Competition and Corporate Social Responsibility under Creative Capitalism

This article focuses on the changing nature of market competition and on responsible business conduct on the global stage. The article explores the concept of creative capitalism and seeks to address whether or not corporate social responsibility (CSR) is better realized under creative capitalism. This study is conceptual in nature. While it identifies the forces that facilitate and sustain creative capitalism and strengthen executives' commitment to CSR, it proposes a model that can enhance the possibility of a thriving CSR under creative capitalism. The article advocates that under creative capitalism it is more likely to easily channel executives' passion into broad and purposefully driven endeavors; thereby strengthening executives' capacity for understanding how CSR creates value both for their organizations and for society.     

The effect of oil prices on stock prices: fresh evidence from asymmetric causality tests

This article investigates the causal impact of oil prices on stock prices in each G7 market as well as in the world market. An asymmetric causality test developed by Hatemi-J is used for this purpose. Since the underlying data appears to be non-normal with time-varying volatility, we use bootstrap simulations with leverage adjustments in order to produce more reliable critical values than the asymptotic ones. Based on symmetric causality tests, we find no causal effect of oil prices on the stock prices of the world market or any of the G7 countries. However, when we apply an asymmetric causality test, we find that increasing oil prices cause stock prices to rise in the world, the U.S. and Japan while decreasing oil prices cause stock prices to fall in Germany. This may imply that the world, the U.S. and Japanese stock markets consider increases in oil prices as an indicator of good news as this may mean that there is an increase in oil demand due to an expected growth in the economy while the German stock market treats decreasing oil prices as a signal of an expected contraction in the economy.     

The cost-effectiveness of biologic versus non-biologic treatments and the health-related quality of life among a sample of patients with inflammatory bowel disease in a tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Aims

This study’s objectives were to examine and compare the cost-effectiveness of biologic and non-biologic therapies in the improvement of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Saudi Arabia.     

Asymmetric effects of oil shocks on stock market returns in Saudi Arabia: evidence from industry level analysis

We examine the impact of oil price shocks on stock market returns in Saudi Arabia using the country-level as well as the industry-level stock market data. We find that the relation between changes in oil prices and equity returns is positive and significant at the country-level and at the industry level. Our results show that oil prices have asymmetric effects on equity returns for 4 out of 15 industrial sectors (e.g., hotel and tourism, insurance, multi-investment, and petrochemicals). These results have significant implications for investors, portfolio managers, policymakers, and corporate finance managers.