Issue #2 (Volume 22 2025)

Economic policy uncertainty has a profound impact on firms’ investment decisions, mainly in terms of increased risk and uncertainty for firms when planning future investments. This study aims to explore the impact of corporate economic policy uncertainty on corporate investment, as well as how corporate social responsibility disclosure moderates the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and corporate investment. The analysis uses a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2022, including 33,791 observations. The study uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with clustered standard errors. The basic and robust regression empirical results show that economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact on corporate investment. However, corporate social responsibility plays an important moderating role between them. The two-stage least squares method (2SLS) is used to solve the endogeneity problem of reverse causation. The heterogeneity results show that economic policy uncertainty significantly dampens business investment, while corporate social responsibility (CSR) is effective in mitigating this negative effect, especially among non-state-owned and low-cash-flow firms, where this moderating effect is more pronounced. The study concludes that as corporate social responsibility disclosure enhances information transparency and investor confidence, companies should prioritize CSR programs that ultimately help companies remain competitive and attractive to investors in volatile markets. Meanwhile, this also highlights the strategic importance of CSR in mitigating external risks, such as those presented through volatile economic policies.

Financial well-being refers to how individuals perceive their financial security and ability to meet short-term and long-term financial goals. It involves feeling financially stable, having control over one’s finances, being satisfied with one’s financial situation, and handling unexpected events without excessive stress. This study examines the impact of financial literacy, financial behavior, financial stress, and religiosity on financial well-being, with gender as a moderating factor. A quantitative research approach was used, with the participants in this study consisting of permanent lecturers at a prestigious private university in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who are male with more than 1 (one) year of service. Due to the lack of available data regarding the exact number of faculty members, the sample size was calculated using Lemeshow’s formula, which is appropriate for use when the population is unknown. This resulted in a sample size of 385 permanent lecturers. The sampling method was accidental, and the data were analyzed using the SEM-PLS approach with SmartPLS software. The results show that religiosity, financial behavior, and financial literacy positively and statistically significantly affect financial well-being (p < 0.05). In contrast, financial stress, though negative, does not have a significant impact (p > 0.05). Additionally, gender does not moderate the relationship between religiosity, financial behavior, and financial stress on financial well-being (p > 0.05), but gender moderates the effect of financial literacy on financial well-being (p < 0.05).

Acknowledgment
They financed this study under the Fundamental Research - Regular (PF-R) area. Thank you, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia 2024. This is also possible thanks to the Institute for Research and Community Service (LPPM) and the Faculty of Economics and Business Leadership at Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara.