Cifuentes Faura, Javier

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Cifuentes Faura, Javier

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Cifuentes Faura, Javier

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Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad

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The impact of government environmental attention on firms’ ESG performance: Evidence from China
(Elsevier, 2023-10-05) Liu, Xiaoqian; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Zhao, Shikuan; Wang, Long; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) have been globally recognized as a pivotal driving force for achieving sustainable development goals. Extant studies have mainly focused on exploring its economic consequences, while evidence on how the public sector, especially local government, affects enterprises’ ESG performance is scarce. By manually extracting environment-related textual information from 2011 to 2020 urban government work reports, we quantify government environmental attention (GEA) and explore its impact on firms’ ESG performance. The result indicates that an increase in GEA enhances firms’ ESG performance. We confirm this finding using a range of robustness checks. Our mechanism analysis shows that GEA facilitates firms’ ESG performance by altering three environmental-related firm behaviors: green investment, environmental governance information disclosure, and green technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that this positive effect differs in firm ownership, CEO experience, and factor intensity. Our findings provide insight for policymakers to propel firms to undertake more social responsibility.
Open Access
Government transparency and corruption in a turbulent setting: The case of foreign aid to Ukraine
(Wiley, 2024-04) Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
This paper analyzes the role of accounting in disaster mitigation and the importance of transparency to avoid corruption. During the Ukrainian war, accounting has allowed the redistribution of war material, the quantification of economic aid, or the efficient management of humanitarian aid. This paper aims to set a research agenda on transparency and corruption in foreign aid to a fragile and conflict-affected country. In order to analyze the situation of corruption in Ukraine during the war, first a review of the latest corrupt events is carried out and its position in the Corruption Perception Indicator is analyzed. Subsequently, we analyze the aid that Ukraine has received from other countries and institutions, and whether it is transparent. The possible dependence of the Corruption Perception Indicator on the transparency index of each country in the management of aid to Ukraine is studied. This article links corruption, transparency and accounting in the context of the Ukrainian war, highlighting the important role of auditing and financial controls, and presents proposals for future research.
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Can green finance policy reduce corporate carbon emissions? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China
(Elsevier, 2024-12-04) Liu, Xiaoqian; Wan, Chang’an; Wan, Long; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
The construction of pilot zones for green finance reform and innovation (PZGFRI) is China's regional exploration aimed at increasing financial support for green transformation and development. However, its impact on corporate carbon emission governance is uncertain. This paper examines the impact of the PZGFRI policy on corporate carbon emissions (CCEs) and its mechanisms based on the difference-in-differences model. The results indicate that this PZGFRI policy notably reduces the carbon emissions of enterprises in the pilot regions. Mechanism analysis reveals that this green finance policy reduces CCEs via alleviating corporate financing constraints, promoting corporate green innovation and corporate ESG performance. Heterogeneity results show that this negative impact is more pronounced for non-SOEs than SOEs. Furthermore, the PZGFRI policy dramatically reduces the carbon emissions of enterprises with short-sighted managers, while having insignificant performance on those with long-sighted management. Moreover, carbon reduction effect is notable for high-carbon industry enterprises, and this impact is insignificant for non-high carbon emission industry enterprises. Additionally, this policy has a prominent carbon reduction influence on enterprises in eastern and central regions, but its effect is minimal for those in western regions. This paper provides empirical evidence for other countries to implement green finance policies to promote low-carbon transformation development.
Open Access
Analysing public debt in the Mexican states: Spatial convergence, regional drivers and policy recommendations
(Wiley, 2023-08-21) Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Simionescu, Mihaela; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
Considering that public debt is a priority for policymakers in Mexico, the aim of this paper is to examine the convergence or divergence in debt per capita and main drivers of debt in the 32 Mexican states in the period 2006-2021. The results support significant spatial correlation of debt/cap across states. Cross-section and spatial dynamic regressions are used to analyse absolute and conditional beta-convergence in debt per capita, and the divergence assumption is documented. The panel data models based on the method-of-moments quantile models and pooled mean group estimators indicate that poverty is the main determinant of debt, whereas foreign direct investment is insufficient to support the reduction in debt in the long run. These results provide evidence for a set of policy recommendations to ensure a sustainable debt path in Mexico.
Open Access
What is the role of economics and business studies in the development of attitudes in favour of sustainability?
(Emerald, 2023-11-13) Noguera-Méndez, Pedro; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Economía Aplicada
Purpose This paper aims to find out what attitudes Economics and Business students have towards sustainability and what they expect from their education in relation to the achievement of economic, social and environmental sustainability. The objective is to find out if the studies of Economics and Business favour the development of pro-sustainability attitudes, taking into account factors such as the gender of the students, the course in which they are enrolled and the economic training received before entering university. Design/methodology/approach A survey was designed covering ecological, social, cultural, economic and political aspects. The survey was conducted among students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Management and the Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. The authors used discriminant analysis and analysis of variance to test the research hypothesis. Findings Students are concerned about environmental problems and are aware of the need for action, but there is little consensus on the actions needed to overcome them. Some negationist traits are detected: those who rely more on technology give less importance to environmental problems and to the possibility of a major ecological catastrophe. Girls are more in favour of sustainability than boys, and students who have previously studied economics consider that their training has enabled them to evaluate the resources available and necessary to perform any job more than those who have not studied economics, regardless of their sex and year. Originality/value Many articles have focused on the importance of sustainability in higher education, but hardly any have analysed the role of economic education in achieving sustainability. Given the importance and the proven inter-relationship between economics and sustainability, with this article, the authors contribute to fill the gap in the literature. It is necessary that current students and future professionals receive adequate economic education.
