Environmental, social and governance disclosures in Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the European Union’s (EU) latest regulatory principles for environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. It explains how some of the EU’s member states are ratifying the EU Commission’s directives on ESG reporting by introducing intelligent, substantive and reflexive regulations. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of EU publications and relevant theoretical underpinnings, this paper reports on the EU member states’ national policies for ESG reporting and disclosures. Findings – The EU has recently revised a number of tools and instruments for the reporting of financial and non-financial information, including the EU’s modernisation directive, the EU’s directive on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information, the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, the European pollutant release and transfer register, the EU emission trading scheme, the integrated pollution prevention and control directive, among others. Practical implications – Although all member states are transposing these new EU directives, to date, there are no specific requirements in relation to the type of non-financial indicators that can be included in annual reports. Moreover, there is a need for further empirical evidence that analyse how these regulations may (or may not) affect government entities and big corporations. Social implications – Several EU countries are integrating reporting frameworks that require the engagement of relevant stakeholders (including shareholders) to foster a constructive environment that may lead to continuous improvements in ESG disclosures. Originality/value – EU countries are opting for a mix of voluntary and mandatory measures that improve ESG disclosures in their respective jurisdictions. This contribution indicates that there is scope for national governments to give further guidance to civil society and corporate business to comply with the latest EU developments in ESG reporting. When European entities respond to regulatory pressures, they are also addressing ESG and economic deficits for the benefit of all stakeholders.peer-reviewe

Strangeness Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions at STAR

We report an overview of strangeness production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at the energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 62.4 and 200 GeV. We show new mid-rapidly $dN/dy$ results for the $K^{0}_{S}$, $\Lambda$, $\Xi$, $\Omega$ particles in Cu+Cu \sNN{62} collisions and compare to results in Au+Au \sNN{62} collisions. We show new results for mid-$p_T$ $\Lambda/K^{0}_{S}$ ratios in Cu+Cu \sNN{62} collisions and again compare to ratios in Au+Au \sNN{62} collisions. Finally, we show the high-$p_{T}$ ($\sim 6.2$ GeV/c) $R_{AA}(K^{0}_{S})$ as a function of system size in Au+Au \sNN{200} collisions and compare to $R_{AA}(\pi)$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennesse

Fiscal Policy and Stock Market Efficiency in the USA: An ARDL Bounds Testing Approach

The basic aim of this study is to evaluate the market efficiency hypothesis by using the fiscal policy information implemented in the context of the New York Stock Exchange. In order to take into account that the macroeconomic data of a developed country like USA has a limited size and may be governed by structural breaks and inconsistencies this paper proposed the adoption of the ARDL bounds testing approaching in order to effectively evaluate the relationship between the lagged macroeconomic variables and the stock market returns. Also, the use of this technique allows for the evaluation of both short run and long run relationships and associations among the variables. The study uses data from 2008-2018 to investigate the efficiency of the stock market. The results suggest that in the long run the stock prices fully reflect the information issued by the fiscal policy and reflect on the past activities of the fiscal policy as well. In the short run however, the New York stock exchange index S&P 500 reacts differently. The NYSE stock index was found to only efficiently reflect the unexpected news from the fiscal policy. Moreover, the results also show that the prices in terms of oil, production and consumer prices were also found to be correlated with the stock prices. The increase in the consumer prices or inflation and average economic translates in increased profitability for the firms and the increase in the oil prices seems to have a negative impact on the firm profitabilit