Amar Rao
57344924300
Publications - 15
Climate resilience through finance: The divergent roles of institutions and markets
Publication Name: Finance Research Letters
Publication Date: 2025-11-01
Volume: 85
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study investigates the divergent roles of financial institutions and financial markets in shaping climate resilience, with a focus on lower- and middle-income countries. Using a panel dataset spanning 1996–2021, we employ fixed effects models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors and instrumental variable (IV-2SLS) techniques to address cross-sectional dependence, heteroskedasticity, and endogeneity. Our findings reveal that well-developed financial institutions, such as commercial and development banks, have a consistently positive and significant impact on climate resilience, especially when supported by strong governance frameworks. Interaction effects show that governance quality, particularly regulatory quality and control of corruption, significantly amplifies the effectiveness of financial institutions. Conversely, the role of financial markets appears more complex and context-dependent: in the absence of robust governance, financial markets can exhibit negative or neutral effects on resilience outcomes. These results underscore the importance of institutional quality in determining whether financial development supports or hinders climate adaptation. The study offers actionable insights for policymakers seeking to leverage finance for climate-resilient development in emerging economies.
Open Access: Yes
SDG adoption and firm risk: The impact of ESG performance, investor confidence, and agency cost
Publication Name: International Review of Economics and Finance
Publication Date: 2025-07-01
Volume: 101
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study investigates the nexus between firm-level Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) adoption and firm risk using a unique dataset of National Stock Exchange (NSE) 500 companies from 2019 to 2024. It constructs a novel SDG adoption index to assess this relationship and reveals a noteworthy reduction in firm risk associated with SDG adoption. The results remain robust after a battery of robustness checks, including endogeneity concerns using 2SLS IV and system GMM and sample selection bias through Heckman's two-stage methods. Furthermore, the mechanism test indicates that SDG adoption reduces firm risk by enhancing investor confidence, improving ESG performance, and reducing agency costs. In addition, heterogeneity analyses demonstrate that the impact is more accentuated for enterprises with higher information asymmetry, higher board gender diversity, and non-state ownership. The results carry significant implications for investors, corporations, and policymakers seeking to mitigate risk and foster sustainable practices, particularly within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and emerging markets.
Open Access: Yes
Crude oil Price forecasting: Leveraging machine learning for global economic stability
Publication Name: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Publication Date: 2025-07-01
Volume: 216
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The volatility of the energy market, particularly crude oil, significantly impacts macroeconomic indices, such as inflation, economic growth, currency exchange rates, and trade balances. Accurate crude oil price forecasting is crucial to risk management and global economic stability. This study examines various models, including GARCH (1,1), Vanilla LSTM, GARCH (1,1) LSTM, and GARCH (1,1) GRU, to predict Brent crude oil prices using different time frequencies and sample periods. The LSTM and GARCH (1,1)-GRU hybrid models showed superior performance, with LSTM slightly better in predictive accuracy and GARCH (1,1)-GRU in minimizing squared errors. These findings emphasize the importance of precise crude oil price forecasting for the global energy market and manufacturing sectors that rely on crude oil prices. Accurate forecasting helps ensure economic sustainability and stability and prevents disruptions to production and distribution chains in both developed and emerging economies. Policymakers may choose to implement energy security measures in response to the significant impact of crude oil price volatility on the macroeconomic indicators. These measures could include maintaining strategic reserves, diversifying energy sources, and decreasing the dependence on volatile oil markets. By doing so, a country's ability to handle oil price fluctuations and ensure a stable energy supply can be enhanced.
Open Access: Yes
Hybrid ML models for volatility prediction in financial risk management
Publication Name: International Review of Economics and Finance
Publication Date: 2025-03-01
Volume: 98
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Predicting volatility in financial markets is an important task with practical uses in decision-making, regulation, and academic research. This study focuses on forecasting realized volatility in stock indices using advanced machine learning techniques. We examine three key indices: the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite (SSE), Infosys (INFY), and the National Stock Exchange Index (NIFTY). To achieve this, we propose a hybrid model that combines optimized Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) with deep learning methods like Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU). Using data from 2015 to 2022, we analyse how well these models predict volatility. Our findings reveal distinct patterns: the SSE shows high unpredictability, INFY is prone to extreme positive volatility, and NIFTY is relatively moderate. Among the models tested, the Q-VMD-ANN-LSTM-GRU hybrid model consistently performs best, providing highly accurate predictions for all three indices. This model has practical benefits for financial institutions. It improves risk management, supports investment decisions, and provides real-time insights for traders and risk managers. Additionally, it can enhance stress testing and inspire innovative trading strategies. Overall, our study highlights the potential of advanced machine learning, especially hybrid models, to address financial market complexities and improve risk management practices.
