Unveiling the effects of mineral markets, fintech and governance on business performance: Evidence from China

Abstract

The study intends to empirically estimate the effects of mineral markets, fintech, and governance on business performance in China. For this purpose, the study collects the data of 18 Chinese companies belonging to different sectors over the 2009 to 2020 period. To address the issue of cross-sectional dependence, “Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) estimation is applied in the study. According to the study findings, there is a significant and negative impact of gold prices and coal prices and a positive impact of silver prices on business performance in China. No significant impact of oil prices on business performance is observed in the study. Governance is found to have a significant positive impact on business performance. However, no significant effect of fintech is found in the analysis. The study recommends that business firms should adopt appropriate measures to prevent bad effects of mineral market conditions on their profitability or performance. Strengthening the regulatory or institutional system and promoting innovations in the financial sector are also recommended by the present study.