues that the business goal needs to be derived out of the human goal and human program. By evaluating developments in the field of sustainable investing, the paper explores the need to broaden the base of sustainable investing by covering individuals, families, society and nature. The paper lays future research agenda for identification of businesses generating holistic value in terms of physical facilities while also maintaining harmony in relations with humans and rest of the nature. Synchronisation of business goals with human goals shall lead to real value for society as also for individuals, families and the nature. By bringing together inter-disciplinary ideas about human goals, business goals and investments, the paper sets-up a concrete research agenda for future works in the area of sustainable investment.

In today’s dynamic business environment, for companies to exist, they must continuously look for areas for improvement and gain competitive advantage. It therefore becomes quintessential for companies to know which factors can have a positive effect on the company’s performance. The purpose of this article is thus to explore if there a relationship between the HR expenses of an Indian company and its financial performance and is this impact positive enough to motivate these companies to augment such efforts in improving the HR management practices. For, this purpose, data on expenditure on human resource and profit after tax (PAT) for BSE- SENSEX 30 companies was extracted for the period of10 years. In order to test the hypothesis of this study, correlation and regression analyses were performed. Results of correlation revealed that HR expenditures are positively related to Firms performance. The findings from regression analysis revealed that HR expenditure have statistically significant effect on a firm’s financial performance.