Open Access: Yes
Impact of technological advancement and greener energy on sustainable agriculture in Asia: Evidence from selected Asian countries
Publication Name: Sustainable Development
Publication Date: 2025-02-01
Volume: 33
Issue: 1
Page Range: 221-237
Description:
Regardless of major advancements in food production, Asia continues to confront severe food security challenges. Sustainable agriculture presents entirely new prospects by prioritizing the productive worth of human, social, and natural capital—all of which are abundant in Asian nations or can be replenished at a relatively low financial expense. This paper sets out to explore the role of technological innovation, renewable energy use, financial development, globalization, and institutional quality on the environmental sustainability of agriculture, measured by the greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector for top 10 agricultural economies of Asia from 1990 to 2019. To attain the above objective, we employ a variety of econometric models capable of accounting for cross-sectional dependence, including the CS-ARDL model and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin Panel Granger Causality tests. The result indicates that technological innovation as well as the use of renewable energy can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector and thus contribute towards enhancing environmental performance of this sector in short and long run. Although globalization result is revealed to be positive, it turns out to be insignificant in both short and long run. Financial development exerts positive and significant effects on agricultural emissions while the institutional quality is found to be increasing the agricultural environmental performance. Finally, we provide policy recommendations based on the results of the study.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1002/sd.3106
Geopolitical instability and environmental sustainability
Publication Name: Environmental Economics and Policy Studies
Publication Date: 2025-01-01
Volume: Unknown
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Geopolitical instability significantly impacts environmental sustainability, yet its role remains underexplored. This study investigates how geopolitical risk affects ecological footprints and carbon emissions, key proxies for environmental sustainability, using panel data from 27 countries (1990–2020). Panel quantile regression results show a significant relationship between increased geopolitical risk, ecological footprints, and carbon emissions, with coefficients ranging from 0.357 to 0.785 across quantiles in the case of ecological footprints and 0.939–1.961 for carbon emissions. We control the estimation for inflows of foreign direct investment, economic growth, environmental patents, stringency, trade, and population. Economic growth correlates with a decrease in environmental sustainability, while environmental sustainability demonstrates an inverse relationship with ecological footprint and carbon emissions. The findings have policy implications because they can guide policymakers to take risks emanating from geopolitical uncertainty, while formulating environmental policies. Moreover, addressing increased environmental innovation and enhancing coverage of carbon taxes can help maintain environmental sustainability.
Open Access: Yes
Temporal dynamics of geopolitical risk: An empirical study on energy commodity interest-adjusted spreads
Publication Name: Energy Economics
Publication Date: 2025-01-01
Volume: 141
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The functioning of energy markets is essential for global stability and is heavily influenced by geopolitical risks. Understanding these risks is critical for policymakers, market analysts, and nations. This study investigates the impact of geopolitical risks and their components on the futures markets of WTI crude oil and natural gas, utilizing time and frequency connectedness analysis along with impulse response function methods. The analysis is based on a dataset comprising daily prices of spot and futures contracts (across various maturities) as well as treasury yields. Our findings reveal that geopolitical risks have a significant, negative impact on the interest-adjusted spread of WTI crude oil. In contrast, the interest-adjusted spread of natural gas futures (NGF) displays a more complex pattern: while short-term maturities show an insignificant response, long-term maturities exhibit a significant reaction. Spillover effects are more pronounced in the short term but tend to weaken over longer horizons. This study underscores the dynamic influence of geopolitical risks on both key energy markets. Its findings offer a practical framework for risk management, equipping market participants and policymakers with valuable insights to better understand and respond to geopolitical risks in the energy sector.
Open Access: Yes
Climate change dynamics for global energy security and equity: Evidence from policy stringency drivers
Publication Name: Journal of Environmental Management
Publication Date: 2024-11-01
Volume: 370
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study investigates the dynamic interplay between financial integration, political stability, infrastructure, and global integration in enhancing Energy Security (ES) and Energy Equity (EE) across 50 economies from 2006 to 2018. It addresses gaps in understanding how socio-economic, political, and technological factors collectively influence ES and EE during the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The research aims to reveal the complex relationships and potential trade-offs between energy sustainability, economic growth, and equitable energy distribution. Utilizing robust panel data methods including System GMM, Fixed Effects, and Random Effects, the study examines the impacts of various determinants on ES and EE. The dataset includes annual observations on global integration, financial integration, infrastructure quality, political stability, and other relevant metrics from diverse global sources. The findings reveal that increased financial integration significantly enhances ES by easing capital flow into energy infrastructure, which is crucial for stable energy supply chains. Political stability also positively affects ES, underscoring the importance of stable governance in sustaining energy policies. Conversely, rapid urban growth and inadequate social integration pose challenges to achieving EE, highlighting disparities in energy access worsened by urbanization. Technological advancements and digital connectivity appear as positive drivers for EE, enhancing the efficiency and distribution of energy resources. This study contributes to the literature by providing a detailed examination of how integration into global financial and political systems affects energy strategies at a national level. It offers valuable insights for policymakers on fostering environments conducive to sustainable energy development and fair energy access. The research underscores the importance of incorporating socio-economic and technological advancements in energy policy frameworks to achieve balanced growth and sustainability. Future research directions include exploring the causal relationships and long-term impacts of these factors on ES and EE, particularly in the context of evolving global energy policies and technological advancements.