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Evaluation of the concerns of Spanish university students in the face ofcurrent major challenges
(Elsevier, 2024-02-10) Faura Martínez, Ursula; Lafuente Lechuga, Matilde; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa
The concerns of students and young people have been on the rise in recent years. Recent events such as the Covid-19 pandemic or the invasion of Ukraine have contributed to this. Mental health, the high cost of living, the need to re-evaluate the way we work or the fight against climate change are among the main concerns of young people. The aim of this work is to find out the level of concern of university students about these problems that can condition their current life and to analyze whether these concerns can affect their academic performance, also distinguishing according to gender and age. To this end, a nationwide survey was carried out among this group in Spain. This work is the first of its kind to be carried out in Spain. The results obtained may be of great use to both educational institutions and government agents, with a view to offering policies that will improve the educational level and welfare of university students.
Open Access
Effect of political corruption on municipal tax revenues
(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2021) Guillamón López, María Dolores; Faura Martínez, Úrsula; Benito López, Bernardino; Cifuentes Faura, Javier
Most research on corruption has been at the national level, because its study at the regional or local level is more complex. Although there are many studies about the relation between corruption and government spending, very few examine the influence of corruption on government revenues, and we have not found any at the subnational level, except the recent Liu & Mikesell (2019). Our aim is to analyze political corruption at the municipal level, studying whether the level of revenue of municipal governments is affected by the cases of corruption involving local politicians. Some of the other factors taken into account are political ideology, absolute majority government and the electoral cycle. The sample is a data panel of all the Spanish municipalities with a population of over 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2002-2013. Our results reveal that municipalities with higher levels of corruption have higher tax revenues in per capita terms.
Open Access
Mathematics applied to the economy and sustainable development goals: a necessary relationship of dependence
(MDPI, 2020-11-19) Lafuente Lechuga, Matilde; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Faura Martínez, Úrsula; Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
Higher education must include training in sustainability to make all actors aware of the serious problems our planet is facing. Mathematics plays an important role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and at the same time these allow working with real situations in the subject of mathematics, providing the student with active learning. Sustainability is used to make the student see the usefulness of mathematics while instilling values and attitudes towards it. A set of problems have been raised during the academic year that are solved with the developed mathematical techniques, and through a survey, the students’ perceptions about the usefulness of mathematics to reach the goals established in the SDG has been evaluated. The results show that, regardless of the student’s gender, the student’s assessment of the usefulness of this subject in solving real problems improved. It has been observed that this teaching methodology has helped to motivate students and even those who do not like this subject have improved their appreciation of it.
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2030 Agenda of sustainable transport: Can current progress lead towards carbon neutrality?
(Elsevier, 2023-09) Khurshid, Adnan; Khan, Khalid; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
The sustainable development goal of combating climate change highlights the importance of the transportation sector. This study analyzes the impact of eco-innovations in transportation along with traffic-TRF (road, rail, air), infrastructure development, green finances, trade globalization on demand, transport emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions from 1994 to 2020 in EU25 economies. Furthermore, the policy impact of innovation and taxes and renewables are estimated using their interactions. We employed second-generation approaches, PMG-ARDL, Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) and Granger causality. The results reveal that green transport neutralizes pollutant emissions, and traffic increases emissions by 17.5%, while green taxes limit them to 15.3% and 39.3% in the long and short run. Green taxes are a short-run tool; however, long-run sustainable targets depend on green transport, renewables, and R&D. European economies must revisit their transport and environmental policies, as current progress may not lead toward sustainable transportation.
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Evaluating the relationship between income inequality, renewable energy and energy poverty in the V4 countries
(Elsevier, 2024-06-20) Simionescu, Mihaela; Cifuentes Faura, Javier; Ciencia Política, Antropología Social y Hacienda Pública; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
The European Union has prioritized addressing energy poverty, as outlined in the "Clean Energy for all Europeans Package". The recent international context dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia war in Ukraine, have exacerbated this issue because of the substantial energy prices growth. Since eradicating energy poverty necessitates long-term policy implementation, the primary objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of income inequality and other economic and social factors (output per capita, renewable energy use) on energy poverty as measured by three indicators (total utility bill arrears, utility bill arrears for households with dependent children, population unable to maintain adequate). The findings based on mean group estimators for the V4 (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) countries from 2005 to 2022 suggest that income inequality, proxied by the Gini index, exacerbates energy poverty. However, sustainable economic growth has the potential to alleviate energy poverty. Policy recommendations include reducing income inequality, reforming renewable energy policies, to encourage the development of renewable energy sector and green industries.