Shu-bing Liu (p)

Matías Mayor

As domestic and international attention to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues continues to heat up, more and more companies are incorporating ESG into their business strategies. This study uses the annual data of Taiwan listed companies from 2015 to 2022 as the research object and adopts regression analysis to explore the impact of a company's implementation of ESG activities on its financial performance. In addition, this study investigates whether there is a critical value when investing in costs to implement ESG activities. That is, whether a certain level of investment in ESG activities will bring the best benefits to the company, or the more investment, the greater the benefits, or a certain level of investment is required to generate benefits. Finally, this study also explores whether implementing ESG can stabilize stock price fluctuations during the COVID-19. Empirical results show: First, the company's total ESG score has a significant positive impact on ROA and ROE in the current and next period. The total ESG score will produce a critical value in ROE, when this critical value is exceeded, the company's performance will reverse downward. The impact of ESG on ROA is that the more ESG is invested, the better the ROA performance, and there is no reversal. However, it has a completely different impact on Tobin's Q. When a company invests in developing ESG activities in the beginning, it will have a significant negative impact on Tobin's Q for the current period. After the company continues to invest beyond the critical value, the total ESG score will have a significant positive impact on Tobin's Q for the current period. Second, the total ESG score that lags behind one period will have a significant negative impact on stock price fluctuations, which means that the higher the company's total ESG score in the previous period, the more stable its stock price fluctuations will be. During the COVID-19 period, whether the total ESG score is lagging behind in the current period or not, it has a significant positive impact on stock price fluctuations, which means that during the COVID-19 period, the higher the company's total ESG score, the greater the stock price fluctuations. Regardless of whether it is during the COVID-19 period, the higher the score of the corporate governance aspect, the higher the stock price fluctuation will be in the current period and the next period.

András Igari (p)

Shu-bing Liu

The spatial diffusion model associated with Torsten Hägerstrand is still an important tool in regional science for interpreting the spatio-temporal spread of phenomena. However, in recent decades there have been significant changes which have had an impact on spatial diffusion processes and provide new perspectives for interpreting the model: the acceleration of mobility, the emergence and distribution of new information transfer technologies (in particular the Internet), or changes in some of the social factors that hinder diffusion. The aim of this presentation is to highlight the usefulness and limitations of the diffusion model in the 2020s by analysing empirical examples.
The presentation will show the spatiotemporal patterns of the COVID-19 pandemic diffusion and the information diffusion related to it in Europe. It will analyse the characteristics of these processes and will examine the interactions between them. To do this, regional-level, weekly pandemic data (number of reported cases, number of reported COVID-19 deaths, excess mortality), weekly GoogleTrends statistics and socio-economic and infrastructural indicators from European countries have been collected and analysed. Based on this analysis, it will draw conclusions on the interaction between pandemic and information diffusion, and it will present the applicability of the spatial diffusion model to the 2020s and highlight a possible modification of the model.
As a result, I got that the diffusion processes have accelerated dramatically: within a few months of its outbreak in Wuhan, China, the Coronavirus pandemic had appeared in Europe and caused a significant and rapid pandemic wave. However, news of the COVID-19 has spread faster than the pandemic itself: in our globalised, interconnected world, information spreads across the world in hours or days. Furthermore, the relation between the two phenomena was also observable: the spread of information supported the control of the COVID-19, and thus hindered the spread of the pandemic. This implies that when using diffusion model for analysing the spread of a phenomenon, it is worth taking into account the diffusion of the related information as well, as it may modify the spatio-temporal pattern of the former diffusion process. This sheds light on an under-researched aspect of the Hägerstrand's spatial diffusion model and reinterprets the role of information spread in the model.

Nino Javakhishvili-larsen (p), Bence János Bøje-Kovács, Camilo Andres Acosta Mejia

András Igari

This paper investigates diverse strategies employed by Danish firms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on their management decisions and resilience during restrictions. A nationwide survey conducted between April and June 2023 includes 5,081 surviving firms of various sizes, regions, and sectors. By merging survey data with micro register data, the study explores management strategies influencing firms' growth (resilience) or decline (survival) during the pandemic, such as investing, decision-making processes, state support, insourcing, outsourcing, and support for remote working (WFH).
The paper identifies the "survival firms" as those that fired employees to survive the crisis and the "resilient firms" as those that hired and grew activities during the pandemic. Using the survey data and micro register data for firms, this paper investigates the extent to which different management strategies were explanatory of the firms' growth (resilience) and decline (survival), such as investing, centralization or decentralization of the decision-making process, receiving state support as compensation, insourcing, and outsourcing, as well as firm’s supportive measures for remote working (WFH) possibilities for employees.
Preliminary results reveal positive correlations between resilience and strategies like supporting WFH and making new investments. Survival probability is associated with state compensation, centralized decision-making, and insourcing/outsourcing. The paper emphasizes the complexity of firms' responses to the pandemic, highlighting the importance of understanding adjustments across sectors, firm sizes, and locations (urban/rural).
This study contributes to the literature on firm resilience during crises and the role of WFH as a resilience strategy. The findings can inform public policies for fostering a more resilient business climate at regional and national levels, enhancing our understanding of firms' decision-making in unexpected shocks.

Matías Mayor (p), Begoña Cueto, Patricia Suárez

Nino Javakhishvili-larsen

In the past fifty years, European economies have faced three economic crises: 1976-1983, 1992-1994, and 2008-2014, in addition to the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
The regions' responses to these shocks and their level of resilience are influenced by their previous growth paths. Resilience is a dynamic and path-dependent process. When analysing regional employment behaviour during crises, it is crucial to consider the adaptation processes that have occurred in different regions in response to various shocks. This necessitates taking into account the regional context and history. Relevant sources for this topic include Martin (2010), Boschma (2015), Evenhuis (2017), Henning (2019), and Webber et al. (2018). The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the employment performance of Spanish regions during the last four crises, in order to deepen our understanding of path-dependence.
Additionally, we aim to incorporate spatial spillover into this framework. To achieve this, we have modified the standard analysis commonly used in the literature by using the behaviour of neighbouring or similar regions as a counterfactual, instead of the national behaviour. This approach enables a more accurate comparison of regional performance in terms of employment levels, GDP per capita, and other relevant factors. Following Duran and Fratesi (2023), we have included regional-specific cycles and turning points in our analysis instead of relying solely on national data.