Open Access: Yes
Minerals at the crossroads: Economic policies, global trade, and renewable energy in the global South
Publication Name: Resources Policy
Publication Date: 2024-10-01
Volume: 97
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
No description provided
Open Access: Yes
Environmental apprehension under COP26 agreement: Examining the influence of environmental-related technologies and energy consumption on ecological footprint
Publication Name: International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
Publication Date: 2024-08-01
Volume: 21
Issue: 12
Page Range: 7999-8012
Description:
Governments internationally strive to balance environmental health and economic development. Modern economies, specifically emerging ones, emphasize the importance of eco-friendly progress, where the pace of economic growth limits the ecological footprint. The ecological footprint denotes both the trajectory of natural resource extraction in the economic process and how quickly these resources can be replenished, as well as the capacity of the ecological sector to absorb waste from this process. This study examines 38 countries from 1994 to 2020 to investigate the drivers of the ecological footprint and found that environmentally related technologies harmfully influence ecological deprivation but are positively affected by gross domestic product growth. Renewable energy diminishes pollution levels, while urbanization has an insignificant effect. Imports were only found to be significant with one econometric technique, and their impact on the ecological footprint was positive. Income level affects the influence of gross domestic product on the ecological footprint. Lower-income quantiles have a more significant impact than higher quantiles. The Granger causality test shows bidirectional causality between the ecological footprint and exogenous factors: eco-technologies, gross domestic product/capita, renewable energy, urbanization, and imports.
Open Access: Yes
Empowering energy transition: Green innovation, digital finance, and the path to sustainable prosperity through green finance initiatives
Publication Name: Energy Economics
Publication Date: 2024-08-01
Volume: 136
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This study delves into the intricate relationship between financial digitization and green innovation, aiming to shed light on their dynamic interplay within a global context. Spanning from 2003 to 2020, the study encompasses 15 diverse countries, encompassing both developed and emerging economies, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russian Federation, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the USA. It not only explores the direct connection between financial digitization and green innovation but also takes into account various controlling factors such as economic growth, industrial value addition, research and development expenditure, and gross national expenditure. The key findings from quantile regression reveal financial digitization have a significant positive effect, indicating that in countries with lower green innovation levels, an increase in digital financial services significantly boosts green innovation. This positive impact persists across quantiles, even in countries with higher green innovation levels, albeit to a lesser degree. Economic growth consistently shows a negative association with green innovation across all quantiles. Research and development expenditure consistently demonstrate a positive relationship with green innovation across all quantiles, emphasizing that countries allocating a higher percentage of their economic growth to research and development expenditure activities experience substantial increases in green innovation. This underscores that countries allocating a higher percentage of their economic growth to research and development expenditure activities experience substantial increases not only in green innovation but also in the facilitation of green finance initiatives.
Open Access: Yes
Carbon conundrums: Geopolitical clashes and market mayhem in the race for sustainability
Publication Name: Journal of Environmental Management
Publication Date: 2024-01-15
Volume: 350
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
This research presents an in-depth investigation into the dynamic correlation between geopolitical conflicts and carbon markets utilizing the Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR) technique. The analysis focuses on the interconnectedness between the Geopolitical Risk Index Daily (GPRD) and vital carbon pricing instruments, specifically the Intercontinental Exchange Endex European Union Allowance (ECEFDC), KraneShares California Carbon Allowance Strat ETF (KCCAK), Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange China Emission Allowances Online Transactions (SAXCEA), and S&P Global Ex-Japan LargeMidCap Carbon Efficient Index (SPGJ). The daily fluctuations were traced from May 2021 to July 2023. The analysis is divided into short- and long-term connectedness, with particular emphasis on the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the GPRD's spillover on carbon markets. The short-term connectedness (1–5 days) between GPRD and ECEFDC shows variability, fluctuating between 10% and 40%. Conversely, long-term connectedness exhibited a significant increase during the conflict, peaking at approximately 34% by mid-2022. The analysis of the Total Dynamic Connectedness (TCI) between the GPRD and the KCCAK indicates comparable magnitudes, although with minor initial discrepancies. The short-term connectedness of GPRD and KCCAK decreases from its peak of approximately 10% to approximately 1%. Conversely, long-term connectedness varies between approximately 32% and 2% from May 2022 onwards. The long-term connectedness between GPRD and SAXCEA revealed variable patterns, peaking at around 18% at the beginning of the sample period and rapidly reducing to around 1% within two months. The analysis of the connectedness between GPRD and the SPG) identifies intense fluctuations in both TCI and long-term connectedness. After an initial increase and decrease, these patterns rebound and experience another increase. This research provides significant insights into the complex dynamics of geopolitical conflicts and carbon markets, particularly the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on carbon market behavior.
Open Access: Yes
Energy in the backseat? Investigating decarbonization dialogue in supply chain tweets during and after COVID-19
Publication Name: Annals of Operations Research
Publication Date: 2024-01-01
Volume: Unknown
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
While we move into the seventh year of the signing of Paris agreement, research scholars and supply chain firms have paid a lot of emphasis on environmental sustainability with the aim of achieving net zero targets by 2050. However, the global pandemic has somewhat disturbed the focus from environment to resilience due to severe economic implications of COVID-19. In this paper, we contribute to the very scant discussion on Twitter Analytics by analysing supply chain tweets with COVID-19 at the backdrop. Our approach involves analysing how decarbonization related discussions have evolved by capturing the tweets across three timelines: pre pandemic, pandemic and post pandemic. By integrating descriptive analytics, content analytics and machine learning algorithm in topic modelling, we extract textual intelligence related to emissions and pollution from leading firms involving supply chain management. We find that although decarbonization related discussions are at bare minimum in terms of the proportion of discussions within the supply chain context, the overall emotion of tweets indicate fear across all three timelines. Moreover, it was surprising to note that although pollution levels came down due to low economic activity during pandemic, we found more discussions during COVID in comparison to pre-COVID times. Pollution and waste caused by plastics, fuel consumption, reduction in greenhouse gas emission are some of the key topics that emerged during pandemic times. Our paper makes a modest contribution on the role of social media analytics within supply chain context around COVID-19.
Open Access: Yes
Work from home practices as corporate strategy- an integrative review
Publication Name: Heliyon
Publication Date: 2023-09-01
Volume: 9
Issue: 9
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The Covid 19 pandemic led to major changes at the individual, organisational and institutional levels of policy, productive functions, and organising. During Covid 19 morbidity, public institutions enforced social isolation, mandatory self-isolation, quarantines, and administrative regulatory lockdowns, which led to a movement away from the physical, material world and into an all-consuming digital universe. With growing interest in work-from-home (WFH) opportunities, this article provides an integrative review of 107 papers. It comprises the bibliometric analysis and manual review of the articles, on the basis of which we present an elaborative discussion and agenda for future research. According to the analysis, WFH looks a tad of a double-edged sword in that it may have major but unintended repercussions for institutions, and organizations as well as hidden, positive as well as negative consequences for individuals/employees. One of the significant insight from our analysis was the absence of HR function's strategic or operational input or oversight during corporate WFH strategies. We suggest several theoretical frameworks for further developing, theorizing, and empirically testing various aspects of WFH. Further, we recognise that WFH is becoming increasingly visible as a result of the pandemic scenario and significant technical advancements, which must be reflected in the research. Finally, because WFH represents a significant disruption in how organizations produce work and manage it, we propose employee and managerial consequences as future research agendas.
Open Access: Yes
What do we learn from Nexus between trade diversification and structural change: informing the future about climate action and Sustainability
Publication Name: Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Publication Date: 2023-08-01
Volume: 30
Issue: 40
Page Range: 92162-92181
Description:
Economic complexity is considered key a driver of social change, structural change, and economic development. Economic complexity is mostly used to capture issues apropos product diversification of exports, trade, technological innovation, human knowledge, and skills. The current study has conducted a detailed bibliometric review of economic complexity, export quality, and trade diversification. In doing so, the authors used the literature up to 2021 to unveil economic complexity’s contextual information that witnessed structural change, social change, and trade indicators. The current study is the first integrative review to report the theoretical contribution, future research agendas, and thematic analysis of economic complexity, export quality, and export diversification. Our study, on the subject of economic complexity, export diversification, and import diversification in the period from 1966 to 2021, was carried out by systematically scanning 386 documents, and it is one of the pioneering studies in this field. In addition, economic diversity, development, and economic complexity; export diversification, import diversification, trade openness, and economic growth; energy, environmental Kuznets curve, and economic complexity; and sustainability and economic diversification are the four main research topics of the study. The findings are discussed apropos of economic complexity and exports, methodological aspects of economic complexity, and environmental issues nexus with economic complexity. The current study reports novel findings toward a path for achieving SDG-9 (industry and innovation) and SDG-13 (climate action). The biometric review enables researchers and policymakers to understand export quality, economic complexity, and the trade nexus and report future research directions for achieving sustainable growth in industries and innovation.
Open Access: Yes
